Wraithwood Botanist

B2 - R: Chapter 4 - Trial of Survival

It wasn’t even noon yet when I found myself sitting under the shade of the gazebo, watching the Trial of Survival on my screen like some Olympic game.

I didn’t want to watch it. Lithco already warned me it would kill most of the participants—but I had to. This was my chance to see the notorious "Bramble" separating me from the gate.

So I turned on the feed and was stunned by the vibrant sight of... people. Or at least, I thought they were "people." There was one woman with cat ears and another with scaled skin, and two had purple skin and horns like demons as they moved out of the way of grotesque orange humanoids with tribal necklaces made of baseball-sized beads as they stomped through the crowd. There were even the classic conspiratorial lizard people, each blending into the crowd, speaking and talking with humans as small animals crawled on their shoulders.

"Well... That’s a plot twist." I turned to Kline. "You see these cat ladies? One of ’em has a tail."

Kline’s eyes glided to me as if I asked him if he liked the taste of botulism.

"Human women it is," I smirked.

He released one of the sharp, warning yowls that cats give to others in their territory and walked away, taking two steps into the sun and lying down again.

So cute... I thought. I couldn’t tell if he was just prude or offended that I would suggest anything but a shorthair cat, but either way, his response was amusing.

Suddenly, my screen blacked out as a massive beast flew across it.

"Wait! Is that a dragon?" I pushed objects off the already empty counters and sat down on top, staring stunned as a dragon, a real-world dragon, flew across the skies! It probably wasn’t a "dragon," I’m sure it had some fancy name, but it had red scales and wings and a long snout that housed crocodile jaws that could eat a bus. It was a fucking dragon, okay? So, I’ll address it as such.

The POV suddenly switched and I was looking through the rider’s eyes, amazed to see that the rider couldn’t even see past his harness. It was just like looking at a roof filled with shingles, moving quickly through the air. It was only after he turned that it showed a dozen other massive birds of glorious descriptions circling the skies with it.

Suddenly, the dragon shot toward a titan-sized gate as if it meant to collide with it like a crash test dummy, sacrificing their blood to the crimson arrays tattooed to the iron.

I gasped, but at the last moment, the dragon shot upward at a nearly 90-degree angle, moving hundreds of feet before the iron gate disappeared, and I could get an aerial glance at the Areswood Forest—endless like the ocean of green trees spreading out without end. It was pocked by green and gray and white mountains throughout, but they were swallowed whole by the infinite expanse.

I captured that image in my memory, like the brief pause after snapping a picture on your smartphone. Then the dragon suddenly turned, leaving that serene and expansive ocean as it headed back to a cheering crowd.

As it approached the ground, the POV switched, this one like a camera, pointed at a stage as a woman in a strange, gray and white suit walked onto the stage.

The crowd visibly calmed, and I got a notification.

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The Trial of Survival is beginning. Would you like to turn on audio?

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I chose yes.

2.

Aiden felt chills as he watched the feverish crowd outside Galfer’s Gate. One woman grabbed a random man’s arm, and he flinched, preparing to attack, only to pull her into an embrace. Another person popped what appeared to be pills as individuals in suits pumped their fists between drinking from flasks like Brexton. It was like an underground boxing match, sloppy and depraved, like a pack of wild animals—and this was the front of the crowd, where he stood with Brexton and the legacies.

The area exploded in cheers and clapping and screams of assent.

It was time for the Trial of Survival to begin.

3.

My heart had taken a lot of strain over the last two weeks, but there was something cruel about anticipation. This was my life on the line. Once someone made a drop, I would lose access to the temporary shelter. I almost wished that they would put it off till the last second!

I watched people load dummy crates on massive birds and dinosaurs and dragons cautiously, reminding myself not to get my hopes up. Lithco already told me that they would most likely fail—so it would be on me to retrieve it. So, I prepared myself mentally for just that.

"Hey Lithco. What’ll happen if someone fails the drop? Am I gonna lose the shelter today?"

Lithco’s pop-up reply gave me minor relief. "No. As long as you intend to retrieve it, I won’t count the delivery until you retrieve it. That said, if you milk the shelter for your three-month visa and later refuse to attempt a retrieval, I will punish you."

"How?"

"By cutting off your access to the Guide for the duration you milked your visa."

"So ten weeks?"

"Ten weeks."

I took a sharp breath and nodded. "Charming."

It felt like Lithco was wringing out my lungs like a wet sponge as I watched the teams finish tying the four array-tattooed crates onto the bird. The POV switched to aerial shots and crowd reactions like it was a football game. The crowd was wild, waving flags with different colors and crests that matched the people sitting in chairs in the very front—the Legacy Families. They seemed like modern monarchs.

The crowd’s cheering suddenly stilled, and the shot went back to the POV of the rider.

Then it began.

The rider launched toward the heavens with surreal speed, arm sleeves flapping in the breeze as the bird shot directly upward to cheering fans. A crowd’s POV showed the bird moving a hundred feet up a second, the black bird’s wings flapping as it made it toward the top of the gate. And then the POV switched again once they crested the gate and then rocketed forward, moving over the top of the gate like a race car driver, determined to outrun any attacker.

The rider failed.

He wasn’t in the forest for two seconds when tendrils shot out from canopies at surreal speeds, creating a net. The rider moved up—but it was too slow. The tendrils clamped the mount’s wings as the five more flew at the flier.

The camera switched, showing the man suspended in the air like a fly caught in a web. A split second later, massive birds the size of reaper drones shot out of the trees in a black blur. I barely saw them before the birds dispersed, leaving a tangled net of green tendrils, pulling a bloody mass of meat and feathers into the trees.

It all happened in seconds.

My mouth opened wide, and my head tilted and I leaned back and laughed, almost falling off the counter I was sitting on. "Oh... hell... no..." I cackled, mind plunging into the depths of lunacy. "Fuck the shelter."

I had half a mind to pack up my stuff and start looking for a tree to hollow out. My packages weren’t coming, and I had shit to do to prepare. But I didn’t. For whatever reason, I watched more intensely, examining the Bramble—studying.