Trial 1: Welcome to the Jungle

The first thing John noticed was the sharp increase in humidity. The air in the courtyard had been pleasant with the warmth of a late spring day, now it was oppressively hot and damp. If it wasn’t for his coat’s enchantment that regulated his temperature, he was sure he would be boiling.

The second was the sudden increase in what he called wild noises. The chittering of small animals, the buzz of insect wings and the rustling of foliage filled his ears as his eyes recovered from the flashbang of transport.

Once his vision was restored, he took in their surroundings. Tall trees stretched into the sky, blotting out most of the sun, casting their landing zone in deep shadows.

“He wasn’t kidding about the jungle part,” John muttered.

“This has to be the Karsahcan Strip!” Tok exclaimed excitedly as he whirled around, taking in the area with a wide grin.

“Karsahcan Strip?” Rowan repeated, her pronunciation a perfect reflection of Tok’s.

“A jungle of the old world,” the dwarf explained. “It’s where my ancestors would have collected rare plants and animals. There are so many tales of ancient heroes venturing in to brave the wild beasts. I really should have guessed that when Dad said it’d be a jungle.”

“Should we be this casual about things?” Rowan pressed. “Or loud?”

As if to emphasize her point, the heavy thud of a strong footfall shook the ground, sending the various small animals around them into a fleeing frenzy as a large reptilian form bounded into the clearing. It gave John Komodo dragon vibes, long and low to the ground, only it was much larger than any he’d heard about. Its shoulders were up to John’s chest and had jaws that looked like it could tear off one of their heads in a single bite.

It was one hell of an opening enemy.

The lizard paused as it took them in, likely confused about their presence, but either simulated hunger, programmed aggression or pure territorial instinct drove it to attack them.

“Here we go!” Tok roared as the lizard charged, drawing his ax off his back as he leapt into action. The dwarf swung his ax like it weighed nothing, the blade striking the lizard’s neck as it tried to bite Tok. The blade failed to pierce the monster’s scaly hide and Tok was **** to roll back to avoid getting bit in half.

Galma Lizard
Lv. 14 Reptile
A large lizard found in tropical jungles. Its hide is noted for its resiliency to damage, making only the most dangerous of predators able to contend with it.

John summoned Senka’s vessel and cast Shadow Snare before the lizard could continue its attack. The ropes of dark material wrapped around its legs, forcing it onto its belly, flailing wildly. The Evocation’s thorns did less damage than Tok’s ax, but it did keep it from attacking them.

“I can keep this guy down for a bit,” John shouted, his eye on his dropping mana. He only had about three and half minutes of usage per day and he would prefer to not burn all of it on the first encounter. “Any ideas how to take it down?”

“Go for under its arms or belly,” Rowan firmly suggested, already surging forward, the bronze relic blade glinting in the spotty light. With the galma thrashing about, John didn’t know just how she was going to accomplish her attack, but with smooth movements, Rowan got close and ran her blade into the gap between its forelimb and torso. It was almost as if she had done this before.

‘Do you think there’s something in that blade she’s drawing on for this?’ Senka wondered.

‘If it’s not, then I have to wonder about the Order’s training regime,’ John replied.

The relic blade sunk deep into the reptilian beast and it roiled in pain, straining the bindings and forcing Rowan to pull back, the tip of her weapon stained with a dark red smear. But the lizard did not get any reprieve as Tok rushed in, striking its neck right as it rolled onto its back. The weaker scales gave way under his heavy attack, and steel drew blood.

The strike to its throat sent a spray of dark red out, mercifully missing Tok by the barest of centimeters. With wounds to its neck and armpit, the galma’s movements began to grow sluggish, enough for John to stop binding it. Its freed limbs jerked for a moment before falling limp and fading away, leaving no sign of its passing, even its blood disappearing from where it fell.

137 EXP Gained

“Now that was one hell of a way to start things,” Tok exclaimed, breathing a bit heavily. He turned his attention to John and Rowan. “That was some quick thinking with that rope trick. And you’ve got a good eye for weak points, huh?”

“It was a guess,” Rowan said, her voice a bit shaky. “I saw the scales looked thinner and took a gamble. If armor is too thick at the joints, it's hard to move in it, you know?”

“Still, good instincts,” Tok said with a grin before he thrust his ax into the air. “Woah, I’m pumped! Let’s get moving!”

“Hold on a second,” John interjected. “We can’t just go running into the jungle without a plan.”

“Or without going over what each of us brings to the table,” Rowan added, giving John an up and down look. “Newman and I may be somewhat acquainted but his abilities are extremely flexible so I doubt I know all of what he can do.”

“And you’ve been training with that new sword,” John interjected. “Didn’t see moves like that before.”

Rowan’s cheeks grew slightly red but she pressed on. “So it makes sense for us to take things slow and figure out how best we can fight as a team.”

Tok’s expression dimmed, his excitement fading to contemplation. “Yeah, that makes sense,” he muttered sheepishly. “Got caught up in the moment there. Sorry.”

“Hey, no worries, man,” John said. “This is your first real taste of combat, right?”

“More or less,” Tok admitted. “The closest to this would probably have been against some more common wild beasts. But even then, they made them less dangerous. Guess I’m the green one here.”

“It’s not like we’re all that more experienced,” Rowan said, though John felt her tone was a bit hollow.

Tok shook his head. “You don’t need to sugarcoat it. You’re a knight in a holy order and you’re working under a goddess. I’m just the son of a well respected craftsman.”

“Honestly, I think you’re selling yourself short there,” John said. “You did jump into action before either of us did. And got the last blow in perfectly while it was flailing around. You just haven’t had the chance to show how good you are, until now. Don’t think you’ve screwed up your first step.”

Tok grinned at John. “Didn’t take you as the motivational speaker type.”

“Turns out my build is flexible,” John replied. “Speaking of builds, we should get to laying out what we can do. I’ll start since it’s a lot to go over. Invite Tok and Rowan to Trial Party.”

“Wha..?” Tok tried to ask before he was cut off by the invite screen appearing in front of his face.

“My powers are game based,” John explained as Rowan accepted the invite without pause. “Being in my party will let you see some things and will let us communicate over about one hundred meters.”

“You didn’t mention that feature before,” Rowan said.

“Just got it,” John remarked. “It would have made our little spelunking misadventure a little less harrowing.”

Tok accepted the invite. “So, now what?”

To show off his power, John thought out a message. ‘Now I send this.’ The process was little different than how he kept his thoughts private from Senka, only needing the intent of sending the message for the following idea to be sent.

“Woah,” Tok exclaimed as the message appeared in front of him in a small display, a similar one appearing before Rowan. They faded away after a moment. “That’s cool. What else can you do?”

“For today, outside of various combat options, I can scry something and get a detailed readout of it. Including people and myself.”

He opened his character sheet as an example.

“So, we’ve got something like this?” Tok asked, gesturing between him and Rowan.

“Not exactly like mine, but yeah,” John answered.

“Can I see it?” the dwarf asked.

“Fair warning, it might say stuff you’d rather keep private,” John informed him.

Tok shrugged. “Don’t think I’ve got anything major to hide. Hit me.”

“Alright,” John said, firing off Observe.

“Oh, no! Not my weight,” Tok joked as he looked over his sheet. “Huh, I’m higher level than you.”

“You’ve been training for years, right? I’ve been at this for a month,” John revealed. “Most of these numbers are a rough comparison between me and whoever I’m looking at.”

“Wait, a month?” the dwarf incredulously asked. “Really?”

“Really,” John attested. “Now’s not the time to go over that.”

“Fair,” Tok said. “So, what else can you do? I’m pretty much a close quarters fighter.”

“I’ve got tools for close and long range,” John answered, summoning his new wand to hand. “This can fire off fireballs and I’ve got two bladed weapons with a variety of extra effects I can call on.”

“Traded out that glove for a wand?” Rowan asked.

“Didn’t play nicely with the gauntlets,” John said, lifting his armored left hand. “So all in all, I’m fairly well rounded. I’ve got some healing I can do too. I haven't had a lot of experience with that, but it’s better than nothing.”

“All rounder is right,” Tok exclaimed, clapping John’s shoulder before he looked at Rowan. “And you? Anything other than that fancy swordplay?”

“I’ve been trained in basic first aid and orientation,” the squire said, sounding a bit morose to put out her skills after John.

“Well, it’s more than I can do,” Tok loudly proclaimed.

“Were you really planning on undertaking this with just the strength of your arms alone?” Rowan asked incredulously.

“Well, I’m sure Dad would have made sure it was something I could have handled well enough,” Tok defensively said.

“Sure,” Rowan muttered, disbelief in her voice. She turned to John, a determined look on her face. “Hit me with it. I want to see how I’ve progressed since our last meeting.”

John nodded and did as she requested.

Rowan’s eyes widened a bit as she took in her sheet, before her cheeks reddened and she snapped, “Okay, level sixteen. That’s enough, you can close it.”

John did as she asked, though he couldn’t help but notice her Libido rating had gone up a pip, if his memory was accurate.

‘Curious,’ Senka hummed.

‘We can worry about the implications of that later,’ John warned her before saying aloud, “Okay, we have an idea of what we all can do. Now, any idea of how we’re supposed to proceed? Any stories you know that can help guide us?”

“Well, Dad said the place we’re supposed to find would be at the center, so we’re only in a circular cutout of the jungle. Not that it helps us much there. But, there was a story about a temple in the Strip. Some of our people journeyed to it to consult the monks that maintained it about some cure to a plague.”

“That’s only really helpful if there was something about a path or landmark they followed,” Rowan pointed out.

“I’m getting to it,” Tok said. “Just had to remember all the details. Right, the story went that they came from the north and once they hit the edge of the jungle, kept going south. The first landmark they came to was an old, dead tree in a clearing. Dad always said it towered over the nearby trees and wasn’t far from the edge of the jungle.”

“So we need to travel south and find this tree,” Rowan muttered thoughtfully. “And I presume there’s more to the story to guide us from there?”

Tok nodded. “Yeah. There was a clear enough trail from the tree for them to follow. The trick was getting to the dead tree.”

“So we head south, through the jungle with more dangerous beasts in it until we find this tree,” John summed up. “And from there we see if it matches the story and has a path for us to follow.”

“We need to move into the jungle in any event, so trying to see if the old stories were taken into account is as good a plan as any,” Rowan said before she looked up. “And assuming the time is the same as when we left, the sun moves in the same path east to west and north and south are the same as on Earth…”

She turned around, surveying the sky. After a moment, she stopped. “This way should be south. Assuming we’re closer to the equator than home.”

“Any direction’s better than none,” John said. “I can’t imagine they would make a jungle so large it would take us more than a few hours to cross. If we go for too long, we might want to adjust our trajectory.”

“Agreed,” Rowan nodded. “Maybe we can pick out whatever they’re using to transmit this back to everyone and use them as waymarkers.”

“Yeah, don’t think that’s going to work,” Tok said, pointing up. “The cameras are on drones.”

John and Rowan looked up, catching the slightest distortion of the air above them.

“It would have been nice to be informed of that right from the start,” Rowan grumbled.

Tok shrugged. “I didn’t know right from the start. I only picked up on it once things calmed down. Got a pretty good cloak on it, but I’ve known Lita all my life and can pick out her mana signature anywhere.”

“We should still get moving in the direction you pointed out, Rowan,” John said, forcing the conversation back on track. “The sooner we get going, the sooner we figure out if we’re on the right track.”

With a curt nod, Rowan agreed and began to march into the jungle, setting their path forward.