by J. T. Wright
When violet eyes turned his way, the Keeper found himself unable to speak. Trent was right; he had no obligation to help. The Trial was the Keeper’s to protect. Seeing the way Dreq’s hackles raised and Trent’s hand closed over the pommel of his knife, he realized the two had no intention of aiding him.
The Keeper started to release Trent’s arm, and then the location of the sphere came to him. The Guardian’s den. The sphere was a Trace of divinity, something that could not remain. Its presence could corrupt the Trial itself, starting with the Guardian. Judging from Dreq’s reaction to the Trace, the Keeper would be unable to convince a Beast to carry it for him, and few came to the center of the Trial anyway. That left Trent.
“A Quest,” the Keeper whispered hoarsely, desperately. “A Quest to remove–"
“I've cleared the Trial. Can you still offer me Quests?” Trent’s head tilted to the side, and Dreq mimicked him, allowing his tongue to flop out of his mouth for emphasis. The Keeper’s eyes drifted skyward as he consulted with the Trial’s Spirit.
“I cannot offer a Quest,” he said, his mouth dry, “but I can give you a reward.”
“How is that different from offering a Quest?” Trent pulled his arm free and tugged his cowl up. He wanted to be gone from this place.
“No Experience,” came the explanation, “a physical reward only. One that will appeal to you, I swear it!”
Hidden behind his mask, Trent bit his lip. Desperation shone from the Keeper’s eyes, begging him to help and tugging at Trent’s conscience. “What is that thing anyway? Will it harm me?”
“No!” The word exploded from the Keeper’s mouth. “No! It isn’t safe, and you shouldn’t leave it near anything you care about, but it will not hurt you!”
A beam of moonlight, brighter than all else, stabbed into the Keeper’s face. Wincing, he added, “However, you should be rid of it as you soon as you are able. And even in Storage, there are those that might sense it.” The Keeper was reluctant to say anything that might convince Trent to walk away but pushed out a warning, nonetheless.
“Not safe in Storage.” Trent took a step back, a refusal on his tongue when a thought occurred to him. “Would it be safe in a Trial chest?”
The Keeper snorted. “No, not unless the chest was separated from the Trial. Otherwise it would corrupt the Spirit even faster. A reward chest is–"
A golden chest thudded onto the ground, and Dreq sniffed at it as the Keeper’s eyes threatened to bulge out of his head.
“What about this one?” Trent asked, pushing the inquisitive pup away from the box. Dreq tried to slip by Trent’s hand to investigate closer and was snatched up. He adjusted his legs over Trent’s arm, but before a stream of indignation could be released, a hand tightening around his windpipe convinced Dreq to hold his bladder for a later argument.
“How do you have this? It shouldn’t be possible,” the Keeper muttered. Unlike Dreq, the Keeper stepped back, uneasy to see a piece of another Trial sitting in his own.
“Will it keep the… what is it that I'd be carrying?”
“It is separated. It will work!” The Keeper sidestepped Trent’s question and hurriedly pushed him towards the sphere. “Put it in the box and get the chest back into your Storage. Quickly! Neither of these things should be here.”
Trent found himself pushing the sphere into the chest and closing it without argument. Dreq took the opportunity to peek inside the lid while he could, and his ears perked up at seeing the books the chest contained.
Trent started to Store the container away and then paused, causing the Keeper to shout, “What are you waiting for?”
“My reward.” Trent had learned. There were times when Beasts could be trusted, and men could not. He knew the Keeper and the Trial were bound by rules of their own but had no idea what those rules were. He was prepared to dump open the chest and leave the Keeper with both the sphere and box at the first sign of a blood-red jewel.
“Here, take them and go!” The Keeper pushed two small white crystals at him, and Trent’s eyes lit up. Those Crystals he recognized as holding Skill and Attribute Points, and he accepted them readily.
He stored the chest away and with a guilty voice said, “I didn’t mean to–"
“There is no need to explain, Trent Embra.” The Keeper's hand settled on Trent’s shoulder, relief plain in his voice. “A Hunter must be wary of traps, both those set by others, and the ones he lays himself. Now, go!”
Trent was flung backward through the portal by a clawed hand. Outside the Trial, he lay sprawled and dazed on the ground. Before the portal closed, the Keeper had offered one last piece of advice. “Strength in numbers, Hunter. The Trials are drawn to you, and others will come for the Trace. Prepare!”
Chapter Eighteen
“Prepare for what?” Trent shouted back, sitting up. “What’s a Trace?”
Dreq wriggled out of his arms and barked at the closing portal. When the shimmering doorway vanished, he kicked up dirt with his hind legs and turned to Trent to receive the praise he had earned for chasing off the insufferable glowing gateway.
“What’s a Trace?” Trent repeated to the Dog, receiving a bewildered sigh in response. “Right, how should you know.”
Picking himself up, Trent checked his weapons belt to make sure nothing had come loose and looked around. He was back where he had been before entering the Trial, on an animal track a few miles from Bellrise. The sun was high in the sky, and there was a distinctive chill in the air. Not as bad as in the Moonlit Forest, but Trent expected that night would bring frost with it.
“He said not to leave it near anything I care about. Probably better not abandon the thing here,” Trent muttered. Dreq disagreed and began digging a hole in the trail. Once it was deep enough to contain the sphere, he bounced in place, urging Trent to be rid of his burden.
“No, we’ll keep it for now. We'll take it deeper into the Wilds before we bury it.” Trent clutched his hands around the Crystals he had received as payment and absorbed them. “5 Free Attribute Points and 5 Skill Points. Not a bad haul.”
Trent said the words and tried to convince himself but with the urgency the Keeper had used to throw him from the Trial, he wondered if they were true. “Let’s head to Bellrise. We need to restock for a trip into the Wilds.”
Dreq stretched up to place his paw against Trent’s knee, begging to be picked up. Trent nudged him away. “I can’t carry you all the time! You have to get stronger on your own.”
Dreq yawned and his tail swished.
“You have access to your Status now. What Level are you?” Trent muttered to himself, checking Dreq’s particulars through Leadership’s link.
Name: Dreq
Age: 9 weeks
Animal: Dog
Level: 8
Health: 30
Stamina: 30
Mana: 50
Strength: 3
Intelligence: 5
“How are you alive?” Trent asked the Dog, exasperated. He had never seen a Status so empty. Dreq should have been killed just falling down too hard in the Moonlit Forest! Dreq laid flat, covering his nose with his paws and whimpering.
Trent felt ashamed of himself. Squatting down, he scratched the top of Dreq’s head. “I'm sorry, it’s not your fault. You’re young. Do you have Attribute Points to spend?”
Dreq sat up, panting, and leaned into Trent’s hand. “You must have a few, you've stolen enough of my XP. Spend them and we’ll be going.”
Dreq’s hackles raised and he shook his whole body.
“You won’t spend them?” Trent interpreted the Dog’s actions. “Why not?”
Dreq scratched at the dirt, leaving a broken line, then pounced in a half circle.
“Your Status isn’t complete, and you want to–” At first Trent was engrossed in the Dog’s explanation. Taking a closer look at the rough line, he saw nothing there to show him what Dreq was trying to convey. He was just filling in details to make sense of nonsense on his own.
“Well if you can’t or won’t add your Attribute Points, you'll build your Strength walking!” Trent straightened up. “Its not fun, but it works. Believe me, I know. Let’s get going.” Dreq didn’t follow when Trent stepped away, and before Trent went very far, he heard a yip behind him. A yip that nearly sounded like a word. Turning back, Trent saw Dreq yawning again.
The Dog growled, and then barked, “Carry!”
Trent’s hands went to his hips. “I'm not… you can talk!”
He checked Dreq’s Status again. The Dog’s Intelligence had risen to 8. “You will spend
Points to beg a ride but not on Strength!”
“Carrrry,” Dreq howled in his deepest puppy voice, his eyes wide and plaintive. Trent was unimpressed. Dreq’s ears drooped as Trent’s lips hardened into a tight smile.
“I will carry you,” Trent said sweetly, “after your SP is depleted from training. I saw an exercise I think will help you. I'm not sure what it’s called, but we can do it together. You chase me. If you manage to catch up and touch my leg, I’ll chase you."
“Carry?” Dreq repeated, tilting his head.
“Not convinced? Fine, I'll start, but if you refuse to train, you walk the whole way yourself! Run!”
Dreq still didn’t move, which was a mistake. Trent followed his words with action. Darting forward, he swiped at Dreq, sending the puppy rolling into the brush. When the Dog came out again, with teeth bared, Trent shouted for Dreq to catch him and took off at a jog.
He kept the pace to one Dreq could match without catching up, and the Dog’s furious barking told Trent that Dreq knew he was being teased. Trent stumbled to give the pup hope, then rolled and burst away, increasing his lead. Looking back over his shoulder to grin at the animal, Trent was startled to find the trail empty.
When Dreq appeared a second later in a dark flash, his teeth clamping onto Trent’s hand, Trent almost flung him away. Dreq growled victoriously, then whined and dropped to the ground, his Stamina and Mana depleted using the Skill he had gotten from the Shadow Wererat.
“That’s cheating!” Trent expelled the word, but the grin on his face said he was satisfied with the results.
“If you want to use Skills, we will!” He reached down and pinched the exhausted Dog’s ear, “Mine don’t wear me out like that though, so I don’t think you'll like the change in rules. You’re still the chaser."
After Dreq recovered from his stunt, which he did faster than Trent expected, the training resumed. The pair left the trail and zigzagged through the trees. Trent used Acrobatics and Enhanced Jump, avoiding bushes and stumps by running along fallen timbers. Dreq was forced to plow through or run beside him, only getting his revenge by using the paralyzing Skill, Howl, which caught Trent and made the boy stumble.
Howl left Dreq with plenty of energy, and he managed to escape for a full five seconds before Trent tapped him as the boy sailed pass the pup with a one-handed flip. Dreq clambered after Trent, doggedly, as he resumed his role as chaser.
There were few Beasts this close to Bellrise; low-leveled Adventurers from the local Academy saw to that. Those predators that were drawn to the sound of barking and laughing were scared off by a single hard look from Trent. Violet eyes found them no matter how they concealed themselves.
Trent had no desire to kill the Beasts who were much weaker than he was. That changed when an enraged Striped Fox attacked him while Dreq’s SP was recovering from a long period of running. A bone dart snuffed the life from the Level 3 creature before it got within ten feet. Harvesting the Beast, Trent discovered that eating fresh meat restored Dreq’s Stamina much quicker than resting. After that, nearby Beasts sacrificed themselves for Dreq’s training every time the pup’s energy started to flag.
The duo did not make it to Bellrise that day. They were several miles further from the town when Trent called a halt and made camp near a small waterfall. The day had been productive, increasing Trent’s supply of Beast Cores and pelts, along with his Throw Skill and Prepare Hides Charm.
And Dreq unlocked the Attribute, Agility, in his Status. Trent had discovered that when the use of Howl along with a sudden increase in the Dog’s speed, caused the two to reverse roles, briefly. Trent pondered what other Attributes the Dog might have while Dreq gnawed at the horn of the Horned Hare Trent was attempting to roast for dinner.
Dreq lacked Constitution, but he did have HP, so Trent wasn’t sure if animals needed that Attribute or if it was something they gained when they became Beasts. But then, wasn’t Dreq a Beast already? He could speak, even though his vocabulary was currently limited to carry, meat, and Trent. Animals were not supposed to speak. That was something only high-leveled Beasts could do, not Level 8 Dogs.
Dreq turned up his nose when Trent offered him a piece of charred Hare and settled into Trent’s lap to sleep. Trent almost tossed the meat aside, too, when he bit into it. He really needed to learn to cook at some point. If cooking were a Skill, he would need to buy it the first chance he had.
There was still so much both he and Dreq needed to learn, and no one Trent could ask for help. Bellrise would have answers and supplies, and, while Trent wasn’t anxious to return to the town where he had met Martin Vane, he knew he needed to. Tomorrow.
Considering different ways to train Dreq and going over all the things he would need to buy in Bellrise, Trent drifted to sleep, leaning against a tree. The water of the creek played a lullaby for the worn-out pair of Adventurers. A breeze teased Trent’s hair, causing it to drape across his face. In the fading light of the day, the sleeping boy looked his age, an age few would believe he carried, seeing the warrior’s build his body had taken on.
**********
Dreq woke with a yawn a few hours later. He stood and stretched languidly before looking around. A quarter moon hung in the sky, much smaller than the one that had lit the Trial. Pale moonlight barely made it to the ground as it filtered through tree branches. The nearby creek babbled happily, accompanied by the croaks of frogs and the chirping of insects.
Dreq was hungry. It was hunger that woke him and hunger that led him to contemplate just how upset Trent would be if he nipped his chin to beg for a meal. The steady rise and fall of Trent’s chest convinced him to let the boy sleep. It was the most peaceful Dreq had ever seen Trent.
His tail wagged as he stared into the boy’s face. Trent was good. He played a little rough, and he spoke harshly on occasion, but Dreq did not mind that. He had been pushed into the Hunter’s Trial and commanded to find something good, and he had. He had found Trent.
Most of Dreq’s memories were of his father’s voice. Before his eyes opened, before he could walk or eat solid food, Dreq had listened to his father speak of the Infinite World. While he tumbled with his siblings, he had learned of Statuses and Trials. A lot of what he heard went over his head, but some had stuck.
The last thing he remembered hearing before being shoved into the Hunter’s Trial was that something good waited for him inside. It was a fuzzy memory for Dreq. His mind hadn’t become sharp until after Trent gave him a name. Still, the recollection was there. Looking for that good thing was what had kept him moving in the Trial when all he really wanted to do was curl up and whimper.
He would have died in the Trial had he not found Trent. Though his father had cast a Spell that would nullify most of the damage he took, that blessing couldn’t last forever. It had completely worn off by the time his body was crushed beneath the claws of a Trial Beast.
He was unprotected now, and that was alright. He had Trent to rely on! And Trent was strong! Much stronger than he should be, given how young he smelled. The boy couldn’t be much older than he was. It was puzzling, but solving the riddle was easy enough for one of Dreq’s kind.
He and Trent were still in a party together, bound by Trent’s Leadership Skill. Feeling for the connection that linked him to Trent, Dreq followed it back to the boy’s center. The invisible line stretched from Dreq’s chest and ended at Trent, and what he found ne
arly caused Dreq to forget what he was about.
There was a pit in Trent’s soul! Dreq snarled, seeing the jagged hole where a piece of the boy had been gouged out! It smelled of malignant intent and deep, old, power. In a way, it reminded Dreq of his father, but without the conscience that kept the old Beast in check.
Dreq knew that this wound was what caused Trent to keep him at arm’s length. Dreq smoothed out the edges of the hole with his Mana, mentally licking at it like he would a bleeding cut. For good measure, he wrapped a bit of Mana around the link he shared with Trent to prevent the boy from severing it. It would take time to heal this wound, and Dreq did not want to risk being left behind like Trent had threatened to do.
When his Mana ran low, Dreq returned to his original purpose. He dug around in Trent’s psyche until he found what he was looking for, Trent’s Status. What he read caused Dreq’s mind to go blank for a moment. His father had told him what to expect when confronting those that called themselves Awakened, and Trent crushed all his expectations.
Dreq could only compare Trent to his father’s lessons and the Thief, Martin Vane. Dreq had only gotten a few glimpses and the slightest sniff of the Truce Breaker after receiving his name, but except for a darkness that hung about the Thief, Martin had been normal enough.
Without a link to the man, Dreq had surmised that Martin had a smattering of Skills and that his highest Attribute was Agility. In all ways besides Agility, Trent made Martin look like a newborn pup, still suckling at his mother’s teat. A little more digging told Dreq why that was.
Skills! An Awakened of Trent’s level should have at most five or six Skills, and according to Dreq’s father, those Skills wouldn’t be too developed. Trent had far more Skills than he should, and leveling them had provided him with Attributes that mocked Martin at his higher Level.
Dreq’s tail began to wag faster. He had found something good, indeed! His Mana had recovered, and Dreq used it to solidify the link he shared with Trent. Like all his kind, once Dreq latched on to a treasure, it would take a miracle to pry loose his jaws!
