Chapter 45 Rune
rune
. . .
Field Ops’ final was named something that was probably supposed to be intimidating but just made me excited.
Off-grid and hunted.
Hunting stood by the control panel in Apex Simulator 2.0, flanked by projection maps of the Earth Kingdom in the fae realm. There were jagged rock meadows veined with fae magic, glittering fault-rivers, and flora growing wildly everywhere.
“This is not a game,” she said, voice flat.
“It’s your final exam. There are terrain shifts in the Earth Kingdom more so than in any of the other fae kingdoms. Earth fae adapt easily.
You must learn to do so. Fail to adapt, and you fail the exam.
I’ve been watching you for six months now, so I will assign you the roles I feel you will be best at. ”
She snapped her fingers, and roles spun above our heads in hovering words:
Spies: Dimitri, Rune
Enforcer: Raze
Torturer: Zuko
Arcane Specialist: Hawk
Tech Specialist: Slater
Intelligence Analyst: Aura
Healer: Koa
Diplomatic Envoys: Eleanor, Lorian
“Your only enemy in this barren part of the kingdom is an earth fae. He is aggressive and intuitive. The longer you’re in his domain, the more he knows about you.
” Her gaze traveled along our squad’s lineup.
“You have three objectives. As a squad, you will figure out who will do what. Locate the earth fae artifact. No, you may not know what it does. Your job is to find it. It’s a rock sphere.
Avoid the fae or escape capture if the fae catches you.
Evacuate with the artifact without triggering ancient security enchantments all over the area you will be placed in. Good luck.”
The Earth Kingdom’s landscape formed around us as Hunting disappeared as per usual. We stood at the entrance of a cavern with sharp, teeth-like crystals at the opening. It reminded me more of a large, worm-like creature than a cave.
The ground glittered with veins of crystals, reminiscent of buried stars under wild sunbeams spilling from three white suns hanging high in the golden-colored sky. Trees grew right side up and upside down, their roots visible in the ground and the walls that curved up like ceilings.
It was a living land that shifted and moved like the mountain simulation we’d been dropped in for an assignment earlier in the quarter.
Flora grew from the soil and from the stone.
Trees made of bark and stone clawed upward in twisted columns, bark hardened like bronze, and leaves a mix of gold, red, and greens.
Moss blanketed the cliffs in thick emerald carpets, luminous spores drifting in the air like fireflies.
Vines hung everywhere, some still and some slithering around.
Pretty blooms of flowers pushed through cracks in the rock.
Some of the blooms were like the flowers in Kalista, but others were stone-blooming with translucent petals.
Fungi the size of bushes clustered in the shade, their caps glowing different colors that bled into the soil around them.
Shrubs sprouted crystal-thorns, and even the grass grew with intent from the soil wherever we walked.
The blades were sharp enough to draw blood if we hadn’t had on our protective suits.
Suddenly, the footies of the suit didn’t seem so silly.
The Earth Kingdom was beautiful and scary wrapped into one.
I breathed in its air, which tasted like moss, iron, and raw fae magic. To stand within the fae realm was to be measured, and there had been a reason my parents never let me visit.
This being a simulation only put me at ease a fraction.
“Look for triggers,” Dimitri said as the ten of us entered the cavern mouth to scout for any ancient fae traps.
“I’m assuming since we were placed here, the artifact must be in the cave,” I suggested.
“Agreed,” Dimitri said.
“Found one,” we said simultaneously as we reached for the same trap ward to mark it, and our fingers brushed.
“We’re not competing,” I told him, irritation blooming inside me at the fact that we had been on the same wavelength again.
We made a solid team, but I didn’t understand how we could be so at odds with each other one day, and then on the exact same page another.
“We always are,” he said, almost teasingly, and placed a stick at the trigger. “Mark the triggers with sticks,” he told the others.
I marked two more.
Raze tested the walls by throwing a rock off them. It didn’t bounce back. It floated back into his hand. “That’s sick,” he muttered.
Slater had his palms on a stone console of sorts. Basically, an earth-magic terminal. “This system has zero tech,” he muttered. “It’s run totally on fae magic. I love it already. Do you think I could get one from the fae market?”
“Who is dumb enough to go there?” Hawk stepped near a broken cairn, and the cavern shuddered.
“My brother’s brother-mate goes all the time,” Slater mumbled under his breath.
“Uh… guys?” Hawk’s voice cracked, thin with panic.
I glanced over to see the dirt beneath his boots liquify, turning slick and sucking him in.
The tunnel behind us slammed shut with a groan of stone, sealing black.
“Guess there’s no going back,” Aura muttered.
The cavern pulsed; walls bulged, and the ceiling contracted. The entire chamber re-arranged itself in slow, deliberate heartbeats.
Each throb dragged Hawk deeper. Quicksand swallowed him to his knees.
“Hawk!” I lunged for our squadmate, but the floor convulsed, and a ripple of stone jutted from the ground, blocking my path and destroying the stone terminal Slater was playing with.
Hawk screamed. “I can’t!”
I jumped onto the rock that had blocked me to see. His waist was gone now, and the earth moved up and down as if trying to knock me off.
“Hurry!” Lorian bellowed, shifting, and dove. His massive claws grabbed Hawk’s shoulders, and he pulled. The sound was wet and suffocating, like the earth itself was eating Hawk, refusing to let him go.
“Lorian!” Eleanor screamed.
I lost my balance and was thrown to the side just as I thought the mountain would take them both. I flipped, kicking the wall and twisting until I landed on the shaking ground before stumbling again.
Koa’s arms banded around me to keep me upright. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, thanks.” I grabbed his arms for extra balance as the quake got worse. “Tired of the moving nature, though!”
Lorian roared, and with one brutal heave, he tore Hawk free. Mud and earth magic sloughed off them in thick streams.
The cavern shuddered one last time before stilling, and I swore it was pouting.
“Thanks, Koa.” I grabbed his forearms and faced him to give him a smile.
His cheeks turned a shade of red as he nodded. “Happy to help.”
A boulder slammed down from the ceiling, flattening him and knocking me to the ground.
“Koa!” I screamed in frustration.
“Did he just die?” Zuko was behind me, helping me to my feet in a few seconds.
“He’ll be back.” I groaned.
“How does he die so often?”
“Who knows?”
The boulder cracked in half as Koa’s phoenix form broke through it. Blazing heat filled the cavern.
He shifted, landing in front of me, rubbing his neck. “I’m so sorry.”
I held a hand up. “Don’t apologize for dying. It sounds wrong.”
“Watch out!” Lorian caught Eleanor by the waist as another sinkhole formed underneath her, where Hawk was.
Aura looked at Hawk with a weird expression as it swallowed his ankles.
“Dude, watch your surroundings!” Raze grabbed him by the neck and threw him across the cavern before he sank more than ankle deep.
“Let’s go deeper,” Dimitri suggested. “It’s our only choice, anyway.”
I nodded. “If we have to.”
Slater pouted as he left the crumbled fae terminal. “If I had more time, I could’ve figured more out.”
“Maybe you need to be faster,” Dimitri told him.
Slater scoffed. “Sure. I’ll just instinctively know how to use a fae device.”
A ripple went through the wall before it opened like a mouth and sucked in, funneling the air around me and pulling me inside before anyone could react.
“Fuck,” I muttered as the stone wall closed from where I’d been pulled into a dark chamber. I couldn’t hear anything else around me.
Rock had me held tightly, and I couldn’t budge.
I pushed my breath down where my magic dwelled and drew it up with a hiss, coaxing venom through my skin to glow and give me some fucking light.
The thing holding me wasn’t stone; it was an earth fae.
Thankfully, the venom I excreted caused instant death. I’d been wondering if it would work on fae.
He spasmed before dropping to the ground, dead.
It apparently worked on fae.
I blinked at how easy dealing with him was before trudging through the new tunnel with only my venom lighting the way. It wasn’t easy to see.
After only a few steps, I fell through a hole and landed hard in a new tunnel as the old one closed with a sound like a book snapping shut.
“Pretty little poison, are you okay?” Zuko asked, muffled, face pressed into the ground from where I’d landed on him.
Slater pulled me up and into his arms, inhaling my scent as he checked me over. “What happened with the fae?”
“I killed him,” I told them.
“Efficient,” Dimitri said simply, but relief shone in his red eyes. “That’s one less enemy to worry about.”
Slater cursed under his breath, hands flying over the remains of a half-buried terminal. Sparks spat from the stone as he funneled his magical essence to it. The terminal hissed and flickered to life, fae glyphs crawling like insects across its surface.
It creeped me out.
“I got it!” he yelled, grinning like a lunatic. “Suck on that, Dimitri!”
Snakey went into the screen, and a map flared, glowing threads that pointed us deeper into the cavern.
“Artifact located. It’s four turns ahead.” Slater tilted his head, seeing through Snakey before Snakey came back and de-manifested.
The terminal powered down.
“Great work.” Dimitri raised his brows impressed.
Slater stuck his tongue out at him. “Damn right.”
The celebration lasted three seconds before slimes hit the floor.