The Test of Waning: Treasure Hunting... Gone Wrong

I'd like to say that it all went well. That we made it to the special mark on the map. That we passed the test at all.

Reality, though, strikes hard on the foolish. A group composed of Sinus Fidei can never win the game, especially not when we were as kind-hearted as we were. No, scratch that. We weren't kind. We were arrogant.

"I should have done something more..." I murmured, frustrated tears gathering in my eyes.

"I-It's okay, Eleftherion," the girl with big eyes murmured. Even now, Kendra was still so polite. She should just curse me right now. Instead, she said, "They... They're not really going to... kill us... right?"

Alas, I couldn't reply. After all, I couldn't and shouldn't lie.

~~

This was what we did wrong.

"So, what are we going to do with him?" I asked the whole team, glancing over at the teenager still pretending to be deep asleep on the cave's uneven ground.

Joren shrugged. "Keep 'im tied up 'til the test ends?"

Albert slowly shook his head. "He'll find a way to break out of it."

Joren pouted and grumbled something about smart arses. For a while, we expressed some more opinions, but in the end, we chose to follow the opinion of the unexpected member.

"A sleep spell?" Charles asked him in shock.

Jordan blushed deeply at the attention of the prince, but he soon managed to stammer out. "I-I'm still a novice, b-b-but I think I can make him s-snooze for a few minutes-"

"Minutes?" Albert asked with a frown.

"H-Hours!" Jordan corrected. "A few hours, yes."

For a moment, we only stared at him. But then he soon turned back into his cocky self. "Come now, I don't hail from the great House Lunaris for nothing, don't I?!"

After another tense minute, Albert finally nodded at me. "I think it's worth a try. Jordan's house is indeed well-known for their powers of mystique. It won't be too farfetched if they specialize in sleep and dreams as well."

Charles nodded as well. "I agree. I'm well aware of House Lunaris' powers, but I'm also aware how difficult and rare these powers are, even within the main family. Are you sure you are up to this, Jordan?"

"O-Of course, Your Highness!" Jordan whimpered out, but I knew a child could easily lie simply to appease the person he admires, so I did something daring.

I took a closer step towards him until I was practically face to face with him. I saw how his eyes widened at my sudden action. I, however, did nothing to assuage his fears. I glared down at him as harshly as I knew a child could. "This isn't just a game, you know? You can bring the whole team down if you make a mistake here. Now, let me ask you again. Are you sure you'll be able to do this?"

Seeing his suddenly paler face, I knew I must've overdone it. However, the next second, his haughty face was back and he was glaring back at me with the same ferocity. There was a weird fire in his gray eyes as he spat back, "Don't anger me, commoner. Your less than humble beginnings could barely imagine the power of noble houses, especially great houses of our level."

I continued to glare at him for a few seconds more before finally taking a step back. Then, I smiled at him. "Good!"

And just like that, he started on his spell. In fact, even I was terrified after seeing him do it. He didn't say any chants or did anything flashy. He simply headed straight towards the teenager, took a deep breath, and placed a hand on his shoulder. Just like that, the older noble's body crumpled down even more, in a visage more likely for one of deep sleep. We had first exclaimed a few shouts of victory, but Jordan had hastily shushed us down, saying he only made him sleep, not dead.

So, in a short while, we had all gathered our bearings and had made our way out of the cave and through the forest of giants.

~~

"I think we're nearly there," Albert said as we reached another high ground. After a couple more times of me carrying him up onto treetops, he had now finally seemed to get the hang of it, although he did still seem a bit uptight.

"Well, after travelling on foot for more than a day or so, I would be sad to know if we aren't," I said while maintaining a steady grip on the tree trunk and Albert's upper arm.

Indeed, just as I had said, it was now more than 24 hours since we stepped out of our cave, just basing from our body clocks. We did take a lot of rests, but none of us had a good night's rest. Nonetheless, we were now nearer towards our destination in lesser time.

When we finally came down from our hundred meter perch, we met up again with our other companions. Kendra was sitting on a fallen tree trunk, glaring down at her skirts. She mumbled, "My mother will chide me again when she sees my dress all ruined."

I grinned down as I sat beside her. "You kidding? When we pass the test on our first try, your whole house will probably be buying you a room full of dresses and corsets!"

For a while, I thought I had said something wrong because of her sudden long stare.

"W-What?" I asked. "Did I say something wrong?"

Then, as though she thought of something weird, she shook her head. "S-Sorry! It's nothing. It's just that you're so different... from other boys."

My brows went up. I mean, I didn't think there was any discrimination happening within the group, but... I didn't always know everything. So, I neared her and whispered, "Who is it?"

She blushed. "Wh-What do you mean? Who is what?"

I looked at her in worry. "Is someone bullying you here? I wouldn't imagine Joren, Charles, and Albert being that way, but... Is it that stuck-up noble, Jordan?"

Then, she hastily shook her gloved hands at me. "N-No! You misunderstood me! Everyone's really kind to me here, really. It's just... I meant that... Well, how can I even say this?"

I shrugged at her. "Just say it."

She pursed her lips, and finally met my eye. "Actually, it occurred to me even on the day we met. You're just... You seem really empathetic?"

"That's... a big word," I murmured.

She giggled. "You boys know far more than I do. But yes, I didn't mean it in any bad way at all! I mean, you can just say the right words, you know? You know exactly how to follow up when I tell you my troubles."

That got me laughing. Maybe it might be because I'm really older, or maybe because I'm really a female, but I'm no way empathetic at all. Maybe I show some concern once in a while, but I was raised a cold princess, and even now, I show indifference to all others who aren't my friends. So, being called empathetic? It came to me like a sour joke.

I was about to say something else when someone called my name. My senses immediately came up when I recognized the tension in his voice. I immediately signed at Kendra before rushing over, careful not to make a sound. I was up beside Charles before a few seconds went by.

"There are people," he whispered before I could announce my arrival.

I turned my gaze towards the direction he was looking at, and soon saw what he meant. Far away and straight down from our hill, there looked to be a group of people, taller figures with robes from the inner rings, huddled together by a campfire. It was now nearing sundown, so it was understandable for them to have a fire out, but...

"It's suspicious," Charles said what I thought.

I nodded. "It's already weird how they didn't sense us. I mean, if they're even just as strong as Telken's group, we should already be surrounded by now."

"Maybe they're intentionally inviting us over?" he asked. "I mean, it's weird enough how they're not even interested in us. Maybe they have a different set of instructions..."

"And what?" I asked. "They need us or something? If so, I'd rather not help them. We're already near our goal, so we shouldn't go around helping others out."

Albert was soon right beside us, saying, "I believe they've already found us."

Just like he had said, we stared as one of the figures raised an arm and waved at us, even though we were all hidden behind the foliage. "This is stupid," I murmured.

"We don't have a choice," Charles replied, not bothering to whisper anymore.

"We can just run away," I told them, but they only looked at me with expressionless faces.

"We can't all run as fast as you can, Therion," Charles said with a shrug and a sorry smile.

I huffed, staring straight at Albert. "So what now? We're just going to allow ourselves to get captured again?"

"... Let's first go and see what they're up to," Albert said. "I know it seems like a stupid move, but with our current strength, if we choose to run now and head for the treasure, they'll probably guess what we're up to and reach there first. Besides, we're all too tired to engage in a full on fight with inner ring students. Maybe we can talk our way out."

I made a long sigh, already irritated by the new events. "Then how should we do this? Should we send out some scouts and leave the others behind?"

Albert nodded. "That seems efficient."

Before long, we agreed to split ourselves up into two groups. The first were the scouts, comprised of me, Kendra, and Albert. Albert was there for the sweet talking, me for the general fighting, and Kendra for making them loosen their guard. The last group comprised of Charles, Joren, and Jordan. They were the team who was supposed to be ready to either do fight or flight, depending on Charles' decision. If all goes well, the three can escape and head towards the treasure while we try and hold off the seniors. Right now, the map was in Joren's hands.

After our short farewells, the three of us scouts started our trek down the mountain. By then, it was already dark and the upperclassmen's campfire was easy to spot in the night. Soon enough, we had made it through the foliage and came upon their clearing.

There were four of them sitting around the fire, which meant that at least two more were unaccounted for. "Greetings," Albert announced in a clear voice, just as we had appeared. His tone of voice suggests that we were in a public ball, rather than in a dense forest of gigantic trees.

The seniors looked at us with a few smiles and a few apathetic glances. One of them, the youngest-looking boy right at the center, greeted us, "We sure waited a long time for you, and you even came in half your numbers."

When Albert almost missed a beat, I immediately replied with a cordial smile. "The forests can hold many surprises. We decided to scout around in teams to search around."

The young boy, probably not even three years older than Albert, raised his brows at me. "Search around? What are you searching around for?"

I tilted my head at them innocently. "Well, we're only following the instructions. Aren't you?"

The boy leaned forward and placed his chin on his palm. "Pray tell, what are the instructions again? We lost our envelope the moment we stumbled straight into a viper pit."

I looked at him with pity. And mumbling out cutely, Kendra said, "That must have been hard, older brother. Now I know why you weren't looking around for clues at all."

The boy nodded fervently. "I was sure we were going to fail this test again! Thankfully, you guys came around! Our life savers, am I right, boys?"

The other robed figures groaned and muttered out their reluctant agreement. I almost wanted to belch at the obvious fakeness of their act, but I suppose their current act should have done well against other children, but not us.

Seeing them sit around while they thanked their "saviors", I wanted nothing but to kick them in their faces.

Alas, I knew I still lacked knowledge about them. And I also knew they were far stronger than we were. So, I allowed myself to sit nonchalantly on a facing log, looking straight at them. Not a second later, Albert had sat beside me, and said, "Basically, this test is about finding clues around the forest. Clues for what, it didn't say. And it didn't mention anything about what the clues would look like at all. At first, my teammates thought you guys were some sort of clue yourselves, but now we know otherwise."

The youngest boy nodded his head. "I see, I see! That's exciting... but do you know what other clues we found?"

"..."

I suddenly knew that our meeting was rapidly turning sour. I already knew they were going to start becoming violent now.

Kendra immediately saw through it, and jumped on the spot. She exclaimed over-eagerly, breaking apart what little tension was going on just a second ago, "Oh! You've already found a clue?!"

The older boys found themselves in a momentary confusion. Their leader then finally coughed out and said, "... Yes. We stole- I mean, uh, found a map yesterday."

Beside me, Albert stiffened just a little bit. I too found myself in a dilemma. If there were more maps than ours, then wouldn't that mean that there were others headed towards our direction as well? That would explain why these upperclassmen were so near the treasure mark, but-

I made a small frown. 'There must be something else to this...'

"Wow!" Kendra exclaimed with a girlish giggle. "The students from the inner rings really are different from us Sinus Fidei. You figured out the test so easily!"

The boy smirked at the girl, outwardly looking as though he enjoyed being fawned over. It made me want to gag, but I also knew they were up to something bad.

I dared to ask as innocently as I could, "Where are your other teammates? Are they off to find the treasure?"

Immediately, just based on the expressions from them, I knew I had made a great mistake.

Their leader looked at me with wide eyes, his next words gone up a whole pitch. "Who ever said anything about treasure?"

I cursed.

At the same moment, I heard shouts from up the hill we came from. Charles' voice resounded out, "IT'S A TRAP!"

I refused to show any weakness, so I smiled back at the upperclassmen. "So, what's stopping you from taking the treasure?"

I could already sense the tension rising all around us. Albert was getting stiffer and stiffer, and Kendra had already collapsed down beside me as the seniors edged towards us. I had already began to circulate notes around me, and I held on tightly on the arms of my companions, ready to shield them or carry them with me in flight.

Unfortunately, it will never be that easy. Faster than I could ever react, two of the enemies sprung forwards and stole Albert away, and I could only hold onto Kendra before landing a punch against the assailant.

"That brat!" the older boy shouted out as he got flung back against a nearby tree due to my punch. Sadly, he didn't look all that hurt, only annoyed. I immediately backed away from them, keeping Kendra behind me. Looking towards my right, I saw Albert struggling to escape from his captor's hold. It's the second time Albert and I were getting captured, so I knew we had to escape faster this time.

Glaring around me, I whispered, "Stay back, Kendra."

Then, I jumped forward, heading straight towards the youngest boy. I wanted dearly to knock a tooth out of his smirk.

But with more numbers comes more problems. Before I could land a punch, Jordan had come rushing out of the foliage, his hands up in the air. He shouted at me as sweat trailed down his small face, "Stop, Eleftherion! We're going to help them!"

My hands stopped almost like an impulse, and I frowned at him. My momentary loss of focus, however, awarded me with a good long kiss with the bare soil. The youngest boy of the seniors had successfully tackled me down against the ground, his knee pushing hard against my back.

I looked up at Jordan, searching for answers from his pale face. While he kept silent, I still came to know the reason for his sudden words when Charles was pushed out into our clearing, a wild, furious look on his face. During his struggle against two robed figures, he noticed me on the ground. He then did a royally ignoble act. He spat at Jordan. Charles then screamed, "You nasty traitor!"

Jordan, however, only cowered even lower, bumbling out words like "For your own good" and "Your Highness will pass the test with this".

Once again, I cursed into the ground and accepted my fate.

~~

Apparently, Jordan had betrayed them right on the first day.

While everyone was resting or talking or whatever inside the cave, and while he was watching over the sleeping form of Telken, he also found it in himself to have a secret conversation with him. Telken probably saw how much the boy admired the crown prince, and probably used that to lure him in.

Later on, I soon realized that Telken had promised to bring in Charles into their group and allow him to pass, as long as Jordan would act as the connection between Telken's groups and ours. Because apparently, Jordan didn't only know how to force sleep on a living being, but also knew how to manipulate and enter someone else's dreams.

So, just like that, he had already told the seniors about the treasure map on the first night and had constantly informed them about our whereabouts.

Originally, their deal was to wait until our groups had met up and they would take Charles and him with them to take the treasure. But they suddenly found a problem. They couldn't open the vaults to the treasure at all.

So now, here we were, herded around while 10 robed upperclassmen stood on our sides. I muttered at Jordan, who had his hands free and untied. "You know, if the vaults weren't locked, they wouldn't have held up their end of your little deal. They would have taken the treasure with or without you."

The girlish boy looked at me with a glare. "I keep telling you, it's not about me. If it weren't for the prince, they wouldn't have agreed either. If they let the crown prince pass, they will surely be in good graces with the prince. That's why they agreed to the deal."

I rolled my eyes, but didn't say anything back. This prince fanatic had too much of a warped view of the world. Inside the Academy, things like royalty still mattered, but not to the point where they would be placed in the highest regard.

Instead, after a long time, I whispered at him. "Charles will hate you now."

The boy blanched out in shock, his eyes displaying panic, knowing deep down that my words held truth. "H-He wouldn't! I did him a great favor! A-And how dare you call him by his name, you mere peasant!"

I glared at him. "I was born a noble, and noble blood still runs through my veins. Besides, stupid classes like that don't matter to me. I can call the prince whatever I like. After all, we're friends."

I bathed in his furious glares as I continued to march onwards, trying to ignore the tightly tied ropes made of flexible plants on my wrists. The senior I had punched earlier took it upon himself to tie my hands himself, making sure that it was knotted up more than firmly and rubbed most uncomfortably against my skin.

After hours of walking, the sun already started to show signs of waking. Adrenaline was the only thing that kept we going. To stave of some boredom, I looked around me. Ten seniors. Some of which I recalled as members of Telken's group. The smiling teenager was nowhere to be seen however. When I had imprinted all of their faces into my mind, I then observed my teammates. In front of me was Kendra and Albert, their faces pale and backs bent. I bet they felt far more tired than I did. After all, we barely had any sleep at all from the start of the test, and what little food we ate we could only gather around our surroundings. We were all tired, sleepy, and hungry.

Beside me was the strutting Jordan, his chin still up. Fighting the urge to spite him again, I looked away. Behind me was the crown prince. For the past few hours, he said not a single thing, and he looked at everything without a single bit of expression. It worried me, because knowing him, he was probably blaming himself for the things that happened. It was utter balderdash, but I also understood him. Even as a mere princess, I often found myself feeling responsible for the bad things that happened around me.

Sighing, I could only march onwards with quiet determination. The only hope in the almost hopeless situation was one thing. Well, one person, to be honest.

Joren.

Joren and the map managed not to be caught during the assault. Charles probably used a lot of magic to give him time to run away, hence his utterly tired-looking self. If we were to fight right now, I knew that I'll be the only one who could even manage to do any damage. That's why I kept gathering notes within me during the long journey, gathering my strength.

By the time we had arrived at the destination, I was still tired, but artificially energized by magic. It probably wasn't healthy to rely so much on notes, but I had no choice.

Besides, at our arrival, I felt the need to unleash some deadly magics.

Telken was smiling yet again, sitting on a nearby rock with his legs crossed pompously. He held his hands wide open, just like the first time he had cornered me and Albert. "Welcome again! It seems like we're always meeting each other with one side having their hands tied up."