Enter the Frey

Chapter 6

Upon waking Adam felt a surge of panic as he questioned where he was. It took a moment for the memories to come flooding back, and longer still for him to believe it hadn’t all been a dream.

The others were still asleep, despite the noise being made by other adventuring teams as they packed up their belongings and departed. He gently nudged Ziel, hoping it was the right thing to do and that he wouldn’t get an earful.

Ziel sat up and rubbed his eyes. When fully awake he turned and kicked the others, shocking them from their sleep. Aim and Selena shot him dirty looks, but Anrose didn’t appear to mind. Adam guessed she was used to a level of a***e worse than what Ziel dished out.

“Jack,” Ziel barked. “Pack up our stuff. I’m going to find something to eat.”

When Ziel was out of sight Adam assisted Jack in rolling up the blankets. The boy began to chat to him, asking questions about what it was like growing up as royalty.

“Look, I’m not really an elf,” Adam did his best to explain, but it didn’t deter the kid, who seemed not to comprehend what Adam was telling him. His tale about being from an alternate universe was probably a lot to take in. For all Adam knew, this world didn’t even have a science fiction or fantasy genre. Did they even have fiction books? There was so much to learn. Even thinking up the right questions to ask was proving tricky.

He did his best to ignore the young lad as he helped, but eventually got sick of repeating himself and went to talk to Selena instead. She seemed to have a decent understanding of what he was and was pleasant to converse with.

‘She’s easy on the eyes too,’ Adam thought with a degree of guilt.

He looked up, squinting into the sun to see her bounding over the hill, a pair of rabbits hanging off each arm.

“Get the fire started,” she asked nobody in particular. Anrose stuck her hand up, offering to go and fetch wood to burn.

‘I guess that hand gesture means the same thing here,’ Adam frowned. ‘How weird.’ He figured there must be some sort of cross over between the worlds.

Other campers were beginning to leave, snuffing out their fires and picking up their litter. They appeared to have burned any litter or mess, moving on to leave a black patch of land that would eventually regrow. This place didn’t have bins, and probably didn’t have any sort of landfills. It was superior in that respect.

When Ziel returned he had gathered wood but apparently not found any food. He glared angrily at Selena and accused her of stealing all the prey. Anrose added her handful of twigs to the fire and they ate. Being from a vegetarian family, it was Adams first time eating rabbit, but he wasn’t about to starve.

“This is really good,” he smiled at Selena, mouth full of food.

“Oh, act like an elf, will you?” Ziel huffed. “You would never eat this stuff. You used to cry until I let you go berry picking, which took you aaaages.”

“But… that wasn’t me,” Adam frowned.

“Right,” Ziel nodded. “I guess I shouldn’t complain about you not being prissy and annoying. Just please do try to act snobbier in front of others. We don’t want to arouse suspicion.”

“I’ll do my best,” Adam promised.

Ziel patted him on the back so hard he almost choked on a bit of meat.

“We shouldn’t fall too far behind the rest of the groups,” Aim warned.

“Right,” Ziel said as he took the clue scroll from his pocket. “First task is to save the farmers son from the burning field.”

“Sounds pretty standard,” Aim said, covering her eyes as she checked the horizon. “Smoke in that direction.”

“You know a water spell, right?” Ziel asked.

Everyone turned to look at Adam, who stopped and pointed at himself. “Me?”

“Yes, you,” Ziel huffed.

“Erm, well, you see, the thing is…” Adam fumbled.

“I can do a simple water spell,” Jack interrupted with a smile.

As the group moved toward the smoke, Jack began to fall behind. Ziel shouted at him to hurry up, and as much as Adam wanted to help him, he knew it would result in him being shouted at. It wasn’t worth incurring the wrath of their leader, whose mood could change like the weather.

“Oh dear,” Aim sighed as they approached the field. “That is quite the fire.”

She was right. Not only was the entire field ablaze, but the boy was too. Despite being engulfed in flames the boy charged up and down his field, setting fire to everything to anything he touched, unaffected by the effects of fire.

“So… can only one team complete this task?” Adam asked.

“This is simulation,” Ziel told him. “Once you enter, you are separate from the other teams.”

“Ah, it’s like virtual reality,” Adam smiled. “So… the fire can’t hurt you?”

Ziel laughed. “What gave you that idea? The simulated parts are just as dangerous as the rest of this place.”

“I told you,” Selena interrupted. “The success rate on this trial is notoriously low. And you if you fail… typically it’s because you died.”

“I’m going to keep you all alive,” Ziel insisted. “Stop worrying so much.”

Selena made a face at Adam. A face that said, “We are all doomed.”

“Let’s do this,” Ziel cried, clapping his hands together.

The heat of the flames scorched Adams skin, even at a distance. He winced, shielding his eyes from the smoke and ash billowing in their direction.

“Okay, let’s try to put the fire out,” Ziel said.

“Oh Zee, it won’t be that simple, will it?” Aim asked.

“We’ll see,” he grinned.

Jack closed his eyes and raised his hands. He moved them in and out, as if clapping in slow motion. His fingers shook and curled as sparks appeared. He continued to clasp his hands and pull them apart, and as Adam watched, he felt the drop in air pressure. The surrounding area felt thick with static charge as the ball of water between Jack’s hands grew.

Jack took a wide stance and threw the giant ball of water in the direction of the flames. Steam hissed as it burst in all directions, yet it didn’t make a dent in the flames.

“It’s too hot,” Jack shrugged.

“Okay,” Ziel sighed. “I think Aim was right. This isn’t going to be simple.”