Ivy Strongwill and The Silent Sorcermaster

Chapter Five - The Test

The atmosphere was still, dark and foggy as the giant trees ahead blocked the wind and most of the sunlight, towering over the small children in a threatening way. Ivy remembered all kinds of gloomy places from her grandparents' stories. There, the heroes had to overcome forests just like the one surrounding her, except that those forests were alive and full of intricate mazes where all sorts of hostile creatures imagined and brought into existence by the will and evil minds of their creators roamed free.

She thought of this first test as the beginning of her own long journey to discovering her true inner potential and power. As for the dangers that lay ahead, she and her friends didn't need the childhood fairy tales to remind them to be careful, that someone or something could be hiding behind any tree at all times. Unsettling noises reached their ears as they scurried past dense and vividly coloured vegetation, towards where they believed the White Citadel to be.

"And...action!" said Liam, as a sound, probably coming from some sort of a blast, echoed from a hardly discernible direction.

"...and reaction," he finished, after the first noise was followed by an even louder shriek that pierced the thick mountain air.

"It's coming from there," said Amanda, pointing to their left, where a dark blue fire surrounded an isolated brush of dead trees.

"Then, I suppose we should keep moving forward," concluded Ivy, "this way, we'll leave them behind and we can go unnoticed". She cautiously looked over her shoulder and was relieved to see that at least no one and nothing was following them.

By the looks of it, all three of them were trying to keep serious and step as lightly as possible, while avoiding tripping on the massive and swirled tree roots surfacing beneath the rotting layers of fallen leaves.

Ivy heard somebody pleading "Time out, time out!" in the distance. The voice didn't seem to be moving, so she imagined someone on the ground, with their hands defensively raised in front of them. Still, she continued moving, trying not to focus on the disturbance, and noticed the twins were doing the exact same. Shrieking sounds and blasts mixed with short exclamations and unfinished words suggested that some kind of confrontation was taking place not so far away from them.

"No, no, no! You are not allowed to hit a downed opponent!" a boy's voice finally said, and everybody found it amusing. The twins burst into laughter, and even Ivy allowed herself to chuckle. For a moment, the ridiculousness of the situation overpowered the fear of failure constantly dwelling at the back of her mind.

"I tried to be serious for once," Liam said, "but this is a tad too much."

The child kept squeaking in the distance, as his voice became comically high pitched and funny.

"I wouldn't want to be in his place, poor child," said Amanda, a smile relaxing her tensed features.

The more they advanced into the forest, the more difficult the terrain became. They slid down a slippery slope into a ravine, sank their feet into the mud, struggled back up on the other side, left behind what seemed like the circular entrance to some sort of giant creature's den, not eager to meet what might have been lurking inside, and climbed over a fallen tree whose very much alive boughs unsuccessfully attempted to catch their feet and drag them down. Luckily, the group was fast and agile enough to get away from the impending danger unharmed.

I wonder when they are going to come after us, thought Ivy, as she struggled to make it on top of the fallen tree trunk, while holding on to one of its now limp boughs. Going around would've taken too much time, and they didn't have any to spare. No way they forgot about us.