Transmutation: The Garden of Golden Statues

Encounters That Take Your Breath Away

A tense mood reigned over the Azure Dragon Forest. Nearly a hundred elementals had gone into the forest as their first step in making their dreams and ambitions come true. Half of them, however, would return home empty-handed. In a matter of minutes, every participant was in different areas of the dark woods, in search of the totems that would allow them to be one step closer towards classifying for the tournament. Most elementals went their own way, but others formed teams.

Such was the case of Espika and Finster.

Both elementals rushed into the forest, without a specific plan to get their two required totems. They had only 120 minutes to do so, and while their combat skills were decent, this would prove pointless if somebody else got to the totems first and hid them. The most important thing was to be quick about it.

"How do we start with this, Espi?" Finster asked his sister while both of them were running through a section of the forest slightly lit up by a few rays of light.

"Your portals could give us some advantage. We should look around caves and in the bigger holes of trees, they seem to be the most obvious hiding spots for them."

As a shadow-bound elemental, Finster had several special abilities at his disposal. He could vanish in the shadows and reappear wherever he wanted as long as his emerging location was close enough and there were shadows around. A technique often used by Finster was the so-called creation of 'shadow portals', through which he could warp to any point in his field of vision. An additional utility to these portals involved Finster taking anybody holding on to him through them; both siblings used this technique to travel fast or catch opponents off-guard, as they used to do in their Combat classes.

"Leave it up to me," Finster nodded and smiled confidently, stopping in his tracks. "Wherever you wish, that's where we'll be. Oh! Look at the rhyme!" Finster clapped in amusement, proud of his unintentional rhyme. Espika giggled at that, her brother always knew how to lighten up a situation as tense as the one they were in.

"There's a waterfall over there," Espika pointed to her left, where a small waterfall could be seen from a distance, almost hidden among the trees. "Probably there's a totem in there."

"Alrighty, the Finster Express is departing towards the Mysterious Waterfall. All onboard!" Finster declared with a jolly tone of voice. His right hand started channeling his moles, the name given to the energy elementals had in their bodies. through which their elements could be used. A portal as dark as the night sky formed in front of Finster's hand. Said portal was big enough to allow any person passage through it.

Lastly, he extended his left hand towards Espika, who held it as she tended to do. Finster went through the dark gateway, taking his sister through it. Both siblings disappeared inside the portal, which faded away instantly.

In a farther region of the Azure Dragon Forest, Kerket made her way through the darkest sections of the foliage. Once in a while, she stopped in her tracks to look inside hollow trees or in places she thought a totem could have been placed, to no avail. She had to admit that the place was quite interesting, she had never been in a forest as big as this one in her entire life. After all, Qilin City lacked any sorts of woods and the region she was born in did not have that many, at least none as immense as this one.

She kept a watchful eye on her surroundings, paying close attention in case any other contestant could have a surprise attack in store. At this point, she was more than capable of reacting on time against any problem or threat; nevertheless, she would rather avoid any unneeded conflict if it was possible. She kept her guard up as she jumped out of the tree-covered area to a clearing, momentarily distracted as she pondered where she could go.