The registration form required a team representative, an equipment declaration, and confirmation that none of us intended to bring a privately owned monster.
I paused over the last item.
"That must have happened."
Clara pulled the form toward herself. "Don't get ideas."
"I don't own a monster."
"Good. You can tick the box."
Tomas leaned over her shoulder while she checked our details. We stood outside the assessment office, surrounded by students arguing over team arrangements. Across the corridor, an attendant was replacing a notice announcing a guest lecture with one announcing its postponement.
Someone behind us complained. The attendant explained that the lecturer had been recalled to Crown service for border-survey work, then returned to her desk before the boy could make that her problem.
Clara tapped the form. "Representative?"
Tomas and I looked at her.
She looked back.
"What?"
"You've read the requirements," I said.
"So have you."
"Most of them."
Tomas pointed toward her notes. "You copied the briefing time."
Clara opened her mouth, closed it, and wrote her name with slightly more pressure than necessary.
"If either of you forgets something, I'm not doing it for you."
That seemed fair. I intended to remember almost everything.
Registration gave us access to the practice grounds and a preliminary course supervised by an assistant instructor named Marris. He met us beside a fenced section of woodland behind the training halls, carrying a ledger and a battered wooden box.
"Retrieve the marked cylinder from the far station and return," he explained. "Remain within the boundaries. Route penalties are indicated by red flags, which will rise if you trigger them. Some hazards can be bypassed, others managed."
He opened the box. Inside lay a wooden cylinder fitted with a small glass vial.
"Your objective must arrive intact."
Clara bent closer. "What's in it?"
"Colored water."
"And if it breaks?"
"You'll know."
Marris handed us a map showing the boundaries, our starting point, and the objective station. Everything between them remained blank.
"Your score considers time, penalties, and the condition of your team and objective. You may practice twice today."
I studied the trees. No monsters, no collapsing quarry, no anonymous warnings.
A civilized afternoon.
Tomas adjusted his pack while Clara examined the first stretch of path.
"We should stay together," she said.
"Agreed."
Then Marris gave the signal, and we started.
For the first few minutes, everything went well. Clara found a thin cord stretched across the path, and Tomas held a branch aside while we stepped over it. I spotted movement behind a screen before a padded pendulum swung into our route.
We waited for it to pass, crossed, and continued.
The objective station appeared sooner than expected, visible through a gap between two wooden partitions. The direct approach narrowed between them, but the ground looked clear. Beyond it stood a waist-high post with a red-painted cylinder resting on top.
"There," I said.
Clara raised a hand. "Wait. There might be something near the—"
I had already seen the pale line beside the entrance. A trigger cord, angled toward the right-hand partition. Easy enough to avoid.
"Go left of it."
I stepped through.
Something clicked beneath my boot.
A red flag snapped up above the partition, followed by a sharp wooden clatter. A padded arm swung across the gap behind me.
Tomas jerked back. His half-formed barrier flickered and vanished.
Clara stopped on the other side.
"Ground," she finished.
I looked down. A narrow pressure board blended remarkably well with the surrounding dirt.
That was irritating.
We reached the objective by a longer route around the partition. I picked up the cylinder, checked the vial, and held it upright while Tomas studied a shallow drainage cut between us and the return path.
"I can brace that edge," he said.
"There's a crossing farther up."
I had spotted two planks laid over the cut. One sagged slightly, but the other appeared sound. Crossing there would save Tomas the mana and regain some of the time we had lost.
I headed toward it.
Behind me, Clara said my name.
I turned while stepping onto the plank.
It rolled.
Not much. Just enough to send my ankle sideways and force a quick correction. I caught the cylinder against my chest, heard a small crack, and felt something cool seep through my fingers.
Blue water dripped onto my shirt.
Across the drainage cut, another red flag rose.
For several seconds, nobody said anything.
Then Tomas set his pack down.
"I said wait," Clara told me.
"You said there might be something."
"Yes. That means wait while I look."
"I saw the cord."
"I wasn't looking at the cord!"
I glanced toward the partition. From here, the pressure board was completely hidden. A good design. Annoyingly good.
"The route looked clear," I said.
Clara stared at me.
Tomas rubbed the bridge of his nose. "And I can't keep moving everything because you've already gone."
"I was trying to save you the casting."
"I'd already started."
That stopped me.
He gestured toward the cut. "I had a place picked. Then you left, so I dropped it. Before that, I was placing cover behind you when the arm came out."
"I didn't need cover."
"You didn't tell me that."
Clara folded her arms. "You didn't tell either of us much."
I looked at the cylinder in my hand. Blue water continued its steady escape through the cracked vial.
Several explanations presented themselves. I had been moving quickly because the exercise was timed. Both routes had seemed manageable. Neither mistake would have mattered much without an especially fragile piece of glass.
None improved the expression on Tomas's face.
"All right," I said. "I got ahead of you."
"Yes," Clara replied immediately.
Marris recorded our time, counted three penalties, and examined the leaking cylinder without comment. He gave us a replacement vial and told us the second route would be reset while we rested.
We sat beneath a tree beside the equipment shed. I drank some water, then studied the blue stain spreading across my shirt.
Clara noticed.
"It suits you."
"I was hoping nobody would mention it."
"That was unlikely."
Tomas smiled, though he still looked frustrated. I put the flask down.
"I'm used to making certain decisions quickly."
"We know," he said.
"That doesn't help if you don't know what I'm doing."
"No."
A sensible admission ought to have felt more dignified.
Instead, I felt like someone discovering he had been speaking through an entire conversation without allowing answers.
Clara picked a leaf off her sleeve. "If something's attacking us, I'm not asking you to stop and discuss it. But if I'm checking a path, let me check."
"And if I'm placing something," Tomas added, "ask before you move."
I nodded. "Immediate threats, I'll call. Routes, Clara. Defensive positions, Tomas."
"What if someone sees something the others don't?" she asked.
"Anyone can stop us."
Tomas looked toward the course. "Even if we're running out of time?"
"Especially then," I said.
The second route began badly enough to test that agreement almost immediately.
Clara stopped beside a low stretch of brush and crouched. I could see clear ground beyond it and a tempting shortcut toward a wooden marker.
I waited.
She leaned farther left, then stood.
"Long way."
"Why?" Tomas asked.
"The leaves don't match."
I looked again. Cut branches covered a shallow depression. Once she pointed it out, the arrangement seemed embarrassingly obvious.
We took the longer path.
At the drainage cut, Tomas chose a firm section and placed a small barrier beneath the loose edge. He asked us to cross separately. Clara went first, carrying the objective cylinder upright in both hands.
I followed when Tomas nodded.
Nothing broke. No flags appeared.
The absence of catastrophe was becoming quite pleasant.
Near the final turn, I saw the top of a padded striker shift behind a screen.
"Threat ahead. Left side."
Clara stopped. Tomas moved beside a post and raised a narrow barrier at an angle.
"Ready," he said.
I advanced until the striker released.
It struck the barrier, slid across its face, and swung harmlessly away. Tomas dismissed the shield once we were past.
We reached the finish without hurrying the final stretch. Clara placed the cylinder on Marris's table, where its unbroken vial caught the afternoon light.
He checked his ledger.
"Slower. No penalties."
Tomas leaned forward. "How much slower?"
"Less than the penalty time added to your first run."
Clara looked at me.
I inspected my blue shirt.
"Yes," I said. "I noticed."
Marris handed back our course sheet with several brief notes. Clara read them aloud while Tomas collected his pack. Our navigation needed work, our communication had improved, and our object handling had received a substantially kinder assessment the second time.
"Another session tomorrow?" Clara asked.
"I have terrain instruction," I said.
Tomas looked up. "That might help."
She laughed before I could answer.
I considered defending myself, then looked at the intact cylinder waiting for the next team. Most of the second course had felt slower while we were doing it. I had spent more time standing still, asking questions, and watching my friends work.
I had also spent considerably less time rescuing the afternoon from my own decisions.
"After terrain instruction," I said.
Clara took out her pencil and wrote it down. Tomas was already explaining a different barrier placement he wanted to try.
This time, I let him finish.