Nora read the quest description and furrowed her brows. This challenge seemed to be a lot easier than the others, by a lot. She looked around the forest she was in; the scenery was vastly different from the other two. In the first and second trials, she had been mostly confined to an indoor space, but now she was completely out in the open.
The forest around her glistened slightly. Looking up, she noticed that it was around dusk time; the sun had already set behind some sort of horizon, leaving only indirect light to illuminate her surroundings.
'This trial is weird,' Nora felt sketched out, 'I don't like this setting, if it's anything like the library, I might be here for a while.'
Nora spread her wings, deciding to first try to fly. She didn't know what the memory fragments were supposed to look like; however, it would be easier to find them from the air.
Flying up into the air, Nora cleared the treetops, but she hadn't gone much farther than about 10 feet before she felt an invisible barrier stop her from going higher.
' Hmm, ok, so I guess they've made contingencies for my plan… that's alright, this is an acceptable height.' Nora began to scan the area for anything unusual. Off in the distance, she noticed a faint white light reflecting through the trees.
'aha! There's something.'
As she approached, she saw what looked to be a white light; she couldn't describe it as a ball of light, more like a diamond. Pieces of the space around it seemed to break away, making it look like a rift in reality.
Nora wasn't sure how to handle it, so she circled the shard for a minute before cautiously approaching it. She reached out her wing to touch it, and as her feathers got closer, the light got brighter, until it consumed the area around her. Touching the rift, the light quickly dissipated, though now she was in a completely different place.
Nora found herself transported to an empty cabin. She was standing on a table, watching an old man in a rocking chair, who was telling a story in a language Nora couldn't understand.
Standing over him was another figure, dressed in somber clothing. Each of the words coming from the old man's mouth seemed to float away towards the figure. They coagulated into a small glass bead. When the bead had condensed, the old man stopped talking, his breath slowed, and he closed his eyes. A peaceful expression on his face.
The figure turned to leave, and as he did, Nora noticed the pocket watch that hung around his neck; this was the collector. Nora watched a piece of paper fall from his figure, hopping off the table, she quickly approached the paper. She grabbed the scrap, and as she did, the vision faded, and she was back in the glass forest.
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Ding!
map pieces1/7
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'Interesting, this is a completely different mechanic than before… it seems a lot easier too, I guess they didn't expect that the creature entering the trials was going to be a bird. I have higher stats for seeing than most humans, I would bet.' Nora thought smugly.
I only need to find 7 of these; it shouldn't be that hard as long as they aren't spread out too much. I wonder what's inside this vault.' Nora's thoughts trailed off as she once again took to the skies. Searching for more map pieces.
Nora spent a little while looking around, eventually coming across a large clearing within the forest, the sides of the place were lined with more glass trees, but in this clearing there seemed to be these gorgeous flowers made of glass as well, the change of scenery was welcome for Nora, but not as welcome as the memory shard that was positioned directly in the center of the field.
Repeating the same action as before, Nora landed and approached the shard. Once again, a white light consumed her vision as she got closer. She reached out and touched the shard, and the light cleared; the scenery changed.
Nora suddenly found herself in a park, green grass and flowers everywhere, some trees in the distance. Standing in front of her, the collector, this time she was able to see his face, and across from him, a child.
The kid could have been no older than 10, dressed in some slightly dirty peasant clothes. The child was excitedly telling the collector something, and the collector held an old leatherbound notebook, seeming to write down whatever the child was telling him. As the child talked, he nodded along, listening while writing.
After a couple of moments, the child's voice slowed, the kid looked confused, tilting his head slightly before he stopped talking completely. The collector looked up, gesturing for the boy to continue, but the boy just shook his head. Nora noticed that the pocket watch around the collector's neck shuddered slightly. He waved the boy off, giving him a reassuring smile.
As the boy turned and left, the collector tore the page out of his notebook and let it blow away in the wind. The page flew up high, before floating back down right in front of Nora, the collector vanished, and as Nora picked up the paper, the rest of the scene disappeared as well.
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Ding!
Map pieces 2/7
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After the scene ended, Nora furrowed her brows 'This is really strange, they're speaking a language that I don't know, but it's different from the language that the people in the city used… I wonder what the catch is here.'
'and this collector guy, he seems weird, and not like a good person, I mean he took the last words of a dying man… and it looked like he just stole the memories of that child, I don't trust whatever is going on here' Nora contemplated, briefly entertaining the idea of just getting out of this trial, things were too suspicious for her.
Eventually, she decided to keep going; the allure of the treasure was greater than her worry about what was actually going on. She once again headed into the skies, looking for the next memory.
She found her third memory shard in a lake. This was the only substance she had seen other than glass, and whatever the ground had been made out of, it seemed to be a liquid much like water, but Nora couldn't fully trust that it was water. She circled the lake for a few minutes, debating the risks and rewards of going into the mysterious liquid.
A few circles around the lake later, she decided to simply bite the bullet and dive in. As she hit the liquid, she felt a cold rush in, much like water. She streamlined her body so she would carry her momentum as far as possible. Then, when she felt her body slow, she flapped her wings, getting closer to the shard. She didn't hesitate this time at all and headed straight towards the center of the shard.
When the lighting cleared, she saw that she was now in a bathroom of sorts, standing on a counter behind the collector. Nora watched as the collector stood in front of a mirror, facing a reflection of himself, yet, somehow, the reflection in the mirror didn't match what Nora had previously seen.
The collector seemed to notice the difference, as he furrowed his brows in worry and frustration. Looking deeper into the mirror, Nora noticed that in the reflection, on the counter that the reflection was leaning on, was a paper. Nora contemplated how to get it.
A few minutes of staring later, the collector turns to leave, clearly unsettled. Nora watched him walk out of a door off to the side and then disappear. When she turned back to the reflection, the paper had switched sides. On the same corner of the counter, there was a paper, but when Nora looked into the mirror, she couldn't see its reflection. As soon as Nora grabbed the piece of paper, the scene disappeared, but instead of finding herself in the water like where she had left off, she was now sitting on the shore of the lake.
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Ding!
Map pieces 3/7
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'Interesting, looks like I'm watching his history, him taking people's memories, now losing himself. Heh karma.' She thought smugly, 'although that does bring up some concerns that I have. It seems like all the people who had this pocketwatch before me disappeared at some point, and with no explanation. The only common denominator is the pocketwatch. If I were to take it after the trials, doesn't that mean that I'm dooming myself as well?' Nora felt worried and unsure about the intentions of the pocketwatch.
I mean, all these trials are aimed at the mind, maybe to weaken me? I'm not sure, this seems like too risky a thing, maybe I shouldn't complete the trials.' Nora thought, feeling a bit of worry creep in. 'No, I've gone too far already, I might as well see this through.'
Looking at the lake again, Nora got another idea. She gasped slightly when it came to her 'Oh my god, wait, if the pocketwatch ends up being dangerous, I can just drop it in a lake later! Oh, I'm so smart!' Nora quickly got up, filled with a determination to find the rest of the shards and get out of these trials.