Dav gave Sophia a tighter squeeze, then let go. He scooped up his pack, then headed over to the fluffball sprawled on the ground. “How did it go? Did you get what you wanted?”

  “I haven’t checked,” Taika admitted. He sounded tired, but not as tired as he was clearly pretending to be. He didn’t even lift his head to look at Dav. “Eh. Call the Clouds looks pretty useless. Why would I need to cover an area in clouds?”

  That sounded an awful lot like a fog bank to Sophia. She could come up with uses for it, but her first reaction was similar to Taika’s; how would it be better than the illusions he could already cast? Did it have some sound dampening capability, maybe?

  Even if it did, was it worth an Ability slot?

  “If we had Dust here, I’d have a very good answer to that,” Dav answered immediately. “Dust doesn’t do well when it’s that wet. Here, though? I’m not sure.”

  “If you save a few Wisps, you can open a slot for it and drop it in if you really need it,” Amy offered. “That can get expensive, but sometimes it’s worth it. A lot of people save some Wisps for Abilities they don’t need often enough to dedicate a slot.”

  Sophia wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It was true that removing an Ability from its slot to put a new one in was a lot cheaper than buying a new slot, and it seemed likely that would only become more true as they leveled. It still felt weird to think about having Abilities she couldn’t use without paying a permanent cost.

  “The other one is better,” Taika continued. He seemed to think Amy’s suggestion didn’t need a response. “Veil of Sun and Shadow is sort of like Invisible Ink, except that it works on spirits. It says it works by drawing a veil in front of their eyes. Maybe that’s more like the clouds after all? I still don’t think it’s worth taking right now.”

  Amy’s voice spoke in Sophia’s mind instead of her ears. Sophia was certain she was talking to Taika, but they all could hear when she spoke through Dav’s telepathy. “If it’s an Ability Fragment, you probably should find a slot for it, but we can talk about why when we have more time. Please don’t say anything more about it right now. Larryt should have expected you to gain different Abilities but the less he knows, the more I can trade the knowledge for when we get back to the hunting camp.”

  Sophia stopped paying attention at that point; they’d already talked about keeping Larryt out of the loop for now. Amy could fill Taika in. Sophia had a far more important question on her mind: if Taika was awarded three Abilities, one from each of the first two pillars and one from the three pillars combined, could Sophia gain more Abilities that way as well? Would they be Spell Fragments for the Grand Spell or something else?

  Sophia started to build the spell that was the first pillar, the pillar of Mist in the Sun, but she was less than halfway through it when Si’a interrupted.

  “Spring is nearly over. Come, walk with me.” The spirit walked to the edge of the platform, then stepped off onto a stone path partially covered in grass that Sophia would have sworn wasn’t there a moment earlier. “Stay on the path; so long as you do, the spirits of Spring will not bother you.”

  “Hurry.” Larryt had a concerned frown on his face as he spoke. “When the guide says to follow her, she means now.” He gestured towards the path.

  Sophia sighed and tried to continue to build the spell white she walked. It wasn’t easy, but it was something she’d practiced in the past. She’d always hated those lessons, too, especially when one of her siblings was the “distraction.” They never tried to hurt her, but they knew exactly how to get her attention away from what she was supposed to be doing.

  The only good thing about it was that she could walk and cast at the same time. It was slow, but that was still better than letting the spellform fall apart and having to start over.

  Si’a stopped as they came around a bend and waved for them to go ahead of her. “You must lead; I shall follow. Follow the path. Do not stray from it.”

  Sophia looked ahead. The uneven stone path led between trees, flowers, and more than a few rocks directly into a pool of water. She could see some rocks in the water, but she couldn’t see if the path continued through them or not. Not far past there, a waterfall blocked any chance she had to see farther. Was that a deep pool of water or was it an optical illusion?

  Normally, she’d bet on a deep pool of water under a waterfall, but this was a Challenge. The rules here might be different.

  Dav led the way, carrying Taika in his backpack. Amy was close behind him, and Sophia couldn’t let them get too far in front of her. She glanced back and saw that Larryt was a bit more distant, with Si’a not far behind him.

  Sophia tried to split her attention between keeping her footing and the spell she was trying to cast. It was so close that she knew she could finish it if she just had a moment!

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Sophia stepped into water at the same moment that she finally finished the pillar. It stabilized slightly, but she didn’t really have time to think about it. She picked places to tie together based more on location and convenience than anything else and swore to herself that the next time she tried this, it would be after she took apart the spell and figured out what all the bits did and how they worked together.

  She could still see Amy’s boots walking through the water ahead of her, so she followed as best she could while she completed the spellform. It hung there in front of her for a long moment, then seemed to flash brightly. Sophia blinked, but realized it didn’t help. The brightness wasn’t in her eyes; it was something else she was seeing.

  She shook her head quickly and glanced around. It was really too bright to see, but she could almost make out small shapes packed closely together watching them, off the path but not by much.

  A moment later, it was gone, faded away like a morning mist.

  Suddenly, the sign above the first pillar made sense: it said Mist in the Sun, and it was talking about the spell she’d just sort of cast. It was a flash of brilliance too bright to see that vanished almost immediately. While it lasted, she was pretty sure she’d seen all of the spirits that surrounded them.

  It was nearly useless, and the Guide seemed to agree. There was no message from it about a Feat or a spell learned. At the same time, she’d definitely learned something. The descriptions above the pillars were what the spell on each pillar did on its own. They were all meant to work together, but a spell always did something. It might not be what the caster intended, but you couldn’t put that much energy somewhere and not expect something to happen. The descriptions were not very helpful, but at least they were something.

  Sophia didn’t want to even glance at the “sun” again.

  Water hit her in the face, which made Sophia finally look up. She was almost under the waterfall; water had splashed off Amy and hit Sophia. Dav was somewhere ahead of them both. The water was barely above her ankles, which was kind of odd, but no odder than the fact that the path was smooth and didn’t seem worn by the water at all. It was a little slick, but that was why she had good boots. They shouldn’t slip.

  Sophia took a deep breath and stepped forward, following Amy. She still couldn’t see the curtain of falling water.

  It was cold and wet and got everywhere, but it was also only two steps wide. When she no longer felt the pounding rain above her, Sophia opened her eyes. Weirdly, even though she still heard the waterfall behind her, there was no sign of it or of the cave she’d guessed had to be there. Instead, the path continued a little ways forward and became a stream.

  When she looked back, all she saw was the same stream.

  Sophia shook her head at the impossibility. It was clearly Challenge weirdness; dungeons back home did the same thing sometimes and it wasn’t worth worrying about. At least the weather was warm enough; she’d dry out soon. It might even be warm enough that she’d welcome the cool of the water once they started moving.

  What mattered now was what lay ahead of them, not what was behind them. The stream in front of Sophia and her friends looked fairly shallow as it meandered into the distance, with some white areas where it ran over rocks. The ground rose slowly to either side, covered in grass and flowers and trees. It looked pretty similar to the earlier landscape, as far as Sophia was concerned. Maybe this was supposed to be summer in a place where there wasn’t that much of a difference between early summer and late spring.

  “We are all here. Good.” Si’a smiled at them, but didn’t explain why they might not have all made it through the waterfall.

  Sophia decided not to ask. She was pretty sure she didn’t want to know, at least not while she was still in the Challenge. No one else asked, either.

  “As Spring is a test of care and of choices, Summer is a test of preparation and determination. Water is of utmost importance in the woods, and carries great meaning to a spirit. Summer is a time of abundance, so we shall follow the water.” Si’a didn’t wait for them; she walked around the group and continued onwards without leaving the stream.

  Sophia sighed. She was already very wet, but there wasn’t much water in her boots. She was pretty sure that was going to change.

  “Larryt? What is she talking about?” Dav sounded puzzled.

  “Who knows?” Larryt shrugged. “The spirit guides say things like that sometimes. If it’s a clue, nobody knows what it means.”

  Sophia shook her head before Dav could ask her as well. “I’ve got nothing. Maybe it will be clearer when we see what she wants us to do other than walk through water? Hah.” Sophia chuckled as an odd thought occurred to her. “Well, maybe I have one thing. She said it’s a test of preparation, and I can safely say that I’m really, really glad I have dry socks in my pack.”

  Amy’s eyes widened in horror and she pulled her pack off to check it quickly. A moment later, she let out a sigh of relief after a quick peek inside the biggest pocket. “Looks like we weren’t in the water long enough. The pack’s made to deal with rain, but that was … pretty severe.”

  Sophia thought that calling the waterfall a pretty severe rain shower was understating things, but at least it was straight down. It would have been worse if it fell sideways. It really was too bad that she hadn’t had an umbrella, but really, who carried an umbrella that could stand up to a waterfall on a delve?

  Sophia knew better than to ask that out loud. She’d seen what some people kept in their packs. An umbrella just wasn’t one of the things she had in hers.

  “I’m dry, too,” Taika’s voice came from somewhere inside Dav’s pack. He must have hidden and pulled the cover over himself, the way he sometimes did when he wanted to sleep. “Probably drier than any of you. Aren’t you supposed to be walking?”

  “Oh yes, your dry comfortable fuzziness,” Dav said with a wry smile. “Your steed shall start moving. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to walk on your own? Perhaps after a nice swim to cool down?”

  Sophia knew that Dav didn’t actually mind; Taika wasn’t a burden to him and Taika walked far slower than any of the rest of them. She also knew that he was completely not above dumping Taika in the stream if he got too uppity about being carried.

  “No, no, that’s fine! I’m happy being dry!” Taika’s quick response said that he knew it, too.

  It probably says something that this part of the Challenge started with a shower.