Solstice opened his eyes slowly and stared blankly at the open sky, not bothering to get up just yet. It was a bit warmer than the day before, making it a bit uncomfortable for him so he woke up, but in the end he closed his eyes once more as he didn't hear any commotion, it was likely that the knights weren't up and running again just yet either.
Solstice hadn't really given it much thought but, how much did he really know of the Wyrd?
He had acquired a few years of education, although he only remembered some of the rudimentary things taught at a younger age. He only attended the city academy for a few years as a young child after all and was relatively uninterested in the subject, before he ultimately was forced to stop attending due to his false indictment.
The Wyrd was an unnatural force that descended upon the world many years ago, causing havoc. People's sanity began to waver and undergo oppressive changes due to the maddening effect the Wyrd had on everything it violated.
There was little humans could do until the 1st generation bested their own Chain Trials and emerged with unworldly abilities.
Even then, the amount of people who struggled and failed ended up becoming bridges for the Wyrd to enter and spread its evil chains of fate, bestowing fates on other unsuspecting victims while simultaneously releasing its beings to ravage the untainted world, was immense.
While the majority of the Wyrd is still vastly unexplored and its truths still hidden, some discoveries were made.
The Wyrd was found to be constructed of memories….corrupted ones by many peoples all congealed together in an amalgamated mess. Who were these other people? How did they come into contact with the Wyrd? Where are they now? What turned that amalgamation of memories into a seemingly omnipresent being? What is the true origin of the Wyrd?
These corrupted memories are the landscape, the heart and soul of the Wyrd. The Chain Trials are suspected to be handpicked by the Wyrd itself, its selections and reasonings aren't really understood either, if it was ever intended for the Wyrd to be understood in the first place.
All of these questions have yet to be answered, or at least the answers aren't generally publicised, and will probably never be due to the probability of the truths causing mass fear to the general population, which would in turn strengthen the Wyrd, it feeds of hysteria and insanity.
This knowledge of the Wyrd while being good, really was too basic to be of any help for Solstice when it comes to overcoming this Chain Trial.
'I wonder if I can really do this'. Solstice dreaded the upcoming obstacles he would have to face.
A gust of wind played with his hair as he continued to lay on the grass and glided over the rigid landscape of his ribs. Solstice seriously thought of continuing to lay there, shut his eyes, and go to sleep for forever, however there was something that was confusing him.
It was the smell of burnt meat being carried by the same wind that washed over him only a moment ago. Normally, this wouldn't be that much of a concern, as it was normal to have meat for breakfast, but this smell combined with something else. It was extremely hot, it was already hot before but now it was pretty unbearable.
Solstice sat up quickly and got to his feet. Shaking his head awake, his messy dirty blonde hair flailing around, he scanned around to pinpoint the cause of the burnt smell.
Strangely enough, he felt as if something was piercing every pore of his body, disregarding his muscles and bones meant to protect his soft organs and somehow even deeper than that, to his very being. He felt as if there would be absolutely nothing he could do to stop it and whatever it would do to him.
'What….I….'. The dreadful feeling of absolute powerlessness seized his body and he froze standing. Solstice's eyes began to dilate, and tremors were clearly visible rampaging his body.
'I can be torn apart at any moment'. Stuck in place due to fear, he could not move his head, yet Solstice's eyes darted around to find the source that was causing this feeling. It only took him a short moment of frantic looking before he laid his eyes on the source.
It was the red sun.
It had just risen to start the day but nevertheless, Solstice noticed the change of appearance the star underwent just as it had begun to revert to only being a star. In the split second of that change, Solstice saw….an eye.
There was a large eye on the sun that had been open only a moment ago. When it shut closed, all you could see was the sun, it was as normal as any other star with the exception of it being red. However, that was an experience Solstice would never forget. It was the feeling of utter dread, and pure powerlessness.
There was a sudden pain in Solstice's heart. It was not a pain in the physical sense, although it was powerful enough that it felt like his heart was being constricted making it strenuous to breathe.
It was the pain of despair.
Solstice lost the strength in his legs so he crumbled to the ground, falling onto his knees. His forehead dug into the dirt as he clutched his heart with his only arm. Beads of sweat trickled down his face and bare chest. Solstice started to become lightheaded as he had started hyperventilating.
'I'm going to die here.' Solstice tried wiping the thought of his death away but it was hard to disregard it.
What was he supposed to do in the Chain Trial? What kind of fate did the Wyrd assign onto him? How was he meant to come out on top of this, with absolutely no knowledge of his gift? These questions came and went in Solstice's mind, only to be replaced with more troubling questions and thoughts.
Forcing himself to sit up on his knees, still hyperventilating, he grasped his long hair and pulled. He pulled, pulled and continued to pull it, tearing strands of it off his head.
'I want to live'. The mental breakdown was brief, as Solstice picked up on the sound of approaching footsteps.
Shifting slightly to turn his head behind him, he found himself looking at the stoic ginger knight that had berated him the other day with sullen eyes. The ginger knight unsheathed his longsword and aligned its blade across Solstice's throat. "What the hell! You didn't warn us!".
Solstice's mind was everywhere at this point. It was too hard to focus on any one thing, it didn't help that he could feel tears building up in his eyes. The ginger knight shouted. "Look! Look at what your neglect to do the one thing we ask of you to do has done!"
Thoughts still hazy, eyesight still muddy, Solstice took a look around. The sight he took in was horrid with a smell accompanying the view just as terrible.
It was what was left of the victims that suffered the wrath of the red sun's piercing gaze. They were almost completely incinerated, with only burnt remnant pieces of their body left that ultimately melded together with the melted steel armaments.
How can such a large group of people be incinerated just like that? The smell of cooked human flesh filled the air, pairing this with the scene in front of him, Solstice could not hold back the vomit that shot out of his stomach and throat.
The ginger knight moved his blade out of the way just in time so as to not be touched by Solstice's vomit. Solstice continued to cough and vomit, he didn't know if he was still dreaming and just having a terrible nightmare or if this was his new reality that he would have to persevere through. 'This is a lot worse than I thought it would be'.
Wiping his lips clean with the back of his hand, still tasting the vomit on his tongue, looking back up to the ginger knight he spoke. "This is terrible"
The ginger knight's lips twitched in irritation but he did not lash out yet and continued to let Solstice speak.
'This guy really is itching to hurt me, apparently I was meant to sense this in advance, but I don't know how to do that.' Solstice resolved himself to finally speak again.
"I swear on my life this won't happen again, to be truthful with you I'm not sure what exactly is needed from me to do. Really, I have forgotten….". Solstice stopped talking because the air around the ginger knight changed. He was furious. There was silence except for the subtle sound of the wind and the rustle of leaves from the trees. Then the silence was broken as a weighted footstep was made.
It came fast.
Solstice was not able to defend himself in time and a fist clad in a metal gauntlet struck his temple. Solstice's eyes rolled back as his head was turned violently from the powerful blow and he began to gradually lose consciousness, his body falling forward toward the ground over top where he previously vomited.
'Unfair…'. Solstice unable to gather his thoughts well as he struggled to hold onto himself to prevent going unconscious.
From a distance the scene of the ginger knight striking Solstice was seen by the rest of the convoy. The knight turned around and began to walk back to his fellows with heavy steps. The ginger knight stopped right before the convoy. "The Drifter deliberately did this! We need to rethink our plans to go through this path successfully without losing our lives."
"What the hell do you mean the Drifter betrayed us?" a knight yelled.
The ginger knight turned to face the knight that asked the question. "It is what I say! The Drifter claims that he has somehow forgotten how to sense the signs of the Red Sun's befalling gaze. As you all know, that is impossible! If his plan was to have us all die than we're better left without him, we should leave him to the behest of the forest's will and continue on with a new strategy"
Silence fell over the entire convoy. It only lasted a moment however, one of the 4 powerful knights especially assigned to guarding the nobility inside the palanquin, the one wielding the flail, spoke. "If the Drifter truly is of no help to us then we're all dead if we continue to rest anymore. We must make haste. We no longer will be making any stoppages with the exception when the Red Sun's gaze befalls us. As for what we do with the Drifter, leave him, he will be at the mercy of the forest, alone."
One of the knights towards the rear of the convoy voiced their concern. "Then what are we going to do? It's no longer in our best interest to walk the path, the Drifter….we no longer have a way to tell when the Red Sun is beginning to open its eye and prepare for its gaze."
The knight who wields the flail turned around to face the speaker. "Then we do something risky, we no longer have a choice anymore really. We will abandon the path and travel fully on foot through the forest. It's either we face the sun or the forest's will ourselves. I'd say we'd have a higher survival rate facing the dwellers and stay hidden from the Red Sun through the protection of the trees at this point. In any case, we will keep Lady Eryn safe, we must make sure she reaches the Bright Castle soon"
The convoy's morale at this point was low.
The Red Sun was certainly a harrowing entity but the same could be said about the forest and its inhabitants. The prospect of having to tread its depths was definitely not what you would call "promising", however the trees provided shade and perfect hiding spots from the Red Sun's view. That did not make the forest any less deadly though….
It was really a "pick your poison" or "choose the way you wish to die" type of situation. Drifters had an ability that allowed them to detect when the Red Sun would open its eye, but Solstice had no clue what his gift was and how to feel for it and awaken it. So now, the knights and the person of their protection, Lady Eryn, were now subject to whatever beings the forest wanted to throw at them.
The beings that dwelled within the forest were certainly not very welcoming to uninvited guests, especially if they were not monsters like themselves. Oh, but that's a problem the knights will have to deal with for the rest of their journey to the Bright Castle.
Unfortunately for Solstice, that is also something he will have to tread through himself to beat this trial.