The noise of the jungle permeated all around like a mad melody, the trainees all looked confused and a little scared. Shane looked at the white letter and read it.
'North east of the stage, 10 kilometers straight, oak cabin in a large opening. Good luck!'
'Huh, ten kilometers shouldn't be too hard…north east? Alrighty!' Shane looked up at the sky, trying to find where north was. 'Hmm'
"What the heck? We're starting already? There was no warning!" he heard one of his peers cry out.
"This is insane! We've had no prior training for this!" He heard another.
"Is this some sort of test?"
The crowd of trainees panicked. Some planned to retrace their steps to get back to Invictus whilst some wanted to try and track their trainees. Shane saw Veronica run in after the Instructors with conviction in her eyes, it seemed she wasn't willing to go down without a fight. Shortly after she left, he saw a tall boy with curly ebony hair calmly walk into the tangled vegetation.
The panic and confusion in the group died down quickly as their training kicked in. Now was not the time to panic, now was the time to plan and prepare. Already he could see some of his peers bravely entering the jungle in pairs, likely after talking to one another and matching their instructions with one another.
'Smart, maybe I should have done that'
Slowly, all the trainees trickled into the jungle, stone faced.
"Ack! Gosh darn it!" a high pitched, feminine voice angrily grumbled in the background.
Shane, who was just about to follow after his peers and enter the mass of trees, turned back out of curiosity. Only one soldier remained near the wooden stage. A short girl with light brown curly hair was hunched over, angrily prodding and hitting something that Shane could not see. A weird hiss broke out over the girl's frustrated mumbling.
"Stupid machine! Work damn you!"
Oddly intrigued, Shane couldn't help but walk over and find out what the unknown gremlin was so frustrated about.
"Um, are you okay?" He asked, just a few meters short of her, causing her to jump up in shock.
"WAAH!" the odd girl leapt up nearly a full meter. "You fool! Don't surprise me while I'm working!" she turned around, revealing her small face, dotted with freckles and with bright beige eyes that was currently twisted into a scowl.
Seeing her impish size, Shane held back a chuckle. "Uh, sorry? My bad, I didn't know you were working…say, what are you doing right now?" he stared at her quizzically.
Squinting at him, the girl bent down and picked up an odd looking watch. 'Wait…is that?'
"A wayfinder!" the girl puffed her chest up with pride. "I made it myself! Not that you would even know how" she smugly rubbed her nose.
"No way! You have a compass? Where did you even find the materials required!" Shane's eyes were filled with stars. "That's so cool! I thought only official scouts had one!"
A little bewildered, the girl stared at him, wide eyed. "Wha- No! This is a wayfinder, I made it myself just for situations like this! This isn't some crappy 'compass' or whatever it is that you said".
Shane just nodded at her sureness of her invention being one of a kind, bending down to take a closer look. "Can I see that for a second?"
The girl scoffed, turning it away from him. "No! I was trying to fix it, before you rudely came and surprised me" she sat down on the grass, hunched over it. "Now buzz off! I'm going to fix this thing and find my instructor…" she grumbled.
Shane pursed his lips in thought. He knew how to find north -he just needed to find some moss on some trees, as moss grows towards the north- but a compass was way more precise, and precision was key in navigating. "Could I help in some way Ms…uh, can I get your name?"
The girl turned her head begrudgingly. "Alice, Alice Kleia".
"Well Alice, can I please have a look at your letter?" Shane asked Alice.
"What? But why?" Alice looked up at Shane with a puzzled expression.
"I want to check if we have the same instructions, I saw the others do it and pair up, I was wondering if we could do the same" he answered her. "Plus, I think a compass is going to be very useful".
Alice looked at Shane suspiciously for a moment or two, scrutinizing him and looking for any dishonesty, but after not really finding anything other than the crass disinclination and frustration she felt, she sighed and let up. "You do know that the odds of us being under the same Instructor is one in a hundred right?" Alice lifted up the white paper for Shane to see.
'North east of the stage, 10 kilometers straight, oak cabin in a large opening. Good luck!'
"Are you sure about that?" Shane smugly smiled, handing her his own letter.
As Alice read, her facial expression went from humororing, to serious and then to dead pan. Reluctantly, she stood up and faced shane.
"I guess we'll be working with each other…" she put her hand forward, palm open.
"I guess so! Looking forward to it!" Shane clasped his hand in hers as they shook on it.
* * *
"By the way, how did you even get the materials to create that compass?" Shane swatted a large bug that was buzzing around him. "Because I thought that trainees weren't allowed to hoard items".
"It's a wayfinder! Not a compass!" Alice angrily corrected Shane. "And I'm not supposed to…but hey, for the sake of human development, I will break any law!".
"Any?" Shane raised his eyebrow.
"Well…not murder or anything like that, but yes! Anything!" Alice seemed proud of her conviction.
The two had been walking for a while now. Shortly after introducing themselves, with Shane's knowledge on compasses, Alice was able to fix her compas-
"Wayfinder, damn it!"
…Wayfinder…and then they were finally off into the green unknown. Currently, they were one hour in. Usually, a ten kilometer distance was nothing for the soldiers, but due to the harsh terrain of the jungle, one could get lost easily or encounter something they had to go around, making the journey a lot longer and tougher than it seemed. Just thirty minutes into the perilous trek, Shane and Alice already had to take a detour around a large river. Initially, the two wanted to cross the river, but decided not to after seeing a large shadow move under it. Smart move.
Currently, they were carefully treading on the bank of a river, making sure to not get into any complications with the wild life that were coming for a drink.
"Ugh! Why don't we just go across! We're going off the route!" Alice whined, dragging her feet.
"Come on, don't be such a baby, we're soldiers, not children" Shane reminded her. "And besides, this isn't so bad, it could be much worse". A sudden noise from the tree line made his ears perk up, causing him to outstretch his arm and hit Alice on the head accidentally.
Alice's eyes narrowed, she was going to tell Shane off for hitting her, but her eyes then widened as she saw why Shane had stopped her.
A large shadow loomed over the two, as a hulking beast emerged from the lush thickets.
It was around five meters tall with two swollen front legs, its chest muscles were bursting from under its skin and its horns pointed forwards like lances. Contrary to its front, which looked like it was injected with steroids, its back legs and lower back were short and non threatening, but a closer inspection would reveal steel cable like muscles, just underneath the surface. The bovine creature huffed outwards, lowered its head to display its horns and pawed the ground, flinging dirt backwards.
Mouth open and wide eyed, Shane looked in awe at the beast. 'A Grazer…'
He was so enamored by the beast that he couldn't see the creature getting ready to charge.
A blunt pain snapped him back to reality. "Hey! What was that fo-" he didn't have time to finish his sentence as the Grazer lunged forward, barreling at breakneck speeds.
Alice had grabbed and jumped forward, narrowly dodging the hulking behemoth. "What the heck are you doing!?! You nearly got us killed!" she shouted in Shane's face.
"O-oh, sorry!" Shane got back up on his feet, helping Alice up as well. "Quickly, we have to leave before the others come!"
"Others?!" Alice was bewildered.
"Yeah, others…" Shane stared deep into the jungle. "Grazers travel in herds".
Shane and Alice dove into the safety of the jungle, running for dear life as they heard thunderous booming just behind them, accompanied by the sounds of trees falling and guttural roaring.
"Keep going!" Shane shouted over the chaos.
"Hey, you seem to know a lot about those things!" Alice burst through a bush, coming out covered in round red cherries, or they looked like cherries. "Ew…shrubblings!" she wiped them off.
"Wait! Don't!" Shane grabbed a handful off of Alice before she could get rid of them. "Shrubblings are the main food of Grazers, we can distract them with these!" he shoved the shrubblings into his pouch. "If we collect a lot of them and crush them, the scent of the shrubblings should distract the muscle!".
"Why are you talking about muscles?" Alice squinted.
"It's what you call a herd of Grazers, a Muscle!" Shane answered, running through another bush and collecting more shrubblings. "There!" he smashed his pouch against a nearby tree, causing a rancid smell of rotten berries to fill the air.
A little while later, the two began to slow down as the chaotic booming of thunder gradually died down. Panting heavily, Shane and Alice regathered themselves.
"So, you know a thing or two about jungles hey?" Alice cocked an eyebrow up.
Shane tiredly nodded.
"Then why the heck didn't you say so!" Alice stomped her foot on the ground.
"You never asked!" Shane tried to defend himself. "Don't worry, I'll be more vocal in the future".
Alice peered at Shane. "Well, what the heck was that about! I thought Grazers were peaceful!".
"They are," Shane answered her. "It's just the season. Harvest season, when male Grazers go out to search for food to stockpile for the winter. Due to the environment, habitat, competition and predators, they tend to get really aggressive and territorial".
"Great, what else should we look out for?" Alice crossed her arms and sat down on a rock.
Shane pointed at the rock Alice had just sat on. "Cragglings"