"Woah!" Lucas stumbled back, falling on his butt. He scrambled back from the pond, his heart rising fast. Did the lake just try to get him? No, he just saw it vaporized something.
He stood, looked down, and picked up a small stone and then he tiptoed to the edge of the pond and dropped the stone. The pond hissed and spat. The small stone melted.
Lucas breathed shakily. "Water? Why would I ever want to drink water?"
He picked up his axe and hastily retreated. When he looked at the garden now, he saw it with different eyes. The bright flowers crowded his vision with their vibrant colors and the dull ones looked as if they might be hiding something.
He shuddered. With what has been happening since he came here, he won't be surprised if something is lurking in those leaves.
"Shit," Lucas muttered. 'I don't even know what to do here. No beast is rushing me and no metal man running after me! What am I supposed to do now?'
His body was still healing so maybe it was better this way that nothing was coming after him. "Am I to start planting or what?" Then his eyes widen.
Can it be that the school wants to test them with this? Maybe they want to know his knowledge of different kinds of plants. Lucas looked around if he would see any he recognized from biology but here here was new, different, and strange.
"I don't recognize any!" Lucas said out loud.
"Of course you don't." A voice said, a snicker followed it.
Lucas turned fast, body tensed. He looked around the bust of colours and it wasn't hard to spot the speaker. It's feathers was even brighter than the flowers, small and bird like but the head was strange, there was no beak.
Lucas started at it and it stared back with unblinking black eyes. "I don't know beast talks." He thought they were like animals with limited intelligence.
The creature snapped its wings. "Stupid! That's because I'm not a beast." The thing puffed up its chest. "I'm a golme. One of the old ones that was made. They don't make a lot of us like this again. I was once a male Rashaka of low blood but my spirit was bound with enchantments in this body so I can carry the noble burden of....listen!" It shouted.
Lucas had turned bored eyes on the ground as it went on. The golme reminded him of one of his teachers who was boring as fuck. Lucas only read his materials. He did that for all his courses anyway. "I thought you wanted to give me the history of the world there."
The golme managed to scowl. "Very funny. The Rashakas humor must have improved through the years."
Lucas kept his distance from it. The golem looked harmless enough but that might just be a cover to lure him closer. He was holding tight to the axe handle too. "So, what are you going to do to me? Ask me riddles. Ask me to find something in this garden. Or play a game death game with me?"
The golem blinked, eyes like liquid dark. "Well, I don't expect you to guess that easily."
Lucas froze. "What? Wait...wait...you are going to play a deadly game with me?" He moved backward.
"No, I mean the combination of it all. If you look at it. You'll have to search for something, while you try not to die. And you can only see if you solve a riddle!"
Lucas groaned softly, maybe he shouldn't have said anything.
"This garden is a poison one. Everything here is poisonous. The plants. The water. Everything!"
The game continued. "You are already poisoned immediately you enter this garden. And the only way to cure it is to look for the Whiteshade flower. You have limited time!" The game produced a small hourglass, held it in its claws, and flipped it.
It hung in the air and the dark water inside started to drip into the lower place. Faster than it should be.
Lucas swung around and looked around wildly. "White...look for the color white!" He looked but he saw nothing. He used his axe to part the flowers, crouching and squatting but he saw nothing of the white color.
Then Lucas froze. "Whiteshade..the golme said whiteshade. But there's no white here!"
He narrowed his eyes on the golem. "Isn't there some kind of clue that you'll have to give me? There should be something that will give a hint to what I am looking for!"
The golme shrugged, colors shifting on its wings. "Maybe but the hint is in the antidote I gave you. If you are smart, then you should have figured it out."
Lucas snorted with urgency. "If I am smart," he replied in disbelief. "As if I learn poisonous plants from another world in biology!"
The golme looked at him with confusion. "Another world?"
Lucas ignored it and tried to get his thoughts in order. First, he needed to know how exactly he was poisoned. He asked the golem and all he received was a shrug and a remark of the air he breathed in.
He groaned. 'Maybe the memories will do some help' he calmed down, not letting the thought of the hourglass get to him. Lucas breathed deeply. "I have to think. I have to think like Kyrexiel and maybe it'll be able to trigger the memories."
Kyrexiel narrowed his eyes and looked at the golme. "So the air is poisoned. Poison. Everything here carries poison." His memory stirred but before he got hold of anything, it was gone again.
"Relax." He told himself. "Think like Kyrexiel."
And he did. His memory stirred again, like smoke but deeper this time and he got what he wanted. Kyrexiel smiled. "Hey golme. What will happen if the hourglass is complete?"
"You'll die," It said flatly. "Terrible death that will make your organs melt and flow from your nose and ears."
"Sounds horrible," Kyrexiel said and then he waited until the hourglass ran out.