480 True Blindness and The Essence of the First Stage
Crystaâs hunch turned out correct⦠and the delta cursed as she felt the temperature change. It wasnât enough that she was finding difficulty in tracking down her item, let alone moving about, now she felt the scents about her stir and get impossible to distinguish.
This was just the beginning, howeverâ¦
A powerful updraft of wind shook the trees and raised dust from the forest floor of the man-made forest that was the playing field of the first stage in the Royal Games. The audience could only watch as the trees strained in protest against the strange force of nature that was the wind.
One of the active cameras kept an eye on a grey wolf leaning against the trunk of a young oak and staying close to the ground hoping to outlive the sudden change in weather while another showed a royal casually walking through the woods in search of an item.
Cole didnât look bothered by the sudden change in weather. In fact, he looked at peace with the chaos that had just invaded the forest. After a few minutes, the wind came to a stop⦠only to change direction.
This time, the wind blew in a perfect circle, bending the trees counterclockwise in the shape of a great giant twister. The wind kept a threateningly steady velocity almost like it was being controlled by some lever in a control room.
As Cole made his way through the forest, he came across a timid blind delta bracing herself against a young oak for dear life. It was only after noticing her frightened presence that the wind stopped howling, âI see you chose to compete this year. Who would have thought I would face you at âTheâ Royal Games!â
âCole⦠Is this your doing?â Crysta barked.
âWhat on earth could have given you that idea?â the king feigned ignorance.
.....
âIâve heard the stories. The day she vanished, the wind blew so hard, lightning split the skies every few seconds and the thunder⦠was so loud I thought my ears would bleed.
When we heard the story of her disappearance, we didnât doubt it was true. You are the goddessâs chosen after all. Anything is possible for the two of you,â Crysta explained.
âAn interesting story. Iâve never heard it told quite like that before⦠and Iâve grown bored of this conversation. For your convenience and for the sake of your team, I do hope you find your item. Good luck,â Cole said before starting to walk away.
âWait, Coleâ¦â the wolf yelled through the mind link, bringing the king to a halt, âI⦠Iâm sorry⦠about everything. I know we didnât always see eye-to-eye, but⦠for what itâs worth, Iâm sorry about everything,â Crysta still remembered everything sheâd done to gain the princeâs attention in the path.
What made her cringe the most was her thought process at the time. The lies sheâd weaved into her own mind and believed to be reality. It only took Coleâs mate nearly killing her to realise that, âI also forgot to thank you for saving me that day,â she sighed.
Coleâs irritation towards the delta eased up and he turned back to face her. She was nothing like Bree had been a few moments ago. Crysta, while more experienced and a wolf of higher rank, was actually blind and oblivious to her surroundings.
The grey wolf wasnât even staring at Cole as she spoke through the mind link and every step she took forward felt extremely calculated. âAt this rate, she wonât be able to do much,â Cole sighed.
âI just did what any sane person would have done. You didnât know who you were dealing with at the time. So, Iâm glad you learnt something. After seeing what Bree pulled, I assumed you would all be the same.
It seems I was wrong, so I must apologize for making this too hard for you. But it doesnât change much really. My team will be winning the Royal Games⦠again. Itâs the only way,â the prince said before walking away from Crysta.
Crysta could tell from the sound of his footsteps that he was having no trouble navigating the forest without his sight. Unlike her, Cole was traversing the woods with no trouble.
âBree, how were you able to move so accurately?â Crysta asked through the mind link. There was no rule against them communicating with their teammates outside the forest. Since this was a competition that depended heavily on oneâs senses, speaking through the mind link was a bad idea as it was bound to severely break oneâs concentration.
Crystaâs situation was hopeless. She had to call out for help and Bree was ready to help, âA voice spoke to me through the wind, giving me instructions on how to move without my sight.â
âIâll skip over the red flags scattered throughout that explanation and ask you what the voice said,â the delta sighed.
âWell, if I recall the exact words, they went:
Clear your mindâ¦
Relax your shouldersâ¦
Donât fight your senses⦠Embrace them, Bree, I mean, Crysta.
Youâre a werewolf, not a human.
Allow your senses to take over you.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om
And let them be your eyesâ¦â Bree recited the words exactly as she heard them.
Crysta was stunned for a moment before replying, âThey certainly donât sound like something you could cook up. Thanks, Bree.â
âHmph⦠What if Iâd given you my idea? Would you have taken it?â Bree raised her voice over the mind link.
âYouâre my friend, Bree. Of course, I would consider your idea,â Crysta chuckled before blocking her friend out of the mind link. She had to tryâ¦
...........
Crysta started her walk again, allowing her werewolf senses to flood her mind with information, âIf Bree could do it, then so can I!â she convinced herself.
The sound of the birds, the rustling of the trees. The variety of scents filled her nostrils with each deep breath she took. The scent of bark, the scent of the soft loam that covered the forest floor⦠and the scent of rain.
The wolf stared blindly at the sky above. During the twister that had torn through the arena earlier, the girl had come to the conclusion that it would rain as well. The scent of rain had been thick then, but now⦠it seemed to be receding.
âSo he really can control the weather,â she confirmed.
Wiping the thoughts out of her mind, the werewolf searched through the scents she could pick up, looking for one in particular. The scent of the item she was meant to be looking for.
Crysta had already wasted enough time as it was and she didnât feel like wasting any more of it for her team. So she studied the different scents, isolating the different strands of scents in her mind, searching for that one in particular.
After what felt like an eternity of walking aimlessly through the woods, she caught a faint whiff of the scent she was looking for. Crysta turned in the direction she knew it to be coming from and switched from a slow walk to a trot.
Unfortunately for her, she didnât get the clear mental image her friend had received when travelling blind. It felt like creating one was next to impossible.
And because of that, the delta tripped over rocks, roots and several other obstacles that she couldnât identify before eventually crushing snout first into a tree. The grey wolf took a step back and shook her head in dizziness. It was getting worseâ¦
Ever since sheâd caught the faint scent that marked her teamâs items, her focus on her surroundings had deteriorated even more. It was frustrating. âI can do this. Lina and all the others are counting on me,â this is all she could say to keep herself from breaking down.
She was about to take another step forward and weave around the tree when she noticed something odd. The scent was now going in three different directions. For some reason, she was now picking up on the scents of three different items.
The delta stayed stationary for a moment, wondering what she was supposed to do now that she had three options. âSomething is not right here. The items canât be this close to one another,â the girl thought to herself before taking one step to the right.
Two of the three scents vanished, including the one she had been following earlier.
âThe wind⦠It messed up everything in the forest,â she cursed, âThat idiot probably walked away from me knowing I wasnât going to succeed.â
This revelation was terrifying.
The strong wind summoned by the king had blown the perfumed itemsâ scents in all directions, making them extremely hard to track. If he had let it rain, it would have been next to impossible as the perfumes would be completely wiped from existence.
It seemed the king had only intended to make this competition a little bit more challenging, but not impossible. But something didnât add up in this whole scheme. Raising a twister of that magnitude was bound to make tracking down an item infinitely harder for both of themâ¦
âTrackingâ¦â the girl gasped, âDamn it! He got me good. I should have seen this sooner. Cole knows he has a stronger sense of smell than I do.â
In a situation like this, only the best trackers were capable of finding the item they were looking for⦠which required a great amount of concentration.
The girl got low to the ground and began forging forward once again. Her perception of the games changed, âIâm not against the same person Bree was facing⦠which makes my situation infinitely different.
Jason wanted to overpower Bree and take her item from her but Cole has a completely different approach. If I canât track down the item with my nose, I wonât even be able to leave the forest until the games end.â
It wasnât that Bree was a terrible instructor. Using her senses was bound to help her if there hadnât been that one problem of a twister scattering the scents in the forest.
This time, when the delta drew on her senses to create a mental picture of her surroundings, she understood what was wrong with it.
Instead of getting a clear picture of the grand man-made forest towering all around her, she got random distorted images of nature with mismatched signals and images coursing through her mind.
The confusion was even worse when her brain tried to interpret the chaos that came through her senses. Her ears tried to correct the picture, but with her sense of smell picking up all the wrong messages, it was impossible for her to come up with something exact.
And yet, she was meant to use that very sense of smell to get herself out of this situation.
Crysta had heard of it before. On her search for power that would help her rise through the ranks among the pack warriors, sheâd heard a few tips from the trackers.
âWhen tracking, the best ability a tracker must acquire is not an extremely sensitive nose, but the ability to isolate a single scent out of the myriad of scents they had to sort through.â
Crystaâs victory in this round was completely hinged on her figuring out this technique, finding the item and returning it to the Waiting Room. And all this was supposed to be done in time to allow Lina a chance to get their team points as well.
She had to figure out how to track down her item... and this was the True Essence of the First Stage of the Royal Games.
..........
âI think sheâs got it, Bill,â Stan suddenly spoke up over the speakers.
âGot what, Stan?â
âWhat she must do to make it through her turn? The only question is whether she can make it in time,â Stan sighed, keeping his inside knowledge on tracking all to himself.