Eggcellent training(Akeya Exam)

Whilst Akeya was away the man known as Zack had walked into her room and left two things. One of these was a large box and a note. The note was written in typical Zack style.

"Hey there dragonlady,
Got a little task for you. Do well and you'll get to go on some higher ranked missions. Do badly and well, you'll be stuck where you are. So if you are up for it open the box before you continue reading. Otherwise, well, yeah there would be no point in the rest.


You open the box? Cool. What you see are three rather rare eggs. Or at least they should be if the guy sold me what he said...i really hope they are...no, wait, ignore that. Not important. What is important is you need to take these eggs deep into the lycan woods. Why there? Well, the guy said that these eggs need a rather special something thats hidden in those woods. That something is the tears of the moon. Pretty rare things from what I heard. Once you find it bathe the eggs in the glow of the full moon focused through the tears. That will mark them...then you gotta come back to the guild and see me.

Your one tough cookie from what i've heard and seen so I doubt the lycans will be too much for you to handle. What makes it tough though is you've got to protect these eggs. In order to succeed you need to bring at least one back marked by the moon's tear. More would be better, but one is the minimum. Think of them as lives in a lacrima game. It is awesome to be so good you don't lose one, but lose them all and well...its game over.

Once you've done leave the egg(s) on my workbench, I might be there, might not. Depends really. But if I see the egg(s) there then consider yourself B rank.

Hope you enjoy it
Yours sincerely your guildhood demon of speed
Zack Rose BPA, WS

P.s. This is a solo job. So you have to do it alone. If you don't well...consider it an instant failure and believe me I'll be able to tell

P.p.s I've heard rumours that some of the lycans are quite partial to eggs. So...watch out"

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So here is the mission. I'm giving you a lot of freedom. You need to get those eggs through the lycan woods. Find the tears of the moon (up to you what these are though a waterfall or gems was what came to my head, shine the full moon light onto the eggs. Get the eggs back.

I'm gonna give you a 5000 word count minimum. Do it in as few or as many posts as you like. Just try to make it interesting.

Righto

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Akeya immediately noticed that something was different when she returned to her room. She was by nature a rather organized and efficient person, so when she saw the box sitting there when she could not remember placing it there she quickly realized that somebody must have entered her room while she was gone. Of course, that in itself wasn't too surprising: it wasn't like the rooms you could use in the Guild Hall were particularly difficult to get to if you were a guild member yourself. And Akeya had never really bothered with locks either, because the only thing she had in her room that could be considered valuable were the scrolls and books that she could find copies of without too much issue.

Keeping this in mind, however, and it was still a rather unique incident. Not many people, guild members or not, had much reason to talk to Akeya (at least, they gave that impression to her, and since she didn't really mind that state of things she never put any real effort into seeing if she was right), and those that did tended to just look her up instead of leaving something behind in her room. Not that Akeya really mistrusted the box, but as she stood in front of it and inspected it she did wonder what kind of reason one would have had to leave it here.

She did become a bit more wary when she remember the last time that she suddenly found a box in front of her room. That had lead to one of the most outright creepy jobs that Akeya could remember, and for a half dragon that said something. She still wasn't sure what to do with the pages she received from entering that particular forest and surviving whatever insanity had inhabited it, but she was keeping those pages in a safe place, and at the same time hoped that she could solve that particular puzzle without having to go through something like that again. Jaded or not, jobs like that weren't on her list of things she enjoyed doing.

Glaring at the box Akeya spend some more time contemplating what to do with it. Eventually she decided that she could at least read the note that came with the box first, then continue thinking about what to do with the box. The note didn't contain any magic, so it couldn't contain some kind of trap that would trigger the moment that she read it. Unless the person who had send it had anticipated her ability to sense magic (not like it was that uncommon an ability amongst mages), and put in a trap that didn't contain any magic for her to detect. Well, she could keep reasoning like that forever, but that would lead nowhere. The chances of her not being able to read the letter safely were too low for her to put too much importance in them, so she picked up the note and quickly began reading, keeping a wary eye on the box as she went through the contents of the note.

It quickly became apparent who had written the note, which was enough to make Akeya relax somewhat. She didn't have too much interaction with the Aces of the guild, but Zack was rather popular, and his personality was famous. Kind of reminded her of a more relaxed Akryn. They probably would get along just fine if that opportunity ever happened to pass. More importantly, the news about there beings eggs inside the box made Akeya's eyebrows rise. So the guild had decided they would give her a chance to prove herself capable enough to take on better missions. And the task they gave her was to take care of these eggs? It probably wasn't a joke, but the half dragon felt that the guy who thought this up had something deeper in mind.

The news about having to bring them to the Lycan Woods made things a bit more serious. Akeya hadn't been in that place before, and the reason for that was that it was a place designated as incredibly dangerous even for powerful mages. The winged ninja had no reason to risk her life by going there if she didn't have a very good motivation. Well, this time she did have a motivation. She herself wasn't too sure about the idea that any kind of egg would require this obscure a treatment, but if that was the task she was supposed to complete before she would be accepted as having grown she would do it. Still, this was the second time that she got a job out of nowhere, and that job told her to go into a forest known for being dangerous or creepy. This was either coincidence or for some reason reality was following the rules of narrative instead of the rules of chance.

In which case the best thing would be to see how a story would normally go, and find a way to work around the bad parts. Lessee… For the duration of this train of thought she would have to ignore the fact that she in no way identifies as the kind of female who is weaker than a male in the same situation would be. Narrative never really cared about those kind of things. So, single female, ends up trying to protect something precious while wandering through a place infested with monsters, specifically werewolves. Where would the story go in such a situation… Depending on what kind of story she would either be killed, saved by some heroic figure, or somehow the eggs would hatch and reveal themselves to be some kind of monster-repelling thing, after which the story would continue in some really weird world saving direction. Of course there were other possibilities (especially if you read the wrong kind of book and she ended up being really unlucky), but those seemed to be the main ones. Approaching one at a time…

The first one would be thwarted by by being careful, and a lot more dangerous than some helpless human female with no real power. Still, caution did sound like a good idea. Most stories had the victim get killed because they let their guard down, then suddenly realized that they really shouldn't have. Werewolves weren't the most dangerous creatures, but they were very good hunters, and if you found yourself in their domain you should act accordingly. Never expect to be able to let your guard down, because exactly that moment they would reveal themselves, like true hunters having waited for that one moment of weakness to act. So caution, stealth, and preparing for a fight. At least the Lycan Woods would be dark, so the wolves wouldn't be able to see her properly. With noses like theirs they didn't need to, but maybe she could somehow hinder their noses as well so all their senses would be hindered… Well, she'd also have to deal with their sharp hearing, but if she couldn't stay silent enough using her own abilities she didn't really have a way to change that.

The second theory, where she would be rescued, was not really something she could do something with. It had about the same requirements of survival as the first, except that no matter what she would end up in a scenario where she would need saving, in which case it would depend on the heroic figure appearing. Not much to do there. The same for the third theory, although in that case there was the chance that they would hatch if she at least managed to reach whatever it was that she had to find and wouldn't have to worry about the road back.

The simplest, most intelligent choice would be to just take people with her. If you didn't want to become part of a horror story, going into the forest filled with monsters on your own was about the worst thing you could do. However that would ruin the point of this mission: Zack gave her this mission to prove herself capable, and he very clearly did not expect this to become a horror story. Akeya herself didn't believe it either, but she found it at least useful to think about the possibility in advance so that she could think of the necessary preparations. So far those preparations came down to 'take this seriously and don't be stupid', but an extra reminder was always useful for that kind of thing.

Finally having made up her mind Akeya opened the box and looked inside, carefully studying the eggs which were hidden inside. They were rather large eggs, large enough that she wouldn't bother trying to hold two in one hand. When she experimentally lifted one she also found it to be rather heavy. They all were the same colour: blue with some darker spots. They were completely smooth, and gleamed faintly in the weak light that filled the room. Akeya didn't like a lot of light, so her room actually did not have any way of making it brighter than during dusk or dawn, besides possibly opening the window fully in the middle of the day. The problem with that plan however would be that her window faced the wrong direction to catch the sun in the afternoon.

So, bringing somebody along wasn't going to work. It wasn't allowed, for one thing, and for the other it would make things a bit too easy. The task seemed specifically engineered to have Akeya show herself capable of executing a dangerous mission while also taking care of something fragile, so having somebody else carrying the eggs so she could at full power beat the werewolves down would remove the main challenge. Although she wasn't sure if she could take down the werewolves easily even if she had her hands free. They were feared for a reason, and just because they weren't the most dangerous beasts out there didn't equal them being nothing important. Zack apparently believed she could, and he was an experienced mage, but that wasn't enough for her to just attack a werewolf with no fear of defeat.

While continuing to consider the problem Akeya sat down on the ground, gathering all three eggs in her lap as she frowned and went through the possible problems. She had to do this alone, so that was one. She would have to be extremely cautious. Assume that every single misstep could lead to death. Any less and her survival would be nothing more than luck. People who thought themselves too strong to be careful were always killed because of that kind of belief. Akeya did not plan to be amongst them. Besides of that, if she was going to have to be cautious, try her best to avoid all werewolves, and get both in and out, she would need to make sure she had everything that she needed on her.

Flying over the forest was not a possibility. Zack's letter had not told her where or what the tears of the moon could be, and without that knowledge trying to fly around would lead her nowhere, because she would have no hints to catch and no trail to follow. If what she was supposed could be found by somebody who didn't already have a good idea of where it was, it would have to be done while on the ground and inside the forest. The half dragon had no way of knowing herself what the tears of the moon could be either  besides of what she could figure out with reasoning, and if she didn't even know that finding it from the air would be even less likely. Tears of course gave the idea of water, and more specifically a waterfall, since in a waterfall droplets would be falling like tears. Water could also be used to alter the path of light, although that was a rather complicated business and tended to scatter the light more than focus it in one beam, which according to the note would be required to properly illuminate these eggs before returning them.

The other likely possibility was that the tears were a kind of gem, or other substance of similar form. It was not uncommon for gems and the like to be likened to the tears of deities, and the moon was often treated as a divine entity, or otherwise ruled over by a deity. Gems would also make it easier to focus the light of the moon, although tears implied plural, so Akeya would somehow have to figure out how to use multiple of them to illuminate the eggs properly if that were to be the case. Or maybe there are multiple, but she only really needs one to act as lens for the moonlight? She couldn't really predict that ahead because she did not have enough information. All she could do now was assume that it would either be water, or some kind of gem, and that there would be more than one (although a waterfall or a lake would contain plenty of individual 'tears').

While considering this all Akeya found herself unconsciously stroking the eggs, her tail having curled around them to secure them in her lap as her hand travelled across the smooth surface of the the three mysterious eggs. Unwrapping the dark blue bandages that covered her forearm and hands Akeya looked at them, and the dark blue scales that now covered those places. They were also present elsewhere, in fact covering a fair amount of her body, but most of her body was covered in clothing. The only places where her bare skin was visible were her shoulders and her upper arms, and there the dark blue scales were also scarcer, acting more like decorations than true cover. Right now was one of the few times that Akeya revealed the last addition to her dragonfication: her tail and wings were always on display and had appeared early on. The spinal fins that had replaced her ears, her sharpened nails, her pointed teeth, and her reptilian eyes were even earlier than the wings and tail, but were almost always hidden behind bandages, her mask and her blindfold. And now there were these dark blue scales. They had already covered the fins, the wings and the tail, but now they also covered the parts of her body which had once been skin (she didn't count the fins because her ears had been of a completely different shape). It was somewhat perturbing, although Akeya knew that she was already a lot more accepting than most people would be. She knew that this might, no, would happen and she accepted that as she took this path. Still, it was curious how it was affecting her, and also how it looked like the colour of her scales matched that of the eggs. Shrugging Akeya resumed stroking the eggs as she continued thinking.

She would have to enter the forest on foot, carrying the eggs with her, and staying extremely stealthy. She could not use any ability that would make it easy to detect her, and because she wasn't too sure about the nature of the eggs she would most likely also have to refrain form using Shadow Form, or at least be careful. However that wouldn't be the only problem. She had no idea how long she would have to stay inside the Lycan Woods, searching for the tears of the moon. She would have to take enough food with her to survive for a while. Normally she could hunt, but hunting might expose her to the werewolves. Food that was easy to take note of was also not an option. Werewolves are very good trackers, particularly with their nose. So that meant she would have to take rations, something which would give her enough energy and sustainment to keep going while in no way actually giving off much scent or the like.

Last, but still importantly, she would have to protect the eggs. They were too big to just carry normally, so she would have to put them in a bag, and then make it so that she can safely have the bag hang from her shoulder or onto her back. And to prevent the eggs breaking or cracking against each other she'd have to make sure that the inside of the bag would be separated into three departments, each with lots of soft covering to help reduce and shocks and damage the eggs might otherwise sustain. Binding them in place would also help. After having decided on all this Akeya carefully stood up, placing the eggs back in the box and ensuring that they were all safe. This was her mission now, and she wasn't going to let a single one of these eggs get broken if she had any say in it. For one thing, she had to prove herself capable enough to keep all three eggs safe, and for the other the thought of letting any one of the eggs break...somehow made her uncomfortable. Like she failed on a deeper level than just not showing herself capable to the guild. It was a strange feeling, seeing how Akeya wasn't the kind of person who felt like that often at all. She was almost always the most focused and disconnected in the team, putting her all into completing the job properly instead of paying any heed to personal issues. Yet here she stared down at these eggs with the feeling that she really could not let them be broken.

Shaking her head at the silliness Akeya turned around and walked out of the room, then walked back in to make sure that the box could not suddenly fall over or anything like that. The windows were all shut tightly, there was nothing else inside the room, and the box was secure. Stepping out Akeya also shut and locked the door, so nothing could get in, then hurried to get everything that she needed. Some of the things she felt were going to be necessary would take some time to get, but she didn't want to waste any time if she could help it.

Akeya stood in front of the infamous Lycan Woods, staring into the area in between the trees. It was in the middle of the day, with the sun shining brightly, but still it seemed that it was night underneath the canopy of the leafs, and for some reason the half dragon got the impression that it would never be day in there. Of course that kind of made sense: lycanthropes were at their strongest at night, especially if the full moon was out. Whatever kind of place they would call their home, it would be a place where they would never have to deal with the sunlight. Whether the darkness was caused by the werewolves or whether it had already been there when the werewolves found it, Akeya couldn't tell. The result, however, was the same: no sunlight would ever dispel the nightmare that was the Lycan Woods. A place inhabited by monstrous wolf-like creatures, which claimed the entire area as their hunting grounds. Definitely not a place where one could afford to let their guard down.

The half dragon herself was amply prepared: she had now also wrapped extra bandages around her upper arms and shoulders to completely hide herself in the dark shades, even more so than her nature as a Shadow Dragon Slayer already made her hard to spot whenever it was dark. In that way the nature of the Lycan Woods also worked in her favour, although she wasn't going to be optimistic enough to belief that her advantage was greater than that of the werewolves. It was their home, and from what Akeya had been able to find the woods and the lycanthropes suited each other very well. Still, it was one bonus Akeya had over other mages in this kind of situation. She just hoped it would be enough.

Besides of having covered herself completely she also had a sturdy backpack on her back, with multiple wraps keeping it tied to her body. She wanted it to move about as little as possible, because besides rations the three eggs were inside that backpack. Plenty of cloth and textile was dedicated to making every single egg a separate compartment in which they were safe and sound. The only way that they would break is if the backpack would receive enough damage that all the contents were doomed anyway. Akeya wasn't going to fail this task by being careless in any means. Securing the eggs like that wasn't going to be enough, but at least it meant that it could only fail if Akeya was in trouble anyway. Werewolves were going to be a tough opponent.

After checking that she was as prepared as she would ever be (in fact, she checked twice. For some reason she was actually feeling nervous, an experience which otherwise would be quite foreign to her. Why did she feel so anxious about this particular task? She wasn't that focused on being accepted in a higher rank. Or was she?) Akeya took a deep breath and stepped into the forest, quickly adopting a more stealthy way of moving as more and more trees showed up, blocking out all the light more and more. It didn't take long before Akeya had no way of telling that it was afternoon: it could as well have been the middle of night. For some strange reason it wasn't completely dark though. A fog was forming, and spreading out, glowing faintly, but enough to make the place feel even more cold and desolated. This truly was a cursed place, or at least a very creepy one. The winged ninja felt no desire to try and claim that it wasn't creepy. The Lycan Woods were not a place she would visit if she could help it. She just hoped that she could find the tears of the moon quickly and finish this.

At first the road was fairly uninteresting and boring, with Akeya staying cautious the entire time as she sneaked her way forward, trying her best to not even cause a rustling as her cloth-wrapped feet stepped on the leafs that had fallen from the trees above onto the dark ground. She wasn't too sure whether she was actually making progress, as there weren't any real landmarks to look out for and every tree looked like the next, tall and grey. No tracks to follow, no idea what she exactly was even looking for, Akeya wasn't sure how long she would continue going like this before she would just give up and tell Zack that no matter how important this test might be, the lack of information made her unwilling to try and walk through a creepy forest for days on end. How large was the forest supposed to be anyway? If it was large enough to serve as the home of werewolves it would take up quite some space, but how many days could it take to traverse the entire area? Or would she just get lost and walk in circles, until she eventually had to use her wings to escape?

There was still no sign of where she was supposed to go, so the half dragon crept onwards, trying her best to find some kind of sign while avoiding the inhabitants of this place. She didn't know if she could take down a werewolf, and she didn't really want to find out. Such curiosity had never been hers. Her curiosity was that of knowledge and magic, not of raw might or even fighting ability. Being strong was important, but not her main drive. It was a fortunate and desirable side effect on the road to understanding. However her knowledge fell short here: she knew little about this place, she didn't know what she was looking for besides the name, she didn't know how to find it. She could only hope that there actually was a way of finding what she sought besides being lucky. So far she had been trying to go towards the middle of the forest, reasoning that it was likely that if the tears of the moon had some magic effects they would be hidden away deep inside the woods. That was usually the case. Sources of power rarely were found at the edge of their domain.

Yet that wasn't enough to reassure Akeya. She wanted to be sure, and so her advance was rather slow, as she tried to inspect everything that she came across. Unfortunately all she saw was trees, ground, leafs, and that fog which coiled around her legs and for some reason appeared to be luminescent. It reminded her of the other time that she entered a creepy forest, and that made her even worse nervous. She really hoped she didn't have to experience something similar here. At least werewolves weren't known for playing too much with their food. If they saw her they would hunt her, like true predators. They wouldn't waste their time playing tricks. In which case Akeya could fight them properly, although the eggs on her back would be a serious problem for her mobility, and restrain what types of magic she could use.

The question that was most prominent here, whether she would first find the path or the werewolves would find her, was answered in the less fortunate way. The half dragon froze and cursed silently when suddenly a lone howl went upwards into the sky. She sharpened her ears, but even after the first howl had already disappeared she didn't hear any others. A lone hunter? She could try to deal with that. Although if there had been no response because the other werewolves in the area hadn't deigned to answer, or because the forest was that large that they were out of range even with their sharp ears, was not something that Akeya could make a proper guess to. If she really had to make a guess she'd go with that the werewolves weren't always friendly amongst themselves, and as such this werewolf had no nearby allies to answer him and join his hunt. Although others could now be lying in wait to steal the beast's prey. Nothing Akeya could do about that. Instead she immediately switched to the tactic she had thought up when trying to figure out the best way to deal with a werewolf.

As a half dragon Akeya was physically strong, but she wasn't going to try and challenge a werewolf in raw strength unless she had solid proof that she would win. She did not, so she would have to be clever instead. Lycanthropes weren't stupid either, so she would have to be smarter than them as well. However she couldn't use too elaborate a tactic, because each step would make the chances of failure higher. So instead she just used an advantage that the werewolves most certainly didn't have: spreading her wings Akeya flew upwards, once high enough using the sharp nails on her fingers and toes (which she had purposefully not covered in cloth for just such an occasion) to climb upwards into one of the nearby trees. Like a lizard she climbed upwards, once she deemed herself high enough that the werewolf could never possibly get to her in one leap (and then doubling that distance just to be sure) coming to a halt and looking down, her nails digging into the grey bark as her tail and wings wrapped around the trunk for extra stability.

She didn't have to wait long before an oversized dark grey shape appeared down below, with claws that could cover her entire head and fur that bristled like barbs. The werewolf was looking around, yellow eyes glowing in the darkness that even that white fog wasn't able to completely suppress as it smelled the air, trying to figure out where its prey went. Said prey was up in the air, making not a single sound and in her mind repeating all the procedures that she went through to ensure that she would not have to worry about the eggs. They were each in a single compartment, and wrapped tightly so they could not be jostled about. There was not a single hard object for them to smash into, everything was soft, and the walls of each compartment were thick enough that the eggs couldn't break each other either. The only way for them to crack would be if the entire back was smashed into something like a tree with excessive force or the werewolf went to town on the eggs. And Zack had warned her that for some reason the wolves liked eggs. If she was really lucky the beast would give up and go away. However she didn't believe in that kind of luck.

And sure enough, the werewolf didn't. Akeya's plan of flying upwards had it confused for a while, sniffing about and trying to figure out why the scent suddenly disappeared. However it wasn't a stupid creature, and eventually it figured out what the last possibility was. Staring upwards its golden glowing eyes scanned the trees, trying to find the source of that strange smell it had caught. It wasn't something it had experienced before, even in this large forest containing so many different types of creatures. It smelled both like a human and...something else. Not quite one or the other, but also smelling like both. It was quite the puzzle, but food was food. The lycan wasn't going to let it escape. So when it finally found the creature huddled up against one of the trees high up in the air it grinned and howled in triumph.

The half dragon meanwhile frowned at the howl. It wasn't a pleasant sound. She shook her head as she tried to focus. If she wanted to get out of this without making the rest of the trip considerably more difficult she would have to be very precise in what would happen next. At least she had managed to get some practice rounds done before she came here…

The werewolf didn't bother to climb. Instead it leaped upwards, slamming into another tree with all four claws before using that support to launch itself again. Like that it travelled upwards quite rapidly, Akeya tensing as it got closer at a frightening pace. As expected she was right when she overdid how high up she climbed. If she hadn't doubled the height she wouldn't have been able to react in time, and even now she wasn't too sure she could time it right…

As the werewolf finished its last jump and aimed straight for Akeya, with open maul and a loud growl as it readied its claws to rend her apart, a trail of drool from one corner of that fanged maul and a look of bloodthirst in its eyes, a promise of certain death, Akeya released the trunk she had been clinging to and jumped herself, going over the wolf's head and then diving back downwards. The lycan appeared only surprised for a moment before it growled and caught itself, launching itself after Akeya, that same promise of certain death not having wavered a single second.

Akeya closed her eyes for a moment as she focused on her wings. They were folded right now, and she would have to unfold and move them very quickly for this. If she messed this up not only the eggs would likely break, but she herself might as well. However the thought of messing up, and the eggs, breaking, was enough for her usual cold and steely focus to return to her eyes, shadows gathering around her hands. She was nearing the ground at quite some speed, and the werewolf wasn't too far behind her. Neither would get her. Neither would get the eggs. She came here to prove herself, to see what was going on with these eggs, and even a werewolf wasn't going to get in her way. As a half dragon being defeated here would only show her to be too weak.

Silently, and without warning, Akeya suddenly unfurled her wings, gritting her teeth as she pulled out of the dive and instead shot back upwards, right past the surprised werewolf. Unfortunately the werewolf wasn't stupid enough to not have prepared for landing, so it didn't just crash. However it was busy with that for long enough that Akeya could execute the next part of her plan, where the shadows in her hands turned into a dark katana that she was quite familiar with by now. She wasn't planning to just fly upwards. Her flight once again turned downwards, and at the same time that the werewolf glared upwards to try and track down the movement of its prey the black blade sunk right into its throat, entering it from above and the tip coming out on the other side, accompanied by a small burst of blood and a permanent leak.

The werewolf cried out in surprise at this, but before it could move the rest of Akeya also slammed into it, her feet coming down onto its back with all the rest of her weight behind it, making its entire body crash into the forest floor. At that point Akeya pulled out the katana and instead revealed the dagger she had created in her other hand, and began to quickly slice the werewolf open in all the ways that she could imagine. Its neck was opened, the entire spin was revealed, the muscles leading to its limbs were severed, its brain was pierced, its ears and nose were removed, its tail was chopped off, its innards were punctured… It was a gruesome and messy business, with the ground getting painted with the lycan's blood and the beast still twitching. Werewolves didn't die easily. Akeya didn't have any silver with her, mostly because she was pretty sure the creatures could smell that and that would just have made it more wary, too wary to fall for this trick. She also didn't have any flames. Well, actually she did. She used those to finish the job, when the creature could no longer do anything in the next minute or so gathering a large amount of energy inside herself.

Amidst the white fog black flames poured forth from Akeya's mouth and finished the job, the werewolf twitching another time before it stopped moving permanently, the black flames continuing to feast for quite a while before those also died out. It was a small fortune that while dying the creature hadn't made too much noise, the wound in its neck probably making that too difficult. The half dragon dismissed both weapons as she realized that she was panting heavily (even though the gem that was hidden underneath her clothes on her collarbone removed the need for breathing), her nose filled with the stench of the beast's blood. Once again something that normally wouldn't happen. Why was she being so easily influenced right now? It was like the normal focus that she always possessed was being pushed aside by a feeling of urgency, or great importance. It was a bother, and worrying.

Well, at least the first werewolf was dead, and Akeya had actually not received any wounds from it at all. Quite impressive, although that didn't mean that this victory wasn't without cost. Her arms were now for a fair part covered in the beast's blood, making her a lot easier to track, the time spent in one place made it more likely that other predators had come closer in the meantime, and she would have to spend some more time calming down. Could she still continue sneaking in this situation? Honestly she doubted it. This werewolf apparently had been hunting alone, but it was impossible that none of the other lycans had not noticed something. And to assume that they always would come alone was a kind of suicidal optimism.

No, Akeya might have been able to take this one werewolf down without issue, but it had managed to blow her chances of getting in and out without any trouble. Stealth was no longer going to work. Like all predators lycanthropes could track the scent of blood too accurately, and she couldn't get rid of all the stench without wasting too much time. So she had to start moving fast instead, even though she still had no clue where she was supposed to go…

Akeya stared into the distance. One specific distance. If she was correct that was still the direction where the middle of the Lycan Woods could be found. Maybe she should just start running in that direction? It was her only bet, and she didn't have enough time to make a random guess… She looked down at the dead and destroyed creature below her. She couldn't find any clues either. She was only wasting time now. She had to keep moving, and she had to start moving really fast. On the ground she would be caught too easily. This was no longer the time to be careful. She would have to bet her success on this. If this failed she could try again. All the eggs in her backpack were still fine: she could feel them still filling up the space by sensing the shadows inside the bag. If all else failed she would fly away, wash herself, and go back in. No reason to wait any longer now. GO.

With that Akeya unfurled her wings once again and jumped up, without another second of hesitation flying forwards, deeper and deeper into the forest as the darkness clothed her and made her little more than a shadow, a shadow which weaved between the branches. The density of the trees was a hindrance, but not enough to truly halt the half dragon, as she spun and weaved and ducked and swerved as she kept going in that one direction, where if her guts were right she would find that which she was looking for. However she wasn't going to get there without some more trouble running into her along the way.

It didn't last that long before another howl could be heard, and this time more howls followed. A pack had found her this time. She could not fight an entire pack, because none of her tricks would allow her to take them all down without too much risk of failure, or without abandoning the eggs. If the werewolves didn't care about the eggs she could have tried that, but Zack had stated that they actually for some reason took an interest in eggs. This wasn't something she could solve using violence, or even extensive trickery. She would have to try and reach her goal before they caught her.

It didn't take too long after the howling had started before shapes began to show up in Akeya's vision. Dark, fast, blurry shapes were showing up aplenty on the ground, all heading in the same direction as her. They were around her, beneath her, and they were working together. They weren't going to let her fly away: the moment she tried to land somewhere she would be caught, and that would be the end of it. Maybe if she kept flying she could keep out of their grasp… Unlikely, as the lycans themselves were also willing to prove. The first monster had shown itself capable of jumping amidst the tree using amazing leg strength, and after they had trailed her for at least a minute without her showing any signs of stopping apparently they decided that they would have to do the same. Some of the dark shapes began to climb up, then jumped from tree trunk to tree trunk as they tried to corner her and catch her.

The first one to jump at her was dodged rather easily by sharply diving before rising up again, but then it became more difficult. They coordinated, all together trying to jump at there in such a way that to dodge one would mean getting caught by the other. It was only her increased reflexes and her ability to analyse their movements accurately (even in this situation she at least retained those abilities useful in battle) that allowed her to escape with only a few scrapes, but slowly and slow they also got better at it, forcing Akeya to completely abandon her current direction as she now focused solely on evasion. The shapes that were still on the ground tirelessly trailed the fight going on amidst the trees, the shapes that were jumping as if born to be in the air showing way too much skill but a perfectly acceptable amount of deadly intent for such killing machines.

Akeya didn't know whether she should continue like this or call it a day. There was nothing that said she couldn't come back later as long as she still had the eggs. Zack's note had said absolutely nothing about a time limit or that she had to find the tears of the moon in one go. She had made some progress, got used to the Lycan Woods, and if she rested and put some more effort into it she could use this experience to increase her chances of succeeding next time. And the current situation was becoming more and more dangerous with no guarantee that sticking around would actually be of any use besides giving the werewolves more chances of catching her. She really didn't want to know what would happen if those lycans actually caught her.

With those thoughts in mind the half dragon nearly missed something which showed up in the corner of her eye, something which stood out in this forest of white mist, grey trees and dark shapes. Now just diving all the way down (although still not low enough to fall prey to the werewolves on the ground) Akeya dove towards that strange object, which was actually quite a sore thumb now that she noticed it once. It was a large blue monolith, with jagged edges but completely smooth on what she could only call the front. It looked like something that had been polished: she couldn't think of a way to have something be that smooth and flat using only natural processes inside a forest. More so, it was glowing, and when Akeya looked up she saw that this was about the only place where the trees did not manage to hide the sky, even if the only light that came down was of the same blue colour as the monolith. However there was no more time to figure out the why and how: the werewolves were catching up, and they were doing so fast.

Taking the opportunity the half dragon immediately started flying straight upwards, right towards that sole hole in the roof made out of branches and leafs. The werewolves were still chasing her by jumping between the trees, forcing her to ignore the branches scraping at her instead of going around them. The beasts also knew that she was trying to escape, and they would try their best to stop her. Akeya frowned and gritted her teeth as she flew faster and faster, the wind caused by her own speed blowing straight into her face as if her mask and blindfold didn't exist. At this point she could only go faster and hope it was enough…

If it wasn't for her blindfold Akeya would probably have been blinded, but as it was she blinked as suddenly she flew right out of the forest and into the open skies, where the sun was still blazing freely. It was already significantly lower than before, though, showing just how long Akeya had been down there. From here the half dragon could see the sea of trees that stretched out in every direction. From here the hole in the canopy was rather obvious, although she knew that if she hadn't found it from below before she would have missed it regardless. But still, at least now she had an entrance for her next attempt.

A sudden realization shot through Akeya as she remembered about the eggs, nearly trying to twist her upper body to the opposite direction of her lower body before she remembered that she didn't have to do that. Instead she focused on the shadows inside the bag, sensing that the eggs still occupied the same space as before. After she had found a spot that wasn't in the middle of the air she could look them over to see if they had cracked during all the activity down below. For now she had to get back to ground somewhere that wasn't inside the woods that she had escaped from so narrowly. Doing her best to remember this exact location Akeya flew out towards the direction from which she was pretty sure she came from, beginning to feel rather tired.

After a fair bit of flying (the half dragon's wings were beginning to seriously complain by now) she finally reached the edge of the forest, where she flew a bit further just to be sure before she landed and sat down with a sigh. Unstrapping the backpack she placed it in her lap, opening it and carefully looking at each of the eggs. It looked like they were fine, making Akeya feel more relieved that she believed possible. All three eggs were as whole and sturdy as ever, but she knew that it had been way too close a shave. It almost made her extremely angry at Zack, that he would risk these eggs just to make the test a bit more challenging for her. If she failed and the eggs were destroyed that would be a lot more of a cost than just her failing the test, and she didn't want that.

At this point Akeya had to admit to herself that it was pretty obvious what was happening inside her mind: of course becoming a half dragon wouldn't just be a purely physical change. Her soul had already been a lot like a dragon, but that didn't mean that the synchronization rate couldn't still increase. She was now a female half dragon with three eggs to care for, and everything seemed to point towards her instincts having decided to treat the eggs as if they were her own. In which case she most definitely couldn't let anything happen to them. The half dragon grumbled to herself as she stroked her three passengers, waiting for a bit longer so her limbs wouldn't be as sore before she put them back and resumed moving. She wasn't done yet for the day. She wasn't going to try to enter the forest again until tomorrow: she needed at least that much time to recover. But she needed to find a stream which she could use to remove the blood that the werewolf had left on her. Even dried blood wasn't safe enough to take with her into the forest.

Finding that stream didn't take too long: Akeya remembered passing by one as she travelled to the Lycan Woods, so she just had to follow the same road back. When she got there she tried her best to remove the blood from the bandages around her arms, but to no avail. It had already seeped in too deeply, and too much. It looked like she had managed to avoid the same fate with the rest of her clothing, but the only way to not leave a trail of blood scent would be to remove the bandages around her arms and hands. Reluctantly the half dragon removed them, then looked at the dark blue scales revealed underneath them. At least those would also merge in with the shadows nicely…Still, she would have preferred it if she didn't have to remove the bandages, but she didn't have a choice now.

Having cleaned herself at least enough that she would no longer have to wonder about alerting the werewolves of her presence unless they were already close enough to find her anyway Akeya then ate some of the rations that she had taken with her, at the same time putting the three eggs in her lap and stroking them. It was an oddly comforting thing to do, and it's not like it would actually harm them in any way. For now she would focus on recovering enough that she could try again tomorrow: she would fly over the forest back to that spot with the huge blue stone, and continue from there. In fact, she was quite curious about what that monolith could be about. It certainly looked like it was there with an actual purpose…
Once she was done eating and felt like she had waited long enough Akeya put the eggs back in the backpack and curled up so she could fall asleep, not even noticing that her body, wings and tail were all wrapped around the backpack containing the eggs. Closing her eyes the half dragon slowly became almost invisible as sleep took her and the day was replaced by the night.

Akeya woke up the next evening, having slept throughout both the night and the day so that she would have the moon available if she actually found the tears. She had gone during the day the previous time because she had thought it safer, but now she knew that it did not matter. In that forest, it was always night, and the werewolves were always active. She might as well be sure and find the tears when the full moon was visible even outside the forest. Her body had for the most part restored from the amount of effort she put into not getting caught by the werewolves yesterday. She was pretty confident that she would be able to find the tears of the moon today, finish the mission, and stop having to worry about werewolves catching her and the eggs. After ensuring that the eggs were still where they were supposed to be she strapped the backpack back onto her back, and walked back towards the edge of the Lycan Woods. She would wait with taking to the skies until she was there, seeing how walking took less energy than flying.

At the edge of the forest the half dragon stared into the mysterious area, with the grey and cold trees. It looked exactly the same as yesterday. It was unlikely that werewolves would be the kind to go through complicated and extended plans to catch prey, at least one that involved waiting for Akeya to return after an entire night with no proof that she was ever going to come back. Still, it felt like there was now also something watching her, the forest having remembered her previous intrusion and observing her attempts at doing it again. Taking a deep breath Akeya spread her wings and flew up, until she rose above the crown of the highest tree, at which point she headed forwards over the sea of leafs, the vast expanse quickly taking up the lower part of her view.

It took some looking around, but eventually Akeya found the hole where the blue monolith should be placed. With only one way of being sure Akeya dove back into the cold darkness of the forest, where the sun never shone. It was curious how such a large area never experienced the warm rays, but honestly it suited Akeya quite well, her body once again fading out of view as the shadows claimed her as one of their own. This time she would succeed.

As she had expected and been hoping for, the blue monolith was indeed there, still glowing and looking as if a pale light was shining down on it from above. Akeya stayed in the air this time, not even wanting to leave footprints if she could help it. That would also reduce the chances of her scent reaching far enough on the ground for werewolves to pick it up. Seeing how the monolith was tall enough the winged ninja could safely inspect it while staying at least a solid yard above the ground, inspecting all sides. Most of it looked like normal rock, or at least had the texture of rock. The blue colour was prominent on all sides. It was only what she dubbed the front that was so smooth that it had to be polished, and that side seemed to be the only one that actually shone. Probably because it did a better job of reflecting the light. Akeya looked at it from all sides, but she could not figure out what it could be. There were no runes, no carvings, no words that she could find or make out, and while it looked mysterious and with purpose she could not find out the exact purpose.

That is, until she faced the smooth side and then turned around, at which point she saw a blue flash in the distance. It wasn't completely opposite of the smooth side: it was more at a sixty degree angle. The blue flash stayed there as she kept looking at it, and it was of a similar colour to that of the stone she had been studying the whole time. Looking around Akeya tried to see if there was a last hint to be found here, but then abandoned that track and instead headed for that new light. When she reached it she found something surprising: it was a new monolith, looking similar to the previous. In fact, she was pretty sure that if she hadn't just spent a lot of time inspecting every part of the original stone and if she wasn't sure that she had never deviated from the light she might have thought it the same stone. As it was, this monolith also didn't reveal anything, except that this one also had an opening in the branches and leafs above it from which a pale light shone down. How did she not find that while flying above the forest?

Looking around Akeya quickly realized that this wasn't just a single occurrence: she saw two other flashes from here. One was the direction that she came from. The other flash she headed towards, getting a suspicion about these monoliths. They were here with a purpose. And somehow they couldn't be found easily. Yet if you found one you somehow saw another one, or in this case both the previous and the next. That couldn't be a coincidence. And the most obvious explanation was that the stones somehow linked to each other and were supposed to lead to something. Like mirrors, except whoever set it up had used something more primitive, but far more sturdy and enduring. A road that was meant to last.

Finding the next monolith (and thankfully still finding no signs of lycanthropes), Akeya confirmed her suspicion when she saw yet another flash. That wasn't light, at least not directly: the monoliths were reflecting light from another source. They didn't have a blue glow at all. They just gave that appearance. Now that she had a much more reliable trail to follow Akeya sped up, ignoring the fact that following the path of reflected light made her go deeper and deeper into the forest. If this wouldn't lead to the tears of the moon she would eat her own tail. Unless it turned out that yet another important or special location was hidden away in these woods that had required somebody to get so many blue stones of this size, make one side completely flat and smooth, and then took the time to place them all correctly so that they would reflect the light properly and create a path. While that wasn't impossible, the half dragon wasn't in the mood to consider that possibility. Whatever was at the heart of this, it was worth discovering.

There weren't that many monoliths to follow: each one was a fair distance away from the others, enough to make it an impressive feat that even after all this time the paths in between them were still not blocked by trees or something else. Whoever made this must have done that on purpose as well, probably using some sort of spell which discouraged anything to grow in between the monoliths. When she got to the last one Akeya saw that the forest was getting brighter again, although all the light appeared to come from one direction. And the light was pale. Wasting no time she headed in that direction, where a last blue flash could be found.

Suddenly the trees parted and Akeya found herself in a clearing. And not just a clearing. This could never be called just a clearing. It was, for one thing, rather large, and for the other, it was too unbelievable to be a normal clearing. Most of the clearing was at a lower level than the ground in the rest of the forest, a gentle slope from the edge leading to the lower ground. The ground of the clearing was also different. For some reason or the other it was white, not just pale and dead, but truly and purely white. Akeya was still flying, but she was pretty sure that the ground would be smooth as well. It was like a floor, except that it didn't look artificial. The ground, as strangely as it looked, at the same time did not give the feeling that it had become like that by the hands of humans, or any other kind of mortal.

In the middle of the clearing the ground rose up in a ring, and that ring was filled with water. Water that looked like a mirror, reflecting the pure silver light from the full moon that was visible in the dark skies above. In the middle of that liquid mirror there was a stone, of the same material as the monoliths. But this one was smaller, and had been divided into three sides, each side as smooth as that of the front of each monolith. It rose high enough above the water that it also got a handful of pale moonlight and reflected it in three directions, only for that light to be intercepted. At the right places in that ring of pure white earth once again blue stones had been placed, although these one had not only been made smooth on one side: they looked more like obelisks than anything else. Only one side was completely smooth, though, the other having been decorated. The smooth side was slanted, and facing the stone in the middle of the construction. The angle made it so that the light, rather than being reflected right back at the middle stone, was instead thrown at the space right above it. It had to be enforced by magic, because the light was reflected so strongly that Akeya could actually see the path of the reflected light, even when she temporarily removed her blindfold. One of the three stones standing in that ring of white ground was a lot taller than the other two, and the part of it that reached above the other two was slanted even further, so that it could properly catch the moonlight itself and hurl it out of the clearing and into the darkness of the forest: that had to be the obelisk that was the origin of the beam of light that bounced in between monoliths, throughout the Lycan Woods, a path to this place.

Akeya stared at the entire thing for a while, not sure what the right reaction was. It was, in a word, special. It could not be denied. It was beautiful, sacred, and special. The air was filled with magic, because moonlight contained quite some power, and in this place moonlight was as abundant as Akeya had ever seen it. This had not been made purely to look impressive, or to be hidden away. This place had a purpose, a purpose related to the full moon up above, and it was beautiful how it had been created. The half dragon kept staring, until at last she remember why she was here. The note Zack had given her told her to bathe the eggs in the light of the moon, focused through the moon's tears. She had not expected such blue stones to end up being those tears, but the only thing that fitted was that area right above the middle of the stone in the silver water, where the three stones surrounding it focused their beams in exactly the same spot. That spot filled Akeya with both intrigue and hesitation, curiosity and wariness. It was the centre of this all, and thus also the most mysterious and possibly powerful place. Still, there was no choice.

Flying forwards Akeya passed between the two smaller stones in the ring (naturally she had been facing the taller stone), feeling the amount of raw power in the air around her rise. In this place she was small enough that even her form could not stop the beams of light that were reflected, sent outwards, and focused. Once she reached the spot right above the centre stone, with her entire body being bathed in blue and silver light, it was almost too much raw potential to properly bear. Unstrapping the backpack the half dragon brought it in front of her, only to nearly drop it when she saw her reflection in the silver mirror formed of the water in the ring. Her reflection wasn't that of her own body. Instead she saw a dragon, a dragon with dark blue scales of the exact same hue as her own, with her eye colour, and somehow even looking like her even though it was without a doubt a dragon, while she was still at best a half dragon, and one with an extremely humanoid form at that. Akeya and her reflection stared at each other, the real version unable to properly process this development. Was this another part of the power in this place?

After some more staring Akeya shook her head and returned to the task at hand, only to find that her scaled hands were shaking. This place was so humbling and awe inspiring that she could not even deceive herself to pretend to be unimpressed. Forcibly making her hands still she slowly opened the backpack and pulled out the first egg, holding the bag with her tail as she raised the egg in the air, in the middle of the focused bundles of light, the centre of the centre. The egg positively glowed in all that light, throwing yet more blue light everywhere. Until suddenly that blue light became silver, in a flash the colour changing, a pure and beautiful silver. Lowering the egg Akeya saw that the egg itself was now also silver, as if made out of moonlight itself. With great care she put the marked egg back in its own compartment, then went through the same procedure with both other eggs. She had already found herself feeling fond of the eggs, but now that feeling had become yet stronger. They no longer shared their colour with her scales, but that did not seem to matter for her instincts. Those only focused on the eggs having matured, coming closer yet to hatching.

Akeya was so absorbed in this all that it was only until the beasts had already encircled the entire clearing before she heard the growling. At that point she looked up, seeing glowing yellow eyes everywhere. The werewolves had come. How they had found her, and how they had managed to get that far without betraying their location, she did not know, but they were there, and they were very slowly coming closer, their golden eyes focused on both Akeya herself and the silver eggs she had in her backpack. Their maws were open, sharp yellow fangs exposed, long red tongues visible. Their claws looked as deadly as ever, glinting in the abundance of light here. Their fur, normally rather dark, even looked more silvery in this place. This was their home, and this creature may have found the heart, but it was not going to escape this time. It had brought them something very worthwhile, and they would have it.

At least, that was the plan. It was unfortunate, then, that Akeya realized that it was not just her that they were after, but the eggs as well. And her reflection had yet to return to normal. These eggs that she was supposed to protect, these eggs that she had been looking after, these eggs that for some reason affected her nearly as strongly as if she were the one who had laid them...They would not get them. Not now, not ever. Akeya's eyes sharpened enough that her blindfold could not even hope to contain the sheer ferocity behind them. Her wings spread out, making her look bigger and even more threatening. Her tail uncurled, swaying from side to side as if ready to lash out. Her anger at the lycanthropes, the intruders, rose and rose, got stronger and stronger, and with it her sheer certainty that they would not get the eggs increased.

The wolves blinked as the area in between the stones shimmered, brightened, then darkened, as if something had arrived that even all that moonlight could not illuminate. Their prey was no longer there. Instead dark claws gripped the edge of the ring. Claws, covered in dark blue scales. Wings large enough to cover the entire clearing spread out and filled the air, the once bright place now as dark, no, darker than the area hidden behind the trees. A long tail, thin, but strong and deadly, curled around the stones, ready to hit the first werewolf to get too close. Green eyes filled with a fury that could only ever be possessed by a certain type of creature, glared at the werewolves, the elongated head in which those eyes resided turning so each werewolf could experience that gaze. A gaze which spoke the unspoken promise. Any of these mongrels which did not disappear from its sight would die. Because the broodmother was there to defend her eggs, and not even the gods themselves could stop her if her clutch were to be threatened.

The werewolves growled, whined, tried to look more intimidating themselves, but the feeling of dread and certain doom only increased. They were with many, they were fearsome predators, they were the rulers of these woods. But the trees were now behind them, and in this clearing something had shown up that did not care for their power, that looked down at their numbers, that only treated their presumed superiority with disdain. There was no other choice left for them. After some more whining the werewolves, first one by one, then all together, disappeared back into the forest, not looking back because they did not want to look at what had driven them all away.

Akeya meanwhile felt her anger subside once the beasts retreated, returning to her normal self. She was pretty sure she had not actually turned into that dragon: that reflection of her own reflection. But she had felt like she did. She had felt her claws gripping the ground, only not leaving claw marks because in her fury she still did not want to damage this place. She had felt her wings spread out, felt the air push and brush against the membrane. She had looked down at the wolves, not only mentally but physically, looked down at them as if they were mere dogs and she was their owner. It had felt real, but she still was pretty sure that it wasn't. Because if it was real, then the bag would have fallen into the water, and yet it was there in her hands, safe and sound, the now silver eggs still shining from what little light reached them. Akeya looked at herself to make sure, and noticed something that hadn't been there before: on her shoulders there were now dark blue markings, the same colour as her scales. She could not tell what they actually were supposed to represent, but they had not appeared there by accident.

It looked like the eggs were not the only ones who had reacted to the light.

Looking up Akeya spread her wings and flew out of the clearing, out of the forest, into the midnight sky, where her dark wings, her entire body, was nearly visible unless one were to see her with the moon behind her. Her eggs were safe, and marked, and she would return them to Zack. She already knew that she would have some difficulty actually leaving them in his hands, but at least as long as they stayed in the guild she could keep an eye on them. They were not actually hers, they belonged to Zack, or maybe the guild, but she could not stop herself from thinking of them as such. And just like those werewolves, those mongrels, anything or anybody that tried to harm her eggs would face a fury only the mother of a clutch could possess.

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END OF EXAM

Approved