winter knight: a coming of rank story

The academy was filled with talks about the water tournament day event. Especially how Diah intervened and saved the day, she was heavily rewarded alongside her team members, they were moved to the best lodge in the academy and were treated with respect given to an anointed soldier. There were speculations about her powers and why the beast succumbed to her, some say she was a goddess, some say she possessed strong animal taming skill and strength, some say her awumakhuwa was leviathan and so on. Everywhere she passed, eyes and heads turned and tiny whispers were heard. Unbothered by the huge attention she'd gotten, she continued immensely with trainings, more tournaments still waits ahead. The next tournament was grass, the trainings became more intense and different, no mistakes could be tolerated as a slight error could be the end of an stbsk. The grass mission is a tough one as it involve the candidates picking a rare rose grown in a rare garden in another world guarded by a thirteen feet demigod, the demigod has been around before the era of the gods and guards his garden jealously, he's a shape shifter that can become a tree, a shrub, a flower and a three foot dwarf, he wields a twin head axe made from unicorn's horn weathered and molded into shape by air and earth element harnessing their energies from the core. He gets really aggressive and violence at the slightest sniff of intruders, he's a seasoned fighter who always wins his fights, he doesn't kill his victims but leaves them permanently scarred or disfigured. Though dangerous, he's the most peaceful demigod among his kind, if approached peacefully, he can grant any request, his plants are his most prized possessions.

The stbsk as usual were given full details about their opposition and how to successfully complete the mission without error, and in case there was one, they were told his greatest weakness and how to defeat and escape him. The head of the mission was a grass soldier and he diligently inspected each candidate and grouped them according to their skill in order to achieve a perfect team. Their mission gear was a camouflage suit that blends with whatever background, their weapons are made of pure hard wood cause the demigod hates metals and could sniff them from hundred of miles away, they wore a head gear made of plants elements to filter the carbon they exhaled as an exhale of carbon could wipe off a quarter of the garden.

The mission began and this time, it was every team at a time, they went through a portal to a garden, the garden was in another world surreal. The garden was huge and massive in size that the twelve hundred stbsk occupied just a little part of it, they searched for the roses, each team progressing in their own format. Diah got teamed with Sharna, Snow and four other candidates, each team consists of a master way finder, an expert botanist, a skilled hearer and seer, three skilled fighter. They walked for miles and got to a dark path that led to where the special roses are, as they progressed into the paths, the wind became lighter, the place had a spooky but peaceful feel about it, that part of the garden had three moons lighting it up, two gray moons and a bright blue moon, they stopped at a huge pond that surrounded a bush of roses, there was no way to get the roses except by swimming and they were told that the slightest ripple would tip the demigod off.

Each team planned how to get the roses without alerting the demigod. Diah took her team back outside to think clearer.

"Nobody mentioned a pond filled with monsters!" Snow panicked.

"The pond isn't filled with monsters" Sharna corrected her in a bold stern tone.

"How would you know?" She queried.

"Seems you don't pay attention well enough" Sharna added.

"Ugh! You're annoying" Snow lamented.

"Yeah, and you're doing a great job at it" Sharna said.

"One last time Sharna, one last time" Snow sounded like she was threatening her.

After a long hard thought, Diah came up with a plan.

In this world, dusk and dawn is characterised by a white and red sun respectively, the red sun comes up at dawn to replace the white sun. When this happened, Diah and her teammates moved, they went into the dark part of the garden where the roses are, when they got to the pond they saw other teams trying different methods to get the roses, some were trying to levitate but the air in here was too light almost not breathable, some were trying to build a raft and sail across to get the roses, some were trying to use the trees and so on. Diah carefully scanned the place and noticed something off about it.

"Past!" She called her team's attention. "Noticed anything weird about this place?".

Snow rolled her eyes. "Duh!"

"What have you picked up?" Sharna inquired.

"Look at the leaves of the trees and study the direction of the wind"

They observed the wind and noticed they were blowing inwards instead of sideways.

"Hmm that's weird" Snow said as she saw what was happening.

"What could be the cause?" A team mate asked.

"The roses aren't here" Diah said with a tone of clarity.

"Why do you say that?" Asked Snow.

"So we've been tricked?" Asked another team mate.

"Heard of the story about the three eyed giant who loves roses but are allergic to it so he made a frame world and hid them there where he could watch them all day?" Diah asked.

"Hmm... So what about it" Snow asked.

"Dum dum, put the pieces together. The three eyed giant is the demigod, the three eyes are the moons, and whatever this place is, is a figment of a more real world. The demigod doesn't live here, this is simply a mirage of a real world."

"Finally, someone who gets it!" Diah said excitedly.

"Oh, i see. So where's the real world and how do we get there?" Snow inquired.

"There has to be a secret passage somewhere. Look carefully for an obvious odd thing." Diah instructed.

They looked around for a while observing everything.

"Look!" One of the team mate pointed at a part of the pond "that place is the darkest"

"Hmm...interesting." Sharna said.

"How do we know it's the passage way?" Asked Snow.

"I'll go first." Before anyone could say a word Sharna dived into the part of the water that is the darkest.

She landed in her feet in an opposite world. "Whoa!" Diah was right" the world around her was bright and beautiful and more real, she took her helmet cause the air was normal, she took long dep breaths. Someone yelled behind her, she turned to see it was snow. She shook her head and helped her to her feet.

"Believe me now?" She asked snow who could barely afford a nod. Others joined laughing in excitement. 'Whoa' was the first word out of everyone's mouth.

"Let's go amd and pluck some special roses" Diah said and they all laughed. The map was brought out and immediately, it transformed to a bird that flew in the direction they were supposed to go. They followed it.