Beth and Nate entered the small clearing together but Nate quickly ran off towards a group that Beth assumed was his family. As he ran a small girl not much older than one ran towards him giggled and he swept her up in his arms causing a momentary look of alarm from his father that he quickly schooled into a poker face.

Beth felt slightly at a loss standing alone in the clearing, the only other person she had met, Donna, was surrounded by people clearly giving last minute instructions for the small festival. Spying a buffet table, and still feeling rather hungry from her last couple of days Beth did what every introverted person does at a party and headed straight for the snacks. She didn’t recognised much but she’d gotten use to eating unknown foods and picked up a couple of skewers with chunks of meat on them.

“I wonder how they hide the smoke from these?” she thought out loud as she took a large chunk off the stick.

“We have a couple of people who work exclusively at night to cook. That way the smoke is much much less likely to be spotted.” A man from beside her answered.

Beth turned a deep red and swallowed the chunk of meat that was altogether too big for such an action causing her to choke slightly. This just caused her to turn all the more red and she thrust out a hand to shake. The man smirked and shook it. He had deep bags under is eyes, leading Beth to assume he was himself one of these midnight chefs.

“I’ll admit I came up to you with a slight agender. I’m Pauline’s father and wanted to get a moment alone with yourself before sending my daughter off with you for weeks.”

Beth gulped again. This was not the first impression she imagined this man was hoping for. None-the-less the man smiled at her welcomingly

“My Pauline isn’t like Nate, the other kid you are going with, she’s much more meticulous and what she’s lacking physically she more than makes up for mentally. At least I think she does. But maybe that’s just the parent in me. Just look after her for me will you?”

Beth obviously agreed, it wasn’t like she had a choice anyway. Plus what kind of monster would she be if she didn’t help out a child. They continued to chat for a little longer before Pauline’s father finally pointed her out. She was stood away from the groups, with a small notebook and seemed to be scribbling away in it and generally not meeting anybody’s eyes. A feeling Beth could very much relate to. She was just considering heading over to her and making introductions when Donna clapped her hands and demanded everybody’s attention.

“Welcome everybody You all obviously know why we are here today. We are officially sending out two of our children to partake in the ritual of the three and to become adults of our small community. Joining them will be Beth, a visitor to our village who’s Trial matches up with our ritual to ensure we are sending our kids out in a group of three. If the three can step forward and declare the lesson they wish to learn during the ritual they will then be gifted with a ritual pendant so all they meet know they are partaking in the ritual as well as a bag of supplies designed to support them in their journey. This pendant will ensure that everybody they meet will be supportive to them but won’t help them beyond a point and won’t travel with them. We know that there is a chance they won’t succeed and even a chance of tragedy but we will celebrate with them tonight. But first the lessons!”

A cheer went up at that as Beth, Nate and Pauline stepped forward forming an awkward line. Nate stood in the centre with the two girls on either side, both doing their best to cower from the crowd while also not making it obvious that was exactly what they were doing.

Unsurprisingly Nate was the first to speak shouting out so he was clearly heard by the whole crowd.

“I’m hoping to receive the wisdom of Naia and to ensure that I’m not too paranoid!”

Pauline spoke up at not much more than a whisper “I’m hoping to” she stopped and seeing everybody straining to hear began again fractionally louder “I’m hoping to learn the lesson of Wisdonna and to learn to not shut myself away with my studies” the crowd cheered at that, but this was dwarfed by the whooping from her father standing front and centre of the crowd. Pauline turned bright red in embarrassment and stepped back allowing Beth to step forward herself.

Beth hadn’t had a lot of time to consider the lesson she wanted to learn from the ritual. After all she had only heard it in the first place the evening before which wasn’t a lot of time to reflect on her goals. If she was honest she felt she had already learnt all the lessons being presented by the story and was confident in her ability. Mostly going along with it because she could use the help and had come around to Nate. In the end she decided to just pick one that seemed relevant to the story.

“I’m hoping to receive the drive for discovery of Wisdonna.” Beth declared loudly.

This was met with a polite splattering of applause though noticeable less than the two children had received and when Beth looked towards Donna she could see a frown that Donna was poorly trying to conceal. Noticing Beth looking she quickly morphed the face into something more neutral and got up to give the three their pendants. She then turned to address the crowd once more.

“Let’s have another round of applause for our three brave explorers” she paused until he next round of applause died down. “As is traditional this party will officially end shortly, and as with every year I’m sure everybody will head straight to bed at that point” Donna continued sharing a knowing glance with certain members of the crowd, young and old alike, and pretending not to hear the chuckling and heckling to the contrary.

“Just in case it takes people a while to settle down after tonight tomorrow no official duties will be expected of yourselves though it would be appreciated if you would appear to see our young’uns off. Do remember they have over a month in the wilderness ahead so do be respectful tonight and remember there are still some dangers in the area. With this Donna finished her speech and some fairly loud music started up.

In reality it was fairly safe, as with every year a number of people, often the old guard having had their turn, would volunteer to be on watch a guard that would be almost double in number than normal. Further they had a couple of people who had the ability to dampen sound who were out in force. The party would continue deep into the night and when they collected to see the three explorers off in the morning many will not yet have gone to bed waiting till after that point to finally settle down.

Beth had the best intentions to stay and enjoy the celebrations. The food was good, the people friendly and the experience exciting and new. But after learning two dances and making very awkward small talk she soon realised just how unsuited to such an event she was. After all she didn’t really feel like the celebration was for her. Further Pauline, the one person she had actually hoped to meet had already slunk away. She wasn’t feeling that impressed by the challenge in general. Her so called Trial, the thing that would finally help her to reach level 5 something that seemed to be a yardstick of talent and seems to have a further affect beyond was something that was completed by children who didn’t even have access to the skills she did.

Having stuck around for as long as she could handle and having said goodnight to the very few people she knew, Donna had gone to bed almost instantly as a combo of pregnancy and knowing nobody really wants the boss at a rowdy party. Saying goodbye to Nate and sharing a look with Pauline’s father she slipped away from the party and headed towards where she had set up her hammock.

She lay there, listening to the sounds of the party not quite tired enough to take herself to sleep but not wanting to spend any further time with the others. The glow of the mountains was enough that Beth could pull out the letter from Harri and she read it again getting some comfort from the success of her friend and hoping that she was continuing to do well at her job. Thoughts of rejoining Harri again someday floated through her head as she drifted off to sleep, giving fairly little thought to the challenges she was about to face.