Congratulations Sui you have passed Wave 9. You have met the criteria to move on. These criteria were to surpass fifty points, and then rest for at least ten minutes while your teammates were within five points of you, and each other.

Sui groaned and let herself fall back onto the soft grass. “I feel so cheated. How long did that even take anyway?”

Trina grimaced and looked at the sun… from her position on the ground, laying completely flat and exhausted. “I dunno… like an hour maybe? Didn’t we have like twelve though?”

Aife chuckled lightly as she saw her two exhausted companions. “Yes. That is what we were told. I have to wonder why we had a challenge that wasn’t exactly what we were told. I mean sure it was ‘a certain number of points’ it’s just that… the number in question is ‘more than fifty and close to everyone else’ and I’m not sure how happy I am to hear that.”

Trina forced herself into a sitting position long enough to find Aife, and then crawled over to her girlfriend. Once she made it to her destination, she started leaning on Aife, making use of her leg as a way to keep herself upright. “Yeah… it’s certainly strange. I wonder if more challenges will be like this in the future?

“Plus, what does rest even mean. Would it count if we were asleep? Why bother with the time limit if we didn’t even need close to that much? Why separate us? I’d have thought if it was a test to make sure we weren’t going to leave anyone behind maybe trying to force us to fight over targets would have been more likely to cause us issues? Or well, maybe not us, but surely other people”

That, seemed to allow something to click in Sui’s mind. “What if this wave nine is just the wave nine WE did? Who is to say that other people don’t have the same wave?”

Trina and Aife stopped. “But… we both fought together against monsters, and so did you right?”

Sui gave out a short laugh that showed her, she wasn’t exactly at peak performance just yet. “True, but I’m starting to think I had a different first five waves then you guys. My first wave, the very first, were rabbid rabbits? I think? That’s what they were called anyway. Just little fluffy things with red eyes, that… didn’t do all that much, though arguably more than my Wave 2.”

Trina and Aife stared gobsmacked at Sui. Eventually Aife managed to get herself together first. “Wait, you didn’t have the horned rabbits first?”

Sui shook her head. “No those came along later. Wave three I think.”

Trina felt her eye twitching violently when she heard that. “You didn’t fight goblins on wave 3? Little evil buggers, about knee height? They weren’t super deadly and a good kick would do them in, but they hard really sharp teeth and a few had knives…”

Sui looked at her friends oddly, but seeing Aife make no move to deny it shook her head and explained. “No, not at all. I had horned rabbits on three. Um… puffballs that bounced around madly on two… and I don’t remember what wave four was, but wave five was a giant wolf”

“Huh” said Aife. “The wolf was the same. Or rather, we had a wolf each, but I’ll count that as the same”

“Yeah,but it was a boss wave” said Trina “I’m guessing that might be the reason. I’m not willing to say ALL boss waves are the same, but I’d imagine there is a good chance of it… wait hang on.

“The wave we did before this, the one with the word play. I’m pretty sure that was us competing against everyone else though, right? And… with the rabbits as well? Maybe? How could those all be set up fairly if they were different for everyone?”

Aife sighed. “Well, they don’t have to be different. Just that some of them might be. The first challenge of this wave, wave six, with the metal cubes was also something we were competing against others during. I think it’s safe to say, those were all similar if not exactly the same”

Trina groaned. “So, what does that mean?”

“Actually,I think it might make sense” said Sui

“Oh?” said Trina clearly interested “How in the world does this make any sense?”

“Well…” said Sui “The other waves, six, seven and eight, were all testing our teamwork. We got through as a team or not at all. This challenge, was also about teamwork, even if it doesn’t seem that way. I think it was making sure that even if we don’t NEED to work together, or if we are subtly encouraged not to work together, we’ll do it anyway. Does that make sense?”

Trina sucked on her lip as she turned Sui’s words over in her mind. “Yeah, I guess it does make a certain sort of sense. I mean that was what I said at the start, but that was before I thought these might be different for the others.”

Sui shrugged and said “Well, they might be testing us on the same things. Plus, before they were always taking into account there was three of us surely. Imagine how we would compare against teams of five.”

Trina nodded and leaned into Aife who just sighed and picked her up instead. “Come on you pair” said Aife “Let’s head back to the house. You are both clearly tired, and we didn’t get any strange achievements this time. We should rest up because who knows when the tenth wave is coming, and that will be another boss wave.”

Ah, yes, I suppose it most likely will be. I’m not sure that I’m happy to hear that. Aife and Trina didn’t say much about how they managed to fight off two wolves but I struggled with just the one. Of course, Sui was forgetting that she was the only one who didn’t know about stats, and they’d both been leveling up properly through the first five waves.