Day 1 (Monday, April 25, 2022) Adirondacks, Tupper Lake, New York, United States

The rain started off soft but soon became pelting and turned into stinging ice chips, Ella quickly moved to cover underneath a tree and then to another and finally found a rocky outcropping to shelter under. She was shivering as the ice water ran down her clothes.

She was supposed to survive out here a week. Hunt her own food. And avoid being spotted by her squad mates.

Zaidu took great pleasure in telling her how they had a nice, lovely warm cabin to sleep in, with plentiful food and warm baths.

She shivered a quite a while and then cursed herself for being stupid. She faced the rock wall and felt her eyes glow. focused a steady stream of light into the rock wall until it was almost glowing hot and then enjoyed the heat. She spent so much time trying to do stuff without magic that it didn’t occur to her to use it.

As she sat there, she thought about it. She could probably use magic for a lot of things here, hunting animals, muffling her noise, and keeping warm.

But what would she learn? Could she depend on magic all of the time? She didn’t know how reliable it was.

The contrapositive of that was how did she get better at magic and using magic effectively? She needed to talk to Zaidu and Arcsa and arrange for training with and without both. She would not be caught unprepared.

Reluctantly she spotted another rock outcropping and made a quick run to it, abandoning her warm comfortable spot. And it turned out to be a cave.

Ella shined her handgun light into the cavern, wary of bears and other creatures, but this was perfect. She dragged some fallen wood in from the ground to dry and shivered.

Ixus Capital, Midtown, Manhattan, New York, United States

Charlotte was currently loving her new office. It had a nice hint of Central Park from the window, but better yet she could see into the offices across from her and spent her time making up names and dialog for each encounter she saw.

At least in her mind these poor office drones could have sexy lives. Then she wondered if they were thinking the same as her. Well, she wished her life was like a steamy telenovella. Maybe she was just missing Adra. He was up north somewhere in the mountains camping or something. Along with Ella. and Jade was alright, but kind of a stick in the mud.

And damn it, her cheeks were red again, she could feel herself blushing. She wondered how long it would be that she wouldn’t feel herself losing emotional control. And then, whether that would be better or worse.

Her father was coming up in another week. To meet Xu apparently. Charlie briefly wondered what old Alistair Harris would think if he knew that Tommy Xu was an actual dragon. Charlie knew and didn’t believe it most of the time.

Charlie sat back at her computer and looked at the revised model she was building. It looked good.

She debated about going to the gym versus having a martini from the liquor cabinet she had put in right away. And surprisingly the gym won.

She was kind of lonely.

Adirondacks, Tupper Lake, New York, United States

Adra was thinking about Charlie. He knew he should have been focusing on their briefing, Zaidu was sending them out there and if anyone spotted Ella, they would get a week of leave. He wanted that week badly.

All they had to do was spot her. She would be out there hunting and this was no wargame. They each. including Ella, had a map of the playing field, and it was laughably small but mountainous.

It was raining late spring hail right now, and Ella was out there. Adra knew, they all knew now, that Ella might be there prophesied goddess. Her show in the weight-room had been too much to ignore. And so a human presence became fully clear.

Adra examined himself, he felt no need to obey her yet. That would not kick in until she had fulfilled the requirements, but it made him nervous. Would he become a mindless drone like the drow once she did? What would happen to his people? They would lose their freedom which they only had due to this gap between being in Kur and the coming of Blessed Innana.

And he had been sleeping next to, shitting next to, and showering next to his goddess for weeks.

He didn’t know what to think about that. Arcsa the Prophet had ordered them to keep it to themselves. Bahu, also known as the Believer, had also scolded that. Zaidu had gone crazy. Anything they did, he made Ella work twice as hard. As if he could make her give up, go home, and find a deity at the local shop.

But if there was one thing Adra saw in Ella, it was absolute inability to surrender. If she was bad at something, she doubled down on it again and again. Zaidu was a soft cheese against her rock.

Adra expected Ella to survive the week without being caught. He recognized it was a defeatist attitude, but Ella was a force of nature.

She was also his squad mate. She hadn’t grown up in an Aqrabuamelu crèche, but she was one of them now. He would back her as best as he could.

But he wanted that week of leave and would definitely try his hardest to get it.

Ella woke up in the cave. Her body was stiff from the rocks but the rain had stopped. It was early morning and she was starving. She grabbed her rifle while sleeping and wasn’t terribly enthused to wake up finding herself clutching it.

She made her way to the cave entrance, and there it was. A beautiful white deer, or buck since it had antlers. Ella didn’t really know the lingo.

She looked at her rifle, it was a Remington Model 700 bolt action. She barely knew how to use it but she had still kept it dry and ready. She slowly and carefully brought it up and sighted down the scope. It was quite far, approximately 250 meters and she held steady and waited. Pacing her breathing and waiting for the buck to brings its head up for a clean kill.

It started to move, and Ella could swear it was looking right at her through the scope. As if it was going to shoot her instead.

She gently let out her breath and pulled the trigger as she had been taught. There was almost no breeze.

The report of the rifle echoed but the buck literally sidestepped right before and the bullet went harmlessly by. It took one look at her, shook its head and then bounded into the forest.

Damn it, Ella thought.

She didn’t have a fire and she felt that should clearly be the first order of business. Her wood from last night wasn’t wet and she got to try making a fire from scratch.

One hour later she looked at the indentation she had made spinning one piece of wood in the other. If it was more than a bit warm, she couldn’t tell.

Damn she was getting hungry. She pulled out the manual and started reading. Plants it was. After hours of searching she ended up realizing she was right next to a bunch of Indian cucumber. Edible roots. She found one and cleaned it off as best as she could. Fortunately there was a small creek nearby for water.

Fire was going to be an issue and she took to the creek bed gathering up different stones and striking them against one another hoping one of them would spark. An hour later she was hungry again. This was going to be terrible.

She looked at the device Zaidu had handed her, his voice taking great pleasure in telling her all she needed to do was press the button on the side to give up. Temptation already and she wasn’t even a full day out here.

She kept searching and foraging plants as best as she could. Most of them fell into the barely edible camp but Ella supposed beggars couldn’t be choosy and so she doggedly collected them.

And then she saw a small squirrel and she again went through the routine of pulling her rifle out and looking through the scope. She breathed out and pulled the trigger and saw a small puff of dirt as the squirrel scampered away.

The report was loud and Ella realized the others could find her if she didn’t keep moving. She would need to make sure not to shoot near her cave.

Woth that in mind, she paged through the book until she found a guide on how to make a bow. It felt beyond her. Maybe she would make some spears first.