“Why?” Ilo simply asked while jumping in an attempt to see what Cronk had brought out from the drawer, but Cronk was obstructing his view.

“Just walk out of the room, and I’ll tell you about it later”. Cronk was lying of course, while it was true he didn’t enjoy the presence of the children he did think children are things to be protected.

Opening her mouth to speak Mary hesitated, calling to her friends she spoke, “We’re waiting outside, come on,” with that Mary walked out of the room followed by Ethan, and Ilo, but Mark stayed.

“Bu-” He began his protest, but Cronk’s gaze stopped him. It wasn’t one of anger, rage or even frustration, but rather a soft pleading one. Baffled by Cronk’s behavior Mark let out a huff, and walked out after Ilo, “Fine, but you better tell us afterwards”.

As the door slammed shut Jago shook his head, and sighed at Cronk’s over protectiveness., “You do know the south is different than the north right? We don’t coddle our children down here”.

A scowl forced itself onto Cronk’s face as he stared at the small sharpened knife, “I learned of your silly customs before coming down here. It almost made me cancel my trip in disgust, but I need to learn pathfinding, so I’ll put up with your beliefs as long as they don’t conflict with mine. I’m not going to sacrifice my own beliefs because someone else will anger at it”.

Facing Jago Cronk was greeted by the man placing his hand over his half of his face while letting out a laugh, “You’ll put up with our beliefs as long as they don’t conflict with yours? Sorry to have to tell you this Cronk, but the world doesn’t work like that. Sometimes your beliefs won’t help anyone, for example when you leave here if you go by your beliefs, and lie to those children, they won’t be prepared when they take the test. Then they’ll fail their test ,all because you wanted to protect them. Belief, and choice have no place in pathfinding. The only choice you will ever be responsible for when you become a pathfinder is who you let live, and who you let die.

Blood boiling, Cronk clenched his jaw, and took a deep breath, “Let’s talk about this later. Right now I have a test to finish”. Jaw still clenched he picked up the knife putting it to the Uare’s stomach the animal twitched, a sign that it would wake soon. Reaching towards the left-most drawer the same monotone voice sounded , “For the test, participants can only use one syringe”. Movement stopped, Cronk balled his fist, and breathed a heavy sigh ‘Do all pathfinders just want to make my life miserable’

The Uare’s leg began to twitch as Jago spoke, “If the Uare wakes up while you’re working you might mess up your cuts, and cause it a lot of pain. Even if it did stay asleep we don’t have anything to stitch the anima-”.

“Shut up,” Cronk half growled at him. This man was annoying him.

Taking the knife he put it next to the animal's eye, and without hesitation stabbed through it’s eye, piercing it’s brain, killing it. Cronk didn’t care for the Uare in the slightest, so why would he hesitate to kill it?

Flipping the dead Uare onto it’s back he made a sloppy incision across its stomach, it wasn’t like he would have to stitch it back up. Peeling the skin back he was presented with the animal's abdomen. Finding the stomach he made another incision. A foul smell forced it’s way out of the stomach, and started to fill the room. Using two of his fingers Cronk widened the cut, and looked into the animal's stomach.

What he saw surprised him, their was still a small part of him that believed that the Uare swallowed their prey whole, but the animal's stomach content only contained small balls of chewed up meat. Having his hypothesis disproven Cronk took a step back, and began to brainstorm, ‘The balls of meat are obviously chewed, so they have to get outside help, most likely from the females. It’s probable that the females chew up the food while the males go out, and hunt food, but why don’t the females just g-. No that’s not the question I was asked, I found the answer to the first question now I need to focus on the last one’.

Plucking one of the fresher balls of meat from the Uare’s stomach he began to turn it in his palm. Using the knife he slowly cut the ball in half, and was met with a small blue fin. The fin was similar to the fish that he, and The Pathfinder used as bait yesterday.

Writing down his last two answers he walked over to Jago, and held out the paper. No bothering to look at the page Jago spoke, “Congratulations you passed your observation test”.

Feeling like he had missed something, and that every single pathfinder was just screwing with him, he rubbed his head with one of his bloodied hands. “How’d you know if I passed if you didn’t even look at the paper?” Cronk asked

“The main point of this test isn’t to test observation,” Jago explained, “The point of the test is to see if someone is able to kill a harmless animal, and then desecrate it’s corpse, I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true. Doing these types of things to animals is one of the costs of having safety, and knowledge. Sadly this is the test that get’s a lot of people, which is why we have it early on”. Seeing Cronk’s surprised face Jago continued, “I know what you're thinking, ‘how could someone not do what I just did, it was so easy’, but you’d be surprised by the amount of people that, when it comes down to it, can’t kill a helpless living thing. Hell most of our soldiers won’t kill an unarmed enemy even on the battlefield”. Sighing Jago finished, “You should go find Vigil next he’ll tell you when your next test is”.

Still surprised at Jago’s statement Cronk wiped his hands on the inside of his shirt, and reached for the door only to have it randomly open. The pathfinder walked through the door, and stretched his back, “Congratulations on passing Cronk, but now isn’t the time for celebration we have a job tomorrow”. Pausing for a second he looked around, “and by we I mean all of us”.

***

Alright...I'm gonna take a nap.