Welcome to Gaia! ::

The forests of Urania. They were vast and deep. You could be mistaken for believing that they covered all the surface.

If you looked out from where you stand, you cannot see past them. Even if you got as high as you could, you would not see anything but the trees. And if you could get as low as you could, you would only see roots.

But, at the center of the world, there was a large area of mostly stone. It was on the outskirts of this area that you now stood, on ground of a fine and dark dirt. It is as if you stand on the last bit of ground before the untamed wilderness.

This area leads to the Wayfarers Ward.

———

“Welcome to Urania. This sphere here… well, it used to light up this section of the forest! Which section is this? Oh, yes. This is the Wayfarers Ward. Oh! I should explain why it’s called that. The constellation Aquarius had that title on my world. But it also represented a clan, the Wayfarers clan, represented by the Water Bearer. There was also three tribes under them, Draco, the Sky Dragon; Hydra, the Sea Dragon; and Argo, the Ship.

See! They are right here on the sphere…

Oh, perhaps I should explain why I’m explaining all this.”

The senshi touches the sphere’s stars in a certain order. Nothing happens for a moment. And then you see the stars shift and move before forming the words:

Are you ready?

“You see, on my world, before I was allowed to leave and explore beyond Urania, I had to complete a challenge from each clan. Which I did! But, um, this thing doesn’t seem to remember that. It won’t let me turn on the light until I do it all over again! I mean… the two things — lighting the way and the challenge aren’t even connected! It must be broken…”

She looked sad and her wisp appeared and tried to comfort her by doing all it could which was spin around her head. Then she looked to you.

“And I was much stronger than… you see. I’m not at the same stage as I was then. So, if this does what I think it does, I’m going to need some help.”

Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready?

The stars keep reforming and asking the same thing over and over, like it’s broken or something and stuck on repeat. The wisp circles the sphere excitedly as if also asking…

Are you ready?


❂

Urania was so glad Grieve was here. She had relied on strangers to help her with the other spheres. And while, now, they were anything but strangers to her and she counted them as true friends, it was different being aided by someone she had known so long.

“It can be riddles. But most of the other spheres already had that covered. I highly doubt there would be any more. The clans always tried to give a variety of challenges.” Urania said as she placed her hand on the sphere.

“The whole point of these was to make sure I was ready to face the outside world.”

Welcome to the Wayfarer’s Ward!

The first task is from Argo, the Ship:

I am a ship that can be made to ride the greatest waves.
I am not built by objects, but built by minds.
What am I?

“Oh. Come on! Really?” Urania yelled with comic tears. “Why?”


❂

“Seriously? I feel like this thing is trolling us. That’s how you use that Earth term, right?”

Urania liked trying to use her new Earth vocabulary and this situation seemed to merit it.

“Uh. We gotta solve it anyway.” She seemed just as annoyed as Greive. When you were on your — what was it now, twelfth? — such sphere in a few weeks, you get a bit tired of it. Back when she had to do these tasks for each clan, they had been months apart.

“Relationship? Oh. I think you’re on to something. What are different kinds of relationships called?”


❂

“Relationships? Lovers. Eww. No. Not lovers. Ick. Kissing. That’s gross. What about platonic partners? That’s much better.”

Here she was with Grieve, both listing off all the relationships they could think of off the top of their heads, like that was the objective.

The sphere lit up. For each guess, a star lit up to correspond with it. Red. Red each time. Not a good red either. The kind of red for error, failure, stop. The kind of red for wrong.

Until all but one star was left.

“Oh dear. I think we only have one chance left.” Urania thought long and hard, the exact opposite of what the two had been doing.

“I know. The one relationship that we haven’t guessed and that we both share.” She went to grab Greive’s hand. “Friendship!”

With that, the last star blip turned a bright green.

Correct!

Your final two tasks will be together from Draco, the Sky Dragon and Hydra, the Sea Dragon.

Each of you will face one dragon. You must defeat them separately, but at the same time. If one defeats their dragon before the other, it will return. Remember, coordination is key to success.

Two dragons suddenly appear from the sphere. They are both ethereal and have a constellation-like pattern on their bodies. One of the dragons has wings and is more compact. The other dragon does not have wings and is along and winding.

The sky dragon attacks Urania. The water dragon attacks Grieve.


❂

Urania shouted the name of her attack and went straight for the sky dragon, confident Greive would be okay.

Just in that moment, her power fluctuated. Usually, when that happened, her spell would just fizzled out. But not this time.

This time… a giant flash of light not only blinded the sky dragon as intended. It destroyed it. It took so much damage from her rogue magic, it disappeared.

“Uh oh.”

She looked over to Greive.

“My magic… it did that weird thing where it fluctuated. It came out much too strong.”



❂

Turning her head to take in the sky dragon's destruction, Grieve snorted and spun her body into the water dragon as it moved in to counter. Heel slamming into the thing's body with satisfying impact, she laughed as it, too, disappeared.

Hands on her hips, she lectured Urania, "There's no such ******** thing as too strong." It was a very, very old argument amongst some of the crew: precision and finesse vs the raw power to just punch through any given problem.

Grieve held out a fist to her friend, "Really underestimated us, yeah?"

Pulling a small, ancient cask from her storage, Grieve held it aloft in a toast toward forest. "Here's a riddle for you, Meceyah: it's time to get shitfaced!" It was, in fact, not much of a riddle, but Grieve was only accepting one answer.