Bronwyn stood and gingerly began to stretch out her cramped and aching muscles and joints. She may have recovered and gained the boon, but she was still feeling the effects of the toxins that had immobilized her. Her knuckles were swollen and red, and when she tried to make a fist, it felt like her hands were wearing overstuffed mittens. The rest of her joints felt similarly sore, and when she tried to take a few steps, her ankles screamed in protest. She finally decided that she’d have to sit there for a while and let the toxins run their course before continuing.

She tried to speed things along by flushing her system with lots of water, downing a full canteen and then another and peeing there in the tunnel, a few feet downslope from where she’d been resting. Bronwyn didn’t know if her efforts were any help, but after an hour or so, she began to feel more like herself and could walk without cringing in pain.

She decided to press ahead and continue with the trial. She wasn’t sure if she should feel pissed at the Queen for sending her in there without more warning than she had. Her experience with the swarm had been hellacious, both the physical pain and the mental torment of actually believing she was about to die. Could she have died? Did some people not survive the toxins? Had it just been a test of her vitality, or had it also been a test of will? The questions tormented Bronwyn, but she knew she’d never find the answers in her head, so she tried to focus on the situation at hand.

The tunnel from which the swarm had emerged had the steepest downward slope, so Bronwyn decided to go that way. She had a feeling that she wouldn’t be running into the swarm again, so she figured it would be interesting to see what was down that path. The ground was springy, and the loamy walls drank up the sounds of her passage, so she moved forward quietly, with just the occasional soft squelch of her boot stepping on a patch of moist moss. After descending for several minutes, long enough for the stiffness to completely work out of her joints, Bronwyn stepped through an arched opening into a vaulted, circular chamber with smooth, packed-dirt walls. The room was unremarkable save for the shaft of sunlight that streamed through a gap high in the ceiling.

The light seemed to stir the dusty soil, sending motes swirling up in tiny invisible updrafts. Bronwyn’s eyes followed the swirling dust, and then she was caught by surprise when she saw a dun-colored doe with little white spots dappling its coat. Its coloring so perfectly matched the environment that she’d nearly missed it. Bronwyn took one step into the room, and the doe bolted through one of the three oval tunnel entrances on the far side of the chamber. Some instinct in Brownyn sent her running after the doe, heedless of danger. She didn’t know why she was chasing it; was it to see where it went, or did she hope to catch it? She didn’t think about it, just ran.

The tunnel she chased it into was much like the one she’d come from, and it blurred by as she focused her attention downslope, where she could just catch a glimpse of the doe down the various long straight sections. Bronwyn pushed herself, enjoying the feeling of letting go of all her trepidation and worries and just running wildly through the springy, soil-scented tunnels. She passed branching tunnels here and there and crashed through a few more round, earthen chambers, but each glimpse she caught of the spotted doe reassured her that she was on the right path.

She came to a long, straight tunnel with a very gentle downward slope, and she pumped her legs, sprinting with everything she had. She could see the doe up ahead and watched it go through another opening. When she caught up and burst through the archway, she slid to a halt to take in the scene, her lungs pumping like a bellows as she caught her breath.

She was in another dome-shaped underground chamber with a much larger aperture in the ceiling shedding sunlight down onto a patch of grass. The doe was ahead of her in the grass, pulling feebly at a leg caught in the jaws of a trap. Bronwyn glanced around the chamber but didn’t see anything else. There weren’t any other creatures around, and only smooth, hard-packed dirt walls surrounded the strange grassy underground meadow. Bronwyn walked slowly toward the struggling doe, and in her heart, she knew she had a choice to make. Was she a hunter? She’d chased down the creature, and now it was here—her prize. Or would she let her tender sensibilities get the better of her and try to release her?

Bronwyn wondered what the Queen would want, but then she shook her head; how could she discern the machinations of a being that had been scheming and planning for thousands of years? The Queen had picked Bronwyn to be her agent, not the other way around; she felt like it was stupid to act the way she thought the Queen would want her to. Rather, she should act the way she wanted to because that was who she was, and the Queen liked who she was. Pleased with her logic, Bronwyn continued to approach the doe, saying, “Shh, beautiful. I’m going to help you.”

Bronwyn practically tiptoed; she was carefully trying not to startle the doe. It had stopped struggling and looked over one spotted shoulder at Bronwyn, big glistening black eyes unblinking. “That looks like it hurts. I’m sorry, sweetie. Hold still, and I’ll get it off.” Bronwyn worked to keep her voice steady and low, and she crouched as she took the last few steps to the quivering creature.

The trap was hooked to a chain that was staked into the earth. Bronwyn had seen depictions of bear traps in VR games and on the net, and this trap looked similar but with smaller teeth and springs. She slowly reached forward with both hands and grasped the two sides of the trap’s jaws, pulling them apart. The doe yanked its leg free and bolted a few steps away. Then it stopped and turned back to Bronwyn. Slowly it walked back to her, not limping or quivering anymore, and Bronwyn dropped to her knee, keeping herself low as it approached.

The doe walked right up to her and pushed its moist, black nose against Bronwyn’s cheek. It huffed out a breath of hot air, blowing some of Bronwyn’s red hair back from her eyes, and then turned and ran from the chamber.

***Congratulations! You’ve earned the feat “Blessing of the Herd.” Over grassy plains or in the shade of trees, you move more swiftly and with less effort.***

“Thank you!” Bronwyn called after the running doe. “That was a hell of a lot better than getting stung almost to death.” She stood and stretched, looking up at the shaft of warm sunlight that illuminated the room. She wondered, briefly, if she’d have gotten a different sort of blessing for killing the doe or if she’d have failed the trial altogether. She supposed it didn’t matter; she acted the way she felt she should, and she’d gotten her second blessing; all was well. Two tunnels led away from the underground meadow, and Bronwyn walked toward the one on the left, not thinking about it, but trusting her instincts.

The tunnel started out with an even slope, but soon she found herself climbing a gentle grade. She leaned into the climb, enjoying the exercise; her chase of the doe had worked out any of the residual stiffness from the swarm’s toxins, and her muscles and lungs felt strong. The tunnel seemed very straight and continued at the same slope for a long time.

She felt like she’d been climbing for hours when a deep, grinding rumble echoed down the tunnel. Bronwyn paused for a moment, listening, and then she heard it again, this time with a sharp, cracking clap. “Thunder?” she asked, frowning in concentration. She continued her climb a bit more slowly now, listening and peering ahead for any signs of what was to come.

The grinding, cracking thunder continued to sound every couple of minutes, and Bronwyn noticed that the ground, still springy and firm, was more and more damp. Finally, the long sloping tunnel’s end came into view, and she saw a gray sky with sheeting rain falling. A flash of lightning confirmed what she’d suspected—there was a storm raging outside.

She trudged up the increasingly damp tunnel until she was just a few paces from the gray-lit opening. The storm’s sheeting rain pounded the grassy slope leading away from the tunnel, and every few breaths, a shockingly bright, jagged lightning bolt lanced through the cloudy sky, accompanied by an immediate peal of thunder that, at this distance, shook the air and had Bronwyn covering her ears and wincing.

She edged up to the opening, staying under the exposed-stone overhang, but still got splashed by the falling rain. It was warm, and its smell made Bronwyn smile as childhood memories she’d forgotten she’d had came flooding into her mind. She remembered playing outside in the summer in rural San Bernardino, getting caught in a monsoon, and running through the desert scrub to her father’s ranch house. She remembered the tang of ozone and the fresh scent of the palo verde trees and creosote. Most of all, she remembered how the rain wasn’t cold, just refreshing. She had to fight an urge to run out into the storm; the lightning was far more violent and frequent in this storm than the ones in her memory. She peered outside to take in the view, though.

Bronwyn’s cave opening provided a view of a small valley surrounded by high steep hills and stony peaks. The stormy gray clouds obscured the tops of the mountains, but she could see to the far side of the oval basin and, remarkably, could make out another cave entrance on the far side. The entire valley floor was covered in lush, green grass, with an occasional slender, broad-leafed tree bending violently in the storm’s gusts. The other cave was directly across from her, a mile or, accounting for tricks of perception, maybe two away.

She stood there, watching the storm and gazing out at the little valley, and, after maybe the third time it happened, she realized her eyes kept settling on the tiny, distant cave entrance. She felt like she was supposed to go there. It was downhill and over flat, grassy ground. She felt like she could make the run in a couple of minutes. She itched to launch herself out into the storm, sprinting for everything she was worth. She realized she was grinning, almost maniacally, and that’s when she knew she was going to go for it. Again, she had the faint realization that she was being tested, and there was more than one correct answer. She could wait out the storm, but she could also let herself do what she wanted. She charged out over the grass with a wild, “Woop!”

Bronwyn bounded over the wet grass, instantly soaked by the sheeting rain. She laughed and howled up at the storm as she tore over the valley floor. She was running fast; downward momentum, strong, agile, pumping legs, and her new boon from the doe combined to allow her to cover ground like no human on Earth ever had. She was laughing, tears of joy streaming from her eyes, only a few dozen paces from the fast-approaching cave mouth when the lightning struck her. With a tremendous clap of thunder, Bronwyn’s body arched through the air, her hair standing out like a great red halo, and her body rigid with electricity. It was over as quickly as it started, and she crashed to the grass, tumbling and rolling to flop just inside the cave.

Bronwyn’s body twitched, and then her eyes sprang open, and despite her tingling, numb body, and the scorched, blasted boot on her left foot, she started to giggle.

***Congratulations! You’ve earned the feat “Blessing of the Summer Storm.” In times of great need, raise your voice with the force of thunder behind it.***