Tom’s head swam as he sat up from the blow that had apparently knocked him out. As he pushed himself off the hard packed earth, he thought to himself, Must be getting rusty. Didn’t see or hear anyone come up behind me. I didn’t even sense anyone either and that’s really unusual.

As Tom looked around and saw that he was still in an impenetrable fog cloud still, his head began to clear. He remembered that both Jason and Misty had walked onto the strange rope bridge (or had Misty been the first one to go? He was still a bit groggy). He had followed shortly after Jason or Misty had gotten onto the bridge and from there, everything seemed to be whited out in his memory.

Tom groaned at the mental pun he had made and tried to recompose himself. As far as he knew, Jason and Misty were missing. However, the two small icons at the top right of his UI showed that they were still alive and had both full health and stamina bars. So that was a small favor, despite them being separated. Tom looked down at where he was sitting and saw that the ground he was sitting on was a hard, dry earth that seemed to be surrounded by a ring of stones. The ground was slightly divoted where he was laying and it almost held a bowl-like structure to it.

Tom stood up and as he looked around where he had been lying, saw that there was some intricate stonework that had been surrounding the small depression that he had woken up in. As Tom looked at the white stone and several statues that surrounded him, he realized that he was in an old, dried out fountain. Furthermore, he was now noticing that the mist that had been so thoroughly pervasive, was now beginning to thin out and strange shapes were beginning to emerge in the shadows, still hidden by the mist.

Tom began to take stock of his surroundings, eyes darting around at the various shapes that loomed in the mist. None of them seemed to be moving and as the mist cleared even further, Tom realized that he was in the midst of a large ornamental garden that was dilapidated from decades of disuse. A large pot held what seemed to be a plant growing wild and several of the statues that surrounded the fountain were covered in vines that were brown and dying.

Everywhere there were signs of a once great garden that had fallen into disrepair: a cracked stone bench with intricate carvings; a large statue that had toppled over from its pedestal; a small path that had been almost completely taken over by grass and small paving stones poking through little gaps in the grass. The whole area felt tired and lost, as if it had once been a great destination for visitors, but had been destroyed by the ravages of time.

In the distance, Tom heard birdsong from some exotic bird that he could not identify, and chittering from some animals that still as yet remained hidden by the mist. More and more details revealed themselves over the next several minutes as the mist dissolved; here an old lamp post, there an overgrown tree. Tom couldn’t help himself from wondering what the place had looked like when everything had been trimmed and properly cared for. As the mist cleared entirely, Tom looked up and realized that he was in the midst of a giant glass dome and he guessed that the entirety of the whole garden was contained within the dome.

As Tom continued to assess his surroundings, a small humming noise came from off in the distance. As Tom honed in on the sound, it began to get closer and closer. Tom quickly situated himself behind one of the large statues flanking the fountain bowl and sank into a ready stance, preparing to pounce on whatever was coming near.

The humming noise came nearer and out from behind a large, flowing tree, floated Buddi. His small propulsion system made a loud humming noise that dimmed as he slowed down looking for Tom.

“Tom!” he called out. The little robot whizzed around the fountain area, crying out Tom’s name, looking for him. “Ground control to Mister Tom!”

Tom stepped out from his hiding place behind the statue. “Buddi,” he waved his arms to direct the robot over to him. “I’m right here.”

“Oh! There you are!” the little robot exclaimed happily. “I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to continue looking for you. My meta reference databanks are only so deep, and I had to pull something from an offshoot reality that doesn’t see too much action from the LGC. In fact, I’m not sure that the LGC is sure that they exist! But that’s neither here nor there.

“Now that I have found you, after several hours of looking for you, we can finally proceed with the first trial!” Buddi happily bobbed back and forth in the air.

“Hours!” Tom growled. “I was out for Hours? I don’t think that you understand, but we’re in a bit of a time crunch here and I have to be back at that portal in…” Tom checked his UI and found that a timer had appeared in the right corner, below his teammates’ information. It seemed to be stuck at “45:25:23.” As Tom looked at the timer, it slowly ticked down another second. About thirty seconds later, the seconds decreased by one again.

“Wait… Is there some kind of time dilation effect going on here in this dimension? Something is very wrong with my countdown timer for the portal closure.” Tom grunted to Buddi.

“Got it in one!” Buddi chirped. “This reality runs at a severely dilated time compared to the reality that you came from. If I had to posit how much slower the base reality is, I would say that it’s running about thirty seconds here to one second there. This means that you seem to be moving at hyper speed to those who are watching you right now. I’m sure that will be fixed in post, but those poor saps watching will have no idea what’s going on.”

“So what you’re saying is that for every second that passess in the ‘Base Reality,’ thirty seconds pass here?” Tom did some mental calculation. “That means that I have thirty minutes per minute that passes in the ‘Base Reality’ and that effectively makes the time limit that has been set by the portal closure, unnecessary?”

“Yup! My master specifically set things up due to the difficulty of the trials ahead of you!” Buddi happily replied. “He wanted to make sure that you were able to make it through without having the time constraints putting extra pressure on you.

“Granted, only three of the fifteen groups have gotten through the first trial that came through and no one made it through the second trial.” Buddi mused. “But! I think Master has made some tweaks to the difficulties of the trials and I think you might have a chance to get through. I guess it all depends on your focus!”

“Focus huh?” Tom eyed Buddi with suspicion. “What do you mean focus? And where the hell am I? How did I get here?”

“Ooh! Some easy questions!” Buddy whizzed in excitement. “I’ll start with the final two questions, since the first one deals directly with the trial. To start, you are in the Garden of Thought: the location of your portion of the first trial. And you were brought here by the Guardians of the Garden.

“Your task for the first trial is to make it to the entrance, or exit depending on how you think of things, of this giant greenhouse garden. All the while avoiding the Guardians of the Garden. But here’s the catch: unless you are thinking directly about the Guardians, they will be completely invisible to you.”

“Guardians? What the hell…” Tom started to say, but as he did, three large panther-like creatures appeared out of nowhere in his vision. They were circling around Buddi and he, but they were looking outward, almost as if to ward off an attack. Sleek black creatures with an extra set of legs and two sets of ears atop their heads, Tom was startled by the similar, yet alien appearance of the Guardians. “How long have they been there?” Tom exclaimed.

“Since I was flying around to find you,” Buddi stated plainly. “There are two types of guardians in this place. The black, six-legged ones that you see circling around us are non-aggressive and will not attack you unless provoked specifically. They can be called on if you find a specific item that is in abundant supply around this greenhouse.

“The other guardians, bright yellow and green striped creatures, I believe that you refer to them as ‘crocodiles’ in your reality, are highly aggressive and will attack you as soon as they see you.”

As if to demonstrate Buddi’s warning, a large four legged creature similar to a crocodile, came crashing out of the dense foliage from behind Tom. The creature launched itself at Tom and he could see the various colored stripes that Buddi had told him about as it scuttled along the ground towards him. Almost immediately, the panther-guardians ran to situate themselves between Tom and the croco-guardian. With brutal efficiency, the panther-guardians dispatched the croco-guardian with several swipes of their large, powerful claws.

Tom was impressed at the sight as the panther-guardians set into eating the croco-guardian. With swift ripping and tearing, the panther-guardians made the corpse of their defeated enemy disappear in a matter of seconds, bones and all. Even the blood that had marked where the croco-guardian had fallen was licked up by the black cats.

“So what are each of these guardian’s called?” Tom inquired.

“The black panther-like guardians are Onyx Werecats and the crocodile-like guardians are Neon Stalkers,” Buddi replied matter-of-factly. “Each species is specifically found only in this reality and in the various biomes that my master maintains for the trials. In fact, these creatures are specific to only this greenhouse and cannot be found elsewhere.

“They are natural enemies to one another and will fight to the death if they come into contact with one another. Fortunately, my master makes sure that they tend to stay separate to avoid too many casualties. Cloning facilities are not cheap to run; especially for wild animals such as the Onyx Werecats and Neon Stalkers.

“Just know that the Onyx Werecats tend to hunt in packs and are extremely loyal to those who are able to command them. The Neon Stalkers can almost always be heard coming, except for the alpha bulls. They tend to lie in wait for their victim to come near and strike with ruthless efficiency.”

“Also! Remember the phrase ‘Out of Mind, Out of Sight!’ It will help you to continue to see the guardians as you proceed through the trial. If you stop thinking about them, they will disappear from your vision. But they will still be there!” Buddi warned. “There’s various items to help you through this trial that are strewn about and that your UI will pick up and help identify for you. I’d recommend trying to find an Onyx Crystal asap when the trial starts.”

“When is the trial supposed to start?” asked Tom.

“Right now!” Buddi exclaimed. “Good luck! And try not to die!” Buddi called off as he left Tom to ponder where the exit for the greenhouse was.