As the light subsided and they looked around, Jess was met with nothing but seemingly endless mist expanding outwards all around them. The mist had a soft green tint to it and it seemed to smell vaguely like the forest. The smell was pleasant and as it flooded their senses, Jess found themself achieving a strange sense of comfort and ease.

Despite this, they were quickly hit with a startling realization. They wheeled around, spinning frantically in every direction, searching.

“Beth! Beth! Where are you?!” they called out in to the misty void.

After waiting a few moments, they found that they were not receiving any response. However, as they called out, they caught a glimpse of their hands and were met with another realization, their body was not normal, at the moment. Instead of any of the usual colors that their body and clothes were, everything seemed to have adopted a bright yellow-green color seemingly identical to the color of their aura. Their body was outlined in a softly glowing white light, causing their entire body to take on a rather ethereal look to it, almost as though they were some kind of ghost. Despite this, they were fully able to touch and they seemed to be able to stand on the ground.

Now more confused than anything, they began to move around the space that they were currently inhabiting. It was hard to get a bearing on anything though. Despite the color of the mist, the lack of difference or altered lighting anywhere made it nearly impossible to make out a sense of movement. They were able to make out a vague sense of movement thanks to the constant state of the ground or at least, that was how they perceived it.

Even with the strange sense of nothingness and disorientation that they had been overcome with thanks to this space, they continued on, hoping to find any sign of anything. After what felt like hours of searching though, they had found nothing.

Discouraged and disheartened, Jess collapsed to the ground and buried their head in their hands. They had no idea what to do and, at this point, they were completely lost. They had tried to find Beth, but that hadn’t led anywhere. They had tried to found the edge of the space and that hadn’t worked out. They had tried to find the source of the mist, their strange appearance, or anything and they had come up completely empty-handed.

“Come on…” a strangely familiar voiced called out.

The reemergence of the voice caused Jess to shoot to their feet almost immediately, once again looking around, finding nothing where the voice had seemingly come from. Spurred on and reinvigorated, Jess ran off in to the mist, directly at the voice, hoping to find its source.

“Come on!” the voice called once more, now more excited and coming from a slightly different direction.

Jess altered their course and headed towards the new location of the source. They continued on for some time, the voice occasionally helping them to get back on course, growing more and more excited each time.

Eventually, for the first time since Jess had gotten here, Jess saw something. Something far off in the distance, a soft green glow. They rushed towards it at full speed, stumbling a bit due to the highly accelerated pace, but when they got their bearings, they moved quickly, eventually reaching the source of the light, a small glowing green flame in a pocket of space without any mist. The air was clear and they were able to clearly make out the shape of the flame. It pulsed softly, almost like a heartbeat.

Jess began to walk around the flame, examining it and attempting to discern the nature of it, unsure of what to do.

“Come on!” the flame called, causing Jess to leap backwards, falling in to a defensive stance.

“Come on!” the flame repeated.

Jess gave it a questioning look before slowly stepping back forward, approaching the flame with an outstretched hand. They closed their eyes and turned away, continuing towards the flame until their hand was engulfed by it. Assuming their hand would be engulfed in fire, Jess winced preemptively, but as their hand came in contact with the flame, they felt something soft and fluffy. Hesitantly, they opened their eyes and turned back around, finding that the flame was no more, replaced what looked like a small fluffy rodent quite similar to a weasel, if a good bit bigger.

Jess’s expression changed to that of surprise and then to happiness, first from the fact that they had not caught fire and secondly from the fact that their hand had become consumed by the tail of a creature that was very fluffy and very adorable. Its body was very similar to that of Jess’s, but the color of its body was much less of a natural yellow-green and more of a pure leaf green like the vines that grew all over the forest.

The creature began to scurry along Jess’s arm, eventually making its way onto their shoulder, examining their horns before racing down their back and over their feet before resting on the ground a few feet in front of them. Jess knelt down and smiled at the small creature.

“Hello there.”

The creature cocked its head sideways. “Hello there!” it replied excitedly.

“Who are you…?” Jess asked, still a little confused.

The creature thought for a moment, trying to figure out how to answer the question. “I am… a spirit…”

“Like, a manifestation of life made of essence…?” Jess asked.

The creature nodded. “Yes! That’s it! I am made of essence and I am also alive! Although… if you are asking for something like a name… I do not have one… I am not an ordinary spirit either. You and I are quite similar, actually!”

The creature motioned towards Jess’s chest and as it did, it began to glow softly. Jess held their hand to their chest and smiled softly. “I’m not exactly a normal person, so I suppose I can understand.”

The creature nodded and smile, in its own way. “Well, as you may have potentially guessed, I am part of the second part of the searcher trial. I am the spirit of the earth origin shard that resides within the spirit forest! My specific purpose is to determine whether or not the candidates that enter the searcher trial are going to be able to handle dealing with the heart fragments. While the heart fragments are special, at their core, they are still just origin shards. In fact, any of the origin shards, reasonably can serve as heart fragments, if they needed to, but the ones with the preestablished links to the Heart of Nature are the ones that you refer to as heart fragments.”

Jess nodded along. “I get that. Now… I guess I should ask if we were deemed worthy…?”

The creature through for a moment before nodding. “Yes. I believe that you and your trial partner are both very capable and will be able to handle origin shards. Though, I think it would be prudent to warn you that, because of their link, forming the Heart of Nature, any heart fragment will prove much more dangerous than a simple origin shard. Be warned.”

“I understand. Although, may I ask something about the heart fragments?”

“You may!”

Jess paused for a moment. “I guess… I’m just wondering… do the heart fragments each house a spirit like you inside of them?”

“I’m not sure… I doubt that most of them house a fennelease like myself, but I don’t think it would be out of the question for them to house spirits as well. I will say, you are not very adept with spirit sensing and communication, so I don’t know if you would even be able to find see them if there were,” the fennelease explained.

Jess frowned. They knew that the spirit was right, but it didn’t have to be so blunt about it. “I understand. Now… How do I leave… wherever this is…?” Jess asked, gesturing around.

The spirit sighed. “You just have to wake up.”

Jess gave a confused look before suddenly jolting upwards, now back within the chamber of the second stage, Beth looking over them, saying something that they couldn’t hear.

“Jessie!” Jess finally heard Beth call.

Jess blinked a few times, reality coming back in to focus all around them. Reaching their hand upwards, they gently brushed Beth’s face and smiled. “Hey… Beth…”

Beth quickly wrapped her arms around them and hugged them close.

“Don’t scare me like that…”

Jess smiled softly and nodded. “I won’t…”

Beth continued to hold them for a bit before letting them go and giving them a stern look. “Alright. Now, what in ser happened?”

Jess sat up slightly, rubbing their arms, finding that their body was still completely drained of essence. Their supply hadn’t yet started to refill and the essence levels in the room was low, so it would likely take a while. Sighing, they prop themself up on one of the pillars and began to explain to Beth about the spirit of the origin shard that they had met. Beth listened intently, staying silent as Jess explained.

“Makes sense… You basically got put in to a dream and talked with some weird spirit that passed us for this stage of the trial.”

Jess nodded and made their way to their feet, feeling a little more physically restored, despite the severe lack of essence. “I do believe that would be the door…” Jess said, pointing towards an opening in the wall similar to the one that had opened in the first chamber.

“Are you going to be okay?” Beth asked, concerned.

Jess gave a confident smile and began walking forward, hiding the fact that it was taking almost every ounce of effort they had to do just that. Beth followed closely behind, watching Jess with worry in her eyes. Even with her limited sensing, she could tell that something was off with them, despite the strange amount of confidence they were displaying.

It was only a few minutes until the two reached the door to the third chamber. Pushing it open, they were met by an absolutely enormous room, even bigger than the first chamber and much more open. All along the walls, there were enormous holes leading outwards from the chamber. The floor was a bit rougher than the floor of the previous chamber, but once again, there was a platform in the center of the room. This platform, much like the room, was much larger than the previous one and instead of a simple altar, atop the platform, there sat a massive stone lion that was probably close to ten times bigger than the two apprentices. It was ornately carved, but it seemed awkwardly off balance, resting rather close to the front of the platform.

As the two approached it, they found that its eyes were made of green gemstones and sitting in front of it, there was a smaller altar with a slot for them to insert their badges. The two cautiously did so and then quickly backed up as the saw the eyes of the lion begin to blaze with light. The stone around it began to shake and then the lion began to move, getting itself in to a fighting stance, ready to strike.

Jess and Beth did the same, but as they stood there, the lion seemed to be patiently waiting for them. Jess looked to Beth, a little confused.

“Uh… Is it going to attack…?” they asked.

“I think that it won’t attack until we attack it…” Beth replied.

Beth formed two large stone spikes and fired both of them directly in to the eyes of the lion. As the spikes hit the eyes, they shattered and the lion let loose a deep roar, charging the two apprentices. It swiped at them with its massive paw, but they dodged out of the way, Jess almost getting hit. Beth pulled them out of the way as the paw swiped sideways. “Jessie! You have to watch out!” she shouted.

Jess shook their head, trying to regain themself, but they were still too out of it and the essence level in this room was just as low as the previous one. Beth frowned and took Jess over her shoulders, racing away from the lion, taking the defensive stance. Beth heard another roar, but as she looked back, it didn’t seem to have come from the lion. In confusion, Beth stopped and looked around, hearing a strange sound coming from inside of the tunnels all around them. Even the lion seemed confused, stopping its assault for a moment before launching another attack directly at the group.

Thanks to the fact that she was carrying Jess, Beth didn’t have time to dodge and so she simply dropped Jess for a moment, a seal expanding underneath her and forming a massive stone fist that she used to halt the lion’s attack and send it a bit off balance.

As Jess fell to the ground, their eyes widened, a strange dizzy sensation flooding their senses. Their eyes widened and they looked to the tunnels. They were feeling the strange darkness from before and now it was much worse. As if on cue, another roar came from the tunnels, this one much louder. It was now clear just how strange and distorted the sound was. And then, out of one of the tunnels emerged a massive creature just as big as the lion. It seemed to be made of broken of stone that was being held together by a corrupted aura of destruction. It swiped its large claws at the lion, shattering its head in to pieces. Crawling along the body and perching on the lion’s body, the creature stared at the two apprentices and let loose a bloodcurdling screech.

Beth quickly rushed to pick up Jess. “Run! Now!”