It just occurred to me to mention that other races play the pipes, like a faun, a nymph, or any other creature who decides to pick up the instrument. At that time, I momentarily wondered who was playing and hoped it wasn’t an elf. 

As the boar approached the sound of the windpipes, I could make out three other boars standing in a row, a campfire, and about five figures sitting around with the center figure playing the pipes. The figures were tall, most of them had long hair, and were most definitely not fauns. When that realization hit me, I knew I was screwed. I had little time to think of a strategy as the boar carried me closer and closer to them. 

According to grandfather, the most skilled at playing are elves that use the attributes of air, water, or earth. It was dark out, and it's reasonable to believe I would have an advantage.  

It’s assumed that dark mages can see, move faster, and cast spells better in the dark. The truth is I can feel my way in the dark, and to a certain degree, I can see. Sure, I can move faster because it’s harder for other practitioners to see my spells. Lastly, each practitioner is different, so I can’t say we all receive an advantage in the dark. I know I do. It’s not by much, but it is easier to cast when there’s already darkness around me that I can manipulate.

The way attributes work for a practitioner is complicated to explain, but I’ll give a summary with my attribute as an example. I can cast a fire spell even though it’s not my attribute. The difference is that my flames would be black, and wouldn’t burn as hot. If I wanted a hot fire, I would “burn” more mana by mimicking the fire attribute. This rings true for other attributes that want to copy my dark magic. 

 

As a dark mage, I have advantages with certain magic spells, such as illusions, manipulation, and distortion. A practitioner is only as good as their spells, how they use those spells to turn their weakness into strength, and how they can gain the upper hand against opposing attributes.  

My mind swarmed with possible attack strategies, but in the end, I settled on hiding once I heard the first elf speak.  

“Hey! Look at that one!” I don’t know if he pointed since I returned to my position, draped over the boar’s tusk like a coat draped over a sofa. 

“Seems you woke it from a nice mud nap,” another chimed in as laughter erupted from a few of them.  

“Give that one for Ollie to ride then!” One of them jeered, and I think I heard one of them slap something.  

“What? Why me? I prefer the smallest one.” Ollie said. 

“You know, this one’s the eldest; thus, it should go to the eldest here,” a new voice interjected.  They sound like they’re having fun; I remember thinking from my unideal position.  

“You are hilarious as always, T.” This voice was cold and imposing enough to end the festive mood.  

I am unsure how to describe what happened next because I did not see it. My boar simply turned and left as if they were dismissed. Odd but lucky, they let the boar go without noticing its companion, who hitched a ride at the worst moment possible. 

Unfortunately, I began counting my chickens before they hatched, and as I came to find out, that’s not the brightest idea to do before crossing the finish line.  

As my boar walked away from one problem, it walked right into another. Only this time, it sensed the incoming danger and ran away. 

The wolf howls began right as my boar began picking up speed. He jostled me around so much that I came loose and almost fell. I would have been seriously hurt if I hadn’t held on for dear life to their tusk.  

I didn’t see the wolves, so I assumed they were after bigger fish. The boar kept running till the howls were far behind us. By the time the boar calmed down, the sun was peeking from the east. Since the sun was on our back, we were headed west. The mountain peak is to the north, so I wasn’t getting closer or further away until the boar decided to turn right.  

It headed toward a stream, where it stopped to drink some water. While they drank, I let go and plunged into the water. Briefly startled, the boar examined me, took a sniff, and decided I wasn’t dangerous or worth the trouble. Thank goodness for that because I don’t think I could harm them after they carried me so far.  

In the water, I decided to clean off all the mud without even thinking if the boar would become violent once I didn’t smell like them. They didn’t become violent for one simple reason: I couldn’t wash off the scent! I needed soap! I did think of gathering some plants to help me take some of the stench out or at least mask it, but it would take time to search for them. I scraped the idea and continued to clean up as best I could. While doing this, I found out two things: one, the scrolls were waterproof, thank goodness for that, and the boar did not immediately leave as I believed it would. 

It looked like they were waiting for me. Again, odd until I thought that they were waiting for me to waddle out, and then he would eat me! But it could have already eaten me if it wanted to since the water barely came up to my waist.  

What could they want? I thought to myself. 

Once I had finished cleaning up, I began searching around the rocks for a specific type of yellowish-blue moss. This moss filters out toxins and retains clean drinkable water. I know this because I grew up near a forest, and in times of need, my parents knew exactly what to do to get us by.  

I found the moss a few minutes after beginning my search and found that I was thirstier than I thought and hungrier.  

I could take some time to catch some fish, I thought. It would be time well spent since I had to eat something to regain strength, but the boar grew impatient. It started grunting and making this strange, almost growl. When it didn’t see me get out of the water, they went in to fetch me. 

I wasn’t scared this time, even though they started nudging me out of the water with their snout. Maybe, I felt like the boar wouldn’t harm me or because I had my hands free and several ways of quickly disappearing. Anyway, I let the boar guide me out and into the forest.  

It led me upstream to some trees with wide trunks and small spiked leaves. I recognized the tree immediately as the Boria, a tree found in many forests within the Knoles empire. Aside from those spiked leaves, its distinguishing feature is that the inner bark is edible. Not exactly delicious, but it has enough nutritional value to get anyone out of a pinch. The only problem is that getting to the inner bark is a chore because the outer bark is so thick and hard!  

I didn’t have a sword or a blade to cut it with, so I was out of luck, or was I? What about magic? I had a spell that could make blades and cut it.  

“Whirl blades!” Five long, sharp black blades appeared in a whirlwind that made half-inch gashes on the three. Once more, twice, thrice aaaannnnddd, it was costing me too much mana. I hadn’t slept well, and I was hungry. I couldn't focus the spell enough to land where I needed it.  

Just as I thought of giving up, the boar came and started running their tusks on the tree in an upward and downward motion. If I remember correctly, because I did look up a book on boars later, they do that to mark their scent on trees. At the sixth pass of their tusks, it broke the outer bark enough to break through to the inner bark.

Could the boar have consciously helped me? Yes, they did. The boar stepped away and did the same to a separate tree, but they began eating part of it from that one. The boar knew!  Grateful for the help, I ate happily and began storing some of the bark in my hat for later. The boar had helped me out so much that I wondered why it did it in the first place. There had to be some reason, right? Well, I really should have put more thought into figuring out why it was being so gentle. My answer came when I tried to part ways.  

The boar would not let me leave. They screamed and threw a tantrum whenever I strayed too far from them. Why would they do that? Why would they be so protective of a creature that smelled like them? Why, oh why would it be?  

I’ll cut to the chase. The boar I named Benny is female. Yes, it can be a dual-gendered name because I read a story about a female who wore a mask named Benny, and my favorite book series has a character named Benny in it. Back to the main point, Benny was a mother of one baby boar. 

How did Benny confuse me for her young boar, I have no clue to this day, but they did. And so, I had to decide if I would let this giant mama obstruct me from making progress and potentially fail the test. I could run away from them, but if I ran away, I wouldn't know if they found their baby. Or, as the last option, I could help them get back to their baby.  

I also had to make this decision quickly because time was ticking, and I could already hear a fight a few yards away.  The choices were: stay with the boar, run away from them, or help them get back to their actual offspring. 

 

How badly did I want to pass? Badly enough to waste five minutes rationalizing that I didn’t know IF Benny really was a mama boar, if I was willing to take the chance, waste time, and lose all the distance I had traveled. Plus, risking running into the elves or the wolves or another race that could steal my scrolls.   

The real question was, how bad of a person would I choose to be to get what I want? 

Could I live with it? What are the chances of coming back? Could I inform a teacher later? I asked myself a ton of these questions and made-up scenarios.  

It’d be fine. Benny will find their way back to the mud pit, but what if they didn’t? I thought this to myself as I watched them hunt.  

“Scrap it!” I yelled as I ran away.