Snap Craft | Ch. 2 - Damocles' Sword (Patreon)

Summer of 343, A.D.

“Who here has heard of the story of Damocles?” asked Neil. It was still too soon to say if this was a prelude to another practical lesson or if it was just a purely theoretical one. Trudy raised her hand, but everyone else kept their hand down. Kai wasn’t surprised that Trudy knew the story. Sometimes, it seemed like she knew everything. That’s what happened when you were a gazillion years old.

“Trudy, you're a better storyteller than I am. Want to enlighten the others?”

Trudy truly was the best storyteller in the bunch. Kai wondered if some universal rule mandated that the oldest in the group was always the best storyteller. She cleared her throat and spoke in her weathered voice.

“There was once a man named Damocles. He praised his king as a truly fortunate man with all the riches and power anyone could desire. Damocles often said that no man on Earth would not want to change places with his king.

The praises of Damocles reached the king's ears, and the old monarch did the unexpected. He called Damocles and offered to change places with him. That way, Damocles could taste all the power and riches he admired.

Damocles quickly accepted the offer. He sat on the king’s throne, thrilled to be surrounded by luxury and gold. At the last minute, the king said that to help Damocles have the full experience of being a king and help him understand how he felt every day, there was one thing left to do.

He commanded a sword be brought and placed over the throne, held at the pommel by one thin thread. He explained to Damocles that no one could be king without making enemies; with the sword hanging over his head, Damocles could truly experience the anxiety the throne brought.

Damocles tried to make the most of the riches at his feet but was constantly reminded of the blade hanging above his head. He couldn’t deal with the pressure. Not half a day passed before he caved and begged the king to take back the throne.”

The group gave her a round of applause. Neil continued as everyone quieted down, and only the wood crackling was heard, “That’s it. Now you know the story of Damocles’ sword. Today, we’ll have a practical lesson.”

Kai’s thoughts took a dark turn upon hearing the sudden shift. A suspicion formed in his mind, but seeing how far fetched it was, he calmed down. There was no way Neil would do that to them, right? Right?

As if hearing his thoughts, the old man called him over. “Kai, can you please sit under this tree?”

Kai walked, suspiciously looking up at the tree branches. He was relieved to find nothing there. But before he could celebrate, he caught Neil tying a rope to his cane and unsheathing it, revealing the blade within. He threw it over the branch so it would be right over Kai’s head.”

“Now, Kai, you have a sword hanging over your head, just like Damocles had.”

“Neil, you’re insane. Have I ever told you that?” The old man ignored him.

“Clara, come here. Quiz Kai on flora or fauna or whatever you want. He has to answer. I’ll hold the sword here.”

Kai gulped. “What’s the point of this?”

“To teach you to remain calm even under stress. Now hurry, Kai. The blade is heavy, and my arm is growing tired.”

*

Present, 353rd Daisy exams.

Kai resisted the urge to take off running, trying to take photos of whatever he found. Neil had always stressed the importance of staying calm during the games. Many silly mistakes could be avoided if one kept their head over their shoulders.

He found himself looking up to ensure no sword was hanging over him. His mouth twisted. Even though Neil’s sword was no more, there was Daisy’s. Wasn't that worse? Neil’s sword would have killed him, but Daisy’s sword hung over everyone in his sector. Worse than that, he was the one holding the sword, not Daisy. Depending on how well he did, his sector would thrive or wither. He took a deep breath. He couldn't rush.

Regardless of how many questions were left unanswered, he had to focus on what he did know. What had he learned so far? The machine that was tied around his neck was the key to this challenge. Some snapshots were considered valid others were not. He still didn’t know the criteria, but for now, he’d assume that every snapshot had to be different from the next. As he took pictures, he got cards with hp and victory points. He still didn’t know what the hit points did, but logically, the one with more victory points won the game.

What snapshots were worth more points? Only experimentation would tell him this. Only one card wasn’t enough to draw a baseline. The [Pine Tree] card was considered common. It made sense that it was being called 'common' if it was a matter of how difficult it was to find it within the arena. After all, there were pine trees everywhere he looked. He couldn't find any others. Looking at the scenery around him, another question popped up in his mind: How big was this place? Did everywhere look like this? Where were the other trial runners? Were they also here? Kai decided to explore the surrounding area to see if he could find anything other than trees.

He took off running in a random direction. He grimaced at the thought that Daisy would probably be unable to distinguish between his strategic move and a random panicked sprint. He ran fast enough to cover the ground quickly but slowly enough to be still able to detect anything out of the ordinary. For five minutes, he saw nothing noticeably different. All the trees seemed to be of the same species, and the terrain had no outstanding object or feature.

Eventually, Kai bumped into a wall. The impact was painless. That was a good thing, too. Had he bumped his face on a wall at full speed like this in real life, he would have lost a few teeth and probably broken a few bones.

His pain tolerance wasn't the best, and he was happy that resilience wasn't being tested this year. The memory of the previous year and the needle trial came to his head, but he swatted it away. It wasn’t time to think about other trials. He had to focus on this challenge. He stretched his hand and felt the invisible barrier in front of him. It was as if it was made of perfectly transparent glass. It was an energy shield similar to the ones that separated the sectors. This should be one of the edges of the arena.

What should he do now? He had only seen trees, trees, and more trees. He still needed to figure out how big the arena was. He had taken off running in a random direction that could have taken him to the nearest wall or the farthest from his starting point. Since the walls were invisible, it was hard to tell.

In his short jog, one thing was sure: The scenery around him hadn't changed. There had to be something else out there. He tried to find something unique that he could use as a landmark. There was nothing. If that was the case, he just had to create his reference.

He looked for a rock or something hard on the ground, but there were only pine needles and gravel. He felt the edges of the machine, and finding them sharp enough, he walked to the nearest tree and tried scoring an x on the trunk.

Just as the machine was about to make contact with the tree, it went through it instead. He pulled his hand away briskly. As he reached for the trunk again, his hand passed through the holographic trunk again.

"No way."

He tried walking through the tree next, and his whole body went through. Was this whole map a hologram? Had he even left the white cuboid room he had first arrived in? He scratched his head.

There was no point in starting to map the arena's edges without a reference point. If he couldn't create one, he could potentially waste all his time running in circles. That wouldn’t get him any victory points. Mad at himself for wasting the time, he tried to grasp for anything positive that he’d learned from this. It wasn’t easy to do so, though.

His only discovery so far was that the arena had boundaries, and woodland was everywhere. There was nothing outstanding to take a snapshot of. How was he supposed to make sense of this game in time? His sector was counting on him!

Maybe he was looking at this the wrong way. Daisy always had a purpose in every challenge, and he just had to understand what it was. She said the last era's weak points were creativity and logical thinking. How could he use creativity here? What was he missing?

A light bulb lit in his head. Kai walked closer to the nearest tree and studied its trunk. It was made of rough bark, but that wasn’t the only thing that could be found on the tree. He had been too focused on the greater picture. If he zoomed into a tree, there was more to it. Small patches of green moss and pale lichen grew on the trunk.

He got the camera out and zoomed in on the moss.

Capture successful!

Tries left: 16 of 20.

Moss (Common)

1 of 5

Hp: 1

Vp: 2

Yes! His hunch was right. He had found another card. Just like before, the card disappeared from his hand.

[Moss] has been added to your inventory.

“Inventory!”

As Kai compared the card's stats, he couldn’t help but notice how similar they were to the ones of his [Pine Tree] card. The only difference was that whereas [Pine Tree] offered one victory point and had two hit points, [Moss] had two victory points and only one hit point. He sighed in relief. Finally, he’d scored a few more points. He now had three.

Another difference that wasn’t so obvious at first was the name of the cards. He had one [Pine Tree] card instead of just a [Tree] card. That hinted at the possibility that there were other types of tree cards to be found out there. That got some of his hopes up. There probably were different sceneries out there. At the same time, it didn’t specify the type of pine. It didn’t say ‘hard pine tree’ or ‘soft pine tree’. All pine trees were probably considered the same in this challenge.

As for the [Moss] card he’d gotten, it only said ‘moss.’ He imagined that meant there was only one kind of moss in this challenge. This was very relevant. He couldn’t remember the precise numbers, but in their biology classes, Clara had spoken about thousands of moss species and dozens of pine tree species.

If he found another species of moss or pine tree in this woodland, it would be best not to risk taking a picture of it. However, he would watch for other tree species since there were probably cards for them. Kai bit his lips. Daisy really wasn’t an easy trialmaster. The way she hid shards of information between the thinnest lines scared him.

Even though he was certain he hadn’t missed anything, he made himself go through the cards again. Sure enough. He had missed something else. Although both cards were given the common grade, instead of the [Moss] card saying 3 out of 5, it now said 1 out of 5. The math was just not making any sense. This was his fourth snapshot. Shouldn’t it say 4 out of 5?

Wait. Could it be? He tried zooming into the very same piece of moss. He had to understand better how the game worked and had just thought of an explanation for the 1 out of 5 text.

Even though there was the risk that he could only have one card of each type and that this snapshot could fail because of this rule, he wasn’t 100% sure that was the case. He was willing to risk one more try to confirm both suspicions. He hoped he was right.

Capture successful!

Tries left: 15 of 20.

Moss (Common)

2 of 5

Hp: 1

Vp: 2

Bingo! So that’s what it was. The 2 of 5 referred to how many cards were available to trial runners! There could only be five [Pine Tree] cards or five [Moss] cards between his opponents and himself. Since he had been the first to think of photographing a patch of moss, he’d grabbed the first and second [Moss] cards from the pool of five cards available.

Everything was making more sense now. That’s why when he had first photographed the pine tree, his card read 3 out of 5. Assuming other trial runners were all transported to the map at the same time as he had, and there were trees everywhere, it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that everyone would have tried using the camera on the first thing they got their eyes on, which was a nearby tree.

He squeezed the camera in his hands. This told him that his competitors weren’t slow by any means. After all, he hadn’t taken that long to use the camera. Half a minute at most. If Kai got the third [Pine Tree] card and did not get any others within seconds, there were at least two other trial runners, possibly more.

He gulped. The competition was tough. He had to brace himself for what was coming. He wasn’t the only one fighting for his home. There must be others just as determined as he was, giving their all.

This was no time to hesitate. He grabbed the camera and decided to photograph the moss again.

Capture failed!

Tries left: 14 of 20.

Kai frowned. Either at least two other trial runners had found this card in the time that had elapsed, or the limit of identical cards per trial runner was two. He was leaning toward option two. If that was indeed the case, he had to be mindful of it now. He made a mental note to only take up to two photos of anything, regardless of what happened.

He tried photographing the lichen next.

Ch. 1 - Box of Snakes

INDEX

Ch. 3 - Gestalt Theory