Bailed out

Alex suddenly lost his footing and fell from the treetop. He looked up, not knowing what had happened.

"Ugh!" A grunt left his lips as he felt a burning sensation in his lower abdomen.

Glancing, a massive gash cut his belly across, from his left kidney to his stomach.

With a splash, he hit the swamp, causing another wave of pain to fry his nerves to a crisp. His eyes blurred as muddy water invaded his nose, ears and mouth, threatening to drown him.

Even amongst the pain, Alex's survival instinct kicked in. Drowning was a bit faster than dying of blood loss. But he soon found out his body felt like a newborn's.

His arms didn't move like he wanted, and his legs felt leaden and unresponsive. His lungs burned, begging him for a gasp of air, but Alex could do nothing but flail his arms powerlessly. Something was holding his body flush against the muddy floor.

*Splash!*

Something massive slammed into the swamp, its body heat alone pushing and boiling the water around.

The young man instantly felt like a crab thrown into a pot of boiling water. He felt his skin tighten and burn beneath the hellish heat. He felt his eyes burning while the jelly inside threatened to turn to steam, blurring his eyesight further.

Despite the blur, Alex watched the large 3 meters tall creature approach him before lowering its head to study him. Or watch him suffer.

The heat suddenly intensified a thousandfold, outright burning his skin. The water that had previously protected his body boiled off and continued thus as if it couldn't soil that creature's body with its filth.

Around the tall creature, an area absent of water permanently surrounded it. The sheer heat billowing off its body pushed the water off Alex's body.

His clothes burst aflame just for being in its near vicinity, and even his bones started creaking and shattering.

Alex could do nothing but lie down, waiting for this monster to either finish him off or go somewhere else.

As if reading his thoughts, the monster retreated its long, wobbly neck and looked somewhere in the distance. It seemed to watch for something as it tilted its head to the side.

Instantly, it disappeared from that spot, raising raging winds in its trail.

What felt like ice-cold water rushed to fill the gap, washing over Alex and cooling his dying body.

'Fuck!' He thought amidst the pain, looking up at the sky through the now-burning treetops.

Red mixed with clear blue. Grey mixed with pearly white in his blurred eyes, painting a picture more beautiful and vivid than any other.

The water brought his body to the surface, allowing him to take a deep breath.

Stale as it was, the young man never-tasted air as sweet as this. Not that it mattered, really.

His eyesight slowly turned black, tunnel visioning before fading completely.

His breathing became weaker, turning from a wheeze to shallow and infrequent sniffs before seemingly stopping completely.

Even his thoughts became slow and less concise. His mind felt stuck in a deep bog, where, although it felt scary, it was also weirdly comfortable and warm. There was no pain to torment him, no worldly problems to worry about, just warmth. And a sense of liberation.

There was no hate, and neither was any remorse. And there was a drowsiness and light-headedness to this whole sensation, as there was no other way to describe this feeling, causing Alex to slowly drift toward sleep.

"Gugh!" Alex spat a grunt as something heavy slammed his chest, causing his eyes to snap open.

An indescribable feel gripped him, body and soul. It was something the previous beast only hoped to achieve.

Alex tried focusing his gaze but failed to do so. He couldn't move his head at all. It was as though his muscles froze in place.

However, he didn't need to move to hear several other beasts appearing around him.

***

A man in his sixties looked at his superior confusedly.

"Did something happen, sir?"

The superior frowned as he looked east through the clear window of his office.

"Some beast awoke in the Swamp."

The older man whipped his head around.

"At this time? But the trial is still ongoing." The elder stopped midway as he looked at Geralt, hoping the Headmaster would clear his confusion.

"Seems like someone has forgotten the agreement between us!" He said through gritted teeth.

Elder Pyrus - who stood near Geralt's office - looked more confused than ever.

"How is that possible? That agreement was in favor of the beasts of the swamp. Besides, the beasts would gain more by playing by the rules..." Pyrus froze for a moment as a sudden thought barged into his mind.

"You don't think one of the Masters has been killed, do you?"

Geralt thought for a moment before shaking his head.

"Improbable. The Swamp Masters are old and gnarled oak roots. No matter how cunning a younger beast may be, it cannot fight against those old thorns in my side."

The Headmaster placed his quill to the side as he signed the document on the desk before standing up.

"It's most likely a newly advanced beast that is a bit too arrogant for its own good."

Pyrus sighed and followed the Headmaster outside the office.

"Are you going to supervise the Trial yourself?"

Geralt promptly nodded.

"Hopefully, no kid dies at the hands of this beast." Pyrus hoped with a sigh as the two Recens vanished from the fortress.

Appearing in the skies above the fortress, Geralt took out a wooden plaque half the size of a book, covered in runes, before holding it at eye level.

Pyrus grabbed the Headmaster's shoulder, waiting for the teleportation to start.

A moment later, the runes on the wood plaque lit up simultaneously, gathering massive amounts of mana. Lights of all colors surrounded the two, swirling about like bees around pollen.

The Recens' vision morphed and changed. The same thing happened to the space around them. It seemed to flip inside out, bringing two points closer together while pushing everything else to the side like some space doughnut.

(A/N: Imagine bringing two points closer in a 3D space. We've all seen the two points on a sheet of paper. When folded, you pierce it, and voila, teleportation. Same thing here, only in 3 dimensions. Imagine a sponge. If you want two points to get closer to each other, the space around and between them goes to the side or gets squished, respectively. It technically isn't teleportation, but more like a wormhole. Btw, this is my take on how wormholes would work irl)

Geralt stepped through, feeling he had walked millions of miles in a single step. Distorted shapes flooded his field of view while light shifted from blue to red and vice-versa.

Buildings seemed to bend full circle, while small animals seemed to enlarge different parts of their bodies, such as limbs, ears, and even eyes.

In the twinkling of an eye, the nauseous sensation vanished as though it wasn't even there, leaving two Recens above an unfamiliar place. Vast plains of green stretched in all directions, but that was to be expected.

The teleportation's coordinates were a bit off from the site of the trial.

Geralt faced north, followed by Pyrus a moment later, and frowned.

In the distance, barely visible to the naked eye, a thin column of grey-white lazily rose toward the sky.

The Headmaster's frown deepened as he felt the leaden mana surrounding him. It felt chained up, caught between a hammer and a hard place.

Some beast was powerful enough to restrict mana's natural tendency to flow smoothly and unrestricted.

"Seems we're too late." Elder Pyrus sighed to the side, watching the same scene as the Headmaster. A moment later, he continued.

"Should we hold the Masters responsible for this incident?"

Geralt grunted and shook his head.

"I don't think that should be necessary yet." He pointed forward with his chin. "Some of them have gathered to that burning spot."

Pyrus' eyes sparked briefly, understanding what the Headmaster was thinking about.

'If those fuckers have gathered there, the worst should not have happened.'

"Let's go!"

Geralt's voice awoke the elder, who followed the Headmaster a heartbeat later.

The distance they had to travel was extraordinary, so the two Recens had to fly for more than 10 minutes to reach that place.

One of the Swamp Masters looked up, sensing the two approaching Recens.

"Great..." It spoke with a gritty, almost sand-like tone of voice.

The beast that spoke just now focused extensively on sensitivity to where it left every other beast in the dust.

The other Swamp Masters immediately turned their attention towards the sky after hearing the bat-like beast utter.

"Just what we needed... That dammed youngster!" Another beast sighed as it looked at the half-burned-to-a-crisp human lying flat on a platform made of entwined roots and branches. That was his creation.

Power over vegetation was its forte and choice of magic usage.

'After all the effort we put in keeping his existence under wraps. Dammit.'

Another Master looked at the previous beast, which looked like its whole body was composed of interwoven roots, and communicated telepathically.

(A/N: This beast looks like Groot or a leshen from the witcher 3. It's leaning more on the leshen side, as it is way darker and, frankly, scarier.)

'Who would've expected the death of one of its offspring would wake him up? Such is life. We'll get another opportunity in the future.'

The other beast nodded slowly, its body creaking as its roots rubbed on each other.

'Yes. That's true. We'll live more than these humans anyway.'

By this point, Geralt and Elder Pyrus appeared above them and slowly descended onto the swamp floor.

The Headmaster's eyes didn't even scan the surrounding beast, focusing on Alex's dying body.

"What happened here?" His voice was calm as ever, but something beneath it roared like thunder.

Pyrus' features contorted upon seeing Alex's unrecognizable body. The poor boy's clothes were non-existent, and his hair burned to the scalp of his head.

His eyes, even, were partly burned off, with the protective layer over the irises entirely gone. That would be the most challenging part to remedy.

(A/N: To better understand how his eyes look, imagine blowtorching a piece of wood. After some time, the wood grains separate and curve upward, leaving a small hole in the middle. That's what Alex's eyes, roughly, look like.)

The elder walked to Alex's side and took out a vial of grey liquid before pouring it into his mouth, forcing the young man to swallow.

The potion wasn't designed for humans to consume, but judging by the boy's condition, he desperately needed drastic measures.

To a healthy human, such a potion would act more like poison. His body would fight off the brew, and its effects, in turn, causing more harm than good.

Alex's case wasn't like this. His body was verging on dying, and many of its defensive systems had been turned off. The tonic would do its job without much interference.

"This beast didn't want to kill him. Without pain, that is." Elder Pyrus pointed at various parts of Alex's body and continued.

"This is more like torture."

Geralt heard everything from the side, then addressed the Swamp Monsters.

"Why aren't you all keeping a tight leash on your youngsters?"

No answer.

The Headmaster continued.

"Did you, perhaps, forget about our deal?"

Again, no answer.

Noticing no one bothered to answer, Geralt thought these beasts had perhaps forgotten the difference between them.

Unleashing his magic base fully, he intended to kindly remind them of their place in this situation.

An intangible heaviness took hold of the surroundings, pressing down on every creature around. Only Alex felt nothing as Elder Pyrus protected the kid.

Geralt ignored the pained looks on the beasts' faces and continued in a cold, heartless voice.

"I want this to never happen again. Did I make myself understood?"

The Headmaster didn't wait for a response as he would get none. His actions now trampled on these beasts' honor or something infinitesimally close to it. No beast worth its salt would take that lying down.

He turned around but didn't release the pressure and walked closer to Alex's unconscious body, scanning it with a long glance.

"We'll need a Healer for these wounds."

He said before telling Elder Pyrus to take Alex and go ahead.

Geralt then turned to the Swamp Masters one more time before opening his mouth.

"Don't expect your hidden little toy to live any longer."