Assessment
Our last big hurrah before it all eventually turned sour. Though you probably wouldn't want to hear such a thing from me, I still cherish the memories of it, even now. It's bittersweet to view things in the past now, knowing how fate would ultimately weaves its web for our respective fates.
It came when they least expected it.
About a half-moon passed as Redpaw resettled into his apprenticeship. Tick duty for the elders, hunting and border patrols, lessons with Oakclaw while occasionally aiding Fernleaf, largely filled his time. In the small moments of respite he shared meals with Hollypaw, and after some hesitation, eventually Sagepaw joined them as well.
The russet furred tom still wasn't quite back to his original swagger. He would lapse into silence for long stretches of time and it would take prodding from Hollypaw or Lilypaw to lure him out of it. Despite this, things proved hopeful as he was still significantly more vocal and attentive than he had been in the past.
Ashfur noticed the change immediately. Adopting a softer approach, he managed to strike up a few conversations with him, and with some patience was able to get Sagepaw into the forest to resume training. Like that, a sense of normality seemed to be coursing through BoulderClan again.
After a particularly arduous day that saw him running from one side of the forest to the next, Redpaw crawled his way into his nest, exhausted. His paws were still caked in dirt from all the running around he'd done earlier, but he was much too spent to care. Sleep became a welcomed reprieve, whisking his consciousness away to nothing.
Something sharp nudged him in the side. Yawning, he partially opened his eyes to the half sights of bodies sluggishly moving about him. He felt another prod in his body, this time on the head. Opening his eyes completely he now saw the full form of Swiftstep standing over him.
"Outside," the warrior stated, not leaving space for a rebuttal.
Redpaw climbed to his paws at once and sleepily made way for the entrance. A modicum of surprise flickered in him at the equally sleepy sights of Hollypaw, Lilypaw, and Sagepaw awaiting outside. Bleary eyed, they all tiredly assembled out in front of the den. He momentarily glanced up to the sky in the midst of his dazed stupor before doing an immediate double take.
What? It can't be barely past moonhigh.
It was true. The pale hue from the moon shone luminously in the barren dark sky. For what reason would Swiftstep have gotten the four of them up this late?
Without a single word to any of them, the warrior slid out of the apprentice den and jutted his head towards the entrance of camp. Not knowing what else to do they all numbly followed after him out into the forest, passing by Bluefoot on night watch who didn't even spare a glance in their direction. Free of the bramble walls of the BoulderClan camp, they stood awkwardly out in the open forest, looking to Swiftstep for answers.
"Welcome to your final assessment," he said.
The weight of his statement hit them all at the same time. This was it? They were doing it right now? Just like that the drowsiness he'd been feeling earlier vanished. His senses were alert and intent on every word the warrior had to say.
"We're going to be traveling. Don't ask where, don't ask for how long. You'll stop only when I tell you, and only then. I think it's only fair to tell you now, but I've been informed should a single one of you fail to complete this trek it'll count as an automatic failure for everyone."
Sagepaw's eyes widened in shock as panic flashed across Lilypaw's face.
"What sort of mousebile is that?!" Hollypaw growled in outrage.
It seemed Swiftstep's statement had fully woken up the rest of them as well now.
The warrior didn't bat an eye at her outburst. "If you don't like it, you can go back to your nest now and wait to retake it in another three or more moons."
That wiped the fire out of her eyes. Begrudgingly, she shook her head and remained silent like the rest of them. Swiftstep had made his point clear.
"Good," he replied, after seeing there would be no more interruptions. "Follow me and don't fall behind."
And like that he turned, sprinting full length through the forest, as they all hastily scrambled to chase after him. Swiftstep hadn't earned his name because it sounded nice. Without question he was the quickest and most surefooted cat in the Clan, if not the entire forest. Whoever's idea it was to make him the head of their assessment had chosen so deliberately, most likely wanting to test their endurance while on little sleep as possible.
It was a clever, if not mean-spirited manner of going about things, and he knew of only one cat who would conjure up something like this as a method of testing them.
They ran hard and fast through the underbrush, twisting to and fro around trees, and leaping across bushes in an effort to keep up. Swiftstep was several foxlengths ahead of them, and the gap seemed to only widen the further and further they ran. His long slender body flowed and moved like the wind, as though it'd been specifically crafted for this sole talent. For a heartbeat it'd seemed as though some of them were gaining on him, and the next he'd created even more space between them.
Hollypaw was the only one that seemed capable of matching his pace somewhat. She led their four cat group, followed close behind by him, Lilypaw, and finally Sagepaw bringing up the rear. Of their group he was the least suited for long distance running. He could overhear the russet tom's wheezing grunts of exertion as he fought to keep up.
"Don't let it break you!" he called over his shoulder to him.
"Break me? As if I'd stop now!" he shouted back.
There was a trace of his old confidence laced in it. Taking that as a sign he'd be okay, Redpaw refocused his attention ahead to the swiftly vanishing form of Swiftstep and pressed onward.
The scenery flew pass them in smears of green. His sights were so fixated on Swiftstep's ever retreating back that he wasn't certain where they even were right now. How long had they been running? If the constant throbbing in his paws was any indicator, it'd been quite awhile.
"I...I actually think he's slowing down!" Hollypaw breathlessly said from up front.
Was he really? Redpaw didn't feel any closer to Swiftstep than he had since they'd started. He swallowed away the burning sensation in his lungs and hoped she was right.
It was one of the most physically agonizing waits of his life, and probably the rest of theirs as well. However slowly, almost at a snail's pace it felt, Swiftstep eventually began to decrease in speed. He dwindled down to a light trot until the four of them were finally matching him before coming to a halt entirely.
They all hunched over immediately, desperately gasping for air. Everything felt on fire. His heart was thudding repeatedly in his chest like a march of paws. Even Swiftstep appeared winded. An extended period of at least a hundred heartbeats passed by before most of them were in a settled enough state.
He glanced around, beginning to take notice of their surroundings. What part of the BoulderClan territory even was this? The woodland was incredibly dense and clustered in terms of how close the trees were spaced together. He caught Hollypaw's eye while looking and they shared the same sentiments as his.
"All right, fall in line everyone," Swiftstep ordered, moving around them. "It's time for the next step of your assessment." They fell quickly in line, presenting their utmost attention to the warrior as he came to a stop in front of them. "Search and rescue. A kit from the nursery's gone missing and has gotten lost in the forest. Your collective task is to find and bring them back. What do you do first?"
A intermixed scent of hesitation and confusion wafted from them. What? They each exchanged uncertain glances, unsure of how to proceed. From the expectant stare on Swiftstep's face it was clear this wasn't a joke. He was legitimately awaiting a response.
"Is there a scent?" Redpaw ventured, deciding to be the one to reply first. "Some thing or place it was last known to be we can investigate?"
Swiftstep nodded his head approvingly. "There is."
He turned then and led them to a nook inside of a withered and gnarled tree. Reaching his paw inside, he pulled back, scraping out the contents of what he recognized to be tufts of fur. He pushed it towards them and then stepped back, leaving it now to their own discretion.
Lilypaw was the first to inspect it. "It's faint, but there's definitely traces of a scent here," she said, turning back to the rest of them.
Individually, they took turns taking in the scent of fur until it was solidly ingrained in each of their memory. She was right. Taking sniffs of the air, he could track just the vaguest of smells matching it.
"It's this way!" Sagepaw and Hollypaw stated at the same time.
The two of them turned to look at the other, surprised. They'd been indicating opposite directions when talking.
"The scent's coming from over here," Sagepaw said, pointedly.
"That's not what I'm smelling. The scent's coming from this way," she replied.
A scowl creased Sagepaw's face. "Are you sure you aren't smelling something else?"
"I'd trust my nose to be more reliable than yours any day," she snipped back.
"Hey, why don't we just split up?" Redpaw said, intervening before things could sour. "I'll go with Hollypaw to search while Lilypaw joins Sagepaw to do the same. We'll see what we find and reconvene here." He turned to Swiftstep. "Is that okay?"
The warrior flicked his tail indifferently. "Do whatever you want. I'm only here to observe."
Hollypaw and Sagepaw also agreed without complaint. Splitting into pairs, their duo drifted off into the east, following the barest of trails from scent alone. Although he did trust Hollypaw's sense of smell, the fact that there could be more than one scent troubled him. Swiftstep had specifically spoken of only one kit missing in the forest. So why the two scents then?
He thought over the situation more, noting Swiftstep's silence when Hollypaw and Sagepaw began to disagree. The warrior also hadn't disallowed searching apart. If there was one thing he'd learnt from Oakclaw after all these moons under his tutelage, it was cats tended to reveal more by what they didn't say to you.
"This is a part of our assessment, I think," he said to Hollypaw.
She paused from drinking in the air to look at him quizzically. "Meaning?"
"It's a trick...or at least more complicated than just tracking down a scent. It'll be interesting to see what we find cause I think Sagepaw and Lilypaw will be in a similar situation."
Hollypaw tried prying for a more definitive answer out of him, but that was all he could give her. His suspicion told him that something was up. The only thing they could do now was to confirm them as true or not.
We scoured the densest of underbrush, using our noses as the only guide. Eventually, after much traversing, we discovered another clump of fur wedged in-between a pair of rocks with nothing even remotely resembling a kit around. We reconvened with the others only to discover they'd come across the same. Apparently, tracking down this "kit" was going to be a bit more difficult than we'd originally envisioned.
By this point everyone was clued onto the fact the mystery was a portion of their assessment. Several tufts of fur had been littered throughout the forest, and it would take their combined efforts to sniff out the real one.
"What if we're focusing on the wrong thing here?" Lilypaw posed, after several searches turned up nothing but more fur. "I don't think it's a coincidence that we're only finding fur by following our noses. We've overlooked something more obvious by abandoning our other senses."
The rest of them looked at each other, letting her words sink in. Of course! If this was an assessment intended to observe whether or not they had the qualifications needed to be considered warriors, it'd stand to reason they'd be tested in a multitude of ways. Trusting only their noses in this case had only hindered them instead.
"Lilypaw, you're brilliant!" Hollypaw exclaimed, drawing a bashful expression from the white she-cat. "Let's revisit our previous spots together this time and see what we find."
Assembled as a collective, they retraced their steps and searched now with scouring eyes for anything out of the ordinary. Pawprints, trampled grass, broken twigs, anything that could be a lead in the right direction.
The first three spots they came across proved barren of any information. What little they found were the remnants of their own prior treks through the area. During their fourth investigation, while crawling through a narrow trench of upturned dirt, a sudden cry from Lilypaw drew all their attention onto her. She lie standing over a sparse strip of grass, staring intently at something between her paws.
"They're pawprints!" she mewed aloud. "We actually found a genuine first clue. And look!" she indicated to a bit of grass further up. "If you squint hard enough, you can see there are more leading this way."
Redpaw slid up next to her to get a better look at the prints. They seemed a little weird. There was something of an odd shape to them that really didn't replicate cat paws–too sharp and angular instead of a more natural roundedness.
"These prints don't look funny to any of the rest of you?" he asked, skeptically. "They don't look like they're from an actual kit."
"Makes sense though, doesn't it?" Hollypaw replied, eyeing them. "There's no way Swiftstep would actually use a real kit to make these prints. No queen would ever agree to it, especially not this far out from camp. Whatever we're looking for is meant to represent one."
Sagepaw grunted. "Fantastic."
Being that she'd been the one to find them, they allowed Lilypaw to take point and lead the group. Redpaw was genuinely impressed by her sharp eye and quick initiative tonight. She, Hollypaw, and Sagepaw seemed fairly acquainted, but he'd not spent much time with her prior to this, so he was largely ignorant about much of who she was or capable of.
Lilypaw led them down a sloping trail. The ground was smoother here, so it was important they had good footing or otherwise risk an unwanted tumble down below. From the slope they padded out into a bit of an opening where the sheen from the moon illuminated the area, as well as them. It was in that lit space of land that something small and round caught his eye.
"Might've found something," he called out.
He nodded towards the spot he'd noticed it, as the others singled in on him. They moved on the round thing, huddled over it in a circle, looking down. Hollypaw let loose a laugh. Sagepaw snorted aloud. Lilypaw tilted her head to the side. He reached out and lightly poked it with his paw.
"It's a mossball, I don't believe it," Sagepaw said, shaking his head in disbelief.
Laid out in front of them was indeed a dark ball of moss. What was more, however, was the fact that the moss was covered in little strands of fur, which just so happened to match with the color and scent of the ones they'd found earlier. There was no question this time. They'd successfully tracked down Swiftstep's lost 'kit'.
After a short trek back, they triumphantly deposited the 'kit' in front of Swiftstep, who'd remained in the same spot from the very start of their searching. The slender warrior didn't offer even a stray glance at it.
"In a situation where the kit's hurt, what do you do?" he instantly asked.
"We get Fernleaf, obviously." Hollypaw's reply was nearly just as instantaneous, with a hint of annoyance to it.
"What if it's an emergency and you can't get to her in time?" Swiftstep countered right back.
He glared sternly at her. The warrior refused to budge on his question. Quick-witted as his namesake, he appeared prepared to reroute the conversation as many times as it took to get the response he desired.
"Check the kit for wounds or any infections," Lilypaw spoke up. "If it's bleeding anywhere we can stop to apply cobwebs and keep it suppressed until we can get back to camp. If it's something else one of us can stay here to keep watch while the other three hurry to sniff out herbs that might help."
"We could also have three cats stay here, one to watch the kit the other two to find herbs, while the fourth runs ahead to camp for help," Redpaw added. "As long as the kit is constantly being attended to we still have a chance."
Swiftstep's dark eyes darted between the two of them, as if considering the responses. Redpaw could feel his muscles tensing in anxiousness out of fear the warrior would next make them name the herbs in question they'd use. Despite aiding Fernleaf on occasion, he really wasn't much of an expert when it came to medicine. There were a few things he'd picked up in passing, but nothing meant to treat the sort of ailments Swiftstep appeared to be alluding to.
"I suppose I'll take that," he eventually replied. Redpaw was hit with an instant sense of relief. "Come on," Swiftstep continued. "We're going. One of you grab the kit and let's go."
He was already ushering them onward without a moment of reprieve. Lilypaw bent to grip the mossball in her mouth and hurriedly followed after Swiftstep with the rest of them trailing closely behind. Luckily for them this time, Swiftstep didn't seem intent on trying to make them collapse from exhaustion. He moved at a general pace that the rest of the apprentices could comfortably keep up with.
They followed him through the underbrush. Blades of grass tickled the undersides of their bellies as they passed by. Coming out into the clearing they'd successfully located the 'kit' in, Swiftstep suddenly stopped and whipped around to face them.
"You're traveling with the kit when suddenly a fox leaps out and intercepts you. How do you deal with it?"
It might've caught them off guard if he hadn't been pulling the exact same tactic the entire night. Sagepaw was the first one up, automatically loaded with a response.
"Hollypaw's faster than all of us so she should take the kit," he stated. "I'll take point as the main threat to the enemy head on while Redpaw and Lilypaw attack from its side–."
"No way!" Hollypaw interjected. "Because I'm faster I should be the one used as a distraction. I've got the best chance at not getting hit.
"She has a point," Redpaw chimed in. "You're almost guaranteeing you'll get hurt otherwise, Sagepaw."
Their best chance of avoiding any needless injuries was with a cat difficult to land a hit on. Sagepaw was quite agile in his own right, he knew from personal experience. However, that same experience had revealed that given enough time Sagepaw became susceptible to getting hit more the longer a fight dragged on.
"Not as long as I'm not a fleabrain," Sagepaw argued. "If we need to run Hollypaw's the one who has the best chance of getting the kit back to camp first. She should avoid fighting and take the kit."
"You have to the count of ten heartbeats to make a decision," Swiftstep warned them. "I won't wait a moment longer."
With that extra pressure hanging over them now, Hollypaw looked to Lilypaw expectantly. "You haven't said anything yet. What do you think?"
The white she-cat's eyes widened at everyone's gaze now on her. Carefully placing the mossball on the ground, she looked back up to meet everyone's stares. "I actually think Redpaw should be the one to hold it," Lilypaw said.
Surprise rippled across him, Hollypaw, and Sagepaw in tandem. She wanted him to have the kit?
"Are you sure?" he asked, still not quite convinced he'd heard her correctly.
She nodded adamantly. "You're faster than Sagepaw and me, so speed wouldn't be a problem. You're more delicate than Hollypaw and Sagepaw are with handling things, so we can trust the kit wouldn't get hurt accidentally. And honestly, your fur blends in a lot better with the forest than mine does. If you needed to avoid danger and hide for awhile I think you'd be better camouflaged and difficult to spot out. Not to mention, if it did come to a fight I'd like your chances more than mine."
Lilypaw rattled off each point one after another, stunning them further. Surprising as it was though, her logic was sound. Since when and for how long had she been evaluating him, he wondered? To be able to take notice of that many things couldn't be an overnight observation, could it?
"If you're all willing, sure I'll take it," he said. "That means it'd be the rest of you keeping the fox busy."
Sagepaw shared a glance with Hollypaw. "I'm not against it. She does have a point."
"Yeah, Redpaw, you're easily the most responsible out of us troublemakers here," she replied, grinning widely at him before winking.
Sagepaw and Lilypaw laughed at that while his pelt flushed hot. Embarrassed, he could only offer a sheepish smile in return. The irony wasn't lost on him. Of the four of them he was the only one who'd done something truly troublesome back when he'd ranaway from camp.
"Deliberations are over now," Swiftstep cut through their laughter. "You have your plan?" he questioned. They nodded. "Then prove it."
A sudden blur of fur blew pass Hollypaw and slammed heavily into Sagepaw, sending the russet tom sprawling to the ground with a sizable thud. Swiftstep towered over the startled apprentice before fixating his gaze on Redpaw and making a pounce at him. Wait, no, not him. He understood almost a heartbeat too late.
"He's targeting the kit, do something!" he shouted.
Redpaw dived for the mossball. Clasping his jaws over it, he pulled his limbs close to his body and began rolling immediately. A sharp gust of air ruffled his fur as Swiftstep just barely missed latching his claws onto him.
The warrior landed a few foxlengths away. Twisting his body around instantly, he dipped into a crouch to try again. This was bad. He'd gotten the jump on them before anyone had a chance to properly react and prepare themselves. Just like a real fox attack, he realized numbly, just as he saw Swiftstep's muscles contract, signifying his launch.
Hollypaw suddenly materialized in front of the warrior, lashing out with a quick swipe. Swiftstep dodged back to avoid it, canceling his pounce in the process. A sound like a startled yip escaped his mouth a heartbeat later as Lilypaw revealed herself to take a quick nip at the tip of his tail. The warrior turned to swing a lightning fast strike in retaliation, but Hollypaw was there immediately in his face again to interrupt it.
She darted back and forth, teetering just within his range while proving a nuisance for whenever he tried to go for Lilypaw nipping at his tail or slipping by her. Redpaw picked up on her interference and used it as an opportunity to run several foxlengths away with the mossball clasped snugly in tow. He couldn't allow Swiftstep to get near it under any circumstances.
"That all you got, ol' snail paws!" he heard Hollypaw jeer at Swiftstep from afar.
The warrior's eyes narrowed to slits. "Fine then."
Quicker than Redpaw could track with his eye, Swiftstep dropped his full body weight into a crouch and struck out low, his back legs connecting solidly into Lilypaw. She'd been darting in for another nip at his tail when the kicks landed, sending her flying. In that same motion, before his back legs had retouched the ground, balancing on one paw, he lashed out with the other of his front paws and swept Hollypaw's base from under her. In the lapse of a heartbeat he'd dispatched them both.
Unrestrained, his sharp gaze trained on Redpaw and the mossball. He inwardly cursed, scrambling for a plan in his head. Should he run like they'd talk about earlier? Had he actually been facing a fox who would be unable to fit or crawl through certain areas only a cat could get through, then maybe. With it being Swiftstep playing the role of one, and easily the fastest of any cat here or older in the forest, that severely rendered it next to useless.
Swiftstep moved then, making a full spurt dash towards him. He was alone. Hollypaw and Lilypaw wouldn't be able to get here in time to help, and the gap between them was quickly closing. He'd need to rely on something else. Make a decision, he urged himself. Make a decision!
He dropped his body into a low crouch and awaited the warrior, ready. Swiftstep slid within pawlengths of him, the glow from his eyes ominous when highlighted by the moon. In that moment where he felt the warrior less than a whisker's touch away, he dug his claws into the ground and flung upwards, knocking up a cloud of dirt into Swiftstep's face. Reacting with a near sixth sense level of awareness, the warrior reared back, evading it completely.
The dirt flew harmlessly pass into the air, but it was enough. He hadn't intended to ever hit in the first place, trusting Swiftstep's agility to be too much for such a petty tactic. No, he only wanted to buy time for the counterattack. A crack like a large rock being thrown against a tree sounded as Swiftstep was cleared well off his paws. A pained yowl left his body along with all the air from his lungs as Sagepaw slammed his front paws onto his chest, pinning him in place.
"Okay, okay, that's enough," Swiftstep grunted from under him. "You win, I'm done."
Their trial came to an end with Swiftstep's surrender.
A deep sigh of relief came from everyone knowing they no longer had anymore sudden attacks to worry about. Swiftstep congratulated them all. For the first time that night he offered up a genuine smile. As excited as they all were though, the warrior unfortunately had to cut their celebration short, reminding them that it was probably best they head home to rest up. No one argued with him.
They set off at a leisurely pace from the one they'd done previously. Ecstatic as they felt, the adrenaline from earlier with all their running away was finally running thin, and just like rain they were instantly drenched in a shower of exhaustion.
"There's one last thing we should do before heading straight home," Swiftstep called over his shoulder. "It's a bit of a tradition that BoulderClan apprentices partake in to signify the success of their final assessment. Being that you've all done so, I think it's only fitting you do the same."
The faint glimmers of dawn were twinkling just on the horizon. They'd been out for the brunt of the night without much sleep. In any other scenario the majority of them might've chosen to head back to camp and their nest, but this wasn't just any time. They'd passed their warrior assessment. They were going to become warriors.
Sharing a silent conversation amongst each other with only their eyes, they collectively nodded to Swiftstep. This wasn't the sort of thing you passed up on, especially not after everything they'd put into it. Swiftstep led them off the main route back home to a heavily congested, largely underpopulated portion of the forest. They walked in pure silence without much of anything noteworthy happening for what felt like a moon.
"We're here," Swiftstep mewed out.
They glanced around, confused. Here where? There was nothing around them but forest and more forest. Seeming to anticipate their confusion, Swiftstep stepped towards an ordinary bush and began pulling at it. A moment later they discovered the bush wasn't actually a bush, but cover for a cave that seemed to venture underground.
"This cave leads down below to a chamber with a shaft of light in it," he told them. "It's customary that apprentices take turns traveling below and place this in the light." And just as he said it, Swiftstep pushed forward an incredibly peculiar looking rock.
It was sharp in design and completely translucent. Staring closer, Redpaw could see the slivers of reflected, distorted images of himself staring back.
"So who wants to go first?" Swiftstep asked. "Be warned it's a bit of a trek down, so us out here will probably be waiting a bit until you get back."
The four of them looked amongst each other. "I could go," Sagepaw offered.
None of them spoke against it, so Sagepaw walked forward and grabbed the rock in his mouth.
"It heads straight down," Swiftstep told him. "So you don't need to worry about getting lost. See you when you get back."
Sagepaw disappeared down inside the mouth of the cave. They sat waiting, chatting casually together as time went by. He wasn't really keeping that clear track of time, only that before Sagepaw had gone in dawn was just on the cusp before the bright embers of the morning sun starting to hang over them.
The faint pad of paws on stone made his ears perk up. Looking to the mouth of the cave Sagepaw reappeared, the clear rock in tow. Immediately, he noticed something off about the tom's demeanor. It was incredibly somber. Sagepaw padded up to Hollypaw and dropped the rock in front of her.
She picked it up and entered the cave. Redpaw turned to Sagepaw, trying to get a read on his expression. His gaze wasn't focused on any particular thing.
"Hey, are you okay?" he asked.
Sagepaw blinked, turning to look at him. "Yeah," he said. "I just...just got a lot on my mind."
They lapsed back into silence. A significant portion of more time transpired before eventually the familiar sound of paws on stone sounded and Hollypaw reappeared. Unlike Sagepaw, she came marching out of the cave with a reassured boldness to her movement. She padded over to Lilypaw and dropped the stone before her.
Lilypaw cast a curious glance at her before picking up the rock and padding down into the cave. Like the previous two, a sizable portion of time expired before the familiar tune of paws on stone sounded again. She appeared with an expression on her face different from Sagepaw and Hollypaw's. Her expression was shrouded, as though in deep contemplation.
She padded up to him and deposited the rock at his paws. He tried to meet her gaze, but she walked directly passed him. Sagepaw, Hollypaw, and now Lilypaw. What in the stars had happened down there?
"Looks like you're the last one to go, Redpaw," Swiftstep called.
Somewhat reluctantly, he picked up the rock in his mouth and proceeded to walk pass Swiftstep into the mouth of the cave, leading below.
Stale air flooded his lungs, tasting of old rainwater and earth. The cave was surprising more spacious inside than he'd imagined. A long sweeping pathway lie stretched out before him, descending further into the dank darkness. Swallowing away the last of his misgivings, Redpaw plunged headfirst downward.
He caught sight of a shaft of light up ahead. This had to be what Swiftstep had spoken about. Walking towards it he found himself in a wide and spacious chamber with a beam of light in the middle of it, pooling down from a hole above in the cavern's ceiling. But the light wasn't all that he found awaiting him there. Sitting patiently there was...Fernleaf?
She looked at him, smiling gently. "Hello, Redpaw. Welcome to the final part of your assessment."
There seemed to be one last trick awaiting us after all. With the involvement of Fernleaf the final assessment truly had started, though it wouldn't be conducted in a manner that any of us would've predicted.