Princess of the Silver Ocean - Chapter 82

“Make sure you take one map and a brochure,” the teacher instructed, crossing her arms.

The students grabbed a map and brochure as they passed them around. When the teacher saw that every student had taken a map and brochure as instructed, she clapped her hands.

“All right. I will now explain the rules of how the Riddle Race will work,” she smiled.

The students paid close attention to her.

“The race will consist of you traveling to five places,” Miss Yalvina began to explain, “At each place, there will be an anthousai wearing a white t-shirt with a hyacinth flower on the front. There will be a number on their t-shirt from one to five indicating the number of the place you are at.”

Students began to take note of what she was saying, and so did Astoria.

“At each location, the anthousai will give you a riddle,” Miss Yalvina began to walk around, “When you guess the answer to the riddle, only then will you get the puzzle piece you need.”

“Puzzle piece?” one student asked, tilting her head in confusion.

“Yes,” the teacher replied, nodding her head, “At every destination, you will get a puzzle piece when you answer a riddle correctly. There are five puzzle pieces in total. To prevent teams from jeopardizing or stealing puzzles from each other, every team will get a different puzzle to complete.”

Students let out a sigh of relief.

‘It seems like I was not the only one who was worried about a team jeopardizing another team,’ Astoria pressed her lips together, ‘Looks like Miss Yalvina knew this was capable of happening. I mean, if we all had to get the same puzzle pieces, we would end up starling from each other and avoid completing a riddle.’

“So there are five different puzzles to be completed, and you will be split into four groups with five students each,” the teacher began to walk around the classroom.

She told the class to open their brochures, which the students did.

“The brochure highlights the five places you will go to,” she told them, “You will go to the Anthousai Museum, Heavenly Spruce Forest, The Future Flower Garden of East Corrilt, the Summerna Park, and lastly, the Bookends Bookstore.”

Astoria stared at the brochure and scanned all five locations. They were all beautiful, especially The Future Flower Garden of East Corrilt.

“As you can see,” Miss Yalvina was now standing in front of the students again.

She held the brochure in her hand and pointed at all the given locations.

“All the locations are at a faulty equal distance from each other,” she continued, “You can decide for yourself how you will get to each destination. I will hand over a card with the coat of arms printed on it.”

‘A card?’ Astoria raised her eyebrows.

“This card will allow you to use any form of transport to travel to the five locations,” Miss Yalvina explained, “Once you have gathered all the five puzzle pieces, you must return here to this conference room and sit with your group members. You must then put the puzzle together here in the conference room.”

She emphasized the word ‘here.’

“If I find out that you put the puzzle together before coming here- which I will because I have eyes and ears everywhere since the place is full of nature so I can watch over you all – you will be severely penalized. This race is not just to test your riddle skills but also to test how you work with others. Any questions so far before I continue?”

The students shook their heads ‘no.’

“Okay. I will now split you up into your teams,” she grabbed the register, “Team one will consist of Gamroki, Dulmoure, Misty, and Sadelia.”

Astoria could tell that the other students in Misty’s team were not happy to be with her.

“Team two…” the teacher continued to assign the teams.

“… Lastly, team five will be Laurelai, Nexi, Davitt, and Laojin.”

Astoria internally groaned.

‘Not Laojin,’ she bit her lip, ‘But having him in my team is better than having Misty, who hates Nexi’s, and mine’s, living gut. Besides, I am glad I have the fairy and class president with me. They are both smart, so thank you, goddess, for assigning me to them.’

All the students were assigned to a team. They gathered together to discuss strategies on how they would go about completing the riddle race and coming up in the top three.

“Ah, I must have used up all my luck,” Laojin, the troll smirked, “I was able to join a group with two extremely beautiful women.”

Laurelai rolled her green eyes, and Astoria did not respond. Davitt cleared his throat, causing his team members to look at him.

“First, we need to have a group leader,” the gargoyle class president stated, holding a notebook and pen in his hand, “Any volunteers.”

None of his members said anything, and Astoria was not even thinking of putting her hand up. When a minute passed with silence, Davitt sighed.

“Fine,” the gargoyle said, “If no one volunteers, then I will be the group leader. Any objections?”

“None and good choice,” Laurelai quickly agreed.

“Now, we need a map reader,” Davitt said, “Someone who is good with directions and reading a map.”

If it was in her world, Astoria would have volunteered, but this was not her world. This was a world full of magic and fantasy creatures. There was no way she would volunteer.

“I would love to be the map reader,” the fairy raised her hand, “You guys may not know it, but I am great when it comes to directions and reading maps. I can memorize a map in the blink of an eye. Plus, I have been here before and know two out of the five locations.”

Astoria smiled in relief.

“Any objections?” Davitt asked to which no one raised any.

“Great,” Davitt said after a while, “We also need someone who will be in charge of keeping the puzzle pieces with them.”

“I do not mind doing that,” Astoria said, raising her hand to volunteer, “Unless you want to do it, Laojin?”

She stared at him with an ambiguous smile. He looked away, avoiding eye contact. The guy was still terrified about their encounter in the Foreign Political Science class. He still had marks on his shoulder from when she dug her nails in them. He quickly shook his head ‘no.’

“Great then,” Astoria said, clapping her hands together.

“What is he going to do?” Laurelai said, pointing at the troll.

“We will figure that out later,” Davitt said, “At the end of the day, we are all a team so let us work together in harmony.”

Davitt emphasized the word ‘harmony’ and stared at Laojin when he said it.

“If I find out that a group member is trying to sabotage another member or the team as a whole,” Davitt ran his hands through his brown hair.

His tone suddenly turned serious, “You will be sorry.”

This caused the rest of the team members to stare at him wide-eyed. Laojin gulped nervously.

“All right, teams,” Miss Yalvina clapped to get every student’s attention, “The race will end at 3 PM. It is currently 9:55 AM right now. The race starts at 10 AM. Do make sure that you do not go anywhere that is not part of the riddle race. If you get in any trouble, call me. No fighting amongst team members and no sabotage. All the best!”

The students nodded and smiled.

“Oh!” Miss Yalvina exclaimed, laughing softly, “I almost forgot. Some locations will have challenges for you to complete before you can hear the riddle.”

The students groaned, and Miss Yalvina chuckled.

“Did you all think it would be that easy?” she smirked, “That all you had to do was travel to the locations, hear the riddle, guess the answer, and receive your puzzle piece?”

Some students sighed.

“Yeah. We did,” one student replied, smiling sheepishly.

Miss Yalvina laughed and looked at the watch.

“It is now 10AM,” she declared, “Remember the race finishes at 3 PM, so make sure to finish collecting your puzzle pieces before 3PM. All teams should be here by half-past two, at least. If you do not complete this assignment by 3PM, you will fail.”

The students nodded in understanding.

“Most of all, though,” she continued, a smile on her beautiful face, “I want you to enjoy seeing all the beautiful places for this city. I want you to have fun as well and bond with each other. All right, you are allowed to start at any location you want as long as you visit all five locations. All the best and good luck!”

With that, she dismissed the students, and they headed out. Ready to start the Riddle Race and have fun while improving their riddle skills.

“All right, team,” Laurelai said, fisting her hand in the air, “Let’s do this. We are aiming for the top three, though I would love to come out first. Anyway, let’s do our best….all of us.”