Right as I begin to contemplate how Callia is doing, I feel a vibration from my amulet. It was a signal we had secretly set up. 1 vibration meant a team was eliminated, and 2 meant Callia was eliminated. I can’t help but feel excited from Callia for just a moment before I also get a double vibration. Well, at least I bet she will have been happy to eliminate a team before going down. The only question was, was it the newbie team who just went out or some other team? With the level being shown by that team, I have trouble imagining them being able to pin Callia down, and the timing of the signal seemed a bit too delayed from when they were removed.

  Well, that only left 1 or 2 teams left. Of the teams we knew were out for sure, they included the barbarians and the fisherman’s teams. Which inconveniently were the least threatening of those we had confronted. I signal for Nixie to come down, and we quietly convene a group discussion.

  “Callia’s out, and she took a team with her. There are one or two teams left, and I’m thinking of leaving a decoy here and going to scout out the remaining teams.”

  Nixie seemed ok with the plan, as among us I had the best scouting skill with my high-level sense of mana. However, Reesia didn’t like the idea of leaving me unguarded, and Crescent was anxious about leaving me alone, but I didn’t like the odds of our defenses against any kind of area-attacking weapons that the mage or the runic team would likely employ in the event of reaching our site. The others eventually caved.

  I placed my most recent success as a dummy that used enchantment to mimic my appearance instead of skills and runes that made it appear as if it were alive. It requires Crescent to feed it mana to hold its appearance, but if it was enough to trick Callia once, it should definitely work on someone who has only briefly seen me. Nixie set up a line for me to crawl across to exit her trap zone, and soon I was on the outside.

  I didn’t have Callia’s skills to perceive or her ability to quietly navigate along the tree branches, but I did have my runic camouflage and a very high Sense Mana. I quietly crept out towards the south, which would lead me to the starting zones of the runic team and the mage. Every step of the way I held my full focus, scanning for any human-shaped mana condensations or noticeable movement of mana. Mainly I noticed bugs that hadn’t been fully blocked out from the walls.

  I made my way all the way to the mage team's starting area and found nothing, so I shifted my search to my Runic rivals. It wasn’t long until I found a pair huddled in a cave somewhere between their start and the path to the middle of the arena. I couldn’t get a physical view of them, but from the shape I could identify the merchant and the soldier. The twins and the runic weapon wielder were absent. It seemed this was the best chance I was going to get, but going in to fight them would be a mistake. Just like how we trapped the area around our start, I was nearly certain the area around the cave would be rigged with traps.

  Instead of going in, what if I smoked them out? They might even get unlucky and hit their own traps on the way out. Sadly, I hadn’t prepared any smoke grenades. However, there were plenty of materials around me, and even if it was only short-lived, I could probably fashion a quick prototype. Before that I circled around at a distance I felt would be safe from traps, laying landmines and tripwires, trying to mimic how Nixie had earlier. It was a shoddy job, but it might pay off if the enemy panics.

  -Nixie-

  Callen’s decision to leave us behind hit like a punch to the gut. All the traps I could make and all the inspiration Callia had given me, and I was useless outside my territory. Traps are now forever a part of who I am, and I’ll take pride in taking out a whole team on my own, but I think I’ll push myself to step further on Callia’s stealth movement path. Even if I can’t directly act, if I could accompany him, it might’ve been useful.

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  My internal reflection is interrupted when I feel my perimeter strings go taut. I release pressure from the string immediately to avoid the interloper from recognizing they had touched a string. From my perch I lock onto the direction of the intrusion and spot the knife twins sneaking toward decoy Callen. No runic area attacking weapons meant that these two are now my prey. A predatory grin stretches across my face, and like a spider, I prep my other strings, waiting for the perfect moment.

  The key to hitting someone with a trap was identifying the most common means of identifying them. Callia had gone all over town talking to travelers, learning their favorite sensory skill, and had shared her learnings with me. Instinct was the first; it was simple enough to get, and even if honing mastery required talent, it would let someone know whenever they were in danger. The key to bypassing it was modulating the danger. A capture trap made without killing intent was much harder to identify than something made with the purpose of hurting or killing.

  The second key to trapping was denying the victim sufficient leverage to break free. Someone who is tightly bound won’t be able to properly exert strength, and controlling how their body is positioned also limits them. Callia had gone over a whole anatomy lesson, theorizing positions that would be awkward to break free from. Which we later tested on Callen.

  I watch and wait, letting them move to just the right position to initiate. Crack The lead twin stepped on one of Callen’s frost mines, and ice began to encase their leg. I pulled my wires, and immediately the further back twin was hoisted off the ground as a loop tightened around their chest just under the elbows. Simultaneously I triggered a pair of logs to swing at the suspended twin, forcing him to focus on evasion over freedom.

  I switched back to the iced twin and released a counterweight, causing the ground beneath him to collapse, dropping him onto another dozen frost mines. I switched back my attention to the suspended one, vaguely tracking the sounds of screaming being silenced as a large block of ice engulfed them.

  The other twin had kicked aside one of the logs and had shifted position to use the other as footing. It reminds me of the first time Callen had escaped me using my own trap. Sadly I was well adjusted to trapping my traps, and the log simply delivered the poor fellow into a field of invisible strings and ropes. It was a matter of seconds before they were tied up into a unique piece of art.

  -Callen-

  I ended up using nearly twenty mana making smoke grenades until the merchant couldn’t take it anymore and ran for the exit. The soldier chased after, but it was too late, as the merchant fell into a pit trap onto a spike. Seems I was right about the traps. In the next moment guards descended from above, removing and treating the merchant, who did not enjoy being impaled. I got my first look at the soldier and saw a number of glancing wounds from arrows. Quietly I thanked my sister for softening them up for me.

  The judge also comes down, announcing we had won! I’m brought up to the observation platform and soon reunited with the rest of the family. Everyone’s hugging and cheering. The other teams seem to be struggling to wrap their heads around how they had lost. This was a bitter defeat for them, but it couldn’t entirely be their fault, as trap making is a niche skill that people rarely have to contest against when escorting merchants along well-traveled roads. Still, for the first time in the history of Port Town, an underage team had prevailed over the older groups, and a new rule was established to keep the escort tournament about escorting instead of trap-making.

  However, as everyone cleaned up and made their way back to town, a soldier came running down the road.

  "Worms! The town has been overrun by worms! Mayor Hew has taken command and is calling all survivors to evacuate to the gatehouse!"

  The ‘Invisibility’ Cloak

  Callen brought his mom over to Callia’s recent idea, which had been inspiring, but Callen knew nothing of sewing and was on a tight schedule before the big finale battle of the festival.

  Camouflage cloth was an interesting challenge, and Mom seemed excited to contribute. At his request Ela had made 3 sets of cloth made with natural colors. In the meantime, Callen had designed his runes as wooden plates that could be stitched onto the cloth. The effect was relatively simple: the clothes' colors would shift to mimic the appearance of whatever plants the material touched. If on grass, it would shift to appear like grass, and when touching a tree, the material would look like a particularly thick growth or knot growing on the tree.

  The cloak would last for one to two hours before the runes burned out, easily long enough for their purposes. In testing it worked wonders on everyone but Callia, who was something more like a half monkey with how familiar she was with trees and could immediately spot Nixie despite her best efforts to blend in. Secretly Callen suspected Callia of cheating and using her Instinct Tracking skill.

  Ela, however, loved the results of their combined efforts and insisted Callen would spend time with her learning her skills after the tournament was concluded.