Aura and her team had seated themselves on top of a boulder at the edge of the rendezvous point.
"So, first, the obelisks," Aura said, starting the discussion. "The shop doesn't offer much…" A loud gurgling noise interrupted her. She looked in the direction of the noise to see Kai holding his stomach.
He looked at her, discomfort evident on his face. "What? I'm hungry. We haven't eaten since we got here," he said.
Aura glanced at the timer on her wrist; the display showed [15:22:10] … damn, we've been in the trial for almost eight hours… She was also hungry, but because of the situation, she had been ignoring it. "Okay, let's eat first; then we can continue the discussion."
No one objected, each selecting a ration pack on their suit wrist screens. A decent-sized rectangular box appeared, hovering in front of them. Aura grabbed hers, almost dropping it when she heard [scanning… creating food] issue from the container.
Aura looked at the box as it hummed softly for a few seconds, then hissed as the lid retracted, revealing hot, steaming white rice with beef and assorted vegetables in a sweet-and-sour-smelling sauce, a warm tea, and utensils in a space beside it.
Aura was momentarily stunned before she picked up the utensils and took a bite, flavors exploding in her mouth… Okay, if these are the rations they provide, we should get a few more… she thought as she began devouring her food.
It was a good twenty minutes before everyone had finished eating. The food containers collapsed into small cubes and vanished, and everyone was ready to resume the discussion.
"As I was saying," Aura said, "the shop doesn't offer much, but there are a few things we should get. The most important item we should get is the suits' mana restorative, followed by med kits and rations. The real issues we need to discuss are the missions. Chloe, is there a way to view the missions offered without going back to the obelisk?" she inquired.
[I can display the information on their suit screens, but to accept a mission, you will have to do so from the obelisk.]
Chloe informed her. "Alright, Chloe, display the mission information for them."
Navi, Lucas, and Kai's suit screens activated, and the mission details that Aura had seen appeared on them.
"Now we have to decide if we want to accept a mission or not," Aura stated after she had given them a moment to look through the list.
"Should we, though? I mean, it says they are optional," Kai asked as he looked up from his screen. "Why don't we just wait out the trial?" he suggested.
"We could," said Aura, responding to Kai's suggestion. "It does say that the missions are optional, but are they really? Ever since the trial started, we have been presented with choices, and the fact that one of the missions is determined by performance tells me that our decisions and actions play an important role in this trial.
We could do nothing and wait for the trial timer to end, but if we do that, I doubt we will keep our point lead, and I have a feeling those points are really important. I think that we should look at the missions and vote on which one to take."
"I agree," said Navi. "I think the first mission is probably not a good idea. We'll get an absurd number after surviving that void swarm."
"What about setting up or defending an evacuation area?" suggested Kai.
"Maybe," replied Lucas, "but it depends on the situation."
"True, that objective could be easy or extremely hard, depending on the area and requirements," agreed Navi.
"That leaves us with the rift and settlement missions. The rifts sound dangerous; we have no idea what's involved," Aura added.
"So the settlement missions are the only ones left," said Lucas. "But do we defend or rescue?"
"I think we should start with the defense settlement mission. We might be able to gather information useful to us for other missions," suggested Aura.
"True," agreed Navi. "Wait, did the mission obelisk say there are penalties for not completing a mission?" he asked.
Aura looked at Navi, surprised. She hadn't thought of that. "No, it didn't," she replied slowly. "But that could be a possibility after missions are accepted."
"Let's head to the obelisk to check. We can select the settlement defense mission to start with to see what happens," suggested Navi.
No one had a better idea, so they got up and climbed down the bolder. They followed Aura as she led them back to where the participants were gathered and through the crowd to the mission obelisk.
Aura touched its surface again. This time, she didn't hear the trial's voice. Instead, the screen on its surface appeared again with the list of missions.
"Well, here goes," said Aura as she selected the settlement defense mission. The screen blurred, displaying new information.
[Mission Selected: Help defend native settlements under attack. Are you sure your team wishes to choose this mission?
Accept: your team will be teleported to the mission area immediately.
Decline]
"Well, there seems to be no penalty, but no additional mission information either," Navi noted.
"So, should we accept?" Aura asked while looking at her team.
"I think we should," voted Lucas.
"I guess so," said Kai, still not entirely sure.
"I think we should, but let's resupply from the shop first," suggested Navi.
"I agree." Aura closed the screen on the mission obelisk, moving to the shop one.
Aura opened the shop screen and chose to have the suite mana restored, she also got two med kits, and two rations, exchanging 160 points. Navi, Lucas, and Kai did the same. Then they returned to the mission obelisk, and Aura opened up the mission screen.
"Ready?" she asked.
"Yes," replied Navi and Lucas, while Kai nodded.
Aura then touched the accept option on the mission screen, and a golden light surrounded them as they disappeared from the rendezvous point.