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“Welcome!” Willa beamed. Her enthusiasm was impressive, considering they’d been at this for many weeks now. “Today you’ll face your last but most dangerous test at the Hillslane Academy. Are you ready?”

We nodded.

“Wonderful,” Silas drawled, moving out of the way. “Your first task starts here.” He gestured to the forest behind them. “You need to find three treasure clues within the forest. Each clue is for you to find the treasures. Are you still with me? Good. Now, creatures will try to stop you. Do not underestimate them, their only purpose is to stop you from getting all three treasures.”

“And,” Willa cut in, still beaming. “The treasures can be placed anywhere, but not in a place that you’d never be able to reach. The test is hard, but doable. We trust you to keep to your wits and use whatever tools you have available.” She winked and then they both left us there, on our own.

“Why do I feel like we’re truly out here alone,” Arthur whispered.

“Because we are,” I whispered back. “Let’s be smart about this and start in our bear forms. We can sniff out whatever new stuff they added to the forest easily. The sooner we find the clues, the better.”

“Agreed. Let’s find all three and then shift back to humans and talk strategy after that.”

I grinned. “Deal.”

We both shifted, our bears sniffing the air immediately. I went into the forest first, my experience with the scents there made it logical for me to go first.

There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary at first, just the regular scents of pine, cedar, moss, grass, and the lingering scent of saltwater that always seemed to remain inside the forest, no matter how windy it was.

Arthur huffed behind me, pointing with his paw to his left. I followed his lead this time, trusting that he knew what he was doing, even if he was new to his bear form, he still had his instincts to guide him.

I stopped once I realized what he found and almost shifted back just to ask him what the fuck he was thinking.

Poop. He’d found poop.

I just stood there, huffing at him. We didn’t have time to waste, dammit!

He just huffed in annoyance and started digging right where the ground smelled the strongest. If I’d been in my human form, I would’ve gagged at the smell and sight alone.

Before I could drag him away from the offending stink, something appeared to glow. A light green crystal ball lay in the hole, shining brightly. It then erupted in front of us, disappearing into dust. A light, just like the guiding light inside the academy, showed up. It would lead us to the treasure.

I couldn’t believe they’d hidden one of the clues under a pile of shit. I would never live this down. And I doubted Arthur would ever let me forget either.

Without wasting any time, we started sniffing around again, Arthur ignoring the dirt and crap on his front paws for now. I found a scent that was slightly metallic, and led us in that direction. It was weird how the scent grew but also changed. I stopped to sniff, needing to understand what the different scents meant. It was then it happened. The first creature appeared, sweeping down from a tree and attacking me. It was an owl, and had it not been for my thick fur, it would’ve clawed me much worse than it did.

Arthur was right there within seconds, swiping at the owl as it dove in for another clawing. The owl was dead within seconds of Arthur grabbing it, the feathers falling off everywhere.

I took in a steadying breath. This would not be easy.

“We can’t go that way!” Arthur protested. We were dirty and exhausted, yet still seemed energized enough to argue.

“We need to!” I argued, gesturing to the huge tree. Our last treasure was at the very top, a creepy looking doll that sat on a tiny branch.

“I know that!” Arthur hissed. “But we can’t go up there in our bear forms! We need to find a way to force it down.”

The branches were too small to carry our weight, even if I still believed it could hold for the distance we needed. Or I would’ve... had I not broken my leg trying to get to the last treasure.

“Force it down?”

He nodded hurriedly. “We can throw rocks up there, anything really.”

“You don’t think they’d mind us breaking it? It looks to be made of porcelain.”

“They never said anything about breaking things,” he said, waving me off. “And the longer we wait, the more trouble is heading our way.”

“You’re right,” I sighed, grabbing the closest rock. We’d been attacked by over twenty different creatures, many different species, too. At the first treasure, it had been five bunnies coming at us, biting furiously at our skin. Then at the second treasure, a wolf had howled and we’d been swarmed by anything from rats to deers. It was wild. Our bears had been our weapon of choice, and we’d succeeded. My leg had sadly been too delicious looking, and while I’d thought we were in the clear, a wolf had snuck up and bitten me. Once I realized my mistake, it was too late and it pulled, snapping the bone. Arthur had roared as he killed the wolf.

I threw the rock, hitting some leaves on the branch underneath our target. Arthur threw his stone, then another, both missing by a lot. We grew frantic, then hurriedly threw stones just for a chance of one of them hitting. We were both so done with today, my leg was killing me and Arthur had a really nasty cut on his arm that definitely needed to be looked at.