Running at the crack of dawn was not Mehdi’s idea of fun, but apparently first year initiates got the worst possibly time. Initiates with sunken in eyes and bleary expressions wandered from their bed, shuffled on their uniforms, and walked to the Tourmaline Plaza, at the sound of a loud, obnoxious bell.

Sleeping the correct amount of hours, it turned out, made life a lot easier, and all the another initiates looked like death compared to Mehdi. No one made eye contact with him or said a word, but he caught brief slips of conversation--

Three first year initiates had been found. Two had been deferred to next year, and the third was apparently going to be cleaning toilets for the next six months. The feeling of vindication was all that kept Mehdi focused on the terrible exercise set before him.

Feet ran across the cold brick, and Mehdi’s lungs contracted and expanded as he gasped for breath. He had never known the sun to be so cruel, but as it beat down on him as they ran lap after lap around the building, he was beginning to despise it with every fibre of his being. Of their group, only a scant few initiates were able to keep the pace, one of them being Kaspar.

The older Mages paid them no heed, save for their instructor, a man with a large bushy mustache and bushy eyebrows to match. Behind him, Mehdi heard someone saying they had heard their instructor had once been scarred across his face, and thus grew the mustache to obscure his shame.

After running, he filed into a classroom learning what could only amount to absolutely bizarre, useless topics. Those that could read were sent to a different class, and Mehdi and the majority stayed behind, struggling through the shapes of the words they would be expected to recognize.

“Demesne” for example, was spelled in a way that was an absolute conjob, and he had no idea who had decided it that way. There was an ‘s’ in it, but it sure wasn’t pronounced with one!

They also spent some time learning about Nevan, which as far as he could tell, no one paid much attention to. There was a big political humdrum in Nevan, about a dam that was supposed to be finished, but had been sabotaged by the workers, and apparently if they were going to be hired for early work, it would involve guarding the dam itself.

The workers evidently had been too stupid to realize that the dam would bring a lot of power to the city, and make it so that the individual batteries could be abandoned for some sort of infrastructure.

Mehdi didn’t really fully get it, but he also didn’t have to, he just had to know it was an issue, and that if it was still an issue in a year, he might be on the site, having to stop violence from occurring. What an incredibly stressful concept.

A routine was set. At lunch time, Mehdi would eat alone, as the others pointedly refused to make eye contact with him. At first it worried Mehdi, but now he saw it as the blessing he had been hoping for--no one talked to him, no one paid attention to him, and no one cared. It was a wondrous situation. It was also quite likely that no one had the time or attention to bother him anyway.

One of the stranger lessons that the Mages instilled was that there was a proper way to eat. Back straight, utensil going straight up until it was level with one’s mouth, and then moved towards the mouth in a straight line. It was a strange, silly practice, one of many they were expected to upkeep, alongside making their beds and keeping their own shoes polished, but Mehdi found some comfort into it. It was repetitive and silly, but rules were rules, and Mehdi was good at following the rules.

His parents had promised him a visit within the first week, but instead Mehdi received a letter to inform him that, yes, his sister was indeed alive and well. Mehdi wanted to say he felt relief, but he mostly just felt vindicated. The idea of Ceyda dying was. Well, it was a tad ridiculous. Such things didn’t happen to the Lucrece family. They were a boring family, and the fact that Mehdi was a Mage was an aberration to such a trend.

They would visit eventually, once Ceyda had cooled down. Evidently she was absolutely emanating in miasma. Mehdi was somewhat thankful to be far away in Nevan.

With a distant visit in the future, it would most likely be after he knew what core what he would get, a fate he privately dreaded, but couldn’t really think of on any meaningful level. So he ran. He recited vocabulary. He ate. He took tests. He slept. And every day bled into each other, in an uncomfortably monotonous dredge. Mehdi wouldn’t call it a comfortable existence, but it certainly wasn’t a varied one.

The strangest part, honestly, was when Mehdi realized he hadn’t talked to anyone for almost a week. Unlike at home, where the tutors had asked Mehdi questions, the teachers here only lectured, never engaging with the class. The work was to be written, not spoken. Ritesgivers were met every third month, which struck Mehdi as quite a long time to go in between spiritual practice. It had been explained to him that Ritesgivers who had Mage cores were much more potent than Ritesgivers who were Towers, but all it meant was that Mehdi was yet again set for prolonged isolation. Afterall all, it wasn’t like the other students were going to talk to him.

So instead he just listened and watched, his tongue held firmly between his lips. He didn’t know if he’d call it lonely, or even torturous, but it was a strange experience indeed. Perhaps this was proof his core was indeed that of a Mage--how naturally he took to the training, and how content he was to just live this life.

Of course, he could still do without the exercise.

Time passed, and quite suddenly, the core tests would be tomorrow. Just like that, three and a half weeks at Nevan, barely talking to anyone, just going through the same process every day. This time, the mustached teacher who everyone referred to as A Volterra, was sporting a big grin on his face.

Mehdi watched, dispassionately, as the Mage explained they’d be running out of Nevan today, as a final test. There was an abandoned factory a few miles away, where they would circle the area until nightfall, and spend the night with nothing but the clothes on their back and what they could forage in the wilderness.

It was a surprising concept, but one Mehi was looking forward to. He missed the great outdoors, not whatever horrendous facsimile for outside that this city claimed to have. Hills, trees, grassy expanses as far as the eye could see--it was like a yearning was awoken for something he didn’t even know he missed.

He had never slept under the stars before, his mother would have had a fit, as he could have been assaulted and robbed of all his worldly possessions, but it probably wasn’t too difficult. Mehdi was put into a group with Kaspar, and another initiate who Mehdi knew to be named Joseph. Joseph, like all the other Mages, ignored Mehdi, but he had an absolutely obnoxious cough, and thought he was very funny. Joseph was not funny.

The two kept talking to each other, making a point to ignore Mehdi. Once again, Mehdi couldn’t help but feel completely content with this. He glanced at the other initiates scattered across the plaza. Every day more and more initiates had arrived. There had to be over a hundred of them now, from all over northern Kesterline.

What happened to people who came after today? Did they have to take this test next year? Or did they sleep alone in the woods?

Mehdi shuddered. Now that was something he wasn’t willing to do. Sleeping in the woods sounded fun, so long as someone could hear him scream if there was a mammoth tiger out to eat him.

Idly chewing on the inside of his cheek, Mehdi returned to his dorm to pack some supplies, but found he had misplaced his spare clothing yet again. He had never lived in a dorm before, without a servant, and he was down to one pair of socks, and had somehow misplaced any shirt that wasn’t his uniform.

And now, it looked like he had misplaced his spare underclothing as well. Mehdi frowned. Surely he wasn’t this absent minded, was he? Maybe it was getting tossed into a crevice somewhere, or maybe someone else kept thinking it was their clothes.

Shrugging to himself, Mehdi packed what he could, and returned to the plaza, not even bothering to find his two teammates. Instead, he walked towards the teacher, who was chewing some sort of foul smelling plant.

“Get with your buddies, initiate,” A Volterra spat.

“Yessir,” Mehdi mumbled, scooting to the other side of the fountain, out of view from the Mage.

It could have been worse. This way he was avoiding two people specifically. If the Mage had made them form their own groups, Mehdi might have just given up on the spot and walked back to Bricketfriar then and there.

The thought amused him, and Mehdi cracked a smile, but he bit his lip and dug his nail into his palm. He needed to not have thoughts like that. It was lighthearted but he couldn’t hyperbolize like that.

“All right,” A Volterra said, smacking away at the plant gum. “Everyone ready? We’re not returning for forty-eight hours, got that? This is your final test in endurance, strength of core, and of all else, your ability to think like a Mage.”

Mehdi yawned and nodded, alongside everyone else.

“I can’t hear you!” A Volterra yelled.

Mehdi gave a mild, unimpressed yell, masked by everyone else’s far more impressive yelps of pride.

The Mage blew into a whistle, snapped his fingers in the distance, and two other grown Mages walked over, looking tired and angry. Mehdi could only imagine that whoever had been sent to oversee the first year initiates had to have drawn the short straw. It was certainly a job Mehdi would have never wanted.

“Three rows, match up with your partners, lets go people,” A Volterra continued to order.

Mehdi walked over to his two reluctant partners, and stared straight ahead, as did they. How long was it going to take to get to the countryside? It couldn’t be a very quick walk, how long were they supposed to be together? Dread welled up in the pit of Mehdi’s stomach.

He shook his head and took a deep breath. No ruminations. Not today, not ever. Just go on the last test before discovering what his Mage core was. He was so close to knowing what the rest of his future entailed, he could live with a training camp.

A Volterra gave a sharp whistle, and they started the long trek. It wasn’t an elegant march, as they had to slowly walk out of the plaza, up the stairs, and then out of the crowded city of Nevan. Mehdi instantly regretted any sort of hope he had for this expedition. An elderly woman from one of the buildings opened a window and yelled greetings to them. The passersbys and individuals in the automobiles stopped moving so they could pass through, all the while gawking at the walking initiates.

Mehdi stared at the back of the boy in front of him, making sure to notice nothing else. He would just maintain focus until they made it out of the city. Did everyone else have nothing better to do? Just watch them walk slowly out of this terrible city?

They made it out of the mainstreets, leaving the smaller, narrower roads to navigate, led by A Volterra, who occasionally blew into his whistle to regain their attention. Mehdi suspected he just liked hearing the noise it made.

It took the better half of a day of nonstop walking to see the location in the distance. Mehdi had known it was a broken down factory, but that was far, far different from seeing it in person. It looked, frankly, like a chunk of the underworld, brought to Kesterline, and preserved. Rusted brown and grey metal pillars built in twisted shapes, with molded rope draped over.

As they got closer, the Mages circled the abandoned factory, and stopped on the opposite side. On the horizon, the muggy rigid shape of Nevan shined across the sky, and Mehdi was in the shadow cast by the factory.

Factory. What a word to call it. Mehdi knew there were factories in Bricketfriar. They were small little systems, usually with a singular machine running on gas, and a few individuals would feed it with fuel, as it refined the metals, salts and leathers that Bricketfriar produced.

But this? This was monstrous. The inside was coated in black ash, and every place Mehdi looked was either broken concrete, broken metal, or a dark and shadowy place he could not see or parse. If he were a bolder man, he might have even asked what it had been once. But he did not.

“All right,” A Volterra said, sitting on the ground, removing his jacket to reveal a large amount of sweat. “Set up camp. We’ll be hunting for our food tonight!”

“Actually--we will not be,” another Mage cut in.

“What?” A Volterra spat.

“Remember--the issue Quolle told us about?”

“Oh--I thought the bastard was joking!”

The Mage shook his head.

A Volterra cursed, and the three Mages disappeared to talk about other plans. Mehdi’s stomach growled sadly.

While they were supposed to sleep near their buddies, Mehdi instead found a spot nearby, but slightly isolated, so he could scream for help if needed, but he could stay away from the large groups.

“Hey, Messi!” Kaspar called out in Mehdi’s direction. It took a moment for Mehdi to realize Kaspar had forgotten his name and was trying to call to him.

Mehdi sighed and looked up. “Mehdi. My name is Mehdi.”

Kaspar stepped forward, with Joseph and a few other initiates in tow.

“So, we were wondering if you were going to join us,” Kaspar asked.

“On what?” Mehdi cocked an eyebrow.

“Exploring this creepy hunk of metal,” Kaspar said.

“...no,” Mehdi said flatly. What was with these people and their desire to risk death for some very underwhelming and unimpressive thrills?

“Aw, come on, aren’t you just a little bit interested in what’s in there?” Joseph asked.

“Nope.”

“You some sort of fuckin’ coward?” another initiate cut in.

Mehdi stared blankly at the one who had cursed. What bee had been placed in their trousers? Were they so deeply emotionally affected by Mehdi they felt the need to curse about it? And call him a coward?

He wasn’t even offended, or even stressed. He was just confused. Granted, the confusion was stressing him out, but that was a different sort of stress. A confused stress, not a stressed stress.

“I just. Don’t see the point in doing that,” Mehdi said. “At all.”

“You some sort of--”

“Now, now,” Kaspar cut in. “He said he wasn’t going to to do it. Like he didn’t do the Tourmaline Tourney.”

Correct.

Mehdi rolled his eyes. He didn’t even know how to respond to it politely. It was such a fundamental understanding to him that, of course no sane person would want to do any of the things these louts seemed to be fascinated by. He didn’t know why this was so hard to understand and he certainly didn’t know how to explain it.

“You don’t have to try to include me in everything you do,” was all Mehdi could figure out how to say, not even too impressed with the words as they came out.

There was a low mumble and murmur through the initiates--laughter maybe? Was one of them laughing? Mehdi couldn’t tell but the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up and he just wanted this interaction to end as quickly as possible.

Kaspar smiled. “Not really interested in being a team player, huh?”

“I’m here to be a Mage,” Mehdi said. “We’re supposed to stay focused, right? I don’t have time for weird games…”

“Hey you calling us crooked?” Joseph hissed.

“N-no!” Mehdi mumbled. “No, of course not--”

“This kid’s calling us sideway freaks!” Joseph continued, his voice getting louder.

Mehdi didn’t know how to respond to this, all he knew was that he hated it and wanted it to stop this instant. So he muttered a quick goodbye and walked away, trying to get as far away from their voices as possible.

To his relief, they didn’t follow him.

He sat down near a tree, and took a deep breath, trying to remain calm. He hadn’t intended to insult them, but to be honest, they weren’t wrong. Why were they so obsessed with misbehaving and letting their focus stray? Was Mehdi missing something? Last he checked, being an easily distracted sort was not becoming for any man, let alone a Mage. And yet they saw him as the aberration?

It made no sense. Absolutely no dang sense.

Mehdi remained away from the group. It had gotten dark by the time A Volterra and another Mage who had left returned, with bags of food.

“So, since apparently we’re not allowed to learn how to survive because of ‘overhunting’ and ‘destroying the land’,” A Volterra said, quoting the reasons with derision. “We’ll instead be eating mess hall food. Enjoy!”

Mehdi could tell just from looking at the size of the bags it would not be enough food for the entire group. He groaned. Did he dare even go up and ask for food? He had already pissed off Kaspar and the others, he didn’t need to cause a further scene. He would rather go hungry than restart whatever that fight was.

So he watched, his stomach aching, as a depressingly long line was formed and the food was distributed, each initiate barely getting a plate of food to tide them over for the night. The Mages who were overseeing the group didn’t take any food, but they certainly didn’t seem to act hungry. Had they eaten already? Or was that true Kesterline Mage discipline? The ability to glance at food and not so much as frown in desire.

Nonetheless, he stayed away. The bags were emptied, and the last twenty or so initiates had nothing to eat. The sun had completely set and there were still arguments and yelling over it, which was resolved by A. Volterra ordering them to do twenty laps around the abandoned factory. The initiates complained, and they instead were forced to take a position on the ground where only their feet and elbows touched the ground, and their backs remained parallel.

Mehdi didn’t see why that was such a punishment, it seemed like an easy position to old, but the other initiates certainly seemed to hate it, and he wasn’t inclined to find out why.

He set down what sleeping material he had brought, laid down, instantly stood up again, and set to removing every rock and stick and strange lump that impeded on his sleep.

“Why are you sleeping all the way out here?” A Volterra said, suddenly quite close to him.

Mehdi repressed a surprised yelp, and turned to face his instructor. “I wanted to sleep away from the other initiates.”

“You were assigned partners,” the Mage said. “Who were they?”

The Mage pulled out a sheet of paper, and summoned a ball of light as he read it over.

“Kaspar and Joseph, uh, sir. But we got into an argument and I don’t think I should be near them,” Mehdi explained.

“An argument? What sort of argument?”

“Uh--they wanted to explore the factory after dark, and asked me to join, but I refused,” Mehdi said slowly.

A Volterra cocked a slow, annoyed eyebrow. “I see.”

“Can I stay here, then?” Mehdi pleaded, putting his best polite smile on that he could muster.

A Volterra made an idle chewing noise, but with nothing to chew on, it was just the clacking and grinding of his teeth. “No.”

Mehdi frowned. That was not the answer he was expecting.

A Volterra grabbed him by the shoulder, and walked back to the group. Mehdi’s heart was going a mile a minute and he instantly regretted being honest. He should have just said he preferred to be alone! Or just said he would change his position and hid better.

“So, it has come to my attention that some of you want to go be delinquents,” A Volterra spoke loudly. “There is only one solution for such a thing--everyone stand up. Now.”

There was a mild grumbling from the tired initiates.

“I said now! Initiates!”

The initiates quickly stood up, bleary-eyed, hungry, and confused.

“Here’s the first lesson of being a Mage. If one of us breaks the rules, we all break the rules,” A Volterra said. “And if one of us gets accused, we all get accused. Is that clear?”

Mehdi was staring at the dirt, not fully understanding, but not about to say something about it. He just needed this yelling to pass, and then he’d hide again.

Instead, A Volterra pushed Mehdi towards the group. “Instead of sleeping, we’ll be doing a little exercise.”

“What?” the angry, surprised yell echoed across the initiates.

A Volterra cracked his neck, and sat on one of the nearby boulders. “Start running.”

“For how long?” Kaspar sputtered.

A Volterra stared Kaspar dead in the eye. “For much longer, now that you asked that.”

Mehdi nearly choked on his own spit. He was tired, starving, and now they were supposed to--what--? Just run until the Mage decided they were done?

There was a slow, confused shuffling. No one had even started running yet.

“I said run!” A Volterra yelled.

And just like that, a horde of a hundred initiates started to run. Mehdi chased after them, trying to stay away from any initiate who had strong enough arms to hit him, but it wasn’t enough. Initiates behind him ran past Mehdi, slamming into his shoulder without so much as a moment of warning. When the others past him, they glared at him with anger, and spit in his face when A Volterra or the other Mages weren’t looking.

Worse of all, however, was that they weren’t allowed to stop moving. After the first hour of running, A Volterra got bored and told them to start running backwards. The hour after that it was running sideways. Then sidesteps, then star jumps, and more. All across the behemoth of a factory, lap after lap.

If Mehdi hadn’t been running every day since getting here, he would have no doubt curled over in pain two hours in. Instead, for all his hard work, it was on the fourth hour that he gave up, falling to the ground and puking out bile onto the dirt and his own shaking hands.

“Did I say you could stop, initiate?” A Volterra yelled, as an initiate barreled into Mehdi, kneeing him directly in the side.

Mehdi stood up, shaking, vomit still in his mouth. Another initiate rammed into him, and Mehdi staggered backwards as he tried to retain his balance.

The world was spinning, there was no moon out, and he could barely see in the pitch of night. A Volterra ordered them to do deep lunges as Mehdi tried to get back into the flow of the movement. Mehdi made it four lunges around the factory before his shin muscles contracted and he was overwhelmed with pain from the cramp.

He wasn’t the only one who ended up collapsing to the ground, but he was the only one the other initiates seemed to go out of their way to kick as they went past him.

Finally, with the sun rising, A Volterra yawned, and cracked his neck. He waved to another Mage, and they switched off.

“I want five more normal laps!” A Volterra ordered. “If you can pull that off, you can go to bed. The day starts in three hours, so get what sleep in you can.”

With that, he left to go sleep. The Mage who replaced him took out a cigar, lit it, and watched with a wicked smile across his face, as the initiates trudged through the final round of torture.

Mehdi couldn’t exactly describe the pain he was in. Pain tended to, well, hurt. But this was numbness. Puke dribbled down his mouth and down his chest, his throat rubbed raw and his jaw clenched so tightly he could barely open his mouth.

The pain hit him when he lay down, far away from the others, and he became intimately aware of how the muscles around his hands tightened with every flinch, and he could feel blood flow through his legs, pulsating so intensely it felt like a second heartbeat. His brain was buzzing, like little electric shocks travelling between his skull and hair.

He wanted to try and understand what had just happened, but none of it made sense, and even thinking hurt. So instead he closed his eyes, trying to fall asleep, even as his empty stomach roared in pain.

Perhaps he did fall asleep, but it wasn’t a restful one. It was more comparable to say he simply did not move, and did not open his eyes, as the sun slowly rose over the horizon. He might have even felt bliss at the relaxation if not for the looming spectre of limited time. Any moment now, one of the Mages would yell at them to wake up, and this brief respite would end.

As he was thinking this, although it was quite possible he thought it hours ago and had merely stopped thinking since, he was suddenly and violently awoken by an earthquake.

No. Not an earthquake. Mehdi jolted awake, confused and disoriented, as he flailed wildly against the covers of his own blanket that he had laid down on the ground earlier. It took him a moment to realize he was being moved, and it took him even longer to realize how exactly he was being moved--

Someone, or someones, had grabbed his sleeping roll, and just picked him up along with it. Mehdi tried to scream, but something was forcing his mouth down. It was at this moment that Mehdi realized he wasn’t even breathing correctly. The fabric had been pressed against his nose, and his mouth was entirely covered.

The blanket gave way, and Mehdi was dumped onto the ground unceremoniously. He looked around, bewildered, to see that he was inside of the factory, surrounded by initiates. No sooner did he take this in, did someone shove a mountain of ash in his face, and Mehdi keeled over, coughing and retching.

He tried to struggle, to fight back, and he was sure he hit someone at some point, but he could barely remember as he found himself in a dark enclosed area. He had entered it so quickly he didn’t even know how he got in there. His face pressed against, old, splintered wood, and small streaks of light filtered in through the crevices.

A barrel? Had they somehow shoved him into an old barrel? Why? To what end? Were they going to leave him in here? Mehdi shoved against the wood frantically. It wasn’t going to break, but it did give way fairly easily. If left alone he could probably break out.

The barrel tipped over, and Mehdi fell downwards with it, his entire left side radiating in pain. His fingers bled as chips of broken wood embedded itself underneath his nails. There were muffled groans beyond the wood, and the barrel was slowly rolled around, with Mehdi still inside. Mehdi yelled in pain and in hope someone else would hear, but instead his voice came out hoarse and raw.

And then he started to fall.

No. Not falling. He wasn’t falling.

He was rolling. Either downhill or off a cliff--that he didn’t know, but he knew he was in danger once it stopped.

Mehdi dug is hands into the barrel, trying to gain some semblance of stability, but he kept slipping and scraping his palms against the wood, as his body unnaturally rolled along with the wood, tearing up even more of his exposed skin.

The barrel hit something hard, and flung into the air, and Mehdi landed straight on his stomach and groin. The barrel hit the ground, and shattered, leaving Mehdi exposed in the open air, in pain, but free.

Unable to talk, coughing up bile, and bleeding, Mehdi tried to sit up. A severe jolt of pain up his arm told him that he couldn’t rely on it. He glanced down and saw his left leg bent in an unfamiliar direction.

“...shit,” Mehdi rasped, his mouth dry. It was now he realized that he wasn’t wearing pants, shoes or his shirt. He didn’t remember taking them off when he went to sleep, which meant the b--jerks--the bastards had stripped him.

And then they had dumped him in a barrel, and kicked him down a hill.

At the top of the hill, A Volterra and the other Mages came into view.

“What is going on here?” A Volterra spat, far angrier than Mehdi had ever seen him.

Mehdi looked up at him, and opened his mouth to speak.

And then, behind A Volterra, he saw Kaspar and a few of the other initiates watching closely.

Mehdi’s jaw hung open. He tried to move his neck and flinched from the whiplash.

“Hey! I’m talking to you!” A Volterra yelled at Mehdi. “What did you do?”

Just for a moment, Mehdi and Kaspar’s eyes locked.

“I…” Mehdi mumbled as two of the Mages ran down the hill to examine him.

“Speak up, idiot! We don’t have all day!”

“I fell,” Mehdi murmured. “I tripped and fell.”

“You fell now?” A Volterra said in disbelief.

“Yes. I’m--I’m sorry.”

A Volterra rolled his eyes. “Well, I hope you’re proud of yourself. This isn’t getting you out of this drill, you know”

“Adam, the kid’s got two broken ribs, a broken arm and a leg,” another Mage cut in.

A Volterra groaned. “Fine. I guess he’ll be taking a trip down to medical, then.”

Mehdi mumbled another sorry, but he could barely hear himself anymore. All he could do was watch as the initiates grew large smiles across their haggard faces, turned away, and left Mehdi to his fate.