Hal awoke, not in his own bed, but instead, in a room, he didn't recognize. Hal wasn't one to be picky about the place he slept in: He'd often fallen asleep, lying down in the sand of the courtyard. Not that Hal was lazy; just liked laying in the sunlight sometimes. But, the room Hal currently sat in wasn't something he'd ever seen before.

The air was chilly even for the early days of Fedes. Contrasting with the wooden structures Hal usually occupied, whoever built this room used almost entirely stone in its construction with a small amount of cloth and metal to accent it. To one side of the room, Hal saw a heavy wooden door sitting slightly ajar. On the other side was a simple wooden desk with a note on it, likely placed for Hal to find when he woke up.

>Tinct, Where do you think we are? How do you think we got here?

But, unlike his standard prompt replies, Instinct did not respond at all this time.

>Instinct? This time, Hal received a reply, but not one of words, but simply the concept of exhaustion.

Only slightly concerned at the moment and deeply confused, Hal chose to approach the desk to read the note.

To Hal and or Instinct, whoever wakes first.

Please don't leave until I can show you the way out. I brought you here after you collapsed and I am currently dealing with a guest.

I will return shortly,

The Old Man.

>Well, that explains how we got here. But not where we are. Let me know when you feel like talking.

Hal chose to work through the various practice forms The Old Man drilled into all the compound kids. With no one to talk to and an unknown amount of time on his hands, he would hopefully make it through the basics of Spirit and Mana control. After that, Hal didn't know, but remaining Idle felt like a bad thing.

Hal quickly lost himself in the motions of his training, the atmosphere of the stone room leaving him refreshed no matter how hard he pushed himself. His reserves of Mana and Spirit remaining close to full regardless of how many times Hal lost control of the energy he was moving. Having long moved past basic movements, Hal had begun practicing the complex tasks he'd seen some of the older kids do.

Hal Knew the difference between Mana and Spirit exceptionally well: The Old Man's teachings having driven home the difference time and again.

Mana moved best outside of the body: impacting the world by creating phenomena ranging from simple things like making a ball of fire to something as complex as a bag with more space inside than out.

Spirit moved best within the body and tools: allowing one to augment their own natural abilities. Whether you accelerated yourself to make a punch faster or reinforced a blade to let it to cleave through stone, Spirit was the easiest for these things.

Hal practiced the usage of both forms of energy in the other's environment with this in mind. Spirit liked to flow, but it would quickly dissipate in the slightest breeze when outside the body. If one was unlucky, it could gather in that breeze as an uncontrolled attack. Inside the body, Mana could not follow its desired geometric patterns for the risk of damaging the user.

Both of these were something Hal began his training unaware of, and he quickly paid the consequences. The Spirit he pushed from his body caught on a draft and slammed into his face, shattering his nose. The Mana he held in the muscles of his arm rapidly ripped the flesh to shreds, sending blood splattering across the floor.

Persistence was not Hal's strong suit, nor was it something he often practiced. But, today, in this room carved from stone Hal felt as if he could work past any obstacle, as if the world would bend to his will, as long as he pushed a little further.

By the time someone came to fetch him from the stone room, Hal had long forgotten the note and its contents. Absorbed in the movement of the energy around him, Hal missed when someone knocked upon the door to alert him that they had arrived.

Still amidst his training, having begun moving both energies simultaneously through the other's preferred environment, Hal failed to notice three people entering the room and observing his practice. And, had one of them not said something, Hal would have never seen them.

"I thought you said he wasn't even eleven years of age yet." A voice Hal did not know cut across the air in an accusatory way, causing Hal to falter and lose control of both his Mana and Spirit simultaneously. The Spirit floating in the air slammed into his chest, and the loud crack indicated it'd snapped one or more of his ribs. The Mana he'd begun circulating in his legs' muscles became rigid and cut through to the surface, leaving large lacerations in its wake.

Ignoring both of his wounds, Hal turned towards to source of the voice to see who had interrupted him. Deep in Hal's mind, a part of him whispered to him that he shouldn't tolerate an interruption, let alone one that caused him injury. But, the rational part of his mind spoke louder, saying that he could handle an interruption.

The voice's source was a man who appeared to be in his mid-forties with sandy hair and sharp eyes. He stood beside The Old Man and another man, this one appearing to be closer to his early fifties with long white hair.

Both the men Hal didn't know looked distinctly surprised about something. Hal assumed it was the blood now dripping from his thigh, prompting him to look down to confirm it had, in fact, begun closing, like many of his other past wounds. But, contrary to Hal's thinking, both men still looked shocked when he looked up again, despite his injuries no longer being a cause for concern.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Hal." Hal attempted to break the silence with a polite greeting, to which he received no response from the two men. "Umm, sir, who are these two?" Turning to The Old Man, Hal asked about the identity of the two men who still stared at him like some kind of anomaly.

"They are going to teach you more directly if they can put their heads back on straight." The Old Man growled while directing a light glare at the two stunned men. Neither responded to this probing words. "OY, you two. At least tell him your names." The Old Man barked at the two, attempting to get them to introduce themselves.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT US TO SAY, YOU OLD GIT?" The man with the long hair shouted at The Old Man. "Oh. Hi. I'm Fairgarth Luerooth, a former student of The Old Man and current head of the Rune society." He continued talking in the most overly sarcastic tone Hal had aver seen someone use. LITERALLY NONE OF THAT MATTERS RIGHT NOW." Mr. Luerooth bellowed.

"I'd say it matters, now your turn." The Old Man gestured to the younger man.

"I have to agree with Fairfart on this one, Old Man. We walk in, and the kids moving energy around like he's breathing it, and you want us to just introduce ourselves like that didn't happen? The sharp-eyed man said critically, making Hal wonder if his practice method was somehow wrong or bad.

"No." The Old Man said flatly. "I want you to introduce yourselves, so you can get to properly teaching him. You saw what happened when you interrupted him. He's not as practiced as you'd think." The Old Man said while making a small gesture to the still torn leg of Hals pants. "Now, would you show some courtesy and give Hal your name." The Old Man prompted.

"Haah," The sharp-eyed man sighed heavily. "I am Torren Felch. First of my name, and..." Mr. Felch stopped mid-sentence before continuing with a lot less pageantry. "I'm Torren Felch. I was a student of that bastard" He pointed at The Old Man. "And I am the current master swordsmen of the Celistine imperial court. It's nice to meet you."

"Kuhuhuhuh" One of the people across the fire started coughing heavily, spitting a fair bit of their drink into the fire, causing it to dim a little bit. "For clarification, are you talking about THE Celistine empire?"

"The very same," I said flatly, not expecting that to be what caused the interruption. "If you have questions about it, please wait to ask them," I said, hoping to continue the story without having to go on a tangent about the lost nation.

"Now, that first day in the stone room was highly significant, if not for Hal or Instinct, but myself. At that moment, my brothers were the closest they had been to joining together since the day I split to create them. Not that they could tell. Instinct was unconscious from the technique the clergymen used, and Hal was still young enough to ignore changes in his mindset like a sudden boost in motivation." I poked at the fire a little, hoping to raise it back to a steady flame.

"Those two men, Fairgarth and Torren, if my brothers had been permitted to train under them for longer, things might have been different. They might have stood strong enough to win when it mattered most for them. Alas, The time granted to them for such things was limited, and so too were their remaining days at the compound."

"Umm, before you continue, could you tell me what the stone room really was?" A young-sounding voice cut across the flames.

I looked across the fire at the speaker for a moment before answering. "The Old Man chose the location of the compound for several reasons. That room was one of them. In that area, it was the spot with the highest density of natural worldly energy. Still wish he'd taught me how to find something like that" The last part of my sentence I muttered mostly to myself, but judging by the way one of my listeners shifted, I wasn't as quiet as I intended.

"That is rather difficult to accept. I know." The Husk rasped out in what The Woman interpreted as a somber tone. "Every time we have this conversation, it takes you a bit to understand." The Husk sounded almost sad while it continued. "With my words in mind, Would you both please follow me? It would be best if you saw the room at the top of the tower." The Husk did not wait for a response before moving toward the stairs.

It took a while for either The Man or The Woman to move from their seats by the fire. The information they'd just received, leaving them with a lot to think about but little information to come to use for a conclusion.

"What do you think?" The Man asked, his voice deflated in tone from his previous bursts of anger.

"I don't know. I know it's the truth, but I can't understand how." The Woman said.

"Then let me ask a different question. Do you trust it?" The Man sounded serious, if tired while asking this question. And for the first time, The Woman actually looked The Man in the eyes, and behind them, she saw unease, but also a want she recognized in herself.

"I believe that it has our best interests in mind. Even while we climbed this mountain, it gave me a choice to turn around and go home. I didn't take it." The Woman said, her tone softer than usual.

"I never got a choice like that. From the beginning, I've had to go along with that things absurdity, almost makes me jealous of you." The Man said, even more deflated than before.

"Did you truly have no choice, or was it that the other option wasn't even worth considering?" The Woman didn't know what caused her to ask the question, but as it left her lips, she felt something in the air shift and weight lift off of the room.

To The Man, that question revealed a truth he'd hid from himself from the day he met The Husk. He'd always had a choice, but he'd never let himself consider the alternative to following The Husk. Now, he wondered, if he'd rejected that book, where would he be? Would he be happy, or would he hate it as much as he expected? Whatever the answer was, it wasn't his place to say. He'd made his choice, and at this moment, he knew he'd make it all over again.

"We should probably go upstairs." Both spoke at the same moment, the same words as if a single string of fate had been plucked and resonated with them both.