Chp 10

Time passed quickly in the months before his awakening and Jackson's nervousness grew each day. The 16th birth date was the informal day that a person could awaken to their magic after all. The Guild took this to the extreme and would begin the seven-day ritual a single week before the confirmed date. Officially this was to give the children enough time to grow their spiritual beings as much as their physical so that the process would be more likely to succeed.

Serabelle scoffed at that and said that it was never proven to be true one way or another. It was a service the Guild provided but that didn't mean that the Guild did so freely. An awakening ceremony cost even noble houses an arm and a leg to host. Antel's own family awakened their children shortly after their seventh birthday using a similar ritual. Jackson knew of the main branch of Sanmeys in the western portion of the continent but never met any of them.

Jackson's anxiety stemmed from the chance he would not awaken his magic. If the ritual failed or he was deemed inadequate by the Goddess, Jackson would be politely kept as a lower-level adventurer. You didn't need to be a mage to be an adventurer, but reaching a level above a golden membership would require facing beasts who could use magic. The danger was exponentially greater.

While career adventurers existed at and below gold, Jackson couldn't imagine being one of them. Every waking moment he spent thinking of how he could push further and faster. The image of his mother's spinning figure dancing among the sparks from attacks failing against her shield filled his mind. The white spear flowed alongside her, a specter of death that she danced with. Her steps light and no sound carried after them; his steps were heavy, and enemies' pain followed them.

Jackson was more than familiar with his own body now. How it moved and rested and where he was in relation to everything else. He used a spear-like his mother but knew to be no gentle dancer.

His mother laughingly called him Jack the Sticker after an embarrassing battle against a dire bear where his spear would get stuck too far into the bear. A set of scars on his arm from when he didn't let go of the trapped weapon fast enough reminded him of that mistake.

That was four months ago. Jackson gained permission from the Guild to train by himself for a few weeks and left to set up camp along the same lake his father brought them to. He was grateful his father gave him money to hire a ranger-an adventurer specialized for living away from the city and skilled with several weapons to protect him. A month afterward, Jackson felt as though he could face his mother again. She immediately brought him to the training yard and made him show her what he learned.

While he was gone, he reviewed what he learned up to that point: his mother's style was beautiful, and Jackson appreciated the deadly efficiency. However, he did not need the twirls to build momentum and was not small enough to use them to strike as fast as she could with her smaller build. Blessed with giant blood from his father's side, he found his own way of holding his spear without giving up his strength.

Now instead of a dance, he would flow from a storm that struck down with lightning to a wave that crashed over his enemy's defenses. A small shield covered his left arm that he used only to deflect blows near to his body, relying on his strength to push into the space of his opponents and keep them off guard.

His mother's eyes grew wide when she felt the difference but only laughed in delight at his new style. He felt like they were genuinely sparing for the first time. There was no doubt in his mind that she thought of him as an equal, but she did respect his strength. Jackson still remembered the feeling when he caught her unprepared, and she had to deploy her magic to stop his spear from cutting into her side. She ended the training there, and Jackson was enveloped in her arms. He stood there awkwardly as she cried with happiness and even little Syndra left wet spots on his leg when she decided to join in.

Serabelle wiped away her tears then told him that he would begin training for real.

Serabelle returned to her position as head trainer and became a common sight at the Guild again. If he thought mornings were hard before, a tormenting series of training sessions proved him wrong. The other recruits were offered the chance to join the "supplementary sessions." Still, all declined to attend after watching Jackson's first day of it. The only people who accepted were a pair of silver-ranked adventurers trained under Serabelle before her pregnancy with Syndra.

When she wasn't training Jackson and the recruits, adventurers would come to the training yard and spar with her. Even Syndra became a fixture of the Guild as she played with Jason in one corner of the hall with her clay. Soon Jackson noticed that Syndra's table had a flood of children surrounding her table, with many of the Hamblin adventurers leaving their kids at the Guild. She seemed like she'd be pretty popular.

Occasionally he caught sight of the guild leader and many adventuring groups watching the kids. As if they were scoping them out for future recruits or plans. His mother was no different. That thought made him uncomfortable.

But the kids weren't the only ones with eyes on them. The guild higher-ups often watched and commented on the training going on. He felt shame and pride as others watched him be torn bloody from his mother's dance of spear and magic. He never got close to reaching his mother in those following fights, but he began to feel that he was making steps closer to her pedestal.

That said, he did win a few fights against true adventurers even as they used magic. Confidence would swell in him until his mother beat his big head back down to proportion. Her words were not aimed at him specifically, but they rang in his ears even when his head was submerged in the mud, "You are not the strongest or the best. You are not even special. No adventurer is alone, though. As I forge each of you, you will forge your teammates until even the strongest monsters balk at your teams' gathered strengths. We are not heroes here. We are adventurers."

This usually motivated a handful of adventurers to come outside and train for a day or two. Right up until they couldn't defeat the voice inside of them saying, "You don't need to do this. You're strong enough as you are." And so they'd leave joking about slaying goblins and dire wolves prowling the area.

They'd laugh until a group would come back with a member or two missing. Some wouldn't come back at all.

Jackson knew he was getting stronger. But he knew he wasn't strong enough. He trusted in the process and it wasn't over. At the end of it, he would be strong enough to stand with his team, shoulder to shoulder. Nobody would carry him back home.

His mother made him promise when he was 6 that he would train under her until he was strong enough to protect his future team.

It took ten years before that promise was fulfilled. A knock on Jackson's door preceded his mother's voice, "Get ready. You have ten minutes to meet me outside. Do not be late, Adventurer."

Tears sprang to his own eyes at his new title. He blinked them away and rolled out of bed. It was barely considered morning, and he knew the sun wouldn't be up until nearly noon in the middle of winter. Jackson spent most of last night watching the snowfall. Anxiety was building up in him again, and he stomped it down and threw it in a pile with the rest of his nerves.

When he opened his door and stepped into the hall, he blinked at seeing his whole family standing in the entryway waiting to see him off.

Father stood in his Master Smith regalia. A black scale leather vest with silver trim; dragon scale Jackson knew. He stood tall and watched Jackson with fierce, proud eyes. Syndra stood next to the giant man with her tiny hand enveloped by his. She wore a light blue dress and watched him with eyes showing wisdom beyond her years. His brother stood on the other side of the door wearing a formal suit that accented his large biceps and chiseled chest. The idiot was actually crying silently. Jackson had to swallow back a lump in his throat.

His mother stood in the middle wearing her full battlemage armor. Polished, silver-white like her spear, the entire set was crafted by his father and enchanted by herself. He knew from experience the metal was light yet easily able to turn his heaviest blow. She held the helm in one hand, and her hair fell behind her into the midnight black cloak that she wore for formal occasions. It fell over her left shoulder for a clasp. On the clasp were the runes for the Adventuring Guild and Mage Guild.

She was intimidating, and Jackson knew it was no boast to say she could take on a griffin by herself. He took a centering breath and tried to smile for his family. Accepting their hugs and blessings, he stepped outside and began walking. His mother fell in step with him. They didn't speak, and he knew she was nervous as well. She would serve as his sponsor, and each of them focused on their upcoming tasks.

Of the two, hers was easier. Serabelle had to give a speech in front of the Guild and then watch the ritual to make sure everything went well.

His task? He was to be tortured and broken so that his magic might awaken in him naturally. He would be forced to stand the trials put in front of him seven days, and if he faltered, he would fail. The magic would keep him awake, but only he could keep himself upright.

He stood on the Guild balcony as his mother gave the speech about accepting him into the Guild and that he was attempting to awaken his magic. The adventurers below knew of the trial he faced. Some faced it themselves after earning their own place in the Guild. Others had begun to get to know him. The latters' calls of good luck and well wishes were just as heartfelt as those his family gave him. Even as he descended the steps into the guild's basement, he was trying to get the dust out of his eyes. His family was getting bigger.

The adventurers wanted him as family, and now it was up to him to persevere and make them proud.

He was shown to a dark room lit by candles set in sconces around the ritual circle. The Guild leader himself sat in one of the positions around the ritual. Jackson was shocked that he would personally be guiding the ritual. Then he thought about it and guessed that it was a favor for his mother.

"Decloth yourself and enter the circle. You have already given your vows to serve as an Adventurer. We offer you this opportunity to join our ranks as an Awakened Adventurer. Your lifespark will burn these seven days. Do not let it falter. Feed it your hopes, your dreams, and your desire for strength. Are you ready?"

Jackson could barely hear for the river of blood in his ears but took his garments off. He wore only his black robe with the Sanmey crest on his back and chest and small clothes aside from boots. At a word from the older mage by the door, he took off his underwear as well. He was thoroughly nervous, embarrassed, and felt utterly vulnerable.

"Focus your mind, Adventurer. This is the least of the trials you will face this day and in the days to come. Now tell us," Guild Leader Henry said with his arms spread to take in the men and women sitting around the room.

"Are you ready?"

Jackson lifted his chin and stepped into the middle of the engraved ritual. It glowed yellow beneath him. He turned around slowly, making eye contact with everyone in the room. He did his best to project confidence and trust to the mages who would literally hold his soul for him. His mother's eyes were full of love and worry and were the hardest to look away from.

"I am ready," he said, looking directly into his Guildleader's eyes.

"Good." The guild leader lifted his hands, and the candles' flames grew along with the light in the room. "Let us begin."

Yellow light turned to white until Jackson couldn't see or hear the chanting around him.

For a moment, everything was white before he could suddenly see again. He was standing in the same room, but upon turning around, he could see his own body standing there with closed eyes. Looking down, he saw his translucent hands. As he did so, red chains shot up from the ritual lines and grabbed hold of him. They burned, and fire shot through his ethereal body. A moment later, Jackson got control of the pain. His real body was shuddering in front of him. Red lines appearing where the chains grabbed onto his ethereal body. Snakes of red chased tails around his ankles and wrists before aiming for his core. The fires alternated between the extremes of ice and fire. He gasped, but it was manageable.

An hour passed with the intensity slowly increasing, but Jackson had a hold of it. Just when he began to think that was all, knives began to shoot through the ritual's floor and walls. They stabbed into him. Never before had he felt the kind of pain a hot knife leaves as it sears the body, even as it was cutting into him.

When that was over, the knives began cutting his skin off. By the time that was over, Jackson was sweating, his real body twitching every time a knife touched him and even when he thought a knife was going to hit him. A new wire reached out and pulled images from his mind. It liked to show him images of his failures as a warrior. Of his occasional dreams of just being a smith like his father and brother. Of his jealousy of the people who were just given their strength and didn't have to earn it like he did.

Jackson screamed and yelled but didn't give in to the voice telling him to just take a knee. He didn't need this. He could be so much without this pain.

Jackson knew he had to be broken, so he let the ritual do its work. But he would not give in to that voice inside him. He searched inside him for the magic that the ceremony should awaken but was distracted by the changing pain and the images before him. He refused to give up.

He refused to let down his family and the people waiting for him. This was something he needed, and nobody could give it to him. His mind twisted as the pain increased. Thoughts were drowned out in the red haze that overtook him. On the outside, his body was convulsing enough to draw an eyebrow raise from one of the substitute mages.

"He's a fighter for sure. Definitely not someone who can easily awaken. Actually, it makes it harder to awaken. He needs to embrace the lifespark, not fight with it."

Jackson's mother spoke from behind him, "He's strong. And he needs to be stronger to use his lifespark. That is the difference between natural awakening and forced awakening. He will get through this."

The mage ignored the quivering in her voice. He knew she was biased, but he'd seen many warriors fail to awaken, trusting too deeply in their body's capabilities. If the boy made it through, the ritual would be far harder than most. And he had orders not to let it happen at all.

Jackson's body was a fireworks display by that evening. Red lines would shoot across it in every part of his body. He felt his fingernails ripped off and the feeling of his eye gouged out. He saw his brother torn apart by the fire magic that should have rightfully killed him.

By nightfall, he lost the ability to form a coherent thought. The only thing keeping him standing was his heart, proving that his lifespark still beat inside him. It smashed and thrummed, and he could feel it fighting the ritual tearing his mind apart.

His lifespark was not going to lose to lesser magic. So Jackson pushed his pain and dreams into a vein feeding the lifespark even as his body started to scream in the real world. It startled many of the mages around the ritual which were less experienced with the awakening ritual.

Day one ended and Jackson didn't notice. The mounting pains on his spirit kept him in an unthinking limbo of agony.

Day two ended and all of his senses were shot. Or they would have been if the ritual didn't force his etheral eyes to open, his ears to hear the screams, his skin to feel the knives twisting in him. The ritual only ever conjured one sense at a time to torture. The focus on the pain making it even worse.

Day three took a twist. Instead of direct pain, Jackson was given memories of other adventurers who came to sit around the circle. He mourned the loss of hundreds of dearest friends and brothers. He mourned his wives, and he mourned his husbands, and almost gave in to the despair building inside of him. The emotions ripped apart the walls he managed to build up inside himself and flooded him.

Screams of the dead and the coldness of logic escaped his grasp. Instead of screaming or twitching, his body was wailing and clawing at his chest. Several of the mages switched with their substitutes after seeing the boy leave bloody rents in his skin.

His mother wanted nothing more than to stop the ritual and pull her baby away from this. An iron grip around her spear made the two guards at her side nervous. They harbored no disillusions that they would be able to stop her. Their only directive was to engage her and distract her long enough to come to her senses.

Day four was almost a relief to return to the pain from before.

Day five was worse than anything. He now unwillingly tortured the people he cared most about. His father's eyes glared at him as he screamed for mercy. He tore his brother's fingers off so that he could never smith again. When the ritual forced his sister under his knife, he rebelled. He wouldn't kneel, but he threw himself against the bindings around him. His soul twisting so violently away from this that most of the substitutes stepped in to help maintain control of the spell.

Frowns around the circle as they watched what Jackson went through. It was a distasteful part of the ritual, but it had worked on some people.

This part of the ritual didn't take long, but the scars it left on Jackson would last. Steel began to show in his eyes again with his soul learning defenses. This rigidness might be the last thing keeping Jackson from breaking or the beginning of the forging process for his true awakening.

The ritual's goal was to first break down the participant by using a number of torture techniques. This would bare the soul to themselves, and they would then have to choose to grow their lifespark or to hide away from it. Many people would fail by choice when they saw their lifespark and the agony required to access it. No path without benefits but each requires trials.

Jackson faced the 6th day reeling from pain, but he could now pinpoint the beat of his lifespark in his chest and could separate it from his heartbeat. There was power there, but it uselessly pulsed there, letting him face the pain alone. Between bouts of torture, he wailed and thrashed his ethereal soul against his body, trying to move the lifespark within him to no avail.

He was motivated by fear of the ritual returning with its red chains and knives. Anger at his own weakness was tempered by the images of his family's bodies lying before him. For a whole day, he struggled against the barrier between himself and his lifespark's magic. It almost seemed to mock him with its pulsing light.

Unbeknownst to him, his fighting caused three of the seven men around the circle to faint. Their substitutes quickly stepped in, but the lull caused the barrier to falter. The Guild Leader frowned and looked around the room.

"If you are holding that barrier in place, I will kill you. I care not which of you have a grudge against Serabelle, but this boy is innocent. Release him."

Only one of the three substitutes looked confused at his words. The other two glanced at him but didn't move at his words. The suspicion rose further inside of him. Out of six mages besides himself, three wore confused expressions at his words even as they strained to keep the ritual stable. He made eye contact with the guards and Sera. She had perked up at his words, and a dark fury stole over her face as she realized what he meant.

"Guild Leader Henry, I am sorry. I will have to ask for your forgiveness," Serabelle said with no remorse in her voice.

Her spear was through the throats of the two substitute mages before they could blink. A third mage rose and risked casting a spell. His mumbled chant was interupted by a knife sawing through his throat. He fell down clutching the wound but breathing blood and dying all the same. Sera was impressed. The woman who killed him moved quickly and her reaction spoke of time in combat. Serabelle watched as she calmly slid the body to one side and wiped the dagger off on the traitor's clothes. She nodded to Serabelle and took the man's spot in the circle letting the others relax.

With only two substitutes left in the room and nearly a full day left, Sera ordered her "guard" to get more mages quickly from the local chapter. "It appears they weren't watching their mana reserves."

While they jumped into motion at her words, they hadn't even blinked when she moved before. Useless. Serabelle knew she couldn't take hold of the ritual as her familial bond would destroy the environment the ritual created. Instead, she forced the two substitutes left to begin casting. The blood on the spear behind them definitely made an impression on their willingness.

Meanwhile, Jackson was frozen. Even as the ritual was sparking around him, he finally broke through to his lifespark. Power flooded through his body, and his spirit was fighting against the flood. Eventually, the raging inferno calmed inside him, and a single word accompanied him back despite the pain, "Finally!"

He didn't know what his magic did or how long he had left in this hellscape, but he knew he had awakened. Outside, the guild leader finally relaxed and laughed. Serabelle tensed at that. The only times she heard Henry laugh was in battle or during the rowdiest jokes. He stood up and motioned for one of the new mages to take his place.

"Is he alright?" she asked, hating that she sounded like a little girl.

Henry's broad smile was brief before he glanced at the guards, "You two, relax. Go get some chairs." He turned his attention back to her, "Yes, Jackson Sanmey is just fine. He's found his magic and is learning it right now. Took him quite a bit, but I imagine your friends had a hand in that. Who did you piss off?"

"I do not know," Serabelle replied, her tone returning to ice. "But you better believe there will be a spring cleaning in the mage's guild after tomorrow."

"Very well. If you need help, I have your back as always. For now, though, I will sleep and meet you and the boy when he finishes tomorrow."

"He is no boy now. That is Jackson Sanmey, an Awakened Adventurer," Serabelle whispered with pride. Henry ignored the tears in her eyes.

Despite his words, when the Guild Leader left the room, he began calling for people over at the mages chapter and the city guard. His first order was to begin keeping tabs on who was coming and going in the mage's chapter. The second was to organize a temporary lockdown of the city. If the mages responsible for this left the city, he wondered just how much of the city Serabelle the Valkyrie would burn. He would find those in charge and let Serabelle decide their fates with his suggestion.