Tibi stood at attention in his father, King Valerius’, private study. The room was opulent but not pretentious. The shelves were lined with well cared for books. The desk made of elder mahogany was a work of art.

His father sat with his well-trimmed salt and pepper hair, a small Oaksteel circlet atop his brow. Tibi gave another gander around the lavish office, how he hated it here, but obviously any family business wouldn’t be handled in the throne room.

His family had been kept on a short leash by their father. They were the true line and had to show it. Prince Tiberius sighed to himself, he knew it was inevitable, but it didn’t mean he wanted to deal with it.

As his weapons master made his report, the prince didn’t look even slightly nervous. Considering the news being given to the king, he wasn’t the one who would get the majority of the king's ire.

“No sire, I didn’t say he couldn’t learn the sword. In fact, he’s a natural talent.”

Tiberius sighed again. Kinkade didn’t know about his perk, but his father did. The royal family was blessed with a profile. Tibi wasn’t aware of any other humans having it, even the usurpers, but he checked his profile again.

Tiberius Rex

Lvl - 2

Class - Noble (Reach level 5 to unlock class features and class change options)

Sign - The Warrior (All weapon skills increase 25% faster)

(Reach level 5 to unlock stats and skills)

He wouldn’t get his full profile until he hit level 5. Everyone’s starting sign would indicate where their future lay. From what the royal family knew about it, one's initial class options were all based on skills accrued while leveling.

Neither of his brothers reached level 5 until they were sixteen and seventeen. He was fairly excited to unlock perks and skills, but that would also be the day his father would officially map out his future.

He wished he had gotten something better, he hated swords. He was fairly sure his father wanted him to grow into something dangerous, perhaps Sword Saint, just like his great uncle Brutus.

Kinkade looked down at his young charge and pursed his lips, “He doesn’t want to learn the sword.” The king looked down his nose at his son and considered the boy. As the king's third and youngest son, Tiberius was only thirteen. Even though he would never be king, it was his responsibility to grow into a proper young prince.

“It’s because Tibi gets bored after five minutes of anything.” Commented princess Glorious.

Apparently, Glori had walked in when he wasn't paying attention. The king frowned at her, but Tiberius knew he wouldn’t berate her. She was a cycle older than him, but his father doted on her. Everyone knew she was his favorite.

Over her shoulder stood her shadow, Mando, in all his silent glory. The king looked over to Kinkade, then down to his youngest son, “All young lords must know battle lest they embarrass their fathers. So, we will have no more of this nonsense.” The king waved his hand in dismissal and turned back to the parchments laid in front of him.

Tiberius looked up in time to see Kinkade briefly scowl before replying, “Of course, my king.” Kinkade looked down and put his hand on Tiberius' shoulder and led him out heading toward the castle’s west wing.

“Your face is so sour brother, is Kinkade so horrible to you?” Glori asked, following close behind. Kinkade gave her a brief dismissive look. He was above such childish shenanigans.

“Leave me be Glori. You know why I’m upset.” Tibi muttered.

Glori gave a laugh that sounded faintly of fairies dancing, “Tibi, we all have our place. Your’s is to be a brave warrior. Why won’t you accept that?”

Tiberius tried not to scoff out loud. “I just want to be left alone. I’d be happier being a bard, traveling the land, learning, and telling stories. Maybe one day I could cross the Storm Sea and see the lands beyond.”

Both Glori and Kinkade gave him a very skeptical glance, so he changed his tack.

“I could visit Agothir and learn their histories, see how our cousins-”

Kinkade gave him a warning glance.

“-usurpers live. Maybe even one day, repair our kingdom's relationship. Wouldn’t that be grand?” He only partially meant it.

As a prince of Valeria, setting toe into Agothir would mean being captured and held hostage for resource negotiation. Agothir had all the ore, Valeria all the wood, and they had been stuck in an unsteady truce almost as long as anyone could remember.

Glori laughed again, even Kinkade gave a snort. “With your charisma you wouldn’t last five minutes as a bard brother. Focus on what you're good at, there is no shame in a warrior's life. Look at Kinkade, he’s a perfect example of a warrior.”

Tibi glanced at Kinkade and if he wasn’t mistaken the old man had a hint of a blush in his cheeks. Even Tibi couldn’t understand why that angered him for a moment, but it did. “An old grump who sits alone when not beating up children all day. Wow, what a life!” His voice oozed sarcasm.

He regretted it the moment it left his mouth, but he couldn’t stop now. “I’m sick of everyone telling me what to do. Leave me alone.”

Glori looked at him with sad eyes, she only wanted the best for him, but he couldn’t be talked to when he got like this. “Ok Tibi.” She turned and walked away.

It wasn’t enough of a response and his anger lashed out. “I won’t do it,” Tiberius shouted. Glori didn’t even look back, so he redirected to Kinkade, “I have no love of the sword like my stupid brothers.” Tiberius wasn’t trying to act petulant, he just wanted to read and study.

He loved books, history, and just wanted to sit by the fire with his favorite hound Shadow and read. His older brothers constantly teased him and called him a bookworm, but he didn’t care. The stories of great generals like Xing Xur, and historic kingdoms like the Empire of the elves, were magical.

If allowed, he could sit and read for hours, but nobody would let him. Instead, he had all these stupid etiquette lessons and sword practice. They forced him to spend time with his stupid brothers. All they did was train with the sword and talk to girls. Life felt so unfair.

He had overheard his brothers saying that their father would have him trained to be a bodyguard to his sister. Destined to be forever relegated to stand behind the rest of his siblings. Even though his boost was a huge percentage bonus compared to their bonuses, he was the most useless.

Twenty five percent was unheard of, he could probably learn the sword in his sleep. He loved Glori and was certain one day she would be the jewel of the kingdom. In fact, he loved both his brothers, they were actually generally adequate brothers.

His least favorite family member might be his father. The old man had grown cold and distant since mother died. She wasn’t of the blood, so she never had a profile. No one knew she was sick, and by the time they had realized it, she was gone.

If only they could have given her a profile, because people with profiles didn’t die of sickness. When father found out, he sent his fastest messenger to Gadalfa’Va for a healer, but they hadn’t arrived in time.

It had certainly strained relations between the Kingdom of Valeria and the mage city. His father blamed them for his wife’s death. Even King Valerius feared making enemies of the mages, but he certainly wasn’t friendly with them.

Honorious’s ability literally made him good at everything. He knew four languages, his teachers sang his praises from the rooftops, and his perk, Jack of All, allowed him skills in diplomacy, combat, and every other damn thing.

Courageous’ perk, People Champion, gave him and his soldiers a boost to their warfare skills based on his leadership skill. He was already a captain in the army, and they spoke about how he would be the greatest general of a generation.

Then there was Tibi, with a stupid sign that only boosted personal combat. What use was that for a prince?

Why didn’t he have something that let him memorize things better like Honorious, that would have been perfect. Even Glori’s perk, Dazzle, gave her Charisma a boost in effectiveness. Everyone just treated her like a princess… which she was, so maybe that was fair.

Tibi dearly hoped his darling sister didn’t bring up this childish outburst to his brothers. They were the only ones other than Kinkade that he ever had sword training with, and they would occasionally show their disappointment by leaving large bruises.

As they entered the wing, he almost stumbled on the carpet, lost in self-pity. The carpet was made from thistle fibers, prettily woven into a floral design. He glanced around at the Statues that lined the walls. Each made from wood, stone, or glass. The craftsmen of Valeria were well known. Truly, war wasn’t even a thing seen here in generations, so what use was a swordsman he muttered to himself.

They walked past the normal training area, toward a door Tiberius had never been to before. Kinkade opened the door and led him inside. On the walls were weapons like he had never seen. Double ended swords, scythes, chain flails, and more.

This is where they stored the more exotic weapons clearly, but his kingdom was one of axes and swords. They were not creative people when it came to war.

His natural curiosity peaked for a moment, and he looked up at Kinkade, as the weapon’s master spoke, “Choose.”

Tiberius carried a double-bladed battle axe as he went into the private training yard that was empty save for the wooden training pells that littered the sand floor. Two things they were never short of in Valeria, sand and wood.

……………………………

It had been several days since his father had forced him to continue his weapons training, Tibi could at least be thankful that Kinkade hadn’t forced him to continue solely on the sword. Trying new weapons did add some excitement to the drudgery.

Tiberius fell to the ground exhausted, Kinkade didn’t even seem to be sweating, yet it had been hours. Tibi wasn’t sure how fair that felt. He lay on his back, shield and mace lying to either side of him. “I still haven't leveled up, this is stupid. I should be level five already.”

Kinkade looked at him with disinterest. “None of your brothers reached level five until they were sixteen. Calm yourself little prince.”

Tibi slowly stood and readied himself for another round. Shaking out his tired arms and legs. He knew that Kinkade didn’t understand true depth about how levels had more significance to the royal family.

In the guard, soldiers were given levels to evaluate their skill level. You had to reach level five to even make it into the guard. Then, a level ten could make sergeant, fifteen for lieutenant, and so on.

It was all rather drull to be honest. It was something the forefather, the first king of Valeria, had instituted. Tibi was fairly sure no one outside the royal family knew about their HUD. He wasn’t sure what HUD stood for. A lot of knowledge had been lost in time, but it was probably something cool. Maybe Holy User Defense? He had lots of ideas about his profile.

The profile is what made the royal family so powerful. In a world where “might made right”, they just had to be strong. Strong for themselves, for the people, for the kingdom. He just wished it wasn’t so damn boring being a royal.

The stories he had read of the ogre general who had nearly destroyed the empire of Hassan, now that was a fracking story. He imagined a level five soldier wouldn’t have meant much to them.

Or the Lizard slave who started an uprising-

Or… ”Oomph,” Tiberius blinked up from the floor where he had fallen.

Kinkade stood over him with his training sword pushing into his stomach. “Stop.”

“Huh?” Tiberius grunted quizzically.

“Stop falling into your head. This is training. Learn to stay in the moment.”

Tiberius rolled over. He understood the theory. For the last week, Kinkade had been trying to acclimate him to other weapons to keep his mind moving. He got bored too damn quickly and had to keep his mind on many things at once to stay interested.

So, Kinkade had him learning the mace, the ax, the halberd, and oh so many more. It was working so far. As soon as he was over one, Kinkade would throw him into something new. Now “over” might be an exaggeration.

He certainly hadn’t mastered any weapons, but they had gone through the basics. It was interesting how each weapon had different fundamentals. He had always assumed they would be similar; see bad guy, swing at bad guy, defeat bad guy, repeat.

Some might have had similarities, but each weapon had its own unique properties that you had to know in order to understand proper techniques. Learning that the rudiments of each weapon had a different style, helped keep his interests.

He had liked the morning star the best so far. It seemed like such a basic weapon, something to smash into the opponent. But as usual, Kindkade had shown him the grace of the weapon. You could just bash away like a barbarian, but you could also thrust, the top spike great for puncturing armor.

If you could find the flow within the movement of the weapon, you could even riposte or parry as one would with a sword. It may not be an elegant weapon, but it knew its purpose.

“Alright. We're done for the day. I have to go and see Caligula about his duel.”

Tiberius gave Kinkade an annoyed look. Of course he even had to give a “cousin” extra attention before his upcoming duel. His cousin was a rube and had challenged another young lord to a duel over some slight or another.

Caligula was a level seven Purple Dagger Duelist, born under the sign of the Steed. His cousin wouldn’t tell him exactly what that meant, but from what he gathered, his cousin leveled up from victory and had to keep up his momentum for fighting.

Needless to say, the boy dueled every man, woman, or child that gave him an excuse to do so. Tibi felt that he didn’t live up to his own name. Having been named after a historical hero of the kingdom, the peasants seemed to love him. Or maybe it was just all the bookies.

“What did I say, stay in the present,” Kinkade moved to put his practice sword on the rack. “You will finish your forms, then oil the equipment.”

“What!?” shouted Tiberius “We have servants for that!”

Kinkade gave him a stern look. “And we have young lords that need to learn humility and how to care for their equipment. Now do as you're told.”

Just as Kinkade spoke, Courageous ran into the equipment room.

“You’re late,” Kinkade said.

“Clearly, I’m right on time!” Courageous said with his best smile. “Brother! Kinkade has asked me to go over your forms for the last hour of training today.”

Courageous was too happy for this to be a good thing. “You would think that I, second in line for the throne, captain in his majesty's guard, would be too busy to help my little brother play pretend soldier? But nay! I always have time for my family.”

He gave a bow and a flourish, finishing it all with a wink to Tibi. Tibi gave a soft groan and Kinkade looked unimpressed.

“One hour of forms, and then I’ve told him what comes after.” Kinkade gave him one last look, then strolled from the equipment room.

“Little brother, how happy I am to put aside everything else I had to do today. It seems like Kinkade reached out directly to our father for this little session. Anyway, let's get started.” Some of the joviality seemed to have burned off rather quickly, but Tibi picked up his wooden mace and buckler.

“What is that? A mace! Absolutely not.” Courageous quickly walked over to a rack and pulled a practice sword, tossing it to him. Tibi, not expecting the throw, dropped his mace but soon realized he couldn’t catch the wooden sword. He jumped to the side as it fell to the ground where he was standing.

Courageous just shook his head as he snatched up a sword of his own. “Aren't you supposed to be a savant? What in the name of Avena has Kinkade been teaching you?”

“I just didn’t expect you to throw it at me.” Tibi grumbled as he picked up his sword.

“You didn’t even grab a real shield.” His brother laughed as Tiberius armed himself with the buckler.

“I don’t need one for this.” Tibi was a much bigger fan of the small and more maneuverable buckler, or as some called it, half-shield.

Tibi wasn’t, on the other hand, a fan of the sword, but he did know the basics. He stepped into his first form with buckler forward, sword readied behind it. From the readied position came a thrust, then back to ready.

He tried to focus as Courageous watched him, shouting out problems in his form. “Shield higher.” “Feet further apart.” “You look like a lummox swinging his tail.” Were the more common things Tibi heard.

When three quarters of the hourglass had dropped, Courageous shouted for him to stop. Tibi was thankful for the early rest and ran over to get a ladle of water from the barrel. After a long drink he took another ladle of the lukewarm water over his head.

“Enough. Get back here.”

Tibi was confused. “Are we not done?”

His brother scoffed. “Absolutely not. For the last quarter you will show me what you’ve learned. Defend yourself.”

The next fifteen minutes were the worst of Tibi’s life. Some said that his brother was one of the best swordsmen in the kingdom. Whether that was true or not Tibi didn’t know, but his brother absolutely dismantled him.

Tibi thought he had the basics down pretty well, but that didn’t help as his defense was picked apart. After a good walloping that was sure to leave bruises for days ensued, he realized that perhaps he hadn’t been paying enough attention to Kinkade.

If his shield went even an inch too high, he felt a crack against his shin guard. Blade extended a little too far on the counter, and the sting of a strike against his arm guard. There was no form he knew that wasn't impugned. The final round sent his sword spiraling from his hand followed by a kick that sent him tumbling to the dirt.

“Dear brother.” Courageous just looked down at Tibi dismissively. “I will have to talk to Honorius and father about this little performance. This was disgraceful.”

Tibi held back the desire to shout that it was them that wanted this for him, not himself. He knew it wouldn’t do any good.

“I'll make sure to start stopping by more often to make sure your training is up to snuff. Clearly Kinkade is slipping in his old age.” Then his brother dropped his training sword on the ground and left without another word.

Tiberius just sat there and kicked his buckler that was still lying in the dirt. He tried not to grimace at the pain in his foot. “This is so stupid.” he muttered to himself. Glori never had to deal with this. And who did Kinkade think he was? Making him do menial labor like this, not that he would ever say anything about it.

His father seemed to like Kinkade more than Tiberius half the time. He looked down at the training equipment. The sword was a simple heavy wooden pole with a crossguard. The morning star was little more than a stick with a heavy wooden ball on the end and a little wooden nub on the top.

That and the little wooden shield were weighted, but the shield could have been more functional if it had been steel banded. It was still good enough for training. He picked up the blunted morning star and the buckler, taking them back to the rack. Wood or not, they needed to be oiled so they didn’t become dry and brittle.

He went back for the swords as an internal debate waged, wanting to just go back to his room and read. He had gotten a new adventure book about a young knight turned mercenary, and it had all the hallmarks of a great read. As he brought out a rag and some oil, he considered his sad little level 2 profile.

“Pigshit,” he muttered. Until level five, there wasn’t any fracking information. He needed to do something about that. If he could get his class switched to Dragon Scholar, or Arcane Archaeologist, or something cool like that, maybe his father would stop making him learn stupid, stupid weapons.

None of the family were sure where the class names came from, and every once in a while, something new would appear. There was a book in the King’s office that he had been allowed to peruse, and it contained lists of every royal, their class, signs, and abilities.

But realistically no one knew the limits of the HUD, yet his father had mapped out each of his siblings' choices for their future. They would go the tried-and-true method, not the “choose your own”.

He almost threw down the practice sword he was oiling but decided it would be better to not anger his very scary weapons instructor. With a deep sigh, he decided he would do something different, feeling the itch to go on a mini adventure.

He decided to go out into the city and see how the peasants lived. He bet the kids in the city had a ton of fun. They probably played all day and didn’t have to deal with stupid responsibilities.

He energetically stood, the urge now built strongly within him. Concern building for what Kinkade would do to him in training if he didn’t finish his task. He quickly decided to finish his work.

It took an hour, but with nobody around, he grabbed a worn cloak and snuck off into the city.