The rest of the CITs filed down the corridor leading off the right-hand side of the entry hall continuing together until passing by a large wooden door. Morgan stopped in front of it, reaching for the handle.

“Wait.” Carter held up a hand. She looked up to see about half the group had also stopped at the door. “Navin,” Carter called to the part of the group that continued, “you wanna stop and check this room out?”

Navin looked at Carter before his eyes flicked past him to William, Morgan, Zack, Patrick, and Amanda. “I think you’ll manage on your own.”

Taking this as permission to continue, Morgan threw open the door.

“Oh dope,” she said, taking in the room. Racks of glistening swords lined the walls, many bright and sharp, others worn and rusted with age. Some possessed odd fields about the blades or glowing gems in their hilts. There were plain, common use swords, and there were swords so ornate that they could only be for ceremonial purposes. A whole wall was taken up purely for daggers and knives. Some blades were straight, some had wicked curves. Then were shelves with bows and crossbows, arrows and bolts, throwing knives, stars, and darts. Standing in several neat rows were the pieces of armor; shimmering chainmaille that shimmered like water, full plate, brightly reflecting the lights from the windows, light leather armor, dark and flexible, promising mobility and stealth.

“Guys, it’s the armory.” Morgan shot a grin down the hallway at Navin. “Probably not your speed. Too risky, too many sharp things.”

He parried her smirk with a shrug of a shoulder. “I’m going to continue on, find the Infirmary. I expect we’ll see you soon.”

Morgan laughed before disappearing into the Armory, the rest of the group following suit.

They all had their own weapons in their rooms, sure, but here they were, kids in a candy shop. Zack apparently had made it his personal goal to grab every sword in the Armory, testing its heft and balance like he had a clue what he was doing. Patrick beelined for the chainmaille.

“This is sick,” Carter said to her, as they stood, still in the doorway, drinking it in. “Hey - hey be careful!”

William, who had been practicing some moves, looked over, a quizzical look on his face. “Yeah, I think I’m good, Carter.”

“A slip of the hand and you could be in real trouble. I know Navin is looking for information on healing, but we have actually no idea what that’s like in this world or, ya know, if it is a thing. A nasty slice could mean infection or blood loss or whatever and we’re not ready for that.”

William’s face kept the same expression. “How dumb do you think I am?”

“Hey, check this out!” At the far end of the Armory, Amanda had found a small door that led outside. “There’s tons of practice equipment out here. Practice dummies, archery range, sparring grounds…”

Carter shook his head. “Look, we can’t just-”

“Carter, chill.” Morgan put a hand on his shoulder. “We got wooden swords. Worst you’ll get with that is a bruise.” Or a concussion or broken limb, but Morgan didn’t say and Carter didn’t think and the next thing they knew, everyone was outside, each holding a wooden replica of their weapons.

“Alright!” Carter said, loudly. “Let’s split up into smaller groups! Just get familiar with your weapon, no need to go ham just yet.” He grinned. “There’s gonna be time for that, I’m sure.”

Morgan and Zack exchanged a look before racing off to a trampled spot on the grass, swinging their swords at each other as they raced.

“Ah, guys!” Carter called over to them.

Zack turned around. “Hmm?”

“Keep it civil. Don’t try to hurt your partner. This is for practice and learning, so it’s gonna get competitive, but keep the spirit of the exercise.”

“I’m not gonna kill him, you know,” Morgan shouted back. “Not unless he really pisses me off.” Then she turned back to Zack. “Ready to go?”

Maybe it was the Echoterran air, maybe it was the hearty breakfast, or maybe it was the million tiny changes that had twisted her body into the spitting image of her character, Jade, but Morgan felt more alive than she ever had. She danced circles around Zack who swung after her, face screwed up in concentration. To his credit, he was a lot more on top of his shit than usual. His technique was honestly better than anything she’d seen from any of them on Earth.

Then again, so was her own.

“Hold up-” she started, coming in for a landing, only to be thrown three feet in the air by a blow.

“Morgan! Shit!” Zack hurried over to her, hands dancing over her like he wanted to do something to help but didn’t know what.

For her part, Morgan just coughed and gasped, trying to catch her breath.

“Wind knocked out. Don’t worry. Fine in a second.”

“You stopped moving. I didn’t expect you to… Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“All good,” Morgan croaked. After another second or two, she pushed herself up. “I had something to say. That’s why I stopped.”

“Right.”

Morgan winced as she finally sat up. “Yeah. So. I was saying. Don’t you think we’re a little better here than on Earth?”

He didn’t even puzzle over any of this. He just nodded, straight away. “Yeah, no kidding. If we were that good at camp, we could have been given actual hit points cause none of the campers could’ve touched us.”

She grinned but slowly her smile slipped off her face. He might not actually be totally wrong. Three CITs against a minimum dozen campers always meant they didn’t get real health stats, or they’d run out too fast. But she honestly felt good enough to take on a dozen campers. Maybe more.

“Do you suppose the others are this good?” Zack asked.

“Let’s go spy,” she said.

Patrick and Amanda were sparring in a far more constructive matter. The two would go at it for under a minute before one would signal, the two would back out, and then talk about what each other saw.

“I keep getting tripped up,” Amanda said, swiping some sweat from her eyes.

“You do a lot of jabbing,” Patrick said. “Maybe you’re supposed to be using a rapier or something pointier.”

“Really? Do I?”

The two then lined up and went at it, block, parry, a step forward and back, dodging and ducking before the swords clashed again and Amanda let go of her sword.

“Yeah, I kinda see that pointing thing, Damn, but that slice you keep doing gets my fingers every time.”

Morgan waved Zack on. Bastian and Patrick had obviously come to the same conclusion they had; they were drawing from their camp character’s skill pool.

“Oh man, they’re going at it!” Zack said.

Morgan’s eyes narrowed as she looked over at Carter and William. “Certainly very flashy,” she said, not sharing Zack’s enthusiasm. As they got closer, she could easily make out grim, borderline angry looks in the lines off their faces, the set of Carter’s jaw, and the curve to William’s brow.

“Guys, maybe take it down a notch,” she said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Zack, a concerned look on his face. He eyed her and she turned back to the fight. “Carter, Wiliam!” Neither responded, even in moments of silence, where they stood apart from each other, calculating their moves.

Zack started to step forward but Morgan caught him in the chest, shaking her head. Instead, she took a few measured steps forward, eyes combing their movements, looking for patterns, something exploitable.

A failed feint was the in she needed and she launched herself forward, sending both blades flying.

They rounded on her. “What did you do that for!” Carter shouted, sweat running down his face.

She eyed their swords on the ground before looking back up at them, head tilted. “Keep it civil?”

Carter took a few breaths. “Look, I know, I know, I get it. It looked heated and competitive but we were just sparring.”

“I was five feet from you, shouting your names. That wasn’t a friendly, educational spar.”

“That was dangerous,” Carter said.

Morgan looked over at William, who was looking down at the ground, avoiding eye contact. She could work with this. As Carter went to retrieve the swords, still red-faced and breathing heavily, Morgan caught Zack’s eye and nodded sharply at Carter.

“Hey let’s go get some water,” Zack said. “You look like you’re gonna die.”

“I’m fine.”

“Dude, just cause we aren’t at camp doesn’t mean we’re not gonna get dehydrated. Everyone probably needs some, so let’s get some buckets.”

Carter sighed. “Alright.”

As they walked off, Morgan set to work with William. “You wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“Look we have to work toget-”

“Did ‘no’ not register?”

Her eyes snapped down to half-mast. “Do you think you’re the only one who doesn’t know Carter is a blowhard? Everyone from Shawn to Aaron to Violet knows he likes to take charge. We let him cause we know most people will listen. He does have a good idea of what to do and he really does have everyone’s best interest at heart.”

“I know. It was stupid to get so heated.”

Morgan studied him a bit longer, before letting out a long sigh. “You’re not even mad at him, are you? You’re mad at Kai.”

William froze, before his jaw set, hard. “He had every right to take the job. We all knew Rusette would make counselor and we knew they only offered two slots to graduating CITs. It was gonna be her, then either me, Kai, Weston, or Aaron.”

“Aaron was offered the position and turned it down. I don’t know if you knew that.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know if it would have mattered. We don’t even know if the counselors are here. But I shouldn’t be here, playing CIT. And it’s not just an age thing-you all spent the last month working together and building a pecking order that I don’t belong to. Carter was a first-year CIT the last time I was here. I barely even know the youngest group now. Like who the fuck are Sam and Shawn?”

“New. Never campers. But they’re good kids.”

He held a hand up. “I know. And I need to keep my ego in check. And I’ll do a better job. God knows I can call you kids immature and then spend the whole time fighting Carter over who gets to shout ‘team’ louder.”

By this time, Carter and Zack had reappeared, swinging water buckets, which they brought over to a grateful Patrick and Amanda. William gave a ruefully smile and then a chuckle.

“We’re damn good fighters though, gotta give us that,” he said.

Morgan nodded, calmness restored, and she bounded over to join the guys and theory craft their newfound skills.

---

The healers didn’t have to go far to find the Infirmary since it was next door to the Armory. The entire fighter squad hadn’t even fully entered before Fiona had opened the next door to find a warm, sun-soaked room with several ordered beds, all clean and crisply made with white linens. Along the shelves were meticulously ordered books, diagrams, charts, and a few skeletons of things that weren’t even humanoid. Tucked around a cozy fireplace were several squishy armchairs, well used but clean.

“This has Freya written all over it,” Fiona said, satisfied at her character’s handiwork. “Girl doesn’t keep a messy space.”

“I think Quentin may have had a hand with this.”

Fiona turned to Navin, a smirk on her face. “Hun, I know my girl.”

Behind her, she heard him mutter something about playing Quentin for far longer than she’d even known about the camp, but she didn’t pay him any mind as she started exploring the room. Off the bat, she found the healing wands each of them had back at camp. Her eyes landed on Freya’s. Instead of the plastic-sequins-and-pipe-cleaner abomination, she’d made at camp, it was an elegant silver with brown and green detailing that twisted up the slim wand and created a thin ornament on top that resemble deer antlers.

“There are enough crystals here to make this place look like a Scientology church,” Bastian said. He stood next to a table loaded with all matter of translucent rocks, some hanging like mobiles or sun catchers, others in holders, and many more scattered about. “Like this shit is healing? No way were Violet’s parents secret anti vaxers.”

“But I bet it works,” Sam said, flipping through the pages of an intro to healing book. “That’s the wild bit. The alchemists are the scientists and doctors to our flippy hippy stuff, but healing’s been around way longer, right?”

“Yeah, we didn’t even have an alchemy guild til last year,” Fiona said.

“Mmm,” Sam said. “When did healing and magic split?”

“What?” Bastian asked.

“Healing and magic? Book says they used to be treated as the same class and people could only heal themselves and… This wasn’t a thing at camp?”

“If it was, it was way before I started,” Navin said. “And I’ve been around the longest.”

“Wow,” Sam said, a secret smile on her face. Fiona suspected the girl must have felt good, learning something about Echoterra that no one else knew.

“Guess we should probably do a bit more reading to figure out exactly what this all is,” Navin said. “Seems super different.”

It turned out the real issue was that the early Echoterrans used to think healing and magic came from the same God, Hecata. It wasn’t until a mage, renowned for her healing powers, connected with a different God, Amidral, God of Life, while meditating on the mysteries of healing. She started a new branch of healing. Instead of simply forcing the body to fix itself, this new healing system worked on rapidly enhancing the body’s natural methods of repairing. She devised a system for healing others that used wands to channel one’s healing magic onto another. At the time it was called Empathic Channeling, though it is now so widely practiced, it is simply known as healing. This legendary mystic trained hundreds in the art of healing. It is said that she lived to an incredibly old age before being taken by the greater spirit as an apprentice.

Fiona put down her book then, mind too busy racing to read any more theory. She found Sam sitting on a closeby couch, staring ahead, eyes distant.

“You look like you’re thinking. Should we be worried?” Fiona asked,

“No,” Sam said, shaking her head. Then she smiled. “Well ok, maybe. I was just thinking, this whole healing thing works like someone gets hurt and then you tell your body to quickly fix it, right? Using life powers of whatever. Means we really can’t heal anything without anything broken.”

Fiona looked out the window behind them. The fighters were wailing away on each other, moving way faster than she’d ever seen them at camp.

“Well they’re definitely gonna sustain some bruises,” she said. “Oh shit, did you see that?”

Sam hurried over to the window, but she’d already missed a particularly stunning exchange between Patrick and Zack. “What was it?”

Fiona grinned. “Just cool fighting stuff. I’m sure you’ll see more.”

Outside, Patrick was helping Zack up, talking animatedly. Zack was doubled over, wincing as he held his left side. They turned and began heading towards the castle.

“We might be needed after all,” Fiona said. “Come on, let’s see if they need us.”

The girls slipped past Bastian and Navin, both very absorbed in their books, and reached the Armory just as Zack and Patrick had entered.

“Hey, we were just looking for you,” Patrick said. “Zack got- Well I hit him kinda hard-”

“We saw from the window.” Fiona pulled out her healing wand.

“Oh fucking nope.” Zack took several steps backward, eyeing her wand.

“The absolute worst I can do is nothing,” Fiona said. “All I can do is speed up the way your body processes things. Worst case scenario, I make you a few minutes older.”

“Wait really?” Sam asked.

Fiona rolled her eyes and placed the tip of her wand on Zack’s chest. The sensation hit her like a kick to the chest and she gasped, clutching at her own ribs. The book said she had to cast the healing on herself and it would channel through her wand, but she hadn’t expected it to hurt so much.

Bruised ribs healing, what was the natural process for that? Muscle stitching back together, a bit of bone repair, soothe some of the skin… Slowly the pain in her ribs dulled and she pulled the wand away. The rest of the feeling died almost immediately and Zack fixed her with a suspicious look.

“Better?” Fiona asked, trying to keep the wince out of her victorious smile.

“Little bit, yeah. Hmm.” He scowled before shrugging and letting himself grin. “Thanks!”

“You going back out?” Sam asked.

“Naw, we’re actually gonna see about lunch,” Zack said. “Getting to be that time.”

“God, the day is flying by,” Fiona said. After lunch, she’d make an effort to get back to the Infirmary. If she was going to be able to actually heal, then she’d need to know the appropriate physical response to every kind of injury.

There was a lot more she was going to have to learn.