Florian was sitting outside the annex when the sun rose, having failed to get more than a couple hours of sleep. That was why he was there when the Warriors of Leeds assembled between the tents, assembling a force of perhaps five dozen around a pickup truck with a rusted wagon attached. He saw many familiar faces among the non-combatants, lumberjacks all. They were making another lumber run.

Hornbeck stood at the front of their disorganized column, calling to a pair of Warriors to force open the gate. They rumbled open, the sound carrying across the castle in the silence of the early morning. Florian watched on with a cocktail of interest, disappointment, and shame. Anna managing to find him so far away, waving as she did, only served to drive a stake into his heart. Try as he might to muster some kind of response, all he saw was green. Holding his head, all he could do was hope that this trip would go better – that Anna would make it back alive. He had too much to repay her for, if for nothing else.

The column faded into the distance, the gates crashing closed behind them. A few people had woken up by now, the procession creating no small amount of noise. They slowly returned to their tents, the subject of their interest lost. Florian stayed a little longer, watching as Warriors patrolled the walls. He counted no more than ten, watching as they completed multiple rounds around the walls. That was far too few for a regular shift, but he couldn’t see where the additional Warriors might be. Regardless, he was sure Hornbeck had his reasons.

Florian turned to enter the keep, nodding to Larry and Terry, and climbed up to the third-floor classroom. It was blissfully empty, as he’d suspected it would be, so Florian took the opportunity to meditate. His focus wandered all over and reining it in proved to be more of a challenge than normal. All in all, he felt his efficiency decrease, the amount of mana he could manage at a single time a fraction of what it might normally be. What would have been a veritable sea of blue motes illuminating his arteries and veins from the inside was instead a trickle, the occasional bit of mana mixing into the blood.

He broke off his attempts at meditation, find it to only worsen his mood as he failed to make any headway. Sitting in the empty room was much more pleasant, simply resting his eyes and feeling the sun’s early rays on his skin through the giant window reinvigorated him. He’d missed Mack’s entrance entirely, his exhaustion doing little to help his awareness.

“Good morning, Disciple Cale,” Mack said, a chipper tone to his voice. Florian opened his eyes, regarding his student. He was absolutely beaming, pearly white teeth in what some might have called a perfect smile. Were it not for Worldbreak, Mack might have been an actor or maybe even an influencer.

Florian smiled back. “Good morning, Mack. Sleep well?”

“I had a pretty restless night, actually,” Mack said, his smile slipping. “Those monsters sound louder, almost as if they’re multiplying or something. You think we can stop ‘em?”

Florian shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure. I didn’t spend much time among them, but the Warriors that defend Leeds have been suffering horrendous attrition. They keep fighting, only for them to lose at least one of their number each night, disregarding the wounded that try to heal in the medical tent.”

“Don’t you think Master will do something? Or maybe even Lord Jones?” Mack asked, touching his fingers to his toes, stretching his body far more than Florian could have.

Florian shrugged again, starting to set up the small straw mats that all the disciples set on during class to meditate by pulling a pile of them out from the closet. “I’m not sure what they’ve got planned, to be honest. Do you?”

Mack echoed his gestures, going so far as to help Florian set up for the day. “All I know is that there’s a rumor flying about that Master took us on as disciples to save Leeds.”

Florian watched the other man’s actions carefully. Mack wasn’t much older than he was, his face sprouting brown hairs after what looked like days of not shaving. He hefted the mats easily, dropping them into place as he went. It was like watching a machine at work, so precise were Mack’s actions. Memories of the previous night, of a bulky disciple skulking around at night, stopped him from being even partially honest with Mack.

“I wouldn’t doubt that,” Florian replied, earning a nod from his student, the smile on Mack’s face widening until it reached his eyes.

“See, that’s what I told the others, too, but they weren’t so sure,” Mack said, exasperated. “It’s like, why would Master go out of his way to teach us? We’re total nobodies and can’t trade him anything.”

Florian wasn’t sure if he was meant to respond to that, so he didn’t. Instead, he finished the rest of his task in companionable silence, pondering Mack’s words. In all of his time at Leeds, he’d never questioned why the wizard had felt such a compelling need to leave the vineyard. It had supported them plenty, and Theo had brought them meat to eat enough to sustain them. The only benefit to leaving was not needing to worry about replenishing invisibility spells, but as Mack noted, that didn’t explain why Theo was taking on students…

While a part of him wanted to believe that maybe Theo was doing this for altruistic purposes, nothing the wizard had shown him lead to anything resembling that conclusion. Theo had some kind of endgame, and Florian needed to know what exactly it was.

His students shuffled in, Mack takin his seat with the rest of his cohort. The dozen sitting in the front of the class were doing fantastically, even if only be comparison to the rest of the class. They still hadn’t made it beyond ten minutes – not even the most talented among them could do so – but it as Florian counted the seconds on the grandfather clock in the very center of the room, he watched them all slightly climb upwards. Ten minutes was achievement enough, but it wasn’t anything too difficult for people to achieve. After all, Florian himself had managed that milestone fairly swiftly.

He wondered how he might accelerate their progress so that he could make good on Theo's promise. But short of showing them all what he considered his trump card, he had nothing to offer. Instead, he focused on guiding their meditations, helping them visualize mana and interacting with it. Some were more adept in working with these abstract concepts than others, but at the end of the day, even the worst among them needed to be able to meditate for at least thirty minutes before they could launch a decent enough fireball with their strength.

There had to be a better way to measure all this, Florian thought, his head spinning with rough calculations. Seeing no more questions from his students and offering Wesley a smile from across the room, Florian took up the lotus position, sitting and attempting to fall into that familiar trance-like focus. Except now it was perhaps even more ephemeral and impossible to latch onto. The thought worried him, but he meditated regardless, benefiting whatever small amount he could.

The sun went down, the sky turned from blue to pink, and the gate rumbled open once more. Florian rocketed to the window, excited to see the Warriors. A pickup led the way, its trailer filled to the brim with lumber. The lumberjacks followed it closely, not a single one of them missing. Crossing into Leeds last, Florian stumbled backwards as he regarded the shattered remains of the Warriors. Only forty of them made it back through the gate, the vast majority limping or otherwise wearing crimson-stained clothing. Hornbeck himself was being hauled by a pair of larger men on a makeshift stretcher made of thinner sticks and some kind of fabric. His eyes went wide as he regarded the scene, nothing something. He went over everything and everyone again, but the result was the same. He couldn't find Anna.