Life is the sphere of all that is alive. Healing and altering your own body and the body of others. Its counterpart is death, and they are difficult to focus on one without needing the other to understand. - Antonio Ravnos

Adrian

Trían speaks up drawing me from my endless stream of questions. “Your servants will be paired to be captains over a watch. You have already proved yourself with mana, so which servant will accompany you?”

K looks at me, she has been functioning as a translator so far. I still need one. So, it needs to be either her or one of the twins. Should I change?

“Kythia, will accompany me as a translator. I assume that we will need to know Althaen?”

“As well as the tongue of the new slaves.”

I frown, slaves and noble privilege. At least we are on the privileged side. I don’t care what happens to others but they should at least only have to suffer from their own actions.

“Then aside from myself, my followers will need time to learn before they are able to help.”

The three of them frown, and start to talk to each other. K leans over to me, “They are discussing if they can wait. Sunchaser is trying to use this lack of ability to lower your status.”

So, I will continue to be bothered by that family? At least he isn’t spouting crap about how disrespecting his family is courting death. Can I use this somehow?

“I would be able to more quickly teach my followers the needed languages if I had help, someone who speaks elvish and Althaen. Perhaps someone who could also demonstrate basics of magic for them so I would not have to divide my attention to it?”

Trían says something to the older man who is not Sunchaser. I guess he does not speak elvish. The man nods, does he agree?

“Magister Talphith has an apprentice, Harrold, who speaks elvish and is in charge of teaching the new slaves the basics of mana.”

“I thought any mage counted as a noble, are they slaves anyways?”

“A mage knows how to use their gifts. When they are skilled enough a house will adopt them as a lesser noble.”

I nod, still twisted but at least some will later escape this slavery. Trían continues, “Returning to the subject of your work; combat training will be a dawn, Harrold will expect you and your followers after high noon. You will have the watch from dusk until dawn. When your followers get a grasp on the Althaen tongue you will be given more watches. At that point divide them how you will among your house.”

I frown at the mention of which watch I am going to have; Sunchaser smiles to my reaction. I know who is at fault. When will I get to sleep? The late afternoon? Should I make a fuss and demand a better job? No, even if it is at a shit time being a watchman is easy. Just keep a look out for an attack. None of us will be at a significant risk of death.

“Very well, so you have a soldier to guide me to these locations?”

Trían nods, and says something in Althaen. One of the soldiers near Jason steps foreward.

“This man will guide you, just have your translator tell him where.”

I walk over to the soldier who gives me a small bow, before slowly walking out of the tent. We all follow him towards where ever it is that combat training will happen. During out walk I fill Bryan and Abagail in on the jobs we were assigned.

The soldier leads us over a few streets, I can see that most of the nearby office buildings have been converted into some sort of barracks. The streets are clear save for a few bloodstains and a bit a rubble. They have been cleaning up.

The combat training is taking place in front of the entrance to the public library. The soldier who guided us says something to a man in chainmail. He isn’t a regular soldier, they are all in an odd colored leather. Looking at the makeshift practice yard I can see several people losing in swordfights to these soldiers.

The man in chainmail says something, I don’t get it and look at K.

“Divide up each one with a soldier. No magic aside from self-augmentation.”

Judging by how poorly others are doing against the soldiers I’m going to lose. The soldiers are already playing with the others, the 'slaves', who have been added to their ranks. Is this training or entertainment for the soldiers?

I explain to Bryan and Abagail what this should be, as I was doing so one of the soldiers tossed a wooden practice sword at my back. When I turn around the soldier isn’t standing in any form of guard and by the tone of his voice is mocking me.

Should I ask for a translation? As I pick up the fallen sword, I notice that K and the twins are already paired off with some soldiers. They are holding their own. I know I am going to end up losing, I am no swordsman. But maybe I can make him work for it?

Bryan catches a sword tossed to him. I stand up and hold the sword in front of me. I don’t know any self-augmentation magic, hopefully I can react fast enough to not lose too quickly. The soldier charges at me, I sidestep. I dodged the charge, but I feel a hit against back.

I stumble forwards, it doesn’t hurt as much as the orc club from a few days ago, but it still hurts. I turn around and swing the sword at the soldier. Pain erupts from my hand, I hear a piece of wood hit concrete.

A crack resounds through the air, pain erupts on the left side of my chest. I grunt in pain, this isn’t training. These soldiers are here to be entertained through sadism. The soldier backs up, giving me room to grab the fallen sword.

Bryan seems to be doing a little better, Abagail won’t pick up the sword they tossed at her. My hand hurts, there is a bruise forming on both it and my left side. I turn manage to block the soldier’s next swing.

Some of the others nearby seem to be taunting me. I could win if I burnt my opponent’s sword. Should I? No, I cannot always solve things with magic. These soldiers may be sadists but I can memorize how they are winning.

The soldier pivots his sword and it slides past my cross guard and strikes my hand. I don’t drop the sword this time but I think he broke the skin. I step forwards to strike the soldier with the pommel, instead I get kneed in the gut.

As I am crouching over on reflex a sword blow lands on my back knocking me to the ground. My face stings, as I get up I see some blood trickling off my right thumb. The surrounding soldiers are laughing. So, they think it is funny to watch people get injured.

They are not trying to show anyone how to fight. They are beating us for fun. I twist reality and the bleeding stops, the bruises cease to expand and the pain is diminishing. I have to hold long enough to actually learn something. Getting beaten down like the other people I can see accomplishes nothing. I may be a mage but it was not my magic alone that saved my life against orcs and goblins, I will learn even if these people are not helpful.

All I can say is that I am stubborn. I never hit the soldier, got knocked down multiple times, and disarmed even more; but I made him fight the three hours that were left before noon. Abagail never fought, Bryan lost as badly as I did just not as many times. I don’t know how the sisters’ fights were but I think K won her’s.

The sisters went back to the bank saying something about not needing magic lessons. So, it’s now just K, Bryan, Abagail and me being led to Harrold. I’ll probably end up having to translate whatever lesson we end up getting. I hope that its easier than the ‘sparing’ matches.

We are led into the library, in one of the corners a young man in bathrobes is standing in front of a bunch of people who were not at the sparing outside. I don’t recognize anyone. The youth in the bathrobes counts the number of people here, before pulls out a necklace from his pocket.

The necklace is golden with a piece of amber hanging on it. The gemstone seems to catch more light than it should. The youth mutters something and the stone releases a flash of light, but the gem looks a bit dimmer afterwards. An enchanted item, I don’t see any physical effect from the flash of light, nor do I feel any different. It must have targeted someone else.

“I am Harrold, you all have potential to use mana. I will be showing you how to, but I will not be answering questions nor will any of you be welcome here in my study outside of these lectures . . .”

The necklace must have held a translation spell. I won’t have to translate anything, I smile that means I can focus on looking around. He said this is his study? Well there are several things that shouldn’t be in a library here. A cauldron, candles, and a few chests. Most of them are pretty small.

“. . . mana is the energy that fuels magic and each of you possess some amount of it. It is nearly impossible to learn to control. Luckily the gods are merciful and have given us an ally in the Grey Dream.”

Some of the people here start to ask what the Grey Dream is and Harrold ignores them. He really does mean that he will not be giving extra aid. I look over to the nearby shelves, they are covered in leather bound books. This is a children’s section; those books are not from this library.

“When you are in the Grey Dream think about my lessons and it may bless you with understanding. Otherwise you will remain slaves and be forced to die as infantry.

The easiest way to develop an understanding without the favor of the Grey Dream is through emotion. . .”

I hope Bryan will be able to get something out of this. I literally cannot use it, even though I have mana. . . What can I even use it for? I need to think about that later, right now I need to see if there is anything I can use here.

“. . . emotions can have ties to different schools and types of magic. Most notably is anger and fire. Many such as yourselves first figure out how to get a memorized spell to function in a fit of rage.

As such until either you demonstrate one of the spells . . .”

Some of the books are written in elven, but most titles I cannot read. They don’t all seem to be the same language though. The chests are fairly small, some of them are open and hold vials of liquid. The smallest of the chests holds a few vials of red something. I think I can feel it calling to me. I want to drink them . . .

“. . . you will all be joining the other slaves in sparing with the soldiers. I told them to be mean so learn quickly. If you happen to like getting the shit beat out of you by the time you manifest your magic, then you can continue. Now I will only be explaining to you some cantrips whose school and type can be associated with anger and rage.”

I can’t just get up and take them. They seem old so I doubt they will be used soon. I don’t know why I want them, but I know they will help me. What is in those vials? The other red vials I can see don’t make me want them.

“If you need to learn through another emotion then you will have to acquire those spells on your own. First up I will explain a spell called Flare, while not strong enough to . . .”

I don’t need to know about mana spells, I need some of these items here. They can help me and my friends survive. Some of these Althaens are going to try to kill me, Sunchaser wants to, and he seems important so others will too. . . I tune out Harrold and his superficial lecture, I need to familiarize myself with this space.