Birdkin are a rare and fragile race, most of them have died and the few who remain value their freedom beyond their lives and have all but given up on becoming a numerous race once more. They hate two things more than anything else, the demons and the Althaen the two groups responsible for most of the deaths of their kin.

Lykou

I am not woken up from the meditation to go hunting once more with Analais but by the light of dawn. I’m going to have to deal with the other youth at Naliya’s class then. Alana is making more stew which I am assuming is the standard meal around here, that is going to get old fast without any variation even if it was just among the components.

I move over to the table with a few potatoes laid out on it as she is getting the fire to where it needs to be. I am a guest and should do something to help out so I cut the potatoes with the knife on the table before placing them in the pot of water.

“Why are you helping?” she asks.

“Because I sleep under your roof and eat your food but haven’t done anything to earn it” I answer.

“So you do have some honor then, why did you ignore my words yesterday?”

“I disagree with you ideas that fighting honorably is more important than life.”

“Those are the thoughts of a stray. . .”

“Stop, before you judge me hear the reason” I interrupt. “Can you defend what is important to you if your dead?”

“No.”

“Then is it not better to live and continue to work even by dishonorable means than die and leave what is important to you to do the same?

Both corrupted bears and their threat to the village and pack are gone. Is that not better than losing more people to them after they recover?”

“It is for the alphas to determine when the danger is great enough to disregard honor.”

“So, you don’t disagree with my argument only that I’m not the authority figure to make the choice. That’s a completely different argument and I don’t know enough about the social structure here to get into it.

I’m guessing I have to go to the lessons Naliya is giving this morning?”

Alana nods while adjusting the soup pot slightly.

“Is there a training weapon I can borrow then?”

“Only if you agree not to run and hide. You need to face your peers or you’ll be shamed as a coward.”

“Fine.”

After a short silence Alana asks me a question, “why are you spending so much time meditating?”

“Learning magic, any advice?”

“Mana flows along the same pathways as your life blood.”

Slightly different information compared to what Analais said. It is not helpful at the moment but perhaps I can use it when I reach the point in searching my body to find it.

“Anything else?”

“Mixing mana and your life blood forms ki, it’s difficult to form but it’ll likely be more potent for you than mana alone.”

I don’t have plans on being a muscle mage so that shouldn’t matter. I wonder if I can train mana in a similar manner to learn control.

The soup while good is starting to get boring having had it for every meal for three days. Once the food is eaten Alana gives me a wooden stick with a rounded tip. A training spear based on the length.

“Don’t break it” she says before watching me go out the door to what will likely be a very annoying day.

I am the last of the children to arrive for the class and as soon as I am close Naliya begins introducing her plans for the day.

“Today you are all going to practice working together so divide yourselves into teams.”

Rather than something sensible like random assignment or making sure the teams have roughly the same strength, Naliya simply allows everyone to make their own groups.

Roughly ten groups of three or four form. I of course do the smart thing and approach a group of three of the taller and oldest boys. They are most likely to win so I should team up with them.

“Go away you runt coward” the tallest of the boys says before I even open my mouth.

“Well if you’re going to be like that I’ll work with someone else” I respond and he just smirks.

Unfortunately for me, his rejection marked me as an outcast for the other groups. Those three boys were the strongest and the weaker groups didn’t want to draw the are I apparently picked up and likewise refuse me as I approach them.

After the third group I just stand off to the side as my own one man team. This is going to suck, I’m going to lose because I am sure I can’t handle being teamed up on.

After another minute of waiting Naliya begins the teamwork exercise by degrading it into an all out free for all. Which is perhaps my best chance at not being the first person eliminated.

“No killing blows, no crippling attacks. All teams are in and last team standing wins.”

No one wants to be the first one out and since I am the easiest target not having any allies the two teams closest to me rush at me. I move my practice spear between me and the closest opponent and make sure he runs into it.

The plain wood spear leaves a bruise on the young lycanthrope's skin before I abandon it. My only chance of lasting a decent amount of time is the hand to hand techniques the silver haired woman taught me in that fragmented memory.

My spear disrupted the boy’s charge and I grab his wrist and pull him in a way that puts him between my next attacker and me while looking his elbow with my left hand. I might have been able to break his arm but there was a rule against crippling blows. I don’t think I have a way of taking anyone down. . .

My impromptu shield gets a nasty bruise on his side from a power attack but my success is short lived as two more individuals let loose a similar attack with their clubs. One I manage to turn into a glancing blow but the other knocks the wind out of me.

I wrap my arm around the heavier hit keeping the boy from dodging an opportunist's strike while I recover some of my breath. I manage to trip another with a leg sweep the silver haired woman would have used to set up a pin but am interrupted by a tackle.

I hit the ground hard and take a few hits before Naliya calls out, “he’s out” declaring me one of this activity’s losers. I think I could have taken one or two of those that attacked me in unarmed combat but the rush of multiple opponents was too much.

I sit to the side as over the next few minutes the teams are reduced to the team with the three largest boys. They took a few hits and are bruised like everyone else but their size and experience from being somewhat older gave them the win.

The combat being over Naliya announces the winners and her supposed lesson, “as you all can see our newcomer without others to help him was the first to fall while the strongest of you as a single group won easily.”

“He lost because he's weak” semi shouts one of the three largest boys.

“Lyran, do you remember when he countered your charge and held your arm?”

“Yeah, he was too weak to do anything.”

“He could have easily broken your arm or pinned you if there weren’t others attacking him.”

The boy scoffs at the idea and I’m regretting not trying to break his arm. It might have been worth getting in trouble over.

“That pride of yours is going to be your downfall, Lyran.

The rest of the morning is for you all to practice with bows. No fighting until everyone's bruises heal.”

There is some grumbling though I am unsure if it is from bow practice or the no fighting rule she imposed.

“Lykou, I’d like to see how you do with the new bow. Care to go first?”

I’m glad Analais hasn’t taken back his quiver yet even if the arrow count is low as I take a position at the distance shown to me yesterday.

I fire one arrow after another, while they all hit the target in the torso only one hit the spot I was aiming at. Not good enough, I need to be better and the only way to do that is to practice so I walk up to the straw target and retrieve my arrows.

Naliya says nothing as I fire them all a second time with a slightly tighter cluster but now my left forearm is sore due to me not having an archer’s glove, or is it more accurate to call what I need as a bracer?

Once I gather the nine arrows I still have Naliya congratulates me, “good job. See young ones it is possible to accurately hit the target before being a hunter.”

“It’s still just stick throwing” the largest of the boys says.

“Which is responsible for most of our food near the new moon.”

I wonder, is his opinion is based in reverse to his ability in archery? I take Naliya's words as a dismissal to continuing and move to sit to the side of the rest of the children.

If they’re going to act as they have been I’ve no reason to try to interact with them. I miss Naliya calling the largest child up but smile as his first shot does not even touch the target. The boy is a brute and as I’ll not learn anything by observing him I’ll go over the messages the Architect makes.

Gain: +35 XP Meditation, +125 XP Hand to hand, +15 XP Spear, +15 XP Sword, +135 XP Melee, +10 XP Ranged, +10 XP Archery, +10 XP Bow, + 1 XP Cooking, +125 XP Man-at-arms,

Man-at-arms 1 -> 2 +2SP, Melee 2 -> 3 +3SP, Hand-to-hand 1 -> 2 +2SP,

Lykou

Gender: Male

Race: Void Draconian?

Age: 10

Strength 14

Intelligence 15

Mana Potential 8

Skills

SP: 50

Dexterity 14

Wisdom 14

Mana Potency 7

Languages

Titles

Agility 16

Cunning 13

Luck 16

Traits

Options

Endurance 14

Willpower 17

Perception 12

Magic

???

Vitality 14

Alertness 15

??? 1

Classes

Racial Class

Appearance 15

Charisma 11

Health 29/29

Mana 8/8

The biggest factor in my improvement was that memory of the silver haired woman. I need to keep grabbing such memories but I can’t go so far as to neglect my progress in other areas. I got more SP but I’m not at a wall nor in immediate danger

I shouldn’t go into a deeper state at the moment. It simply is not the place so I slowly open my eyes to see that more than a few of the students have demonstrated their lower skill in the bow compaired to their melee skill. It seems that most of these people prefer melee weapons since they were significantly better in that teamwork test than with these bows.

Good news for me I suppose, lots of melee meat shields for a ranged combatant to be protected by. I probably shouldn’t think of them like that but I don’t consider them friends or family.

I, bored watch the last few children, girls who are doing better than the boys were. One of them is actually good better than me but I didn’t notice her earlier during the team battle, I would have noticed the silver hair. She must have come over while I was looking at the Architect's stuff.

I’m not the only one paying attention either, most of the class is. After picking up the arrows she walks back to Naliya and gives them to her, “are you sure you only want a demonstration of archery?”

“Just archery today. Like always that’s what is being neglected” Naliya says while taking the weapons.

“Let me know if they need to be shown how much they still need to learn. I have to go listen to my mother’s lessons” the young girl says with some reluctance.

“Alpha Kylana is a powerful mage, you would do well to apply yourself as much as you do to the physical arts” Naliya reprimands.

The young girl does not respond to that as she leaves. She doesn’t seem to be a part of the class, at least not this one. Is there one for higher levels of skill?

“You’re all dismissed” Naliya tell us and I make myself scarce though only by not sticking around.

I stop by Alana’s hut to drop off her practice spear before entering the woods. Alana was not at the hut and I haven’t seen any writing materials so I can’t leave a note. Within the woods themselves I look for a small clearing where I can exercise without interruption.

After roughly an hour I find one near a stream. The first thing I’ll need is weights and practice weapons so I pick up rocks from the stream and hit them against each other until I have an edge, somehow, I knew the lighter rocks were softer. They won’t be a good weapon but for carving soft wooden training weapons to practice form in they will do well.

I proceed to then pick up one of the straighter pieces of deadwood on the forest floor and strip it of its bark. It is a little short to make a spear but I feel like such a weapon is a better choice for me than the shorter reach of a sword. I feel like there is a better weapon for that range zero, not sure what it is at the moment but I’ll remember eventually.

Once my short spear is striped of back and made into a relatively smooth shaft I round the tip and begin to test it for balance before throwing it aside. The balance was awful, that was no more than an overly long club, that was a few hours wasted. I’ll need better materials, there isn’t going to be such just lying on the forest floor though.

“I’ll have to stick to physical conditioning I guess” I mutter to myself, abandoning my current plans as practicing with such crude weapons will cause more problems than learning.

I spend the rest of the day alternating between basic strength training, stretching and resting in the water of the stream. As I do so I think of how to recover my memories and how I should figure out a way to deal with this racial class.

All I can come up with though is to find books on dragons or stumble upon a relevant memory in the elven meditation. What do dragons do anyways? I can’t remember anything about them aside from that they are flying reptiles.