Chapter 5

The coin flew up high and landed right on Mys Tara's head as she was still glaring at Frank she noticed too late and had no time to dodge it.

Boren: 'See it is heads'

'okay, I promise.' Frank said still stuck between deciding to chuckle or apologizing.

'okay, well we'll first tell you of our goals and what we'll be expecting of you.' said Mys Tara as she was rubbing a sore spot on her head glaring at Frank even more intently then before.

'Lets start with the beginning shall we.

First off; Us Ancients, the ones from the golden city are not from here. We came here to find the way to make peace. A long time ago we created many different species here who were all vastly different from one another. Think for example the giants; the Tamarin and the people of the sea which you are now one of.

It took us a long time to make this place inhabitable too.

We then started to let humans live here we set one ruler over all humans just like we did for the other races. We first started to try and attain peace between all of the races and people. Because where we are from the smallest difference between people have caused many conflicts and wars.

By finding the answer to peace here where the differences between nations due to there being different species is much larger we hoped to more easily find peace and to use it when we are from. But it soon became apparent that out of all the races only the humans were hard to forgive and quick to anger.

As you probably already know we have been successful in keeping the other races out of the wars.'

'Successful!?' Frank said loudly;

'What about those dragoon riders that attacked us?'

'Those dragoon riders have allied themselves with Jin.

Because your father was able to convince king Joren to halt the weapon-trade. This made Jin furious and that is why they sent assassins to kill your family. They had planned to capture your father. We don't know why or what they plan to do next now that they succeeded.

Anyways; it is again because of humans that the Dragoon Riders joined the conflict. This had nothing to do with a grudge between the dragoon riders and the humans.'

Mys Tara took a swig of her breakfast and as Frank was contemplating about all the answers he was getting he noticed that Boren had actually hooked himself up to the breakfast counter with some kind of wire from where with humans their bellybutton would be.

'You should also know that us two are the only ones of our faction within the golden tower. Everyone else thinks peace can be achieved by putting all under one ruler again and they've chosen Jin to be the one to do so.

This is also why we don't have much Intel on Jins further plans all we know is that your father is in Jin and for as long as he has a use for them they'll take good care of him.'

'Then why was I attacked?' Frank asked. 'It didn't look like they wanted to capture me.'

'We don't know everything.' Boren said. 'We were merely trying to get the Tamarin to ally themselves with Joren but they're reluctant to do so and it seems that the southern forest dwellers, the Klaver have also allied themselves with Jin. All we were able to do is prevent Tamarin from also joining them. If that had happened the nation of Joren would've already fallen.'

'Just because a few races help them doesn't mean that Joren would fall to Jin though right?' Frank asked.

'You do know that the Tamarin jungle reaches all the way from Jin to the capital of Joren right? If they're able to go through the jungle they can skip the walled city of Altara and arrive right at the capitals doorstep while there are still quite a few walled cities between the white tip mountains and the capital.' said Mys Tara.

'But isn't Joren more advanced than Jin?'

'That may be' said Mys Tara; 'but if 2 million Tamarin and half a million dragoon riders take Jins side then the 150000 soldiers of Joren have no chance to win this fight. Jin is already moving 70000 of their battle hardened soldiers to Joren.'

'So what is it that you want me to do?' Frank asked.

'Mys Tara tried to keep Tamarin neutral, you will be taking her place. But first we must train you in the ways of the Tamarin and you need to change into one too.'

Seeing that he had no choice in the matter Frank realized that he had to help them to further the causes that his father had fought so hard to pursue. So Frank gathered some mana and sent it to the device on his arm. He then selected 'Tamarin' and it changed his skin to that resembled that of a Guava. 'I wonder if my meat tastes as good as that Guava I had in Altara when dad was still home' Frank thought to himself.

After selecting the race he also grew a bit taller than before, the Guava skin seems to only cover certain parts of the body. Frank also still had pieces of his body that seemed to have normal human skin that transitioned to black leathery skin and then to dark green scales.

Boren stood up, 'I've got things to do, Mys Tara will explain what she was doing in the jungle and how.

She will also give you the names of the ones she was in contact with. She'll be teaching you their customs and she'll train you in combat.

Combat is a big deal in the jungle since a persons status in the tribe is determined by their combat prowess. You'll also need to learn how to stealth since even the little children in Tamarin are able to do that. I'll be back next week, good luck.' Boren went off through a door after saying goodbye to Mys Tara.

'It will be a busy schedule since it is of paramount importance that we finish your training as soon as possible. Is there anything you are talented at?' asked Mys Tara.

'Yeah I'm a genius at mana control and an engineer. I made those mana shields for the giants.'

'Oh, sounds promising. So stealthing shouldn't be much of a problem for you then. All you need to do is change the skin color and add finishing touches by super heating parts of the air around you. Once you do that you'll need to learn how to do that while moving around.'

'How does one change their skin color?' Frank asked.

'Well the mechanism should be automatic and once you get a feel for it you should be able to do it on command.'

'Stand against the white wall, that should work' Mys Tara said.

So Frank went to the white wall and as he turned around a knife was thrown straight at his head, Frank immediately ducked and dodged the knife that bounced off the wall and fell into the floor. I looked up to Mys Tara.

'See it worked' she said.

Checking his hands Frank saw that they had turned white;

'so it really is a defensive mechanism that triggers when you feel threatened... You could've just told me, no need for enacting your anger on me. I already said sorry for destroying the transformer.'

'Ah right, there was that too. I just threw that knife because I didn't like your smug stuck up face.'

She said adding fuel to the fire as she picked up the dagger and swung it around playfully.

'Lets skip to the combat part' she said with a smirk on her face.

'But you're a girl, I don't hit girls.' Frank said.

'I was just kidding, you are no match for me anyways. Besides we've got a training area for you to train in. I used it to get used to this body and it only took me a month. But I've done it before for several other races so since you are still inexperienced you will probably take much longer to finish the training schedule.'

Mys Tara then started walking and Frank followed from a safe distance.

Going through a sliding door we arrived in the hallway that went along the side of the golden tower. We then went through another sliding door and Mys Tara after confirming that the doors had closed and that Frank had gotten in pushed a number on the side and suddenly the room went down at an incredible speed. Frank jumped up in surprise.

'Whaaat is this!?'.

'This is an elevator, You didn't expect us to have carried you up a flight of stairs right?' Mys Tara replied.

As Frank regained his bearings he began looking around wondering how it all worked.

Slowly through the tinted glass Frank could see that they were descending to the height of the white tip mountains, and lower, and lower and then suddenly they were under ground but still hadn't showed any signs of stopping. Then after 30 or so seconds the elevator slowed down and opened up showing that there was another white room here.

'So does this elevator also go to the surface? I mean above this world we live in.' Frank asked as he got out of the elevator.

'Not entirely, it does come very close but the builders have chose to seal off the entrance so that the elevator won't get closer than a couple hundred feet from the surface. Anyways to the left is the living area, kitchen, shower, bathroom and to the right is the training area. There are requirements for each section. Straight ahead is the contact room. I will be staying in touch through there to teach you about the Tamarin jungle and its inhabitants. The training schedule will be posted on the wall this includes time to learn about the Tamarin.'

'You mean I'll be here all by myself?' Frank asked.

'Yes you will, I'll show you around a bit but I've got stuff to do also.'

So we walked into the kitchen; 'As you can see this kitchen is much like the kitchen we have above except that it only gives the meals that correspond with your current race. Make sure to eat twice a day to make sure that your muscles grow properly.'

We then walked through the kitchen to the 2nd door at the far right of the kitchen. Mys Tara opened the door, 'this is the bedroom where you will be resting' then she went to the other door; there were two door to the right and the door that we entered through. 'This is the bathroom where you can do your business, I'm sure you know how that works otherwise there's an instruction manual for all races in the contact room.'

'Well that's awkward...' Frank grumbled.

Next we walked out the kitchen into the main hall and went across to the training room.

The training room was a very big white room with a high ceiling and we actually had to go down a small flight of stairs to get to the ground. To the right on the wall was a screen much like the kitchen table. Mys Tara turned to it as she pushed a few buttons where she selected the basic training for Tamarin starting today.

'All is set' she said,

'If you have any questions you can ask me through using the screen in the contact room, good luck with your training. Also, don't think I need to tell you this but don't slack off!' She said with a commanding voice before she went up the stairs as the white room slowly turned into a forest.

On the ground appeared a bow with 3 arrows and in the distance 3 targets, each target was further than the last. Then as Frank was looking around at the forest a Tamarin man appeared out of thin air.

'Hello my name is Tamarin, I am your mentor modeled after Tamarin the founder of the Tamarin tribe. We will start with learning how to shoot bow and arrow. The first level you have to be able to hit all three targets in the bulls-eye. If you don't know how to do that you can select the help button on the panel behind you.'

Tamarin then dissipated into thin air.

Frank looked around not knowing what to do, he then picked up the bow and noticed that he didn't feel the touch nor was it heavy yet somehow he could still pick it up. The arrows felt the same.

He then placed the arrow on the string and pulled it back as far as he could which went quite easy since the bow had no heaviness to it at all and I aimed at the closest target.

*sigh...*

'Oh well, here I go' Frank said.