As morning came light shone through gaps in their curtains. Thomas and Robert put on their clothes and headed out to meet Seras. She was waiting in the dining hall, spooning breakfast into her mouth as she waited.

Obedient, well-dressed staff waited at attention. The food was something closely resembling melon and raspberries. Some of the berries, Thomas noticed, were like the caffeinated red ones they had found in the wilds.

A customer passed by the doorway, dragged by a woman in lingerie. It seemed the brothel still ran in the morning hours. The jarring difference between them and the workers made their breakfast a surreal and unnatural one.

Seras looked towards Robert, inspecting his ragged burnt-out clothes. “How have those clothes stayed together?”

Robert replied with a shrug. “I try my hardest.”

Seras grimaced and threw him some coins in a small pouch. “Get something. I’d give you some of my spare armour, but I doubt it would fit you.”

She turned to Thomas. “While that’s happening, want to train with the guards?”

“Sure.”

With a smirk, she threw an apple towards Thomas’s head, which he caught and started eating.

“Good,” she replied, privately admiring his newfound reflexes. A while passed in silence as they ate the strange fruit.

"You said the wolves were infected with some kind of black slime. What’s up with that?" Seras asked.

Robert winced at the memory.

"Like a black ooze coming out of them — it was like it was alive. Like the infection had taken over their brain. They had white eyes and acted in a sort of rabid way...”

"Weird. Do you know what it could have been?"

"I have some grass with the same stuff on," Robert replied. He pulled out a pouch. The berries inside had also been coated in the stuff — in fact, the gunk had spread to coat most of the pouch’s inner lining. The mouldy black tar appeared to be moving, as if it was now reacting to the light and trying to reach out.

"Um," Robert said. "Yeah, I have the stuff here.” He threw the pouch to Seras, which she caught in her hand just before she saw the contents inside.

"The fuck!" She exclaimed, throwing it on the floor before the gunk could reach out and touch her. She turned to one of the servants. “Get a sealable chest!”

Once the chest had been brought, they put the bag inside, but it was too late. The seeping ooze had come out of the side and splatted on the floor.

Robert startled the servants as he shot a small burst of fire into the gunk, immediately igniting it. Everyone watched in silence as the goo writhed before burning out. The servants whispered amongst themselves as they took great care of the chest. Thomas heard one of them nervously say the phrase ‘fire-mage’.

"Take it to major, see if he knows what to do with it," Seras commanded the servants. They hurried off with their new parcel to deliver. “And make sure it doesn’t touch anyone,” she added before they were out of earshot.

"Can’t believe you were walking around with that nasty shit in your bag." Seras got up from her chair, screeching the wood across the floor. "Are we ready then?"

Thomas, following her lead, separated from the table.

Seras and Thomas put on their armour, adorned their weapons, then gathered outside. Seras was wearing a bright steel set of heavy armour, decorated with red fabric covering any gaps. A kite shield, decorated with a lion sigil, was positioned on her back over two double-sided axes.

They arrived at the guard post. It was little more than a construct of wood stuck together with bits of scaffolding. The guard’s outpost was situated on the wall, around and including a stone staircase that lead up to a group of guards looking out into the distance. The grey stone wall stood thirty feet tall, well put together, and as Thomas, Seras and Robert walked to the top, they could see the light of s rising sun blind them and turn the stone of the wall into a silvery sheen.

The guards were called to attention. A few of them clad in armour like Seras’s, some in what appeared to be of a lower-tier set of steel with less of an intricate design and no rim around the lion insignia that seemed to represent this branch. Others bore a different leather setup, still trimmed in red but more maneuverable. They all took a knee at the address of Seras, their captain.

“These sorry excuses for human beings are my new personal recruits. I want you to treat them like the shits they are until they show a modicum of promise.”

“Any reports, Sargent?”

A man spoke up from the crowd. He didn’t look as battle ready as the rest of them, but a scar over his chin and a well-muscled stature suggested he had seen his fair share of combat. “Well, the scouts have found fewer goblin and non-goblin threats. But some have said the goblins are.. more organized.”

“Could they be planning something?” Thomas asked.

The sergeant looked at him with a puzzled expression. “They are goblins boy, they don’t plan.”

Seras looked at Thomas and back to the sergeant, slightly annoyed. “If they are more organized, we need to be more vigilant, they could be being controlled by a rogue mage. We can’t take any chances.

I’ll leave tonight and scout the maze.”

There was silent affirmation.

“Dismissed,” Seras announced. The guards went back to what they were doing, a few walking off whilst others took position along the wall.

Seras called out to a lone straggler. “Horatio.”

The guardsman straightened up, his obedience and military attire didn’t manage to dispel an air of kindness from him.

“Teach this degenerate how to use a bow and sword,” she said, pointing a thumb to Thomas.

“Yes captain,” the man said, saluting. He was one of the guards wearing leather armour but unlike the others had metal along one arm. A solid plate coating his right forearm. He went to pick up a bow resting on the side of the wall.

“Let's go,” he said.

Thomas followed him down the stairs, towards what seemed to be a training area. The occasional person sparring with a wooden sword or firing an arrow at a target.

Horatio picked up one of the wooden training swords and threw another to Thomas. He took a low fighting stance, holding out his plated arm and sword respectively like sword and shield. Thomas took more of a fencer’s stance, putting his sword forward and his left hand back.

A memory of fencing as a boy passed through his mind. He instinctively felt that defending then attacking was faster than attacking after attacking, and as such he should not play passive or aggressive but think about his actions as he fought trying to gauge a sense of ruythem. He tried to get a reading on Horatio before the fight began.

“Show me what you’ve got,” Horatio commanded.

Thomas, taking the challenge, took a stance as a fencer, getting an inquisitive look in return. He dove in, as Horatio went to defend against the strike. Instead of letting his stick be batted out the way Thomas had avoided Horatio's stick and looped his stick around it finishing with his pointing towards Horatio's face.

Taken aback, Horatio shouted, “Hit me!” Then he backed away for the start of the new round.

Thomas did the same again and Horatio similarly went to block but moving his stick to where his opponents had left, again meaning Thomas managed to get his stick pointing at Horacio’s face.

“Hit me, or are you trying to insult me?” Horatio shouted.

“Ok man, but you asked for it,” said Thomas.

Horatio went back to a fighting position, and Thomas did the same, trying to bring his fancing style into the art of war.

Horatio let him carry out the same manoeuvre, but when Thomas went to jab into his face, Horatio had moved to the side, letting Thomas’s sword brush past his head and over his shoulder. Horatio grabbed the outstretched arm, pulling Thomas forward so he could knee him in the chest.

He stood over Thomas as he got up from the ground. “You fight like you’re playing for first blood. A goblin won’t stop its momentum just because you poked it.”

Wheezing, Thomas said, "Fair point."

Thomas and Horatio kept fighting for a while longer; blocks, feints, painful hits and the occasional dodge. Thomas was slowly gaining and soon they were on equal ground. After taking another hit around the back of his head, he lost technique and dove in.

Horatio stepped forward past Thomas’s guard with his heel facing away. Then, he spun on his heel with incredible speed, elbowing Thomas in the chest and winding him again. Getting the lower centre of gravity, he then grabbed Thomas’s extended arm and threw him over his shoulder to the ground. Winded and on the floor, Thomas struggled to catch his breath.

Staring at his opponent on the floor, Horatio held out his hand and said “I hit you because I respect you.” He pulled him up.

“Yeah, I feel all this respect...it’s great,” Thomas replied, still catching his breath.

Back and forth they attacked each other, countering moves and learning new techniques. They experimented with different angles, putting in all their effort and working up a mean sweat.

“So, having Seras as your captain, that must be a bit rough right?” Thomas asked.

Horatio winced at the question but still smiled in reply. “Two weeks ago, I was a prisoner of raiders. They knocked me out and dragged me to a camp. When I was held there, I saw my brother killed. The captain was the one that saved me, she risked her life...One of my greatest memories is the sight of her making the bandit fucker choke on his own blood. We are not just guards here, we are family.”

Thomas rubbed the side of his head, feeling he had misspoken.

They moved onto archery shortly after. As Thomas lined up his shot, he focused on posture and aligning the shot, firing one after another with long breaks in between. Horatio had him work on speed, trying to shoot multiple shots as fast as possible. He showed Thomas it was faster to hold the arrows in his hand than take them from the quiver for every shot.

Horatio showed him how to fire a bow.

“Focus a single shot, hold your breath, without having empty or full lungs, just relaxed and still in the breath you are breathing.”

After enough time passed Thomas was good at hitting the target. He was just taking too much time and needed to do it more instinctually.

Taking the bow off of him Horatio showed how outclassed Thomas was, quickly firing three shots before the first one even landed, and all into the centre of the target.

“Well, that’s bullshit,” Thomas exclaimed.

“You learn fast!” Said Horatio. “I’m sure you could do that if you put in the effort.”

By the time Thomas had finished, he noticed the notifications that had built up:

Calibrations complete:

Congratulations, you have learnt the skill snipe shot.

Congratulations, you have learnt the skill multi-shot.

Congratulations, you have learnt the medium blade technique feint. Advanced calibration capable at higher system levels.

Congratulations, you have learnt the technique fluid dodge.

When Thomas thought about what he had learnt it felt as though the muscle memory of what he had learned had rapidly developed, as if he had practiced what he was taught for months. He knew how to dodge as if his movements were like the wind; he could block out everything from his mind and focus his shots on a single target dramatically increasing his aim. He knew the exact place to put an arrow into his bow, or the intricacies of combat as if following the momentum of his attacker.