Eli grunted as he swung Bash overhand to crash against his opponent’s leather helm. Still, there was no reaction outside a slight shift of the material. He didn’t let it discourage him as he pivoted on one foot to bring his staff back around with a shot towards the kidneys, but his opponent barely moved in place.

“Enough!” Tanca shouted from outside the training circle.

Eli sighed in relief as he stepped back, pulling off his leather training helmet and wiping away the sweat with one forearm. Tucking one end of Bash under an armpit, he shook his hands a few times as the vibrations from his strikes had left both hands tingling.

His opponent stood frozen, showing little reaction to his repeated blows. Looking like nothing more than a wooden mannequin set on top of a broad circular base, it was decked out in full leather and cloth training armor. The wooden dummy’s featureless face seemed to almost mock Eli’s attempts at smashing it to pieces, and he’d only managed to knock its helmet askew while shifting the chest piece slightly around its torso.

“That’s one tough dummy,” he said with a grimace.

Tanca chortled nearby as he approached him with a slow shake of his head. “Trying to crush an armored stonewood dummy isn’t likely to work unless you have overwhelming strength. You’re more likely to knock it back than actually do much damage.”

Eli looked around as he wiped again at his face with the other sleeve, leaving behind another smear of dampness. He and Tanca were in the Gifted Hall he’d observed the other night during his trek around the manor. After breakfast, Tanca had been nice enough to offer a tour, which progressed into a training session.

The three-story stone building was situated well within the fort’s stout walls. Tanca had described it as a secondary staging and defense point in case of an attack, and those who couldn’t make it within the manor’s walls could find refuge in the Gifted Hall. Two large wooden metal-reinforced doors protected the main entryway – metal brackets in the door sat ready to hold the heavy planks resting nearby.

The interior was an expansive open space with a vaulted ceiling soaring ten meters overhead. Large wooden planks intersected a massive single squared-off wooden beam at right angles, almost like the ribs and spine of a gigantic creature. The inside should have been dark with the lack of large windows, but the series of lightwells as big as his head sat high in the walls throwing off enough illumination to light up the open floor below to an almost noon-like brightness. The hall’s layout was roughly separated into a few different areas. Entering from the front, the left side of the entryway had a small section with limited seating, as if for impromptu social interactions or eating between training sessions.

On the right was a walled-off area with a separate working space where the staff worked on various administrative tasks. A sizeable wooden board was outside the offices with slips of colored paper pinned in neat little rows. Eli had looked at a few of the simple pieces of paper during their tour, with each one recording some sort of task with clear goals and compensation.

Task: Collect 200 moonrose

Compensation: 2 Silver

Restrictions: No damage to bulbs with attached stalks intact.

Return items to the Gifted Hall office.

The quests varied from the simple flower fetch quest up to hunting something called a salachar. Given that its head would bring 20 silver while collecting hundreds of flowers paid a fraction of the price, he had to imagine the salachar was either rare or dangerous. He’d seen some folks browsing through the papers before removing a few and disappearing into the nearby offices.

Beyond the entryway was a large open training space with a series of sand-filled circles. The largest was set near the front with a fifteen-meter-wide ring that had a meter-wide band of springy wood material marking the training area’s boundary. On one wall were racks filled with various weapons and armor. Around two other sides were bleachers and seats set up to watch the action, with the final side left open, leading even further into the building. Two smaller training areas with the same sand and wood floors were at the very back of the building, but the circles were only a few meters in diameter. Portable walls set into hooks in the floor further sectioned off these smaller zones. A few side rooms led off from the main area for storage, additional armor, and supplies.

The whole building was bustling with late morning activity, with the central training circle currently occupied by a few elites. Like Eli, they were in padded armor as they happily bashed away while a serious looking woman in her own armor looked on. A small group of children sat with some older teens on the nearby bleachers as they laughed or chatted while watching the adults beat on each other.

He and Tanca were in one of the smaller training spaces in the back since they didn’t need the larger space for their one-on-one session. Plus, Eli didn’t want the audience the larger area provided as he was well aware of just how little he knew about weapons fighting. With his limited training from the war, he’d do okay with a firearm, but hand weapons were another story. He didn’t need everyone to watch as he embarrassed himself.

His day-shift guards, Ethen and Jurg, were standing near one of the portable walls outside the small training area. He’d tried talking to them, but they barely gave more than one-word answers, nods, and headshakes to communicate. He had cracked a few jokes to loosen them up, but like Reva, he’d had no luck so far. If it wasn’t for Yi’s example from the other shift, Eli might have thought the guards were all trained to emotionless standards. Then again, Yi might be the outlier.

“Do you think I could borrow one of these dummies?” he asked Tanca. “I have some theories I want to test out, but they could be dangerous to try up here.”

“Wolf gave you access to his underground rooms?” Tanca asked with raised eyebrows. “Huh, he must like you. Only a few are allowed down there.” He shrugged. “I don’t see why not. In fact, you can have this one. I can help you move it down there later as Wolf wouldn’t like having unauthorized people lug it down into a restricted area.”

“Not a problem,” he said with a laugh as he walked up to the dummy and touched it with one finger. It vanished, leaving only a circular impression in the fine sand where its base used to be.

“Demon’s teeth!” Tanca exclaimed as his eyes went from the empty space back to Eli. “You have a storage artifact? How many secrets do you have, man?”

He laughed at Tanca’s wide-eyed expression and couldn’t help liking the mountain of a man. Tanca should have been intimidating with his height and massive size with shoulders that had to brush against most doorways. Yet, there was a lightheartedness to him, with laughter seemingly just below the surface. He was much like Aarav with his love of fighting, testing himself, and lack of machismo that Eli usually associated with many fighters.

Tanca’s surprise shifted into a frown, and his eyes darted over to Ethen and Jurg, who wore shocked expressions. Both guards took a couple of hesitating steps towards the fine sand as if to get a better view. They stopped at the look, and their professional faces returned a moment later, though their eyes stared at Eli with renewed measurement.

Tanca stepped close to him and spoke quietly so not even Eli’s guards could hear him. “Eli, you should be more careful. Storage artifacts are more legends than everyday items. Some might take extreme measures to acquire one.”

“Shit,” he muttered as he felt his face flush. He looked into the central area, breathing a sigh of relief that no one seemed to notice his mistake – the portable walls had saved him from further embarrassment.

Damn it, and Lugh warned me that a DS was rare on Lurra. I fucked up again.

“My mistake, but I’ll try to remember that. Thanks, Tanca.”

Tanca’s chuckle reappeared as he slapped him on the back. “Just get yourself an everyday pouch and throw a few things in there – walking around without one already looks strange. I thought you liked to travel light – I never imagined you were hiding such an object.”

“Yeah, good call.”

“Come on,” Tanca continued before gesturing towards the small side room where Eli had picked up his padded armor. “I have to get back to the manor, but we can stop by my rooms where I have a spare bag. Once this lockdown is over, we can head down to the village to find you one more to your taste.”

He and Tanca left the Gifted Hall with Ethen and Jurg trailing less than ten minutes later. As they crossed the open space towards the manor, a shout went up from the gatehouse. Tanca stopped immediately, with Eli glancing over as well. One of the four-meter heavy doors was pulled open as two warriors pulled on a couple of handles set into the thick reinforced wood. A few more guards stood nearby but out of the way as the door was fully opened. Moments later, a person in a red and white checkered outfit ran through the door and right up to the manor’s front door, which was already open for the rushing individual.

“What in the world?” he muttered at the strange activity.

“Alliance messenger,” Tanca said to him as he watched.

“Huh,” he said as they walked through the same door the messenger had just used. He guessed the message might involve him and his portal question, but it could just as easily be about Dara’s uncle.

Tanca led them up a flight of stairs and down a short hallway – the walls had scenes of warfare and warriors in fancy armor wielding impossibly gigantic weapons. Tanca opened a door, and Eli followed again while his two guards stopped outside. Inside was a small room with two more doorways and a small bench along one wall.

He was still thinking about the hurried messenger as he found the whole Duarte situation bizarre. What could the guy have thought would happen when he turned on his niece? Would the local government actually do anything? He had seen his own world’s version of justice – the rich and powerful seemed to live by different rules and laws.

“Do you think it’s about Duarte?” he asked as they walked inside.

“Duarte?” Tanca replied with a frown. “The messenger? Yes, it could be, though we’ll find out eventually, one way or another. One moment while I find that spare bag.”

Tanca disappeared through the entryway on the right. A minute later, there was a muffled sound as if some items were thrown about before Tanca returned with a grin and handed Eli a pale leather bag.

“Nice,” he said with a smile as he looked it over. It had a wide flap over the top with a metal buckle holding it closed. There was another loop of leather sewn into the back. Undoing the simple prong buckle, he opened the top to find a fabric-lined interior.

“Well, I hope they found Duarte,” he continued, the mystery bugging him. “What do you think would happen to him? Do you think the Alliance will hold Duarte responsible? It’s Dara’s word against his, right?”

Tanca’s grin vanished as he stepped closer – almost looming over Eli even though they were nearly the same height. “Eli, I realize you’re obviously an Outlander, so you probably don’t understand what you’re saying,” he said. His usual humor had vanished as his eyes bored in with a promise of potential violence. “Keeping that in mind, shut your damned ignorant mouth before I shut it for you.”

Eli almost dropped the bag in surprise as he took in the flat look thrown his way. “Sorry. You’re right; I don’t understand,” he said quietly. He wished he could melt into the ground as his face heated up again. Swallowing his pride, he continued, “Just so I don’t make a bigger ass of myself in the future, can you please explain, Tanca?”

The giant man seemed to almost deflate, his face relaxing, as he exhaled with a big sigh. He looked at Eli for a moment longer before almost grudgingly muttering, “Follow me,” before disappearing through the left doorway. With some surprise, he followed.