Morgan rifled through the bookcase, trying to figure out if any of the volumes were worth anything. He and Issa were in a room that must have been one of the officer or instructor quarters. They’d had to fight a shimmering, luminescent man wearing ghostly pajamas and wielding a longsword with deadly skill. They’d been able to take him easily enough, two on one, but he’d definitely known how to fight, leaping out of his bed and striking at them with alarming deftness. Morgan and Issa had both gained another level and improved their coordination with each other a great deal over the last several hours. Morgan had switched back to his estoc once they’d gotten into closer hallways, using its piercing, thrusting nature to much greater effect in the tight spaces than he would have been able to with his long, cleaving sword.

They’d fought maybe a dozen “students” in the hallways and barracks or dormitories, and he and Issa had put together some very effective strategies for quick victories against solo enemies, which had made up the majority of their encounters. Issa would Haste herself and take their opponent’s flank, and they’d take turns punching holes in their enemies. Stronger opponents or small groups of enemies were a bit trickier, but they’d been up to the task so far; the only spell Morgan had used regularly was Vortex Lance, always saving his Energy Drain for an emergency that hadn’t yet come. He felt like his Vortex Lance was getting faster and more accurate, and he wondered if it would evolve out of its basic form soon.

“These books don’t seem like anything special, but I’m going to take them anyway. I have plenty of room in my pouch, and my library needs content!” He scooped the books into his pouch, and Issa snorted, digging around in the nightstand near the vanquished officer’s bed.

“Nothing much here - some sort of prayer necklace, but I feel bad taking something like that. It doesn’t seem valuable anyway.” She closed the drawer, and they moved back into the hallway. This had been the last door in the long corridor filled with a score of doors leading to sleeping quarters. So far, they’d gotten a lot of fighting experience but very little loot - a few pouches of Energy beads, some nice knives, books of questionable value, and quite a few pieces of art. They hadn’t run into any “boss” type foes like the Drillmaster and no reward chests. “We should go back to that junction; I think the other direction leads to a mess hall and kitchen.”

“Yeah, let’s go.” Morgan led the way back toward the hallway they hadn’t explored. Issa had said she remembered seeing chimney’s outside in that direction and guessed that it was where the kitchens would be. The way the encounters seemed scripted, in that no reinforcements ever came, and once they cleared an area, it stayed clear, made it impossible to feel like the place was “real” for Morgan.

The students and instructors they fought never spoke and seemed a lot less tangible than the people waiting outside the keep had been. Morgan wondered what the basis for these enemies was - did they come from the mind of the Swordmaster? What did it say about the Swordmaster that the people outside were so much more fleshed out than the students and instructors inside? He supposed that wasn’t totally true—the Drillmaster had been quite substantial. Morgan theorized that the more substantial “ghosts” in this place held a more prominent spot in the Swordmaster’s memories. Maybe those people outside were people he’d had duels with or known closely in his life. Perhaps these students were just some of the thousands that came through his citadel, and he didn’t get to know many of them.

They walked quietly up the hallway toward the double wooden doors that they had yet to explore through. Morgan held his ear to the door, but he couldn’t hear anything, which wasn’t surprising. The enemies they’d managed to surprise, while they might be going through some motions of their old lives, were very quiet about it, never speaking. He gripped the door handle and gently depressed the latch, and pulled it open an inch to peek through. Six long, wooden tables filled a low ceilinged hall. They were all empty except the farthest one from the door, where a woman sat, silently dipping a spoon into a large bowl and lifting the contents to her lips. She was a Shadeni with long black hair and dark, furrowed brows. Morgan had never seen someone look so angry while eating.

“One woman sitting at the far end of the room,” he said softly, closing the door and looking at Issa. She nodded and shrugged. Morgan didn’t know what he’d expected; they weren’t exactly trying to sneak past encounters, so he shrugged also and pulled the door open. They stepped into the mess hall, and the Shadeni woman sat up straight, shoving her bowl away from herself, glaring at Morgan and Issa through narrowed eyes.

“Intruders? This far into the keep? So, you found the students wanting, hmm? Perhaps Swordmistress Jinna can regain the honor of the school.” One moment she was sitting and speaking in clipped, sharp words, and then she was standing with two short, narrow swords in her hands. What bothered Morgan was that he hadn’t seen her move or even heard the chair scoot back. Issa flinched, and he heard and felt her Battle Chant start to pour forth from her. “Two fledglings, hmm? No matter, I’ve faced worse odds.”

The woman’s swords weren’t long, but her limbs were. She had to be a match for Morgan in height, though she was far more lithe. She wore a black leather vest, but her pants were as bright red as her flesh, and at first, Morgan thought she wasn’t wearing any—talk about distracting. He shook his head and gripped Heartspark in a short guard, the pommel near his hip, the blade held out and up between him and the woman who’d called herself Jinna. Issa slowly circled to the left, hoping to flank Jinna, as they had so many opponents before.

Jinna glanced at Issa, then at Morgan, and then a half-smile quirked up one side of her mouth, exposing a single long canine. She hummed a strange, buzzing sound, and then Morgan was looking at three different exact copies of the original swordswoman. They all had that same smirk, and, at first, Morgan thought they were just mirror images—illusions. Then the one on the left jumped over the table and charged at Issa, and the other two darted toward him.

Morgan took several sidesteps away from Issa and began to channel Azure Burst—he wasn’t going to hold back against such a foe. As the two Jinnas closed in on him, each trying to split his guard, he unleashed the burst, and they both reacted by bracing their two shortswords in front of them. Morgan’s bubble of blue fire poured over and around them, upturning and blackening one of the tables, but the two swordswomen were unscathed.

“Fuck!” Morgan reached out with Energy Drain, feeling for the currents of Energy flowing within them, and almost had his body perforated by flurries of thrusts coming from both copies of Jinna. He swept his long estoc in an arc, trying to make room while grabbing hold of the Energy coursing through both his opponents. He managed to drive the one on the left back, but the other got two hard stabs through after his sweeping cleave passed her by. One sank into his side between two of his scales, and the other raked along the back of his neck. Morgan growled and yanked on the threads of Energy he’d grasped, and the two swordswomen wailed together, going pale and falling to the ground, writhing. Morgan looked to his left and saw that the other Jinna had pressed Issa back into the far corner and was landing blow after blow through her guard—she greatly outmatched even Issa’s speed and skill.

Judging by the impact his Energy Drain had on the two Jinnas that had attacked him, Morgan thought they must be copies. He yanked even harder, willing his Core to spin and pull, and he felt the hot white Energy of the spell unwind and flow into him, repairing his flesh and completely dispelling the two copies. Morgan pointed his estoc at Jinna’s back and began channeling Vortex Lance as he stepped toward the two combatants. Three heartbeats later, he unleashed the spell, and the ringing, hissing report of the Energy bolt tearing through the air and slamming into her back echoed through the low-ceilinged hall. Jinna cried out and stumbled forward. Issa had seen Morgan’s spell charging up, and she was ready. She stepped to the side and drove her rapier through Jinna’s exposed flesh, just under her black leather vest. The blade dug a deep furrow, and as Jinna stumbled further, Issa yanked it sideways, eviscerating the swordswoman.

Issa fell back, leaning against the wall, clutching her stomach and panting. Her face was alarmingly devoid of color, her usual pale blue skin disturbingly missing the pigment. Morgan charged up to her and saw that crimson blood was leaking like a punctured soda bottle through her chain shirt and around her fingers. Just as he got there and pushed his hand against the wound, he felt the Energy stream into him from the vanquished Swordmistress. Issa exhaled heavily as the torrent of Energy poured into her. Some color came back into her cheeks, and the flow of blood slowed down.

“Fuck, Issa; I think she stabbed your abdominal artery. Drink this!” Morgan produced one of the Miracle Elixirs they’d gotten from the chest in the courtyard and pulled the cork with his teeth, putting the bottle to her lips. She drank it down, and Morgan immediately felt the heat under his palm as it went to work, finishing up the repairs to her flesh. Issa sighed heavily and relaxed against the wall.

“Morgan, everything was going black; I thought it was the end.” Tears started to leak out of her eyes, and she took short, gasping breaths. Morgan pulled the bottom of her chain shirt up and looked at her stomach. She had a Y-shaped white scar, but there was no other evidence of the wound. He stood up and pulled her into a hug.

“Shh. You’re alright. That was close, though - I didn’t know she’d stabbed you that badly! I’m such an idiot! Why didn’t I put Guard Ally on you?”

“She was so fast, Morgan! I didn’t know it either. I felt a stinging punch and thought she’d just pierced my armor a little. She stabbed me a half-dozen times in a few seconds! Morgan, I was like a child before her!”

“Well, that’s why we work as a team. Her copies were spell creations; when I pulled out their Energy, they just dissolved. She couldn’t handle us both by herself.” Morgan looked to where Jinna had fallen to see if she’d left anything behind. He was hoping to get a look at her swords, but they had disappeared along with her corpse. He walked toward the back of the room where she’d been sitting, pulling Issa along by her hand. She was still shaken but was coming back to herself. “Look, Issa! A chest on the table where she was sitting.”

“Thank you, Ancestors! I didn’t almost bleed out for nothing!” She managed a half-hearted smile, and Morgan squeezed her hand. They opened the chest in their usual manner; once again, there was no trap. This one was a bit smaller than the others and more square than rectangular. Otherwise, it had a similar design. Inside was a supple leather vest much like the one Swordmistress Jinna had been wearing. Morgan held it up, and though it might look alright on a man, he thought it would suit Issa more. The leather armor would fully cover her torso, with a high neck but no sleeves at all. It was wonderfully smooth and supple, and a true master had done the stitchwork. More impressive was the silky, peach-colored lining that was absolutely saturated with silvery, stitched runes.

Morgan helped Issa shrug out of her blood-stained, ripped chainmail shirt. She made him turn around while she used a canteen and her old shirt to scrub the blood off her chest and belly. He found this rather endearing, considering he’d seen her naked plenty of times, so he dutifully studied the far wall while she cleaned up and slipped into her new vest. “Oh, this is amazing! It’s so comfortable, and it has a lot of enchantments. It self-cleans and repairs; it hardens to absorb damage, and even constricts around wounds to staunch bleeding.”

“Damn, almost like it was tailor-made to be exactly what you needed, eh?” Morgan looked at her in the tight leather vest, glad to see it didn’t leave any vulnerable gaps at her waistline. “Well, either it’s a lucky coincidence, or, like the scroll I got, it was made for you.” He shrugged and looked into the chest. The only other item was a black, felt pouch about the size of his fist. Morgan lifted it out and realized it had a single heavy object within it. He opened the drawstring and revealed a crystal orb with swirling smoke and tiny specks of flickering light moving about within it. He immediately felt a pull from the orb, originating with a deep resonance in his Core. “What have we here?”