Painin found himself standing in front of the oaken door once more and with a deep sigh reached out and rapped upon the door. In his head, he counted to 20 slowly and hearing nothing rapped again harder this time. Once more the door opened of its own accord this time fully swinging open exposing the room within. Painin moved to the doorway and called out.
“Battle Mage are you here?”
A noise came from the room that he couldn’t make out, so he stuck his head into the room and saw something that he had never seen before. In the center of the room, a large circle lay on the floor with a middle-aged man kneeling outside of the circle applying paint to it.
“Battle Mage…”
“Shhhhh!” Replied the man without taking his eyes off his work. Painin stood there and watched him apply more paint before he finally put the brush into the bowl and sat up. Getting up to his feet he placed the bowl onto a table before walking around the circle and pouring something into his hand. He mumbled something and tossed what looked like sand into the middle of the circle a small explosion happened, and purple lightning shot around the circle illuminating all kinds of shapes inside it.
Painin jumped back as the floor in the middle of the circle began to turn into some kind of liquified silver metal. The liquid spread out from the center and stopped at the circle which now glowed with a purple light that seemed to pulse. The man stood there with his arms pointing towards the circle as he recited what sounded like gibberish to Painin. An invisible hot wind seemed to come from up out of the circle and it smelled of rotten eggs while it blew their hair and clothes around.
“Come forth and heed my call… arise.” He called and the shiny metal began to move almost as if something was trying to push its way out from under it. A bulge began to form in the metal until it reached about 3 feet tall and suddenly it almost popped and there suddenly stood a 2.5-foot tall little rough rock man. Painin just stood there in shock as the man began to speak more gibberish and the little rock person turned its red eyes towards him. It answered him in the same gibberish and motioned with its arms.
“Grab me the bottle on the table made of rock.” The man called over his shoulder and it took a couple of seconds for Painin to realize that he was talking to him. Looking around he grabbed the bottle off the table and was surprised by the weight of the empty bottle. Without a word, the man took the bottle and tossed it toward the little rock man who caught it and placed it on the ground before him. The little man-shaped rock grabbed ahold of its left arm and twisted breaking it free from its body and red-hot material began to pour out and into the bottle.
As the bottle filled it began to glow a deep orange color and once filled the little man pushed the arm back against his body and it reattached without showing that it had ever been apart. The man said something more in the gibberish before tossing a small sack towards the Rockman who slowly began to sink through the metal floor and disappear once more.
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The circle stopped glowing and the metal flowed back into the center of the ring and returned to sand. With a sudden wave of his hand and more gibberish a cold gust of wind shot forth and blew the remains of the circle away leaving only the bottle on the floor which he carefully picked up and replaced upon the table. The man turned to face Painin for the first time and smiled at him
“Want some water?” He asked filling a simple metal cup from a pitcher and offering it to Painin. Painin took a drink and found himself finishing the cup of liquid without stopping. He stared at the cup and marveled at how amazing the water tasted. The man drank from his own cup taking small sips as he looked at Painin.
“I am Battle Mage Pierce. You must be Painin, Commander Novil told me that I could expect you. First time ever seeing a rock elemental?”
“Yes… sir.”
“Don’t call me sir at least not in here. It makes me think that my father is standing behind me.” He took another sip from his cup.
“What did you see?”
“Sir…” The Battle Mage stopped him with a raised finger.
“Master Pierce, I saw you painting the floor and then you tossed sand into it and everything lit up with purple lightning.” He answered correcting his mistake.
“You saw purple light? How interesting especially with one so young. Tell me could you understand what we were saying?”
“No s… Master.
“Tell me the first time you came here why did you stare at the chair that was covered in books?”
“I’m not sure sir there just seemed to be something wrong about it and then the wind started up.”
“It was no simple bit of magic that illusion spell, so the fact that you even noticed it is quite interesting. Tell me was anyone in your family a magic user of any sort?”
“No Master.”
“Very interesting.”
They spent the remainder of their time together going over what duties the Battle Mage expected him to perform and when he would perform them. Painin left the room feeling confused as the Battle Mage was nothing like he had expected him to be at all. At least he was nothing like how the storybooks explained them. While all very scary the summoning as the Battle Mage had called it was also very exciting as well.
Walking down the hall his mind spun with all the new details that he didn’t see the servant coming up the stairs her arms full of linens. Their crash sent the sheets into the air to fall around them and she fell heavily to the ground.
“I am so sorry! I didn’t see you!” Said Painin as he began to gather up the fallen sheets.
“Great lumbering ox! Almost put me through the wall! Now I’m going to have to rewash all of this lot!” She yelled as she regained her feet and snatched the pile away from him and proceeded to head back down the stairs mumbling to herself.
Painin felt bad as he watched her go but he was also afraid of the punishment he would receive for being late for his training with the rest of the guardsmen not on duty.
Sweat rolled down his face as he moved the practice sword through the forms, he had learned so far as other guardsmen practiced their work with weapons. The guards were required to train with multiple different types of weapons from pole arms to swords and shields. Moving the long weapons around posed a problem for him because Marki said he lacked upper body strength. So, he had him practicing his forms over and over until the wooden sword felt like it weighed 1,000 pounds and the simple act of eating with a fork left his arms screaming in agony.