While Nigel was showing us his magic skills, Orthok had retrieved a wooden box from the cart that contained cooking utensils and dishes. He took off the lid of the box and turned it over, turning it into a cutting board. The hunter began cutting the birds, which the boys had made ready for cooking, into large pieces and throwing them into the cooking pot, which was already hanging from a kind of tripod over the fire. Next to it, an onion and the mushrooms Bob and Tim had gathered were waiting to be sliced as well. It was then that I realized how hungry I was again by now and was looking forward to dinner.
This anticipation was abruptly interrupted, however, when the sergeant called me and the brothers over and announced weapons practice. Each of us took a long wooden stick from the wagon; Rieg already had one of these in his hands. The three of us lined up in front of the sergeant and he began to show us thrusts and defensive movements that we had to repeat. When he was sure we had memorized the five basic exercises, he ordered us to continue and stood next to Orthok.
The two of them had a half-loud conversation while we stabbed at invisible enemies and blocked their imaginary blows. Rieg kept an eye on us, occasionally shouting instructions like, “Faster, Jason! Want your opponent to take a nap while he waits for you to hit him?” or “Lower, Bob! You need to protect your legs!”. It didn’t seem like the brothers were doing this for the first time; some practice was already evident.
After a while I started to sweat, my muscles complaining about the unfamiliar movements, but we kept going. Only when I finally got out of breath did the long-awaited command to stop come. It wasn’t over yet, though. The sergeant stood in front of us again and told us to attack him. Tim stopped in the middle, Bob and I moved toward the instructor from the sides with our staffs held out to encircle him. As if on command, we thrust forward with the staffs, Bob aiming for the head, Tim for the body, and I trying to get the legs. The sergeant let his staff whirl once. Like a fan, he swept our staffs to the side and then, with lightning speed, plunged the end of it into the pit of Tim’s stomach. Tim doubled over in pain, while Rieg stood nonchalantly and grinned cheekily at us. “Is that the best you can do, girls?”
Bob snorted angrily. He aimed the end of his staff menacingly at Rieg’s face again and I grabbed mine closer to the bottom. As Bob feinted a lunge, I lunged and struck at the instructor’s legs with my staff parallel to the ground, but he easily skipped my weapon. Bob continued to feign jabs to the midsection of his body and head, but Rieg did not react and just watched him intently. However, when I tried to stab him in the side, he violently knocked my staff tip to the ground. The blow was so strong that I could barely hold the staff. Bob took advantage of the distraction to finally strike, but the sergeant dodged the attack with ease, striking back and sweeping Bob off his feet.
“You should pay attention to the opponent’s body stance,” the instructor lectured us. “If the thrust is real, the weight shifts differently than if it’s a feint, you can tell! Another round?” Bob, who was just getting back up, groaned and rubbed his shins where the blow had hit him. At that moment, Orthok tapped the cooking pot with his spoon, signaling that dinner was ready. When the sergeant saw our hopeful looks, he smiled carelessly. “All right, you wimps, that’s enough for today. But remember, that was just a little taste of boot camp. The instructors there aren’t as kind-hearted as I am.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
We stowed the staffs in the wagon, each took a spoon and a piece of bread, and sat in a circle around the campfire. Orthok filled clay bowls with stew and passed them to us. Soon, everyone was fed and making do with the food. The stew was very hot, but tasted wonderful. In addition to the mushrooms, the hunter had put in the grits, so the concoction was quite thick and filling. It wasn’t long before the scratching of spoons on the bottom of the bowl could be heard. Fortunately, the saucepan was big enough, so it was still enough for the second round.
The sergeant threw away the bird bone he had gnawed on and burped loudly. “Thanks for the cooking, Orthok! Nigel and Jason, you do the dishes. Tim and Bob take the first watch, Orthok and Jason the second, Nigel and I the third. All clear so far?” As murmurs of agreement rang out, he stood up and moved away toward the edge of the forest.
Along with Nigel, I gathered the dirty dishes into the cooking pot and we made our way to the creek. Away from the fire, it was already dark. I turned away from the fire and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Should I carry a burning branch as an improvised torch? No sooner had I finished that thought than a sphere about the size of a tennis ball appeared in front of me at head height, emitting faint light. “Wow!”, I exclaimed in surprise. “There are certain advantages to being a mage,” he grinned proudly.
As we continued to walk, the sphere moved at a fixed distance in front of us, illuminating our path. The light wasn’t particularly bright, but it was enough to make out everything within 5-6 yards. Curious, I switched to magic sight. In the center of the sphere, one of those symbols was visible again, but it looked different from the ones I had seen earlier with the fire spells. A barely visible white thread connected the symbol to Nigel’s magic core. “How did you do that?”, I asked the apprentice. “I didn’t hear you do any magic at all.”
“The ball of light is the absolute basic spell,” he said, superiorly. “It’s the first thing you learn in magic training. It’s so simple you don’t even have to say anything, just a thought is enough.” Aha, I thought, interesting. But the symbol is there, just like the other spells. So why did one have to speak there? Or... maybe one didn’t have to? I really needed some time to calmly consider and arrange the information I had gathered about magic use.
I led Nigel to the shore, where there was good access to the water. There, we washed the dishes and scrubbed the cooking pot clean with sand and grass. I was glad to have the magic light, it certainly wouldn’t have been so easy with a torch. We carried everything back to camp and put the dishes back in the wooden box, which we stowed in the wagon along with the cooking pot. Then we got blankets from the wagon and looked for a place to lie down near the fire. Rieg and Orthok already seemed to be asleep, the guys on watch were sitting next to the wagon so the fire wouldn’t disturb their indulgence, whispering.
I spread my blanket on the ground, lay down on one half and covered myself with the other. Well, in terms of camping gear, this world definitely had some catching up to do. At least I had a blanket and a fire, unlike my first night in the woods. With these thoughts, I fell asleep.