Excellence is an art won by training and habituation.

Pre-Fall sage.

“Morning,” the muscular – and small – woman announced with a cheerful voice.

Johanna looked dubiously at the woman in the middle of one of the keep’s courtyards. The weather was heavily overcast, the air felt wet, and it almost looked as if it was going to rain at any moment. She’d had a wonderful breakfast, though, and now, the three of them were shuffling into the courtyard. She guessed Peter was training with the levies, as long as no one knew of his special talents.

“I’m Francesca Pfeiffer, and Warden Maistry has personally tasked me with getting you the bare minimum training in the sword, in case you need to defend yourself seriously.”

She tapped at the wolf-head pommel of the huge sword tied at her belt.

“This will be your teacher. I might not have the physical shape to get toe to toe with the enemy on the field with it, but there are few that can measure to me when it comes to knowing how to use this. So… my minimum will probably be a bit more than what anyone else would do.”

She looked at the three.

“Any question before I start checking how bad you are at fighting with a blade?”

“Yea. I’m… I’m better with a hammer. Or mace,” Tom said.

“Really?”

The woman seemed to weigh him all over, before pointing to the end of the courtyard with a quick head move.

“There’s a mace or two there. Those are training dummies, in case you didn’t guess. Show me what you got, tough guy.”

Tom crossed the courtyard, checking the barrel. He fished what looked like a medium-sized weapon with a spherical iron head. He wrapped his hand into the strap and went in front of the row of “dummies”. He hefted the weapon, feeling its weight and balance, before swinging.

Johanna thought the hit didn’t look impressive. A bare thud sound, the dummy not even moving. Tom drew back and hit again, and this time, the mace bounced down. It didn’t slip from his grasp, but he had to catch himself to avoid falling.

Francesca laughed.

“You did well… to pick an unmoving dummy. That was a rotating one? You’d be on your back, and with a bruise to boot. A tribesman would laugh at that swing, tough guy. Now, dump that useless mace, and I’ll try to show you what a real fighter does.”

Tom looked back, aggravated. Then he called out.

“Laura!”

“Tom?”

“Ready?”

“Okay.”

He raised his mace and sprinted. A second later, he’d crossed the courtyard, the mace slamming into Francesca’s side just as she tried reflexively to draw her sword. The woman was literally lifted and went down a couple of yards away, landing with a sickening crunch. Johanna could see her eyes rolling literally in her eye sockets.

Laura was already there, putting her hand on the side where Tom’s mace had hit and launched her. The swordswoman shuddered suddenly, her eyes refocusing.

“What… what was… what was that?”

“Maybe the dummy doesn’t care, but that useless mace can cave you like a sack of wheat,” Tom said, drily.

Francesca turned her head at Laura, who was still kneeling next to her.

“That’s you… doing that?”

“Fixing you. Yes.”

“A Saint. The Warden warned me, but… hell yeah. When you’re deployed on the field, they are going to love you.”

She pushed herself up, grinning.

“All the more reason to get you some defense, because a nice girl like you shouldn’t rely on big guy here.”

Laura rolled her eyes before focusing back on her. Francesca shuddered as the shock hit. Suddenly, the nice girl was… a menace. Like something coiled hidden behind her. She felt like freezing, her limbs suddenly leaden.

But Francesca Pfeiffer was made of tougher stuff than that, and she grasped Fenrir, her sword, sliding it slowly out of the scabbard. She smiled and moved forward to the saint.

Or rather, tried to. Her feet felt like they were stuck in some mud, or similar. She shuffled forward awkwardly for a step, then frowned.

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“You’re moving,” Johanna said.

Francesca turned her head toward the other girl.

“Normally, people can’t move when I stop them like that. But you do.”

“That’s you who’s doing it?” Francesca asked.

“Yes. You see, Laura and I aren’t exactly defenseless.”

Johanna smiled as she saw Pfeiffer frown. Then the woman’s gaze flickered to the side, and she did a quick curt nod. The next thing, Johanna felt a push to her side, and she turned, seeing one of the guards removing his hand after a vigorous shove. She had nearly no time before she felt something cold just under her jaw. She turned her eyes and saw Francesca, with her sword connecting to her own neck, the cold metal threatening.

“You are. One distraction and your nice little Talent won’t save you. Two smart enemies and you’re done.”

Johanna swallowed.

“Understood?” Francesca pushed.

“Understood.”

“Good,” she said, removing the sword, and sheathing it back in a smooth movement.

Johanna felt at her throat, removing her hand and finding some traces of blood on it. Laura was already there, lifting her jaw, and she thumbed across the neck.

“What was that?”

Laura turned back to the swordswoman.

“Fixing the cuts.”

“You can do that?”

“Yes. Cuts, bruises… scars.”

Johanna could see Francesca’s mind processing. Then, the maniac smiled again.

“Ooooh, that’s going to be good. My personal Saint to fix stuff from training?”

She gestured dismissively at Tom.

“Get to the side. I’ll find someone better to train you with that lump of iron if you’re more suited to it. But the girls and I need to get a proper introduction…”

Johanna and Laura exchanged bemused glances before they realized what was going to happen.

Elena Worchester was watching down in the courtyard with interest. A lot of justified interest, it turned out. The man was impressive as he charged at a speed that, from her perspective, looked entirely inhuman. No one sprinted that fast from a standing start. People tended not to take note of the talents of Heroes, as such fighting men were often called, but she was pretty sure he was in the top tiers of those. She hadn’t caught everything from the Saint’s own demonstration, Laura Donnall, but Johanna had explained most of her abilities anyway.

Of course, the Warden’s own swordmistress was a cut above anything you’d see ordinarily. Many thought she had to be an adept, at least, if not a full Hero. She was adapting quickly to the new conditions.

She’d noted that the wooden training sword hadn’t even burned with the flame that Johanna had used until she’d been ordered to shut it down. It was a bit too late to rewrite some of her mail – she’d been writing until late last evening, sending notes to the society of arcane scholars back east, and to Billy Jo, telling him that if he wanted to see a real fire archmage in action, he’d better haul ass to the north, freeze and all. She supposed she would have to write more. The flame blade was one talent that had been unique among already rare sorcerers, and every detail was good to take note of.

Pfeiffer had alternated between the two women, probably trying to gauge their skill. She shuddered, remembering her own start with the madwoman back when she’d arrived at the Maistry Keep. Her own earlier training with the swords had just served to prompt the swordmistress’ justification to amp her training.

Although she had to acknowledge she got results.

As much as the early session had Moore laugh himself silly with Tom demonstrating how his mace skills were properly working – apparently, wooden dummies didn’t take to the Slam. After all, its description mentioned inflicting “trauma”, so fake wood people apparently didn’t get traumatized. The look on their trainer had been priceless after being mauled, then fixed.

Although the Blade Whirler – a new specialization for his growing list, at 17 Agility, 16 Strength, and level 5 – had no skills to match her specialization once he got a peek at her descriptor, courtesy of Laura, which was a shame. Another aborted build, like so many, and a shame since she was obviously Strength-based.

The training session hadn’t been that interesting though, as both Laura and Johanna had been relentlessly drilled in movement and grip. By mid-day, both were barely standing up. Moore thought them strong, with the farming and scavenging and exercise, but apparently, swinging swords used different muscles or something. And a lot of endurance, the real kind rather than the sheet’s version.

However, Johanna had the afternoon free, and she’d picked the Mages of America again. She hadn’t read much yesterday, much to Moore’s dismay, but he’d started to get a peek at the way people saw and thought of mages, or “sorcerers”.

The tome was a reference work, a kind of dry compendium of facts. The chapters were numerous and very, very short, all devoted to a single sorcerer. A short bio, and an exploration of their skill or skills. Of course, it didn’t list the real details, the ones Moore had access to, but the view from the “real world” side of what the System allowed was an interesting perspective.

Plus, he had to admit, he was starved for facts. None of his four were interested in reading history, or any serious topic. Trashy novels, every time. That was the first time he’d gotten a real view of what happened and how the world operated.

He’d noted that the first mage’s bio Johanna had picked after looking at the table of contents was one Elena Worchester. Based on the description, that was almost certainly the level 8 Water Shaper that had been cross-examining Johanna. The tome proclaimed her as one of the most powerful mist sorcerers ever, despite having apparently a single skill. The extent of the Fog breath – as the locals called the Fog Cloud skill – was reported as being the largest ever measured, and reported her endurance at an hour thirty, marking her a “legendary tier 6 sorceress”, whatever that meant. He’d tried to work the math backward, and assuming she didn’t have any other skills to give her mana, that put her Empathy probably in the 20 range, not 16 as required by the specialization or skill.

Although she probably had gotten points due to practice. Johanna was getting close to increasing her own Authority, as she’d ground XP by lighting all those campfires.

Johanna had also checked a sort of index of “Talents”, where people had tried to label the skills from the System. A few names were almost correct, and some he’d had to guess. Her Flaming Blade was apparently half-legendary but with the correct name. She also had checked a skill that, upon description, looked like Laura’s Falter, listed as part of a “mind sorcerer” non-existent specialization, along with that old Detect Lies. Well, Moore couldn’t fault them for thinking those primary Fixer skills were sorcerous ones. They didn’t see the stats or skill lists, obviously.

But he also hadn’t seen any mention of Fireball or anything looking like it. There were dozens of skills like that, that either got weird names he didn't recognize or were entirely missing.

As soon as I can give her a proper ranged skill at level 5 after she switches specs…