PART I - WEAPON FITTING

Callie was absolutely exhausted, but was determined to finish her tasks and at least put some food into herself before she collapsed for the night. The Wake-up potions had been wonderful, and kept her going, but they could only do so much for her mental fatigue, and she really needed sleep.

Now, accompanied by the other four Rangers, she was leading the group towards the crafting area to meet with Vonn. Shul’an was eager to meet the retired Ranger, but the three others seemed nervous about the prospects of coming face-to-face with the Lamia, despite Callie’s assurances. Pixyl, having really nothing better to do for the moment, had decided to tag along, simply curious.

The day of training had passed quickly, almost in a blur in fact. The other Rangers were all excited to see their level-scores go up, both Thucax and Kaisess landing in the mid three-hundreds upon waking. Shul’an’s number barely moved, but because they were Bronze, and as a whole the recruits were still learning at Iron Tier, this wasn’t surprising. Reynard assured everyone that within perhaps ten days their scores would be very similar as they caught up with the Salamanderkin. Unfortunately, Callie’s number hadn’t changed at all, as she hadn’t slept due to the overnight flower adventure.

True to his word, Reynard began instruction by apologizing to the rest of the class, explaining who he was really angry with and why. He even admitted that Callie chasing Dregorio was funny as hell, and overall any dark mood remaining from his harsh reprimand the day before quickly evaporated. Callie was actually beginning to like Reynard, and in turn he seemed to have warmed to her as well. He was still strict when he needed to be, especially if someone was doing something in a way that might get someone hurt, but his expressions of humility and positive demeanor made him feel much more like a mentor, rather than an instructor.

Most of the morning had been spent learning an archery technique that Reynard called ‘rotations’. Because each skill had some quantity of maximum charges and a different recharge time, and some skills had a casting time, it was imperative to learn the most-efficient order of skill usage to keep sending as many arrows downrange as possible, without having to wait for one to finish recharging. At Iron Tier, it didn’t matter so much, as each skill only had one charge, and they all had long recharge times, the shortest being Burst Shot at an agonizing thirty seconds. Burst Shot was of situational use, though, due to it being more for disorientation, rather than causing actual damage. The good news was that higher tiers would come with more charges, faster recharging and additional new skills to weave into the sequence. Ultimately, with the correct rotation, the only thing limiting skill use would be running out of mana.

Together, they all practiced, having contests to see how many arrows they could put into a target within a certain amount of time depending on the order of casting. Reynard, in turn, demonstrated a mastery of the technique by loosing a near-endless stream of enhanced arrows, never once needing to wait for a recharge or mana, or needing to revert to a non-magical shot. Later would come more-advanced lessons on how to handle your rotation being interrupted in some form, such as needing to move or use something different in the moment for a specific circumstance. Of course, working on rotations was also a good way to practice their skills, and as the Rangers practiced, their mana efficiency with each improved, resulting in more mana available for additional castings. As in all things, practice was ultimately paramount.

Reynard also took some time to show off a few of the higher-tier spells the Ranger recruits would eventually receive at Bronze Tier, including the ability to summon a Rain of Arrows down on a targeted location and several different arrows imbued with elemental effects like fire, ice, and creating an explosion of water, which he indicated was great for dousing flames from a distance. Shul’an’s Symbiote had granted them access to all of these skills, but they had held off using any at Reynards direction. They sheepishly admitted they were eager for the rest of the recruits to hit Bronze, so they finally could let loose. Seeing these new capabilities made querying the level scores all the more exciting, and Callie once-again grumped her lack of score increase that morning.

The planted rumor of Callie’s memory loss being permanent made the rounds quickly, with many people expressing their sympathy, including Reynard. Callie used this as an excuse to figure out the moon situation, learning that this world actually had three moons. One was like the Moon back home, but a thirty-two day cycle, while the second was about forty-eight days, and the third, the smallest but brightest one, took almost four months to travel the sky before it would disappear for another four and was even able to be seen during the day. The end result was that there were very few times when there wasn’t at least one moon in the night sky, and explained the rarity of the Black Lotus flowers. As it was, the first moon was expected to begin waxing that night or the next, and the second a few days after that. The slow-moving one wouldn’t be seen for about two months yet.

Callie also learned that the closest and fastest of the moons, Roka, was named after a mythical messenger of the gods, and was sometimes called the Child Moon. The second moon was named after Roka’s mother, Venka. Also called The Mother Moon, it was said Venka kept watch over her daughter, but at a respectful distance. The third moon was quite aptly called The Father Moon, or Ohler. In the myths, Ohler’s bright, red gaze was said to watch over all, ever vigilant for dangers that might threaten his family and the people he protected below. With the timing of their orbits, it would be a while before Callie would get to see all three moons in the sky at the same time, but she found herself looking forward to the sight.

Now with her memory loss official, Callie also had a chance to talk about the passage of time without awkward stares, ultimately learning that one year in this world had four-hundred seventeen days, with an extra day made up every five years like a leap year back on Earth. This was further divided into thirteen months of four weeks, each with eight days in them. The single remaining day was called Midsummer, and would occupy a day between the second and third week of the seventh month. It was a huge holiday apparently, with the celebration generally lasting five days total, including two before and after the actual holiday. This year was doubly so, as it was a leap year and that extra day was added to the Midsummer festivities. The six-day celebration, it turned out, was to start in just over five weeks, and Jesca was absolutely giddy with excitement for its arrival, saying it was her favorite celebration.

Interestingly, hours, minutes and seconds seemed to mimic earth, with twenty-four, sixty, and sixty being the numbers for each respectively, with everyone using a twelve or twenty-four hour notation, as well as ‘morning’, ‘afternoon’, ‘evening’ and ‘night’ if speaking in a twelve-hour parlance. Overall, Callie couldn’t determine if an actual day was longer or shorter than Earth, but time felt very similar using the ‘one-mississippi’ style of timekeeping. Without a way to do a more-accurate comparison, she couldn’t be sure, ultimately deciding it was easier to just assume a day here was the same as a day back home.

Days of the week had uninspiring names, simply called Firstday through Seventhday, the latter sometimes referred to as Lastday, with Homeday being the eighth day of the week before starting over. Jesca and Reynard both provided some historical context on this, as well as other time-related names. Apparently, for centuries none of the Kingdoms had the same names or even measurements, and it was only in the last two-hundred years that a consensus had taken hold, which had the result of significantly encouraging intermingling and trade between all the factions. In time, even outlying populations, like the Mountain Ogres, adopted the same measurements.

As noon arrived, most of the recruits had gravitated to the bleacher seating for lunch, and Callie enjoyed hearing the reports from her housemates and others about how their mornings had gone. The fresh jolt of lunchtime Wake-up potion was immensely helpful in getting back on track, even if it tasted awful, and she felt ready to take on the afternoon’s training.

With significant begging from the assembled recruits, Trainer Rowani finally gave in, allowing the four Druids to give recruits, and even a couple trainers, rides around the area as one of their animal forms, Tazrok using his Brontorn while the others each assumed their rugged Guardian forms. The joyful laughs of the recruits betrayed their age, the riders regressing to that of a happy child in the moment. As for the Druids, they enjoyed the experience as well, and it was good practice for them. Callie finally got in on the action, riding Wallir’s black Dire Bear while Lena whooped it up on the back of Tazrok. It was quite fun, and seemed to bring the recruits closer together, bonding over yet another shared experience.

For the rest of the training day, Callie and the other Rangers spent some more time doing rotation drills, followed by work using their Wilderness Tracking and Stealth perks. To do that, one recruit would sneak off into the forest, while the others would take turns counting and then follow after, tracking them. Jesca, Thucax and Kaisess had excellent success in both stealth and in hunting down their quarry, partly due to their keen sense of smell, even managing to find Reynard when he decided to hide himself and up the difficulty. Shul’an had some success in hiding and using stealthy movement, but his tracking was sporadic, and managed to find someone in the allotted time only when he used mana as a boost, but without it he had no success.

Callie, on the other hand, utterly failed both at the stealth portions as well as tracking down anyone. Occasionally, if she channeled mana into Tracking, she was able to eventually find her target, but it took far longer than it should have, and she admitted to Reynard it was as much trial-and-error as anything. With her stealth skill, even when using mana, she just wasn’t very stealthy, and Reynard pointed out everyone could hear her ‘rampaging’ through the forest. To his credit, he didn’t make a crack about it being a Gnome shortcoming, saying only they would work on it more, and hopefully she would have more success when she wasn’t so tired. Jesca and Kaisess both offered to help, willing to be either the prey or the tracker if Callie and Shul’an wanted to work on it more, outside of normal training times.

Now that the training day had finally ended, a yawning Callie started down the gentle hill towards Crafting, her bow in one hand and her ragtag group of four Rangers plus Pixyl close behind. She saw someone in the sparring ring waving around a huge sword of some kind, seeming to test it for weight and balance, while another stood by, appraising carefully. Today, unlike when she had visited two days previous, the entire crafting area, both the forge and workshop, was abuzz with people working. As they approached, she quickly picked out Fizzlebek’s blue-green head and waved until she caught his attention.

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“Good afternoon, Callie; Pixyl,” the Artificer said, after running up to Callie and her party. He quickly gave her a hug like usual, before turning to the rest of the group. “Who do we have here?”

Callie quickly introduced the four Rangers, but they were largely distracted by the hustle and bustle going on around them. The heat from the forge and the noise of hammer on steel and roaring flames provided a level of chaos hard for them to ignore.

“How goes the p-p-potions?” Pixyl asked.

“Well,” Fizzlebek said, yawning. “I’ve got a group working on them, although Fullo from Logistics needed to go into Meadowglade to get more of the ingredients. It’s a several hour round-trip, so we lost a few hours waiting when we ran out of a couple. But now, we have everything we need and will work until the magic in the flowers fades.”

Callie had relayed the story of the night’s harvest to the rest of the Rangers that morning, and Shul’an in particular seemed fascinated by the Black Lotus flowers, saying he was quite jealous that Callie had witnessed a rare Lotus bloom. Once training ended and they had started walking to the forge, her companions wanted to go see the new tree that had sprouted overnight up close, and were planning to return to their cabins via that direction.

“You’re here to see Vonn?” Fizzlebek said, yawning once again, obviously as exhausted as Callie. “Your bow, right?”

Callie nodded. “I also thought it might be nice for the others to meet her, since they are all Rangers. Except for Pixyl, that is.”

Fizzlebek gestured to a shaded area on a small rise next to a tree. “It’s crazy around here today, so go wait over there out of the way, and I’ll let Vonn know you’re here.”

While they waited, they all watched the workers scurrying around and were quite startled when there was a small explosion of some kind in the workshop, coupled with a huge amount of smoke billowing from under the roof. Coughing Elves, Dwarves and a pair of Fairies stumbled out, immediately yelling at one of the Dwarves who was evidently the responsible party. Nobody seemed hurt, but a lot of papers and parts were scattered around and tempers started to rise.

Fizzlebek eventually emerged from the smoke wearing a pair of goggles and holding a twisted frame of blackened, smoking metal in a gloved hand. He tossed the wrecked item to the ground to let it cool, and then stepped in to end the arguing. The Dwarf seemed embarrassed about whatever he had done, and with Fizzlebek’s coaching, the anger quickly turned to teasing and some polite backslapping, and people started to put the chaos back together.

Distracted by the workshop, Callie didn’t notice that Vonn was approaching until Thucax let out a startled yip. The Gnoll and Jesca seemed to instinctively try to slide away, while Shul’an rose to their feet, seeming eager to meet the Lamia. The elder Ranger carried a burlap duffle over her shoulder that rattled with clanking metal and appeared to have quite some weight to it.”

“Good afternoon, Callie. I sssee you have brought friendsss?”

“Hi, Vonn. Yeah, these are the other Rangers. I thought it would be fun for them to meet you. Oh, and this is my friend Pixyl, she’s the Bladeweaver I mentioned.”

“The Demonslayer,” Vonn cooed, bowing deeply to Pixyl.” Quickly, Callie introduced the other Rangers by name, although you could see Jesca, Thucax and Kaisess were still quite nervous about the serpentine Ranger. Shul’an was unphased, and stepped out of the group to offer a hand, which Vonn took, and they clasped wrists.”

“Some time when you’re not so busy, you’ll have to tell us some fun Ranger stories,” Callie happily suggested. “I’m sure you have a lot between your time on the battlefront and as an Adventurer.”

“I cccertainly could do that. Perhapsss sssome evening after the dinner meal? It’s going to be very busssy for a few daysss, but we can find time sssoon. Maybe the evening of Homeday or next week?” Homeday, as the name suggested, was traditionally dedicated to household chores, gatherings with family and friends, and relaxing. It was observed here in camp to give everyone a chance for downtime and mental recharging, although recruits were encouraged to use half the day to work on any lessons that may need more practice on their own.

“We all look forward to it,” Callie beamed.

Vonn’s face turned business. “I have time, but not a great deal, ssso I’d like to get right to it. Did you do sssword practiccce in training yet?”

“Uh huh,” Callie said. “We worked with a few other dual-wielding classes yesterday.” She gestured to Pixyl. “We got paired up together. It was a lot of fun.”

“Did you learn twelve-count technique yet?”

“I didn’t know there was a twelve-count,” Callie answered confused. “We learned an eight-count, though, as well as some movement stuff.”

“Good enough, then. Twelve will come next. Eventually there isss a twenty-four count rhythm that you will learn which is quite complexxx.”

That knowledge stunned all six Recruits, remembering the chaos that was the simple eight-count method they had worked the previous afternoon, and trying to envision what a twenty-four might possibly look like made their brains unhappy.

“Come, all of you,” Vonn said, turning to slither towards the now-empty practice circle. “I have some concernsss about the sssize of your ssswords,” Vonn said. “You are ssso sssmall that you will have a limited reach and ssstrength. I have a couple ideasss regarding what to do about that, but I’d like to sssee you in motion again, now that you have a little formal training.”

“Okay, what do you need me to do?”

Vonn set down the duffle, removing two small, familiar swords and handing them to Callie. They were the same ones she had used two days ago when sparring, but they had been straightened and some of the jagged edges had been smoothed and blunted. Holding the metal swords somehow felt quite different from the wooden training swords they used the day before, even though the size and weight were roughly the same.

Gesturing towards the ring, Vonn quickly shepherded Callie and Pixyl into the center so she would be able to slither around them and observe from all angles.

“Please do your eight-count technique,” the Lamia instructed, “but just a ssslow, sssteady rhythm. Please call the numbersss.”

Pixyl flashed out her green swords and waggled her eyebrows at Callie, seeming to invite her to ignore the rules and have fun. Callie shook her head, honestly too tired to play right now, which elicited a pouting look on Pixyl’s face. The two squared and Callie began to count slowly. The clashing sound of steel on Ether, coupled with the sparks and flashes of light, caught the attention of several bystanders, and a small, curious crowd gathered behind the other Rangers.

As Callie counted off swings, with Pixyl responding with the appropriate counter, Vonn continued to circle. She watched closely, seeming to note every movement of Callie’s arms, and position the swords took for each beat of the cadence. Finally, she waved them to a stop.

“I need to sssee you againssst sssomeone larger,” Vonn said, frowning as she returned to the duffle. She fished around again, pulling out a pair of longer swords, sized for a normal person, and then pushed them into Jesca’s paws. “You go ssswing to the count, pleassse.”

Nervously, Jesca moved into the ring, replacing Pixyl who had released her Blades and stepped aside. The Cheetahkin was twice Callie’s height, with a proportionally longer reach adding to the already longer swords. For all appearances, the Gnome was completely outmatched.

“Pleassse begin,” Vonn said curtly, watching closely.

Once again, Callie started to call the count, and this time she could instantly feel the size mismatch between her and Jesca. The swords found each other, but that’s what they were aiming for. It was quickly evident that in a real match, Jesca would be able to hit her at a range where Callie wasn’t close enough to respond. The two swung for a minute or so, keeping up the rhythm, as Vonn circled. She rubbed her chin contemplatively, before finally calling a stop.

Vonn was about to speak, when a giddy giggling and clapping sound came from the small crowd, which seemed to part. Callie looked up to see that Juniper was there, standing next to and behind Shul’an, and cheering for her. She was bouncing and applauding, evidently quite happy with the simple show Callie and Jesca had just put on. The other Rangers, stepped aside, surprised by the Dryad, and revealed she had a rope looped around her elbow, connected to her summoned carnivorous plant. The plant was wearing the other end of the rope, tied as a harness around its vine-formed body, but allowing full movement of its two arms and three legs.

“Uh, hi, Juniper?” Callie said, waving hesitantly.

“Hello!” she squealed in return, waving. “I remember you saying you would be here, and I wanted to join you.”

“Uh, okay?”

“Please, finish what you need to with your swords,” Juniper chirped, waving Callie’s attention away.

“Right.” Callie said incredulously, turning to the Lamia.

Vonn looked perplexed, and once again glanced at Juniper, who was now staring up at the sun with her eyes closed, happily drinking in the light. “Why isss she wearing a recruit uniform?” Vonn finally whispered.

Callie let out a short laugh, realizing the word apparently hadn’t reached here yet, and Fizzlebek must not have said anything. “She’s going to be in training. She’s a Sylvan. She just received her Symbiote last night.”

Vonn was taken aback. “You are ssserious?”

“Apparently it's in the agreement the Commandant has with her.”

“What isss that creature?” Vonn asked, still very confused, and nodding at the little plant monster.

“It’s her summoned … pet I guess? I’m not really sure. Tasi called it a … familiar I think it was. It did try to eat me though, and Pixyl beat it up to save me, so they don’t get along well.” In fact, the Pixie was standing a few meters away from Juniper’s pet, hands on her hips. Both were having some kind of a staring contest, despite the fact the plant had no eyes, and Callie could hear they were both growling at each other.

Vonn shook her head, simply not having time to understand any of this right now. “I think I know what to do about your ssswords, now,” Vonn said quickly. “I want to talk to Reynard, though, becaussse it will require a sssmall modification to the techniquesss you ussee. It may delay your practiccce ssswords by a day or two, but not the sharpened pair I promisssed.”

“Okay,” Callie said, still distracted and still wondering what Juniper was doing here. Shaking her head to clear it, she fixed her look back to Vonn and continued, “You’re the expert on Ranger weapons, so I’m just going to let you decide what’s best. Just tell me what you need me to do, if anything.”

“On your ssswords, we are done for now.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate all the work you’re doing.” Callie said, smiling. “It means a lot that you're trying to help me.”

Vonn seemed to flush slightly. “Let’sss get you measured for your bow. It should only take a moment.”