I sent some Essence into my ring of holding and reached forward to grab my Orichalcum short sword. I spun the sword idly in my hands and returned it to my ring of holding before scanning around the room to see if Zack had arrived yet. We planned on heading to the Hammerfirst battalion and asking Aidor about the Ogre Citadel dungeon that chief Duskar was sending us to in a couple of days. I continued summoning my sword to my hand over and over as I sat in the common room and a few minutes later I felt a deep pressure settle onto my core. Immediately, I started sweating and I began to feel nauseous from the extremely uncomfortable constricting feeling surrounding my core of Essence.

“If you summon that sword to your hand one more time I swear to the gods I’m going to take it as a threat,” I looked behind me and saw a tall hobgoblin glaring at me with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Yes, sir!” I stammered out as fast as I could. I felt sweat dripping down my face and I knew that the hobgoblin could kill me with barely any effort.

The hobgoblin shook his head and muttered as he left, “Damn children.” The pressure faded from my core, although I was covered in sweat and I shivered uncomfortably as I watched him leave. I would never summon a weapon from my ring of holding outside of the training yards again, at least while we were at the outpost. I needed to ask Aidor how people gave off that immense feeling of pressure when I saw him.

“Eli! Sorry if you were waiting on me,” Zack walked up and leaned on the back of the chair beside me. He pulled his mace into his hand from his ring of holding and grinned at me. “That’s never going to get old.”

“Don’t do that in here!” I shouted at him. A few of the other groups of people sitting around us grew quiet at my voice and I blushed as half the room turned to look at me. “Let’s go, come on.”

“Are you ok? Why are you so sweaty?” Zack asked as I rushed outside the building.

“It’s nothing,” I said quickly. I didn’t want to describe what happened, honestly I felt pretty embarrassed by the whole situation at this point.

"Well, Hammerfist battalion has a building nearby. I asked the barkeep last night before I headed to bed,” Zack shrugged when I didn’t explain and I followed his lead as we made our way through the busy streets.

“What’s your Spirit up to with that new bracer?” Zack asked as I adjusted the bronze arm guard.

“Twenty-five,” I grinned at his impressed expression. “Although my Willpower is starting to fall behind, I’m still leaning towards Spirit being more important for me.”

“Yeah, it’s annoying having to wait so long to recover Essence, but honestly having as much Essence as possible is crucial for you,” Zack said agreeably. “I’m glad Gabrielle convinced me to get a lesser spirit enchantment last time we were at the outpost; I needed it for those demons. I’ll be able to upgrade Vigor when I advance to level eight, so my strength and vitality should still get a nice increase soon.”

“That’s the first skill that you’ll be able to upgrade, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s my only skill that upgrades at level five, it just took a while for me to get it there. It doesn’t give much experience, even when I use the active portion of the skill,” he shrugged idly and pointed at a large stone building with the Hammerfist crest placed above the door. “There it is, Aidor told me to ask the barkeep for him when we come by.” I nodded and followed him as he made his way inside the building and to the front of the bar.

“How can I help ya?” the Duergar asked once he walked over to us.

“We’re looking for Aidor, do you know where we could find him?” Zack replied and the man nodded once he heard his name.

“Aye, he’s in the training yards out back I believe,” he waved his hand toward a set of doors in the back of the room. “Yards just through there.” We quickly thanked him and made our way through the common room to the back doors. Once I got outside the building I saw a large area with multiple teams training in small groups or alone.

“I see him,” I pointed towards Aidor once I spotted him. Zack nodded and we walked around the training yards so we didn’t disturb anyone on the way there.

“Aidor,” Zack waved to him as walked up. He was watching two Duergar spar in the center of a training yard and I watched the fight interestedly. One of them wielded a large halberd and used wide, sweeping attacks to hold the other back. The person fighting him was using a long, curved sword with two hands and was trying to dart in to strike a hit in between the broad attacks.

“Zack, Eli, good to see you again,” Aidor turned to greet us and I reluctantly faced away from the impressive spar.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“You too, Aidor. How long are you staying in the outpost?” I replied as I reached forward to clasp his arm.

“We leave tomorrow. Hammerfist is putting us through some battalion training over on the other side of mountains,” he grinned, “There’s a dungeon that’s grown to cover half a mountain, apparently the monsters are starting to mass up to expand.”

“That sounds tough…” Zack trailed off. “How big is the battalion?”

“About a hundred all told, I’d guess,” Aidor responded after a moment. “They’ve already scouted out the area, I’m sure. It won’t be too much for us to handle, although I’m sure it won’t be an easy fight,” he clapped Zack on the back and laughed, “too bad I don’t have you in front of me.”

“I think Eli might get a bit jealous,” Zack smiled and I raised my eyebrows.

“Aaron and Gabrielle might have something to say about it when they start getting overrun,” I joked.

“What about your team? Heading back to the demons after a break?” Aidor asked.

“Well, chief Duskar wants us to do some group training with another team so we’re waiting for them to get back to the outpost before heading to the Ogre’s Citadel,” Zack explained. “Do you know anything about it?

“Aye, we went there a month back. Tough dungeon, the ogres are incredibly hard to put down and they’re seriously strong. It was a great experience, though, and we earned a good amount of contribution points from the resources we brought back,” he replied. “Should be a good challenge, and hopefully you work well with whatever team you go with. It can be difficult to work with another group for the first time so make sure you take it slowly at first.”

“Good advice,” I responded as I thought back on our other attempts to work with adventurers back in Satar with regret.

Zack nodded with a downcast expression, “We’ve teamed up twice in the past and both times it ended with us losing people,” he explained to Aidor’s questioning glance.

“Aye,” he nodded commiseratingly, “this path can be tough, especially with how poorly you were equipped before coming here. I had a full set of enchanted equipment before I even stepped foot in a dungeon. Even lesser enchants are incredibly valuable when you're only level one.”

I shook my head, “Only nobles could afford to start adventuring like that, unfortunately. Enchanted equipment is worth far more than most commoners make in Satar.”

“Well, if only adventurers willing to fight are Awakened then I can’t imagine there was much enchanted equipment to go around,” Aidor sighed. “I’m sure most humans in Satar would leave for Ascended Skorv’s territory if they could.”

“Maybe,” I replied thoughtfully. “Hey, do you know what that pressure strong Awakened give off is from?

“Of course, it’s a technique you can use when you advance to silver. It’s one of the reasons that it’s nearly impossible to fight someone at that level, even if you're peak Iron,” Aidor explained, “Do you two want to do some sparring? I’m sure we can fit you in our rotation,” Aidor suggested as the two Duergar finished their match.

I saw Zack’s questioning look and nodded, sparring with Aidor’s team would be great for improving with my sword. We spent the next few hours sparring with about a dozen different people. By the end of it, I had been told quite a few tips for improving and I headed back to the Dusk battalion building excitedly thinking over the advice. Now that I had a ring of holding I would probably look to get a backup one-hand spear when I could. There were still monsters that I would prefer to fight with the spear rather than the shield.

We got back to the common room and separated to clean up before meeting back at the common room for dinner with the rest of the team. After washing up and heading downstairs I spotted Gabrielle, Gary and Aaron seated at a table by the bar.

“Hey,” I greeted them as I took a seat.

“Hey, Eli. Find anything out about the dungeon?” Aaron asked interestedly. I quickly explained what we had learned from Aidor and some of the other Duergar we had chatted with while sparring.

“Interesting, I guess we’ll find out more soon enough. We went and met with Borst and his team at Ebon battalion,” Aaron half smiled, “Gabrielle even talked to a drow for the whole day.”

Gabrielle rolled her eyes, “Well I learned a lot from that discussion. She taught me a way to train my Willpower while we’re not on an expedition, and gave me a scroll that I can study to cast Gust, an air magic spell,” she rambled excitedly to me. “Learning to cast new spells is one of the best ways to improve your Willpower naturally.”

“That’s amazing!” I couldn’t help but share her excitement at the scroll and I spent the next few minutes ignoring everyone else as we studied the diagrams and descriptions on the scroll. It looked complicated, but I hoped with enough time I would be able to learn the spell, too. Gabrielle explained that Zarne, the drow elf, was an Elementalist, but she supplemented her skills with spells that she learned through study. Although the spells weren’t as powerful as a high leveled skill they gave her a variety of options when she fought. I agreed with the idea, I couldn’t see any downside to learning as many spells as I could, although I was sure it wouldn’t be an easy feat to learn the spell.

I decided to retire early so I could study the scroll first thing in the morning since Gabrielle said she would be using it tonight. No one had brought up our discussion with chief Duskar from the day before and I assumed we were just going to talk about it when we had more time to think. If Duskar was willing to let us return before the hordes, I was starting to hope everyone was willing to stay. We had only spoken with the hobgoblin a few times, but he truly seemed sincere in what he told us, and I believed him when he told me that we would advance together if I stayed.