Over the next few weeks the dwarves continued to spend their days training and studying. Celeste, Deandra, and Wendell were sent off to get an “essentials” class in combat training with Mardora while the rest of the team went to Luitwin to learn the basics of magic.

This only lasted for a few weeks before the teams swapped places. Mardora, surprisingly asked if Deandra could continue training with her. Miguel and Celeste agreed after speaking with Deandra.

At the start of Liam, Dakota, Miguel, and Wendell’s first combat training session, Mardora called Deandra up to stand next to her before addressing the guys. “You all know that young Deandra here has a ward protecting her, correct?” At this, all the guys nodded. “So you know nothing any of us do to her will hurt her right?” The guys agreed again.

“Good.” In one swift motion, Mardora whipped up her battleaxe and spun around, slamming the ax into the back of Deandra’s head. It happened so quickly the axe was back on the ground next to Mardora before the screams even escaped the men’s throats. They all stood there shaken, staring at their trainer and Deandra, both of whom were just grinning.

“You knew here,” Mardora said tapping her head, “now you know here,” she continued while tapping her heart. “Nothing, not even the mightiest dragons, can harm this child. She can still fall and get bumps and bruises as a child should. But no harm will befall her. It’s important that you understand this so that you don’t make foolish mistakes later trying to ‘save’ her.”

Seeing that her lesson seemed to have sunk in, she continued. “The gods have given each of you levels in common fighting skills, but skill levels without knowledge aren’t as good as knowledge without skill levels.” The doubt on everyone’s face was evident, so Mardora set up a demonstration. She handed Deandra a long hunting knife that looked like a sword in the little one’s hands. “Deandra, use what I taught you last week and go stab your father. Good luck, Miguel. Remember, you can’t hurt her so feel free to go all out.” With an evil grin she added, “You know she will.”

For the next ten minutes, Liam and Dakota both laughed at their brother’s expense as his daughter repeatedly slipped through his guard, ducked his strikes, and on one occasion she even parried one of Miguel’s attacks. This resulted in many slash and stab wounds on his forearms and thighs. Eventually, Mardora called Deandra back and had the guys fall back in line before saying, “Do you now see how important technique can be? If every fight you are in is against someone weaker, skills alone could be enough. But the minute you’re against someone with a bit more training than you, your odds start to drop quickly.”

“Yes ma’am!” they all said together.

“Great!” Mardora answered as she tossed Miguel a vial with a red liquid. “That’s a healing potion, drink up.” Looking back to the rest of the group, “Now we’re going to start with some basic axe strikes, blocks, and parries. Once you all have those down we’ll move on to some axe routines to help you learn. Once you have those, we’ll move on to different types of axes, then different types of hammers. From there we’ll branch out a bit.”

“Ma’am,” Dakota spoke up, “We were taught by a blacksmith that the hammer was the best dwarven weapon. With that being the case, why aren’t we starting there?”

Mardora chuckled, “It’s not surprising that a smith prizes the hammer above all else being it’s the tool they use the most. There’s definitely a place for hammers and the like in battle. But we’re starting with an axe because it’s been my experience that most intelligent beasts and warriors that you’re likely to fight have skills that allow them to ignore pain. But those skills won’t let them ignore a missing limb. Take away a leg and they can’t move as quickly. Take away a hand and they can’t hold a weapon.

“The flip side of this is, if you’re fighting someone in heavy armor or a monster with a carapace, then a hammer could very well be your best weapon. Eventually, I’ll also teach you all the basics of swords but, honestly, I don’t get the elves’ and humans’ fascination with them. They are so ineffective against such a wide range of monsters and armors. I’ll teach you to fight with knives, staves, and even the leg from a tavern table. If it can be used as a weapon, we’ll likely cover it. Even the common pickaxe used by our miners makes a great weapon if you have the strength for it.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“But before all that, we start with regular old doubled bladed lumberjack axe. I’ll show you a move. You copy. Once you get it right, then do it a hundred more times, slow and deliberate. Then we’ll move on to the next move and repeat.”

Everyone groaned at hearing this, already thinking about how tired their arms were going to be.

⚴

Each day started to follow a pattern. Calisthenics for everyone with the berserkers in the morning before breakfast and then Celeste and Wendell would train with Luitwin while the rest would train with Mardora until lunch time. Then they would go what they’d started to call their ‘OJT’, or on the job training, until nearly dinner time.

For Liam, OJT was more time at the smithy with Renir, Wendell studied tanning with Belrid Blondebelt, Miguel worked on brewing with Davruck, Dakota learned dwarven cooking under the Bloodbeards head chef, Fargram. The only ones not doing OJT in the afternoon was Deandra, who was spending the afternoons getting to know some of the other children living on the Bloodbeard estate, and Celeste who stayed at Luitwin’s all day.

The instructors pushed them hard and was pleased to find that, though they grumbled and joked a lot, they were able to learn quicker than nearly everyone they’d ever taught before. Conferring later, the instructors found that they were all gaining levels in their respective classes just by teaching this group, leading them to believe these Twiceborn were godtouched beyond the norm. This created a cycle of the instructors pushing harder and harder and most of the team continuing to surpass expectations.

Their training routine stayed the same until the end of the month of Budod, at which time the city was celebrating Verdance Day. In the days leading up to it they were looking forward to a holiday but news from Arden’s group about how their fights with the goblins were going had them feeling a bit helpless since they couldn’t help. But after leaving the Bloodbeard estate on the morning of Verdance day their worries were quickly swept away.

The party was lead to a part of Kan Ladur that they hadn’t visited before where they found what looked like a county fairgrounds from back home. They even had rides but these were powered by people or livestock instead of machines.

“Is that a lama?” Deandra asked her father.

Miguel looked where she was pointing but before he could answer, Celeste interrupted him, “Deandra honey, why don’t you use your [Identify] skill on them and see if it’ll tell you. Maybe you’ll gain a level.”

No one else spoke for a moment, all of them clearly doing the same thing Celeste told Deandra to do. Celeste picked up on this and grinned. “What did you get honey?”

“It’s a Alpaca!”

“Is there anything else you can [Identify]?”

This time Miguel cut in, “I just identified that booth over there is selling meat on a stick.” And he started walking that direction.

Liam called after him, “We all know you didn’t use [Identify] for that!”

The party spent the day going to booths and buying nicknacks and food. They played carnival games and even got on a marry-go-round that Deandra wanted to ride.

At this point they split up a bit with Celeste and Deandra going to ride more rides while Miguel, Dakota, and Wendell made another lap around all the places selling food. Liam went to speak with some of the folks running the rides and happened across on of the guys that built them. His name was Bover and like anyone, was happy to talk about his passion. Liam learned the history behind the rides, the ideas and dreams Bover had that he hadn’t been able to build yet, and was even able to get a peek at the gears on a few of the rides.

They all found each other in the late afternoon and, having had their fill, started walking back to their current home. As they passed bar after bar they noticed that, for a lot of the population, this holiday was simply an excuse to drink all day.

As they made it back to the Bloodbeard estate Gito was waiting took them to what looked like a conference room where a woman was waiting.

As Liam entered the room he felt something new. A kind of pressure, a sense of… not danger but… power. Yes, a sense of power coming from this woman. Looking around he could tell the others felt it, too.

“This here be Brilwynn Livingstone,” Gito began. “Clan Livingstone is an old ally of Clan Bloodbeard, and Brilwynn is a friend of mine from childhood. I know ye all have learned about dwarven society and ye know how we treat those without a clan. I didn’t want ye lot to have to suffer, but I also knew that most clans would try to exploit havin' Twiceborn join. Now, Brilwynn traveled a long ways to come speak with ye all as a favor to me. But neither she nor ye are under any obligations. Hear one another out and see if ye’re a fit or not. If not, so be it. No hard feelin's.”

With that Gito left the room, leaving the party sitting with this stranger right after revealing their biggest secret to her. They were unsure about this Brilwynn. From the expression on her face and the pressure they could feel, she was not one to take lightly.