Year: 3045 AGD
Month: New Year
First Firstday
Continent of Terroval
Ruined City of Asylum
“Now? Today?” Nim asked dumbfounded.
“Yes, General, we just got word from High Commander Cantel; His Majesty and the royal family will be here before daylight abandons us.” The soldier saluted smartly and stood at attention, growing more and more pale as he listened to the line of curses coming from his commander’s mouth, some of which he thought were in several different languages.
“Oh, that’s one of my favorites,” Ashur said as he walked onto the scene. “I always wondered if that would be possible to do.”
“What are you talking about?” Nim asked curtly.
“The one with the ripping off of the head… ah, never mind. So what’s wrong?”
“His Royal Majesty Theodrik Theromvore the Second, in his infinite wisdom, decided to bring his entire family to Asylum.”
“Oh, yeah that explains the language. Well, how long do we have to secure the perimeter?” Ashur was calmly planning what they would need to do before Nim told him that the king would be here before sunset. “What kind of crazy son…”
The soldier now listened as another of his commanders went off, but this time he could understand every curse, and he felt his blood draining from his face. He tried to remain perfectly still so that the two men might forget that he was there, but it was all to no avail.
“You tell High Commander…” Nim and Ashur began at almost the same time, and it took most of his concentration to be able to understand both sets of orders that were being rattled at him. The orders were nearly the same and he managed to get both orders with some effort, but he really did not want to give the High Commander the messages that they were sending. When he finally organized both sets of instructions into proper messages inside his head, he found himself standing in an empty street.
On his way to the High Commander's tent, he began to edit the messages for content and figure out ways in which he could give the messages to Stewart Cantel without swearing every other word. By the time he arrived at the shell of a building that housed the High Commander's tent, he was confident that he had edited the messages into adequate responses. The guards of the tent gave him a look that said that they would not want his job just now and let him in without comment.
The soldier didn’t quite know who intimidated him more out of the three men whom he was relaying messages for, but it didn’t matter now, because each of them carried such an aura of command about them that as soon as he put eyes upon the High Commander of the Knights, thoughts of the other two men fell to the back of his mind. Whereas Nim was lithe and serpentine and Ashur was a mass of corded muscle, High Commander Cantel was a miniature mixture of the two. He stood at full height examining his map, and yet he still wouldn’t reach the soldier's neck with the top of his head. Hidden under the purple, black, and gold of the Protectorate, the soldier knew there was a corded series of muscles much like one would find on a large hunting cat.
Though Stewart Cantel stood motionless and seemed at ease examining the map before him, the soldier knew—as all the Knights did—that either dagger at the man’s side could be in his hand before one could blink. Walking to his Commander's side, the soldier saluted smartly and stood at attention for a few minutes. After some time, the High Commander rubbed his eyes in what appeared to be more agitation than tiredness, but the soldier knew it was most likely both—almost everyone was tired nowadays.
“So, what says the General, Corporal?”
“Sir, General Mithriannil and Major-General Theromvore bid me bring their responses.”
“Ah good, so Ashur was there also. I expected as much, what do they say?” Stewart nearly laughed as the soldier squirmed at the thought of his messages.
“Sir, General Mithriannil wishes to state his displeasure at His Majesty's decision and says that there is no way in… uh, that there is no way that the perimeter will be secure enough for a visit from the entire royal family by evening. Major-General Theromvore wishes his cousin to know that he can…” The soldier froze.
“Can what, Corporal?” Stewart Cantel grinned as he spoke.
“… um, well, sir, he wishes his cousin to kiss his backside. He also wishes to reiterate General Mithriannil’s opinion on the perimeter’s defense.”
“Ah, well, my companions are not usually so colorless with their wording in times like these, but I think it better that we leave out the extra sentences for now.” Cantel raised an eyebrow. “However, I do wish that all messages in the future be relayed verbatim, Corporal.”
“Sir, yes sir.”
“Were it any other person, I would tell you to go and tell them to get off their backsides and do it anyway, but if I know Nim and Ashur, they will already have put their men to work.” Cantel turned back to his map and sighed. It seemed that he had forgotten about the Corporal, but after a minute of silence he quickly said, “You are dismissed, Corporal Tanner.”
With his dismissal, Corporal Tanner left the tent to find out what he could do to assist Nim. His time as a Watchman in the city of Safeharbor had taught him many ways in which a city could be vulnerable, and it was important that those problems be addressed now. With the same determination and sense of duty that always drove him, he set off into the city to prepare for the arrival of the royal family.
First Secondday
Serenity Valley
Institute of Learning
Shawnrik awoke on his second morning at the Institute to the same low buzzing that he had heard the day before. As he lay in his bed, he realized that the buzz continued to increase in strength. Halfway through rolling out of bed, he realized that the noise had stopped. Laying his head back on the pillow, the low buzz once again coursed through his body and up into his ears. It wasn't necessarily annoying, but it was persistent enough to keep a person from sleeping.
When Shawnrik asked Verrian about it over breakfast, the little half-elf began a ten-minute-long lecture on harmonic frequencies that Shawnrik only understood every other word of. Shawnrik was barely halfway through his food when Verrian said they had to go, or they would be late for their first classes. It was then that Shawnrik realized he had been hanging on to every word his roommate had been saying in order to not think about his coming class. He couldn't remember ever being this nervous before; his insides felt like they were trying to worm their way out from his stomach. This would be the first time that Shawnrik would enter a classroom as a student, and he was unsure about what to expect.
For the majority of his life, Shawnrik had to fight for every scrap of knowledge, and now he was in a place that just gave it away. If it hadn't been for Nim, Ashur, and Dunnagan, Shawnrik would have never believed that good people could exist in the world besides himself and Victor. He knew that Nim and Ashur were not the best role models morally speaking, but they were the ones that were responsible for getting him and Victor off the streets of the Docks District.
It felt like he had entered an entirely different world. These people seemed to have no other care in the world, and while that blissful ignorance was comforting, it also made him sick to his stomach. How can all of these people be leading quiet, comfortable lives when there are so many people suffering?
Shawnrik had been living outside of the hectic world he had grown up in for a year and a half now, and as the days passed he couldn't help but wonder when the illusion would shatter and the world would once again come crashing in. Knowing that one way or another his stay in this false world would come to an end, he had continued to keep his body and skills sharp, as Ashur and Dunnagan had taught him, so that he would be ready when that day came.
If it hadn't been for the note from his best friend—who Shawnrik secretly thought of as his little brother—he would never have left with the Giants as his mentors raced off into certain peril. He also would have found the idea of attending a place like the Institute to be a waste of his time. But Victor did write that note, and it would snow in Haven before Shawnrik defied his friend's requests.
Victor had told him to learn everything and anything that he could, so Shawnrik would absorb as much knowledge into his mind as possible as quickly as he was able. He didn't understand how this information would be useful to him, but he figured that he would find out why eventually. For now, all he could do was trust that his friend knew what he was talking about; Victor had never been wrong yet.
Shawnrik was still quietly brooding as the door closed on the small classroom where Basic Science would be taking place. It seemed that all of his worrying had been for naught, as the most notable thing to happen was when the Instructor, a middle aged bald Gnome, announced, “This is Basic Science, if anyone is not assigned to Basic Science, you are in the wrong classroom.” At that point, every head in the room turned towards Shawnrik, and when he didn't leave, the class began in earnest.
Most of the class was spent going over the things that they would be learning during the course and the expectations that the Instructor held for his students during the term. At the end of the class, the Instructor passed out a slip of paper that told the students which book they needed to acquire from the book depository. It was that slip of paper that Shawnrik talked to Verrian about when they met up outside of his second class, which also happened to be Verrian's second class: Mythology.
Verrian couldn't understand why he was so excited, and Shawnrik had to listen to the young Half-Elf complain about the cost of borrowing a book versus the price of buying one. What Verrian didn't realize, however, was that Shawnrik had grown up in a place that only the very rich owned their own books. Ol' man Walkins had possessed a few, but they had all been stolen from wealthy stead holders and merchants, so they had all been about either farming or making money.
They entered the Mythology classroom still arguing about being able to buy a book versus checking a book out on deposit. The room that they entered was nothing like the one that Basic Science had been held in. Instead of a small room with a few dozen desks, this room was massive. There were six tiers of long curved tables that allowed for adequate viewing of the flat expanse below. Looking at the top row, Shawnrik realized that it was large, obviously built for anyone the size of a full-grown Giant. The next row down was slightly smaller than the one above it, and the next three rows seemed to be made for average sized humanoids. It was hard to tell from the top of the room, but Shawnrik was fairly certain that the bottom row as much smaller than the other rows, affording some of the smaller races adequate seating.
Shawnrik decided that the second row might be best, but when he saw Verrian sit down beside him he nearly burst out laughing. The Half-Elf's neck was nearly even with the top of the table, his shoulders barely showing over the edge. Shawnrik couldn't laugh, however, because his friend was obviously picking a place where he would be uncomfortable just so that they could sit together. They could figure out the chair height later.
Looking at his course schedule, he saw that the Mythology Instructor was T. Wildthorne. He noticed someone sitting behind a large desk at the base of the room, and upon further examination he decided that the person behind the desk was perhaps the cutest girl that Shawnrik had ever seen. She had all the features that screamed Elf, but she was more petite than any Elf Shawnrik had ever seen before. It didn't take him long to learn why.
“I heard it takes her three hours every day to look that normal,” Verrian said, his head bobbing below the table top as he leaned towards Shawnrik to whisper.
“What?”
“Instructor Wildthorne,” Verrian stated. “She's an Elfling.”
“What's an Elfling?” Shawnrik whispered back.
Verrian seemed aghast that Shawnrik didn't know what an Elfling was. “Elflings are like Half-Elves, except that instead of a Human, they mated with a Halfling, making them half Elf, half Halfling: an Elfling. I'm told it's only been within the last few thousand years that it has even been possible, though no one has properly explained to me exactly what it was that made it so.
Shawnrik knew what had happened, but he didn't think his friend was quite ready for the truth of it yet. It seemed that the various cities and towns that dealt with Serenity Valley had decided that it was best if they didn't talk about their genealogy. Some day he would tell them that draconic blood runs through most of their veins, but today would not be that day.
“So, she has to work hard not to be too attractive?” Shawnrik said, trying to guide the conversation back to the present.
“Yeah, Elflings are usually extremely beautiful, and Tienna Wildthorne is certainly no exception. When she gets up and starts moving around and talking you won't be able to tell, but she works really hard at trying to look normal. It's said that the first few years that she taught, none of the guys learned anything because all they could do was stare at her.” Verrian laughed behind his hand. “So now she spends who knows how long putting makeup on and placing her hair into that bun so that she can be less... beautiful, gorgeous, whatever. Most students don't even think she needs those glasses, but no one has been able to prove it yet.”
Shawnrik decided then that he should examine his new Instructor a little more closely. He tried to shut off his now raging hormones as he looked down upon her tiny form to see if he could see some of the things that his friend was talking about. It was then that the few lessons that he'd had with Nim became useful. He could indeed tell that she was holding herself in a way that didn't seem natural, a little too stiff in some places, and a little too loose in others. There was indeed a natural beauty beyond anything Shawnrik had yet seen hidden beneath a carefully molded exterior, but it wasn't those things that caught his attention; the slight tilt of her head told him that she was listening to something, and the barely perceivable smile allowed him to guess what it was.
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“She's listening to us,” Shawnrik said, no longer bothering to whisper. The slight flinch and reddening of her cheeks was all the confirmation he needed.
“Oh, man! Good catch!” Verrian's voice was barely perceptible as he noticed the Instructor's reaction.
Mythology went by smoothly, though Instructor Wildthorne pointedly avoided looking anywhere in Shawnrik or Verrian's general direction for the entire duration. Shawnrik considered what Verrian had said about her hidden beauty more as she paced back and forth at the front of the class. He could see that she was at least a foot shorter than the shortest Elf he had ever seen, and her body seemed to be built for flexibility and grace rather than the swiftness and grace that the Elves exuded. Before he knew it, she was handing out a stack of papers to be passed around, and Shawnrik found that he needed to get another book from the Depository.
“Do we get books for every class?” Shawnrik asked as he passed a slip over to Verrian and handed the rest up behind him.
“Yes,” Verrian said, obviously not sharing Shawnrik's excitement about the fact. “Well, maybe not the physical classes, but we'll need at least one book for just about every other class.”
“That's great!” Shawnrik said.
“Oh yeah, great,” Verrian replied. “Just what I need, more books.”
“More? You mean you already own some?”
∞∞∞
Lunch raced by, with most of the talk revolving around Instructor Wildthorne. Their next class was another one that they shared—Philosophy—and they soon learned that the class would be droller than they had expected. The Instructor was a Halfling by the name of Reginald Theodric Terian Bluestaff, and he explained with a smile that Halflings decided a long time ago that they needed longer names in order to make up for their lack of height.
The classroom was much like the one they had Mythology in, although slightly smaller, with only four rows instead of six. Shawnrik decided that he preferred this type of classroom, as it didn't feel so confining and gave him more room to stretch out. Watching the animated Halfling Instructor talk about the coming year, Shawnrik decided that he was going to enjoy Philosophy.
Weapon Smithing, according to the instructor Baldrick Doomslayer, was a dying course at the Institute. Seeing that there were only four other students in the class, Shawnrik was inclined to agree. The smith's shop was set up in the northeastern corner of the Institute's campus, a stone’s throw from one of the inner walls of the long dead volcano that housed Serenity Valley.
Three out of four of the students were Giant-kin, and Shawnrik figured that they would each take over the smithy for their respective villages when that time came. The last member of the group was a young man from the northern tribes of Terrazil known as the Stroml'Dier. His name was Rigael Ironfist, and from the moment Shawnrik locked eyes with his new classmate, he could tell that the young man hated him fiercely.
That hatred made absolutely no sense to Shawnrik, as he had never met the Stroml'Dier before. Hatred seethed from Rigael's eyes nonetheless, and Shawnrik decided that there wasn't anything he could do about it, so he ignored it. To make a bad situation worse, Baldrick Doomslayer had one of the thickest accents that Shawnrik had ever heard, and he found it difficult to understand what the Dwarf was saying.
“If'n ye 'eat yer metal tuh much ye won't be able ter mold 'er proper like. She'll split on ye like a wench ye gave a snake un'to when she cools,” the Dwarf said, his face serious.
Shawnrik had learned the basics already while under the tutelage of Pedrial Lightfeather, his grandfather, so he was able to figure out what the Dwarf was saying. He just hoped that he would get used to the Instructor's thick brogue before they started learning things he didn't know.
It had only been the night before that Shawnrik had learned that Pedrial was his grandfather, and now that fact was not helping him concentrate on the job at hand. He had lived with his grandfather for more than a year and he hadn't even known it. Between wondering why his grandfather had never told him that he was his grandson, Instructor Doomslayer's accent, and the eyes he could feel staring at him with such hatred, it should come as no surprise that Shawnrik's first day of Basic Weapon Smithing went by in a haze.
Shawnrik left the workshop holding a now familiar slip of paper containing the name of the book he would need for the course. Realizing that if he wanted to talk to Verrian during dinner he would have to hurry, Shawnrik took off at a lope, heading towards the mess hall.
It took him longer than he had expected to get back for dinner, so he only had a few minutes of conversation between bites of food before they were heading to their last class of the day: Basic Offense.
Unlike the rest of the classes that Shawnrik had been to so far, Basic Offense was held on a practice area that had been set up in order to facilitate training in a large variety of combat fields. Shawnrik's first impression of the area was not a positive one. The Institute's training area was half the size of the one that had been outside Nim's manor in Safeharbor, and as far as he could see it possessed less than a tenth of the equipment. There were only two archery targets, one jousting target, one sword dummy, and one sparring ring. For the first time since arriving in Serenity Valley, Shawnrik truly realized the level of importance that the people that lived here placed upon practical field skills.
In Safeharbor, every day contained a new lesson on how to survive using whatever skills you had managed to acquire, in addition to your wits. The citizens of Serenity Valley seemed to think that wits alone should be able to get a person through any situation, and while that notion might work in an ideal world, Shawnrik knew that Terrazil was anything but.
Shawnrik had been hoping that this class would be one of his favorites, but the condition of the facilities made him wonder if it would even been in the top five. Feeling an itch on his back, Shawnrik turned to see Rigael Ironfist walking into the practice area glaring daggers at him, and he knew that a confrontation between the two of them was inevitable, even if he didn't yet know why.
The Instructor of Basic Offense was an older human male who seemed to wear a perpetual scowl. His name was Calligan Boulette. Instructor Boulette stood on the far side of the practice area, carefully watching his students as they filtered in. He continued to watch them for another five minutes as they aimlessly milled about the field, before marching brusquely towards the middle of the practice ring.
“Attention!”
Shawnrik had already been paying careful attention to the Instructor, but the command still came as a surprise to him. The man's tone reminded Shawnrik of Ashur's, and he found his body naturally going rigid into an attentive posture. Instructor Boulette's scowl deepened over the ten seconds that it took for some of the members of the class to quiet down and assume a somewhat attentive position.
“When I say attention, I expect a clear and immediate response,” Boulette said as he eyed each of them. “If you want to know the exact response I am looking for, I suggest that you look around you. It seems that at least two of you maggots have had some proper training.”
Shawnrik felt eyes wandering across his rigid form, and he didn't need to look around to guess who the other person was that had come to attention. Rigael Ironfist moved like a man that knew he was a good fighter and thought that the world should know it too, so it made sense to Shawnrik that he would be the other person who had come to attention correctly.
“I want ten push-ups from each of you.” Shawnrik heard one of the students begin to say something, but whatever it was that they had been about to say was overridden by the booming voice of Instructor Boulette. “This is not a democracy, little boy; you are in my class, which means that you follow my rules. If any of you came to this class thinking that it was going to be easy, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. Those of you that cannot understand this inalienable truth should request a new class by this coming Thirdday or be prepared to learn it.
“I am a hard man, but I am not needlessly cruel. Some of you will have come to this class knowing more than the others and may be in possession of useful skills. Unlike reading or writing, where they expect everyone in the class to learn at much the same rate, I do not. If you give me a hundred percent, you will pass, but if you give me one iota less, you will fail. Many of you will have never even touched a weapon before, but by the end of these three and a half months that we have together, I will have at least taught you how not to kill yourselves with one.”
Shawnrik did his push-ups with minimal effort, and he marveled at how much trouble some of the students were having performing ten correctly. Verrian was one of those that seemed to be having the most trouble, and Shawnrik decided that he would make it his duty to get his new friend in shape during his time at the Institute. Instructor Boulette had been marching down the ragged line of boys as he talked, and it wasn't until Verrian had finished his last push up that he moved back into the middle of the sparring ring.
“Now, as it should be with all matters of combat, pecking order in this class will be decided by skill.” A sadistic grin spread across the Instructor’s face as he spoke. Shawnrik groaned inwardly as he realized what was to come. “I am going to place all of you into pairs, and each pair will meet in this ring. Today, we will be using quarterstaffs that have been padded in order to minimize any serious injuries.”
Instructor Boulette walked down the line of students and partnered people by random, as far as Shawnrik could tell. Shawnrik had been paired with a stout fellow who seemed nearly as wide as he was tall, and not where it would help in matters of combat. The poor kid had a confident look upon his face as he entered the ring, and Shawnrik had allowed the boy to perform some pretty yet utterly useless advances before casually knocking the staff out of the portly boy's hand.
Ashur had given Shawnrik basic training with every weapon that Nim had on hand at his manor during the six months that he and Victor had lived there, and the pair had an impressive array of weaponry. His training had initially been focused around the quarterstaff, however, as Ashur believed that the fundamentals of many of the other weapons could be learned by learning how to properly handle a staff. By the time he had left Safeharbor with Ashur and Dunnagan, Shawnrik's focus had changed to daggers, swords, and axes, but both of his mentors would frequently refer to one of the numerous staff forms in order to convey what they wanted him to do.
Verrian's match had lasted a bit longer than his, but that was only because both of the boys seemed to be trying to figure out how exactly they should use their staves. Shawnrik could tell that Verrian was trying to mimic the way that he had been using his staff, but unlike Shawnrik's relaxed grip, Verrian was holding the staff tightly. His opponent decided that he might as well use the staff as a club, and began to run towards Verrian with his weapon held high.
The two boys' quarterstaffs met twice, and to Verrian's credit he blocked the other boy's blows well. However, instead of deflecting the attacks, Verrian had tensed and let the staff do all of the work. Shawnrik watched as the vibrations of the impact coursed through his friend's little body, with his opponent faring little better. After that initial contact, the boys circled each other in the ring, obviously wary of the pain that had accompanied the blows. After two minutes with no contact, Instructor Boulette firmly ordered the boys out of the ring.
Most of the matches after that had gone much the same as Verrian's had, each student testing the limits to which they would endure. At the end of the matches, four students who had passing knowledge of the weapons in hand stood before the Instructor.
Two of the three other students were Guardian Elves, who also happened to be twins. The Guardian elves were one of the groups that managed to escape Eske'Taure during the time known as the cleansing. According to the stories Dunnagan had told him, they had been known as Wild Elves before that unfortunate event. The Wild Elves had tried to talk some sense into their Elven brethren, but they finally concluded that the High Elves could not be talked out of their madness. When the Wild Elves officially renounced their High Elven brothers, they became known as Guardian Elves. They took this name because of the histories that they kept safe from the High Elves, who had a rather selective view of their history. Dunnagan said that the Guardian Elves probably knew more about the History of Terrazil than anyone alive.
Shawnrik also knew that the Guardian Elves' melee weapon of choice was the quarterstaff, so it was no surprise seeing the two standing beside him. He couldn't tell if the brothers were just naturally talented or if they had had training before, but he knew that they would put up a good fight.
The last of the four was Rigael Ironfist, the Stroml'Dier boy who seemed to have a perpetual glare on his face whenever Shawnrik saw him. He wasn't sure if the boy always looked like that or if it was something the young man reserved only for him, but Shawnrik knew there was a lot of anger inside the young Stroml'Dier. Shawnrik couldn't help but respect Rigael's skill with the quarterstaff, though: he handled it as if it was an extension of his body, and his opponents had not lasted long.
Instructor Boulette paired Shawnrik up against one of the Elven brothers, leaving the other to face Rigael. Shawnrik found his heart beating quickly as he stepped into the ring and took several deep breaths to calm himself. Here was a skilled opponent for him to fight, and he couldn't help but get excited. He was so excited about it in fact that he couldn't remember anything about it except the exact moment that he had seen the hole in his opponent’s defenses and struck, landing a solid jab with the end of the staff into the Elf's midsection.
As Shawnrik left the ring, he saw a curious expression pass over the young Stroml'Dier face that he wasn't sure he liked. Rigael and the other Elf took to the ring, shaking hands before taking their ready stances, as had every pair before them. When the battle began, however, Shawnrik began to frown, and that frown grew steadily as the match progressed. Rigael was obviously not using all of the skill he possessed, and looking at the disapproving visage of the Instructor, he wasn't the only one that thought so. The Elf eventually took note of the pattern of Rigael's attacks, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the Stroml'Dier boy had been purposefully leaving openings in his defense, seizing upon one such opening with a sloppily done counter that ended the fight.
Shawnrik was disgusted.
He had never been the kind of person who would show off, but he felt very strongly about not trying your hardest at everything that you did. Shawnrik finally realized what he had seen cross the face of the young Stroml'Dier, and it didn't improve his opinion of the young man. Rigael had decided that there was a chance that Shawnrik would defeat him if they fought, so he had purposefully let an opponent that was less skilled than himself take him out rather than give Shawnrik that opportunity.
Shawnrik was seething internally as he entered the ring against the twin of his earlier opponent, but he tried not to take his anger out on the kid. Annoyed but with the rage contained, Shawnrik abruptly ended the fight after only a dozen contacts. The twin had still not caught on to the fact that he had been allowed to win his previous match, so he had gone into the fight with Shawnrik full of confidence. As he exited the arena, however, that look had been replaced by confusion and shock.
“Alright,” Instructor Boulette said as Shawnrik left the ring. “I now know where all of you are at in your training, or lack thereof. You all performed admirably enough, and with your best efforts put forward...” his eyes flicked towards Rigael, who at least had enough sense to look abashed, before finishing with, “I'm sure.”
“Now is my favorite part of about the first day of the course!” His eyes settled on Shawnrik, and Shawnrik got the distinct impression that he was a mouse that had just been caught in the gaze of a hawk. “Whether you knew it or not and whether you want it or not, you are now my teaching assistant.” A murmur went through the assembled students, which was quickly cut off by the Instructor's raised hand. “At first thought, this might seem like a position of honor to most of you, but this simply means that I am going to work this young man harder than everyone else. Not only that, but I will also expect him to help me mold you lot into something resembling warriors. Before we leave for the evening, however, there is one thing left to do.”
Calligan Boulette walked over to the rack that held the non-padded staves and selected one before removing his vest. Shawnrik's heart was still beating with the rage of what Rigael had done, but it picked up tempo as he realized what the Instructor had in mind. When the Instructor moved towards the center of the ring and motioned Shawnrik towards the rack of staves, all of his anger evaporated, and he found it hard to suppress the grin that wanted to spread across his face.
Instructor Boulette was obviously at the very end of the prime of his life, as shown by his graying hair and well-worn face, but the man's body was still in peak physical condition. All in all, the man looked as if he had been chiseled from stone, an artist’s ideal of what a soldier should look like. The Instructor quietly stretched as Shawnrik moved towards the staves at the side of the ring before moving into a ready position.
Shawnrik entered the ring cautiously, keeping his eyes locked on his opponent. It felt right as he held his staff in the vertical salute Ashur had taught him to do instead of the handshake that they had been using all evening. Boulette had not been expecting the customary salute from one warrior to another, and a grin tugged at the edge of his scowl as he returned it in kind.
It was that moment that solidified Shawnrik's opinion of the man, and that thought hadn't changed as he exited the sparring circle five minutes later with a field of bruises on his side. He had found someone in this strange place of peacefulness and learning who was of a kindred spirit, and that realization allowed him to release a lot of the tension that had been building inside. Shawnrik had been watching his unmarked instructor put his vest back on, so it took him a moment to realize that the rest of the class was completely silent.
Looking behind him, he couldn't help the small groan that escaped his lips as he looked upon the awe that radiated from the rest of his classmates as they looked between him and their Instructor.
“That, my young pupils, is how one fights with a quarterstaff. I expect that our show of skill will light a fire to learn in most of you, and if that display didn't, you probably shouldn't be here this coming Thirdday,” Instructor Boulette said, barely breathing hard.
From the looks on the faces of his classmates as they left for the evening, Shawnrik was not surprised two days later when everyone was present and enthusiastic to learn.