South Jaga City, Job’s Hall – Year 1344, Month 1, Day 7 Spring

Olea Munroe

“Get back up little elf!” shouted Doogan for the fifth time this afternoon.

How did this happen? I was minding my own business, coming to check in at the Jobs Hall and now an oversized bear is beating me. The first thing that he did after his rude claim that I was late was to march over and grab me up by the collar of my new shirt. Sure, I slipped it off right there much to his surprise, with a little shock thrown in, I am sure. I had been wearing an undershirt, though honestly it did not have much work to do. Noticing that I was not offended by his earlier move and was so quick to slip out of my shirt he had settled for wrapping an arm around me and carrying me off like some cheap luggage.

We made our way, or rather Master Doogan had made our way through a side door and down a few hallways until we arrived at the rear door. Going through said door put us in view of a training yard under the noonday sun. He sat me down roughly, dropped me really. At that point I wondered where my bird had gone off to, I only remember a sharp CAW in my ear before the bastard left me alone to my current tormentor. I wondered what I should name it. Probably Brutus, et tu and all that. So many things to think about and do. I wonder what I should get for dinner, crowface stole my extra meat pie.

“I said up.” Growled the big man in front of me.

“Yah yah,” I muttered back, “getting there.”

I got back to my feet, making sure to wet my feet shoulder width apart as my wonderful instructor taught me.

“Better. Put your right foot back another inch and turn it ten degrees more to the outside. You do not want to kick yourself in the shins, do ye?” Doogan emphasized his instruction with a smirk as he tapped his own feet pointing out the differences.

“Hey Doogie, why all the instruction time? This is almost fun, but I cannot help thinking you would have more fun scaring people up front.” That is what his main activity seemed to be when I brought in my trophies anyway.

“I am taking time off to see what you can do. I am a bit disappointed but not surprised.” He answered. “How long have you been using stabby things?”

“Ummn, two days?” I say honestly, “before that I rarely ever used a knife, even for kitchen work.”

“Right.” He says, was he unconvinced? “That explains your pathetic stance and horrible flailing. You resemble a drowning bird flapping about hoping to get free of your own stupidity.”

“Wait. Stupid?!” I shouted. Bastard. I stepped forward bringing my wooden dagger forward to cut the grizzled old man, realizing a little too slowly that he was toying with me, making up insults to goad me into an attack.

Doogan wrapped my arm in his meaty grip and twisted forcing my now numb hand to drop the pointy wooden knife to the dirt as he extended a foot and flipped me up with a kick.

“You should have probably gotten eaten in that basement yesterday.” He said in that even voice as he looked down at my prone form.

“Ugh. Fine, I am terrible.” I mutter, not sounding petulant at all.

“You aren’t doing half bad so far.” Doogan said after I had gotten to my feet again.

“Why am I even here? I do not think I volunteered for training.” I complained.

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“You are here because you wanted to work, and you were late. Why didn’t you stay in the barracks bed I arranged?”

“Work? Am I getting paid?”

“No pay. Where were you?” retorted Doogie.

“I was out.” I cleverly said. I am clever!

“You were out, yes. Where were you though?”

“I stayed over at Sicily’s if you must know.” There I confessed.

He glared at me a little before his eyes grew a little confused. “Did she not know you had a room here; did you take charity from Sicily. Maybe infer you were homeless and needed a place to stay?”

“I did no such thing. It was not charity; we are friends.”

“Friends?”

“Friends, yes. When two people like each other enough, they sometimes form friendships.” I must confess I may have overestimated this man’s Intelligence score.

“So, you were what, touring the city and then… never mind.” Doogan said, a little slower this time as he processed.

“Ugh, I assume since we are talking that I have finished this little exercise for today?” I asked, not begging. Nope.

“How high are your strength and dexterity scores?”

“Veering toward personal, eh?” I ask cocking one brow from the ground.

“Oh hush, how high?”

“Ten Strength, thirteen Dexterity.” I reply by giving a little flex to my noodle like appendages.

“You’ve got a long way to go before we make you a fighter.” He lamented.

“But I don’t want to be a fighter, I want to be a lov- “

“Fighter, you are going to be fighting to survive, you will need money and strength to carry you through life. That takes fighting whether it is at work, or in the fields. We all fight for survival.” Said my tormentor. “Time to go again.”

And so it went, me against the world, or rather against a mountain of muscle, a short mountain. I spent the next two hours striking out with my wooden weapon while he parried almost absentmindedly. He would occasionally give me a knock on the wrist or arm when my form was especially bad, correcting my hits in minor ways or tripping me when I left a proper stance. By the time we finished I was bruised and even more humiliated. I was also staring at the sky, refusing to get up after the last leg sweep. Done

“I’d say go visit the medic for all those bruises, but it would most likely ruin all the work we’ve done today.” said Master Doogan.

“What do you mean?” I asked. Unsure that pain translates well to my learning to better get knocked about.

“Healing would help alleviate the bruising and strain you feel in your joints and muscles, yes.” He continued, “What it would also do is undo the stretching that occurs while we train, you won’t have gained any added flexibility from the exercise.”

“So, Cure Wounds is out?” I ask, curious about the whole healing and training things. I had though he was only hitting me so often because he knew the healers could soothe away the damage.

“Aye. And also cure wounds isn’t the greatest for healing anyway.” He added as an aside. “It heals the wounds; it does not recover health.

“Ummn, explain?” I was curious, I was alive because I had used the skill so much.

“Don’t get me wrong.” He amended with a nod as if following my thoughts, “It can keep you alive. What the spell does is knit flesh and do minor healing to bone. Increasing the rate at which your body can recover.”

“The healing though, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but a different kind of healing. It does not restore the measure of health lost. When we get injured, say a slash wound on the arm or across your chest. These would be merely a flesh wound; we can live through them unless they are poisoned or very deep. The big danger is that our rate of recovery drops with each wound we take. When that rate drops below a certain level, we will more and more quickly lose our available health pool. This condition will lead to death.” I had the full weight of his bearded stare now. Your Cure Wounds spell will alleviate the wound healing it over, what that does it restore you own natural regeneration rate to normal allowing you to not slowly die, again it restores only your ability to recover quickly on your own. If the health drops too low too often your regeneration will be nearly halted making most damage taken in that state quite dangerous.”

“That is a lot to learn, I was not as safe as I thought yesterday. Scary.” It really was, I would have been less inclined to enter the rat nest yesterday if I had known.

“Enough talk for now. Get up.” Came the sterner voice I had grown to love and hate.

“I don’t want to.”

“Fine. I am going to go grab some lunch, I will be back after that. Rest well.” With that bomb dropped he started for the doorway leading into the building, he did not even deign to reprimand the band of people laughing at my efforts that had somehow accumulated near the fence. Rude.

It was a small group of seven or eight people, they did not matter enough for me to accurately count. Too tired. Not getting me to do anything.

“Did you say food?” I somehow managed to eke the words out of my tired body.

“I did.” Agreed Doogan while laughing, “Too bad you are so exhausted that you won’t be able to make the trip.”

I found myself freshly invigorated and instilled with a desire to do things. Mysterious. No time to think about the reasoning for my newfound stamina. Food!

“Save some for me!” I shouted at the closing door.