The next morning started with Drill Sergeant Bidlack hitting the doorframe with a flexible stick he’d gotten from somewhere. “Up and at ‘em trainees! We’re burning daylight.”

I opened my eyes and looked over. Niobe’s bunk hadn’t been slept in. It was still neatly folded like all of us were forced to do each day. I hurried and put on my training uniform and hustled outside for accountability in the hallway.

The Drill Sergeant and instructors went down the hall like always. There were only three people standing at attention outside the door of our room, but none of them said anything. Once they were at the end of the hallway, they ordered the platoon to fall in on squads and march out to the parade ground.

We all ran into the training room and formed up by squads. First squad led the way with the bearded human squad leader in first position. Second squad, with its gnome squad leader, was right behind. Elyse the midniss was third squad’s leader and we followed her out to the parade ground. Fourth squad, as always, brought up the rear behind their human squad leader.

The platoon formed up outside. Drill Sergeant and the instructors stood in front of us. Stethyr was missing. Bidlack said, “Today will be a run day. It has come to my attention some of you have stubby little legs and are simply incapable of running at a reasonable pace. Trainees with short races will now fall out and fall in to my right.” He pointed at where we should all go. Izzy and I got out of our squad and ran over there. “I’m talking to you Dwarves, Sea Elves, Gnomes and Halnaak. Move.”

Since second squad was bereft of their squad leader they got temporarily dissolved and filled in to the other squads. The formation wavered and it took a moment, but they were gradually reformed. Three squads stood in a rectangle and the short trainees were in a line off to the side. Instructor Falaise stood in front of us with a smile. “Stumpy Squad, huh?” The diminutive Sea Elf said. “Let’s show them what we can do.”

Stumpy Squad marched to the tower we were supposed to run up. Falaise led the way, her short legs churning up the human sized stairs. Our gnomish squad leader was right behind her, and we all started with a cheer.

That enthusiasm waned pretty quickly. “Excuse me.” One of the gold dwarves said as he passed me. “On the left.” The bronze bearded dwarf said as he headed for the front.

“Coming through dude.” The other gold dwarf told me.

I reluctantly had to pass the gnome, who was really struggling. Izzy was leaned against the wall of the tower, taking each step like it was the last one as she walked the plank on a pirate ship. Even the halnaak was politely passing the gasping gnomes and sea elves. She sprang from step to step, breathing hard but with it under control.

The brawny dwarves had too much of a racial advantage. We couldn’t run fast, but had much more endurance and strength than the other small races. Instructor Falaise kept up the pace though, demonstrating sea elves could do it, just not zeroth level ones.

The dwarves all gathered around our instructor at the top of the tower. Nodding to the guard, Falaise ordered us to do pushups until the rest of the squad caught up. Izzy came wheezing up the landing, “I hoped… the priority point… would help.” She gasped. “It didn’t.” Falaise ordered her to do pushups but she just lay on her face, moaning.

Finally, the remainder of the squad shuffled up to the top of the tower. Once everyone had gathered, we formed back up and slowly jogged along the top of the wall. The view was spectacular. The bright white sun had just come up with no sign of the fat red one, so it was a well lit morning. I did notice a weird bruise looking thing in the sky that was just about to go down.

“What’s that?” I gasped to Instructor Falaise.

“The scar.” She said, not out of breath at all. “It’s a portal to the land of the dead.” Wow! She dropped there’s an open entrance to purgatory hanging right above our heads and just kept jogging.

From here we could see the castle was situated at a narrow pass leading into a small valley. I’m guessing that valley is where all the other kitchen workers lived, as there was a village trailing down the castle’s motte and bailey base to a big pond.

The group staggered back down the stairs of the next tower. We resumed our spot on the parade ground. Drill Sergeant Bidlack glowered at us from the head of fourth squad, the only one that beat us back. “Took your time, eh?” He wasn’t even breathing hard but his trainees were gasping for breath, leaning forward with hands on their knees. One tall fae elf loudly vomited against the wall. A human held his hair back so he wouldn’t get sputum on it.

The other two squads eventually made it back into the formation. Stumpy Squad dissolved and we all went back to our normal positions. The group marched to the chow hall, where whatever they were cooking either smelled wonderful or we were hungry enough to eat anything they served.

As we moved through the line, I noticed Julian had each trainee sign their name on that clipboard. He looked at it and seasoned their food from the jars contained in that satchel. I got food flavored with NATURE again.

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Jackson sat down across from me. “Good lawd man. Bidlack like to killed us this morning. I think the instructors were upset or something.” He shook his head and dove into breakfast. Those scrambled eggs without the shell on his plate seemed bland and tasteless now that I’d adjusted to eating them the other way.

There wasn’t much conversation as we were all eating as fast as we could. The chow hall was set up with long tables, each one seating around ten. On the table next to us, one of the sea elves that had really struggled on this morning’s run collapsed into her granola.

I stood up to help, but Izzy was ahead of me. “Sarine, are you okay?” Isabel pulled her face out of her breakfast and patted the other woman’s cheek. I checked for a pulse and it was astronomical. Then I realized I don’t know what the normal pulse of a sea elf might be, so that information didn’t help.

Sarine’s eyes rolled back into her head and she started to convulse. Her little webbed hands kept flexing open and closed while she had these huge twitches. A high pitched, teeth gritted wail came out of her mouth.

I looked around and none of the instructors were in the room. I ran over to the cook. “Julian, we’ve got one of the trainees having convulsions!”

The overweight cook nervously wiped his hands on his apron. “So what do we do?” He asked. I rolled my eyes and ran back over to the sea elf, who had fallen to the floor.

Izzy was on one knee beside the twitching elf. My roommate looked at me. “I think something’s really wrong.” She said, looking up at me. Sea Elves are lightly tan, at least the ones we had here. Sarine had a darkness working its way out to her extremities and moving fast. We could see it coming out of the sleeves of her training uniform and moving up her neck above the collar.

I pulled one of her sleeves up and the darkened veins were all the way up her arm as far as we could see. Izzy and I exchanged concerned looks. Jackson leaned over to see for himself, “What the hayull is wrong with her? I don’t think struggling with the morning run would do that.”

I just shrugged. Trying to use my Heal skill. “I think she’s been poisoned.”

“How could that be?” Jackson asked. “All our food comes from the same place.”

Izzy stood up and went over to Julian. “What did you do to her food?”

The big man stared down at his feet. “Nothing. I didn’t do nothing.”

The sea elven woman climbed up on the counter to look Julian in the eye. “She’s dying. We have to know what happened to her food. Was it her specifically?”

“You just…” Julian sighed. “Just finish your meals.”

“Do you see what’s happening?” Izzy pointed to Sarina, who had gone still. It looked like her veins had completely blackened. The dark tracings went all over her body like a roadmap. The little woman’s breath came in little gasps, almost like a fish out of water.

Julian turned and left the room, leaving a couple of village women helping in the kitchen just staring at one another. Izzy turned to one of them. “Do you have any idea what happened?”

“I don’t know nothing, ma’am.” The middle-aged peasant shook her head and kept washing the kitchen utensils. Izzy looked at the other who hurriedly shook her head.

My hand brushed Sarine’s cheek as it went still. Her breath rattled out of her chest one final time. Her eyes stared at the ceiling, unblinking. I closed them.

Isabel climbed down from the counter. “That fat bastard knows something.” She said, gesturing to Sarine. “This doesn’t just happen.” Her eyes went wide. “It looks like she OD’d! Oh my God, I’ve seen it dozens of times, I mean, not the dark vein thing, but the rest.”

“You’ve seen dozens of people overdose?” Jackson asked, with eyebrows raised.

“We didn’t all come from perfect backgrounds, okay?” Izzy said, waving away the question.

“Wait, I think Sarine is still alive.” The bronze dwarf rumbled in his low voice. He kneeled down over the sea elf. Brushing his spiky bronze hair out of the way, he put his ear on her chest. “I don’t hear a heartbeat.”

Elyse the midniss said, “Sarine, can you hear me? Her eyes just opened.”

Sarine snarled and leaned forward, biting the bronze dwarf’s face. The dwarf screamed and punched the tiny elf. The blow knocked her back, but a chunk of his cheek was still in her mouth. He screamed again.

Bedlam broke out. Most of the trainees had loosely gathered around the elf. Everyone tried to run away at the same time. Tables got overturned and several people got shoved out of the way.

Elyse stayed where she was. Her long neck with cobra hood flared nervously. “Sarine, are you okay?” The sea elf snarled. The bronze dwarf got up, hands covering his bleeding face.

Jackson grabbed one of the wooden chairs, wielding like a tiger tamer in the circus. “Ah don’t think that’s Sarine anymore. Aren’t elves vegetarians?”

The little woman got up to a crouch, hunched over with hands flexing open and closed. Hot dwarven blood covered her face and neck. Jackson poked her with the chair legs. One of the ogres smashed a table and held its base over his head like an oversized club.

“Sarine, can you hear me?” Izzy yelled. “Please, answer.” Sarine snarled and ran at Izzy, kept back by Jackson’s chair.

The ogre, I think it’s Conan judging from the lack of beard, gave out a way cry and swung the base of the table. He missed and Sarine leapt at him. Elyse hit her with a snowball spell and knocked her away from the ogre.

Conan swung again, this time getting a solid hit. We could all hear the crunch as her leg broke. Many of the trainees winced.

The double doors boomed open. “What is this?” Drill Sergeant Bidlack roared.

“Ah thank this little elf has become a zombie or something.” Jackson yelled, poking her again with his chair.

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Instructor Nills asked, walking out behind Bidlack. He drew a long, narrow-bladed sword. “Out of the way, if you please.” He told the trainees that were streaming through the doors into the hallway.

Conan swung again and missed again. The little sea elf was proving a difficult target. She limped towards the ogre, only to be knocked back down by Jackson’s chair. Nills stepped around me and thrust. It was a perfect parade ground motion, his arms extending in opposite directions and his feet spreading to maintain his balance. The long, narrow blade of his sword went through Sarine’s eye. She stopped moving like a marionette with the strings cut, hanging there on his sword.