We were all back in our room, changing from the duty uniform of loose gray pajamas into the training uniform of something like a karate outfit. “Guys, I think I’ve thought of a way to get out of here.”

They all stopped and stared at me. Niobe went and closed the door. “You know the consequences of that.” She leaned over me and said in a dead serious tone.

“I also remember the consequences only happened when you got brought back. If we get away, I don’t think anything happens.” I fought with the knot on my rope belt. Damn this low Agility!

Jackson turned so his back was to us. The terrible bruising from the whipping had mostly faded but there were a couple of thin traces of scars. “Is it worth this? Not to us, but to the rest of the platoon?”

“Just suggesting something.” I shrugged. “During a storm, they can hardly see. That could be a good time to get away.”

“Okay, good note.” Izzy nodded. We all finished getting dressed and ran out for training.

Each squad broke up by instructor. Third Squad went upstairs to a new room with Instructor Stethyr. “Today we sshall learn about usse of sskillss.” He hissed. “Thiss iss intended for thosse without a point in the sskill priority.”

“Dude, do you think they made the skills instructor not be able to say skills as a joke?” Jackson asked quietly.

“Human, did you know one of the advantagess of being high at sskillss iss I’m good at lisstening?” Stethyr asked Jackson, much to the amusement of the squad. “Run the perimeter of the room until I get tired.”

Jackson shook his head and started jogging around the large room cluttered with training aids. The ceiling was high with a net draped over a horizontal log well in the air. There were ropes to climb, barbed wire ropes to shuffle under and a variety of others.

“We’ll sstart with what I call the ssurvival sskillss of Hide, Move Ssilently and Lissten. Who put pointss in thosse?” He asked. I raised my hand along with Izzy, Niobe, Deniz and Elyse. The instructor nodded.

Stethyr pointed to Niobe, “You’ve put a priority point into skills so you act as a trainer. Stand over here.” Niobe went and stood by him. That produced some grumbles. Not everyone was cool with her from the getting the whole platoon in trouble.

“Deniz, you sshould be passing next time and putting a point into skills. You go first.” The little bird-like halnaak walked over to the larger lizardman. He put a thick bandana over her eyes. “Your tassk iss to detect Niobe.”

The instructor sent all the trainees to the side of the room. Niobe went to the other with orders to move to us. It was weird watching someone move silently. She’d step using the toe, then roll her foot down to take her weight.

Stethyr had placed numerous objects in her path, including a couple of carpets. There were apparently crunchy things under the carpets. A soft shoe came down on the woolen pad and the crackle of breaking sticks was obvious. Deniz pointed right at her.

The squad broke up into two groups. One went over to a shadowy area with a lot of vertical poles and diaphaneous wrappings hanging off them. That was the hide area while half their group would try and spot them. I was in the move silently/listen group.

I sounded like a horse on cobblestones trying to move silently. It was frustrating. Instructor Stethyr walked beside me. “Do what I do.” And his reverse knee’d scaly leg took a step. I took a step. PLOD. Dammit. A steamkettle noise came out of the instructor. It took me a moment to realize that’s what a midniss laugh sounded like.

On the bright side, Marko the ogre was listening for me and had apparently been struck deaf. I don’t think he could hear it if someone tap danced on his face. Deniz the halnaak tried to guide him in meditations to tune out the background noise, but the bellows sound of his own breathing made it really tough for him to hear quiet noises.

When it became my turn to listen, it seemed like the walls closed in on me. I could hear Marko, who had put no points at all into Move Silently, and Hera the gold dwarf drew close but I finally did notice her. No one else. Okay, one time Tomaz the human slipped on some oil and I heard that, but what a fluke.

The hide/spot segment went a bit better. My stumpy dwarven body seemed to find the brightly illuminated areas to try to hide. All the while, my gemstone eyes were attracted to the movement of a curtain rather than my squad mates.

This went on until lunch. At one point, Stethyr grabbed my head and pointed over my shoulder with a claw tipped finger. “Look. Sshe’ss right there.” Trying to get me to spot Hera. I saw nothing.

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So desperately glad to get out of there, I was nearly skipping to the chow hall. Izzy was talking to Niobe right next to me. The sea elf positively gushed, “That was SO much fun! I think I’m going to put a priority point into skills.”

“Yeah, you were pretty good at it.” The cat woman nodded. “I’m honestly surprised. At least you weren’t like Captain No-See-Um over there.” I tried to ignore her pointing at me and the giggles that followed.

Marko put a giant arm over my shoulder. “It’s okay little buddy.” The ogre said. “I didn’t see or hear anyone either.” He shook his head.

“Ugh, unlike you though I put points into those skills.” I put my hand over my eyes.

“Wow, that sucks man.” The big galoot said sympathetically.

Sympathy from an ogre. I’ve hit rock bottom.

Never was I more glad to go to the chow hall. I went through the line, wrote down my name on the clipboard and saw Julian season my food. He did everyone else as well, but most people were from different jars.

Food was pretty good this afternoon. It was something like a hamburger steak with gravy. They’d diced up the cow’s horn and scattered it all over like mushrooms. That was a nice crunchy touch. The beer was good too. I snowballed mine and Jackson’s. The side dish was fresh corn with what I think was beetle carapace. As a human I’d have been grossed out by that but as a dwarf it was really tasty.

After lunch was two hours of independent study. For Jackson that mean weapons training and for Niobe it was back in the skills room. Izzy and I read in our room.

I was curled up on my bunk reading Theory of Spells and Casting Them. “Hey Izzy, how are your spells divided up?” I asked.

She was reading a scroll and looked up from it. “Well, I have the basic domain for my church, which is Nature. After that, there are up to four more domains you can get. Crusader are warlike spells. Hospitalier are healing spells. Proselytist are like charm, convincing people spells. Finally, Spiritualist are for combat against spirits, undead or enemy priests.”

“Wow, that’s totally different than mine.” I shook my head.

“What are yours?” She asked, rolling the scroll back up and putting it aside.

“There are SO many!” I said excitedly. Sitting up in the bed, “They are divided up into towers named after the various heavenly bodies. I don’t know yet if that’s significant or not. The solar tower has Abjuration, Evocation, Elemental Air and Elemental Fire.”

“Okay, so that’s like the war mages, right?” Izzy nodded, stroking her chin thoughtfully.

“Yeah, it seems so.” I looked in my book to make sure of the next part. “Then the lunar tower has access to Enchantment, Illusion. Elemental Earth and Elemental Water.”

“Interesting mix there. They seem like more utility mages where the solars are pretty direct.” The sea elf said thoughtfully.

“Then there’s the ember tower. Their schools of magic are Animation, Necromancy and Vitality. They can also choose one of the elemental schools.”

“Now that is fascinating.” She paused for a second. “So that tower deals with the stuff of life, right? What does animation do?”

“Uh, I’m just getting into that part. Let’s see.” My finger traced down the page until I got to the description of animation. “An example spell is Grass Doll. The caster weaves a humanoid figure out of leaves or grass and it is animated, allowing him to see through the creature’s eyes.”

“That’s a really cool scout spell.” Her eyes went wide at the possibilities.

“In the game I was all about kill it with fire, but since we’re actually here one of the more utility oriented towers sounds better to me.” I told her. “I’m really liking the conjuration spell I learned.”

“What is it?” She asked.

“Summon Lesser Beast.” I grinned. “It lets me summon one of those horned rabbits we’ve been fighting.”

“Really, can I see it?” She asked.

“Well… I can’t think of why not.” I shrugged. Digging around in my trunk produced the horn. My fingers twisted through the signs and I chanted the words of the spell. Suddenly, the horned rabbit was sitting in the middle of the floor. His one black ear was bent down and the tiny pink nose was wriggling like crazy.

“Can i…” Izzy leaned forward. “Can I pet him?”

“No idea what will happen. Give it a shot.” I held my hands up in an I surrender gesture.

The sea elven woman slowly stood. Holding her hand out, she kneeled down. The rabbit was nearly as tall as her, sitting up on its back legs. She kept her hand steady, not quite in the creature’s face but near it. It leaned forward, nose working up and down rapidly.

She slowly reached forward and barely made contact. The bunny sat still. She brushed its back fur. It went down on all fours.

Izzy withdrew her hand, but the rabbit just sat there. She slowly stroked down its back. “Its so soft.”

“Hmm, it looks a bit bigger than it did.“ I studied the horned rabbit closely. It appeared slightly bulkier. Maybe I’m misremembering. It never hung out for too long and this was only the third time I’d summoned it.

Isabel was being incredibly gentle with the bunny. It leaned into her hand and she froze for a moment. The rabbit popped out of existence. “Aaaaaah, did you see it lean into me?” She squealed, sounding like a little girl. “Its so cute I want to die!” The tiny woman held her hands in fists up over her mouth.

I smiled broadly. It was good to see her acting like a normal person. There hadn’t been a lot of that since we were brought here.

“That’s one of the basic schools. There are three schools of magic you can cast before you take a totem. That’s Conjuration, Divination and Shifting. You’ve seen what Conjuration does.”

“I still only have the Nature Domain.” She tapped a finger against her chin. “I wonder if I can summon critters like that.”

“It seems like it.” I shrugged. “As long as it’s a natural monster or beast? Is that a rule?”

“I have no idea.” She shook her head. “The spells are just there. I read them off the tree. We haven’t gotten anything like that magical theory you read.” Izzy held up her scroll. “This is religious history. It’s the stories of how The New Gods rose and became conduits of faith in the world created by the Elders. Not a lot about spell research on this scroll.”

“I wonder if Instructor Falaise knows how that works?” I stood up and started pacing. “Can we research spells? Can new spells be introduced to the divine domains? Can I create new ones or modify them? Let’s go ask.”

We both stood and went in search of the spell instructor.