I took a firm grip on my shield and had my makeshift spear on the ground where it was convenient. Grabbing a fist sized rock, I threw it at the rabbit. It spanged off a big stone near the bunny.

Sighing, I grab another stone, not taking my eyes off the cuddly menace. I tossed the rock up and down, getting a feel for the weight. I threw. Bullseye!

The horned rabbit turned to me and started the leaping run, coming straight for me. I reached for my spear and fumbled it. Cursing, I finally grabbed the thing and seated it under my arm, taking a good grip.

I leaned forward, behind my shield. My eyes were just above the top rim. It jumped at me, spiraling horn leading the way. Contact! My knife blade cut deep into the fuzzy creature.

It fell, making a kind of grumbling noise. I drew my axe and chopped. It went still. One more tail to collect.

Grabbing my gear, I slowly made my way to the next chamber. Peeking around the arched entryway, I saw the horned rabbit right there. He was just to the left of the entryway.

Okay, that means my normal plan won’t work. He’s too close to throw the rock then grab the spear. Maybe spear then run back around the corner? Let’s try that.

I set up just on the opposite side of the stone wall that separated one chamber from another. The arch was shallow, so very wide at the bottom and narrow at the top. The fuzzy devil was crunching on some type of vegetation just around the turn. Deep breath. Wheew.

I set my axe down on a nearby stone and held the spear overhand, like it was a harpoon I was about to cast at Moby Dick. Scratch that, it ends terribly for all concerned. Like it was a javelin I’m about to toss. Edging up to the arch, I slowly peered around the dividing wall.

I leaned my head around the corner and jabbed with the spear. The rabbit reared up, jerking my makeshift stabbing weapon out of my hands. Jumping back around the corner, I grabbed my axe and got behind my shield.

It jumped into the archway, beady eyes scanning. My knife blade has still stuck in its side, the pole having come off. The snowy white fur was stained red. The monstrous rabbit saw me.

Lowing its head, it lunged in my direction. I crouched behind my shield, tomahawk at the ready. Its horn pierced the hide covering and I belly flopped forward.

The bunny hopped off the shield before I could hit the ground. Now I was laying on the protective disk and the monster was right beside me. It jumped, and I tried to roll, but my arm got caught in the shield straps.

The terrible rabbit pierced my side. My tomahawk fell, and everything faded to black.

Some time later, I came slowly back to consciousness with Instructor Nills kneeling over me. His salt and pepper goatee the last thing I expected to see. “Do we count this one as a win?” He said, looking to his right.

Bidlack stood there, his hands clasped at his lower back with Smokey the Bear hat perched on his head. “The rabbit is in his possession and the tail is off. Trainee, you are a go at this station.”

I leaned up and looked. My tomahawk had cut off the beast’s lower back. It had bled to death after stabbing me with its horn. Nills offered me his hand. I took it and he pulled once with me barely moving. The Fortune Instructor smiled, “I forget how heavy you dwarves are.” He put his shoulders into it and I rose to my feet. The human clapped me on the back, “Congratulations. You’re one of only five trainees that completed the first dungeon.”

Nills guided me through the clearings, chamber by chamber. Soon I was back in the waiting area. Bidlack followed us and closed the heavy door to the adventuring area with a boom.

We walked back down the hall, me still not quite understanding what was going on. I followed the two humans, having to half jog to keep up. Finally, we came to the training area.

Everyone was scattered around doing weapons drill or getting some one on one instructor time with Falaise, Stethyr or Goldo. Bidlack surveyed the activity with a slight curl in his lip. “Platoon! Fall in.” He roared.

Everyone stood there looking at him. He stared back. “Dammit, get in formation. That’s what Fall In means.” We all ran over to line up in our squads.

Once the platoon was in something like a rectangle, I noticed there were three missing. Two from second squad and one from fourth. I was fairly certain all the squads had twelve members before.

Bidlack glowered at us from in front of the formation. “When I call your name you will fall out and march to the front of the formation. Falling out of formation as an individual means you take a single step back and make a left facing movement. Then you expeditiously walk to where you are directed. Is that clear?”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Yes Drill Sergeant!” rattled the ceiling.

“When you hear your name called, you will sound off in a loud and thunderous voice ‘Moving Drill Sergeant’. Then you will execute the Fall Out movement. Is that clear?”

“Yes Drill Sergeant!” We were getting good at this now.

Instructor Nills had a clipboard and stood to the right of the formation. He read the names from it. “Elyse Burt.”

“Moving Drill Ssergeant!” The serpentine midniss fell out of third squad and raced to the side. She then ran up to the front, standing where the Drill Sergeant pointed and resumed the position of attention. It looked wild with her extremely long neck. Her hood flared open and closed in what I read as nervousness.

“Conan Badassington.” Nills read off. I stifled a chuckle. That was 100% the new guy the guild had taken on the last raid. Still sticking with that character name, too. The ogre ran up beside the cobra-like Midniss.

“Michael Resnick.” That’s me! I sounded off and fell out. The movements came naturally to me but it had been ages since I did the drill and ceremony from basic training.

“Niobe Dawn.” Nills read. It was the catgirl from my room. She ran and stood to my left.

“OP MC” Nills read. I fought back a grin. He was also a member of the old guild. I wonder if everyone is a Flaming Chamber Pot? The Ogre lumbered up beside Niobe.

“These trainees met the minimum standard in the last exercise. They gathered seven tails. That was the task, so they earned a passing grade.” Bidlack said with as much emotion as a hammer driving in a nail. “The rest of you did not achieve success. You will remedy that. You’ll notice there are two more missing. They died. That’s a fail.” He scanned the group, looking everyone in the eyes. “Don’t fail.”

There was a long silence before Bidlack said, “You will repeat this block of instruction and be retested. You’ll do this until you pass…” He paused again. “Or until you fail. Fall out to weapons drill.”

The platoon fell out to weapons instruction with Drill Sergeant Bidlack. They paired off and used their quarterstaves. The four instructors descended on us.

“What will your firsst prioritiess be?” Hissed Instructor Stethyr. We all stood there, not really understanding the question.

Instructor Nills sighed, “You are all taking part in zeroth level character creation. You have six priority points to place in one of four priorities. They are Combat, Fortune, Magic and Skills. You’ve all just earned your first point. Where will you put it?” He rolled his eyes as if exhausted.

I raised my hand and Stethyr pointed to me with a clawed finger. “Uh, I’m hoping to become a wizard. No, a mage. So I guess I’ll put the first point into Magic. Does that sound right?”

Falaise nodded, “It does. Please come over here.” I walked over to her.

Elyse the lizardwoman also wanted to put her point into magic and joined me and Falaise. Conan and OP both were going combat, so they went with Instructor Goldo. Niobe was going for a skills build, so she went with Stethyr. Nills rolled his eyes again and trotted over to the formation to help with quarterstaff training.

“What did you take from this first experience?” Instructor Falaise asked.

Elyse answered, “I need to be more dextrouss. I jusst ran away and hit them with my quartersstaff. If they’d been tougher, that wouldn’t have worked. Alsso, ssome sspellss would be nice.” She made a noise like a teakettle just before it starts whistling. After a moment I realized that was a midniss laugh. I couldn’t help but smile along.

“Okay, so you’re working towards a dexterity caster.” Falaise nodded, then looked at me.

“My Agility was also a problem. I ran out of spells too quickly.” I told them.

“What, you have sspellss already?” Elyse asked.

“He gets a bonus as a silver dwarf.” Falaise told her. The cobra-like woman nodded and ran a claw scritching down her chin, lost in thought. The instructor told the lizard how to get to her mental place, describing the four statues of magical tradition. Once Elyse was lost in character design, the sea elf turned to me.

“You’ll also get two attribute points. Have you considered where you’ll use them?” She asked.

Hmm, another big decision. My agility was really awful, but I also got a negative in both the intellectual stats. “My initial thought is to put one point in Agility and one in Acumen.”

Falaise nodded, “That would help shore up your biggest weakness a bit and bring you up to average in Acumen.” She thought for a moment. “If you consider using both points in Acumen you’d have the minimum to learn a summoning spell. I notice you took a horn from one of the rabbits. We could use it to make contact with that rabbit. Instead of summoning a variety of creatures, it would lock you into that one, but if we do a ritual I know it would allow the animal to level.”

My mind reeled at the possibilities. I was so low level that the bunny could go up with me. This could allow a low level spell to stay relevant. I put the two points into Acumen, bringing me up to five. Going into the character creation construct, I turned the dial titled Magic one click.

My eyes went wide. That brought me to 16 mana points! I had none at the moment, but the capacity was there.

Falaise smiled back and reached back into her satchel. She flipped open a leather folio and leafed through some papers. “Here, copy this into your spellbook exactly.” She handed me sheets of thick parchment paper. It took me all day. If I made a mistake, the whole page just blanked.

Finally Summon Lesser Beast was recorded. I stretched out my cramping hand feeling on top of the world. The instructor, who had long been working with Elyse, applauded.

“Let’s try this ritual!” Instructor Falaise got a small bag of glittering dust from her satchel. “Most starting mages couldn’t afford this, but we have a sponsor!” She poured the gem dust into runic patterns and used salt to make a circle. She put the rabbit horn in the center.

She spent a moment making sure the runes were perfect. Then the Instructor directed me to sit at the head of the pattern. She said a series of ridiculous sounding words and made me repeat them until I got them perfect. Then I said them again, directed towards the horn.

I could hear the instructor chanting the words along with me, doing what she called Aiding Another. We repeated the chant, then again. The air within the circle began to darken.

We repeated the chant. Little storm clouds appeared, roiling around. Finally, the horned bunny gradually came together out of the clouds. He stared at me. Falaise handed me a piece of celery. I handed it to the bunny. He chomped on it, eating the entire thing, and then slowly disappeared.