“I never thought there were be different types of challenges,” William said to the group. They funneled in line towards the exit.”

“You guys go on ahead. I need to talk to the commander about my schedule tomorrow,” said Elias.

Elias walked back back in to the auditorium towards the podium where Commander Zacharias was packing up his things.

He turned around and made sure nobody was still in the conference center.

“Sir,” Elias said trying to get the Commanders attention.

“Its right there on the podium. Go ahead.” Zacharias chuckled. “I guess the suicide kings are in the lead.”

Zacharias smiled. Elias took the ring and wedged it between his body and the back of his pants.

He hefted his shield and sword onto his back to make sure the ring was concealed.

Then he strode out of the conference center and back to his room.

“What was wrong with your schedule?” asked William when he entered the room. Elias closed the door behind him.

“Nothing was wrong with my schedule. I was picking up this,” Elias said as he pulled the ring out from his pants.

William looked astonished.

“But… but…” was all that William could get to come out of his mouth.

“Just keep it on a down low.” Elias winked and set down his sword and shield.

He needed a more legitimate hiding place for the ring.

For now Elias lifted his mattress and placed the ring between his mattress and the bed frame.

“That should be sufficient for tonight.” A knocking sound resounded on their door.

William answered it and Liam stepped into the room. William closed the door behind them.

“So what is the plan to capture the ring?”

“What ring?” questioned William.

“The ring the commander wants us to capture!” Liam said in a panicked voice.

“Oh you mean this ring?” Elias asked as he pulled it out from underneath his mattress.

Liam’s eyes focused on the ring in confusion.

He then relaxed as he understood that they were in the lead and no one else was any wiser.

He slid the ring back under his mattress. “Ok we need to act like we don’t have the ring.

Let’s go outside and discuss how we’re going to get that ring.”

They walked outside and saw a couple of other groups discussing the same thing.

“So wait a minute where is the ring?” questioned Liam.

“I dunno. Who’d he give the ring to?” asked Elias.

“Nobody. He just set it down on the podium and we all left.” Said William. The three looked at each other.

A group next to them looked up. From there it became a mad house.

Elias, Will, and Liam smiled at each other as they raced across the hall.

The noise disturbance caused the whole hall to come out and see what was going on.

Eventually they had every kid in barracks C doing a mad dash towards the conference room.

Once inside everybody made a dash to the podium. To everyone’s amazement, except for Liam, William, and Elias, the ring was gone.

Someone shouted that someone must have already had the ring.

“William, Liam, spread out. Find what group or groups aren’t here.

It’s highly likely that one of them has the ring. William you look for those groups who aren’t on the first floor.

Liam you have the second floor. I’ll cover the third.” They spread out. Soon everybody followed suit.

This also proved an ample opportunity to test William and Liam’s reconnaissance.

Elias had already noted most of the groups that were there when they were rushing to the conference room.

He already counted all third floor members. Second floor had two empty rooms.

The ground floor also was missing one room. Six people total were missing.

That made two cells that they could blame for having the ring. Liam and William ran back to him.

“I counted two rooms that are absent from the second floor.”

“Only one is missing from the first.”

“Alright let’s go then.” The three ran back to the dorm area.

Other teams gave up on trying to figure out who was missing and followed the three back.

“Alright were goingto have to act natural. I’m going to knock on the door normally and wait for them to open it up.

When they do I want you guys to grab the two on the inside. Everyone else search the room for the ring.

Elias knocked on the door. He heard footsepts behind it and someone opened the door.

Immediately the two students were dragged out of their room.

“Whats going on?” questioned a frightened and angry student.

“We are looking for the ring. It wasn’t located in the conference room where he set it down,” said William.

“We don’t have it I swear!” By the time he finished the students walked out of the guy’s room.

“Nothing in here they don’t have it.” The large group then made another mad dash towards the second floor.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

“Will, Liam wait. There would be no chance for our group to recover the ring if it is in the other two rooms.

There is too big of a crowd for us to reach it in time.

Let’s go under the assumption that Commander Zacharias still has the ring.

If we head down to his office maybe we can get it and hide it before the other teams.”

With that the three followed the mob towards the stairway and went down the stairs.

They waited until all focus was on the second floor and loudly whispered each other down the flight of stairs to the first floor.

One person noticed their descent and signaled for his group to follow Elias and the others.

“Smart group,” he thought. Once they got to the bottom of the stairs they ran to the Commander’s Office.

William knocked on the door. Zacharias opened the door.

“Can I help you?”

“We were wondering if you still had the ring sir.”

“I left the ring on the podium. It is currently in possession of one of the cell squads.” With that Zacharias closed the door.

“I guess we missed out. It must have been in one of the rooms on the second floor.”

Elias gave his best depressed look. “We still got plenty enough time to find it later for now theres nothing we can do running ourselves ragged.

Maybe we can catch the person with the ring if he tries to flee down the stairs.”

So the group of six jogged back to the dorms with exhaustion.

They walked back up to the stairs to see a confused group of people.

“Did they have it?” questioned a student from the group that followed them.

“No it wasn’t in their rooms. Where did you six go?”

“We talked to Commander Zacharias. He said he left the ring in the conference room.

He also said it was already in possession by a cell squad. We thought it would have been in one of your guy’s rooms.”

“No it wasn’t in neither room.”

“Then we must assume the worst. One group must have gone back and grabbed the ring before the rest of us realized it.

Might even have had enough time to store it in their room.

No way to do a room by room sweep either.” Time passed by as the time neared midnight.

All of the students in barracks C were to tired and confused at this point to do much.

Five minutes of silence ensued until the bells softly sounded midnight. Footsteps sounded from the stairway.

Commander Zacharias strode up the stairs and into the hallway. All the students stood up and snapped to attention.

“It is midnight and I came to announce the victors. Congratulations Suicide Kings.

And with that I announce the start of the group battles. Get to sleep you have classes beginning tomorrow.”

Zacharias waved his arm towards the noisy students.

“Congratulations guys. This is going to be a terrific year,” said Elias.

Will and Liam agreed and with that they separated and went off to bed surrounded by angry scowls.

Elias and Will awoke sluggishly the next morning. They picked up their arms and headed out to breakfast.

The groups’ information on the wall changed! Last year’s cell teams had been replaced with their years.

Each squad took off to see their mascot and name printed on the wall.

Elias, William watched as Liam rushed up the stairs.

Once he reached the outside of their door they looked at the opposite wall and saw their mascot.

It was a giant king of hearts playing card tilted on one of its corners. Below the mascot was their name, Suicide Kings.

Excitedly the group headed down to breakfast.

Will had weapons practice right after breakfast and did not want to be late.

He wolfed down his cereal, excused himself, and then ran off full sprint to class.

Elias counted the bells and judged by his speed Will was going to get there fifteen minutes early.

Elias finished his breakfast also and headed to look around the school. His weapons class was in two hours.

Since he had nothing to do until then, he walked back to the training rooms.

None of them were in use or scheduled for use.

Since no one had scheduled any they were put on a first come first serve basis.

Most of the rooms had been separated as individual rooms or group practice rooms.

He peeked into the rooms and examined the different training grounds available.

Among the different types was cardio, obstacle, tactical, dummy battle, attack, sword defense, and shield defense.

Every training type had a difficulty level written next to it.

He walked into the obstacle type. His main objective was to get familiar with the practice rooms and have a warm up session before class so he would not be slow.

However he didn’t want to be completely worn out before class. Especially on the first day.

Elias closed the door behind him and read over the objective.

“Your objective is to reach the end of the course within the time limit.

Since you will not need weapons or shields please set them down against the wall.

You will have a time limit of two minutes to complete the task.

You can begin by pulling the designated roped and lifting the weight fully to the ceiling.

The pulleys and ropes have been adjusted so that it takes the weight the appropriate time to hit the ground.

Additional weight can be added to challenge yourself to complete the track even faster.

An example difficulty chart is shown below.”

Elias finished reading the instructions and set his equipment down and tried to get a layout of the course.

Elias was surrounded by walls on each side. In front of him was a round opening in the wall that had entrance printed above it.

On the other side he saw a pool of water that was around ten feet below the ground he was currently on.

Opposite of that was a giant slide that led down into the water.

It was close enough to try and jump off the slide and land on the platform if he timed it right.

If he missed however, he would land in a pool if water.

Elias then began to walk towards the weights and hoisted them up.

Elias pulled the weights up until they hit the ceiling. He steadied his breath, let go of the rope, and ran.

He jumped into the opening and began crawling inwards.

Once he got far enough into the tube, it turned towards the right.

Elias continued to crawl hurriedly through the tube. He eventually got out of the tube after it snaked back around.

Once he got out he was surrounded by walls on all four sides again.

On one of the walls were openings to climb up. At the top he could see a large opening.

Elias began to climb the wall. He always enjoyed climbing trees when he was little so this was no problem for him.

Once he got to the top he stood on a large square platform.

Across the way was another large square platform. Slightly above him rested crossbars one was meant to swing across.

He grabbed ahold of two separate crossbars with his hands and swung out.

Below him was a similar style pool that had a ladder leading up to the second platform if one fell in.

Smoothly he made his way over one arm and one crossbar at a time.

Once he arrived he stopped to catch his breath and recover the strength of his grip.

Below him was a slanted section leading into water. A little beyond the water was the starting area.

He had to time his jump while he was sliding down the ramp in order to reach.

Elias got down and began to slide.

He used his hands for balance on the slide as he felt himself starting to slide faster than he had anticipated.

Once he thought he was close enough he jumped. His heart was beating in his chest but he was going to make it.

The platform he landed was on was surprisingly harder than he thought. His knees buckled underneath him.

He rolled on the ground three times before he came to a complete stop.

Elias crawled over and grabbed the rope as the weights were still descending.

Elias smiled and released the rope as he watched the weight eventually reach the ground.

He wanted to continue with obstacle course training. The feeling was exhilarating.

He just didn’t want to injure himself and sprain his ankle like he almost did with the jump.

He picked up his sword and shield and walked out of the room. He would definitely be back here many times.

Elias walked back to his room and waited for class to start.

His hand and a half sword class would be in outdoor field C.

He clipped the sword to his back walked out of the academy.

On his way out into the outdoor field he passed a bunch of weary students walking back into the academy covered in sweat, mud, and a few in blood.

Good thing he didn’t over exhaust himself in the training room.

He met up with a couple of other students he saw with hand and a half swords he noticed from barracks C.

Together they walked out into the field and assembled in front of their new teacher.

He was a rather large grizzly man. Both of his hands were resting upon a massive sword stuck into the ground.