This forced him to think about Aceso and the punishment that she had to endure upon returning to the city for accepting his oath of fealty. He still didn’t understand it and he didn’t feel any different now than he had before he had met Aceso in his forest that other lifetime ago. But if Achelois was to be believed and what she had done to him was really seen as rape than he was glad that Aceso’s punishment wasn’t more severe.
His mind spun with thoughts of rape, punishment, naked woman taunting men, and the question of who stood as the moral judge over all those scenarios. At one point he thought about what Tasha had done to him. That, to him, was far worse than anything Aceso had done. Maybe that was why she had left the City under the Mountain. He found himself wondering what that would do to a person to suddenly find yourself with supreme control over other people’s hearts and minds because of biochemistry and subliminal manipulation. He wondered what Charles thought about that sort of thing, if he had ever been tempted to use his lunar gift against those of the opposite sex for nothing more than a mere night’s pleasure.
William heard the footsteps long before Amanda peeked around that open space that served as his entryway. “Oh, good I don’t have to wake you up,” Amanda said as she pivoted on the ball of her foot and disappeared from his room.
Several minutes later after a trip to the bathroom, he was dressed and waiting in the city square for the rest of his pack to show up. He felt a lot better than he should have but he knew that this was a temporary feeling. In about an hour or so his body was going to be protesting the lack of sleep and he wondered how he was going to deal with Efraim’s regimen today without having any sleep.
Efraim did not have them go on a run this morning, at least not for two hours. He led the four human born away from the city square. He followed twists and turns in the cities layout to lead them to a side crevasse inside the underground cavern. They walked through the manicured and maintained opening in the rock and followed the twists of the formed rock. This alleyway had a very similar feeling to what he had walked through when he had found that temple of the multiple gods where he had met Eustace. The winding alleyway was filled with abstract curves and ledges with hollowed out spaces along the way. The black obsidian was smooth as glass, and even though they travelled in almost complete darkness the obsidian swirled with deep colors as they passed by.
They took a sharp turn and all at once the alleyway opened up into a vast hollow cavern. William had no idea where he was. The cavern was misshaped and much smaller than the carefully crafted area of the underground cavern where the city proper sat, but this place was no less impressive. It held enough open space to be a football stadium. The whole floor of this cave was covered with what looked like a massive child’s jungle gym. William could see rope bridges, slides, ladders and connecting tunnels all through the place. He noticed that the ground was covered in a squishy soft padding, just like he would have expected to find at a child’s playground. He felt like a kid again and the only thought in his head was to go play.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“This might look like a jungle gym to you, but to me this is a training tool.” Efraim looked at the four of them. “You might notice those huge blocks a little farther back?” He hooked his thumb in the direction of the massive blocks. To William they looked no different than the buildings inside of the City under the Mountain. “Today you will learn how to move through that urban environment with speed.” He focused on Nicolas. “I’m sure you’ve heard of Parkour?” Nicolas shook his head. Efraim looked at the rest of the group. “It is the sport of moving through an urban environment with speed and efficiency. I’m not saying any of you will master it in your human forms but it is an invaluable technique to use in certain circumstances.”
Efraim took them through the basics of Parkour, lifting themselves up on walls and how to jump from heights without breaking their legs. The purpose of the jungle gym became very clear to William as the jungle gym was a training ground for the empty buildings and walls that were placed behind it. The jungle gym was more of an obstacle course anyway. For the next hour or two Efraim taught them about their werewolf forms and how to use them when confined to various man-made environments.
The four of them were allowed to rest as Efraim produced bags of food for each of them. What they got to eat for breakfast was some bread, cheese, and some dried meat, a large piece of fruit and a container of water. It was nothing compared to warm pancakes and bacon but he had to make do with what he had. When he finished breakfast, his body started to show signs of not having any sleep and he had a hard time performing those basic moves that Efraim taught them.
William’s body felt heavy and sluggish but he was glad for the constant movement, anything less than that and he would have fallen asleep. They practiced Parkour on the walls and the ladders of the jungle gym. They had to dive through small rabbit holes down slides and into pits of sand. By lunch time, William was sweating and panting and he was pretty sure that his body couldn’t take any more of this.
Efraim had them all sit down. “These are advanced techniques for people who enjoy the sport.” He looked at them as they sat there absorbing what he said. “I don’t expect any of you to continue to train in this technique past what I have taught you here today. It will always be here and if I had more time, I would make sure that you had mastered everything I know about it, at least in your werewolf forms.” Efraim heaved a sigh. “But I don’t have that kind of time and neither do you.” He stood up looking down at the four of them. “Remember what you have learned here today, it might save your life someday.” The sudden shocked feeling that William felt must have been clearly written on his face because Efraim stopped and looked right at him. “If I didn’t know about these techniques I wouldn’t be here right now.”