Chapter 10

The five sects of the Hermetic Order of the Aegis each worship a fragment of The Nameless Goddess. But rumors persist among the students of a hidden sixth sect that follows a darker fragment of the lost goddess.

Day 2, Smeltesday

I held the heavy blade in my hands. The grip chaffed in my palms as I swung with all the strength I could muster. The Arming Sword fell, cleaving the air to strike the dummy with a muffled ‘clack’. The blade bounced off the wood torso and fell to the dirt, causing me to stagger and almost fall myself. In order to right myself, I was forced to drop the weapon. 

“What the fuck was that SLATE?!” Snapped Mystagogue Kellenar. His three-foot frame stormed over to me, a telltale vein bulging at his neck. Before I could respond, he scooped up my training blade. Waving the weapon in my face, he screamed a string of obscenities that, even now, I would not repeat. My vision fell straight to my feet with a weight of shame. The instructor’s response to this reaction was to strike my shin with the flat of the blade. I let out a yipe of pain and shock at the blow to my leg. In answer, Kellenar smacked me across the head with the blade. “You will only cry out when I say so. You will only drop your weapon when I say so. The next time I see a weapon leave your grip without my say-so, I’ll have you doing pushups till you’re bleeding from your nose.”

“Y-yes, sir.” I stuttered, trying to ignore the throbbing in my shin and the side of my head. He threw the blade to the dirt and stormed off to assault another poor soul.

I gingerly scooped up the training blade, my palms raw from the day’s training and on the brink of turning into blisters. I grasped the blade in both hands, took my stance, and inhaled long and slow, exhaling in a rush as the Mystagogue shouted his next command.

“Right collar bone strike!” Snapped the command. I landed the blow as hard as I could muster.

“Left hip strike!” I retracted my blade and struck again.

“You all call that a hip strike?! AGAIN, like you want to kill the bastard. LEFT, HIP, STRIKE!” I struck again with more vigor, a blister on my palm bursting with the blow. I winced with the pain but didn’t dare drop the weapon again, lest worse fall upon me.

“Good, now, crown strike!” I raised the weapon over my head and brought it down on the dummy’s head, visualizing Kellenar’s face over the manikin. The blow landed with a loud ‘CRACK’. But the blow landed too hard. I staggered and dropped my blade for a second time. Before he noticed, I reached for the weapon. I was inches from the hilt when Kellenar Shouted, “HALT!” I froze mid-reach. He stormed over. “AT ATTENTION MAGOT!” 

I stood up straight, arms at my side, fists clenched, eyes looking off into the distance.

“What did I tell you, scum sack?” he growled.

“S-sir! You s-said that i-if I dropped it again, I w-would be doing pushups.” I recited, trying to hide the fear in my tone.

He smirked. “Then you know what comes next. Drop and give me fifty!”

I did as I was told, got onto my hands and feet, and started pumping out pushups as fast as my weak arms could manage.

“I can’t hear you counting!” He mocked.

I started counting, “One sir, two sir, three sir…” and so it went while he turned away to continue shouting commands to the rest of the class. I made it to forty-five before my arms gave out. I fell to the dirt, wheezing like an asthmatic, stars dancing in my eyes even as my cheek lay in the dust. 

The next thing I knew, I had a pair of fingers in my nostrils, yanking me up. In a panic, I tried to follow the rising pain in my nose, wailing a repeated “Ow ow ow ow!” As I reached my knees, I found myself face to face with the livid, scarred face of Kellenar. Without a warning, he released my nose and struck it with a palm strike, breaking it with an audible ‘crack’. I fell over, howling in pain as I clutched at my misshapen nose. Blood gushed from the orifices to paint my palms and the dust below with dark droplets. As I whimpered in the dirt, I felt a hand tangle in my dark hair and yank me to a sitting position. A cocktail of blood and snot streamed from my nose. I opened my tear-blurred eyes to find Kellenar’s angry stare burning into me.

“I warned you, didn’t I? That you would do push-ups till your nose bled. Now, guess what? You and EVERYONE HERE ARE GOING TO RUN LAPS AROUND THE FIELD TILL YOUR NOSE STOPS BLEEDING! NOW GET STARTED!” I shakily stood and started to run, even as the other students dropped their weapons.

“OH NO, YOU PUSS BAGS DON’T! You all are going to run with your blades in hand! Better learn how to run from a monster with a weapon in hand now than in the field. If you all want someone to blame, then look no farther than this sack of shit over here.” With those words, Kellenar gestured to me with both hands, venom in every word.

In shame, I turned back, gathered my training blade, and started running. I ran at a steady jog, the weapon in my hand forcing me to limp at an uneven gait with every stride. Every student in the class glared at me as they passed my sorrowful pace of shame.

After I made ten laps, Kellenar started chasing students, slapping them with a club to make them pick up the pace. I was struck no less than six times, each time quickening only to slow after a lap or two. Finally, after untold laps, we were sent to our rooms to shower and get ready for our next class. I made my way back to my room, my training blade dragging behind me while the other students passed me with glares and sneers. 

I climbed the stairs, and slipped into my room, leaving my clothes and training weapon on the floor in a trail leading to the shower as I slipped in under a fall of hot water. There, as the steam covered the world around me and water poured down my skin, I cried. Sobs wracked my body as the scalding water turned my oddly patterned skin into varying shades of red and pink. After a while, I tried to fix my nose. The moment my fingers touched the skin of my face, they flinched away at the sharp pain. Anything that touched my broken nose brought bladed twinges of pain. After several tries, I gave up. I stepped from the running water to dry off and get dressed, the shirt drawing a cry of pain as it brushed against my nose while I was pulling it on.

After I was dressed, I made my way to my next class, geography and politics, with Mystagogue Joseph. One by one, we all filed into class, passing by the instructor to head to our seats. As I passed Mystagogue Joseph, he grasped my upper arm. I stopped and looked him in the eye, or what gleamed in the shadows that could be called his eyes. “I want you to go get that nose fixed before class. Afterward, be sure to get back here post-haste.” he rasped before letting out a wet string of coughs. 

In a panic, I nodded vigorously with a vehement “Y-yes, sir.” before turning and rushing out of the main hall and out to the medical center. I passed through the main doors, and with one glance, a nurse ushered me into an examination room where I was forced to wait atop the examinee’s table. After a few minutes, an elderly Dracose stepped into the room, their thick tail bumping the door wide open before it closed via its own weight. I couldn’t tell whether they were a man or woman, but their stature was rather large, almost eight feet tall with dark black and blue scales and curving ram-like horns with barbs. They scanned me with a preliminary glance from the top to the bottom of my person, with the telltale blue-orange gleam in their eyes that told me they were using the therra-node at their temple. Beneath the shimmering light, their eyes were a natural sapphire blue and shown with... kindness? I honestly couldn’t tell.

“Good morning, Master, Maverick, is it?” As they spoke, I could tell that they were male, and he honestly seemed kind and respectful. “I can’t help but notice that your nose is not in a natural state. Well, not unless you make a habit of beating it against trees.” He gave a deep chuckle. " Or angering rather rude Ceangar instructors. Tell me what happened.”

So I explained what had happened, how I dropped my blade, and how Kellenar broke my nose. “Ah, yes, Mystagogue Kellenar is a rather aggressive instructor. But you need to understand that he only wants the best for all of his students. He is often harsh with them, but he is not immune to bias. If the rumors told among the Mystagogues are true, a family of Darklings wronged him. Some say that the family tricked him out of his life savings when he was a young man. Others say his family was killed for a dark ritual, and he was only spared when a Brightling came to his rescue. Regardless of his past, he has run most of the Darklings out of the academy these past eight years. Those who passed from Slate to Tier One often requested transfers to a sister school elsewhere. Trust me, I know it’s not pleasant, but you must consider this a trial by fire. Many metals are molded in the hottest of crucibles, but the strongest are forged through constant strikes of the hammer. Which will you be?”

I gave him a confused look. “Don’t both give the same result?”

The doctor gave me a warm and patient smile. “The end product may look the same, but they are quite different. A metal that is melted down and poured into the crucible is subject to boiling temperatures for a single long span of time before it cools into its final shape. Metal that is shaped through forging with the hammer is set into the fire time and time again till it is soft enough to be struck into shape. The smith works the metal, folding it in on itself again and again to work out the impurities and strengthen the material. The metal is put through constant abuse until it is quenched. Which do you think is stronger? The one that took the heat and settled into shape? Or the one that was shaped through constant trials to work out the flaws?”

“When you put it like that, I’d prefer not to have any flaws. Though, I’m not looking forward to the process. But how do you know so much about forging, Doctor?”

He gave a rumbling chuckle, followed by a heavy sigh as he stepped closer to inspect my nose. “There was a time before I settled down as a healer when I also stoked a forge for the Order. While I was a student, I was what you call a Mastlok. But enough about me. Now, I know that you no doubt want to break the Mystagogue’s nose in return. But you need to keep in mind that he got all those scars from his time in the field. He saw a lot of his friends die because they didn’t have his flack to get the job done. Now let’s get that nose fixed.”

While I thought about what the doctor said, he had two fingers from both of his massive paws on either side of my poor nose before I knew it. “Ready? I’m going to set it on the count of five. One, two...” Suddenly, he tweaked his fingers, and my nose snapped back into place with a burst of agony. I yowled in pain and pulled my face away from his hands in reflex. 

“I know that was pretty unpleasant, but the shock does you good. It would have hurt ten times worse if I had set it on the count of five. Now, why don’t you get to class and think about what I said.”

With a quick thank you to the doctor, I made my way back to the classroom. I slipped through the door as Mystagogue Joseph was lecturing about the geography of the world. A few students glared at me as I made my way to my desk, but not a single word was raised.

“There are several mountain ranges across Anogwin, and we are nestled in the crook between two of these ranges. Can anyone name the ranges to our south and east borders?”

The Half-Dwarf, S18, raised his hand after a moment of silence. As the instructor pointed to the student, he spoke in a deep and smooth voice. “We sit between the Titan’s Fall and the Rezkane mountain ranges.”

“Almost correct. To our south is the Titan’s Fall range, but to our east is where that range meets and merges with the Rezkane range. This position between two mountain ranges and against an ocean to our north and west is what gives our nation of Ventic such a defensible location. The only nation we have to contend with is that of Affice, which spans the ranges to our south and a portion of east our borders. But our two nations have had a friendly partnership for several hundred years. We defend them from the attacks from the sea, and they defend us from the attacks across the range. In fact, our two economies are so closely linked that should one fall, the other would follow. Now onto the political structure of our nation. Who can tell me what kind of nation Ventic is?”

After a long moment, when no one raised their hands, the professor let out an annoyed grunt and pressed on into the explanation. “We are a Corporatocracy. This means that our nation is run and controlled by a conglomerate of corporations, with a higher ruling company that has our best interests ‘at heart’.” He said this last bit with air quotes and a venomous amount of sarcasm.

“They care about us because if we are safe and happy, we can keep the company staffed and funded. We are under the rule of the Iron Cypher Corporation. This corporation provides national defense, law enforcement, and a portion of our nation's cybernetic, vehicle, and weapon production. But you need to remember that as a member of the Aegis, you are beholden to no one nation. We fight to improve all nations of this world. So do not think that our nation is the best because it is one of many. How many nations are there across Anogwin? Can anyone tell me?”

There was another long moment of silence before the professor answered his own question with audible annoyance. “There are twenty-four nations on this globe. Each has its own political system, but we all share one economy that has only slight variations from region to region. Does anyone know what I am talking about?”

A girl near the front raised her hand and spoke before the instructor even pointed to her. “I believe you are talking about the Deckra system, sir. A global currency based on coins and credits.”

“Good, good. Now, can anyone tell me what the coins that make up Deckra currency are?”

Again, S18 raised his hand. Go figure a Dwarf would know the money system. Was that racist?

“The coin system is comprised of copper, silver, gold, lenzes, mythril, and thuds.”

The professor gave a smile from beneath his cap. “Good, very good. Now each coin is worth ten of the value below it. So one silver is equal to ten copper, one gold is equal to ten silver, and so on until you reach thuds. Now, who can tell me how a blind man can determine what the value of a coin is?”

One student, an Orc, blurted out, “By biting the coin.”

At this, a few classmates snickered. It was common knowledge that several Orc tribes traded in bones and teeth or bartering rather than coins, so they wouldn’t know much of how deckra currency worked. But I thought that was a bit of a typical stereotype of how the Orcs were seen as a brutish people, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Not quite,” said Joseph. “A blind man can tell the value of a coin by the number of sides it has. Copper has three sides, silver has four sides, gold has five sides, a lenze has six, a mythril has seven, and a thud is circular. Now, who can tell me how much one credit is worth?”

The High Elf that was with Mallrimor, Gellar was his name, raised his hand. As the master pointed to him, he spoke in a quick and clear tone. “One digital credit is worth one silver.”

“Very good. Now, who can tell me the role of an adventurer in today’s society?” At this question, almost the entire class raised their hands. I was not among them.

Mystagogue Joseph pointed to a Wild Elf with braided copper hair. “Adventurers are paid to slay monsters and find treasure.”

At this, the teacher gave a long cackle. “Not quite. While adventurers are often tasked with slaying beasts, delving into tombs, and saving damsels, they play a far larger role. They are tasked with taking on the dangerous tasks that no one else is trained to handle. This can range from slaying the dire rats in city sewers or searching ancient ruins for lost knowledge and technology to scouring a man-eating jungle for a rare plant used to cure a curse of a disease or salvaging a farmer’s crops from a horde of thieving goblins. We all hear stories of the brave heroes who slew the lich who tried to fell a kingdom or the ones who felled a Kraken that sank a hundred ships. But more often than not, they are the ones doing the dirty and dangerous work in a dirty and dangerous world that few others want to do, let alone have the training to handle it. And you all are training to be those adventurers.”

The response to this was a lot of muttering and groans as if the whole class was expecting to go off and slay a dragon on their first quest. Don’t get me wrong, at the time, I was dreaming of that very same dragon, but I knew that I would have to work to achieve that goal if I ever reached it at all.

Mystagogue Joseph continued after the grumbling faded. “Yes, yes, I know that’s not what you want to hear, but that is the truth of things. Now, your homework for the next class. I want you to study a topic on our home nation and write an essay on it. It can be anything as long as it relates to the economy and infrastructure of the nation. Now git, shew, begone with you all. I have work to do.”

I slipped from the classroom, my mind running through adventuring scenarios I could encounter after I graduated. Admittedly, most of those scenarios comprised me slaying monsters, though my mind kept wandering back to the zombie spider in the entry trail. I was in the process of debating the best way to kill an elder hydra when I felt thick fingers clench around the end of my tail, just before the spade tip. I was about to take a sharp turn to see who was about to cause me pain when, in mid-turn, I was yanked hard, harder than I had ever felt before. My feet were swept out from beneath me as I felt a painful pop at the base of my tail. A scream of pain and panic slipped through my teeth before being brought to a sharp halt as my face found a hard stop on the tile floor. 

I rolled over to the best of my ability with my tail still held tight and tout. Tears streamed down my cheeks, blurring my vision so I could only see a massive dark shape. I wiped the tears away only to find a massive, scaled, and fanged snout only a foot away from my face. I followed the Draconian snout up to an even more Draconian brow over a pair of crimson eyes with reptilian pupils. The scales were a mottled pattern of black, brown, and deep scarlet maroon. Sprouting from his heavy brow were a pair of upward swooping horns with jagged nobs. A Dracose, and not just any Dracose, the very same that had been riding on Mallrimor’s coattails since he started giving me trouble. Sure enough, right there beside the brute of a reptile was a Brightling that I was growing to know all too well, smirking down at me. His hands were neatly tucked into his pants pockets as if to claim his innocence in the act and show that he didn’t think of me as a threat, all said in one simple pose. On the other flank of the Dracose was the High Elf, Gellar. The bastard was snickering and not even trying to hide his mirthful sneer.

“Now, Kesher, why would you be so rude?” Mallrimor said in a sardonic tone as he stepped around to stand beside me. “We should help our lessors. Like this.” He slipped an arm under one of my own and hoisted me to my feet, the act clearly a strain on him. I got my feet under me as Mallrimor started play-acting, dusting me off, making a big scene of it for all the passersby. Without letting him finish, I turned to hurry away when suddenly there was a pressing pain on my tail, followed by a stabbing pain at its base. I hissed in discomfort, looking over my shoulder to find Mallrimor’s boot pressing my tail firmly against the floor. I looked at the base of my tail to find it set at an unnatural angle. The Dracose, Kesher, must have dislocated it when he yanked it. I wrapped both of my hands around my pained limb as gently as I could manage, just past the damaged joint, and yanked. This brought a flare of agony, but did little more.

“Oh, how clumsy of me.” Mallrimor mocked just before quickly lifting his foot to send me to the floor yet again. At this, the entire crew of bastards chortled as they walked past, Gellar stopping only long enough to plant a kick in my side before moving along.

I stepped out of the medical center, tail freshly relocated and so tender that even my pants felt like burning sandpaper. Luckily, the class that I was now late for was study hall. I made my way back to the Aegis Halls, doing my best to keep an even walking posture. The manner in which I normally walked gave me a slight bobbing motion that inflamed the rage of my newly set tail. Attempting not to bob with every step while maintaining a quick pace seemed an impossibility at the time, so I quickly gave up the attempt for speed in favor of not being in nearly as much pain. Not even a full thirty paces from the medical center, I tapped my Therra-Node to check the time display on the hud (Heads Up Display). The time read 10:30 AM as I passed through the front doors of the Aegis Halls. I slipped into the study hall adjacent.

The room was an even square with oblong desks placed throughout the room in a circle. The far wall to my right was lined with crafting equipment, and the corner nearest me was walled off with iron-glass. Behind that were a series of power tools and a simple forge. No doubt the glass wall was enchanted to cancel noise. The wall to my left was lined with tomes and textbooks that, at a glance, seemed to span topics from biology, geometry, and politics to martial weapon forms, spell tomes, and enchantment rune dictionaries. The instructors had been quite adamant that we use books over databanks when at all possible. It had something to do with storing spells online, interfering with the network, and keeping restricted knowledge in only physical copies.

Meanwhile, the wall directly across from me seemed completely mundane other than the door opposite the corner of the room as the door I was entering from. Of the thirty-some-odd chairs in the room, three-quarters were occupied. A couple of students stood beyond the glass wall, working the forge or working with other power tools, not a sound passing to the rest of the room. At the desks sat students, working quietly crafting with wire, circuits, and the like, or reading tomes and working on papers. A couple of students were moving their hands, making small displays of magic of any variety. 

The massive Orc, Mystagogue Thrasher, sat at a desk nearest to the wall parallel with me, the desk comically tiny compared to his hulk-ish frame. What made the scene even more comical were the half-moon spectacles perched on the end of his wide nose. He looked up from a just as tiny book in his massive hands to raise a single stern yet questioning brow at me. His gaze of calm, pressing weight fell from my embarrassed face to my casted tail and gave a single nod of understanding. He closed his book, set it atop the desk, plucked his spectacles off the bridge of his nose, folded them closed, and set them atop the closed face of the old leather book. He did all of this was done with surprising delicacy and gentleness. He stood from the desk and stepped over to me. As he stepped up to my tiny frame, he looked down at me for a long moment. His eyes seemed... contemplative. After that long moment where I felt like I should have been threatened, but I wasn’t, he raised a large hand to point at the back wall. “Craft area,” he rumbled. His hand turned to point at the opposite wall. “Study area,” he said next. He then pointed to the door opposite the entrance, “Martial and magic training area”. He brought his stoney gaze back to me. “Talking is allowed if kept low. Study or craft, but be productive.” With that, he turned and made his way back to his desk. 

I made my way to the nearest table and took a seat sideways across the chair to minimize the pain of my tail. What I really wanted was to look at the crafting tools and supplies, but I felt that I should wait as not to draw any more attention from the other students. So rather than do what I desired, I tapped my therra node and pulled up some of the study material already loaded on it. In the corner of my vision was a small window that simply read ‘Instructor Observation Allowed’. I could only guess that meant that intimidating Orc could look in on my studies.

I was half focused on the intermediary guide on the design and implementation of myst circuits. What mainly had my attention was a pair of students at the table beside mine. A pair of girls, one Ceangar and one Dwarf were whispering to each other. One thing I picked up while I lived on the street was that listening in on what might seem like idle chatter could be a great value. A pair of housewives gossiping about which shopkeeper was sick could help me get a meal. A drunk fretting over a missing coin purse that he lost by his car could get me a few spare deckra. 

“You see that Brightling in our class? He’s so cute and charming.” The Ceangar whispered with obvious desire in her voice. 

“Yeah, I saw the pretty boy. Not really my type. Too... Elf-ish. I like my guys with more hair and fewer feathers.” The Dwarf girl whispered back, obvious disappointment in her tone. “Oh, but did you hear about the secret sixth sect?”

“Wait, what?” The Ceangar pressed, her whisper only just audible. “I haven’t heard a thing about some secret sect. What’s being passed around?”

I turned my head just slightly to look at the two gossips. The Ceangar leaned in when she asked the pressing question, and the Dwarf girl mimicked the motion, mock covering her mouth with a hand to hide her lips. “I hear that they are some kind of dacker secret, elite group that works for some even more secret sixth fragment that I heard is some kind of evil goddess thing.”

“Whoow, Whoow, I need more details. Elite how? Secret how? And I especially want to know more about this evil goddess thing.”

“I hear that the members of this sect are super well trained and in more than one sect, like magic assassins and warrior technicians and dreck. I also heard that they hunt down special targets for their goddess.”

“What? Why? What does she do with them?”

“They say that she eats them. That this evil fragment wants the souls of the innocent, and if she’s fed, she won’t kill entire cities.”

“No way. That can’t be true.”

After that bit, the two fell into bickering over pop idles and who was the best. The rumor perked my already pointed ears. A sixth sect following a sixth fragment. It sounded decker, but not impossible. I wanted to believe it. I couldn’t tell you why, but it just clicked with me. Not that the sixth fragment was evil. I couldn’t see this order following an evil goddess. Thallos wouldn’t do that to me. But the rest, it made sense. Especially after the doctor had said that he worked a forge and healed before settling down.

After a while of thinking about those rumors, I got up and made my way to the crafting side of the room to inspect the tools.