Chapter 20 

In the Aegis Academies, student murder isn’t uncommon. Sometimes disguised as tragic accidents and other times performed in the light of day with dozens of witnesses. The only trainees that are protected from attacks and banned from attacking are the Slates. Even when a Slate murders another student, the punishment is more akin to a slap on the wrist than anything of any severity. 

Day 120 Quenchenday

“So what’s your score, Iver? Any noteworthy encounters.” Rose pried as we made our way across the dining hall, trays in hand. Today’s lunch was soggy steamed greens, soggy fries, and a burger as dry as the Iron Desert. For an order that supposedly spans the globe and guides nations, you’d think that their food would be palatable, at least.

We wove our way through the maze of tables and bodies till we arrived at the table Nel and Ferris had claimed on behalf of our party. The table was nestled in a corner of the hall. This table had become our usual dining spot, secluded and easily defensible. I had become quite fond of this local.

I slipped into a seat with my back to the rest of the room. Because of Rose, I felt completely safe in this position. She sat across from me with her back to the wall. While her gaze focused on me with a look of amusement, she was still actively taking in the entire room, ready for any threats.

I perched my cheek against my fist, elbow propped against the table. I gave her a heavy, disgruntled sigh and rolled my eyes from Rose over to Nel and Ferris. “You two want to tell her the score? Or do I need to walk her through indignity?”

Ferris snorted around a mouth full of food with an entertained smirk. Nel gave me a look that was a cross between pity and amusement that made me squirm. “I’ll let you explain. It is your story, after all.”

Ferris gave an audible swallow before blurting out, “Besides Iver, when you tell it, it’s always funny.”

I gave a resigned grunt before leaning back in my seat as I turned back to Rose to explain. I would never admit it, but I got a sense of satisfaction from making these friends of mine laugh, even at my own expense. Well, that was true, so long as they weren’t mocking me and making derogatory comments.

“Let’s start from day one. Not three hours after the introduction of the scoring system, I was ‘assassinated’ by Gellar, the High Elf from Mallrimor’s gang of thugs, who tripped me, kneed me in the balls, and slapped my ass with one of his training blades. Point, Elven ass wipe. The next day, Brecken, the Orc from Mallrimor’s mass of man meat, tracked me down during lunch. He challenged me, and when I turned him down and turned to walk away, he slapped my ass with the flat of his axe like a golf ball, launching me over two tables and face-first into a tray of food. By the way, turning down a duel doesn’t negate the ability to score a point. Point, green skin muscle sack. The day after that, Kesher, the Dracose from, you guessed it, the prideful pigeon’s pack of petulant pansies, attacked. His version of a challenge was to tap me on the shoulder with a claw. When I turned, he drove his training Greatsword in an upward arc between my legs. With one blow, he hit my man bits and my ass while lifting me off the ground. Point, scaled guerilla. And, of course, yesterday, the big pigeon himself took it upon himself to put my delicate, dangly bits in a vice grip with the added bonus of high voltage. Oh, and between each of these humiliating episodes, I was accosted by a grand total of nine assassins, thirteen warriors, and three other casters. I’ve seen the medical center no less than twice a day for the past two weeks.” As I recounted my abuse and trauma, I watched with a mixture of pride and annoyance as Rose’s face contorted. Her lips pinched like she was holding lemon rind to the roof of her mouth as she tried to hold back a cackle. Her eyes watered till tears ran down her face from the effort, and with every accounting, a rather unladylike snort slipped out. 

“Yeah, yeah.” I groused with a dismissive wave of my hand. “Har har har. Look at Iver literally get his ass kicked and his balls racked. So funny. I swear if I had points deducted for every time I lost, I’d be on the street right now.” I self-deprecated. When I looked down at my food, I found my appetite lost and satisfaction from the story, vacant. I lowered my hands into my lap and clutched at my pant legs. Now that I was thinking about all of those fights, I really did feel weak. I was hoping to recover at least some sense of pride and dignity from entertaining my companions. I only felt positive for a brief span of seconds. But at that moment, I only felt weak and walked all over.

I wasn’t going to make it. That fight to save Ferris was just a fluke. I was the weakest in class. My only talent was in tinkering. The only things I could make were trinkets and doodads. I would never make it into the Crimson Blade. I needed to come to terms with the fact that I would never be a warrior, and at the rate I was going, they would excommunicate me from the order and academy for failure to meet standards. As my vision blurred, I felt a burning in my chest, the scolding pain of realization. I felt two wet trails run down my face to leave droplets against the back of my hands. 

Rose’s face softened to a kind half-smile, her eyes reflecting only tender warmth. “I’m sorry to have laughed. I understand how indignant it all must have felt. You know, I wasn’t always as good a fighter as I am now.” 

I have another derisive snort. “Yeah, you were a total weakling like me back when you were eight or nine.”

She gave me a serious look. “I was just as weak as you this time last year. When I was a Slate, even with years of training from my father and uncles, I still was up against some seriously steep competition. I knew how to fight, and I was getting my ass kicked three times a day when they introduced the point system to my class. In the first week, I only managed to score one point, and that was because the opponent slipped.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “I doubt that. Having sparred with you enough, I know that you’re a total badass. If your classmates whooped you that bad, then your class must be on a level near legendary.”

The primal leaned back in her chair as she draped an arm over the back. “You’re near the mark. My class is called the Class of Heroes. Almost all of my classmates are third or fourth-generation order initiates. We also have students with direct lineages to eighth circle mages, royal guards, nobles from the local government, and even a few that are related to actual heroes a couple of generations back. Even now, I’m still of fairly average skill compared to the rest of my class.”

“You’re average for your class?” I asked, barely lifting my head.

She leaned forward to press her point. “Hells, yes! Are you kidding?! I still lose fights fairly regularly. And if I can keep up with my class, then you definitely can step up your game and become a real contender.” She pushed off her knees to stand and stepped up beside me, laying a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“Are you being serious?” I asked, a spark of hope lighting in my chest even as I curled in over myself, scared of that spark dying from this all being a cruel joke. “You’re not screwing with me?” I felt a grip wrap around the hands in my lap. I looked up to find Nel kneeling beside me, holding my white knuckle grip in both of her hands. Her metal hands gripped my flesh hands gently yet firmly. Her hands were warm somehow. My gaze lifted from her hands to her scarred, half-mechanical face, a face that showed only sympathy and kindness.

“No, I’m being completely honest.” Rose said. “You can make it into the Crimson Blade. You just need to put your heart and soul into it.”

“She’s right, Iver. You can become a great warrior if you don’t lose faith.” Nel gave her words the weight of honesty and her own faith as she squeezed my hands reassuringly. 

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Faith. I needed to keep faith. But faith in what? The Gods? They had never given me any aid. The Titans? They were notorious for being cruel and toying with mortals. The Eternals? They were indifferent embodiments of the forces of creation. So who then?

“Who could I put my faith in?” I muttered. “None of the divinities would do anything for me.”

“The divinities?” Rose asked. “No numbskull.” She put both hands on my shoulders and gave me a firm squeeze. “Have faith in yourself. Faith in yourself and those that trust you.”

“Come on, dude. Stop making things mushy. Just stand up and keep pushing.” Ferris chided with a smirk that showed his trust in me.

I wiped my eyes and forced a smile. I could never believe in myself. But those guys, Nel, Rose, and Ferris, the very first friends I had ever made, I could put my faith in them. I could fight for them.

“Okay.” I muttered with a deep, centering breath. I was going to give this another try. 

I focused on my breathing. Just think positive, I told myself inwardly.

“Yo! Skavy horned freak! I challenge you.” Came a rough yet young voice from behind me. As one, we all turned around. Rose stepped aside to reveal a group of students. Four students, two male Humans, a male Elf, and an Orc girl. The Humans were a slender redhead with freckles and a stout, dark-haired boy with a strong build. The dark-haired Orc girl with moss-green skin looked like she could benchpress a boulder. The Elf was a Wild Elf, with brown-red hair cut short but spiky, tanned bronze-olive skin, bright green irises, and grass-green sclera. The Wild Elf was pointing a steel training Katana at me. The three behind him were all smirking, arms crossed or hands in pockets.

Ferris and Nennel jumped to their feet, ready to stand up for me.

“What’s the matter, Skavy? Already crying cuz you know how bad I’m about to beat your ass.” The Elf sneered.

Nel and Ferris stepped forward, but Rose set a staying hand on each of their shoulders. “I think it’s time Ives' stands up and takes a win.”

“You sure?” Ferris asked unbelievingly.

“He needs to prove to himself and everyone else that he can fight back.” Rose said even as she stepped aside, taking a handoff Ferris to rest it on my shoulder again. “Come on now, Ive’s. I think it’s time that you proved to everyone in this room that you’ve got enough backbone to break theirs.”

I wiped my face with the back of a shaking hand. Ferris and Nel took a step back as I pulled myself to my feet. I stepped forward, fingering the metal training blade at my hip with my gauntleted hand. Rose stepped up beside me and whispered in my ear. “If it helps, think of this like a game of Garden of the Gods. Think with tactics, but don’t fight your instincts. Most of all, believe that you’ve got this.” I glanced at her, worry in my eyes. This time, she was the one to take a step back. She flashed me a smile and gave me two thumbs up.

I closed my eyes and took another centering breath, trying to calm my rising anxiety. Sliding into a combat-ready stance, I firmly set my right foot back. My torso turned to reduce the target I presented. I double-tapped my there-node to start the recording. Resting my left hand on the hilt at my right hip, I looked the Elf dead in the eye and said in as strong a voice as I could manage, “Bring it on, shark tooth.”

With my therra-node active, I used the hands-free Synoma-Link mode of my therra-node to ping or mark each of those against me as targets. I mentally labeled each for easy reference: Redhead, Stout, She-tank, and Wilder. 

I drew my blade, holding the blade forward, tip low, in a defensive stance. I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Standing in a corner of the dining room was Mystagogue Thrasher. The moment we made eye contact, he gave me a single, sure nod, wordlessly conveying his faith in me.

I brought my gaze back to center only to find that the two Humans and She-tank had taken a step back, and Wilder was charging at me, his Katana raised over his shoulder for a downward chop.

CRAP! What did Rose say? Tactics and instinct? Fuck! What should I do?! My thoughts rushed into a jumbled and panicked mess.

He closed the distance in a matter of seconds while I was panicking. I saw the blade coming down at me, and I could only think of one thing to do. I lept back and switched my stance from left to right. The blade passed me by a hair’s breadth. I only had a fraction of a second to think of what to do next. He was exposed from the missed attack. Aim for the head? No. He could dodge that.

With the blade in my backhand, I waited till it swung past my waist. Then I pivoted my front foot, spun away from the attack, and threw my momentum into a strike with my own weapon aimed at his leading ankle. As soon as I heard his blade strike the tile floor with a resounding CLANG, I doubled down on my attack, striking his frontmost ankle. My sweeping strike caught his posting foot that held all his weight and threw it out from under him. I followed through on the swing as I saw Wilder begin to tumble to his back. I took another rotation to keep my momentum, losing a bit when I gave a slight stumble. But I pressed on with my next move. As Wilder struck the floor, I took all my momentum and drove my gauntleted right fist into his gut, driving him even harder to the floor. I watched with a degree of satisfaction as the wind left his lungs, and he curled in on himself, gasping, gagging, and coughing. 

I staggered back, almost falling from an onset of dizziness from the rotations I took. As I came to a stop and centered my balance, I knelt down over the Wild Elf. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?” I asked, worried that I caused too much damage.

He gasped out a ragged “Fuck, you!”

“Well, you’re well enough to curse me, so I doubt you’ll die, and I think I earned myself a point.” I said as I stood up, a proud grin spread across my lips. I sheathed my blade and turned back to Rose and the others. I spread my hands wide and flashed them my victory grin. They all wore their own looks of pride and smug satisfaction. I began walking back toward my friends when I saw Rose’s eyes go wide, focusing behind me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I knew the fight wasn’t over. 

I heard two sets of steps behind me. But there was something more I could sense. Something I couldn’t quite explain. A sense of nearness. An intent for harm. I could almost feel the bloodlust like a pressing force. I threw myself to the side, rolling to my left. Even as my shoulder struck the floor, I still felt that sense of threat. In response, as I rolled, I pulled my training short sword free yet again. I landed in a crouch, holding the blade just above and behind my head, the blade itself at a slant to deflect any downward attack.

I felt another brief moment of satisfaction when I heard a set of footsteps land behind me and could feel the blow coming down. I thought that I might just have finally found my fighting skills. That sense of satisfaction shattered at a hard and literally painful end when I felt the strike land on my fingers. I could feel bones break. Two of my fingers, my index and middle fingers, shattered and distorted. I only just barely held onto my weapon long enough to truly deflect the attack. I felt the pressure of the attack slide down the blade. As I heard the clang of metal striking tile, I dropped my blade and turned. My fingers raged with burning pain, making my eyes water from the intensity.

In those moments, I gave a silent thanks for all the beatings I had taken from Rose. That was the only reason I pushed through the searing pain. I shifted my stance and pushed to my feet in a single swift motion. I saw a body mass out of the corner of my eye as I turned to the left and acted as the shape came into sight. I turned towards the opponent and drove my gauntleted fist into their chest, forcing them to stagger back. As my fist made contact, I triggered my shock-barbed bites but didn’t release the electric charge. I adjusted my footing and aligned my thoughts to what was going on in the situation. 

The redhead was just to my left, one of Wilder’s entourage. Stout was the one who broke my fingers, and I pushed back. My hooked shock bites were latched onto his shirt and skin. But where was She-tank? I didn’t have time to worry. I had to act against the ones I had before me. I threw a roundhouse kick at Stout before he could regain his footing. The strike knocked him further off his center of gravity as it landed against his neck, almost throwing him to the ground. Before he even hit the ground, I triggered my electric current. I pulled my gauntleted fist back and gingerly pressed the button to retract my bards after I took a moment to make sure he wasn’t going to jump back to his feet. Stout was down for the moment, so it was time to move on to the next opponent.

Redhead saw this momentary pause and rushed me. He lashed out with a punch armed with a gauntlet of his own. His gauntlet was just a simple metal-plated glove, but it would still cause damage. I couldn’t move out of the way in time, so I readied myself for the hit. I saw it angled for my jaw and waited till the last moment to throw myself back as I angled my jaw to minimize the damage. The blow landed, and while it hurt, no bone broke. I sidestepped mid-stagger, recentered my footing, and took aim with my tactical gauntlet.

Redhead lashed out again with another punch from his opposite arm. I bobbed under the blow to rise on the outside of his swing. Acting on impulse, I turned my back to him as I grasped the wrist of his swinging arm in my bad hand and raised my shoulder against his elbow, forming an arm bar. I leaned forward and pulled his wrist toward my chest, pulling him from his feet. I had been taught the shoulder throw in martial class months ago but had never managed to get it to work. But this time, as I brought both hands to his wrist and pulled inward as I thrust my shoulder upward and forward, I pulled the technique flawlessly, if with some slight modifications. The redhead was flung over my shoulder while I maintained my grip on his wrist and was slammed against the floor with jarring force. Following my instincts, I took his momentary shock and prone position to put him out of commission. I wrenched his wrist to its maximum flexibility with my good hand and drove my left elbow into his own elbow as a brutal strike that forced the joint to bend in the wrong direction. I heard the joint snap with an audible pop.

I wasn’t sure if I tore ligaments or if the arm was just dislocated, but he was screaming in pain. Without a second thought, I used his damaged arm to yank him up and forward, right into my knee, and I drove into his jaw with just as much force as I was pulling. His head snapped back with the sound of clacking teeth, and I may have chipped or cracked a couple of those teeth. The critical thinking portion of my brain was very disturbed by the ease I had just damaged the guy, but my instincts were in the driver's seat at that moment.

I turned around to find Stout back on his feet, if a bit more twitchy and looking more haggard. Only then did I notice that his weapon was a metal cudgel. That was what broke my fingers, and I was itching for some payback. He gripped his club with both hands and swung at my head. I ducked the blow, stepping in under the swing, and drove my good fist into his jaw with an uppercut. Yet again, I heard the sound of a clacking jaw. This time, I drove my foot into his knee as he staggered back. He broke my hand. I wanted to make sure he was broken, just as bad as I was, if not more. I heard him scream as he fell. 

I stood up straight, my head buzzing with adrenaline as I coddled my broken hand. But the sense of danger did not abate. If anything, it intensified. I only had a second to think about it before I heard Nel shout my name. “IVER!” she shouted in panic. I turned back to look at her just in time to find a blade tip aimed at my face. 

I panicked and threw my head to the left. A dagger point pressed past my face, grazing my cheek and drawing a line of blood. A bladed dagger, a real dagger. I followed the blade to a hand, the hand to an arm, the arm to She-tank. For a girl built like a brick house, she was disturbingly agile. In reaction, I grasped her wrist and wrenched it against its natural rotation. She gasped in pain and dropped her weapon. I let go of her wrist just in time for her to draw her other hand back and lash out with a second blade. I saw the flash of steel before a burning pain, a sensation of an alien body piercing my skin and locking my shoulder joint. I screamed in anguish. Welts and bruises were one thing. But this stabbing, I had felt nothing like this. If broken fingers burned, the feeling of a blade entering my body was utter agony.

Tears ran freely from my eyes as I looked up at the large woman. I threw a hateful glare her way. She legitimately wanted me dead. She ripped the blade free of my shoulder, drawing a new wave of agony from my shoulder and forcing me to fall to my knees. I only just managed to not land on my face by holding myself up with the hand of my bad shoulder on a table, sending another spike of pain through the wound.

“I’m going to butcher you for the fiend you are.” She snarled, scooping up her dropped dagger. 

I clutched at my stabbed shoulder with my broken hand, blood gushing in a disturbing amount. I had to think fast. She stood over me, ready to stab me. I could feel my end looming over me like a fish about to be speared. 

I couldn’t think past the burning in my shoulder and my hand. My mind was a haze with pain, but I needed to get out of this. I tried to focus on the sensation that I got from the other opponents, that sense of threat that warned me. But the pain was so sharp, the bleeding too much. I couldn’t pull my mind together. My vision blurred, and my head spun the harder I tried to focus. I heard her chuckle as she stood over me. I closed my eyes. I was scared. Terrified really. But I was not about to let myself die there. My hands shook, and my legs quaked as I tried to pull my mind together and focus on what I wanted. But what I wanted, in the end, was simply to not die. I had a mission to live for. I needed to earn my graduation and become a true warrior. A simple stabbing wouldn’t stop a real warrior. I needed to man up.

I would not die there. With my eyes closed, I mentally pushed the pain aside. Proverbially, it was a massive weight for me to shove aside, but I closed off that part of my mind till all I felt from my shoulder and hand was a dull throbbing. I tuned out the gasps and murmurs of the students around me and focused on what I could feel. The hairs on the back of my neck were stiff, rising gradually. As they reached their peak, I rolled to my right. I landed on the bad shoulder, breaking that wall I set to block out the pain with a flash of searing pain. As I landed on my back, I saw that She-tank had tried for a downward stab at where my head was. The blade buried itself into the table I had been bracing against. I threw a kick at her elbow, forcing her to jump back. She righted herself and lept at me. She lept high, aiming her blades for a stab at my head again, one blade pointed down, the other held in reserve.

On my back, I swept my broken left hand across my face, aiming to deflect her strike, if only barely. Because of the broken fingers on my left hand, I only just barely managed to deflect the attack. My hand was in pure agony. I let out a hiss of pain as I heard the initial attack strike the floor beside my head. 

I pushed past the yet again pain. She hadn’t killed me yet, but I needed to keep up the fight despite this burning pain. She pulled back the blade from the floor as she aimed her other one at my chest. I didn’t even have seconds to aim. I threw my fist out in a punch at her face and aimed to fire my shock bites in sheer panic.

My bites latched into her face, but she kept on coming for me. I lost all sane thoughts and released everything. I shot two smoke pellets into her face and also gave her a face-full of secorus gas. Yet she still pressed on despite being blind. Now, she was little more than a shifting cloud of gas and smoke bearing down on me like a pyroclastic flow.

 I triggered the electric current from my gauntlet. I watched as her body locked up mid-stride and toppled like a massive felled tree. Electricity arced through the surrounding cloud, briefly outlining her frame with flashes. I rolled to one side as she struck the floor and moved to stand… right into the gas body charged with voltage.

I had been shocked before. Anyone who tinkers and works with live current gets shocked a few times in their life. Those small zaps that forced me to recoil in pain were nothing like this. The voltage struck me like a shot from a gun. My muscles locked, spasmodically twitching at a rapid pace. My chest locked up, and my lungs were unable to function correctly as they spasmed in patches rather than acting as a whole. If you’ve never felt your lungs try to jump out of your chest while dancing some mad tango, don’t. It’s not pleasant. I felt my heart beat erratically with an arrhythmia. It was my turn to topple back to the floor and out of the cloud of gas. My body fell back into my control as I struck the floor. I gasped for air, desiring so badly to just curl up into a ball until the pain stopped. But I couldn’t. The cloud was encroaching, and I needed to get to a safe distance before I was electrocuted again. I dragged myself to my feet and tried to hobble to safety. I was brought up short when something held my right hand. Looking down, I found that my shock bites were still locked in She-tank’s face. I winced at the thought of those being yanked on while attached to someone’s face. I fumbled to release their hold and retract them, the interface hard to work with a broken hand. Even pressing something with my good fingers made my hand scream. I managed to retract the bites as the cloud dispersed to a safe level. I found that She-tank lay on the tile floor. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, her face bleeding from several small gashes. But she wasn’t the only one. Just past the girl on the floor was a whole table of people who looked unconscious as well. Three students, two boys and a girl. I kicked myself for the oversight, hoping I wouldn’t get punished too harshly for the accident.

A slow, rhythmic clapping pulled me out of my negative bog of thoughts. I cringed in time with the clapping. I could tell that it was coming from one winged ass I knew all too well. I looked to Rose and the others in desperation for help. But they weren’t looking at me. Nel and Ferris were looking past me with confusion and concern, and Rose was looking in the same direction. Only her eyes looked like they were about to bulge from their sockets. I turned to look over my shoulder, my motions slow with trepidation. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know someone who could draw that look from Rose. What I found was shocking. 

Instead of Mallrimor, Thallos, my Wild Elf uncle, was the one clapping as he strolled forward, a proud grin on his face. “Uncle?!” I blurted out. A wave of murmurs washed over the dining hall, culminating in Rose wailing, “WHAT?!”

“What are you doing here?” I asked, completely confounded by his presence here.

“What in the dining hall? Iver, I know I’m good and all, but you do know that I still need to eat, right? I may be skilled, but I’m no divinity.” Thallos joked with an infectious smirk.

“No, no. I’m asking what you’re doing here at the academy?” I elaborated.

“Did you take too many blows to the head, boy?” He pointed to his own skull to emphasize the question. “I’m an instructor here. I told you the day we got here.”

I cast my tired and rattled mind down the halls of memory to realize what he said was true. “But if you’re a Mystagogue, why have I never seen you, let alone been in a class you lead?”

He rested a hand on my bad shoulder, causing me to wince and hiss in pain. “That, my dear boy, is because I am a Mastlok instructor. I select only the best students that I think could be talented Mastloks, and…” He pulled his hand away from my shoulder, holding a thread from my uniform pressed between his thumb and forefinger. “Pluck them from normal classes for a special training regiment. And from what I just saw, I’d say that you very well could make a talented Mastlok, if I do say so myself.” He said this last bit with a gush of self-pride as he ran a hand through his mussed hair and took a dramatic stance.

What in the hells was he doing? Posing? For who? I cast my gaze around the room to find everyone’s eyes on my uncle. My gaze was brought back to center by the massive shape of Mystagogue Thrasher stepping up, his arms crossed. “Mystagogue Kiem, you know full well that you can not sponsor a student for exclusive specialized training without formal permission from the Mysteriarch. While Mr. Maverick’s feat is impressive, it doesn’t meet the standards needed for recruitment prior to the standard date.”

“Oh, come on, Thrasher, don’t be such a sour bite. I’d say that three MV points and four CV points is a reasonable score for early admission.”

“Five Craft Vector points? Are you including the three collateral subjects?” Thrasher asked as he pointed to the table of three students that I had rendered unconscious by accident. 

“Why not? Would you rather they be HV points? They didn’t see it coming after all.” Thallos pointed out as he leaned back, one hand propped on his hip, the other hand pointing at the same table of students, palm up.

“Those students were unintended collateral. Because they were unintended targets, they are not valid points.” Thrasher corrected.

“Why do you need to be such a spoilsport? I know you can see his talent. Don’t you think we should push him to become more than a simple initiate?”

“I do, in fact, see the boy’s talents, but I will not chance moving in haste, only to have him become overwhelmed with the changes.” Mystagogue Thrasher clearly was not budging on his stance with whatever topic they were talking about. 

The large Orc turned to me. “Forward the recording of the fight to me, slate. After that, you should step outside for a few moments before heading to the medical center. You’re going to want some air.” 

“Y-yes, sir.” I stammered even as I stopped my node from recording. I labeled the recording ‘4 on 1 attack’, condensed the file, and flicked it to the Mystagogue. I began to make my way outside on legs that were already feeling a bit rubbery and numb. 

“Oh, and Iver.” came the massive Mystagogue. 

I turned around with a hurried, “Yes, sir?”

“How about you take your friends with you? I think you’re going to want the company.”