Celestial Storm: Golden Dawn

Chapter Five: Intensive Training

I woke up next morning when something grabbed me by the ankle, and dragged me from my bed causing me to fall to the floor.

"Wake up, Lucina!" Vlukyn sang out.

Still holding my ankle, Vlukyn ran out of the room. I was dragged down the hallway and then down the stairs.

"Ah, yah, ow! This hurts!" I cried as my back thudded against the stairs.

I finally hit the ground floor and was dragged onward through the hallway then out of the guild's backside. Vlukyn dragged me onto the beach. My shirt rapidly filled up with sand as the dark elf dragged me along by my ankle. I heard Vlukyn suck in a breath through her teeth then I was lifted off the ground as Vlukyn spun around and flung me into the waves.

"The target has been hit!" Vlukyn shouted gleefully, "That's another enemy down!"

"Is this a... war game?" I coughed.

Vlukyn was too busy hopping up and down to hear me or even give me any further notice. I took the chance to run for it. Vlukyn saw me and chased after me.

"Run faster! You're in range!" she shrieked as she threw handfuls of sand and pebbles at me.

Vlukyn ceased chasing me when I entered the guild again. She started prancing around and proclaiming that victory was hers instead of chasing me further. I reached my room without any further incident. Since I was filthy, I decided to head off to the bathhouse. I grabbed clean clothes and headed in the direction of the bathhouse.

I reached the bathhouse without being harassed any further by Vlukyn.

The interior of the women's bath house was more like one very large hot spring than a bath. It continued through the large double glass doors to make up the outdoor bathing part, which had a large wooden fence that granted privacy from unwanted eyes. The architecture had elements of oriental and Elfin design.

I walked over to the locker section not too far away from spa and chose the locker numbered 97 to store my clean clothing in along with my other possessions. I then removed my soaked and sandy clothing and placed the articles of clothing in a dirty clothes basket to be washed later on.

I got into the spring. It was very hot but not uncomfortable. I began to wash myself when I noticed that Murina was bathing too.

"Good morning, Lucina," she said to me as she came over to join me.

"Good morning, Murina," I replied. "What time is it? I forgot to check before I came."

Murina looked over at the wall before answering, "A quarter after seven A.M."

I looked at the same wall, and saw a large clock on the wall that read seven fifteen A.M. It was a grandfather clock that looked like a very valuable antique.

"So, how did you sleep last night? How does the room work for you?" she asked me.

"Aside from being dragged out of bed and thrown into the ocean this morning, I slept quite well, thank you," I answered, "My room has been working well for me so far. I like it. I just need to figure out some method of keeping Vlukyn from busting into my room."

"Yeah, no one has been able to figure out how to keep Vlukyn out. She is able to get into anyone's room if she feels the need. She is quite good at getting into places that she is not supposed to be in. She does have one small fault that you can exploit. If you put pieces of candy around the room where she can see them, she will likely get distracted and attempt to get the candy. If you are strategic about where you put the pieces of candy, you can have it set up so that Vlukyn will be forced to make noise to get the candy. That way you would at least wake up before she could drag you out of bed," Murina said kindly.