Ryünda

Chapter 3: Training Begins

Training Begins

Dawn came with annoying promptness and I pulled the sheets over my head in a pitiful attempt to block out the light. I groaned as I gave up on the prospect of going back to sleep and climbed out of bed. I pulled on a robe and walked down the hall to the bathroom to freshen up before Roche began training me.

As I finished washing my hair I heard him knock on the door, "Come on milady," he said with urgency, "Any time we could be training is lost when you don't cease it. I'll be just down the hall so once you're done I can show you around." I dried my hair and pulled on my clothes again, rushing out the door and nearly colliding with Roche just beyond the door.

He took a step back as I skidded to a halt in front of him, "My, my. If I had known you wanted to train so badly, I would have gotten you up sooner." He turned and motioned for me to follow, "Might as well get started. Follow me and we'll enter the training rooms so I can see what you know, if anything."

I walked behind him and as we turned from one hall to another, I soon lost all sense of direction. Seeing my confusion, Roche pointed to what I had thought was a scratch on the wall, "These symbols point to different parts of the building complex. The arrow shows what direction and the symbol tells you what room. The training chambers are the symbol that looks like an M with a line through the middle."

I looked to where he was pointing and sure enough, what had appeared to be nothing more than some unfixed damage in the wood, turned out to be exactly what he had said, an arrow with a symbol on the end of it.

"That's amazing." I said, "Do all the training complexes have directions hidden like this?"

He nodded, "It makes it so invaders have trouble finding their way around inside places like these. Unless you know what to look for, you'll get lost in no time."

Now that I knew what to look for, I had no trouble following the symbols engraved into the walls, and in no time I was racing ahead of Roche to find the room first. He laughed as he ran to keep up with me, and together we burst through the double doors and into our destination. I looked around and saw the room we had entered was huge, bigger than the courtyard of the palace and completely walled in. I looked up and saw the roof had to be ten stories up, though for what reason I could not guess. All around the outside of the room were different apparatus to use, some large enough to act as an obstacle course, and others no bigger than a small urn.

I looked into the center of the room and saw what appeared to be a dueling circle, though this one had symbols on the outside ring and inscribed into almost every square inch of material inside it. I knew it had to be used for combat training for higher level mages, but something still was nagging at the back of my mind like a fly that wouldn't go away.

I suddenly remembered my question from the day before that I had forgotten to ask Roche when I found him, "How do we prevent the Sira from detecting our spells while we train? Wouldn't the first big spell be like putting a huge 'we're over here' sign on the map?"

He shook his head, "The entire place is infused with magic dampening spells, otherwise every mage on your side would know where all of our training schools are. Not smart if you're trying to train in secret." he looked forward again, "Luckily for us it works both ways so the Sira won't be able to detect us either. This way I can train you as fast and hard as I want and they won't know a thing until it's too late."

I nodded, though the prospect of him having free reign over how hard he pushed me didn't sound like a happy one. "What do I need to do first? What tests do you need to perform to determine how much power I have?"

He motioned for me to sit, and as we folded our legs he directed me into a sitting position with my legs bent and crossed in front of me. He took the same position (albeit me smoothly that I had), and said, "All I need you to do is close your eyes and try to think about nothing. I'm going to dig around inside you with my magic to find out how much you actually have at your disposal." Seeing my fearful look he reassured me, "It won't hurt at all. In fact I would be surprised if you felt anything at all while I did this. Just calm you mind and let me do the rest."

I tried to do as he said and closed my eyes, but no matter what I tried some new thought would jump into my mind. At some point I noticed a small tingling feeling in my chest, and it soon spread to the rest of my body. I opened my eyes a crack and saw Roche's body was glowing with the same blue fire I had seen on his hand before. A thin beam connected his body to mine and a quick glance showed my body was glowing the same blue. As the tingling receded, I watched as the fire returned to Roche and was absorbed back into his body. He opened his eyes and said, "You have a true gift as well as strong natural magic."

I asked, "What do you mean by a 'gift'? I didn't even know I had strong magic before I met you."

"You have the ability to absorb pure magic from outside sources." he explained, "The ability is very rare and I've only heard of three other mages in history that had such an ability. With this gift you can syphon magic off of other mages, even out of the very rock under your feet if you cultivate it enough." He produced a small fireball of condensed blue flame in his right hand and said, "Let me demonstrate."

Before I could ask what he meant he lobbed the fireball at me and I screamed as I waited for the fireball to burn me to a crisp. Instead I felt a warm sensation in my chest and opened my eyes just in time to see the fireball turn gold and melt into my body. I felt the front of my shirt, expecting it to be far too hot to touch, but it felt no different than if I had just put it on in the morning.

I looked to Roche for an explanation and he said, "Your body changed the magic I had used to create the fireball into the same type as the magic inside you already. Therefore it could be absorbed without causing you harm. If you can learn to use this ability well, you could steal the power right out of the Sira mages' bodies and they would be powerless to stop you. You could become the most powerful mage in Ryünda's history."

It was amazing what my imagination came up with at the thought of having all of that power, but a large part of my heart rejected the idea out of fear I could lose control of the power if I took too much. "That's fine, but I think I'll just focus on learning the normal way and worry about that later. I need to learn how to control my power before I can take others."

He nodded, standing and offering his hand, "Wise words for one so new to the idea." I grabbed his hand and he pulled me up, "We will worry about your special needs after you master the basics. Even simple spells have to be done right or the whole thing could blow up in your face." He let go of my hand and we walked over to the first station on the outside edge of the room. Whether or not I was ready, my training had begun.