Hand Of Magic

Chapter 3: Forging a Golden Blade

By the time the third year had come and gone we had become a fully functional Unit. We changed our Unit name however to Black Mark, it reminded us of how we’d been taken by surprise and nearly lost our lives as a result. We had started to grow up as well, seeing the physical changes, Kale started to grow bigger, as his shoulders widened and his muscles grew, Sarah started growing into a woman, she let her hair grow long, for the first time I took notice of her seriously, she had not grown much taller and appeared doomed to remain no higher than my shoulders, she had long black hair that she left loose when not in the arena or on the obstacle course, she had a slim figure and striking facial features, with green eyes and a slim yet deceivingly muscular physic. I myself had grown a lot taller and was starting to lose my childish features and my shoulders started to broaden. My muscles had started developing seriously as well thanks to Kales rigorous training. I maintained a slimmer figure than Kales who had started to bulk up with muscle. I was beginning to adapt to the stealth training and was catching up to Sarah who had earned her first place by poisoning and or otherwise beating any who stood in her way. The poison never killed them, but when they recovered and went to the Instructor, Mistress Riley, she simply told them that the poisoning was fair play in an espionage class. However attempts on Sarah had ended tragically as she had adopted the habit of never drinking or eating anything she didn’t make, and when she discovered poison, the person responsible usually ended up taking the poison themselves. We had gone up on the ladder for Weapons training and were showing great potential. We had also been introduced to medical training in the third year which Sarah and Micheal had once again topped, I came in at second but was elected as the Unit medic as Sarah lacked the confidence for in combat treatment, she instead was the Units surgeon. We were never told what Squadron we’d been chosen by, instead told that the Golden Squadron will finish their investigation before allowing us into a Squadron.

At first we were distraught by this news and went straight to Paladin Higgins who had proven to not soften up in training but had become more human to us on matters not related to training. By the end of the third year we gave up and just accepted that we were Squadronless, we would joke that we would make our own Squadron.

The fourth year proved more challenging as we had grown tired of the countless hours spent either in the Gymnasium and the Library either exercising or studying, we started to spend days training in the Arena as well, we also spent hours in the Shooting Range. We practiced various scenarios and would set the difficulty a little higher every time. In our fifth year we were introduced to training with HOM’s, but we were disappointed to discover they were older models and besides mildly scarring someone they did not do much damage, but we leapt at the opportunity and were first in line for our HOM gloves, they were traditionally worn under the White Knights gauntlets. These were built for training and duelling purposes and lacked the latest technology that allowed the user to wield more than three arts. But at least the training models allowed you to choose and swap. We were expected to wear them at all times, and the thought of using them for mischief was quickly banished when one Unit decided to tear up and carve into the wall of Paladin Higgins office. The gloves locked onto your DNA, like the real ones, except unlike the real ones, these left a DNA signature that the real ones could pick up easily. The one reason for this been that the older versions did just leave these DNA signatures, and the reason this wasn’t removed was to help Knights verify that they had beaten someone in a duel and to stop any Grey who might try such buffoonery.

My Unit spent hours training and duelling and by the time the fourth year was finished we had nearly mastered the use of the HOM. In the fifth year we started to learn Politics and the Espionage class started teaching us on how to slip poison into a marks drink, most of the year had already learnt a painful lesson from Sarah who had poisoned at least half of them, Kale and I knowing beforehand to never give Sarah a reason. We learned how to seduce our marks, or simply lure them out into a secluded area. We also learned how to speak in a court.