Raith and Thea walked back to the monastery in comfortable silence. Rinner had said it would take two weeks to design the promised patterns, and he wasn’t looking forward to telling the rest of the team. Well, Tolliver anyways. Nyhm would be thrilled to have more time with Abbot Tukes.

  In the end, Rinner had told him that he would be putting together patterns for both [Rogue] and [Warrior] classes. The [Pattern Sage] said that it was a travesty that he had squandered the strength of his [Divine Skill] by only weaving it into a single class.

  “You have come to me the caricature of an arrow. Blunt and crooked, aimed at nothing. When I am done you shall become the quintessence of one. Flying straight and true to the very heart of your potential.”

  Raith wasn’t sure about all that, but it would certainly be nice to have some direction for once. Thea certainly seemed happy with hers. The two of them had spent several hours working out exactly where she was looking to go before he guided her braiding up. Raith spent that time perusing Rinner’s book collection, which was considerably less interesting than he had hoped.

  Pattern lore was evidently even more complex than runephrases, with an appalling number of inscrutable mathematical formulas and words he had never heard like ‘sinusoidal harmonics’ and ‘cyclic recursion’. No amount of mental endurance would make him smart enough to understand that stuff, so he didn’t bother trying to put them in his library.

  It was after dark when they finally arrived back to the monastery grounds, and they beelined for the chowhall hoping to grab something before the cook went home for the night. Their luck continued. The cook, Abbot Galen, was sitting alone finishing off a meal. The pudgy, bald dwarf looked up as they came in and smiled, forming deep ripples of wrinkles around his eyes.

  “Ah, young ones. I pray your visit with Abbot Rinner went well. There is just a bit of stew left in the kitchen if you’d like to split it. I’m afraid we’re out of bread, however.”

  “Thank you, sir. Just happy to have the stew.”

  As the two scurried into the kitchen, the cook called after them.

  “By the way, Raith. Master Noni was looking for you today. She seemed quite disappointed that you ran off the moment you were feeling better. Something about having a lot of catching up to do.”

  “Master Noni?”

  Raith glanced over his shoulder, and the smirk on the dwarf’s face told him all he needed to know about what to expect when he finally found Noni tomorrow.

  ***

  Far to the east, the sun finally cleared the horizon, pushing before it a stiff mountain breeze that swirled the leave in the courtyard. The gathered crowd stood silent in anticipation. This was no pit fight or skirmisher match with cheering and jeering. No, this was the Mirrored Clouds Temple, and a duel between respected warriors was a solemn occasion.

  “I will bet one week’s chores on Noni,” an overloud whisper carried to Raith’s ears.

  Perhaps not as solemn when one of the warriors wasn’t especially respected.

  “Do I look like I have ogre brains? Not a chance.”

  Noni had grown into a beautiful woman. Even bald, her face was strikingly pretty. It was incredibly irritating that she wasn’t ugly. People you don’t like are supposed to be hideous. Preferably with some sort of deformity to match their blackened souls.

  She stood there like a statue in a perfect heron stance, rope stretched taut in her outstretched hand. Raith knew that by now she was capable of standing like that far longer than he could, which meant he was going to have to make the first move.

  Weaver’s tits, I hate this shit.

  Their ropes ended in sand filled leather sacks a little smaller than a fist. While considerably less deadly than a steel ball or a dart, Raith knew from experience getting hit would still hurt like crazy. He kept his spinning in a tight circle at his side, then cast it abruptly towards her leg while moving laterally to flank her.

  Noni cartwheeled neatly out of the way of his strike, then spun her weapon in a lazy arc towards his head. Raith leapt over the blow, Ring of Jumping adding extra vertical, and this time cast down at her face from above.

  She slipped the blow with a slight duck to the side while stepping forward. Her rope spiraled at him with the speed of a striking snake, coiling in full circles through the air as it shot towards where he was about to land.

  Raith had no time to initiate a dodge between his landing and when the strike arrived. This spinning coil enveloped him from the knees up like a python, pinning his arms to his side. The speeding leather sack thwacked to a halt on the back of his head. The blow was hard enough to knock him off balance but he somehow managed to stay on his feet in spite of his entanglement.

  For a second anyway.

  He winced and turned his head away as Noni came flying towards him on a leap kick. It landed firmly in the center of his chest and sent him backwards into the air while his breath was exploded out the other direction. Just before he was about to hit the ground, Noni gave the rope a powerful yank that put him back onto his feet.

  With a deft flick, she retracted her weapon and coiled it around her waist. She gave a fist to palm salute with the barest suggestion of a bow, then turned and walked gracefully from the courtyard.

  A voice drifted from the gathered monks.

  “Is that it?”

  They all began to disperse, shaking their heads in disappointment. Raith blushed and stood there dumbly for a minute, trying to regain the wind that had been knocked out of him. His teammates came over to offer some encouragement.

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  “No shame in losing to a superior opponent,” Nyhm said.

  Tolliver nodded in agreement.

  “Indeed. That was quite a remarkable [Skill] she used to capture you. Perhaps you can learn it whilst we are here.”

  Thea clapped him heartily on the back.

  “That was a bit embarrassing if you ask me.”

  “Thanks.”

  She smiled broadly.

  “What are friends for? Now run along after her and do whatever groveling you need to do so she’ll spend the next two weeks teaching you.”

  As much as he hated to admit it, Thea was right. He really needed to take advantage of his time here, and with Master Wren gone that meant Noni. After catching his breath and swallowing what was left of his pride, he headed the direction she had disappeared.

  He found his old classmate standing at the edge of a cliff just outside the temple grounds. She faced the morning sun with eyes closed, and the wind whipped at her loose robes. Without turning to face him, she spoke as he walked up.

  “You have improved since we last met.”

  Raith came up beside her and gave a halfhearted smile.

  “You’ve improved more.”

  She did not return the smile. They sat there as the day warmed while Raith grew increasingly uncomfortable at the silence. He soon came to the conclusion that, much like their duel, she could easily outwait him.

  “I was hoping you would be willing to teach me for the rest of my stay here. You can see how much I need the training.”

  He gave a lame chuckle at that last, which she again did not return.

  “I do not wish to teach you.”

  “Listen, I know was a bit of a harpy’s ass last time I was here, but that was years ago.”

  She looked towards him for the first time.

  “And are you still Raith Quirric?”

  That was a weird question.

  “Uh, yes.”

  “Then you are still the spoiled, insolent boy who taunted and humiliated me weeks after I lost both of my parents. The same Raith Quirric who spent a year besting me every day yet never offering a single word of encouragement or support.”

  Raith was dumbstruck. He remembered the two of them not getting along, but he didn’t think he’d been that horrible.

  “I’m sorry, I had no idea you’d lost your parents.”

  “You never asked. Find another teacher Raith Quirric.”

  With that she rose and began to stride away back towards the temple.

  [Life in Staccato]

  Raith swallowed the defensive rant he almost began to spew.

  It was unfair to judge him with such finality for the behavior of an immature fourteen year old. He wanted to tell her that he’d been suffering, too. About his [Divine Skill] and being scared all the time. How angry he’d been at everyone and everything for not just leaving him alone to live his life as he saw fit.

  But it all seemed so petty now. Especially next to losing one’s parents. Even if the reasons he had to feel alone and afraid were valid, so what? Something shitty happening to him didn’t give him the right to treat someone shitty.

  Raith realized he didn’t need to compare the pains of their past, or confess the fear that permeated his life about being godlaced.

  He just needed to apologize.

  Setting the world back in motion, he called to her retreating back.

  “Master Noni.”

  She paused, but didn’t turn to face him.

  “I feel terrible about my behavior. You needed a friend, and I was nothing but an asshole. I understand why you wouldn’t want to teach me, but please know I am sincerely sorry for the way I treated you.”

  Noni stood very still for a long moment, before speaking without turning around.

  “We will begin tomorrow at dawn.”

  ***

  Raith fell into a routine over the next two weeks. Much of it involved receiving bruises for many hours a day. He regretted stitching [Enhanced Endurance], which enabled him to keep up with the grueling pace of training.

  “You have two weeks to make up for five years of neglect. Do not waste my time. Again!”

  She set up a course of small rings attached to the tops of posts at different heights. He was somehow supposed to send his dart through each ring to work on his ‘dreadful accuracy’, which he had thought was ok until now. It took him five passes before he even got one ring. It took countless more to get them all.

  That was by far not the worst of it. Master Noni had him repeating techniques for hours over the slightest error. After that he was sparring not just her, but seemingly the entire rest of the compound who wanted to have a turn getting their licks in. Polearms, straight swords, sai, staves, weird curved metal bars that he had no idea what they were called.

  He got hit with them all. Many, many times.

  And when he wasn’t doing that, he was in his library studying or working on his techniques even more. Veil made a good shadowboxing partner, somehow more substantial in his library, giving him something to aim at and avoid while practicing. It wasn’t quite as good as an actual training partner, but a lot better than nothing.

  Raith also found time to slowly add the temple’s library to his own. It was fascinating to see the centuries of evolution of these martial arts since they were brought over from the corvid lands. Constantly testing new [Classes] and [Skills] and carefully documenting each step for future generations. A stark contrast to how things worked in Beckhaven, where such specialized knowledge was hoarded by the rich and powerful.

  Master Gentle, a visiting corvid monk, gave him an opportunity to train against an aerial opponent, which was an eye opening experience. Thinking in three dimensions like that was surprisingly challenging.

  “Your weapon is much more common in my homeland, young human. It is a shame you cannot fly to take advantage of its full potential, however your style of jumping and attacking from elevated positions does service to the art.”

  “Thank you, Master Gentle. Do you have time for another round, sir?”

  In between the long bouts of training, he took long dreamless sleeps in [Staccato]. He had tried to sleep normally again, both in the library and out, but was plagued by nightmares of the blood and pain.

  Nyhm had already figured out minor stamina potions after testing a couple of duds on Raith. Fortunately, the only bad side affect had been a terrible taste and bit of nausea, but Abbot Tukes warned that more powerful potions could be deadly if you got them wrong, so Nyhm started being more careful. He’d also perfected a healing salve, but hadn’t quite worked his way up to a lesser healing potion.

  With a steady supply of potions and salve from his brother, Raith kept up with the most brutal pace of training he’d ever had in his life. Pushing himself to the limits of his endurance every single day, only to get up and do it all over the next.

  For the final three days, Master Noni had the rest of the team join in. It was nice to work as a group again, and their tactics improved dramatically under the tutelage of the monks. Tolliver was looking much more confident moving around the battlefield, transitioning in and out of bat form between launching magical attacks.

  Thea stitched a cool new [Vine Gauntlet] that was a weird druidic synergy of spell and [Skill]. As the name suggested, she used a seed to grow a gauntlet of vines around her non-shield hand. It could either serve defensively, entangle weapons with reaching roots or dart forward to pierce opponents. It was a huge combat upgrade, and she was having a lot of fun testing it out.

  Raith was afraid that becoming an [Herbalist] would sap his brother’s enthusiasm for combat, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. With renewed purpose, Nyhm was an absolute terror during sparring practice, drawing a number of compliments and requests for private duels from the monks. He declined them all, but Raith didn’t miss the small smile of pride the elfling allowed himself.

  When it was finally time to go see Abbot Rinner, Raith was surprised to find he actually wanted to stay longer. His team was closer and more well trained than he’d ever hoped.

  But they couldn’t stay here forever. There were adventures out there to be had, and that thought brought with it a burning excitement for the future.

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