Recovery

The ground didn't want to stay under my feet but I think I did a good enough job walking. 10 days wouldn't be much time to get my unit working again, plus whatever our lord wanted me to remember.

The messenger led us out of the tower. I had noted that the guards had watched me closely. "You will not be allowed out of the tower without a special with you. We are dangerous and we aren't sure how to handle one that wasn't made the way we were."

"The guards have something on them but they are not specauls themselves."

"You noticed this time? Yes they do. Wait until we get to the practice grounds to talk more about it."

We left the tower and walked up a different street from the one we had come down before. We didn't go far. Just past one building before coming to a building with two more guards standing in front of it. The messenger didn't even glance at the guards as he walked by. It had looked like a three story building from the outside. The building was stone without any windows. I wondered how they saw while inside then I remembered the globes of light on the room floor of the tower.

We walked into a dark interior and I felt my unit gather closer to try and not lose each other in the dark. The messenger stepped easily out of their way before they ran into him. Hose opened another set of doors as the first set closed. The inside was lit as I had thought but the place was huge. It had no floors and no interior walls. The globes hovered just above where most people could jump. The floor was covered in grass mats. They were soft but it had to be time consuming to make them. My unit seemed impressed by the room.

We weren't alone in the space. There was a group of four men sitting to the side of the doors. They were facing each other and to the rest of my unit it might look like they were sleeping. To me it looked like they were trying to kill each other. I looked back at the messenger in alarm. "You have only met our lord once, and you can already see it?"

"They aren't as strong as you."

"They are younger and less foolish then I was." I could just see a small smile and feel some amusement coming from the priest.

"I am almost twice as strong as you."

The messenger raised an eyebrow, "These three men are also twice as big as you are. I wouldn't pick them if you really fought."

"Then you would be wrong, though right that their size wouldn't be the factor that won it for them." I moved towards the other side of the large room. I signaled the two who had survived from the first unit I had made. "Warm up. Slow."

The messenger stood next to me as I sat down like the other group had been doing. They took the trainer and started going over the most common signs I used while they stretched. I closed my eyes, it helped to bring my other sense into focus. I opened them again. There was quite a bit of black fire in the building. The largest source stood next to me but what caused my fear reaction was seeing again what was going on across the room. I had to get over that, I really didn't believe our lord had meant to cause me pain, he just hadn't trusted me or known that I could do what he wanted. He would have killed me to learn what he wanted but I wasn't afraid of death, it had been the pain that bothered me so much.

I closed my eyes, watching the people wouldn't help me protect myself anyway. I tried to think of the last few times I had made time to practice with my new sense. I found the path fuzzy and blocked. I turned my focus back to the room around me. The messenger was brighter or darker then the other men. I guess it might be better to say that the man had more flames under his control then the other men. That was when I noticed the small steady flame that matched the one I had seen on the guards as we walked. I opened my eyes and looked at the messenger who was watching me.

"Will you answer my questions, about this?"

"Some but for the most part, no."

I nodded, "The guards have the same stone that is in your pocket. I saw you handling the stone before but you have been careful not to touch it since I woke up this time. Is that your line to our lord or do you have another way of speaking to him?"

"It makes the connection easier but it is not required. He might not hear me without it but he will always be able to come straight to me, if he wants."

"He can also tell you apart from just some human nearby?"

"Yes, but you should be able to tell that too."

"I can, but I-" Two attacks hit wrong on the other side of the room feeding each other and racing out towards the center of the room. The messenger reacted but it wasn't going to do anything to protect the regulars in the room. I slapped my hand on the grass mat and it broke apart. The grass seemed to fly up randomly in the air. The trainer looked at me in surprise, the other two men of the unit had seen me do strange things before when something bad was about to happen, they hit the floor. Which bought me a little more time without them knowing as they were closer to the fire. The grass glowed as it fell into place and froze in the air like it was suspended in time. I knew the words but at the same time I didn't.

I tried not to let that confuse me as my power lashed out. The flame turned real as it spread along the shield and dissipated. I had tilted the shield to direct the heat up and out. It kept the worst of it away. It still caused a couple of mats to catch on fire. I folded the suspended grass and wrapped it so that the last piece touched the first. It didn't allow air to move through it and the mats snuffed out as I stood up. Brushing bits of grass off my clothes. The messenger was looking at me. The grass had made the shield much easier to use then it had been in the past.

The other people in the building were all looking at me now. Except the men in my unit they were looking at the ground, even the trainer. He might not have seen me do odd things before but he had trained with me and knew I could be jumpy and it was best to follow the lead of my unit if in doubt. I let the grass fall onto the mats that were now out.

The messenger looked back at the other group. "What the hell were you thinking?!"

The other group was watching me, I could feel them trying to get a feel for me. I pushed back on them. I wasn't in the mood they could have killed my brothers. The group that had slipped up threw up a shield around their whole group. I threw a force at it so that the shield would break but it wouldn't actually threaten any of the people who had made the shield physically. I was glad for how I directed it as the shield broke like glass around the group. The messenger raised an eyebrow at me but he was yelling at the other group.

My mind couldn't process what the man was saying. He wasn't talking to me anyway and a memory had just come back to me. I was sitting in my room at home working on making the leathers smaller so that I could wear them without tripping. The shadow was watching the memory as I stitched something into the arm. A symbol I had found that makes the pads softer when I focused on them. It was simple and more importantly it wasn't a noticeable effect to anyone but me and the person who was going to die anyway. The shadow looked at me and I flinched a little, this is something I wouldn't have shared if I knew I could get away with it. Not because I didn't want our lord to know but because it felt like cheating, even if you couldn't really cheat in the arena. "You are already this far along, without help." The words weren't right but that is what they meant. "I wonder if you will find this again with enough time to help yourself. If you do, here is a bonus."

I cried out and grabbed my head as my knees hit the damaged mats. The trainer moved to try and catch me but he dare not touch me. The messenger had turned and was watching me with alarm as my power leaked out then seemed to snap back. The men of my unit took up a position on each side of me as the pain receded. They were watching the group clearly thinking that my pain was somehow being caused by them. The messenger was talking to them which was the only thing keeping them from springing at the group before they could kill them. I waved my hand at the grass and it lined up as I pictured. They weren't just symbols, they were words. I understood a few of them now. As I continued to regain myself the information faded a bit but I could still use it.

I stood slowly as the room was spinning and I was tired again, but it wasn't as bad as last time. I was beginning to wonder if our lord's gifts might be worse then making him mad. I put that thought out of my head as soon as it formed. This was him not trying to hurt me, I was sure.

I looked at the trainer, "You still have things you need to go over and only a small time to do it, get back to work."

"You ok, kid?"

"Don't call me that again, old man. I will be fine." I looked at the messenger, "You have this building because magic is dangerous and you don't want to risk the tower training, correct?"

The messenger seemed unsure, "Yes it is."

"Well, now I know what project I need to work on first. Since you won't want me working on this in the tower, can you have our leathers brought here?"

"I will have someone fetch them, are you sure you want to start now? You are still suffering from what our lord did to you."