A Taste of Training

The introductions were short and to the point. The few that stuck out were the giant, Atlas, the young hooded girl who I saw in the woods named Clara, a chipper beast man everyone called Rune, and a rather cold feeling swordsman named Vale.

After, besides Vale and Garth the rest had left, leaving us in the sand pit.

Garth speaks first, "Seeing that you have almost no idea how to use that sword you're carrying, Vale here is gonna teach you the basics for now."

Vale nods his head and walks to the center of the pit, waiting for me.

"So, how am I gonna learn?" I look towards Garth first, then Vale.

"By fighting, learn through experience." Vale ties a rope around his sword sheath and motions for me to come at him as Garth steps to the side, presumably to watch my progress.

"What? I don't get time to eat or sleep or anything? I haven't eaten since I got put in jail." Vale, with a straight face responds,

"Too bad."

Vale swung his sheathe, turning the sand to frozen spikes moving along the ground towards me.

I take a dive to the side, just barely dodging the spikes as they pierce where I was just standing.

i stand back up and see a smirk on Vale's face.

"I thought you were just a cold kinda guy, didn't think it was literal."

"Hmph." Vale swung his sheathe down, breaking the ice that formed at his feet. It went in front of him in shards, on the second swing he hit the shards towards me, with him following closely behind.

I get hit by several, none going through my newly acquired armor. I look up and flinch as I see a sheathe coming towards my face, and tapping my forehead just hard enough to make me stumble backward.

I look up from the ground, baffled at what just happened.

"Was that... Magic?" I look towards the long line of ice stalagmites, then back towards Vale.

He nodded his head at me, "Indeed."

Garth walked over from the side, "Magic is a bit of an uncommon term here, but it's the same thing. We call it an Arc." Garth raised his hand and a light breeze blew by me.

"All Arcs take different forms, internal, external, offensive, defensive, and of course, different elements to accompany them."

"Arcs aren't infinite though, they make you quite tired depending on what you do with it, but it's like training a muscle. It gets stronger over time, as you use it."

"I was hoping that exposing you to an Arc would let us see what yours is, I guess not. See, not everyone has an Arc, but I felt the energy from you so I'd thought you just might not know hoe to use it yet." Garth looked to be in thought for a moment before continuing.

"It could be that your's is something obscure that we can't see, or something you just need to figure out for yourself, which is what Vale is here for." He reached out and patted him on the shoulder.

"See, he happens to be pretty strong, even for a mercenary. So i'm hoping even if he can't teach you to use your Arc, he can at least make you a bit better with a sword."

Vale nodded his head, silence seeming to be his preferred state.

"So I just need to train then?" I ask hesitantly.

Garth smiles, "You betcha lad, if I threw you into the forest as you are now, you'd be dead in an hour."

Garth threw me what seemed to be some food in a leaf wrap and walked away, "Do me proud lad, don't make me regret taking you in."

I sigh, resigned to my fate. I can't exactly run away anyways, not with a guard dog over me, I take a look over to Vale, who had sat down and was eating a sandwich.

I opened the small wrap and found it to be some still warm bread, which was better than nothing I guessed.

As I ate, I kept looking over toward the ice on the sand. Despite the heat of the field, it hadn't melted at all, and even had an odd dark blue hue towards the center.

As I finished the last of my small amount of bread, I was surprisingly full, probably from not eating in a while.

Looking back towards Vale, he had already finished and was standing at the ready, waiting for me i'd guess.

I stood up and faced him, by stick at the ready. He smirked at me, cold air seeming to gather around him, frost gathering on my clothes.

My hellish training started here, getting me ready for my uncertain future in this strange new world.

As ice coated his sheathe, I rush headfirst into the fight, my eyes narrowed into slits in focus knowing that as long as I fight, I'll always get the best of anyone.