Chapter 6: New Normal

As Umber drifted to sleep with thoughts of forging, artificing, and adventure, his dreams took a much different route.

He saw a magnificent dragonoid, a person lightly luminous with a golden scale in the center of their chest going in the opposite direction. Their eyes were gold, and their Claws on hands and feet were sharp. He had a pair of horns that went out behind his head and a pair of wings covered in golden scales. But lined with silver on the inside.

The person approached and then he realized this isn't just a person, it was a person in armor. Running in small thin lines is a gold vine-like filament that glows brilliantly across each of the joints that were so well sculpted that they appeared almost unnoticeable.

The helmet suddenly split vertically, and opened to reveal-

Umber woke up sore as he fell off the bed.

Umber got up from the floor groggily.

"What was my dream about," Umber thought to himself.

He tried very hard to remember but the only thing he remembered was that it was important, very important, but why?

Then it left his mind entirely as his mother came in dressed in silver armor.

"Umber, it's time for your first lesson. Get dressed and meet me outside," She commanded.

"Yes, mam!"

The aura around her was vastly different than normal, it was like the difference between a house cat and a lion.

Despite the weirdness, he still followed her instructions without question.

He dressed comfortably in a blue shirt and plain brown pants.

When he met his mother in the field behind their house, his mother was waiting, hands folded in front of her in silver armor, etched with a pair of twin dragons locked in battle.

Beside her were a pair of wooden swords impaled in the soft ground.

"Umber dear, while training I'm not going to be gentle. I will teach you thoroughly with the time we have. Pick up a sword."

If you said this was someone who looked like his mom Umber would believe you right now. This person's being was so vastly different from her usual self that it was almost frightening. More frightening than the blade-like menacing aura she exuded.

Umber picked up the sword and held it as he had always imagined knights and heroes did in the stories. Both hands on the hilt as tightly as possible. Though that was a bit hard with how small the handle was.

Lilly smacked her forehead

"This is gonna be harder than I thought," She muttered.

Umber, who didn't hear this, was ready, when Lilly came over and took his left hand off the hilt, and moved his right leg back.

"You want to lower your center of gravity for balance and widen your stance to be capable of moving quickly at a moment's notice. That is a shortsword. Meaning a one-handed sword. You were trying to use it like a longsword or greatsword," Lilly explained, swiftly and efficiently.

She continued, "Now for today I nearly want to get you used to attacking me."

Umber was visibly uncomfortable with the idea as she mentioned it.

"Umber, you will not be able to hurt me, even if you could hit me. Today I won't be hitting back, but tomorrow I will be so, be prepared. Now swing."

Umber hesitated. He started to swing at his mother but very slowly.

Lilly's expression grew stern. She parried his sword and launched it from his hands with such force it almost knocked him down.

"Umber, I am not nearly as fragile as you might think dear. I said, "swing at me!"

Umber staggered back aghast at the strength he felt from that collision. It was almost like hammering an anvil.

With a newfound respect for his mother, he no longer hesitated and swung at her as much as he could. Though he was still hesitant.

The hour grew later and he grew tired and hungry.

After Umber collapsed to his knees, Lilly declared it was time for breakfast.

Umber was glad to hear it. He knew this would be a useful skill even if he never needed it, but it was exhausting.

Lilly treated any scrapes or bruises he might have especially on his hands, then made a simple breakfast for the two of them. Her usual gentle aura was restored as though her appearance in the field was an illusion.

After breakfast Umber joined his dad in the forge to finish his sword and help with any urgent requests. There were no urgent requests so he immediately started back on his sword by polishing the blade.

After he was satisfied he took it to a grindstone and put an edge he could be proud of on it.

The sword was now usable, but he wanted to make it unique to him. He took off the guard and reheated it. After it was red, he placed it on the anvil and took a chisel to it. He carved out the initials UB on the guard. It didn't look the best, but it was his, and no one else's.

Satisfied it was time to go to see what the merchants have again. They usually stayed in town for about a week, since this town made a huge spectacle of their arrival. Some of them even played along and revealed different stock each day so there was always something new to look for.

One time a merchant started off selling seeds, and farming equipment and ended up selling foreign jewelry.

The three of them made it to town around noon and spent time looking around the bizarre at the strange things some of the merchants had. Until Mr.Daniel showed up.

"There you are, my friends! For a minute I thought I was gonna have to go to your house to find you" Daniel said much more jovially than the day before.

"There isn't a lot to do in a small village like ours, obviously we wouldn't miss this," Eric scoffed.

Lilly sighed," Umber why don't you go and find your sister, she's somewhere around here. She wouldn't miss the bizarre after all oh and here." She handed him a small bag of coins.

She smiled playfully and said, "Don't tell your father about this."

"Yes! Thank you, Mom," Umber kissed her cheek and ran off.

Lilly joined Eric and Daniel in their catching up. Considering the seriousness of his business yesterday they never had a good chance to do that.

Umber felt oddly excited today. Perhaps it's because he could finally hear all about Dandrimad today, or maybe it's because he was excited about his apprenticeship, but he had an extra pep in his step today.

After a bit of searching, he finally found the merchant that had the bird. He was sitting on a cushion on his rug, with a weird pipe, in his mouth still fiddling with the bird.

The pipe was wooden until it got to the head, where it ended in a porcelain snake head with jade eyes.

The merchant noticed Umber approaching and placed the bird beside him.

"So you remembered, huh kid, welp guess I got to keep up my end. Let me tell you about The Dandrimad Technocracy."