Walk Softly

Soft steps got them almost to the end of the field before a sudden twitch of a vine put it right under their sword fighter's foot, and not only did he stomp on the vine, he tripped, and his blade sliced a dozen of them clean in half.

"Get him up and let's run. The vine monster will not be happy about that." Karl shouted, before beginning to dash toward the relative safety of the hedgerow.

The woodcutter hauled the other boy to his feet, and the four of them took off running, hoping to make it to the edge of the field. Entangling vines grabbed at Karl's legs, but fast steps kept them from finding a good hold, and he was nearly out of the vines' range before he was pulled to a stop.

Coming up from behind him, the young mage used Karl's immobile figure as a springboard, running across his back as Karl was getting up and leaping toward safety, only to be caught in midair and dragged flat to the ground with a puff of dirt and a pained groan.

"Good plan, poor execution." The swordsman laughed from behind them as he hacked his way through the vines.

Karl sliced himself free with [Rend] and then did the same for the mage, who frantically scrambled for safety in the trees.

The last to reach safety was the woodcutter, but he was also the most lucky, as he had experience with entangling vines in the woods, and knew how to smack them with the back of his axe to keep them from grabbing his ankles.

"Sorry, it takes too long to explain the trick, or I would have told you all." He mumbled as he reached the trees a few seconds behind the others.

"It's all good. We each have our own knowledge base to work on, and there was no time for some long lecture in the middle of the field." Karl agreed.

The Mage seemed like she was about to say something, but then reconsidered. There were only a few seconds between the stumble and the escape, there really was no time to explain.

All that was left now was a section of freshly mowed grass, with a single cobblestone path that led to the gates. If they could make it through that, they were safe. Well, relatively safe. From what they knew of the elites, the culture favoured the strong, and they were not yet the strong. But they were all well suited to their class, and in time they might be.

"Stay off the grass. I learned that from my mum's workplace. Fancy people hate when you walk on their grass." The mage mumbled as they got ready to move.

"Good point. I was looking forward to soft grass under my feet after growing up in the mines, but using the path just seems right." Karl agreed.

These other three hadn't gotten on at his stop, but they should at least understand the concept of the mines. There were ten other middle schools in the nearby towns, so even if, like Karl, they had never travelled, they had at least seen the mountains over the mines in the distance.

Triumphantly, they walked down the path, with the swordsman doing his best to hide a slight limp and the mage brushing the dirt off the front of her uniform to look a little less like she had been rolling in the field for fun.

They reached the gate, where a pair of teachers were waiting to greet them with a large bag full of textbooks and a table full of drinks.

"Welcome to the Golden Divine Academy, students Karl, Dana, James and Kruger. You are the first to make it to the gate today, and therefore the first to get to pick your rooms in the dormitory. The map is on the table, and you may pick any room on the second floor that is not currently marked as occupied."

They rushed over to collect a drink, and then gathered around the map. 

"This layout makes no sense." Kruger, the axe wielder, mumbled.

"All the rooms are random. Look at this one, it's tiny, but with a huge empty balcony, who would pick that?" Dana, the dark-haired mage, agreed. 

But a long, narrow room caught her eye. There was supposed to be a training target at the end which she could fire spells at from a distance, which would be great for practice.

"I want the balcony room." Karl shrugged, then picked up a token from the table and placed it on the map.

"Right, you have a wide area attack skill. If you want to practice, you need more space. I'll take the training room here, with the Murphy bed that folds against the wall." Dana explained, picking her space.

The other two went for the largest pair of dorms, with a training dummy in the main room and a separate bedroom. Each of the rooms was a bit special in its own way, but Karl noticed that there was one selectable option that seemed quite inferior. Someone could actually pick the supply closet as their dorm, it was marked as an option, and might be left to the last person to complete the trials.

The Windspeed Hawk in Karl's taming space looked out through his eyes and squawked in appreciation of the choice. The big balcony was one of the few rooms that had proper outdoor access. In fact, it blocked a half dozen other rooms' access to the outside, unless they had a window that opened onto the balcony. 

It was perfect for the bird, and once it digested these delicious Earth Mice, the tiny monster was convinced that it would have the energy to grow enough that it could fly around outside. Baby monsters didn't stay helpless for long, even in this situation, where it was being nourished by a human beast tamer and not its mother.

[Are there more mice?] It asked hopefully.

It was strange to hear the bird's thoughts as words in his head, but unfortunately, Karl didn't have anything else for the beast right now.

[Just wait until dinner and I will get you as much meat as you can eat.]

[I hope they serve mice.]