Training Grounds

"Training Grounds"

I spent two weeks with my guide in the training halls and in the relatively safe areas outside of them. Other newcomers arrived from the Vaults regularly, some more disturbed by the portal experience than others. Some even forgot the name their parents gave them at birth and adopted strange and sometimes humorous names for themselves. I'll not soon forget "Pyreal Mote" and his comrade "Sturdy Iron Key".

We all trained in warfare more than anything else. I questioned our guide on this, for surely there were other skills that we would need.

"Aye, there are, but once you leave this protected island, you will find that you need your skills in combat more than anything else," she replied, with a bit of condescension, I felt.

Grumbling, I continued my practice with sword, bow, and magic-casting staff. None of us remembered enough of our past to fight well or cast powerful magics, but each eventually gravitated to that which seemed most natural. The heavy sword seemed a fine weapon, no doubt the terror of any foe it was used against, yet the grip felt awkward in my grasp and I soon set it aside, though with some reluctance I will admit. It was easier for me to dismiss the bow, for fumbling arrows as I drew them and failing to strike even the broad side of a cottage proved beyond doubt that I was unsuited for such a weapon.

However, when first I grasped the basic staff provided by the trainers, I felt a surge of recognition deep within my heart. Practicing simple gestures and incantations, I soon had mastered the basics of using magics in combat and realized that this must be my calling. I yearned to acquire skills in magic that would allow me to heal others, to protect them from harm, to make them stronger, yet our guide informed me that such magics would take much time and effort to acquire. I resigned myself to a long and possibly tedious future, simply to regain some small fraction of the skills I had once no doubt had at my beck and call in the Vaults.

I learned much about the world above; saw the sky at day blazing with the sun and at night glowing peacefully with the moon. The mysterious red smear across the sky that seemed to move evoked my curiosity more than any other wonder I had seen, but it seemed no one knew for sure what it might be. Perhaps the remnants of the missing second moon, as some around me speculated.

Walking through grassy fields, and climbing the shoulders of craggy mountains, I soon accepted that I could never return to my subterranean life. A love of this world that I'd not truly felt before grew in me and I resolved that I would do all I could to see it protected from the ravages of evil that had so harmed it in the past. Also, I ached for my beloved wife to join me, to share with me these lovely vistas.

Our training also involved the great Lifestones of Dereth. We were introduced to these marvels, which many of us had heard of from the Pre-War legends, and shown how to use them to bind our spirits in order to prevent our true deaths while we explored the surface world. Myself, I learned these lessons diligently, but with great trepidation. Though one be returned to life, would not a violent death be a horrific experience nevertheless?

Thus far I had not had to test these Lifestones, for which I offered grateful thanks to Asheron! How long would this luck persist? I knew not, and was in no way eager to experience the boon of the Lifestone first hand.

A day came when we were finally judged worthy to leave the shelter of the Island. Excitement built in the handful of folk who were traveling along with me to the great Portal leading to the mainland. Soon we would meet the other occupants of our New Dereth in all their forms; human, lugian, and tumerok. None of us had ever met a non-human but most looked forward to the experience. A few were less enthusiastic and I wondered what sort of trouble might lie in wait for us if that attitude spread.

Taking a portal from the Island to the mainland was nowhere near as traumatic as taking the portal from the Vaults to the surface world had been. The swirl and screech were similar, but a much shorter trip it seemed to be. As our guides had promised us the experience did not wipe knowledge from our minds.

I found myself standing in sunlight near a Lifestone, atop a mighty mountain, the whole world seeming to be laid out before me for sampling. Others were here also; dozens of folk of all shapes and colors. Some stood as if dazed, barely blinking. Others quickly attuned themselves to the nearby Lifestone and ran down the road that led to the top of the crag. Myself, I joined with some who complained of pain in our joints and muscles, which prevented us from being able to athletically sprint down the mountainside, but rather, stagger along slowly. One hopes dearly that I recover my speed and agility before one of the fearsome wild beasts of New Dereth stumbles across me! So, trailing the sprinting Pyreal Mote and Sturdy Iron Key, I made my slow way down the mountain, truly and at last in the world Under the Sun.