Penitent-Chapter 10: Collateral Duties

One day Ollie was taken out of the barracks and not returned to the rest of the group until breakfast where he sat shaking his head and cursing under his breath as he bit into a biscuit.

“What happened?” asked Michael.

“I’m a mage. Or, I’m going to be anyway. This body’s parents both had high, but not mage level magical ability, and it’s manifested as high potential that I now have to deal with.”

“What’s does this mean?” asked Pyotr, wiping crumbs off his face with the back of his hand.

“It means no more combat training for one thing. I’ll be spending time learning spells and burning pathways for my magicka channels, which I’m guessing fucking sucks. My aging will also be slowed since apparently it’s easier to learn spells and burn mana channels the younger you start,” he shook his head and rubbed his hands across his face. “I’m going to be stuck with a baby dick for almost a year.”

“That shouldn’t bother you much. Isn’t that more than what you had back on Earth?” asked Michael with a smile.

That prompted laughter from everyone, but Ollie who frowned at him. “You’re an asshole, Mike.”

He shrugged, but his smile showed he had no regrets.

The rest of the day was normal classes. Magic class was no longer linear for everyone, but instead people that accomplished spells quickly were moved rapidly onto the next spell. Ollie was obviously the star, having already learned all of the basic spells they were required to, and Pyotr had only two remaining. Davi struggled the most, being nearly two spells behind Michael. Michael was either the worst of the best or the best of the worst. He was usually working at least one spell ahead of one half of the class, and one spell behind the rest.

“You have decent magicka channels, but they’re scattered,” said Teft as he worked on a spell of tightening. “With the right breeding, in a couple of generations your bloodline could produce a solid mage. Unfortunately, for you it means casting your mana outside of your body is difficult, even though you have solid reserves.”

The spells they needed to learn were minor flame, minor tightening, minor water purification, mark, muffle, navigate, and darksight. Everyone at the academy learned them. Most were self explanatory except for Mark and Navigate, Mark let you place magical marker on something. It highlighted it in your vision, letting you locate it more easily, and you could mark it in different colors or patterns if you willed it so. Michael had to hold things to mark them, whispering ‘aqui’ as he held it in his hands, but Ollie could mark items across a room without effort. Navigate would draw you to the marked item of your choosing. Most military camps had marking stones for important buildings as well as the camp itself. That way if you were new to the camp, you could simply activate a navigate spell, and find the infirmary, barracks, mess, anything you needed after the first time you found it. Minor tightening did exactly what it sounded like, it tightened straps, belts, knots, and anything similar. It had a lot of uses, the most important of which was that it would allow them to quickly don armor without assistance.

Michael had managed so far to gain minor flame, minor tightening, minor water purification, and mark, or as he called them, fuego, corto, limpia agua, and aqui. He still struggled with navigate, or donde, and muffle. After that he had darksight which was apparently the hardest to learn. He knew that his Spanish words weren’t perfect choices, but they made sense to him and that’s what mattered when using them as a focus.

After a magic class, Michael was taken aside by Kline before he could move on to language and military norms.

“Follow me, Penitent Michael.”

He did, falling into step behind him, doing his best to keep up with his lengthy stride as they made their way across the campus.

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“You already have all that you needed to learn from those classes. Your Hume is perfect and unaccented, and you familiarized yourself with all of the requisition, maintenance, and even upkeep tasks before anyone else.

“I’m guessing that doesn’t mean I’m going to relax in the barracks during those classes from now on.”

Kline chuckled. “No. I’m afraid not. You will be receiving quartermaster training.”

Michael frowned, it didn’t seem very wise to give a Penitent that kind of role.

Somehow Kline guessed at his thoughts even though he didn’t turn around to face him. “You will never do the job alone, but there are times where the quartermasters need assistance, and you will be called on to help. Understood?”

“Yes sir.”

They arrived at a large concrete building at the front of which was a counter with a very broad man sitting behind it. He had to be as wide as Michael was tall with a long thick beard that went all the way down to his belt. The man saluted as Kline approached.

“Knight Commander,” he said.

Kline returned the salute, placing his hand against his chest with two fingers extended.

“Quartermaster Dugan. This is the Penitent I told you about.”

Dugan nodded, and then suddenly disappeared behind the counter. He then reappeared around the other side, and it was then that Michael realized that he was less than five feet tall.

“Dwarf,” said Michael with surprise.

Dugan widened his eyes in mock surprise. “Human,” he said with an exaggerated inflection.

“Sorry. I’m still getting used to things here.”

Dugan shrugged. “That’s not my problem. Can you fill out a 1A?”

Michael nodded.

“Can you polish armor?”

He nodded again, maintenance of equipment had been the most important part of military standards.

Dugan scratched his beard. “Did you ever take inventory in your old life?”

“Once a quarter.”

He nodded and looked at Kline. “He’ll do.”

Kline nodded back. “I leave him to you then. Have him report back to us for bushcraft.” He walked away, back toward the other Penitents and their classroom.

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Michael was still looking at Dugan. He looked…wrong somehow. His proportions were all out of whack and it was making his brain hurt trying to remember if he’d ever seen anyone who looked like that. He knew he hadn’t, and that Dugan was a dwarf, which wasn’t something that existed in his world.

“Do you stare at aelves like that too, or is it only dwarves that are so lucky?” asked Dugan gesturing for him to follow him.

“Sorry about that,” said Michael, shaking his head. “I’d probably stare at elves like that if I ever saw them.”

“You have seen them, lad. They’re all over the academy.”

Michael frowned. “Really?”

Dugan pushed open the door to the concrete building. “Well, not full aelves. Not since they were made to ‘conform’, by the king a couple hundred years ago. A lot of the students and instructors have a bit of blood though. Look a bit closer next time, I need someone with an eye for detail to help me out here.”

Inside the building were rows and rows of shelves and racks. They were filled with clothes, weapons, dried goods, raw materials, and everything else Michael could think of.

They moved through the building and to the back where there was a small stable with a single mule and two carts, one of which was filled with the dull practice swords that Michael had grown familiar with.

Dugan pointed. “Those were just taken off the practice field. Inspect them to see if they need some smithing. If they do, place them in the other cart. The others can stay. When you’re done sorting, come to me. We’ll fill out a form for how many need repair and then take them to the smith."

“Is he also a dwarf?”

Dugan shook his head. “Luckily for you, he’s a human man. I worry that another dwarf would shatter your fragile mind.”

"Can I ask one more question?"

Dugan sighed, but looked at him expectantly.

"Why metal swords? Wouldn't wood make more sense?"

"Wood swords can't withstand some of the other trainees strength. Makes more sense to use metal. Get to work."

Michael nodded, and Dugan left him alone to get to work. He went through each sword carefully, looking for nicks in them, or bends, or even damage to the hilt. It was tedious work, but he had a good view of a training field that seemed to have mages training in it. Occasionally he’d see a flash of light, or hear a small explosion. The change of scenery and new work to do wound up actually feeling like a nice break from the normal routine of his days. Whether it would still feel so novel after a few months of work though… he was fairly certain he already had the answer to that.

When he was done he walked back in and saw Dugan filling out several papers with his eyes squinted and a quill flying across as he made notes and adjusted numbers.

“All done?” he asked, not looking up from his own work.

“Yes sir.”

He pushed himself off his chair, landing with a small huff and walked out to inspect the work he’d done. He took a few swords that Michael had put in the ‘damaged’ cart and moved them back. Then nodded.

“You were too cautious, these are for training, a few nicks are no problem.” He looked over the carts again. “Overall though, good work.”