The Game is On

Reaching Austarak barely three minutes after the night fall, Karmyl chuckled and, walking past him, softly whipped her tail against his face. “Well, chick, you managed to make a good time for a first-timer. Come, it’s time for dinner. And you should really get some good sleep. Tomorrow morning, your training continues.”

He just shook his head and followed her to the mess room. The line was already big enough by then and he looked at her, “Well, we do have quite some preys left from our survival training.” When Karmyl looked back at him curiously, he smiled, “Maybe we could have dinner somewhere else?”

She smiled, “What do you have in mind?”

“You taught me so much today. Let me teach you something new? Follow me.”

Curious, Karmyl followed the newcomer, trying to think what he could teach her. After he cleared the last of the roof, he opened his wings and took flight, she following quickly.

After a little while, though, she called him, “You sure it’s a good place, Thunder?”

“What? Are you afraid of the height?” he asked back playfully.

“As if!” Karmyl answered him. “I just… don’t see where we’ll be eating dinner up there!”

“Just a little higher!” Thunder assured her.

He then, with a smile, made a slight turn to his left. She followed and, after passing above a cloud, Thunder turned and hid behind it. When Karmyl cleared the cloud, she could see Thunder sitting down there, on the cotton-like surface of a cloud, looking at her and, to her surprise, his wings folded.

“Just take it easy. Put one of your hindpaws first. Touch the cloud and wait until you can feel a slight resistance,” he said with a smile.

“Clouds offer resistance?” she asked dubiously, slowly placing one of her lion paws on the cloud.

As if to prove the point, Thunder got up and jumped three times on the cloud, which seemed firm as a brick still. “A lot more than you give credit for.”

She quickly withdrew her paw. It had got through the cloud and now her paw was a bit humid. “It has none!”

Thunder was about to say otherwise when something clicked in his mind. Closing his eyes, he brought that sensation of his essence and noticed that a large amount of it was directed at his paws and claws. Smiling, he opened his eyes. “Have you had your lessons about essence?”

“Yes, a bit… Is it related?”

“At first, I thought it was natural magic. When I looked deeper into it, I felt my essence there.”

“So… if I think it’s impossible…” Karmyl closed her eyes and took deep breaths, calming herself. She cleared her mind, calmed her heart and tried again. A couple seconds later, she could feel her paw touching the cloud and something resisting to being pushed deeper. Putting a bit more of weight over it, the cloud sustained and she got the courage to try the second hindpaw. With a smile, she opened her eyes and slowly sat down properly, looking at him. “Yeah, like you said, it does offer more resistance than I give credit for. But why dinner up there?”

“Please, don’t get me wrong or anything but…” he then looked up into the sky, “This is the best view anypony, I mean, anyone could ever dream.”

Looking up, Karmyl found the bejeweled sky completely clear above them. The moon glowing bright, the stars like small diamonds in the dark sky… she could help but let a sigh of sheer admiration escape her. “It’s… beautiful!”

“Yes, it is,” Thunder’s voice called Karmyl back to reality and as she downed her gaze, she saw a mouse right at her face’s height. With a quick move, she snatched it and gulped down effortlessly and then looked at the other griffin, which was chuckling at her.

“What’s so funny?”

“Do you have any idea how much like a pet you looked like right now? ‘Learned a new trick? Good girl! Here’s a prize!’”

“Why you!” she screamed with mock angry and half a laugh behind her words, jumping against him and making both of them roll above the cloud. She ended above him looking deep into his eyes.

A couple seconds passed as they exchanged that long look before Thunder himself broke it offering her a small squirrel, “Better we eat and get back down, right?”

She smiled, nodded and snatched the squirrel from his claws before raising and giving him space. Walking on clouds was, at same time, hard and easy. The closest thing that came to her mind was trying to walk over an extra soft mattress, only it was a lot more fragile.

Thunder, though, had no such problems for that he had mastered already a long time ago. Sitting up properly and smiling at her. Both continued to eat in silence, contemplating the sky above them. She admiring another night brought by Deora, the Goddess of the Moon, while he was thinking how beautiful a night it was in comparison with Luna’s.

After their dinner was done, Thunder looked at Karmyl and smiled. “See you down there.”

She was about to ask if he was racing her when all of a sudden, he just fell right across the cloud, as if it’s resistance had finished out. She was quickly in the sky and flying turning around the cloud to try and find Thunder, just to see him slowly gliding back down as if nothing has happened. Then he looked up and chuckled. You just turned it off, right? Your weather magic? she thought and dived to get closer to him.

Not too long ago, both of them were on the ground and walking towards the sleeping quarters. They parted their way with a friendly hug and promises of another time together soon.

***

Razor stood up on his usual tree, over his usual branch, gazing at the moon as he always did. The Queen’s Castle held plenty of luxury and had more than enough rooms for the whole troops, but the Captain of all those troops still refused to sleep in his room.

His mind drifted into far different problems and places, things that his teammates would never understand. Since the day he joined the Queen’s forces, he wasn’t able to have a full night sleep. Horrible nightmares always came to him, so he preferred to stay awake. Sensible to his fate, though, the Queen has cast on him a spell that allowed him to recover energy while awake, mostly vanishing his need to sleep. All he had to do was stay utterly stopped.

But even so, he couldn’t forget his worst nightmare ever, as for that he was alive when it happened. He remembered how he and his family were constantly traveling from town to town; such was the fate of a family of traveling merchants. He never made any true lasting friend, but made plenty of very good friends in plenty of towns with which he would hang out whenever they revisited a particular town.

It was during one of the travels that his life fell apart. He was travelling with his parents and his older sister when all of a sudden they were surrounded. There must have been about ten ponies, three of them pegasi, all with malicious looks in their faces…

“RAZOR!” the combination of his name and a rather heavy stone hitting his flank returned him to his senses. Looking down the tree, he saw Sandstorm stopped, looking at him expectantly. “In name of Deora, what were you thinking on?”

“None of your business,” the griffin answered, ‘falling’ from the branch and landing first on his hindlegs before gently placing his talons on the ground, his wings folded on his back. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s your turn to make the survey already,” Sandstorm answered. “They related movement at western sector, but it was unconfirmed.”

“Watch over a few more minutes while I get ready, will you?”

“Kinda knew you would say that, so I called you a bit earlier…” Sandstorm giggled. “And don’t give me that look! Just get on with it.”

Razor just sighed and walked to get his gear, his bow and arrows and also his armor were his most loyal company since his destiny called him. Gearing himself with expertise of years of practice, Razor was ready to assume his post within minutes. Allowing Sandstorm to stand down, he looked around and took notice of many other ponies working there.

“What are these movement reports?” Razor asked.

“Unconfirmed movement of a heavy being in the western sector,” answered a pegasus stallion. “The movement is erratic and is slowly approaching the castle.”

“Do we have a team investigating it on the spot?” Razor asked.

“Not yet, sir,” answered a female earth pony.

“I want a team in the air, Rangers and Assassins, to figure what is happening there. Have them with magic-detecting gems,” Razor ordered. “I want a map of the region in question.”

“Coming right up, sir,” a unicorn mare focused her magic and an illusion map formed in front of Razor.

“Six teams of four, two Assassins and two Rangers shall investigate sectors from M17 to N19. Paladins and Warlocks will make the first line of defense in case it’s aggressive.” Razor called.

A couple mares left the room to pass forward the orders. A long silence has insured as Razor just looked at the map apprehensively. Suddenly one area of the map glower red, area I18, which was perilously close to the castle. A message reached Razor by the Warlock that created the illusion. The map turned into the face of another Ranger from the front lines.

“Sir! Visual contact was made with aggressor! It’s a rock eater and is heading straight towards the castle!”

“Damn it! Everyone to your posts! Brown alert! Rock eater coming to the castle!” in the next second, Razor himself gained the sky, flying through the windows in the chilly night. Bringing his bow to attention, he turned to the east and waited. Ahead of him he could see the lines of Paladins and Warlocks, as the other clans slowly added their forces.

Placing one arrow on his string, Razor pulled it three times, making sure everything was fine before just relaxing and waiting. Rangers’ lines were the last to be formed, just behind the Warlocks’ lines, while others stood mixed in forward battle. Between them, there were Monks and Shamans with their healing capacities, so Razor hoped the lives lost in battle could be minimal. Suddenly, a pegasus started hovering at his side. He was about to have it go forward when he noticed a hole of an arrow between his eyes. This was Blizzard Bash’s body, and the damn zombie wouldn’t listen to a word Razor said, only Selena and the Queen had power over it.

The roar of the rock eater reverberated through the whole castle as it approached. As soon as massive-movement was visible in range, Warlocks flared their magic casting an Earth Crush spell. Having to leave not to be completely crushed, the giant snake-like creature showed its face with a mouth wide enough to swallow a whole battalion in a single gulp.

A circle of fire erupted around the huge snake, trying to make it get into despair, as Paladins and Monks attacked simultaneously to break the scales as much as they could before the monstrous serpent extinguished the flames around her and attacked back. Razor pulled one of his special arrows, it was enchanted with fire and would incinerate upon released from the bow. When the first crack appeared, Razor’s aim easily allowed him to release the arrow and saw it incinerating mere few seconds upon flying in the air.

As it struck on the skin of the monster, it left another loud roar and the beast began to struggle, extinguishing the flames around it and even taking a few Paladins and Monks that weren’t quick enough to evade. When more of the scales where broken, the whole line of Rangers began shooting flaming arrows and the Warlocks casting their fire magic against their enemy. No matter how hard the beast struggled, there were always flames aimed at her, so it decided to hit the ground. Quickly downing its body, plenty of troops were absolutely smashed by sheer size and strength of the monster.

Using the moment the creature hit the ground, earth-specialized Warlocks used their spells to break even more of the scales, so when the creature was back up, another volley of flaming arrows and fire spells quickly burned its way into the body of the monster, making it fall another time. After a few minutes of apprehensive care, uproar took care of the whole surviving troops.

Razor landed and stood at one of the Ranger’s side, “I want a report of all we lost in the battle and what it cost us in fire enchanted arrows.”

“Yes, sir!” he answered and Razor walked back to the castle.

He opened his wings again and flapping them violently, he quickly entered into his post once again. The griffin didn’t expect anything else to happen during his shift, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. After all, if only he had stood guard that day…

***

Next morning, Thunder stretched fully, both his forelegs and hindlegs, and then his wings. After that, he took proper care of his wings, looking for loose or imperfect feathers. After he was satisfied, he got up, placed the bow and quiver around him and walked towards the mess room. Walking around the corridors, he got the impression he was an early bird, and then chuckled when he thought about that.

Getting to the line, he put a nice amount of vegetables and even more meat than before, the patron commenting something like “That’s more like a griffin” or around those lines. With his filled plate in a claw, he looked around to find a place to sit. A smile parted his beak when he saw Karmyl calling him.

In the same table were Karyn and Baldok. With a smile, he said, “Good morning!”

He was about to say more when Karyn, from across him, somehow managed to grab her knife and stab it in the wooden table, right between two of his talons. A shiver ran down Thunder’s spine.

“I thought I said that anything more than looking would have you taking lessons of shooting with pegasi!” she menaced.

“Actually…” Thunder managed to say after a while, “You said about me touching her, not the other way around, so I’m quite free…”

Baldok actually chuckled at his answer. Karyn, though, took back her knife and pointed it at Thunder. “I’ll let it slip this time. First warning, Sparky. I hope you don’t get beyond the third.”

“That’s enough, mother. You’re scaring him and he has hunting scheduled with you today,” Karmyl called.

“At least he has the guts to fight her,” Baldok said with a smile. “Many failed her tests for not putting up when they should. Anyway,” he said getting up, “even with your pleasant company, girls, I have work to be done. And I expect you with me in a few minutes, chick. Gonna teach you a bit about weapons and armors before you try your luck in the wilderness with her.”

Chuckling at the glare Karyn was giving him, Baldok just left the room. Karmyl then got up and nuzzled her mother, “I shall go too. My hunting team will be waiting me at the eastern gate. See you at night, mom!”

When they were both alone at the table, Karyn let out a sigh. “My daughter came to me last night saying she had a wonderful dinner under the moonlight. Care to explain, Casanova?”

“Hey! Calm down! It wasn’t like that!” Thunder said defensively. “Look, after we got back from my survival training we went to have dinner. The line, though, was way too long and along the way we made a little hunting, small game, like mice and bunnies. So we decided to have dinner somewhere else. I decided to show her something new as well. I took her to the clouds and taught her a bit of weather magic. Basically, I taught her how to sit in a cloud.”

Karyn looked deep into his eyes. She had a look that was examining him, maybe to see if he was lying. After another sigh, she let it go. “Alright, I’ll trust you and her judgment. However, the day she comes back to me crying and it’s your fault…”

“Don’t worry. I like my neck where it is…” he said.

She nodded and sat in front of him while he ate his breakfast. “As Baldok told you, this morning you’ll train with him, learn about weapons and armors. Then you’ll join another three hour sessions with Hira, learning about essence. I still don’t know why they insist on teaching that, though.”

Thunder nodded. “And after lunch, we’ll go hunting?”

“This will be most your routine. During morning you’ll have theory classes and the afternoon is mostly for practical classes like survival and hunting.”

“Why I’m not returning to the shooting range to train with Garuna?” he asked.

“The high council decided we, Keura Rangers, should pay more attention to our essences for some reason,” Karyn answered. “You must have six essence classes, and three armory and archery classes. That covers the basic and will be your next four days as well. The practical classes required are three survival classes you’ll be doing with Karmyl and three hunting classes with me.”

“Then come the advanced stuff?” he asked.

“No,” Karyn chuckled, “They you’ll be called an Archer and will be on your own. Of course, you can hire instructors to teach you one thing or another, but that must be with your money then.”

“Isn’t… it too soon?”

“Actually, that’s the minimal period required,” Karyn pointed to his chest with a talon. “However, you were supposed to have those classes while you faced our entry requirement. You, though, aced that in your very first day…”

“I guess being a prodigy has its downside…” he chuckled.

“If you’re finished, ‘prodigy’, you’re getting late to your first class today.”

He nodded and got up, quickly running towards the armory.

“Children…” Karyn said still at the table.

“You weren’t any different, Karyn.” Garuna said coming from behind her.

“Shut your beak, will you?” Karyn looked at her over her shoulder. “You were my babysitter thirty years ago, not nowadays.”

Garuna chuckled at that and then helped Karyn take the used dishes back to the kitchen.

***

“I wait you the day after tomorrow, chick!” Baldok called as Thunder left the armory.

After exhaustive three hours learning about armors and weapons, mostly bows, Thunder finally was on his way to the essence classes with Hira. Basically, he learned how the leather must be properly cured and the means to harden it to higher protection without stopping the movements of the body, how to properly tense his bow and the importance of checking it every single day, how to properly craft an arrow that would improve the chances to hit the target instead of diminishing it, and how to make a proper weapon to combat close range when his arrows were gone.

He also received some reward of sort: a proper ranger suit, albeit one proper to his level, a bow made with his size and strength in mind, and two full quivers of arrows.

As he entered the essence class room, he was greeted by Hira alone in there. Not sure what was going on, he decided to ask, “I’m not that late, am I?”

“No, you’re not. Neither you’re early,” Hira answered in her almost singing voice. “You’re my only student for today.”

“And all those others I saw last time?” he asked.

“They were on the last sixth class already. From now on, it’s optional and there are very few that choose to continue. And for that, you’ll be able to choose where you want to have class today.”

He then chuckled, “Maybe above the clouds?”

She smiled back at him, “That sounds good. Guide away.”

Thunder then walked away, followed close by Hira, “Know what, let me see if I can’t get a couple more students for you.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” she chuckled. “I tried everything in my book and nothing made success.”

“Maybe you should try something a bit more artistic?” he smiled. He guided her to a large opened area in the center of the training complex, before he looked at her with a smile. “Well, let’s go. I can’t wait to see what else I can learn with essence.”

After saying that loud, surprising a bit Hira, Thunder opened his wings and gained the skies, his instructor following him close behind. “May I ask what that was about?” Hira asked.

He moved around a cloud above them and when above it, he sat down. Thunder smiled at Hira and chuckled. “Karyn told me she doesn’t see where a Ranger could use the essence and I think most of your other students are the same,” he guessed.

Hira smiled, “Sitting on clouds. Clever use of your essence, but I thought I told you not to try anything else?”

“I’ve been doing this my whole life even before knowing about essence,” he answered. “Now, I just know the reason why. Before, I called it ‘magic’.”

She nodded. “Answering your question, though, yes, that is the main reason I lost my students.”

“If you want to know more, I tell you while we talk at lunch. Now, I want to learn more about essence if you would?”

She smiled and, with apparently practiced easy, she landed her hindpaws on the cloud graciously and sat down softly over the cloud. “Then let’s continue from where we stopped,” she said. “Can you call the sensation of your essence by now?”

“Already did that in fact,” he answered.

“Good,” she said with a smile. “Next step would be controlling it, but it seems you already have a natural ability to do so. Come to think of it, what else can you do besides sitting on cloud?”

“I can fully manipulate it,” he answered. “For example, I can part a cloud in two, or fuse two together, I can condense one more so it become a raincloud or even a thundercloud. I can also set them off or just dissolve them.”

“Hmm… show me how you fuse them,” she asked.

A simple request, Thunder just took a hunk of cloud they were sitting at and then parting it in two. Then, he grabbed them and approached the two parts. Hira was listening carefully to each step. When the two clouds touched and began to fuse into one only, Hira nodded.

“Interesting,” she said.

“What?” Thunder asked.

“When you part the clouds, your essence focus only on your claws, but when you pulled them together, your essence was leaving your talons to keep the shape of the cloud intact. It was your essence to keep it intact while you pulled it,” Hira answered. “Then came fusing the clouds. This surprised me even more because I was not expecting you to be able to extend your essence outside, much less actively controlling it that way. You used your essence to make the two clouds accept and fuse with each other, as if your essence was some kind of glue.”

Still holding the cloud in a claw, he looked at his other curious, “I never thought it was so complex… It always came natural to me.”

“You have no issues about controlling or externalizing your essence,” she admitted. “Your only lack of knowledge around this is actually doing so consciously. You are, at same time, in the proper time to the second class with me and advanced enough to be on the fifth already.”

“I want to do it properly,” Thunder said. “If I lack conscious control, I’ll have the second class as if I couldn’t do it at all.”

Hira smiled and their class started. For the next few hours, Hira worked with Thunder to consciously control the flux of essence inside his own body. She said only this was enough to strengthen one area he needed to use, like his claws or hindpaws. Thunder had to agree that this was a lot harder than he initially had thought, but he could actually feel progress being made with every new attempt. In the end of the class, controlling his essence was easy enough he only had to focus a little to start it.

With a smile Thunder grinned to her and said, “Now it’s my time to keep my word and try to get you a few more students.”

“I still want to know how you’ll do that,” she grinned.

“I don’t recommend you be sitting on this cloud then,” he smiled and took flight. “If you wanna see it, the show is better from the ground level. Please, act down there as if it was a test you passed me to do, right?”

She grinned and also flapped her wings, clearing out of the cloud and then diving back towards Austarak. Thunder flew around the cloud a little, looking it in every direction, both to decide what better to do with it and to give Hira time to reach the ground. A quick glance down and he noticed that quite a few griffins were reunited there, curious.

Then he started, darting right in the middle of the cloud, he focused his essence on his wings and parted it in half, save for very small paths on both sides. From his point of view, a griffin would only think he had gone crazy and was flying in and out of the cloud. But his great finish was a spinning dive. When he crossed a proper part of the cloud, from the ground it was able to see what he was working at. The cloud that was once like any other was turned into a griffin talon pointing at all of them.

When Thunder landed and looked up, he smiled. He had told Karmyl he wasn’t an expert at cloud-sculpture. And in fact he wasn’t, but it was one of his preferred hobbies to kill some time, so he got some practice with it. With a smile, he walked to Hira, “Was that good enough?”

The instructor just giggled and nodded, “I guess you’re coming a bit ahead of schedule in our trainings, but yes. That’s enough proof you dominated today’s class.”

More than a few beaks were parted. Thunder called all his will-force not to laugh at them as he and Hira walked towards the mess room. “I hope I didn’t overdo it a little?” he asked.

“I think it will be fine,” Hira answered. “Essence isn’t a class that will be hard to teach a whole clan at once.”

“I really wish to have our next classes. However, if you think you can’t handle it, tell me. I think I got it and I’ll be able to learn the rest on myself.”

“I would suggest against it, but after what I saw today I won’t. You’re very careful when exploring the unknown while still braving it with all your might. A very rare combination to find nowadays, I must add.”

“Well, thank you,” he smiled.

“You did promise me to explain how you could manipulate your essence so instinctively through lunch,” she called.

“And I pretend to tell you!” he nodded and both joined the line to get their food.