The Fusionist Book 5 -- Chapter 31

Chapter 31

“I’ll be fine,” Nedira said, shooing him down the street. “You know how well I can take care of myself – especially with these Fusions, yes?”

Larek chuckled. “Yeah, I know, but I can’t help but worry.”

“I doubt they’re going to send me out to a dangerous Aperture immediately, especially if they don’t know about my capabilities. Besides, even if they do, you’ve equipped me well enough that I shouldn’t have any problems.” She took his hands in hers. “You should be more worried about your own training.”

If he was being honest with himself, he had been ignoring the bit of anxiety that came with starting somewhere new, but now that he was here he couldn’t ignore it anymore. This was what he wanted, yes, but there was still a lot of hesitation when it came to actually walking up to the Fort and getting started. His Martial side had been such an issue up to this point that finally taking steps to figure the whole thing out made him a little nervous.

What if I can’t figure it out? What if my Stama is crippled and doomed to get me killed when it slips away from my control?

He tried not to let these worries bother him, but it also wasn’t something that he could completely ignore. Still, he was here to find out once and for all if he was worried over nothing, or if it was similar to his inability to successfully cast a spell – relegated to something dangerous that would be best left alone if at all possible.

Larek said goodbye to Nedira as she headed into the SIC headquarters building inside of Peratin, watching her confidently striding inside. He shook his head over his foolish worries, as he had momentarily forgotten that she had survived for years without him nearby and doing this kind of thing; with the extra Fusions she had courtesy of his efforts, there was very little that could hurt her out there.

Now, if they decided to send her into one of the Calamities, that was a different story, but he had the impression that the Mages and Martials in Peratin had it fairly easy compared to many other sections of the Kingdom. She was right, though, that he should be concentrating on his own goal – so he quickly turned up the street and started up the long road up to Fort Hilltower.

Having lived there before, he didn’t get lost like last time, and it only took him a few minutes at a jog to reach a familiar gate that led to the Noble Quarter. Thankfully, he didn’t recognize either of the guards, as that might have been awkward, and after they asked about what business he had, he showed them his letter. It only took a minute or so as they looked at it a little closer than the city guards along the wall did, but he was eventually allowed through.

He jogged up the street running through the center of the Noble Quarter, immediately noticing the changes as he went. For instance, it wasn’t as clean and pristine as it used to be, as if it had been neglected but not entirely abandoned. That could be explained by the empty feeling he received when he looked at about half of the large mansions he passed; he wasn’t sure what it was about them that told him they were empty, but he had no reason to doubt that it was accurate.

Larek eventually arrived at the top of the mountain, where he paused as a fork in the road led in two different directions. When he’d originally come here, he was escorted by Nedira to the right, where Crystalview Academy was located. His vision was drawn to the Academy, and his focus was immediately drawn to the damage that had been done to the roof and part of the top floor due to his exploding Healing Surge Fusions. Even though it had been fixed years ago, he could still see where the damage had been, as the stone wasn’t as worn and was slightly off in its color compared to the rest of the Academy.

He could still picture the sudden Scission attack inside the city, where dozens of smaller, Category 1 Scissions disgorged their monsters to attack both the Fort and the Academy. At the time, he thought it was just coincidence, bad luck, or a combination of the two that had resulted in the attack, but now he had to wonder if the Corruption had recognized who he was and targeted him there. It seemed far-fetched, but after seeing not just one but two Scissions open near different Gergasi, he wasn’t sure if his theory of being targeted was all that crazy.

Shaking his head at his internal curiosity, he turned away from Crystalview and started walking toward his destination. Constructed of the same stone and appearing very similar in design as the Academy building, Fort Hilltower had a slightly more militaristic look to it. Instead of hundreds of windows encompassing the outside, there were only a few dozen, and the top of the roofline had more sharp angles and steep sides than that on the Academy. There was also a huge outdoor training area that he caught a glimpse of in the back, which he thought might be even larger than the one behind Crystalview. He was reminded of the training spars he’d seen the Martial trainees participate in at Copperleaf, and he could only assume that they did the same here.

As he approached the large, wooden, double doors to Fort Hilltower, he realized that he hadn’t really paid much attention to the Martials while he was attending Crystalview, and only slightly more when he went to Copperleaf. Other than what he might have heard in passing, as well as witnessing those spars at Copperleaf, he actually didn’t know much about what the Martials did to train. He belatedly wished he had been a little more curious at the time, especially with Martial stats being a part of who he was, but he grudgingly had to admit that he was too enamored with Fusions back then to concentrate on anything else. He still was, but his experiences over the last few years, as well as his increased mental stats, had allowed him to break free from the hyper-focused state he used to fall into that ignored the world around him.

In other words, he wasn’t likely to fall into the same trap with Fusions that had plagued his early experiences with his burgeoning abilities. He continued to want to improve his skills with Fusions in the future, but he was able to concentrate on something else now – which was why he was here at the Fort in the first place. He had identified a weakness in his ability to keep himself and those he cared for alive, and Fort Hilltower would hopefully be just the place to correct those failings.

Reaching up to the door, he knocked on it a few times, but no one arrived to open it. After about a minute of waiting outside, he instead gripped the handle of one door and – surprised at how heavy it seemed, requiring him to exert a small portion of his Strength stat – opened it. Slipping inside once it was wide enough for him to fit through, he turned around and pulled it closed with a reverberating *boom*. Turning back around to see where he had ended up, he saw a surprised-looking older woman in an official-looking SIC training uniform, something similar to what he’d seen a Martial Instructors wearing in the past. It was a mixture of dark-colored cloth and leather, and it had a SIC patch on the upper left chest section; he also identified a number of knife sheaths strapped to her arms, and a pair of wicked-looking daggers were fitted to her hips.

“Well, that’s a surprise,” the woman’s surprisingly soft voice said as she came to a stop in front of Larek.  “It’s usually a right of passage when our trainees finally gain enough Strength to shift the front doors, but it appears as though you’ve already hit that mark. Are you sure you’re in the right place?”

Uh, whoops. I guess I better be careful what I do around here.

Thankfully, the Fusionist had fabricated a background story for himself, with the help of Nedira, that he would be able to explain some of his abnormalities. One aspect of his background story was designed to explain his higher-than-normal Martial stats – up to a point, of course.

“Yes, I believe so,” Larek answered. “As for my Strength, there was an… accident when I was about to start training that nearly killed me. For some reason, it boosted my Body Regeneration Skill high enough that my personal Level increased quite a bit as a result, so I’ve had some extra Advancement Points to add to my stats.”

“I… see,” she said skeptically, folding her arms over her chest as she stared at him.  “If you already have that high of stats, then what are you doing here?”

He spread his hands to the side in a display of hopelessness. “Well, I may be stronger and faster than I used to be, but I have very limited knowledge of fighting as a Martial. I’ve managed to kill some monsters in the past, but I’ve been blindly cutting things up with my axe,” he explained, patting the axe at his side. “I used to be a Logger, you see, but that all changed when it was found that I had this magical potential inside of me.” Most of that was true, and his backstory was thought to work more when it aligned with the truth; there were only certain things that had to be hidden or altered so that he didn’t raise too many suspicions. The last thing he needed was for someone to recognize him as potentially being half-Gergasi with his dual Martial/Mage nature.

“Why send you here, then? Fort Hilltower is typically reserved for special cases,” the woman emphasized, still staring at him skeptically.

He visibly hesitated before he answered. “Well, it’s also because of my Stama. While I have the Stama Subjugation Skill, there’s something wrong with it. Or, at least, I can’t get it to work the way it’s supposed to, and the trainers back at Fairmeadow couldn’t figure it out. That’s why I was sent here, as they hoped the trainers here would be able to help instead of writing me off as a lost cause.”

For the first time, she looked sympathetic when he described his problems with his Stama. “Ah, that makes sense. Every once in a while, we have a Martial that has difficulty accessing and controlling their Stama, and we here at Fort Hilltower have experience dealing with those kinds of problems. It would be rare for anyone to have the knowledge we have here out in the cities and towns throughout the Kingdom, so now it makes sense why you were sent.  Without use of your Stama, you would essentially be handicapped during any engagement with monsters, and you would be less like a Martial and more like a particular strong commoner.

“And we can’t have that, can we?” she asked with a savage-looking smile.

“Uh, no?”

“That’s no, ma’am. If you’re training here at the Fort, then you’ll have to learn how to address your Instructors with the respect they are due, so responding with sir or ma’am is required.” She held out her hand, and asked, “Do you have your letter from the Faction Commander in… Fairmeadow, you said?”

Larek reached inside his Void Pocket sack and pulled out the letter, handing it to her a few seconds later. The woman looked curiously at the empty sack as he swung it back around over his shoulder, but she quickly busied herself with looking over the letter written by Kimble. It only took her about a minute to evaluate it and somehow determine that it was genuine, before folding it and tucking it into a hidden pocket in her outfit.

“Very good, it looks like everything is in order,” she said. “Now that that’s out of the way, I want to formally welcome you to For Hilltower. My name is Instructor Wendie, any you may address me as Instructor Wendie, Instructor, or ma’am. Is that clear?”

He nodded. At a look coming from the woman, he hastily added, “Yes, Instructor Wendie.”

“Excellent. It seems you can be trained, so that’s a good sign for what’s to come.” She turned around and beckoned him to follow. “We’ll get you settled into the room that you’ll be using while you’re here, before we get into what your training will be like.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Larek was able to look around for the first time, and he quickly took in appearance of the inside of the Fort. Similar in design as Crystalview Academy next door, the entrance area was a long, tall hallway that was flanked by dorm rooms on the left and what were likely classrooms or training rooms on the right; there also seemed to be five floors as well, adding some additional symmetry to the Academy building.

However, that was where the similarities ended, because there wasn’t a large crystal forming the entirety of the ceiling, as it was simply plain stone, and the comfortable furniture that was in the Academy’s entrance hall was absent. They weren’t even replaced by anything, as the entire breadth of the hallway was bare of any furniture or decoration, just the stark stone walls that almost everything in the building was constructed of.

But the biggest difference between what he remembered from Crystalview was the lighting. Instead of simple Illuminate Fusions being added to cubes of iron and installed in wall sconces, the hallway was lit by what appeared to be oil lamps that burned unevenly and flickered at the slightest bit of air movement. It gave the entire Fort a bit more of a primitive and run-down feel to it than was probably intended. What shocked him even more, though, was that Larek didn’t see a sign of any Fusions, not even on the Instructors outfit, which he was sure she would’ve had if they were available.

Though, knowing Dean Wilburt’s stance on Fusionists and Fusions, it wouldn’t have surprised Larek to learn that teaching Fusions or even utilizing them had been forbidden.

The Instructor led him down a hallway to the left where the dorm rooms were located, before showing him into a room with two beds, again similar to his experience at Crystalview, but this time he didn’t see any sign of having a roommate.

Instructor Wendie sighed, waving around the room. “This is all yours, as we are far, far below maximum capacity. In years past, we sometimes had to send some of our Trainees to other Forts because we didn’t have any room, but those days are long past. Nowadays we’re lucky to have 300 trainees here simultaneously.

“Which brings us to your training,” she continued, looking at him place the sack on one of the beds.  “Historically, trainees used to be much younger, and we would spend years training them as their bodies developed at the same time. While we still receive those of a younger age, most of our trainees are older men and women that have unique or special circumstances that are a good fit to be trained here at the Fort rather than the quick instructions they would receive elsewhere. As a result, those who graduate from this institution are genuinely stronger, faster, and much more capable of dishing out death and destruction toward the monsters that are plaguing this land.

“As a result of our lower head count, our trainee population receives a bit more personal training than we used to employ. There are no class years, no required schedule that each Martial is supposed to follow, only a curriculum tailored to the individual. As we get new trainees all the time instead of starting training programs yearly, we have been able to adapt any newcomers into our existing classes with very little difficulty, and you should be able to integrate yourself with your fellow trainees with ease.

“That’s not to say that it will be easy, because it will be anything but. We’ve condensed what used to take five years to get a Martial ready to join the ranks of the SIC into a program that lasts between six to twelve months, depending on the individual, which requires rigorous training and pushing yourself to your limit time and time again. We don’t tolerate slackers here, and if we sense that you are not giving it your all, we will turn you out to find your own way in the world without our help. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled and nodded. “Excellent. Now, as much as I would love to get started today, we’ll have to delay until tomorrow to do your intake evaluation to learn where you’re currently at, and from there we will put together a curriculum based on what you need to learn the most. Meals are served every morning, noon, and evening in the Dining Hall, so feel free to take some time familiarizing yourself with the Fort and get settled over the rest of today, because tomorrow your real training begins.”

With another brief nod at him, Instructor Wendie turned on her heel and marched quickly out of his new room, showing her speed and Agility for the first time. Larek figured that she was probably holding back because it wasn’t that fast, but it was still much faster than any new trainee would likely be able to keep up with.

Well, I’m here. Step one is done. Step two begins tomorrow, it seems.

As nerve-wracking as it had been getting there, he couldn’t help but be excited for what was to come.