Echo Chapter 7
The Guild
__________
Is it really wise to set Jin against Echo so quickly?
Of course it is. I know what I'm doing.
We both know what he's capable of... don't you have promises to keep to certain people regarding his safety.
Who are you referring to?
Your current student...
Right... I suppose I could intervene before it's too late.
Were you actually planning on just letting them fight?
Well...
Are you mad? This is Jin we're talking about.
He's not that bad...
Right. We'll see about that.__________
The flames crept ever closer to my skin. Even before they reached me, the heat accelerated the life cycles of blisters all over by body, growing and exploding in the matter of seconds. The feeling was sickening, excess puss, water, and blood poured from my wounds and into quickly evaporating pools at my feet. The healing wasn’t working fast enough to keep the wounds closed; the fire kept burning deeper and deeper, until it completely burned through my blistered layer of skin. I tried to stay as quiet as possible, to reserve as much energy as I could to speed up the healing process.
“Enough!”
The voice of Hans interrupted the sound of burning flesh. Jin looked up from his concentrated trance and the cage of fire extinguished itself. Hans slowly walked over to me, obviously in no sort of rush. My skin was busy trying to repair itself with the new found magic flowing through my veins. Hans kneeled down and examined my wounds, which was no easy task. They literally covered my entire body. Every burn was emitting a dull green glow.
“I’m impressed with the success of the procedure. I wouldn’t expect it to be working so well within a few hours of completion.” Hans touched my forehead, which caused so small amount of pain, and a green light filled the room. When the light dulled my skin was completely healed. “No need for you to waste all of your energy healing yourself. Of course the rate and power of the healing is based on your own energy levels, so the stronger you get the more you can heal. Eventually you will also be able to heal other people, as long as you’re willing to take their wound apon yourself.”
Hans turned and faced Jin. “I think you went a little overboard with the battle. Were you trying to kill him?”
“Hah, I wanted to see if you’d come through on your promise.” Hans scoffed and turned back to me.
“You did very well, especially against an opponent as experienced as Jin. Most are destroyed by him in the first 15 seconds of the battle. I have a special reward for you, meet me in my office.”
Hans teleported away, and I turned to fac Jin.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where Hans’ office is?”
“It’s in the same room as the Head Cleric’s.” I turned away and started walking out of the room.
“What, no thank you?”
I turned and faced Jin, ever so slowly. “I will defeat you . . . eventually.” With that I ran off to find Hans.
___________
Eventually I found the flowery room and charged inside, I wasn’t really that eager, I was just exhausted with all these surprises. I just hoped this wasn’t another battle. I don’t think I could handle another one. I walked into the room on the right, the room that obviously wasn’t Jess’. The office was set up identically to Jess’ with the exception of the staves over the window and the lack of flowers. Hans was sitting at his desk.
“Please, come in.” I walked in and took a seat in one of the free chairs. “Would you like something to drink; I know you must be thirsty after nearly getting burned to death.”
“Is that a joke?”
“No, I’m offering you something to drink.”
“Oh . . . well in that case I’ll take a cup of water.”
“We don’t have any water.”
“What do you mean you don’t have water?”
“What deeper meaning could there possibly be? We don’t serve water here, get over it.”
“Well can I have a glass of milk then?”
“Milk?”
“Oh come on . . . what do you have then?”
“We have lattes?”
“. . . Iced lattes?”
“No, we don’t have ice either.”
“How do you not have ice!?”
“Budget cuts.”
“So you can afford lattes but not water. . .”
“Well we collect our own lattes from the mountain up there.” He gestured out the window.
“You’ve got to be kidding me . . . why can’t you just have an Ice Lightning make some ice for you.”
“That’s an awfully good idea; we’ll get right on it. But in the mean time let’s get to the real reason why I’ve called you here.” He leaned in close, brushing away a few papers on the desk. “You’re excelling. Based information we’ve gathered about you, you can’t really learn much more from basic training. I can already tell your mastery of daggers is above average, same with your attack speed. I’ve decided to move you into a guild.”
“What! I’ve only been here for a few days and the normal age for joining a guild is sixteen. I’m only thirteen!”
“Well arguing about it won’t change anything. You’ve already been admitted.” He reached under his desk and pulled out a stack of clothing, with a card of some sort on top.
“You have been accepted into the Leaf Guild. You will be joining them ASAP. Here are your standard issue clothes; and you’ll have to earn your own weapon. Also here is your status card. Your card can assess your progress in battle and give you a real time status report on your skills, techniques and rank when inserted into your desk. It also gives you the authority to enter The Mind as often as you like via the many stations around the campus. You’ll find your desk in your locker in the Leaf Dormitory. Oh, and that card also has a holo map in it, so use that to find you way to the dorms. That’s it.”
He picked up the papers on his desk and swiveled around is his chair, facing the window. I knew based on his posture that he would not answer any more of my questions. I scurried out of the office and into the hallway.
<Congratulations.>
Yeah. . . right.<You probably should change out of those clothes now.>
He was right. My clothes were almost rags now, barely hanging off by a thread due to the fight with Jin. I awkwardly tore the clothes off of my body, and slipped on the crisp new black and green Leaf Guild Outfit.
Wow this fits nicely. The outfit looked casual yet official at the same time. The shirt was all black with green straps down the middle to keep it closed. The pants were also black with green cuffs and a long loose green cloth belt. The shoes were leather and were obviously new based on the squeaking sound they made with step. The green bandana, decorated with a white skull, gave a nice, yet threatening touch to the outfit.
I bent down and picked up the card I dropped on the floor while changing. On it was a very artistic drawing of a leaf.
I wonder how you’re supposed to get the map out. I rubbed my thumb on the leaf and instantly a yellowish light started to glow underneath my finger. When I moved my thumb aside, a large, hologram of a map burst into existence. On the map was a green arrow that started from an enlarged point and twisted around the halls.
<Ok, well I’m assuming that’s the map, and the green dot is where you are now.>
Since the clothes were the best fitting ones I’ve ever had, I decided not to be mean and rely with a sarcastic comment and just follow the arrow.
___________
I arrived at the door to the Leaf Dormitory. The door, predictably, had the same artistic picture of a leaf engraved in the wood. I tried to turn the door handle but it wouldn’t budge.
<Try the card.>
I looked at the side of the door frame. There was a small slot, about the width of the card, next to both a red and green colored light. I inserted the card and the green light lit up, and a perfectly concealed speaker announced: Welcome to Leaf Dormitory, Echo. I heard the sound of a heavy latch being undone, and the doors flung open, giving me my first view of my living quarters.
It was nothing as I would have expected. The floor was completely covered in loose, damp looking soil. From that, several trees were growing, close to the walls and through the ceiling. Attached to those trees were several hammocks, and inside of the hammock was a number painted in green. They ranged from one to twenty. The walls were painted with a detailed 360 degree mural of one of the more popular training fields in Henesys. In the center of the room were several tables make from polished wood, stumps of trees were surrounding the tables to act as natural chairs. In all it was a breathtakingly well designed room..
In total, nineteen people populated the room. There were about six girls, and the rest were boys. At the moment, all of them were sitting in the center of the room, talking amongst themselves casually in a way only close friends are capable of. The moment I stepped inside, however, everyone silenced themselves and turned in my direction.
One boy hopped up from his seat with a huge grin on his face. He had long straight brown hair and was wearing a similar outfit to mine. He had a formidable looking bow on his back, so I assumed he was wearing the bowman variety of the guild outfit.
“You lost or something?” he asked cheerfully with a cautious undertone. I looked at him curiously. I
was wearing the guild uniform after all.
“Umm no. . . I was just assigned to Leaf Guild.” He raised an eyebrow.
“So you’re the guy replacing Ol’ Jake.” He held his hand above my head, then his, obviously mocking my size. When he realized there actually wasn’t much of a difference when I stood up straight, she sheepishly put his hand back in his pocket. “You look kind of young for a guild. Did you just get released from training or something?”
“Actually, yeah. I was kinda of surprised too, you know, my age and everything.”
“Well, how old are you?”
“Thirteen.” When I said that everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me even more curiously. Some started to surround me, bombarding me with questions.
“Are you really thirteen?”
“Why did they promote you?”
“What class are you supposed to be?”
“What rank are you?”
“Are you going to be our new leader?”
“Want to catch a movie some time?”
One boy who was showing off his obsessively polished zard walked up to me confidently and poked me in the chest.
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
“I was promoted. . . kinda like I just said.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“You. . . didn’t you just ask me a question? Or am I mistaken?” Several of the students who were crowding around me laughed.
“Are you trying to make a fool out of me?”
“I wasn’t trying. . . I guess it comes naturally.” Some of the ones who weren’t laughing before were definitely laughing now.
“Okay, that’s it.” The boy spat with a sneer. He grabbed my by the shirt, pulling me uncomfortably close. “If you think you belong here you’re going to have to prove it.” He dragged me to the hammock in the back that had the number 20 painted on it. “Get your card.” He basically threw me on the hammock. The cloth chafed my stomach a bit, but it healed almost instantly.
On the wall was a small lock, like the ones in the trainee dorms, the only difference was that there was a slot on the wall similar to the one outside the dorm.
“Go on.”
I stuck my finger in the lock and instantly the door clicked and my card was ejected from the slot in the wall. I guess once you open the lock the only way to get it back is through a locker. I clicked the locker shut and took my card. The boy grabbed my shirt from the back and started pushing me to the door. The boy who started talking me first looked slightly concerned.
“Hey, umm, where you takin’ him?”
“Battle room.” With this everyone in the dorm filed out of the room and started following us. The first boy had a nervous look on his face.
“Maybe you shouldn’t. . . he is only thirteen.”
“Maybe
you shouldn’t take it apon yourself to protect every loser who walks in the door. If he truly belongs here then he shouldn’t die.”
“But he hasn’t even had a chance to get a new weapon yet.”
“If you don’t like it you don’t have to come.”
“So what you’re saying is, your taking a thirteen year old new recruit into the battle room, who hasn’t even gotten a new weapon yet, to beat him up. Wow, you sure are impressive. ” He stopped dragging me for a second and glared at the boy. It was a pathetic attempt to unnerve him, but I am ashamed to say it worked.
“If you have a problem with it, you come and fight me.” For a second the boy held his ground, and then he fell back into the crowd. He was staring into my eyes, giving me a look that seemed to say, “Be careful.”
__________
After being dragged through the halls for over ten minutes we finally came to a massive door. And when I say massive I mean, at least four times as big as the giant gate to the ship I came in on. On the wall to the right of the door was a holo projector, and under that was a slot, which I now know if for status cards. The boy pushed me toward the projector. He walked to the wall on the opposite side off the door, which had the same setup as the side I was now facing. I looked down. On the floor was a chrome platform. I stepped up onto it, and the boy did the same at his station. As soon as this was done, the holo projector came to life.
The face of a young man appeared in the familiar golden light. Even though it was a projection, it was still kind of weird to have it stare at you like that.
“Enter you card.” A voice boomed out of giant speaker, which I assumed was next to the projector. It took me back a little bit. So I hesitated. I could hear a slight murmur travel through the crowd of boys around me.
“Enter your card, please.” The projected head repeated itself. I slowly entered my card into the slot and braced for the worse.
“Welcome to the Battle Room, Echo. Your opponent for the current battle is Kiel Denmari. This will be a one on one battle, in which there are no rules. Step to the door now.”
I stepped down from the platform and walked over to the right side of the gigantic door and prepared for whatever was about to happen. I was hardly prepared.
The doors swung wide open and I got my first glimpse of the Battle Room. It was huge. Humungous even. It had to be at least one square mile, and that’s at the
least. The inside looked exactly like the field I used to train in near Henesys, complete with the giant maple trees and lion grass*. A blue light erupted from Kiel’s feet, and he disappeared, I assumed he was thrust somewhere inside of the battle room. Directly after that a blue light surrounded me, and I found myself standing in a very large patch of overgrown grass.
I unsheathed my dagger and cut through some of the grass so I could get a scope of where I was. When I emerged I was slightly shocked. The room was big enough not only to include the field, but a whole section of forest from Ellina. The trees seemed to stretch upwards and onward forever. Intertwined branches made study ramps for climbing. I decided to climb up one of the trees so I could get a view of the whole field, and hopefully spot Kiel before he spotted me.
I picked out a tree that was hidden from view from the field and from most of the forest. If I needed to I could always jump from tree to tree. Since climbing all those ramps would take forever, I decided to just climb the tree alone. I gripped by dagger between my teeth and started to climb. It surprised me how easy it was on my body. My new healing power alleviated all the burning of my muscles as I was climbing the tree so I felt as if I could climb for days on end.
I got about 50 meters up before surveying the area. I stuck my dagger into the tree and hoisted myself up onto a branch-ramp that connected the tree I was climbing and the one next to it. I sat down and looked around. I was right; the field was almost exactly the same as the one I used to train in. This section of Ellina was completely foreign to me though. I never made an actual trip there before; I only read about it in books. I saw a shadow dash from behind a maple tree about 15 meters from my tree. If I jumped down I could land behind him and attack from behind, but that probably wouldn’t be wise. His armor looked pretty impenetrable, at least impenetrable by my flimsy dagger.
Yian, you know how to move while you’re stuck in my shadow right?<Yeah I can try it, why?>
Could you go down and scout for me. I just need to know what his plans are.<I could just read his mind from here you know.>
Well can you. . .<Well since you asked so. . . yeah, I can.> I waited for a second. <He still doesn’t know where you are, if that helps at all.>
Hey . . . if you can read minds, and we’re basically the same, why can’t I do it to?<Now is hardly the time . . .>
Alright fine, but I’m not letting this go.I quickly ducked behind a tree. I looked over and saw a bundle of seeds. I don’t know what plant they came from, but they looked pretty big, and hard. I picked them up and tossed a few up and down in my hand a couple times, just to see how much they weighed. Basically, they would hurt a lot when dropped from all the way up here.
<What are you going to do?>
Well, that guy’s obviously a lot stronger than I am. I thought about my recent fight with Jin.
It wouldn’t make much sense to attack head on, one hit with that zard and I’m dead. What I need to do is to distract and disarm him. Then maybe I can find a weakness.<Interesting.>
But first I’m going to need to get him into the forest. I tossed a seed down to the ground. I couldn’t hear the sound it made, but I’m assuming it was noticeable because almost instantly Kiel started to move in that direction, and into my trap. I jumped away from the tree I was perching on to another one a meter away. Kiel ran into the forest, frantically looking around. I threw another seed at him and jumped away. The seed hit him directly in the center of his head.
Bull’s-eye.Kiel grabbed his head with his free hand, a gesture of pain, and started moving through the forest again. I threw another seed at his hand. He flinched, but left it in place. This time he looked upwards. As soon as he lifted his head I threw another seed at his eye. As far as I can tell it hit, and it hurt. A lot. He started swearing and kicking things, stumbling around like a drunken blind man. I took this opportunity to throw a barrage of seeds at his hand desperately grabbing hold of the zard. His grip relaxed and he dropped the sword.
I sailed down from the tree and landed directly behind him. He bumped into me and swung wildly with his right hand, which definitely caught me by surprise. His fist connected with my chin and I flew backwards, at least 2 meters, and landed in a patch of lion grass. They snapped and growled, but I grabbed a few of their leaves and that shut them up right away. He turned around and glared at me with a wild look in his. . . eye, and headed back for his sword. Before he could reach it, I lunged forward and slid into it, kicking it several feet away.
Still gripping his eye with his left hand, Kiel charged forward, right hand braced for a powerful punch. I jumped over his fist but he was already going too fast to change direction. He continued forward, toward his sword. By the time I realized what was happening he was already grasping it in his bruised hands, obviously infuriated with me. His left eye, the one I hit, was closed, but I saw some kind of cloudy liquid pouring from the eye lid.
He rushed at me again, this time he was too close to jump over. I channeled energy into my dagger and attempted to block his powerful swing. He was fast, but not as fast as I was. Our blades connected, and the impact had my whole body vibrating, even my teeth. I jumped to the right and threw the last of the seeds at his face. He swatted them away, but for a split second he closed his eyes, giving me just enough time to follow through with a strike of my own. I channeled my energy into the dagger again, and attacked his right arm. The first strike barely chipped the metal, but then, all the sudden, my hand flew back and struck again, virtually instantaneously. The second blow caused the shoulder plate to basically explode, some of the shards imbedded into Kiel’s skin, the others flew out at me. I cut them all down in midair with surprising accuracy, and jumped over his head, flipping in midair, landing with my back towards him.
<When did you learn that?>
Not sure, but I like it.Kiel screamed out in pain, clutching his arm and almost collapsing to the floor. I lunged at him again but this time he shuffled out of the way before the second attack could hit him. He gripped his sword, holding most of its weight with his left hand, and swung at me again, it was a slowed and less controlled attack, but just as deadly, I jumped backwards out of the way, only to get caught by a second, extremely fast attack. He jumped up and spun around in mid air, bringing his blade down quickly. My dagger was already up to intercept the blow, but the impact sent me sprawling backwards. That attack wasn’t as strong as a normal one, but it was still enough to knock me off my feet. Even through his right arm was mostly limp, and he was half blind, he was still a formidable opponent. He rushed at me again bringing in his blade from the left, aiming for my torso. I ducked underneath the blade and tried to attack again, but this time my arm started to lose control. My arm stabbed almost instantly six times in a row, but only two connected. The other four struck all around his body, one barely missing his head. I jumped backwards, doing a back flip and landing on a natural ramp in the trees.
Bleeding from two new wounds in his torso he pathetically stumbled forward, determined to beat me. He hadn’t spoken since the fight begun. He dropped his sword, perhaps from exhaustion, and came at me with his fist.
“Please, just give up. If you don’t get to a cleric soon you’re going to die of blood loss.” He glared at me with cold, angry eyes, and continued to throw punches at me; each jerk of his arms sent more blood flying from his wounds. His movements were wild and uncontrolled; his punches were easy to deflect. I soon grew tired of his efforts and punched him square in the jaw. He fell over on his back, breathing hard. I went to pick up his zard, and held it high above his head.
“Fine, if you won’t end this, I will.”
A quick look of fear flashed across his face as I brought down the blade as fast as I could.
__________
*Lion grass is a type of bug eating plant, native to Henesys, that lures in bugs and small birds with its scent then envelopes it in its bulb. It’s similar to a Venus Flytrap, but bigger with teeth, and in some instances can cause danger to humans.