The breeze wafting through the barracks carried the stench of sweaty soldiers as Reyleigh squeezed past her comrades on her way out. She shivered as the perspiration from training dried on her neck and arms, which were sticking out of her white, bordering on beige, wool tunic. The breeze reached her bare shins because of her black woollen pants, which were three sizes too short. She didn’t really mind, but it gave her the look of a sailor when not wearing her greaves—or at least that’s what she’d been told by the few merchants that visited Unbern.
“You washing that thing again, Reyleigh?”
A sardonic voice met her in the doorway as she was about to push past the last of the burly men barring her way.
She had been too busy ruminating on her shoddy outfit and carelessly walked right up to her least favourite person in the city. The man in question was called Themis and wore a lopsided grin that complimented his piglike eyes haughtily glaring at her through unkept black hair. He wore polished full plate armour emblazoned with his ostentatious family crest and a hilt of a greatsword rested above his plated shoulder. Themis was the only recruit who wielded the same weapon as her and also the only one that could afford a full suite of platemail. He loved to go on and on about how his father had ordered it even before he officially joined the Watch. Harald had told him to shut it once, which was a treasured memory for Reyleigh. The resulting scuffle was still legendary among their little group.
“Leave me alone Themis, I don’t have time for your shit today.”
She tried to walk around him, but he barred her way with his outstretched arm.
“You should be thankful that I don’t report your behaviour to the council, half-breed,” he spat. “Your savage ways are a detriment to the Watch. If it wasn’t for your elf loving lapdog, you would be cowering with the other filth at the slave market where you belong.”
His eyes narrowed and his smile grew wider at her now still form.
To her surprise, Reyleigh could feel red fiery flames welling up inside her, howling for her to tear that filthy grin off his face. She clenched her jaw. Stabbing pain assaulted her cheeks, and she felt blood welling in her mouth, her razor-sharp teeth piercing her gums.
“You do not talk about Alistair like that.” Her voice sounded like disturbed gravel as she forced the syllables out through her locked jaw. “He’s a hero! And you should be fucking grateful, you piece of shit!”
Rayleigh could feel her control slipping and she started screaming halfway through. The reason she reacted so strongly to his insult wasn’t his jabs at her, but rather the complete lack of respect toward Alistair. Abuse, directed at her personally was so common that she didn’t even notice, but Alistair was a hero to Unbern. The man had single-handedly fought off monsters, foreign armies, and bandit lords. He was stoic and coarse, even a little mean spirited at times, but he had saved her from her fate, and he had protected her from the council. Without him, she was less than nothing and she would not tolerate a spoiled brat like Themis tarnishing his name.
Her anger peaked. Unable to hold herself back, she coiled her arm and let loose in a swift punch aimed at his midsection. A signature move she had used several times before. Her inner voice urged her to show caution, but she ignored it. A loud smack rang out as her fist connected. Before she knew what happened, she gasped. Sharp pain assaulted her wrist, and she realised that she had hit something far more solid than Themis’ stomach.
“The Watch does not condone unsupervised training recruit Reyleigh. The same goes for you recruit Themis.”
A calloused palm held Reyleigh’s fist in an iron grip just a few centimetres before Themis’ most sensitive area. With a rush of satisfaction, she saw Themis’ expression. He had flinched and was defending his torso in a defensive posture.
Reyleigh quickly straightened to her full height and removed her fist from Alistair’s grip. For a second, she thought he wouldn’t let go, but she must have imagined it, as the resistance vanished and she could easily pull her fist back. That didn’t stop her from wincing at the pain in her wrist and fingers, though; his grip was like a bear-trap. Forcing her body into rigid attention, she looked at her mentor with a barely concealed grin.
“Sir yes sir, I was only trying to exit the barracks sir, and my hand must have slipped sir.” She half shouted.
Alistair looked from her to Themis and answered with a wave of his hand.
“Mistakes happen recruit Reyleigh. I hope that this is the last time I catch you slipping for a while. And recruit Themis, go get cleaned up, will you? Your shiny armour will certainly rust if you don’t oil it for the thousandth time.”
Themis straightened into attention, his eye twitching periodically.
“Sir yes sir, I will see to that at once, sir!”
Themis scurried inside the barracks and disappeared behind the bunk beds, but not before turning his head and giving both of them a filthy look.
Lowering his voice, Alistair leaned toward Reyleigh. “That seemed a little excessive... I can’t be here to protect you every time something happens, and you know the council is coming for your head. Having a half-elf in the Watch is a stain on their honour, and you know how much they care about that.”
Alistair then stepped aside and lowered his voice into a whisper, only barely moving his lips.
“I just came from a council meeting and the next set of exams are coming up. I’m going to recommend you. It’s time. You’re strong Rey. Just get your feelings under control and you’ll rise within the Watch. The Fallen only knows, maybe you could even take my place at some point.”
He flashed a strange, solemn expression before continuing.
“You are going to live for a long time. Don’t make enemies frivolously, especially Themis. Something might happen to change things soon, and he’s probably going to be in your squad on the exam.”
Putting his hand on Reyleigh’s shoulder, his eyes moved to find hers. Reyleigh tried to answer, but the reply was stuck in her throat. She knew he was right, as always. His somewhat alarming way of phrasing things didn’t bother her, and a quiet second passed between them before he nodded and started walking into the barracks.
“Thanks, I’ll try...” Reyleigh whispered.
Alistair walked between the closest, gawking recruits on his way out. She was positive he had heard her, even if he didn’t visibly react.
Most watchmen got Classes like Soldiers but Alistair was a Ranger—an unfathomably high level one at that. People speculated he was over level one hundred, but she doubted it. He was insanely strong to be sure, but to reach one hundred was said to be the first step into the domain of the fallen, and gods didn’t serve as Rangers in the Watch – at least none she ever heard of. All the stories always described the former gods as mages of some sort, wielding powerful magics or just outright changing reality to their whims. One story even told of a mere echo of a God being able to defeat a legendary dragon.
If a mere echo of a god could defeat something like that, what would someone, even barely in the first step of the domain of the fallen, be able to do? Raze a city to the ground? Probably... Thinking about it, maybe Alistair could do something like that…
Musing on such meaningless things, she waved at Owen—who had miraculously recovered from his dead state—and headed out. It was a short stroll from the barracks to the mustering and training fields before she entered the market district. Continuing her musings, she contemplated what it would feel like to be such a high level.
Rayleigh had never checked her own status, but she had been told that she was nearing the point where it was prudent to do so, which was the first real step up in individual power. When someone checked one’s status for the first time, that person could choose a Class and start advancing it. However, checking your status was dangerous. A long journey to the nearest dungeon was required and few people had the means or will to brave such an undertaking. The power one gained from the attributes a Class and accumulation of levels provided, however, was astronomical, and someone at even level ten could easily exterminate a dozen unclassed people.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Not to say you were useless before selecting a class. A battalion of unclassed soldiers could do some damage, and was an integral part of the military of certain countries. Getting a Class, however, would turn a battalion from a nuisance into a force to be reckoned with. Reyleigh had heard that the Confederacy—a theocratic county to the west—used conscripts drafted from the unclassed citizenry in wartime to overwhelm stronger opponents by training them to form ranks and teaching them simple tactical techniques.
Unbern didn’t subscribe to this philosophy. Being a city state, it didn’t really have the largest population to draw from and subsequently trained a Classed military and Watch corps instead. The exam that Alistair recommended her for was held as a way to pad one’s stats in a last exercise before getting a Class. Completing it marked a recruit’s entrance into the actual Watch corps. The exam was usually held a couple of times a year, with a group of examinees entering one of the nearby dungeons.
Reyleigh had never been inside a dungeon. She had only guarded the path a few times, which earned her a few monster cores when random monsters attacked the defences. The cores had been used to pay for the upkeep of her greatsword and armour. Seeing the nobility and wealthy young people of Unbern getting their Classes had been a delight to her. Some said the experience left a sour taste in their mouths while watching the elite exercise their privilege, but she loved the wonder in the young people’s faces and the excited murmuring around the Dungeon Orb. Recruits and soldiers like her were usually older when they chose a Class so that they could benefit fully from the rigorous training, hopefully giving them better and stronger Classes.
Untying the core-pouch at her waist, she upended it into her hand while walking past the now empty training fields and continuing through the Watch’s grounds. Located on the east side of the landlocked city, the grounds were the first defence against external threats if the attackers ever got through the outer walls. Although, she doubted they ever would while Alistair was in the city, since nothing had gotten past the first set of walls since he rose to power.
Four small sparkling orbs landed in her hand, and she eyed them critically. It had been over two months since she was last on guard duty and seeing as the recruits’ pay was room and board and not much else, she only had four copper cores to her name. Cores were graded by size, where the smallest size was designated as copper. Ten coppers equalled one silver core, ten silver cores equalled one gold core, and if one ever got their hands on ten gold cores, they were equal to one platinum core. Each consecutive size was exactly ten times as large as the previous tier and all cores were harvested from monsters or found lying around in dungeons. If you had ten bronze cores, you could use a small application of mana to combine them into a single silver. The same went for silver into gold and gold into platinum. If there was a tier above that, Rayleigh had never heard of it.
Bronze cores were about the size of a small pea, silver the size of a bean, and gold was roughly equivalent to a walnut. Considering how much each tier grew when combined, she guessed that platinum would be the size of an orange. Most people only handled bronze or silver, while gold cores were only really used for large transactions before being separated by another application of mana down to silver again. She found it puzzling that the actual core colours were the same as their designations, but she guessed that was a happy coincidence.
She loved the colours of the cores and their ever-changing insides. They looked like small gems filled with fog, which would change colour and shape every few seconds. Reyleigh had heard that the civilisations that existed before The Fall had used metals like bronze, gold, and silver as their currency and that the names for the cores were derived from that ancient system. The silliness of using precious metals for coinage was pretty amusing to her. She could understand using metals with magical properties or just pure iron, but using frivolous metals for such a thing made no sense at all. You could buy gold and silver jewellery with cores at the marketplace, and it could even be quite expensive, especially if it was enchanted, but the base materials were relatively cheap, especially when measured against cores. You could get a plain gold ring for about three bronze cores if you wanted to, even though Reyleigh couldn’t fathom why people used cores on such useless luxury items. She had her locket, which was more than enough for her. Thinking about it, she did realise that the locket was a priceless artefact, which probably made her views a little skewed. She was lucky it was nondescript and seldom noticed, or it would have been stolen a long time ago.
She looked at her meagre number of cores again.
Should I just keep them and absorb them after the exam? She thought. I would gain some progress to the next level, and I have what gear I need for the exam already….
The ability to use cores to level was the main reason cores were so important that the world used them as currency. Anyone could absorb cores and gain the power contained within for themselves. One would think that this gave rise to a superhuman society full of powerful individuals, but the number of cores you needed to consume rose exponentially with each level gained. Also, most people saw no designation outside of bronze cores and they were hardly worth it as they were more beneficially used to buy food, shelter, and equipment with which you could use to get stronger by training or fighting monsters.
Alistair would lecture her about the dangers of cores, stating that:
“Cores give a false strength, unearned, misunderstood and frankly dangerous. Even if you could reach level one hundred by wealth alone, you would just implode when casting your first spell.”
She lowered her voice in her head, mimicking his stern manner of speech, as she usually did when recounting his advice. Rayleigh was not in any doubt to whether or not Alistair was right. He was the mightiest human in Unbern and if he said something; it was the law as far as she was concerned, and she probably had most of the other citizens on her side as well.
She put her cores back into her pouch. She would try not to spend them. Having money was a kind of strength in itself and she would be remiss if she didn’t factor that in. You never knew when times would get desperate and you either needed a push to the next level or just food in your stomach.
Rounding the last building inside the Watch’s grounds, she walked between the two guards standing on either side of the wooden gate leading out into the market district.
Unbern was never a planned city, and as far as she knew it had just sprung up organically after The Fall which made its planning haphazard. She would guess that the market district being in between the Watch’s Grounds and the living quarters was pretty optimal, though. If an attack ever breached the city, the inhabitants could flee into their homes or to the council’s chambers, which rested atop the small hill in the centre of the city, leaving the market district as a buffer.
As she passed the guards with a wave, a warm breeze blew a couple of tumbling plants past her. Unbern stood on arid land, and was always dry, windy, and all around inhospitable. The soldiers joked that the landscape was as close to a desert as the elves were to wild beasts—and discounting the stinging allegory—they were right. The climate had a way of draining moisture faster than it was possible to replenish it and without the enormous lake in the north district supplying the city with an endless store of water, the humans and other races living there wouldn’t have been able to settle the area.
Walking to the nearest aqueduct, she nodded to one of her fellow guards as she refilled her waterskin and poured some over her head and front at the same time. The cool water felt good and cleaned off some of the dust from her earlier training. Just as if on cue, the young guard, around her own age, which she had seen but never spoken to before, cleared his throat.
“I seen you around the training field. You Alistair’s girl?” He had a bit of an accent, but didn’t seem to be making fun of her like some others, so Reyleigh answered with a level tone.
“I don’t know if I’m his girl, but he is my mentor.”
She couldn’t hide the slight edge that entered her voice. She wouldn’t abide any more slander of Alistair in her presence. Lately, she had overheard people spreading the most horrible rumours about him and she didn’t know what she would do if someone repeated them to her face.
The guard held up his arms disarmingly. “Ah, sorry miss, didn’t mean any offence. Just heard about you, is all. The other privates say you’re a good fighter and that you’ll become a strong guard when you graduate. Looking at you now, I can’t help but agree.”
His eyes strayed down the front of her tunic to where the water was still dripping after she’d cooled off. She followed his eyes and saw that the fabric clung lightly to her chest. Nothing indecent as far as she was concerned, but it had certainly caught his attention.
Reyleigh frowned, an edge of steel entering her voice.
“I’m glad you like my prospects, but maybe you should focus on your own instead of ogling young women in the streets?”
Averting his eyes with a slight blush, he mumbled something incomprehensible before continuing his patrol of the aqueduct.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she was grateful that he was young and inexperienced, or things could have taken a much darker turn. Most shunned her half-elven appearance, but a small minority found it exotic or just wanted to take out their anger for the elven race’s atrocities on her. She had planted several fists and elbows in sensitive places on the most insistent idiots. She supposed she was lucky that Alistair had prepared her and taught her how to deal with idiots like that. Not to discount the almost certain possibility of her becoming a slave if not for his intervention, which would make advances such as these the least of her problems. Slaves had almost no rights in Unbern, and she couldn’t help a small shiver running down her spine as she watched the back of the private receding down the street.
At least he was doing his duty and keeping the aqueducts free of debris and filth. She had heard stories of people defecating in the aqueducts and was thankful the council had cracked down hard on such animal behaviour. The law stated that repeated offenses were punishable by death—which might seem harsh—but the water was so precious to the city and its inhabitants that it was warranted.
The other recruits often teased Reyleigh for her cleanliness. She didn’t know if it was just her elven blood or her preference, but she couldn’t stand being dirty for extended periods of time without good reason. Literally reeking like some people wandering the city was a cardinal sin as far as she was concerned. Going to get her armour cleaned could maybe be called an obsession, but she wouldn’t forsake it for anything. She was not so prim as to fear filth or not being able to manage extended periods in the wild, but if she had any choice at all, being clean was of the highest priority.
