Sweat dripped down his face, his neck. The sword’s grip was slick in his hands, but Nar held it firm.

  His heart raced, and despite the burning begging from his lungs, Nar fought back to preserve the rhythmic breathing that instructor Koh had taught them for stamina preservation and conditioning.

  He raised his sword and eyed the first, glowing blue “1” of the sequence. Before him, beaming from a little device that the instructor had loaned to them, was a square of blue and red lines, with a white vertical cross at its center. In between the cross’ arms were strings of numbers, from 1 to 4, arranged in different orders and in both red and blue.

  This was the next exercise that the instructor had placed before them. Alongside with their steps and stance work, which was still, as the instructor said, very much not there yet, they had begun to learn basic attack patterns. Greatsword for the rest of squad 8, and the longsword for Nar.

  The point of the square and the numbers floating before Nar, was to help him with memorizing and practicing the basic move set of his fighting style. The numbers were meant to be read from outside in, and he performed movements in the order as prescribed, learning to cut through along the line of his previous attack, in what was meant to be a quick 1-2 combination in order to get around his opponent's initial defense to the first strike.

  For the first set of numbers, he first performed a right, overhead straight cut down, followed by a quick left to right rising strike along the same line. Then he would follow up on that second attack, with a right to left rising strike, and finish up with a right to left overhead strike. Then, he was meant to strike once more with a right to left rising strike, but for now, the instructor had told them to only focus on the first four strikes.

  It looked simple, and for all intents and purposes, it should be simple. However, just like the stance and steps, it was anything but. Now, he didn’t doubt that he would get it eventually, but Crystal, it was anything but easy!

  Practice makes perfect, he told himself.

  That was what the Master of Blades had told him, when Nar shamefully admitted that all of his sword lessons, stance and steps, Slaying and TSA classes had slipped off his mind with the first psaelis he faced, but the master had only laughed in his face.

  “Did you expect to learn the ways of the sword in two weeks?” he had asked Nar. “This stuff takes time! Just keep at it!”

  His cheeks flared with heat at the memory, despite the fact that a whole week had passed and it was now Seventh again.

  Whatever… Just gotta keep doing it.

  Existence blinked out before him and returned, and Nar’s heart whined in his chest. He kneeled on one knee, leaning on his sword, and coughed with abandon as his tightly held breathing pattern was shattered to bits by the surprise micro-jump.

  “Ugh…” Nar said, panting, as he dragged his breath back under control.

  Well, guess I’m taking a break… He decided.

  He took a deep and steadying breath and sat down, his sword held in between his arms, leaning against his neck.

  And I might as well check if I’m even doing this stuff right, he muttered to himself. The training room that Tuk had shown him, with its wall spanning window and quietness, had quickly become his favorite place aboard the whole ship to train in, and his master had pulled some strings to allow him to book the room as often as he wanted, though he never spotted anyone else using it. The room also came equipped with a surprising and all-encompassing array of cameras, and he had wondered idly if it had always been meant for special training, or for favoured apprentices.

  Regardless, he pulled out his touch-pad intending on checking himself from the training room's multi-camera footage, when the klaxon sounded above his head.

  “Good afternoon, apprentices!” the captain’s voice beamed from overhead. “It’s now 12:01PM, meaning, the morning is over and it's officially Seventh afternoon!”

  Nar frowned in the general direction of the speaker.

  What do you want now? He wondered. Whatever it was, the captain seemed to be in an extremely good mood, which probably didn’t mean anything good for him.

  “It is with great pleasure that once again, I am forced to implement the time honored, Scimitar tradition of enforced, mandatory rest periods!” she said. “From now on, starting right now, every Seventh afternoon, from 12PM and until 6AM of First, is a rest day. Studying and training are strictly forbidden.”

  “What?” Nar shouted. “But the next assessment is in a week!”

  “Rest is also important, apprentices,” the captain continued. “And there’s only so much you can push before something breaks. Exceptions to the rule can and will apply as needed, but you must hear it directly from the faculty. And if you’re wondering what to do over this period, sleep is always good, and you can also freely explore a good deal of the ship. However, you will see that a new tab has been unlocked in your Scimitar menu, labeled as “Entertainment”. Radios and monitors have also been unlocked in your common party rooms. Figure them out and have some fun! Captain, out!”

  Entertainment? Nar thought. What in the Pile do I do with that?

  His wrist-ankle weights went suddenly weightless on his limbs, and he sighed at them. Hey had been remotely turned off, meaning that he couldn’t keep them on him invisibly, as he had started doing since the morning after the den fight.

  Whatever. I might as well go for lunch, I guess…

  *********

  Kur had taken to sleeping, while Rel had left for her scheduled nap under the Source. And Viy had left for destinations and purposes unknown soon after lunch.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  That left Nar, Mul, Cen, Gad, Tuk and Jul, sitting around the table in their party’s common room. Before them, a dazzling human man was cooly chatting with an equally mesmerizing alfin woman, and Cen and Gad were practically sitting at the edges of their seats, drinking every syllable from the banter between the two characters.

  Nar, for his part, still had the same frown on his face as when the two of them had decided to watch something called a drama, and from Tuk’s yawning, Mul’s heavy breathing as he lay on his arms on the table, and Jul’s unfocused eyes and drooping head, he knew he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t interested in the show.

  Sure, the novelty of watching people play and act out a story had been pleasant at first. Even shocking, as he had no idea that people could do such a thing for a living. Of course, he now knew that only a small subset of people chose the delving life, but he was still unclear at the extent of what a “civilian” life truly meant, other than a vague allusion to factories and farms, services, hospitality, offices and so on.

  “Please… As if I’d fall for you,” the man said, standing up and adjusting his large coat with a disdainful look etched on his perfectly carved face. “Goodbye.”

  “No…” Cen whispered, and at her side, Gad shook her head slowly.

  I don’t think this is for me… Nar thought.

  His leg hadn’t stopped drumming against the side of his stool, and he found himself crossing and uncrossing his arms every few seconds. Sighing. Looking around. Anything but look at the monitor and the show playing within.

  Crystal… He was bored. And dying to go back to training. It was like an itch he couldn’t satisfy, forbidden as they all were, and it was starting to eat him up from the inside.

  Maybe I’ll just go to sleep, he thought. Kur’s probably the smartest of all of us.

  He was about to stand up from the table when Tuk looked at him, grinning.

  “Bored?” he asked him.

  “Uh…” Nar said, glancing at Cen and Gad in alarm.

  “What?” Mul said, startling awake.

  Cen paused the show with a tap on her touch-screen, and looked back at them, guilt evident in her grimace.

  “You guys are bored? Sorry, I got completely distracted…” she said.

  “Yes. We should watch something else,” Gad said. “Something we all like.”

  “Nah! You guys watch on!” Tuk said, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “For the rest of us though, I’ve got a proposition.”

  Nar angled an eyebrow at him. He would take anything. Well, almost anything. This was Tuk after all, and one never knew with him.

  “Go on…” Nar urged him.

  “Well… Since our first little adventure was such a success, how about we go on another one?”

  “What? Where?” Mul said, quickly coming alert. “Back to the kitchen?”

  “Nah! There’s so much to see! But it’s a surprise!” Tuk said, grinning. “You’ll like it, though! I promise!”

  “What kind of work are you getting us into this time?” Nar asked, arching an eyebrow at him. Despite his words, he was unable to keep the smile off his face though. He had liked their little trip to the kitchen.

  “You’ll have to find out and see,” Tuk said, shaking his head with a trickster’s smile. “You guys in?”

  “Let’s do it!” Mul said, standing up.

  “I’m in too!” Jul added.

  Nar gave the ring tosser a nod.

  “Nice!” Tuk said. “And you, girls? Coming? Staying?”

  Cen and Gad exchanged a look, then glanced at the screen, where the man was frozen in a striking pose as he strode away from the shocked alfin.

  Tuk laughed. “The choice is made!”

  “Sorry…” Cen mumbled.

  “Don’t be,” Mul said. “Just enjoy yourself. We’ll see you for dinner.”

  “Alright!” Tuk said, rubbing his hands as the two of them started their show again. “Toilet stop first, and then let’s go!”

  They split to handle their own needs. Nar had quickly, and surprisingly, become used to the fact that he needed to take into consideration his toilet needs before doing or going anywhere. Back in the cubeplant, he would use the toilet maybe once a week, sometimes even less, but the food and drink of the O-Nex was different, and it demanded a lot more work from his body and seemed to equally produce a lot more waste.

  Small price to pay, he thought, as he washed his hands. Never touching those crackers and jell-os again…

  “Alright, everyone ready?” Tuk asked, as they gathered by the door. “Then onwards we go!”

  “Are we going with Jaz and the others too?” Jul asked.

  “Nope, I thought we’d do this one as just us,” Tuk said. “Besides, they’ve been there plenty of times already.”

  Tuk deftly guided them towards a lift, and then, past several corridors until, stopping to wiggle his eyebrows at them, he pushed open a door to reveal a parallel corridor to the one they were currently on.

  “The crew decks…” Nar whispered, noticing the change in color from dark red brown to dark blue.

  “Where all the fun stuff happens!” Tuk said. “Come on. Follow me!”

  They set out once more, Tuk openly greeting anyone they came across, and leaving the other three to nod awkwardly as they passed crew member after crew member.

  “Weren’t those guys apprentices?” Jul whispered, as they walked past a group of youths wearing the exact same uniform as them.

  “Yup!” Tuk said. “We were the first, but not the only ones to come in here. There are loads of apprentices going all over the place, and the crew decks are actually a lot bigger than the faculty ones, and a lot of cool stuff goes on around here.”

  “Like what?” Mul asked.

  “You’ll have to find out, bit by bit…” Tuk said, smiling. “You gotta earn the knowledge!”

  “Bah…”

  “And we can just go wherever?” Nar asked, peaking into an open door that turned out to be a toilet.

  “There’s some places where we’re not allowed in,” Tuk said. “But mostly, yeah… As long as it shows on our map, we’re free to go snoop wherever.”

  “Is that what you’ve been doing this past week?” Jul asked the trugger. “Snooping?”

  “Yes! I mean… Not always, but I got my rings back, and I’m doing all the practice the master has come up with so far, so…” he shrugged. “Why not have some fun?”

  The ring tosser chirped away happily as they went, pointing out canteens, sleeping quarters, leisure rooms, and the like, and eventually, they reached a new corridor, and a blast of noise boomed down to greet them, followed by a loud chorus of cheers.

  “What in the Pile?” Mul asked, slowly lowering his raised fists.

  Tuk burst out laughing. “We’re in luck! They’re testing them! Come on!”

  “They’re testing what?” Nar asked.

  But Tuk was already dashing down the corridor towards the source of the sound. “Come on! You don’t want to miss this!”

  With a resigned groan, Nar ran after him, Mul and Jul hot on his steps.

  “Oi! It’s Tuk! Can we come in?” Tuk shouted into an open door.

  “Oi, Tuk! Come on in!” a loud, gravel like scratch replied. “Apprentices on deck!”

  “Come on!” Tuk said, his grin so big it almost touched his ears. “You’re going to love this!”

  And having said so, he stepped back to leave room for the other three to walk in first. Nar frowned at Tuk’s half hidden smirk, but it was too late now to do anything but to allow for his plans to unfold.

  “Who do you got there, Tuk?”

  Nar, the first one through the door, went rigid.

  The man who had spoken to them was a morsvar… And yet. He wasn’t. Or something was seriously wrong with him.

  Nar gulped and looked up at the man’s hollowed out face. His eyes were sunken, and rather than fully black like he was used to, they shone with an eerie green with just the lightest touch of blue. A raspy, labored breath came out of his bony nostrils, or through his open, very dark green lips, and where his scales were visible, rather than lustrous, shiny strong scales like Gad’s, Nar saw instead pale, decaying scales. Many of them showed signs of some sort of injury or illness, leaving the scales rotting, curling and in a state of just barely and precariously hanging on.

  “Yes?” the man asked, confused at Nar’s stillness and intense scrutiny, and his “s” coming out more like a “z”.

  Even the man’s head spikes lay mostly flat against his skull. Deflated and pale, rather than pointing up like Gad’s and Tun’s, they looked ready to fall off from just any random gust of wind.

  “Oh. Uh…” the ring tosser hesitated. Suddenly, he didn’t sound so happy and excited anymore, and the sick morsvar turned his eerie green eyes to the ring tosser, a frown appearing upon his cadaveric features.

  “What’s this?” he asked Tuk, his S’s once one more sounding like a Zs. “You didn’t tell your friends about us?”

  “I… I thought…”

  “What?” the man asked, his tone rising. “You’d have a laugh at our expense?”

  Ah, Crystal’s sake! Nar thought, retreating away from the angry morsvar. What did Tuk do now?