Penitent-Chapter 17: Incentive

The next few weeks everyone was moving more and more toward some kind of specialization with only a few exceptions. Ollie continued his mage training, with occasional help from everyone else when he needed to learn how to implement his spell during active combat. Marcus was always gone for large chunks of time, only to come back smelling of gunpowder. Pyotr and Davi did not gain any more specializations, but they excelled in combat training, especially Davi as he grew physically larger than everyone else. Michael spent no more time in mage training, language, or military norms. Now his mornings and early afternoons were all about learning divining and supply work. After that was an increased amount of combat training and the start of physical conditioning. They were physically reaching around twelve, and the stirrings of puberty were starting for several of them. Michael had so far avoided that fate; it seemed his new body was a late bloomer.

Michael stood, staring at the recruit who was doing his best to remain stoic, but had several beads of sweat forming on his brow. Michael could understand that. He was a recruit, from a minor nobility based on the ring that was on his pinky finger. He had standards to meet, and a family to make proud, but he hadn’t really expected to be dealing with a taker, a murderer, in the body of a child staring at him to read his soul.

Suddenly, Michael could see the boy’s Titles and Deeds.

Titles:

Bran Neath

Deeds:

Tamer of Heavy-hoof

“Huh, that’s the first time I’ve seen a deed. Is heavy-hoof a horse?” asked Michael.

The young man gulped. “Uh, yes. He was a titled wild horse that lived near my family orchard. It took me years to earn his trust, but just before I came here I was able to start riding him.

“Very impressive to have a deed so young,” said Meera. “Most of you don’t earn any until you make it to the front, though a few of you manage it in the exercises or During the Festivals in those years they have them.”

“So, I can read his Titles and Deeds at a basic level, but there’s a deeper level that I should be able to see on his and my own?”

She nodded. “Yes, eventually titles and deeds will show you generally what benefit they confer, then later they’ll show what the benefit is exactly. There are some who can even see the shadows of Titles and Deeds before they are going to be granted by the divine, but very few can manage that even after a lifetime of practice.”

Michael nodded. He’d learned a lot about his healing ability and being a diviner, but the progress was slow on the latter, or at least it felt slow. According to Meera he was making progress with blazing speed. It was apparently very difficult to teach actual children touched by the divine how to read anyone but themselves. That didn’t surprise him, he had kids, loved them to death as children, but empathy was a rare attribute for them. As an adult with a near lifetime of experience who’d met many different kinds of people, it made sense that he was having a much easier time with it.

The rest of the day passed by relatively uneventfully. Dugan and him spent the majority of the afternoon retrieving and transporting arrows for archery practice, and when they were done he went on to conditioning and sparring. At this point they’d learned all the basic movements for swords, spears, shields, and daggers as well as a fair bit of basic hand to hand combat. Michael had noticed that the physical conditioning helped him with his healing as well, which meant as it had been amped up, he’d been able to heal more people in the infirmary every morning and as with the first time he recovered by the time the regular physical conditioning occurred, then he recovered from that by morning, though his fellows always complained of soreness and misery. Maybe his own tolerance for it was just higher, he’d experienced plenty of soreness and misery in his old aging body even before the cancer.

In the cafeteria, Kline told everyone there would be a series of announcements after dinner in the same classroom that he typically answered their questions when they’d earned the privilege.

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“What do you think that’s about?” asked Ollie, using magic to hold his spoon at the tip of his finger as if he was balancing it perfectly.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Marcus.

“You going to eat your meat?” asked Davi, his voice cracking as he pointed at Ollie’s plate. Ollie shrugged and pushed his plate toward him. Davi tucked in immediately, inhaling the meal.

“I’m not looking forward to that,” said Michael.

Ollie patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I don’t think he's going to eat you next… though I’m not completely certain of that. Maybe they do things differently in Brazil.”

“I’m sure it’s Americans that have the most famous cannibals,” said Pyotr, defending Davi whose mouth was too full to respond.

“Americans have the most famous everything,” replied Michael. “Comes with being the largest exporter of culture in the world.”

“Culture and human meat,” replied Ollie, affecting a kind of spooky tone to his voice as he spoke.

“I was talking about puberty. The first time was rough enough.”

Ollie shook his head. “I disagree. I can’t wait to have some hair on my balls again.”

“Hairy balls is the thing you’re most looking forward to?” replied Marcus with a grin.

Ollie flipped him off.

“I am just glad that I’ll have the wisdom to avoid some of the mistakes I made the last time,” said Pyotr. “So many bad decisions that came from having full balls and a beautiful girl watching.”

“That I understand,” said Marcus. “Though there are a few mistakes I wouldn’t mind making again.”

Davi finished his plate and the food Ollie had given him with a large gulp. “I think it’ll be a bit tougher here. I wasn’t exactly lacking for girls back in Rio.” He looked over at the middle-aged women in the cafeteria. “Already even they are starting to look very appealing to me.”

“How old were you when you died?” asked Michael, surprised it hadn’t come up before. They knew about one another's professions, relationships, favorite movies and songs, but hadn’t spoken much about their deaths.

“I was twenty-eight.”

That made sense. To him the lunch ladies felt like appropriate targets for lust, but he’d certainly adjusted his standards as he’d aged. He hadn’t exactly been a prize himself before he’d died.

“How about you?” asked Davi, wiping his face.

“I was sixty two.”

“Ah, no wonder you’re such a grandpa,” said Ollie. “I was thirty-six.”

“That’s funny, I would’ve assumed you were seven years old with the way you talk,” replied Michael, quick to get him back for the grandpa comment. “How about you Marcus?”

“I was thirty-two.”

Everyone looked at one another with surprise.

“That’s the first time you’ve answered any of the questions we’ve asked you.”

He shrugged. “This one doesn’t matter,” he looked at Pyotr. “How about you? I’d guess somewhere in your forties.”

“Fifty-six, but I have a young soul,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. He took a sip of his water and frowned. “What do you think the drinking age is here?” he asked. “If they have one at all.”

“I think I heard Meera mention that one of the recruits that was escorting us had the smell of beer on his breath,” said Michael. “He went red, so I’d assume it wasn’t allowed, but I’m not sure if that’s because of his age, or because he was on duty. Or both.”

Marcus had a bit of a twinkle in his eye as he heard that, and a smile formed on his face.

Pyotr pointed at him, “Ah, but that means there is beer on base. I’d prefer something stronger, but I should probably pace this new body for a while.”

They all finished their dinner, and were shuffled to the classroom, standing at their desks as they awaited Kline. Everyone immediately keyed in on the fact that the chalkboard in the middle of the room behind where Kilne would stand, was now filled out. There were multiple categories on it, such as spear, sword, and hand-to-hand, but there were also categories for spellcraft, riding, form and a scattering of other categories.

After everyone had a few minutes to speculate, Kline walked into the room, everyone going silent as he entered. His relaxed smile had returned, though it had taken quite some time. He gestured to the board.

“Things are going to be changing a bit around here. I’m sure all of you have noticed that we have been moving slowly away from what you can learn at a desk into what you can learn in the field. From here on we will be dedicated entirely to combat and physical conditioning. A few of you will continue your additional specialized work of course. Along with that, we’ll be implementing a ranking system. All of you will be ranked weekly based on your performance in all of these categories.”

There was some muttering.

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“You may be wondering why you would compete. For one, those who rank first will receive one full day off the following week. They will also have additional food options in the cafeteria, and will be able to request items from the commissary. Finally, you will be given a silver piece to use in said commissary, or to save if that’s what you wish.”

MIchael saw Marcus perk up a bit.

“The rankings will begin tomorrow. Get some sleep.”

Everyone began standing and were shuffled out of the room. Michael shook his head. They’d waited until all of them were going to be flooded with hormones to add in a competitive element to their training and privileges they hadn’t had before. They knew exactly what they were doing.