The Lion and The Paladin

I woke the next day with Sara still next to me, our naked bodies entwined with one another and the bedsheets a mess. I looked at her and brushed a strand of hair out of the way, her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled. “Good morning” she said as she traced a finger over my chest.

“Morning” I said with an equally excited smile. I wasn’t sure what to do now, I could feel myself growing stiff under the touch of her body but knew that there wouldn’t be time before today’s training. Instead I gave her a kiss on her forehead and slid out of the bed.

She pouted at me, “Aucus” she groaned as her body lay down on my mattress, “Come on, do you have to get up now?” she complained. I glanced back and saw her bare teats on display, they were small but had been soft and were good enough to excite me by the sight.

I walked to my closet and opened it, pulling out a fresh set of clothes. I would have liked to bathe after the events of last night, but the sun was rising out my window and there wouldn’t be much time until we had to leave. “I wish I didn’t, but we’ve been in bed long enough” I said to Sara as she began to slide out of the bed and dressed in her clothes from last night. “We’ve got a long day today, me more than anyone” I added.

I quickly dressed myself and watched as Sara did likewise, both of us wearing a smile. Then we left the room, fortunately no one was in the living chamber yet and Sara slipped off to her own room to change into fresh clothes. I saw the food on the table in the room and sat down, quickly gorging myself after the energy I had spent during the night.

I ripped off a hunk of bread and cut myself a thick slice of cheese to top it as I began to eat. With that down my gullet I grabbed some of the meat that was on a plate, it was pork I thought as I chewed on it and washed it down with a cup of cold water. I was still hungry as the others began to come into the room and I picked at the fruit that lay in bowls, until I had eaten so much that I wasn’t sure if I would have room for lunch.

We were all ready and about to leave for the training hall when our door swung open, and Orion entered. He gave us an appraising look as he stepped in, “Well it seems like you did a good job yesterday, even with the unfortunate circumstances that it ended with” he said, giving me an auspicious look. “And as the reward, I have the day off” he added with a satisfied smirk.

“I thought you said that we were the ones that were getting a reward” Sara said, frowning at Orion.

He smiled, a disturbing look on his face, “Oh but you are, your reward today is a session of hardened training at the hands of our esteemed Lion and Paladin spirits” he saw our crestfallen expressions and smirked. “You had better hurry to training hall two. I hear that the queen and some of her court will be viewing”

We stiffened at the mention of the queen, if she would be watching then we would have to be at our best. Perhaps if she was impressed by our display, then she would have contracts for us in the future when we are full-fledged adventurers.

The training hall that we went to was the same size as the one that we were in yesterday, in it was a tall man with blonde hair, his pointed ears marked him as an elf. He was wearing metal armour that fit his body well and exaggerated his musculature, the steel was worked with elegant patterns of leaves and events that suggested the heritage of the elf. He was with a woman, human by appearance, her skin brushed with a light tan. Her armour seemed almost barbaric, with a metal breastplate, cut deep with scratches, the armour was joined with furs that she wore over her shoulders and covered the armoury of weapons that she held beneath it. Her face was scarred lightly, and her brown hair was done in a long braid that hung over her shoulder. It looked like she was pretty once, but it had been taken from her in her years of adventuring.

“Ah” the woman exclaimed, clapping her hands together as we entered the room, “You must be the group that won yesterday’s battle” she continued, giving us a strange smile as the elf ran his eyes over us, as though trying to get the measure of new horseflesh. “I am Nallis, and this is Crynthiel” she said, gesturing from herself to the elf, “I am bonded to one of the three lion spirits, and Crynthiel here is bonded to one of the Paladin spirits. It is no boast to say that we are among the best adventurers in the kingdom, and today you get to train under us.”

We were a little shocked by them, they were both one of the three chosen of the goddesses and here they were. Most people would go their lives without even meeting one of them, and here they were, two of them ready to train us. “It’s a pleasure” Rayall spoke up, getting a smile from Crynthiel.

Nallis walked towards us and examined us closely, moving behind us and examining us further. Crynthiel did likewise, though from a distance. “Hmm” Nallis said as she walked back over to the elf. “I think we could do a dungeon boss simulation, have them try and battle one of us” she suggested

He nodded his head, “It could work, me or you?” he said as he looked at his counterpart.

She smiled and pulled out a worn coin, it did not look like any coin from the currency that I knew of. “Heads or Castles?” she asked

“Heads” he said

She tossed the coin in the air and caught it in mid air with a swift motion. She dropped it on her hand and looked at it, “Heads it is, you can take them”

She turned back to the rest of us, “Okay, firstly you are going to try and defeat Crynthiel here in combat. I suppose at your ability, you can consider him as a very powerful dungeon lord. You can use any of your abilities and whatever you have learned in your training as you work together” she said as he stepped forward into the room, not even pulling out his sword as he began to stretch and ready himself for us.

We drew our weapons and spread out a bit so that we couldn’t all be caught in a single attack. Nallis stepped to the side of the room and leaned against a wall as she watched us preparing for the battle. “Begin” she called out in a loud voice.

Crynthiel moved at inhuman speeds, even having seen it, I still didn’t think it was possible for a person to move so quickly. I looked around the room for him and saw him a lot closer to us than he had been before, he seemed to be moving for Korin. I fired a lightning bolt from my hand at him but by the time it went through the spot he had been in, the elf had long since vanished.

As he reached Korin, the dwarf swung his axe in a powerful strike. The elf dodged backwards, missing the edge of the blade, and whilst Korin was caught in the momentum of the strike he leapt forward, hitting Korin with his hand, making him collapse to the ground.

I looked in shock at how quickly he had dealt with the toughest member of our group. I fired another bolt but again, he had disappeared. He was coming for me now, I moved backwards, trying to buy myself another few seconds of time.

Sybil came at him, appearing from out of his shadow and tried to grasp him by the neck. Her hands were reaching for his neck, a dagger beginning to form from the shadows when he spun around to face her with a smile. He quickly grasped her hand, breaking the formation of her dagger and spun her arm behind her back, holding it tightly. He dropped her to the floor and hit her in the same way he had with Korin, she stopped moving.

He looked back to me and pounced from the ground, moving like an animal for a moment before he came back to his feet. I formed my water lashes once more and sprayed them towards his feet, trying to break his footwork and make him slip. Stopping him for just a moment. I had no such luck. He pranced around my water, still moving towards me even as I adjusted my aim towards him, he continued to avoid the water. Before I knew it, he was in front of me and laid his hand into me, dropping me to the floor as the room went to black.

I woke up, feeling sore across my body. The others were beginning to awaken as well, rubbing their heads as they looked around and saw that Crynthiel had defeated all of us. He was standing with Nallis and talking with her, their attention stirring back to us as we began to move once more.

“Ah, you’re awake. I think it’s time to move onto your next lesson of today. The first one being, don’t fuck with something that you can’t beat.” She said as Korin grumbled under his breath at that comment. “If you enter a dungeon and find yourself facing an enemy that you are unprepared to fight, then you should leave. There is no shame in retreating from a dungeon, no one benefits if you die to satisfy your own ego.”

Crynthiel nodded his agreement to us, hardly looking tired after his battle with the six of us.

Nallis continued, “Now, we’re going to attempt a trial at a dungeon run. I will set everything up, you simply need to battle the monsters and try to survive to the end” she closed her eyes and stretched out a hand, focusing her breathing as she used her mana. The training hall around us disappeared and in its place were the dark and jagged walls of a dungeon, the glow of the crystals still illuminating the area around us. “One of my abilities is illusion, that is what created this place” she said gesturing around, “I have another ability called summon. I will combine it with illusion to create simulations of monsters that will attack you. We will do this until you are all defeated, or I drain my mana”

She stepped backwards and disappeared from the illusioned wall of the cave around us. I looked at the others and we assembled in a circle, our backs to each other as we looked around, unsure of where the monsters would appear from.

“There” Cleo called out. We spun around and saw a pack of goblins running towards us, there was about a dozen of their stubby forms, wielding clubs, and mallets. Rayall raised his hand and brought a fireball down on them, taking a few of them out as Korin rushed the others, chopping them down with ease.

It continued that way for various waves of enemies, varying from dark hounds, to Arachnyls, to Hunter Bats, to tougher enemies like Trolls, Skeletons, and Frost Totems. Each wave of enemies became increasingly difficult and took more and more effort to defeat.

During our training, the queen entered the room with an entourage. Nallis called a break to the dungeon that we were facing so that we could give her the appropriate respect with bows and curtsies. She insisted that we continue, with Nallis creating a break in the illusion so that the queen and her followers were displayed whilst we battled a group of Revenants. She wore an impressed look as the others watched with something close to boredom.

Sara stiffened slightly when she saw the group of nobility that watched us, she seemed to become more distracted with them there and had to be reminded to provide us with healing on a few occasions.

“Aren’t they a bit rough?” one of the nobles said, loud enough for us to hear.

“Oh, I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind a romp or two with the women” another spoke up, receiving a wave of chortles in response.

After a while the group left the room, moving on to other noble deeds. We were finally defeated by the monsters as we faced a basilisk that knocked us down and, were it not for it being a simple illusion, would have bathed us in its flames.

The training came to an end, and we sat down at the side of the room as we recovered our energy and our mana. Our two teachers for the day came over and spoke with us. “You still have a ways to go” Nallis said, “you handled those monsters rather well, and to be honest I doubt you will ever face a basilisk as quick as the one I created. Most of them have had an abundant diet in their lives and have become slower” she admitted.

“Yes, you are rather good. I think the only group we’ve seen in this years cohort that were better was the young lion’s group. He was particularly formidable” Crynthiel said.

Nallis blushed at that comment, “Yes, he is certainly virile” she said, looking slightly awkward at the mention of Zarin. Crynthiel saw her expression and smirked, clearly knowing something that we didn’t.

She quickly changed the subject and moved on. “I think that by the end of your citadel training you will be better than most parties out there, you are all quite powerful and clearly take your training seriously. I think the only contracts that you shouldn’t take on are dragons and devils” she said, joking a bit at the end. She got some laughs from the others, though at the mention of devils I went quiet.

With the training finished I turned to Sara, remembering her reaction to the nobles and the queen. “Hey, is everything okay?” I asked her quietly, “Did you know those people before”

She went quiet at the question and slowly nodded her head, “Yeah” she whispered. “One of the nobles… he was…” she struggled to speak, but I thought I knew where she was going with her words.

“Lord Rothurk?” I asked

She nodded her head, a tear in her eye. The man who had **** Sara and her mother was now in the citadel. A place that was meant to be safe for her, not only that but he had been with the queen. Could he be getting a reward, or boons from her. A man like him didn’t deserve anything but punishment.

I put my arm around her, holding her close, not saying anything. She moved closer to me and smiled gently, though tears still formed in her eyes.

As Crynthiel and Nallis called an end to the training, we walked out of the room, ready to get some rest, having trained harder than we had all week. I needed to lie down and rest, I sighed to myself. I still had to meet Calendis.