Chapter 8: Chapter 7 – Pressure

"… you saw the sheet and the blood." I heard my mother's voice as my eyes fluttered open once again. They were downstairs so she must be yelling. "She did not have any wounds so she obviously was taken."

"does... matter…" My father's voice was more muffled like it was raised but still not at the yelling point.

"Of course it matters! How will she get married if she had …" her voice trailed off and I hear her sob loudly.

"I know.. you want… Not … your sister.." Wait! What? mom has a sister? Why is she not in the system? Why has she never been mentioned? I am so confused. I gingerly got out of my small bed remembering the last time I jumped out of a bed I ended up on my face. Thinking of that I glanced at my left ankle and noticed the chain had been removed somehow. I wonder if my father did that. Whatever, I needed to get closer to hear the full conversation. The bits and pieces were just not enough information to make a complete picture.

I felt pain with every step from my shoulder blades down to my butt, so I moved very slowly. I crept up to my door and cracked the door open slowly. Their conversation was as clear as it was going to get. If I moved any closer, they would hear me. I got a notice that I received a new skill called sneak once I decided to stay put.

Listening I heard my father comforting my mother as she cried in his arms. The gist from what I could make out was that they thought I was raped and that they knew it was the duke because his men were in town asking about a girl fitting my description. They were spreading the story that I was his fiancée but had run away. The people that were friends with my parents knew it was unlikely, so they had not mentioned anything about me to him. However, the Duke had offered a reward if anybody could help him find his future wife so they were scared it would just be a matter of time before the Duke showed up. Even my mom was against him being with me which surprised me considering how she was acting. I did not get any more information on my mom's sister other than it had something to do with her being set on marrying me off.

"What do we do? He has come into town and is searching for her."

"Well for now our friends have misled the search party but it will not last. What we have to do is either get her married, move or get her into one of the better schools. Honestly unless they are a rich family he will probably just kill them and take her, while we are not in a position to move I do have a friend in the capital that might be able to take her in, and the school is one of the five great schools they would protect her until she graduates. I do not know any rich people and even if I did I do not think they would marry her after that bastard had taken advantage of her. I also do not think she will accept being near another man after what happened to her." I heard the anger in his voice at the end. He collected himself and heard him continue, "if we move her to the city we would have to sneak her out of town since he posted guards at the exits and if they discover her … well you know what will happen" I heard him sigh and saw him run his fingers through his hair. "I know you do not want to hear it but getting her into a school would be the easiest option. With her talent they would accept her for free, but she would have to work for the crown after graduation for a few years."

I saw my mom's face go white and she cried harder. She was not that bad on the first two options. When did schooling become something so scary? Seriously between the three options it seemed the safest. I get an education and do a nine to five for a few years; how hard can that be? But as I watched, all I could see was fear on her face and heard her mumbling "no not my baby" followed by sobs. I quietly shut my door at this point and started moving around my room noisily so they knew I was awake. It did not take long before they came rushing up.

My mother was the first one through the door and hurriedly grabbed me up into a hug. "My baby! Are you ok? How do you feel? Do you hurt anywhere? Never mind that last question, of course you are." My mom was crying and rambling. I could feel the love and see her stress. I felt bad and patted her back and told her I was ok. I looked over her shoulder and saw my dad standing in the doorway. I honestly did not know what to say at this point and waited for them to say something.

My dad broke the silence first. "I know this is hard on you sweetie, but we need to talk about what to do. The Duke is looking for you and has offered a bounty, so we need to move fast. I have a few friends from the town guard "helping" them to look so we have some time but in a few days our luck will probably run out. Your mother and I have talked, and we think you are mature enough to have a say in this decision so we will lay out the options and see what you want to do. Why don't we go downstairs and get breakfast? I can hear your stomach growling." My mother gave one more tight hug and then let me go. She then hurried out of my room and into the kitchen to make me food. I was a bit sore from all the exercise yesterday my back was especially sore. Before I left my room, I grabbed my cloak of deep pockets... just in case.

I gingerly moved down the stairs, my back twinging with every step. I saw my father looking at me as I made my way down, anger in his eyes that I would have missed because he was trying to look calm for me.

As I sat down, I flinched a little because my back hit the seat sending pain through me. I heard my father growl like he wanted to kill something. He probably did. Seriously I am such an idiot. I am making them worry when I could have just healed myself. I thought heal and a flash of gold light enveloped me, and my muscles relaxed back to normal. That was better than the normal healing I did. It had the effect of two castings at once. Why? I was not sure, but I will look into it after I eat. I was so hungry at this point that I did not care about anything else and my mother was the best. She kept bringing me food until I had a little food baby for a stomach. That was what I needed.

Once I could not eat anymore my mom stopped forcing food onto my plate and sat down next to me. I heard my father cough and when I looked over, he began to speak, "we kind of know what happened to you, at least a little bit. The enchanted chain that drains your strength and magic could only be owned by those in power or jailers. Since I have friends working in the jails, I know that it did not come from the jails and the Duke's actions revealed his guilt." He paused and I nodded at him to confirm his speculations. Honestly though the chain must have been faulty if it was supposed to stop powers because I know I used mine but since it was the Duke that did the kidnapping I did not think it was relevant information. It is not like it'll change anything. "So we need to get you some type of protection that can stop him or we will have to hide you away." He then gave me the three options I heard before; marriage, hide in the capital, or school.

I vehemently refused marriage and I saw a tear go down my mom's face, but she did not force the issue. I was honestly surprised since she was so pro-marriage before. I did really have an issue with going to the capital but when I asked what would happen to them if the Duke came looking for me and I was not here. Their silence was answer enough. I did not want them to be hurt because of my choice and the Duke did not strike me as a man that would be merciful to people that thwarted his plans. I chose school and was finally told of the risks of this choice. Unless you could afford to go, the school would use you as an explorer for the dungeons. The death rate for these "volunteers" was about 50%. I dipped my head and thought about it. It did not take me long to decide to risk my life instead of my parents. In all likelihood, this was probably the game forcing my hand and if I got out of it something else would crop up to take me into the dungeons and with that thought I settled on schooling as my choice. My mom started crying at this point and I got up to hug her. "I'll be ok. I will get strong and come back safe." I tried to be as reassuring as I could be.

After we talked some more, I think I got what my mom was trying to do that day. I cannot say I agree but I think her sister died in the dungeons, she was not very forthcoming about that. If I was to continue in school I would be forced to go into the dungeon to pay for it. I am unsure how we afforded my schooling before and they were not saying. Her options were to have me stay home or get married and with my display on stage staying home was not an option the school would like. I got the impression that the schools were an extension of the royals and they would apply pressure until my parents agreed. My mom got the stupid idea to marry me to a rich man so he could keep me "safe" to avoid me going into the dungeons.

We talked about schools options after my decision. I had more options than I thought.

The Living Saintess School was the obvious one. They partnered with the other schools, with the exception of the royal academy, to form parties to go into the dungeons. They had an extensive library on anything healing related. Potions, first aid techniques, to spells; it was all covered. The downside was that they did not teach much of anything else. Fighting skills? Nope, they were pacifists so other than a handful of pure defensive skills they did not teach much else.

The Earthen Gift was a school that focused on defense. I thought it sounded like a school that made great tanks to absorb damage for the party and was surprised that they could teach holy clerics to be tanks.

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The Scorching Amber School was all about making glass cannons. They could deal out damage but not take much in return. I knew that was not for me. I could not even get attack spells.

The Well of Knowledge was a water centric school they focused on being flexible and trained a lot of the other classes, scouts, beast masters and so on. They do not focus on any specific class though, so they did not excel in any. It was cheaper so a lot of the higher middle-class people went there.

There were smaller schools as well. There was a school for each talent; alchemy, enchanting, poison masters, spell matrix masters, element gatherers; the list goes on and on but they only taught that profession and would toss you into the dungeon if you could not pay for the classes. To be fair these profession type schools allowed you to sell your wares to pay for your education so only those that were truly bad ended up in the dungeon or so I was told. I thought of a few more issues that might make them end up in the dungeon like others sabotaging their work, stealing it or heck just a recession where people were not buying anything might be enough.  Along with those types of schools there were even more for professions not looked highly on like ones assassins but they tend to find you and not the other way around.

Like I said before the Royal academy trained everything, but you had to have the talent, or money, to go there. What I did not know was that the risk was also greater.  With every other school they sent you to the dungeon at the end of your education. With the Royal Academy, they sent you at the end of every year, a trial by fire to hone the talents of the empire. They generally had a lower death rate even by doing this but my father said that it was because of two reasons. They had money so they bought all the best equipment and lifesaving potions. They also tended to be much more powerful than the common citizen. I suppose that was how they got to power. If I went there, I would face more risk but would have access to a better library and materials.

I was leaning towards the Royal school. My mom wanted me to go to the cheapest school because I would have to go into the dungeon less times to pay for it. They would sell the material you brought out and 80% of that money was applied to the school debt until it was paid off. You had the option to sell it yourself if you chose to, but you had to at least get the price they quoted you. If they caught you trying to sneak out any items, you got while in the dungeon they would just execute you after the trial. My dad said it was up to me but was ok with any of the five major schools. I will have to think about it. A holy tank might be cool. I imagine it is armor type spells with some type of long-lasting healing over time but who knows.

I went to help my mom after we were done talking. I think she needed me to be around her. Every time I stepped out of sight she would quickly look around to find me before going back to what she was doing. She also looked like she was about to cry at any given moment. Her eyes were watery and her face showed her worry like a flashing neon sign. So I stayed by her side all day; I helped cook dinner, helped her clean up, and she taught me some more.

When I was getting ready for bed my mom came in with a thin gold chain with a metal medallion. She showed it to me and when I looked, I saw the medallion had etchings on both sides. She told me it was her sister's and then placed it around my neck. It was a bit too big for me, so it fit right over my head and she did not even need to unclasp it. "To keep you safe" she said and then tucked me in. Once I was alone, I looked at my character sheet and noticed that I hit level two. That was why my magic was stronger. All my spells increased, and I got new ones. I also got fifteen points for my attributes which I could convert if I wanted to into skill points at a 1 to 10 ratio. That is to say one attribute point could become 10 skill points in something of my choosing but since I could learn skills and my attributes have not increased on their own I did not see this as a good option.

I looked at my new spells and thought of how I could use them whether in battle or everyday use. I finally gave up figuring tomorrow was another day. One where I would have to give them my final school choice and like a responsible child, I pushed the problem away to another day and went to sleep.

Spell list:

Light heal – a minor healing spell that is good for scrapes and bruises

Small Heal – a healing spell that will heal large cuts, scrapes and bruises

Bone Setter – Fixes broken bones

Aid – Temporarily increase another's health

Slow Poison – Greatly reduces the onset of poisons

Purify – Removes impurities

Minor golden armor – a thin protective barrier

Coat of Arms – Strengthens the target with what they hold dear to the hearts (strength increases with level)

Blinding Flash – a quick bright flash of your aura (works better in darker environments)

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