Chapter 64: Chapter 59 – No Pain, No Gain

"To wish for improvements without corresponding effort is just a children's pipe dream." - Old folk saying.

 

It turned out Aideen's idea of "mischief" was to visit Giselle's parents personally. She also bought out their entire inventory as "souvenirs" and ordered another batch to be delivered the next month, and made a show of walking back to the gate with a mountain of boxes in her hands. She even had Cal help her out with the boxes, and she too had a stacked mountain of confectioneries in boxes in her hands.

 

Almost as if scripted, four thuggish types accosted them halfway to the gate, since Aideen took smaller roads on purpose in the hopes of exactly this occurrence. The Unliving woman gave a triumphant grin at Cal before she heaped her mountain of boxes on top of Cal's own stack - for her part, Cal stopped playing along and just deposited the whole thing in her pendant - and cracked her knuckles as she walked towards the thugs.

 

By the time the screams attracted some guards, the four thugs literally bolted and begged the guards to arrest them, rather than be under Aideen's ministrations even a moment longer. Cal had no clue how the Unliving woman managed it, but somehow she got those thugs in so much pain they cried for their mothers, without a single bruise shown on their bodies.

 

The guards dared not even make a peep when they saw who the thugs had run from. Apparently Aidenn was a relatively frequent visitor to Levain, and since some decades ago they had warned the new guards specifically not to trouble anyone that matched her description.

 

In the end Aideen only teased the nervous guards for a while before she allowed them to carry away the thugs. She had Cal transfer the boxes over to her own storage ring, then left her with a formal letter.

 

"Give that to Garth." She said with a smirk. "He'll know what to do with it."

 

When Cal had bid Aideen goodbye and went back to the Institute and passed the message to the dean, the old human chuckled as he read the letter's content, and assured her that it will be handled, without going into further detail.

 

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Ognar, Giselle, and Willa were quite surprised when Cal gave each of them a storage ring, with specific instructions to have their weapons and armor along at all times. She also told them to clear their schedule for the weekends from now on, as they would have special training on those days. The students groaned a bit at that but obeyed.

 

They spent the week in heavy training as usual, and Cal noticed that there had been much greater activity by the city guards of late. Many thugs and other unsavory types had been arrested, and the rest chose to lay low for the time being. As usual, it took a formal complaint from the nominal head of a highly valued ally state to set some politician's butt on fire.

 

The increased safety meant no further harassment were aimed at Giselle or her family's shop for the time being. In the mean time, Cal took some time to check on crown prince Legault of Iznuguod. The man was quite easy to recognize, as to her eyes he dressed and acted much like a fop, and had surrounded himself with sychopants attracted to his status and wealth. Much like Garth said however, he was clever enough to have left no trace of any wrongdoings.

 

She put that matter out of her mind for the time being after she checked the records on the prince's affinity, as well as the affinities of those known to be closest to him.

 

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At the weekend, Cal made good on her promise to have special training for her students. She had fetched them early in the morning from their dorms - though Leila had wanted to tag along for some reason, which she allowed - and brought the whole group towards the teleportation gate.

 

All four teenagers were somewhat awed by the gate, as they had never went through one before. The guards waved them through when Cal showed them the signet ring from Aideen, and with a step through the gate,the students found themselves in a different place.

 

Aideen had already waited for them on the other side of the Gate, and waved when she noticed their arrival. She waved for them to follow and led the group towards the grand stadium where the festival was held. It was not in use at the moment, and would make a good place for training.

 

Cal saw that several people already awaited them there. She recognized Fibuela instantly, and had seen the one-eyed human woman that leaned on the wall before as well. She had an orchard where she grew various fruits, and was a friend of the couple that ran her favorite bakery in Paradise.

 

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"This is Fibuela." Aideen introduced to the students. "She knows every dirty trick in the book and invented some, so that's what you'll be learning from her."

 

"Ye make me sound like a daft cheater or something." Grumbled Fibuela. "There ain't no dirty tricks. There's only fighting smart, or fighting stupid."

 

"Have it your way." Said Aideen as she moved on and introduced the other woman. "That one's Salicia. She'll teach you on how to take hits properly."

 

The one-eyed woman waved as Aideen introduced her, but otherwise remained silent.

 

"And you can call me Aideen. I'll be teaching you combat techniques." She finished. "There's one more of you then I heard?"

 

"That's Leila, my grand-niece. She wanted to tag along." Cal explained. "She won't be a bother."

 

"No, that's fine. There's four of us for four of them, one for each. We'll rotate them among us, I think." Said Aideen in contemplation. "You've been focusing on their physical conditioning, right?"

 

"That I have."

 

"Then do that with them, just leave them enough strength for the rest of us. Okay girls, take your pick!"

 

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A few minutes later, Cal had put Leila under a rigorous exercise routine. Her grand-niece was quite fit, but far from a match for the blood mages present, so Cal saw no harm in improving her fitness. In another corner of the stadium she could see Fibuela as she opened a whole new world for the naive Ognar. As she was a water mage, Fibuela had long learned every trick there is to turn an advantage her way, and many of those were applicable for even non-mages to use.

 

Giselle was in the middle of a spar - or rather, a complete and thorough trouncing - with Aideen. The vastly more experienced Unliving woman dissected her every move for mistakes and points to be improved upon, and was merciless in her teachings.

 

Willa on the other hand, faced Salicia from a distance. The one-eyed woman wielded a composite bow taller than herself, and used arrows that were the size of small javelins. She lectured Willa incessantly on methods to receive a hit in such a way that it does the least amount of damage, as well as circumstances where an attempt of deflection by armor would be feasible. Willa had worn a set of training armor for the task instead of her usual set, which was a good thing, for even with blunt arrows, Salicia easily made large dents every time she landed a shot on the armor.

 

After an hour of training, they gave the teenagers a quarter hour of rest, after which they rotated students. It was noon after they each had a turn with all four students, so they stopped for lunch, which the tired students devoured like starved animals. Another cycle of training was then repeated after the lunch break, before the kids were allowed dinner and rest for the night.

 

Once they woke up the next morning, the training continued, and it carried on every weekend throughout the spring. The students - Leila included - persevered through the harsh training, for the rapid improvement they felt spoke of the results already.

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