Hello Everyone!
Here is your next chapter! Thank you all for your support! I shall be continuing.
I will try to make the next chapter longer.
Over the next few weeks Kel was able to complete her cleaning of her main living areas, including the exercise area, the bathing area and all of the bedrooms and hallways leading around. All the floors and fixtures were also cleaned so they sparkled in every single one of the rooms she had discovered. She only need to clean the object within the armoury, another hidden office and the others.
Her days took on a slightly higher than comfortable routine. In the mornings she would clean for two bells time after her morning meal, and then she would do a series of sit ups, pull ups, pushups, and run x plus 1 laps progressively around the track. She had discovered a book about the weights that were set in one corner of the training area and with its guidance, had begun to use them to strengthen both her arms and her legs. She had also found a book about stretching properly, and had finally succeeded in doing the splits both ways. She had read that being flexible would be highly helpful in hand to hand combat. By the end of her first month living in that hidden area, she had begun to realize the noticeable difference in her fitness level.
After completing her morning routine and eating her mid day meal, she would head to the library and read about Tortallan and her surrounding land's history as a tribute to Sir Myles, her history teacher, before Kel had disappeared. She began to teach herself Scanran and Carthaki to add to her already fluent Yaman and Tortallan. She never knew if she might need to know it, but decided it would be fun to learn anyway. She had discovered all of Alex of Tirragen's old work and had worked through an eighth of the second year page's work. She took the used parchment, copied the problems and figured them out for herself, and then compared them to the corrected copies of his work. Mathematics was always very easy for her, and she took it up faster than the reading and writing work that was expected. She realized that the curriculum of ht pages might have changed some, but she couldn't do much about that now. She was still learning and that is what counted. She didn't want to fall too far behind.
Once she had completed the days learning that she had set out for herself, she read two journal entries of Alex's. Through these, she had discovered that there were other trap doors that led to different areas that he had discovered in similar ways that she had, by falling through them after accidentally bumping the right button. She had also read that he strived to become the best swordsman there ever was after another page, one older and bigger than he, had beaten him to a pulp while the instructors weren't watching during a swords class, taunting him, telling him that he was a weakling and would never survive the chamber. Now Alex just wanted to serve them wrong. He had begun to use the extra time in his secret rooms to practice as much as he could. His last visit to the city had been to buy books on the subject of sword fighting and the different styles of each country, and he began to teach himself some moves. By the end of his second year as a page, not only had he gone through his long overdue growth spurt, but he had been able to challenge the bullies properly and had beaten THEM to a pulp.
It had been during this match that he had caught the eye of one Duke Roger, who had then decided to wait two more years to take on a certain squire. He liked one with a bit of fire, but one that still had some gullibility left in him to shape them the way he, Duke Roger of Conte, liked them.
Kel had discovered these sword fighting books and had used them to learn the first basics of sword fighting. Since then, she had mastered these and was starting on the next few chapters on the footwork of the different styles of fighting.
After her afternoon work had been completed and she had eaten her evening meal. She dressed in mens clothes and as she had cut her own hair short, and then went to a barber's to have a proper hair cut, and now she looked enough like a boy to pass for at least another half year before other changes started to happen, but she would deal with those when they arrived.
She had found an empty courtyard wear a few young ladies of various ages trying to teach themselves ways to protect themselves from the under city Rats that preyed on the helpless. A week ago when she had discovered this she had established herself, or himself, as the girls there knew him. She had introduced herself as Kellan.
By doing this, she was able to practice her new hand to hand skills with other people, as well as cementing what she knew by teaching it. She finally knew what her teachers meant by you only knew how much you actually understood until you were able to teach it.
She had another month before she had to worry about who moved into her old room.
Who should move into her old room? Owen, Joren, Neal (out of tribute to his best friend?) Any thoughts?