Chapter 26: The Twenty-Sixth Chapter

Author's Note: And yea, there came times when Alex would rise from his daily labors and say 'Huzzah, for I have finished Chapter 26.' But, alas, such would mean that he now had to continue as he had done. But ever would he labor, even so slowly, for not finishing what he had started was unthinkable.

Brodelaw hammered on the door of Lloyd's room, before walking in like he owned it.

Which, in point of fact, he did.

Lloyd was stumbling out of bed, bleary eyed. He blinked up at the fighting Master, who was practically filling the doorway.

"Good morning, Mr. Irving!" he said in the cheerful, slightly-too-loud voice he used for these occasions. "Will you join myself and the novices for our morning exercise?"

Lloyd blinked again, having a slow time waking up. "Can I just go back to bed?"

His face impassive, Brodelaw snapped his thick fingers and held out a hand. A waiting monk handed him a bucket of cold water—enchanted to be colder than freezing and stay that way, courtesy of the mages. With some amount of aplomb, Brodelaw pitched the icy water onto Lloyd.

The young man yelped as the cold bit through his clothes. "What the hell was that for?" he demanded, sounding more alert now.

"Are you coming?" Brodelaw asked pleasantly.

"Hell no!"

Brodelaw snapped again, and a moment later Lloyd was hit with a second splash of water.

Through his splutters and chattering teeth, Lloyd gave in. It seemed to be the only choice—trying to take a swing at Brodelaw was not the most intelligent thing someone could do. Lloyd had matured quite a bit since the Oracle arrived, more than two years ago. "All right, I'm coming!"

"Glad to hear it," the Master said jovially. He stood until Lloyd had pulled on his shirt and fumbled his sword belts into place, then he turned on his heel and strode out into the hallway.

Lloyd, hurrying after Athan's teacher, didn't see the two second-ranked monks, who each had a bucket of the chill water. They grabbed the empty buckets and followed after their teacher.

The exercises weren't hard for Lloyd. Thanks to his Exsphere, his strength and endurance were well beyond the human norms. What he noticed though, was that the novices didn't seem to have difficulty with it, either. First, they ran laps around the fighting ring in the center of the dojo. Then they did a hundred push-ups, followed by more laps, and ended with jumping in place, in unison, for about a thousand times.

Finally Brodelaw, who had been standing off to the side and shouting encouragements and imprecations at random, clapped. The sound reverberated through the large, square, low-ceilinged room.

"Time for…the Test!" Lloyd realized he could hear the capital letter.

A pair of second-ranked monks came forward, carrying a massive metal disk—three feet across and some inches thick, with a pair of handles on one surface of it, set across from each other.

Brodelaw beckoned Lloyd over to him. "Watch this. They try this every morning until they can manage it."

Lloyd turned to watch the novices line up. Several of the two dozen or so were stretching or otherwise limbering up.

"What do you think is about to happen?" Brodelaw asked.

"They're going to try and pick up that thing."

"Essentially. Can you figure out why it's a test?"

Looked glanced up at the bald man, who was watching his students with a proprietorial air. "They have to be strong enough?" he hazarded.

"In a way. Have you noticed we don't use those Exspheres like you and your friends do?"

Lloyd frowned. He hadn't, but now that he thought back on it…He shook his head. "How do you know about Exspheres?"

"The technology is thousands of years old, Lloyd," the teacher said with a touch of condescension. He abruptly changed his pitch, booming out, "Begin!" Then he dropped to a normal tone. "We—that is, our order and the other fighting order—learn to channel our own body's energy to increase its performance. Strength, durability…speed, as Athan showed last night. All of the novices have been taught the theory and undergo meditation, but that disk is too heavy for someone to move naturally without years of intense training. So…for them to move it during this decade, they have to learn to perform the basic technique—increasing strength."

Lloyd turned back to watch. A couple were lined up against a wall, and the current subject, red in the face with effort, had the massive weight a few inches off the ground—then he was forced to drop it. "Good effort!" Brodelaw called as the man went to join the line at the wall.

"Could I learn it?" Lloyd asked curiously.

"Oh, yes, certainly. But you have other things you need to do before you can enroll here and spend several months sleeping on a hard bed and getting water thrown at you in the mornings," Brodelaw said, smirking.

"It's something to think about," Lloyd said seriously. "Being as strong as I am is useful, but it's because of my Exsphere. But when I give this up…:he stared at the back of his hand. "I'll go back to being…normal."

Brodelaw rubbed at his strong chin. "But you'll destroy that anyway, when you're done with your quest, won't you?" he guessed.

Lloyd's face went solid, and he nodded.

Brodelaw glanced back at his novices, about half of whom had already attempted to raise the weight. "Look," he ordered. "I've been looking forward to this."

Lloyd watched the novice currently trying to limber up. Dark-haired and swarthy, he was slightly shorter than Lloyd, but in his mid-twenties, and slim-framed, but his compact body was uniformly muscled. "Who's that?" Lloyd whispered.

"He said his name is Oron, but I don't know if that's true. He showed up about a month back and said Athan sent him here. Whatever he did before he came here, it gave him a lot of discipline. Watch."

The man who called himself Oron had bent over and grasped the handles on the disk. He took in a steadying breath, then heaved. His arms reddened at the effort, but he lifted the disk in a few seconds, and held it at arm's length for a moment before setting it back down noiselessly. The other novices clapped, and even Brodelaw applauded.

"What happened?"

"He's just earned his first rank in record time," Brodelaw said. "Oron! Come over here!"

The man came over quietly. He glanced at Lloyd before saying to Brodelaw, "Yes, master?"

"Congratulations. We'll hold your ascension ceremony in a week." The huge man smiled. "Now…why don't you serve breakfast? As a little reminder of humility?" He jerked his head at a door on one wall of the order's gym.

Oron, his face serious, bowed. "Of course."

Lloyd's friends had gotten up by the time breakfast was finished. Oron had done the meat-noodles-and-broth that seemed to be a staple of the diet around here. After the huge cauldron had been practically scraped clean by the monks, their teacher, and their guests, Brodelaw picked out some of his monks, and lined them up while he talked to his guests.

"These will be your guides," he said. "They've been given the day off from exercises to lead you around the Monastery to see what you want to. There's more interesting things to see than a bunch of sweaty men picking up heavy objects."

Elpida's face fell, but she kept quiet.

After some horse-trading among the party as to who would get what guide, they went their separate ways—Ribs went with Zelos, to have an interpreter.

Lloyd found himself with Nivez, from Athan's testing before. The man turned out to be good company. He knew his way through the multi-leveled maze of hallways and rooms through the monastery, and happily gave Lloyd a description of the major points of interest of the place. After an hour of showing the artifact galleries and the sheer size of the place, he mentioned the forges.

Lloyd's eyes lit up. "You craft stuff here?"

Nivez nodded. "The Order of Lamen's Hammer does. Any time one of the other orders needs something, they make it. They even craft and customize the weapons we use."

"I thought you didn't use them," Lloyd said.

"We don't spar with them, but we learn to use them. The main weapons are knuckles and greaves, but we have spears as well. In case the Monastery is attacked by monsters—which happens sometimes."

Lloyd remembered Regal's teacher, Levin, had come from here. "That's cool." He snapped out of reverie. "Come on, let's see them!"

Ten minutes of walking, and a couple of flights of stairs, had them in the forges.

The room was dark, lit only by the orange glow from the furnaces and the little lights atop the boards holding plans. As Lloyd's eyes adjusted, he could see maybe eight figures at work at different furnaces, and a few assistants going between them.

And…a couple of other people.

The orangish light from a furnace behind them cast a reddish tinge over two figures. One of them, Lloyd had no trouble recognizing. Zelos, with his cascade of true-red hair and his slightly-slouching stance, could be recognized from about a quarter-mile away. And the person next to him was just a black shape with the occasional shine on it.

Zelos and Ribs looked to be discussing something with a pair in front of them. The woman wore the leather apron and elbow-length gloves. Her protective visor was resting on her hair. She must have been working for a while, Lloyd thought, looking at the grime on her face and the pink streaks beads of sweat had carved through the strata. In one gloved hand she held an eight-pound hammer, and she waved it around when she spoke.

Her companion was a mage. He looked to be in his forties, and was a tall and naturally solid man. To Lloyd's amazement, the man wasn't even sweating, though his robes must have acted as a drift net for whatever heat happened to be in the area.

Lloyd motioned Nivez over, closing in.

"Oh, come on," the blacksmith said. "You just said you don't need them!"

Ribs' black-gloved hands snapped out a sentence, the sharpness of his movements showing the amiable undead was, for once, irritated. It's the thought of it!

The blacksmith huffed as Zelos translated for her.

"Why're all of you arguing?" Lloyd asked, coming closer.

All four looked at him. Zelos rattled off the summary.

"This guy—" he pointed at the mage "—sensed Ribs was an undead. Apparently, the teeth of what Ribs is can be used to customize some items, like a mermaid's tear. Oh, and they asked for Ribs' sword and shield, because of the metal it's made out of."

"What's so special about the metal?"

The mage answered. "This revenant's equipment is made of morglin. It's a metal of the Underworld, and there are, to my knowledge, only three samples of it in the world today, two of them here in the Monastery and so small that they'd be useless for craftwork, even if we were allowed to use them." The man's dark eyes strayed to Ribs' sheathed sword.

Ribs wove out another sentence. But these are my only weapons. I still need them!

When Zelos translated, the blacksmith gave an exasperated sigh. "We don't need the whole thing, Monlio. Just a few pounds of morglin. You're insulting him by asking for the whole set."

"But it must be thirty pounds of it!" The mage protested. "Pure morglin! Think of the research!"

The blacksmith's eyes went from the rim of the shield visible over Ribs' back, to the sword hanging at the skeleton's skeleton's. "How about a deal, Mr…Ribs? Let me customize your sword and shield. We have a storehouse of materials here, so you can basically name your enhancements. In exchange, I'll take about five pounds total from your weapons."

Ribs hesitated. And my teeth? Why do you want them?

The mage, Monlio, said smoothly, "A revenant's tooth, depending on how it's used, can either endow an item with a powerful resistance to all magic, or let an item serve as a focus for mana and enhance spellcasting. Among other uses. As for what we need them for, a device Ellis has been asked to make would be improved if we used some, and I myself have a design for a charm that requires a revenant's tooth…and morglin."

Ribs drew his battered, chipped sword. He turned it this way and that in the orange light of a nearby furnace, noting the dull sheen of its sides, the scratches and notches it had gained in millennia of hard use. Then he sheathed it. Will the metal accept such enhancements?

After Zelos finished translating, the blacksmith nodded. "It's a very reactive metal. There's an old manual written by a monk here centuries ago who had some, and he said he didn't think he found half of what could be done with it before he ran out of it."

Ribs seemed to be thinking. Then he removed the wide-brimmed hat, and unzipped the back of his mask. He laid both items on a nearby table. Taking his sword in his hand, he reversed it. He lined the pommel up with the back molars on his right side, then smashed it against them one—twice—three times. There was a faint clatter.

Ribs probed at a loosened tooth with his free hand, and managed to pry it out. He bent down, hand darting around across the floor, and he came up with four teeth in the palm of his gloved hand.

The blacksmith, grinning, took them. "Thank you, mister skeleton. Now, let's see your sword and shield."

Lloyd saw things were going well, and decided to leave. He backed away, and left Ribs discussing enhancements with the pair, via Zelos.

Some thirty minutes later, Lloyd found himself in one of the rooms where the apprentice mages practiced. He wasn't sure how, exactly, he got talked into staying here.

He looked down the long table, where the apprentices were bent over bowls of water.

"Elpida, would you explain this again?"

The small, purple-haired young lady said patiently, "I came in here looking for my ring."

"I get that, but why are they doing this?"

"The teacher—" she waved a hand at Orion, the elf master of magic, as he silently padded behind his seated students students, looking over their shoulders— "said I have a very strong mana presence, so it's possible to find something of mine. And he said they need the practice with looking for something this way."

Lloyd watched the some two dozen students, then turned his head back to the drawing she'd made. Whatever help it gave wouldn't be much. Elpida's talents didn't lie in drawing. Lloyd thought it looked like a face more than anything else.

He was startled out of his reverie when one of the students said, "I think I had it!"

They all looked at the student, a female whose greenish-blue hair belied her perfectly human face and ears. She blushed at the sudden focusing of attention.

Orion came over, saving her. "Tell me, in detail, Alissa."

She fumbled a bit, gaining confidence as she went on. "A little house with only one room inside. I just saw it for an instant, but I had think it's near mountains."

"You saw them?" The elf asked mildly.

"No, I just had a feeling of…mountains being important to this place."

Orion nodded. "Very good, Alissa." He looked around at the class. "I told you that scrying often brings more clues than a mere visual image. Those feelings are often as important as the image when you are searching for something in this way. Think of a small house near mountains while searching for Miss Elpida's ring."

Elpida was grinning and doing a little fidgety dance from the excitement. Her memories were scrambled and misty, but she felt, she knew, that her ring would bring them into focus. She watched as the students, with more guide points to work from, one by one found the place where her ring was. She wrote down what they said about it, to save for later.

She turned to mention it to Lloyd, but he was gone.

Darn.

She'd heard the others talk about how Lloyd had been on this journey they'd been on two years earlier. Naïve, hotheaded, and combining boyish excitement with a tendency to lose interest quickly. She decided she'd have liked to see him like that. Now he tended to watch quietly, and not disturb things. That, in her opinion, wasn't as much fun.

She shrugged, and wrote down some more of the clues they offered.

Lloyd was met outside the door by Athan. The monk's forehead was glistening from sweat, and he was panting.

"For Martel's sake, don't you stay in one place? I ran all over looking for you. Mother wants to meet you. Come on!"

Athan gave a quick nod to Nivez, and then forcibly pulled Lloyd along, before breaking into a run.

Lloyd ran after him.

Athan was fast, but not moreso than Lloyd was. What impressed Lloyd as they went down usually empty corridors and up flights of stairs, was Athan's endurance. Lloyd couldn't see any sign of his friend being slowing, despite him being winded just minute or so back.

Athan led Lloyd up higher and higher, until they went up a final flight of stairs and came out into…

The swordsman blinked. He thought they were on the roof for a moment, then realized at here, in the Flanoir region, it wouldn't be so comfortably warm, or so bright. A moment later he noticed the rock walls, and he thought: cavern. What mainly kept his attention though, were the fields.

The floor of the cavern was rich soil, and most of the floorspace was taken up by the crops. Lloyd, raised in the farming community of Iselia, could identify wheat, corn, barley, and rice. He noticed the small orchard in a back corner, the trees visibly laden even at this distance. He glanced up and saw the source of the light, so like a summer's sunshine; a large array of angular, jutting crystals were set into the rock of the naturally domed ceiling, and glowed almost incandescently.

He heard someone give a call, and he looked down to see Sheena running towards them. She caught him up in a hug, and she grinned when she released him. "Sorry, but I can't talk now. I'll see you in a bit."

Lloyd spluttered as she left. He turned around to see a woman walking calmly. She wasn't an older edition of Sheena, though there was some resemblance. Her hair was just as dark, and the shape of the mouth, eyes, and chin were the same.

Athan, wiped his forehead off as she approached. "Mother, this is Lloyd. Lloyd this is Mariko, my…our mother."

"A pleasure to meet you, Lloyd." Mariko said. She tilted her head, a slight furrow of concentration on her brow. Finally, she said, "Athan, go and make sure your sister doesn't get lost."

"But…" Athan shifted.

"I know you want to be here, but, please, let me talk with Lloyd without you standing over my shoulder to explain things."

Her son relaxed. "All right." He turned, and went downstairs.

Mariko was walking around Lloyd. "Well, well. I suppose my daughter's done alright with you." There was a slight tenseness to that statement. Lloyd could understand why—the first time this woman was meeting her daughter in years, her offspring had already been engaged. Lloyd could imagine that ache of having missed so much.

"Thanks…I think," he said, coming back to the present.

"You're welcome…I think," she said in a flash of mischief mixed with a hint of sadness. "Come along, Lloyd. I'll walk you around the fields and we can talk."

She turned and started down the straight path between two of the largest crops. Lloyd, not knowing what to expect, or what he should expect, followed.