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Humans Don't Make Good Familiars- Part 81
🕑 Added 2022-03-09 05:22:49 +0000 UTCJake’s POV
“Suma, could you wrap me in mana and carry me? I think I’m about to collapse.” I asked Suma. My legs burned, my lungs too. Every square inch of my body ached despite having already been healed.
“I’m sorry Jake, but the rules strictly forbid that, and I don’t think I could anyway; you’re quite heavy.” I sighed and trudged onward. Eventually, we made it to the gate and I collapsed as soon as I crossed it.
“Finally,” I said relieved and lying motionless on the ground. All I wanted to do was sleep, to me, in that moment, nothing else mattered.
“Good job recruits,” said a voice from behind us. I ignored it, and I barely heard anything else it said. I think I passed out if I’m being honest. I woke up later on the floor of my kitchen, freezing cold and with a throbbing headache from hunger. I groaned and moaned as I forced myself up and grabbed a sleeve of crisps, crackers, and bottled vitamin-water from my pantry. While this was the first time I had used those healing runes, it wasn’t the first time I had experienced this post healing “hangover”. I looked at my kitchen timer and did some quick mental math; twelve hours had passed since Suma summoned me. I figured I spent about four hours doing the course, so I had probably gotten about eight hours of sleep after she sent me home.
“Huh, that’s a lot shorter than normal.” I said to myself after downing the entire bottle of water in less than fifteen seconds. “That’s like… half the normal time or something.” Then I found myself wondering something… “Suma?” I asked.
“Oh, hello Jake, how are you feeling?”
“I’m okay, so… did we pass?”
“Yes we did, but only barely.” She sounded.. disappointed… frustrated?
“I see, well what happened to that snake familiar?”
“Nothing, since it didn’t technically do anything but follow you, it didn’t break any rules. I confronted Lauric, but I had no proof he had any ill intentions, so nothing can be done yet.” She explained. “Jake, there is one more thing..”
“Bad news?” I asked.
“…That… depends on you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The instructor has ordered that you start attending the attack mages training sessions to improve your magic. It starts in two hours..”
“Oh, okay. I guess that makes sense, but did she give a reason?” I asked confused. “ I mean, you’re a healing mage and I’m your familiar, so I just assumed…”
“I said the same thing, but she wants you to lean into your strengths and cover your weaknesses. She believes this is the best way to do that.”
“Well, I’m not opposed to the idea or anything, I guess it could be interesting. What kinds of training do they do?” Suma didn’t know the answer, but it didn’t matter, because I found out the hard way two hours later on their training ground.
“SENTINEL! KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN AND MOVE!” The instructor yelled as the group I was assigned to raced across a simulated battlefield. Explosions went off around us as Fire Magic spells crash-landed nearby. With me were seven Neame, three of which had names, all riding their own familiars. “EVEN YOU CAN”T TAKE A HIT FROM ONE OF THOSE SPELLS, NOW GO GO GO!”
“Move faster familiar!” One of the named Neame who was stuck in the position behind me chirped. There were eight including me, fifteen if you include their own familiars, and I was in the fourth position from the front. The point of this training was to learn how to not be bothered by the sound of explosions going off around us by moving along the field out in the open. Our path was clearly marked, and we knew we weren’t going to be hit, but we still needed to walk as if we were in the low trenches that the Neame need to fly though while transporting supplies on real battlefields. We performed that training for two more hours, and my ears were ringing the whole time. After we finished, we went to the healer’s section to take care of any accidental injuries and fix our hearing. I though we were done… until the instructor ordered us all to get ready for attack drills at field one. Normally, they would all fly there as a group… but I can’t fly, and the instructor made us walk there. Well, I walked, they rode on their familiars.
Once we finally arrived for the drill, the instructor explained how it would work. “There are three rules: always aim your spells at the field, never at your squad; you will shoot at the target until you hit it three consecutive times; finally, if you run out of mana, you do high-dives while the rest of your squadron eats lunch.” We went two at a time, first was a Neame called Aldo and another nameless Neame. Aldo and the other left their perches and landed on two a few meters away from the group. The first to finish was the nameless Neame, but Aldo wasn’t too far behind him. As soon as one finished the task, another took his place regardless of whether the other one had finished. I figured this was a way to let people study each other’s techniques, or maybe as a safety precaution, but I didn’t really know. Each Neame’s attack spells were different, the first used a flame attack similar to the attack Suma used against the drake to save me. The second used icicles to impale, and the third had a lightning attack. The fourth attacked by lifting rocks and dirt then crushing the target. The fifth, and sixth were named Neame called Tomu and Lekep, who used water and wind respectively. Then finally it was number seven and me.
As I stepped up next to the perch the others were using, the instructor said, “I was told you have tactical scale magic Sentinel. Is that true?”
“Yes sir, but I’m still a bit unfamiliar with the way spells are ranked, I was told that one of my spells was tactical grade.”
“Show us,” he ordered.
“I thought I wasn’t allowed t use magic that powerful in training?”
“That’s for healers, this is attack magic. If you have the ability, then do it. If not, then do your next best attack spell.”
