Xenarra: The Dragon Throne

38 The Ranger Academy

'So they are alive. This is great! It seems like they have changed though...I can't tell what it is. I would say that they seem more mature, but is not that as they were already mature. I don't know maybe it is that they are more battle hardened, or that they have mourned for me as Usha said. Perhaps they have changed as they thought that they lost a comrade and friend. Or maybe it's..'

"Adoh! Snap out of it! You don't need to think it all through, just ask us and we will tell you. Including Ordreaths new, ummm, habits."

It was Swain who had spoken to me, as well as yelled in my ear for the first part, to get me out of my head.

"Ok, you didn't have to yell so loud you know. It hurts, when you have someone yell into your ear."

He smiled slightly, "It is good to see that you are back with us. They all thought that you were dead, but not me. No. I was the only one who said that you were still alive and just held up somewhere, and with you here that proves my point."

"Says the one, who was in tears, at the funeral." Ordreath muttered, with a grin on his face, probably saying so for Swain revealing his new habit.

"All of you, before we all descend into arguments and fights." I paused for a minute as I looked at Swain and Ordereath. "I got some news to share, due to certain events and me going into possession of this sword, we are all going to be sent to the rangers training acadm.."

There was a flash of light and I along with the other nine appeared in a different place. Then I felt a massive nauseating feeling before I bent over and let out all of my insides, from the noise and smell the others were vomiting as well.

"Well let it all out, I know teleporting is hard for the first timers, but please can you hurry the hell up."

My head slowly began to rise up, from vomiting all over the floor. There was a man standing in front of us. In the usually ranger uniform, in fact there was nothing on it except that it showed he was a ranger. Seeing me look up at him, he smiled slightly at me. But for some reason that smile made my whole body tense up as if it was being stared at by an apex predator.

The others also began to stop throwing up all over the room, and began to look around, their eyes settling on the man looking like a ranger.

With us all looking at him he began to speak, "Well you are squad nine hundred and fifty seven of the ranger training program. Welcome and well done on being selected, the good news is you all passed our test. This is your room, I will be here in the morning to grab you. One last thing, I would clean up the vomit if I were you. It is going to stink."

Just as he started he turned around a left. Leaving us all alone. One the door slammed signaling that he had left completely. I looked around at the others,

"Should we get this cleaned up then."

I walked off, around the room trying to find something to use to clean up all of the vomit. When I came back, everyone had one thing or had found where something was that we would need.

It didn't take long for us after all of that to get the vomit all cleaned up and removed, but the smell still remained. Then usha came forward with something and sprayed it around, making the air smell nice.

I looked at her in gratitude and she smiled back in return. Then walked back to the bed she had chosen. Before I knew it, all of the beds had been chosen without me having a choice. I ended up with the bed nearest the door, which had a draft running under it. As I laid into bed I shivered at the cold air, apart from that the room itself was surprisingly warm.

The next day, as promised the no name ranger came by and woke us all up, with a load of water being chucked into my head and the others as well had a load of water chucked into them. As you could except this woke us all up extremely quickly.

"Aight then, all of you get some clothes on and follow me." He then just stood there waiting and not moving. "Well what are you waiting for, your mothers to come change you?"

His words sparked us into action, it didn't take long for all of our wet clothes to come and off and be replaced by the newer and better fitting ranger clothing that we had been provided.

'These clothes are so much nicer than the normal clothes that we were given for being in the army. They are much thicker and warmer as well as hug the shape of my body more and feel like they won't get in the way of me having to move.'

"Now follow me to the training room. As we go you are not allowed to touch anything, just keep your hands to yourself."

He led us out of our room into a hallway. It was very similar to our room in fact. Black walls, no windows and torches lining the walls, but only just enough light so that we could see what we were doing.

Following him, down the hallway and into another one, there were random weapons and paintings and occasional parchments dotted about on the wall. As the ranger said, not to touch, I didn't, just looked at everything with my eyes.

We walked into a massive room, unlike everywhere else we had been so far, it had windows which lit up the black walls and the whole room in light. Which caused me to squint as my eyes had grown quite accustomed to the little light that our room and the hallways provided.

The ranger stopped about five steps in front of us and turned around. "Well as I said last night, this is the ranger academy, your stay here will include for the first few weeks some survival training as well as weapon practise. The rangers are firm believers of using the weapons that they feel the most comfortable with, this as you might expect leads them to master that weapon. So before your survival training starts, you will begin trying as many weapons as you possibly can. Then next you will be sent to a mage tower, to learn the basics about mana. Depending how well you do in the first weeks of training will change the amount of time you get in the mage tower. So get the first weeks done well. Magic is useful."

Then once he had finished his lengthy introduction, he walked over to the weapon rack which as he said had a lot of weapons on it, there swords, sabers and other bladed weapons for one hand and two. There were polearms, bows, crossbows as well as something which would help practice with unarmed combat as well.

"You,umm, Adoh, you will be just using a sword. Orders from the top. I will be back later. Enjoy the weapons."

After he finished saying what he had to say, he just walked off.