The Foolhardies 110 Problems

The following nights in the Fayne almost made me forget about Ty's dreams or the incident of the disappearing man outside my house as my brain was full trying to absorb all the training Azuma was drilling into me.

There was no chance to ask Aura about it either as she'd been recalled by Chancellor Orryn back to Shärleden because her brother's conditioned had worsened.

I'd only just heard from her last night through a message from Nike that Auranos was in recovery and that she would travel throughout the day via peryton to reach our nameless tower before the coming of dawn.

Maybe then I could ask her about Ty's dreams. But for now, my brain was completely preoccupied with finally getting the stupid Augmentare to work.

We were on the fourth floor of the seven-floor, circular tower. I'd designated it the training hall as it had a similar high ceiling as the audience hall below, but with slightly lesser breakable stained-gla.s.s windows. It was also the first hall my troops finished setting up.

The hall size must have been at least fifteen hundred square feet of s.p.a.ce with newly installed wooden part.i.tions to separate the different training areas. There was a weight room for those bruisers who liked to keep their muscles trained, a mat area for unarmed and armed training, a small locker area that sat right next to a weapons locker, and finally, a small infirmary for minor injuries. More of a triage room really. We hadn't finished setting up the main infirmary on the third floor yet.

So, there I was standing on one of the training mats with my falchion raised forward with both hands, sweating buckets for pus.h.i.+ng my mind into an intense concentration that resulted in nothing. For all my effort, not a tiny spark of fire or even a droplet of water appeared on my shadowblade.

In frustration I lowered my hand kicked at the mat, brus.h.i.+ng my feet across its leathery surface.

"This is hopeless," I groaned.

Around me, I could hear the snicker of onlookers, and I sent my death stare at the closest ones. Two kobolds who needed to be reminded who was boss. They cowered back and then scampered away, bringing a satisfied grin to my face.

Azuma had followed my line of sight, and sighed, "You mind too much…" He shook his head. "Listen, Dean, you're not here to live up to anyone's expectations. Just yours."

I looked my new martial arts instructor up and down, noting how his body hidden under training gear seemed less frail than it used to be, even if his skin was still sickly pale and his eyes were still the same bloodshot they always were.

"Easy for you to say," I countered. "You gave up being command."

Azuma nodded. "Yes, but that's because I found one worth following…"

I blushed. It wasn't everyday one got a compliment from someone everyone viewed as a true warrior.

'Try again," Azuma insisted, raising his hand to prompt me to begin.

I took a deep breath then raised my falchion forward once more.

"Any more tips?" I asked.

Azuma thought about it. His eventual response was, "I can only use myself as an example."

He raised his spear in my direction. Seconds of deep concentration pa.s.sed where Azuma mouthed a phrase I'd heard him speak before. The man wasn't actually speaking in some obscure fay dialect. He had simply spoken too fast for me to understand before. But as he slowed down his speech, I heard each word as clear as day.

"I am shapeless, formless, like water," he quoted. "When you form water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in the bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in the teacup, it becomes the teacup. Water can drip and it can crash, and so, I must become like water."

Immediately after he'd said those famous lines that had first been said by the most famous martial artist of the previous generation, water burst to life around Azuma's shadowblade spear tip and coalesced around it to form a liquid coating.

"Did you just steal that line from Bruce Lee?" I asked, my eyebrow raised.

"I simply followed the recommendation of a great warrior," Azuma said. "It has become my mantra whenever I wished to call upon the elemental spirits to bless my weapon."

He pointed the water spear at me.

"You see, Dean, that's the secret," Azuma explained. "A prayer or wish to the elemental spirits to augment the tool."

"B-but I don't know which element to call out to?"  I reasoned.

Azuma swept his spear to the side and splashed water onto the mat.

"Well, that's what you're doing now, right?" he said. "You're figuring that part out."

"I know," I said, slightly annoyed.

"Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do," Azuma quoted again.

"Dude, stop quoting Bruce Lee to me," I snapped. "It's not helping."

We were interrupted by Luca's voice singing a song from our childhood.

"Can you sing with all the voices of the mountain, can you paint with all the colors of the wind," he sang in a soprano voice that reminded me how good a singer my little brother was.

As Luca's voice echoed around us, the silver broadsword in his hand began to glow a different color from its usual charred-orange lines.

The air seemed to thin around us as if it were being sucked right into Luca's sword which slowly, but surely, summoned to it a soft sheet of air floating around the shadowblade like a much smaller sword-shaped tornado than the one Great General Spellweaver had used.

A spattering of applause from the onlookers, and although I hadn't joined in with them, I felt a swell of pride for Luca's natural talent to do anything he set his mind to. But, also, a tiny twinge of jealousy sprouted in my chest, leading me to joke, "You're using a Disney song as your mantra?"

Luca blushed and lost his concentration, resulting in the coating of air around his blade to disperse suddenly, spreading out around him and making Luca's hair stand on end.

"I wasn't going to use it," Luca countered, blus.h.i.+ng even more furiously now that he'd noticed Pike among the onlookers. "I was just practicing…" Luca glared at me. "I'll think up an even cooler mantra, just you wait and see."

I shrugged. "Whatever you say, little bro."

Still grinning, I turned my attention back to Azuma who was looking back at me with something akin to pity.

"That was petty," he chided.

I shrugged again, smiling sheepishly while I did. "Couldn't help it. Just doling out some brotherly love."

Azuma and I spent another thirty minutes of training where I finally managed to create a bluish spark that was definitely not fire or any of the four basic elements in fairy magic.

"Wh-what was that?" I asked, surprised.

"Interesting… you keep surprising me more and more, Dean," Azuma laughed.

Before Azuma could explain further, Zarz and Varda strolled into the training hall, each carrying a stack of scrolls that were no doubt intended for me. Walking between them were my two favorite sprites, Fila and Nike, the latter holding onto a scrying orb.

"c.r.a.p," I breathed. "Any chance you can teach me how to turn invisible?"

"We'll tackle stealth some other time," Azuma said, coughing as he did. He cleared his throat. "Looks like duty calls, Commander."  

Azuma saying commander sounded the same as when Thom did it. Like it was a tease more than a sign of respect. I had just enough time to give him a fake laugh before my quartermaster and artificer bombarded me with more work.

I spent the next hour back at the entrance hall where we'd put a long table meant for meetings regarding the renovation of the nameless tower. Honestly, I was going to have to think up a name for this place.

Kallista, in her wisdom, left that for me to do as well, along with a list of upkeep and renovations issues that she happily said she'd supply us materials for. She failed to mention that the materials would cost me much of the Foolhardies operation budget plus a sizeable chunk of my own savings. h.e.l.l, the newly installed double front doors alone cost us at least five-hundred Leprechauns.

Zarz, who doubled as our chief architect, insisted on pure iron for the doors, a mineral which was cheap on Mudgard but highly expensive here in the Fayne. Then he insisted that they be crafted to his specifications, three meters in height and about a foot thick.

I glanced up at the iron surface of the doors with their unfinished relief sculptures and wondered just how much more I could have saved with a simple wooden door.

"Um, Commander, were you listening?" Varda's voice sent my mind back into reality.

"What was that?" I asked.

"I said," Varda replied in a slower tone, "That there's no way we can find enough Leprechauns to pay for all these renovations Zarz thinks we need."

'I don't think, girlie, I know we need em," he said, poking at Varda's chain mail s.h.i.+rt through the new Foolhardies tabard she wore over it with his pencil. "The living s.p.a.ces aren't livable. Kitchen needs a chimney. Doors are non-existent, and don't even get me started on that broken-down wall. h.e.l.l, we might as well invite invaders up to the tower with this p.i.s.s poor showing."

Varda glanced back at me and mouthed, What a diva, right, Commander? To which I responded with a shrug and a shake of my head.

"Zarz, we're already over budget," Varda insisted. "Soon enough, we might not even have enough for basic necessities like food."

"What now?" Qwipps called from across the hall where he and some kobolds were installing luminescent stones on the walls. "What's this I hear about us not having food, Varda?!"

"Never you mind, Qwipps!" Varda called back. "Just finish installing those lights already."

Varda turned her attention back on our meeting.

"As I was saying, Commander," she glanced between me and Zarz, "we're in desperate need of more treasure… maybe you can send some troops out to raid Dominion camps around the area?"

I shook my head. "Can't… I've got Edo and Xanthor's squads patrolling our area so we don't get blindsided. Plus, we don't have permission from Garm to join combat operations here in Westmarch yet."

I glanced down at Fila who was sitting cross-legged on the table.

"Any word on that, Fila?" I asked.

He shook his head.

"None yet, sir… it's like their stone walling our application over at Western Headquarters," he piped in that spritely voice of his.

I sighed, looking over to the other two in the room. "Anyone else got any suggestions."

It was a while later, but Nike chirped a suggestion that actually had merit.

"Why not ask merchants to set up shop here, sir?" she asked, looking up at me from beside Fila with her big doe eyes. "for a profit."

I nodded slowly, an idea forming in my head. "Other than rent, we can claim sales taxes and even export and import taxes."

If I was a cartoon character, my eyes would be reflecting huge dollar signs by now. Of course, both Darah, being a dwarf, and Zarz, as an inventor and former shopkeeper himself, understood where I was coming from. And in my mind's eye, I could see that dollar sign reflected in their eyes too.

We had a quick brainstorming session where Varda and Zarz would call on their merchant contacts and see which one bit on the bait, but before we could send Nike and Fila out with the message, another crisis seemed to happen.

Xanthor Xor burst into the entry hall, his hooves spattering mud on the recently cleaned stone floor.

I cringed. Couldn't he have cleaned himself off first?

"Boss, we've got trouble!" he said, as if his sudden disheveled appearance wasn't a dead giveaway already. "Someone's coming!"

"Enemy?" I asked.

Xanthor c.o.c.ked his head to the side. "Um, I'm not sure, boss."

I raised an eyebrow. "They're either friendlies or their enemies, Xanthor."

"Well, that's the thing, boss," Xanthor said, shaking his head. "They're definitely Trickster troops but, well, they're not any units we've worked with before."

"Units?" I asked, alarm bells raised in my head. "As in more than one?"

"Yeah, boss…" he nodded profusely. "Heard of them too. Five-hundred man units with famous young commanders like you."

"Huh," I said, wondering just which of us was more famous. "Guess we should go say hi."

Then I got up from my seat and walked toward the double front doors.