Chapter 2 - Q-5

"Congratulations on succeeding on the entrance test! I'm Bastian and this girl beside me is Ivy."

Everyone from Q-5 that had made it was standing beside the Pavilion inside the test area.

Rahvin was super excited. He had finally done it! He was now to become a Guardian. But he was trying to keep a lid on the excitement and focus on the two people that had come and introduced themselves to the group.

Bastian was kind of small and lanky with a big loose fitting gray shirt with a gray cowl on top covering most of his torso with the actual hood hanging down on his back. He had chestnut unruly hair and a pair of big glasses. He looked a bit unkempt but quite friendly.

Ivy on the other hand was tall and blond and Rahvin didn't want to think it of someone he just met but she looked like a total bitch. Her mannerism was that of a person more interested in her nails then in the rabble of people in front of her. Rahvin thought that this was a totally unfair way of judging a person and told himself he would give her a chance and be less superficial in his judgement of people.

"Welcome to you new lives, we are Plebes, just like all of you are as of this moment." Ivy said. "This is the lowest possible rank for those training to become Guardians. Above that there are the Observers, they still suck at basically everything but at least they have opened their eyes enough and realized that the blindness people live in is a choice and once you decide not to be blind anymore you are raised to be an Observer."

'What was this about being blind?'. Rahvin had a hard time following what Ivy was saying, not because she was talking to fast but because she was making no sense. Ivy was continuing her monotone monolog with what seemed like little intresset.

"Above Observers there are Apprentices, at this point the Guardians have actually acknowledged the skill of the student, enough to take them on as apprentices, at this point you might be personally trained by one or two Guardians how acknowledge you potential. And after that you might become a guardian. Of course only about 12 % of the people that come here with a letter of proof make it to becoming Plebes, among the Plebes almost 50% make it too observer sooner or later but for some it may take more than a hundred years. We usually say that if you haven't managed it by 50 years you should probably give up. Observers have a success rate of becoming apprentices of about 7%, this might of course also take a while."

Bastian was looking a bit annoyed and was trying to cut in. Tough Ivy hade said all this in a monotone voice in what seemed like a single breath to Rahvin. Bastian took his chance now tough.

"Well, all that is well and good but, keep you goals small and set many of them instead. Then you can worry about making it to Guardian later. We are supposed to show you to your living quarters and give you the necessary information. Please follow us and listen with care."

Something about the way he had said the last part made Rahvin react. There seemed to be an extra punctuation on the word listen. So Rahvin followed with the group focusing a hundred percent on the groups guides.

They were led through the city for about 10 minutes until they arrived at a huge gate which had the Q-5 etched with huge letters in to the stone on the zenit of the arch of the gate. The huge doors in the gate were closed. Bastian and Ivy went up to one of the doors each and pushed them open with some effort. Inside the gate a gravel avenue lined with big oaks stretched for about 300 meters before a huge mansion appeared at the end of the avenue.

'Wha! What is this? It looks like some kind of huge estate but in the middle of the city, how does this even fit?' This day was becoming more and more confusing for Rahvin, sure this was Th'al xin but some of these things were so ridiculous.

Bastian and Ivy had opened the gates fully now and was standing in the way blocking the group from entering.

"Welcome to Q-5! This will be where you will eat, sleep and train for the foreseeing future. This is your last chance to change your mind for a while." Bastian said. "Once you enter these grounds you will not be able to leave until you manage to open these doors. I only recently managed to open these doors myself, It took me about 3 years before i finally managed to open them, but i won't lie to you, it might be decades before some of you manage to open one of these doors."

'This was crazy! How heavy were these doors? Or was it some kind of spell?' Rahvin couldn't figure it out, but it didn't matter. He had already made up his mind, this was his life now. Rahvin looked around on the others, some had the same determination that he had, among them was Thea that was standing next to him. She was not dissuaded by the prospect of being trapped for a couple decades. 'Besides, if Bastian had done it in 3 years i'll do it in 2' Rahvin thought. There where a lot of others that looked quite beet up about being imprisoned inside these walls for decades, Rahvin saw doubt in 6 people, that was a third of the group. It appeared that Q-5 had managed better than average this year if average was at 12%. There had been a 120 taking the test at Q-5 and 18 had made it. That was 15%. There were some uncertainty but none seemed to have changed their mind.

"That's great!" Bastian said. "Of course you can always quit. Once a year there is a cermony which we call the cermony of shame where you can admit defeat. One of the teachers will then help you out, but at that point you're never welcome back again… Well that's all about that, let's go!"

The group followed their guides through the avenue towards the stone mansion, the gates closing ominously behind them. Once they reached the mansion they stopped again. 'This mansion was gigantic', this close up it was hard to wrap around your head how big this was. Rahvin could not see the end of the building to either side and it looked to be about 7 floors high.

"This is where we split up" Ivy said in an uninterested tone. Girls you're with me, and the losers will continue the lame tour with this four eyes over here."

Ivy turned away and started to walk towards the right part of the building without waiting for anyone to follow. The girls all looked a bit confused for split second then hurried after Ivy. Rahvin gave a wave to Thea when she passed him and she gave him a smile back and hurried after Ivy together with the other girls. Rahvin was left standing with the boy-group. It felt kind of empty now that all the girls had gone. Rahvin hadn't realized this before but beside himself there were only six more guys and Bastian.

"Well let's go!" Bastian said and moved away towards the left side of the Mansion.

The group followed him past the massive stone stairs that led up the main entrance that was in front of the avenue. 'This mansion is freaking huge' Rahvin thought. They were passing five more entrances, some of them only a small door others big entrances, none as big as the main entrance tough. After about 400 meters they came to a wide stone stairway with only four steps leading up to two double doors wide enough to let 10 people walk trough side by side. They entered the mansion, inside in the foyer the group was meet with five halls all leading from the foyer to other parts of the mansion. Bastian lead them to the one that lead them diagonally right inwards in the mansion.

They continues through the mansion for what seemed like an eternity. 'How deep was this building?' They took a turn left, then right, then two left turns until they finally reached their destination.

"This will be your sleeping quarter for the next year" Bastian said while showing them the entrance to a big room with nine beds lined up in rows of three. Go in and drop your things one of the beds and come back out as soon as you are done.

The group started moving in through the door. The three youngest guys beside Rahvin seemed to be in a hurry to get beds along the opposite wall in the back. The other 3 guys in the group where fanning out taking the beds to the right when entering, Rahvin that had been in the back of the group and entered the room last. The 3 beds closest to the door where still free so Rahvin threw his backpack on the bed which had its foot at the entrance to the room. It still had a wall along his bed and he really didn't care that much where he slept, this was not going to be a place were he spent much time anyway.

Rahvin was first out, since his bed was so close to the door. The other guys were talking and making conversation, the 3 guys in the back were congratulating each other on getting the best bed and on. Whilst the other group of men were commenting on the softness, or rather the hardness of the madresses. After about a minute the group with the men in the second group which where somewhere between 25 and 35 years old came out whilst the first three that went into the room took a full 3 more minutes to get their shit together, Rahvin was getting a bit annoyed. He was here to become a guardian not wait on a group of 20 something year olds that wasn't taking this seriously.

Once everyone were out of the room, Bastian showed them a little bit further down the corridor and found the bathrooms and showers. Next to them a little bit further down the corridor Bastian stopped in what seemed like the middle of the corridor. He pointed to the stone wall and said:

"This is the supply-room. To get towels, and training clothes you need to enter here and get it yourselves. I'll provide you with one big and one small towel each, but after that you need to get it yourself."

Bastian started walking towards the wall and went straight thru it. To say that the confusion was high was an understatement, all of them went forward and felt the wall, it was solid.

One of the guys from group one tried to run and jump through the wall, it ended up with him hitting a very hard wall and getting some bruises.

After a few minutes Bastian come back out through the wall. With a big pile of towels. He started to hand them out to everyone.

"This wall is enchanted with a strong illusion. To get in through it you need to see through the illusion. Once inside the room you will find more doors, each door leading to a new store room containing different kind of things. One of the rooms, contain "normal clothes", this is usually the second one people try to breach, that door is not enchanted with an illusion but is enchanted by a friction spell which makes it extremely hard to open and requires immense strength to open. The other doors leads to other useful things so I encourage you to try to find out how to open them quickly."

Bastian led them back towards their room where he told them to put their towels and their things in the trunk under the bed. Once everyone was done he told them that the trunks where enchanted so that only the person who put things in them would be able to retrieve them. I'm now going to show you the way to your classroom for hand to hand combat. It's important that you try to memories the path as you will be expected to find your own way to classes as of tomorrow.

The went through the corridors the same way they had come on their way here. They went out of the mansion and backtracked to the main entrance and passed in the same direction as the girls had gone. To the right of them were tall thick evergreen thuja bushes lining up and ever so often there where a gravel path. It looked like a maze more or less. The bushes were thick enough that you couldn't see through and about 6 meters high. After walking past a few of the entrances they came across a bigger path laid with white stone tiling. That's where they entered the huge maze.

"Where is everyone?" Asked Rahvin. "I haven't seen anyone since we entered the gates beside us, surely we are not the only one that lives here."

"Most people are at different classes at the moment, that's why the halls are empty and why we haven't met anyone outside." Bastain replied.

After crisscrossing a little bit in to the maze they happened upon a opening that showed a big grass-circle. The grass here was kept short and tidy and the diameter of the grass circle was roughly 30 meters. As with anywhere in this maze the bushes lined the edges of the lawn. To the left of the entrance the girls were lined up facing the entrance talking quietly among themselves. Just ahead of the entrance Thea stood at the end of the line of girls, having a conversation with Ivy which seemed only slightly less bored then earlier. Bastian told the boys to stand in line mirroring the girls and wait for the teacher. Since Bastian was leading the way and Rahvin was walking next in line they ended up next to Ivy and Thea.

"Ivy" Bastian said and gave a nod.

"Four eyes" Ivy retorted back cool and uninterested as Rahvin had come to except.

The guys had just managed to form passable line when the Guardian from the fight in front of the statue earlier today that had kicked the stocky mans ass came walking in to the grassfield. Everyone became quiet when they saw her. She stopped a few meters in front of the line so that everyone could see her clearly.

"I'm Kaila, I will be the one in charge of your hand-combat classes."

"Thank you Ivy, Bastian. You can go back to your classes now. I except you back before this lesson is over to continue with the tour."

Bastian gave a bow and Ivy curtsied and then they walked passed Kaila and trough the entrance that they all have come from.

"Now, today we are going to begin with a quick warmup and after that you are going to show me what I have to work with. Team up in pairs with the one next to you, then run 10 laps around this lawn, once that is done we are going to do stretches in the pairs that you guys just formed. GO!"

With there being 7 guys and 11 girls total and given that Thea and Rahvin was standing where the girl-line and guy line met they paired up that suited Rahvin just fine, she was the only one he had even talked to among the plebes as of yet. The started to run the laps, a lot of the people there had no trouble running the laps, 10 laps was about a kilometer, Rahvin had trained a lot of physical training with his teacher a log with all the other subject, meditation, basic magic, math, reading and writing. Besides Rahvin had always loved running on the roofs when he lived in Seika pretending to be on adventures and feeling the excitement. You had to be quick if you were running around the roofs, the people owning the roofs did not like it very much and neither did the city guard, as according to them only thieves and other criminals had a reason to use roofs for traveling when there were streets, or so he had been told when he was younger and less quick and had been caught.

Thea was keeping up and so where the majority of the class but there was 5 people that started to lag behind. The primary group was about one and a half lap ahead of the last person when they finished. Rahvin walked around to let the blood circulation in his legs carrie away any fatigue that had built up during the run while he was waiting for the last ones to finish their laps.

"Okay class, find your partner and sit facing each other legs out. One of you put your feet against your partner's legs, take their arms in your hands and start pulling. This will help you stretch out the muscles in your inner thighs.

Rahvin and Thea met up and started to follow the instructions. Thea started to stretch Rahvin first.

Her strong hands took a proper grip of Rahvin's arms and started to pull. 'Sard! Is she trying to break my legs or something?!' Rahvin was not inflexible but he felt like she was definitely trying to hurt him, and she was STRONG. Pleadingly he looked up to meet her eyes. What he found was not what he expected though, she looked a bit frustrated and confused.

"Why are you so stiff? Are you pushing back?" Thea asked.

"Stiff? I think I'm pretty normal, tough it feels like your trying to pull my legs from my body, could you let up a little?"

Reluctantly she released the pulling a bit. It was still a bit painful but it didn't feel like we was going to get injured. Stretching for a bit, their eyes met occasionally and then one of them looked away again, feeling awkward being only decimeters from each others faces.

"Switch!" Kaila said with a firm tone.

Rahvin and Thea switched. Now thinking that he could get back on Thea for the rough treatment he took a firm grip and pulled a bit harder than he had planned to begin with. When doing so, Thea just followed stretched out, there were basically no resistance and he almost fell backwards when pulling. Thea was now in a perfect split. Not knowing what to do, Rahvin kept her in that position. Rahvin was feeling a bit awkward, he had no problem with helping stretching other people and girls, he had trained with girls before but for some reason it felt a bit intimate while doing this with Thea. The occasional looks he got from her when their eyes meet told him that maybe he wasn't the only one feeling a bit awkward.

The next exercise were to stretch out the backside of the legs and also the lower back. One were to sit with your legs in front and the other were supposed to push on the back. Rahvin was average in this group regarding flexibility so he could with help reach his feet but when it came to Thea's turn she reached around her heels and lay flat against her legs. The tension between them were now gone again, as long as they didn't have to sit in compromising positions and stare into each other's eyes everything seemed fine.

They continued to help each other to stretch out their bodys and after about 20 minutes Kaila told them to get up and start sparring. She was going to go around and get a feel for everyone today and see what level everyone was starting at to better be able to give a personalized instructions. She told everyone that if she felt that the the the pair was unevenly matched she would try to find more suitable partners and by the end of this session we would probably all be fighting against the opponent most evenly matched.

"Spread out on the lawn and start fighting on my mark, as you are all beginners today we will not allow fist blows towards the head. And it goes without saying, powers are of course allowed!"

'Powers allowed? This is going to be a lot different from the martial arts classes from back home' Rahvin had not been nervous about this part. He had been among the best in his old class. Now he was a bit more insecure. All he could do was to make some light, how was that going to help him in combat? As he and Thea walked through the lawn to get a spot where they could fight without being interrupted by another fight, thought about what he knew about Thea's magic. She had some spell that made her freakishly flexible. That could be used as an advantage in combat, but it was not like he was meeting the guy with the fire-hands. That would be alot worse he decided. Maybe this wouldn't be that bad after all.

As they were walking towards the other side of the lawn, people started their fights. Some were good, others not so much. Rahvin took one last peak at the guy with the fire-hands. He was currently using some boxing style with his red hot fists. His opponent dodged and blocked his punches with his own fists and didn't seem phased by the fact that he was blocking hands that probably was around 180 °C. That guys hands seemed to look much paler than the rest of his body. Rahvin couldn't really see that good from where they were and it was time to focus on his own fight.

As Rahvin was accustomed to he made a respectful bow towards his opponent, but before he had finished he saw Thea approach with quickness and he just managed to dodge the punch that was coming for his head.

A little bit unsteady on his footing still he tried to create some distance between him and Thea to get time to compose himself. That seemed futile tough, Thea was relentless in her assault. Punches and kicks came flying from everywhere so it wasn't until Rahvin had been pushed back about 10 meters until he finally managed to regain some form of equilibrium and could now start to focus on how to go on the offensive for the first time.

There where a temporary reprieve in the pomelling that Thea had disshed out, she had recognized the shift in Rahvin and were now watching Rahvin cautiously as they circled each other. Both of them tested the ground with a few kicks and punches, not really trying to hit, just gauging the reaction of the opponent. They seemed to be quite equal in reflex and technique.

Rahvin saw an opening and went with a wiping kick towards her leg with his front leg. Thea dodged back and then jumped back to the same distance. This was getting nowhere, someone had to commit and risk getting kicked or punched. Before Rahvin found a good opportunity Thea came at him with one of those quick flurys of punches designed to overwhelm the guard Rahvin held. Trying to catch her off guard Rahvin quickly dodged in under her right arm when she extended a punch a little bit to much and tried to land a open hand hit on the side of her face, Rahvin was sure he was going to hit so imagine his surprise when all he hit was air and a split second later he felt something hit him in the back of the head.

Thea had bent her upper body in an impossible 90 degree bend at the hip to the side which obviously would be impossible for normal anatomy and whilst doing this she had somehow managed to kick him in the back of his head. It was not a hard kick but it was confusing nonetheless.

Their fight continued and the fighting became more and more intense while Rahvin frutlessley tried to get a punch or kick in on Thea but it was like trying to hit a waterfall, no matter how quick you are, it's always the waterfall that hits you in the end. Though Rahvin wasn't making it easy for Thea either. They were both panting and sweating profusely whilst still fighting like two crazed animals. Both of them were so focused that time were no longer something that had meaning to them, they didn't know if it had gone five minutes or five hours, the fight was everything.

Rahvin still hadn't gotten a single hit on Thea but she had gotten in more than 20 and it was starting show on Rahvin's face and probably all over the rest of his body too. That's when Rahvin finally in his desperation to atleast get in one hit got a desperate idé. He summoned his magical powers while dodging a series of kicks. He waited for the right moment and after a few more kicks from Thea he found it. He threw a punch with his left hand towards her face and pushed as much of his magic as he could in his left hand, a brilliant white light shot out of his hand at the same moment as Thea blocked the punch. But the punch had only been a feint. It was very bright so he could no longer see Thea very good but he knew where his target where. Rahvin used his right fist and punched as quickly as he could towards her now exposed stomach still with his brilliantly radiating left hand up close to her face. And… his right fist made contact with her stomach. It was not a very heavy punch, more focus on being quick though it was well placed. As it connected with her solar plexus she stumbled backwards and landed on her bum gasping for air.

Rahvin heard clapping too his left. This was the first time the both he and Thea have had any time to actually look up from the fight, a moment's lapse in concentration had surely meant getting hit in the head before. As both of them looked up and around the found the class had apparently stopped their training. They were now all standing and looking at them. Kalia stopped her slow clapping and said:

"The class ended 5 minutes ago, but you two didn't seem to hear the signal and you looked so determined that I didn't have to heart to stop you two. And to be honest, I were interested to see if you ever were going to get a hit in on her they way she's been pommeling your face and torso these past two hours." she said while shooting Rahvin a meaningful look.

The other student were now standing in a lot different couples than Rahvin remembered. There were now a lot of pairs that were one boy and one girl. And everyone had basically changed partner beside the fire-fist dude and his partner Rahvin noticed. Even Ivy and Bastian were there.

Rahvin's cheeks grew a bit red, he was a bit ashamed over being so focused on the fight he hadn't even listen to the guardians instructions.

"Well, that's it for today, now you have time for a quick shower before meal-time so get going! Ivy and Bastian will show you the way." Kalia said.

Everyone started to turn and move towards the opening out to the stone path. Rahvin stretched out his hand towards Thea who was still sitting on the grass, she too seemed to have a little extra red in her sheeks, or was that from the fighting? He helped her up and asked:

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine. Tough I think it's more appropriate if I ask since I apparently spent the last 2 hours kicking your but." Thea replied with a glint in her eyes.

"Haha, sure I'm fine. Tough I'm pretty sure it's the last hit that counts." Rahvin said while trying to ignore the bruises that was forming all over his body.

They continued the banter as they followed the group until it was time to walk separate ways to get to get to the showers and their dormitory.

§

After taking a quick shower, changing clothes to his second set of clothes Rahvin waited for the other boys to get ready before they started to move back through the halls to get outside and go towards the main entrance of the building where they would meet up with the girls, Ivy and Bastian.

There where a lot of chatter and discussion amongst the other boys but Rahvin did not really participate. There were a few of them that commented on his fight with Thea, he answered politely but felt a bit out of place with these guys.

They had some time to talk a bit more during the showers and when changing into new clothes. Everybody introduced themselves. The young guys, that's how Rahvin thought about them even though he was about three to eight years younger than them, were Simon, Peter and Robert.

Simon was 21 years old, the youngest beside Rahvin and also the loudest of the group. Peter was 24 and Robert were 25.

The older guys were Frans, John and Nima. Frans was the Fire-fist guy he were 33 years old. His opponent earlier that day had been John, he were 30 years old. That white that Rahvin had seen earlier during the fight around John's hands had been Ice, he could apparently make his hands super cold.

That left the last guy Nima who were 32, he were even more quiet than Rahvin so he were the mysterious guy in the group, at least if you listened to the nonstop nonsens that were spouting from Simon's mouth.

The group were talking mostly about the fights from that afternoon and Rahvin listened with interest while they waited for the girls and their guides to show up in front of the main entrance. There were people passing them entering the main entrance from both left and right. Ivy showed up just two minutes after them and Bastian came walking a minute later. After waiting about 10 more minutes the girls showed up as a collected troup. The two groups greeted each other and friendships that had started spouting during the training today made the two groups that was separated by different dormitories meld in to one again.

Now that everyone were here it was finally time to go to the dining hall. They walked up the massive stone stairs and in through the massive entrance. Inside were a insanely huge hall. The hall were filled with long tables in wood each table big enough to house about a hundred people. Rahvin tried to estimate the size of the hall, it was about 500 meters deep and maybe 800 meters wide. Bastian and Ivy guided them along the tables and then to the right and to a spiral staircase. Rahvin hadn't noticed the staircase that was in the middle of the room, he had been busy trying to grasp the sheer lunacy of this huge hall. Now he looked up to see where this staircase went. It went straight up to a platform that which only visible connection to anything else was the staircase. There were no way those stairs was holding up that huge platform. Now Rahvin took a look around the air and there were platforms floating everywhere at different levels in the air. Some were connected to each other by bridges or stairs while others were connected to the ground by stairs.

"How are those platforms even possible?" Rahvin whispered more to himself then anyone else. Thea that were next to him answered him in a equally amazed whisper.

"I don't know!"

Ivy that were just ahead of them turned her head and said:

"Those platforms are built with a lot of floatstones embedded. Floatstones are a magically created material that have properties that make it float and it can carry about a hundred times its mass without falling. Well the exact mass ratio depends on the quality but these are of superb quality so they can handle about that much."

They traveled up the staircase to the platform which were about 10 meters above the floor and found five tables on the platform, four of them going parallel with about 30 seats at each and one on the other end of the platform with people sitting facing the other four tables.

Bastian and Ivy walked to the nearest table to the left which were one of two empty tables on this platform and went up on each side of the table with the guys following Bastian and the girls following Ivy which had kind of become a habit by this time. They sat down at the table which for some reason already had food on it. There were alot of different kinds of food on platters and it looked delicious. Everyone started to dig in on the food, hungry from the long and exciting day. Rahvin had ended up next to Bastian who sat at the end of the table and Thea were sitting across from him. She turned to Ivy and asked in amazement:

"How come the food is warm, how could they know that we were coming now? The food must have been served just before we got here to be this hot?"

"The food was probably placed here an hour ago. There are spells that keep the food from becoming cold." Ivy responded.

Conversations were striking up all across the table, the shock from the dining hall, the platform and everything else quickly died down and amazement over the varied and delicious food dominated the conversations at first.

Thea and Rahvin had a golden opportunity tough since they were sitting next to the two guides and started asking about life at the Q-5 mansion and the training to become Guardians. After a while Thea asked if they could explain more in detail how you became a Observer and what you needed to do to get there.

"The "genius" over there can tell you" Ivy said with a exasperated tone while making overdramatically quotation marks in the air with her fingers when saying the word genius.

"Don't try to goude me in to breaking the rules Ivy." Bastian said with a placid voice. "We are unfortunately not allowed to tell you, you are supposed to find the answers for yourself. Apply yourself and do your best and i'm sure it will go in a flash." he said to Thea in an equally placid voice.

The conversations continued and Rahvin and Thea had a great time chatting with Bastian and Ivy, they were two really nice people. Sure Ivy could be a bit stingy and bitter but if you engaged her in a subject that she was interested in she seemed to forget about being bitter for a while and could engage in the subject wholeheartedly.

They got to know more about each other, all four of the. Rahvin told them a little bit about his old life in the city. About his parents who owned a tavern in the city, how he helped them during the evenings when there where a lot of customers. How they had been quite rich for being tavern owners and had the possibility to put Rahvin in schooling during the days. How he had been taught in the class his teacher held. And about his dream to become a Guardian.

Thea told them about her Village that had 86 inhabitants. She told them about her family that consisted of her parents, two younger brothers and her older sister. She had been trained by her mother in combat and magic. She seemed finished with her short introduction there so no one asked more questions, instead they passed to Ivy that mostly told them about her life here at Q-5. It seemed like Ivy had been at Q-5 for about 10 years and she was soon qualified to becoming an Observer. She also shared that she missed her little sister and parents which she hadn't seen for 10 years.

Bastian had apparently only been at Q-5 for about 3 years and had in that time also managed to make huge advancements during that time and was probably also soon qualified to become a Observer. He were a only child of a lesser noble in a neighbouring county. His mother had died when he was young and his father had been a man of few word. His family had been hit by hard times and thus they had no servants and it had only been himself and his father at the small mansion. It had been a lonely life and even tough Bastian loved his father he didn't miss his old life.

Everyone at the table seemed to be having a jolly time and after what seemed way to soon everyone had eaten until they could eat no more. It was time to go. Apparently there where one last stop in the tour that the guides would show them.

The left the dining hall using a couple of big wood doors that led them in the direction of the boys dormitory. The doors were located on what Rahvin approximated to be the third floor, they had to take the stairs up to a platform and from that platform take a wooden hangbridge which felt stable enough, it was wide enough for 4 people to stand in a row so there were not really that big of a risk that you would fall off. Even if that was the case, there were still a few in the group that fussed a bit about it and tried to walk in the middle of the bridge.

They walked through corridors and changed direction at least a few times. After a few minutes they came to their destination. They entered a big cosy 5 walled room. It had a hearth in the middle of each of the five walls. There were sofas and tables in groups across the room and really cosy carpets were covering the floor.

People were slouching in the sofas, talking and relaxing. Some were playing games, some of the games looked like games Rahvin had played before, some games were obviously magical.

"This is one of the spaces people hang out after the activities of the days are done. Here we relax, gossip, play games and a lot of other stuff." Bastian said.

"This is the end of the line of our tour. Now go, relax and have some fun! See you around!" Ivy said, and with that she turned away and walked to a group of people she seemed to know and threw herself on a sofa. She were greeted by the others around that table and it looked like they were enjoying eachothers company.

Bastian also bid them good night and walked away to small group of 3 people.

People from their group started to follow Bastian and Ivys example and so did Rahvin and Thea who together with two girls from their group and Nima took residence around a small table with five comfy armchairs. Rahvin got introduced to the two girls, Isa and Jehana. Nima apparently already knew them from training earlier. Thea and Nima got introduced as well.

The spent a pleasant time together and talked about their hope and dreams. About the craziness of the day and about the other people in the class. At one point Isa pointed out a few couples that were making out around the room and said something about it would be nice to find love in here if you were going to spend decades here.

After about two hours tiredness had crept up on the group. No one wanted this amazing day to end so they had all tried to ignore the tiredness and stay up and talk. The exiting day had taken its toll on the group and finally the first of them cracked. Nima said he was tired and that he was going to retire for the day. The group all agreed that it was time and tiredly they went out of the room using the same door they had used to enter.

While walking here Bastian and Ivy had told them that hey should backtrack until they reached the first stairs going up, take that flight of stairs up and then walk left until they saw an exit.

The group followed the directions and to their surprise they found themselves walking out at ground level.

"There is something strange about this mansion…" said Rahvin. "I'm sure we were on at least the fourth floor."

"A mystery for another day!" Jehana yawned.

They bid each other good night and the boys and the girls went separate ways towards their own dormitories.

§

Rahvin lay on his bed and went through the crazy first day he had spent in Th'al Xin, the city of legends. It was hard to believe that all that had happened in one day. It was also hard to understand that all of it actually had happened. He didn't want to go to sleep, he was afraid that if he did, he might wake up and realize that all of this had been a dream. After a while the exhaustion overtook him and he drifted away in to sleep. The last thought he had before darkness took him were as so often about his brother. 'Just watch me Ace, I will avenge you!'