Chapter 12

The guard came back in the evening when the sun had set and asked him to follow. They ignored Kuln. They brought him to a small courtyard with tables, and everyone was eating. It looked almost normal, but Kuln had told him this was just like your last death meal. He saw Ryla sitting with the brother and hurried to her.

"Are you all right?" they both asked at the same time.

"Yeah, I was more worried about you," Said Ryla. She then went on a rant telling him all the things about what she had found out. He had heard about most of them, Ryla had found out for herself how horrible this place was. The three brothers looked calmer than their previous selves, the atmosphere had affected them. Ash then looked around for the Amazons, they were sitting at a corner table talking among themselves.

"I thought of asking them first since they are the only females here, but they seemed reserved, so I did not bother," said Ryla.

"Still we need to get out of here, and we would need some help for doing that, come on" They got up and moved toward their table.

The girl Ash had helped before saw him approaching first, she seemed surprised at first, she must have not seen the morning scuffle.

Ash was now standing right in front of her, but he could not think of how to start the conversation.

"I don't know if you remember me" he started.

"I do and I do not' she said "but what's important is I don't care".

Ash wasn't deterred by her answer for some reason. "And I came all the way here to meet you."

She looked up at that with raised eyebrows.

"That would be the worst mistake of your life then' said she.

"No I am sure, it won't be the worst' he said.

"Look, whatever you want, whatever alliance you want to form, we are not interested," she said.

"Ah, I just wanted to introduce myself, since we won't be here for long and I think we are already in alliance, even if you do not accept it" he said.

"I am Ash, this is Ryla" he waited for her introduction. The blonde sitting beside her was surprised when she spoke up.

"I am Gwen, this is Lucy, Maya, Susan, Elli, and Sasha" Gwen introduced themselves.

"Gwen, we'll see you around, let's talk later," said Ash and they left.

"That wasn't much," said Ryla.

"Give them time, I think there might be a reason why they keep to themselves; they did not seem like the loner types to me."

Over on the other side, Lucy said to Gwen.

"Could you please tell me why you answered him? And what did he mean when he asked if you remembered him."

"Nothing, and what's the harm in exchanging names" Gwen replied.

"You know we can't trust them, and there is no point in making unnecessary friendships in this place," said Lucy.

"I know, but we can't stop talking to people now, again there is no harm in talking to someone," Gwen said looking at Ash's back.

They were given cells like the basement and Ryla was with Ash, it was dark soon, and they fell asleep soon.

"Get up, get up, the lot of you, it's time for training" Grey was back again and woke them up and took them outside.

"Did you train yesterday?" he asked Ryla.

"Yeah, I did, I know it seems like accepting defeat, but you saw what happened in the game last time; I trained with the brothers. They taught me some of their tricks, and I taught them ours."

"I understand," said Ash.

The groups were divided again. Grey was moving among them, throwing insults and messing with people. Ash had no idea where to start, he knew a small amount of swordsmanship but the way most people here were fighting, he wasn't near their level. After a little bit of practicing with Ryla, he slipped away to go and see Kuln.

He was at the same place as he was yesterday.

"What are you doing here? You should be training," Kuln said on seeing him.

"Three days are not going to make any difference" he muttered and sat down. He took out the hilt of the dagger and wondered if it absorbed his own blood, and what abilities would it have.

"What's that in your hand?" Kuln spoke up suddenly.

"Oh, it, its a dagger, only the hilt though, it's magical" Ash began explaining.

"That's a blood dagger, isn't it?"

"How did you know?"

"I can feel its magic."

"How can you feel magic?" Ash asked, but Kuln didn't answer and kept staring in empty space.

"Come here boy," then he spoke up suddenly.

"Why?"

"You want to learn how the Knights get powerful right?" he replied.

Ash moved closer, and Kuln started whispering.

"We don't tell our secret to just anyone so that it doesn't get into the wrong hands, any way you have to start young to learn it properly, not when you are already an adult, but nevertheless you might learn something, and that dagger might help" Ash was listening closely now.

"It's a simple process really, anyone can start practicing it on their own but the thing is most people don't realize it, even when they do it unintentionally, our brain is a powerful thing boy, we don't use even half of it, it provides you more than one ways to look at the world, you have to train it to turn off the logical part and use the subconscious, we do it when we are dreaming, or when we are really focused on a single talk, we block out other information, other sounds, but that's just our normal brain shutting down and that's when the other part takes over"

"But how do I do it?"

"There are some exercises, but it takes years; you have to start young; right now you have too many thoughts in your head, but with the dagger, I believe you can experience the sensation, and then it would be easier for you to learn, it will kickstart the process, its just about practice than."

"So if I stick a Knight with this dagger, the only thing I'll get is a meditation technique," Ash said sarcastically.

"Yes, its more powerful than you think, and a Knight is obviously incomplete without his sword, every Knight is given a special sword that is taken out of an ancient umm portal or something, I have never seen it actually, only the top handful of Knights know about it, If you survive here and if you get better at it, you can try becoming an official knight, either they'll kill you on the spot or maybe accept you, don't tell them about me by name, you can say an old forgotten Knight taught you the method, every Knight is supposed to have a mentee by the end of his lifetime, its kind of like a debt owed to the organization"

Ash processed all the information, before realizing the main problem.

"It doesn't matter, I am not going to stick you with a blade"

"You won't have to" and then Kuln removed his cover, and Ash saw he was bleeding from a wound.

"It's my punishment, they are bleeding me to death, it's a black magic wound that won't close, so you see it would be best if some of my blood can finally be put to some good use, I'll feel like finally, I have lived a little bit like a knight, My father was really proud you know when he heard I was going to become a knight, he came to the academy every year to see me, I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye, The worst thought about all this was that what would have happened of my family, I even had a wife, but she was young, we were not in love, she must have remarried"

Ash didn't know what to do with all this information, using his blood seemed even more selfish now.

"What was your name?"

"Hmm, Kuln Norse Gerard," Kuln smiled "I hadn't said that in a long time, I was worried I had forgotten it, all right come on now, boy, no point in wasting it, don't look like that, it's not your fault, and don't worry I am not giving you all my blood, I would love to see this big escape of yours, and If you pull it off I'll know I did the right thing, you would have given a little peace in my last moments" Kuln took the hilt from him and put it to the wound within seconds, it was up to its original length after a few seconds he removed it "there that should last you a couple of minutes".