A soft hand brushed along my jawline, and I felt Lia’s comforting presence beside me. “You know, that would’ve been easier if you had let me help.”
“No, don’t worry, I’m fine,” I coughed, curling into a ball beside her. “Thanks for asking.” I sent an emergency wave of energy rushing out from my core, attempting to dampen the symptoms of the mana withdrawals that continued to grow throughout my body.
“I would be worried if we hadn’t both known this was going to happen,” she quipped, poking me gently in the temple. The playful gesture sent a spiral of pain through my head, and I weakly rolled away from the attack. “You’ll have to deal with your mana hangover on your own while Marin and I roll out the arena.”
“Mana withdrawals,” I corrected her.
She laughed. “Seems more like a hangover to me.” I felt her kiss me on the forehead and brush a stray strand of hair from my face. “Get some rest. Marin and I can handle the next part, but we’ll need you for—”
“Lux!” Marin’s excited shout rang out across the clearing, followed by the approaching thump of heavy feet. “That was incredible, Lux! The whole field just—”
“Marin, please,” I interrupted, waving in the direction of her voice, “my...head. I’ma jus...Is a bit…” I paused as my speech began to slur, and I added a second burst of mana to my recuperation efforts. “I need to rest for a bit. Lia knows what to do next.”
“Oh!” she squeaked, skidding to a halt a few feet away. “Sorry, Lux!” she whispered, still far too loud for my comfort. Lia led her away from my resting place in the dirt, leaving me in blissful silence. A minute later, I heard two heavy thumps from the pit in front of me, and while I didn’t dare open my eyes to confirm it, I knew from our planning that the process of packing down the arena floor had begun.
I half-meditated, half-dozed at the side of the pit for the following few hours as Lia and Marin steamrolled the arena floor with the largest of their downed emberwood trees. As I slowly fought past the aches and nausea of my mana withdrawals, I was able to spare a minute amount of energy to watch their progress through Detection. After the dirt had settled and been packed down by a few initial passes by the log rollers, the arena floor sat six feet below ground level, surrounded by a sheer wall of dirt and stone. While our original plans had estimated a near eight-foot perimeter wall, I was still pleased with the results: the sunken battlefield would help dampen the noise of our training as well as catch any errant spells or attacks that would otherwise endanger the surrounding forest.
Marin’s energy reserves depleted rapidly over the course of her arduous afternoon, despite earlier assertions to the contrary. Just as the sun began to disappear behind the trees, I stopped the pair as they passed by my resting place. “Marin, if you’d like to trade places, I think I can—”
“Please!” she shouted immediately, throwing her head back to let out a loud groan. “I don’t know how my arms haven’t fallen off at this point. They still might!” After a long stretch, she turned to look up at me and suddenly froze in place, scanning the edge of the arena. “I...uh, I don’t know how to get out.”
I slid to the edge of the pit and offered down an arm with a laugh. “I’ll help you out, just this once. You’ll have to find your own way out next time.”
She gladly accepted the offer and grabbed my hand with both of hers. Once she was safely raised from the arena and back on solid ground, she let out another, softer groan. “Thanks, Lux,” she said as she carefully lowered herself into a sitting position, then flopped backwards all at once, landing spread-eagle in the dirt.
“I thought you didn’t need strength training?” Lia yelled smugly from the pit.
“Stop,” Marin moaned. “I’m too tired to think of anything clever to say.”
I chuckled as I hopped down and took Marin’s spot beside Lia. My enhancements flared to life and pushed away the remaining haze over my brain while the two of us began to work. Without Marin’s depleted energy holding her back, Lia pushed ahead with renewed vigor, and the two of us raced back and forth across the field in a heated competition to cover the most ground. We finished our final pass around the arena as the sky faded from a vibrant orange to a light pink, and the forest had grown dark by the time we leapt out of the pit.
Marin was sound asleep in the same spot where she had collapsed earlier, snoring noisily in the otherwise quiet clearing. Lia managed to scoop her up without waking her, and we began our trip back home. So, what’s the plan now? Lia asked silently. Where do we go from here?
I was hoping to run through all the simple magic Marin hasn’t learned yet to see where her baseline is. Healing, Detection, Fire, that sort of stuff. I looked over at Marin’s sleeping face as we walked, still working through my plans. We need to do some combat training, too. I hope she never needs it, but she needs to learn how to fight those monsters.
How are we going to do that?
I shrugged. I’m sure I’ll figure something out.
Lia laughed, and the sudden noise roused Marin. “Oh...hi,” she said, looking up at Lia sleepily. “Are we done training now?”
“Just for today,” I answered. “Your real training starts tomorrow.”
“Real training?” she whined. “I don’t know if I can handle something more real than today.”
“You can
