“What is a long-term solution?” Anna asked.
“Getting out of the quest cycle,” said Ryan. “We just don’t know how they did it.” He looked at Matt. “Anything pop into your mind when I said that?”
The techie searched his thoughts and impressions. “No. I don’t know how we were substituted.”
“In the meantime,” began Eric, “I think we need to prepare as much as we can. After we returned to Stonehenge, we only had so much time to quiet everything down here, and we weren’t sure we’d be summoned a second time. Now we know this is ongoing. We have to train for whatever comes up. There isn’t much we can do about magic or healing, but we can all learn swordsmanship, martial arts, how to handle a knife, and just basic self-defense. How to use a bow.”
“And ride a horse,” added Ryan. “I’ve been riding for a decade, and all the stuff I do at the Renaissance Festival acting like a knight made me even better. But you guys only have basic skills. No offense. If we’re fleeing at a gallop or have to jump over even something small like a fallen tree, you’re probably falling off and getting hurt or killed.”
“Maybe I have a spell for that,” Matt joked, and they all laughed, which felt like a welcome relief from the tension. Sometimes it didn’t seem like they had much to laugh about anymore, and if this continued, which was likely, that might just get worse. He wasn’t catching up on things like TV shows he was missing episodes of, not that this was important, but that was the point to him. When were they supposed to have down time and just relax, get some escapism?
“Well,” Anna began, “I’ve always wanted to ride, so I’m game. I’m not sure I can afford it, though.”
Ryan shook his head. “No, look, I’m paying for everything we need, lessons, gear, whatever. We can’t let money get in the way. You know I’ve never used my parent’s money for much, but that’s changing. They don’t check my credit cards anyway. They may never even notice.”
“I agree,” Eric said, always practical. “We don’t have time to care about anyone’s feelings about Ryan picking up the tab, okay? We need each other and we all have to take this stuff seriously.”
Everyone agreed aloud. Like the others, Matt had never asked for anything from Ryan, whose parents were rich, but he’d never turned down something either. He wasn’t going to start now. Eric was right. He usually was.
Ryan said, “I need somewhere to send things we order online, which is probably most of it. Anna?”
Her eyebrows rose in question before falling. “Of course. Send it here. Not a lot of room, but we’ll think of something.”
“A storage unit. I’ll get on that.”
“There’s an archery range at Lake Needwood,” offered Jack. “I pass it all the time. I don’t know if they do lessons, but I can look into stuff like this, especially while you guys are gone.”
“Great. What else might we need?” Matt asked. “Gear doesn’t matter because we can’t take it with us, so it’s only stuff we can use to train ourselves.”
Eric, who worked as martial arts instructor, said, “I can teach everyone hand-to-hand fighting and self-defense. That’s an easy one.”
Matt asked, “Can you teach us at your job?”
“Good question. I think so, but that would require Ryan paying for it when that isn’t necessary. The owner wouldn’t let me teach people who aren’t paying.”
“We’ll think of something,” said Ryan. “I could teach a lot of the horseback riding, but I probably can’t unless I have my own horses and a ring. I do have a horse, just the one, but it’s stabled elsewhere, and I doubt they would let me teach there with going through some sort of approval process that we don’t have time for. Besides, it would be a job, and I would just keep disappearing, getting myself fired, so it doesn’t make any sense. I want each of you to have one-on-one lessons, but if we do lessons every day, it might also raise questions.”
“Every day?” Anna asked.
“The faster the better.”
“Okay, I can’t disagree with that. It’s just a lot.”
Matt agreed. Maybe they were getting carried away. How were they supposed to live their lives and keep jobs? And starting all of that physical training wasn’t something he was going to handle well, but he didn’t want to admit it. He had complained about physical exertion enough times to them that he felt like Eric was smirking at him even though he wasn’t.
He said, “I think we have to pace ourselves. Some of us aren’t exactly in good shape. I guess we need to change that.”
“Physical conditioning,” began Eric with a straight face. “Strength training, at least a little. I can handle some of that. We might need gym memberships or something.”
“Adding to my list,” said Ryan, typing on his phone. “There are some great gyms in the area.”
Anna suggested, “The fitness training classes I took means I can help with conditioning. We might want to start a jogging routine, for example. Get our cardio better. We will never be in control of whether we have horses or something. We might have to do a lot of walking, even running at times.”
Eric observed. “I think we need to be prepared for anything, as much as we can be.”
“You know,” began Ryan, “on the first quest, Eric and Matt knowing sign language seemed pretty useful for communicating when we needed to be quiet. How hard would it be to teach us?”
Matt nodded. He had learned it from his deaf mother and taught a curious Eric years ago. That hadn’t gone smoothly, but they’d had time, unlike now. There was no real crash course in it. They would have to work on it often. “Not hard, but it may take a long time to get good at it, and there’s no spell
