Children of the First

Okay, here's the new chapter. I don't know when the next one will be, but I'm going to try to get a little writing done tonight, since I'll be up. I woke up at 8pm today and have to reset my sleep schedule, so that's fun. I also have to find another job this week (see Donation Beg), so that may forestall the next chapter. We shall see.

Jarn wouldn’t stop running until we’d reached the dull granite stairs that lead up to the main gymnasium.

“Is anyone else beginning to see a pattern here?” I puffed, still out of breath from the run. “Jarn gets excited and takes off running, Roo yells at him to calm down, and we all end up chasing after him like idiots.”

“What’s your point?” Jarn grinned. “Besides, you lot could use a bit o’ exercise.”

He had a point; while Retis, Roo and I lay on the steps and gasped for air, Jarn was absentmindedly pulling handsprings on the sidewalk.

“Sorry not all of us can sprint a mile, you spring-loaded little freak,” Retis retorted.

Jarn grinned at him and did a back-flip, grinning even wider after his effortless landing.

“Seriously though,” I said. “All we need now is Feral and the rock girl, and this would be last night all over again.”

“Oh please, I’m way more fun than she is,” said a voice behind my head.

“Gaia fuck!” I shouted, and was on my feet before I realized who it was. I felt like an idiot until I saw that the other three had been just as startled as I was.

“Gai, Pebbles, don’t sneak up on me like that. You nearly gave me a heart attack,” I said.

“I didn’t sneak up on you, stupid, you practically put your head in my lap when you sat down,” the tall, grey Glimpse replied. “Not that I’m not flattered and all, but I just don’t see it working out. I mean, you’re a freshman, for Gaia’s sake.” She smiled... at least I think she did…

She did the thing with her mouth that I had interpreted as a smile.

I stuck out my bottom lip. “I guess I understand,” I sniffed. “I’ll try to move on.”

Pebbles laughed that gravel-gargling laugh. “So what brings you fine young squishies to the gym today?” If she had eyebrows, she would have arched one.

“Tryin’ t’get some scram in before tryouts. You?” Roo said.

“I was supposed to be meeting Derrick here for some extra practice time, but he hasn’t shown up so far. Mind if I join you? Make it a full five-man squad?”

“No, we’d rather not practice with the captain of the scram team,” I said. “That would be just dreadful.”

As we walked up the steps, Roo asked Pebbles if she thought we’d have to wait long for a room.

“I think we’ll be okay,” she said with a smile.

When we got to the gym’s front desk, none of us knew exactly what to do—well, except for Pebbles, so she did the talking.

“Hi there,” she said. The Wood Elf girl behind the counter looked up but didn’t say anything, preferring to concentrate all her energy on looking supremely bored.

“We’d like a scram room, please,” Pebbles said, completely unperturbed.

“Oh, uh… right.” The girl managed to snap herself back to reality when it was her turn to take part in the exchange. “What kind of terrain would you like?” she asked.

“How’s Deciduous Forest” sound to you guys?” Pebbles asked. None of us had any clue, so we just shrugged or smiled and shook our heads—the international sign for ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’

“DF basic then?” the girl asked. Without waiting for an answer, she produced a smooth square key with DF-B etched into it. “Will you be needing any gear today?”

We declined the near-fermenting public scram gear, and Pebbles led the way to the scram rooms. Well, room, I should say… There was only one door in any case, which is part of why it had amused Pebbles that we had worried about getting a room.

“There are one hundred forty-four unique scram fields in here,” she said. “They were a gift from one of the alumni. Apparently it took a master thaumaturge working with a really powerful druid to build natural settings on other planes of existence.”

Pebbles inserted the key and opened the door. It seemed like something had gone wrong—I couldn’t see anything but black in there. Pebbles ducked through the doorway and was gone. A few seconds later she stuck her head back out. “You guys coming or what?” she asked. I took a deep breath and stepped inside.

I suddenly found myself in the judge’s box overlooking a beautiful scram field. The low-hanging trees gave way to a clearing in the center of the three-acre pitch. I watched as a breeze blew waves through the long grass, like ripples in a pond. I was so entranced that I almost didn’t see Roo appear next to me.

“Mother of All,” he breathed. “That’s incredible.”

We had just been expecting a little obstacle course that simulated the outdoor fields, but this was awesome.

The other two had similar reactions, though Jarn only looked for a second before his patience wore out. He let out a whoop as he jumped over the railing—completely ignoring the box’s retractable ladder—and made a beeline for the trees. I was a little surprised he had jumped like that—I mean, I know he’s a Gibri, but we were at least thirty feet off the ground.

Roo just rolled his eyes, but Retis looked a little shaken. “I didn’t know he could do that,” he said quietly.

“Oh, he’s just showing off—probably stung his feet a bit when he landed,” Roo said, following Pebbles down the metal ladder.

Retis and I hung back for a minute, watching Jarn jump onto the closest tree and clamber into the branches. A second later, he was standing on one of the highest branches, apparently enjoying the breeze.

We watched as he leapt ten or fifteen feet to catch a low branch on the next tree and fling himself back into the air. He swung from tree to tree so fast that he barely seemed to touch the branches—if he was trying to show off, then it was working.

“Can all Gibri move like that?” Retis asked after Jarn threw a back flip into a particularly long jump.

I shook my head. “None that I’ve ever known. Not that fast, anyhow.”

There had been Gibri on my high school scram team, but none of them had been able to move like this. I could see why he had been excited to get here; as much as I thought of scram as "my thing," Jarn was made for it.

“Okay,” Pebbles said once we were all on the ground. “The basic idea of scram is—Oh, sorry, did you want to explain it, Shawn?”

I looked at Retis, but couldn’t get anything from his expression so I said no. “You’re the captain,” I said, “I’m sure you’ll do a much better job of it than I would.”

She smiled and turned to Retis, “So the basic idea is to reach the defending team’s tower and hit the button at the top before time runs out. Each side gets one forty-five minute round to attack while the other defends.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Retis said.

“It would be,” Roo agreed, “if there weren’t six thousand feet of forest and five defenders between you and the tower.”

“Right,” Pebbles continued. “There’re five people to a squad; all five defend, but you can only use three of them for offense.”

“Why’re we even trying out if there’re only five people on the team?” Retis asked in disbelief.

“There are only five people on each squad,” she said, drawing the word out for emphasis. “The team can be as big as you want, but matches are played between single squads. Now then, why don’t you all gear up before I explain combat and such? I assume you have bands in that bag, Shawn?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah.” I had completely forgotten I was carrying it. “Along with our gauntlets and clothes…” A thought occurred to me, “Ah, shit, we forgot to get changed before we came in here.”

“Well I’m not waiting for you to go all the way out to the locker room,” Pebbles said with her hand on her hip.

I hesitated, not sure if she was joking or not. “So modest!” she laughed. “Relax, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” When I still didn’t move, she added, “Come on now, I don’t have all day.”

Retis just shrugged, so I opened the bag and took out our clothes. I hastily pulled my shirt over my head and stuffed it in the bag.

“Mmhmm,” Pebbles teased. “That’s what mama likes to see.”

I was blushing like mad by the time I got my kettle-deer stuff on, and Pebbles was laughing at us.

“See? That wasn’t so hard,” she giggled. “Was it?”

“You know, you could have just gone behind a tree,” Roo said.

I smacked my forehead. “Shit,” I said. “I didn’t even think of that.”

“And what fun would that be?” Pebbles added. “Alright, now that you’re done stripping, we can move on. The armbands show what team you’re on, but they also show when you’re ‘dead.’ If you get hit and pronounced ‘dead,’ the band will glow bright white and you’ll have to leave the field.”

“If you kill someone while defending, it’s worth two points. When you’re attacking, you can only get points by hitting the other team’s button and ending the round—that’s worth five points, got it?”

“I think so,” Retis said.

“Good, then Shawn can explain the gloves to you while I get a little warm-up in.” With that, she turned and loped off across the clearing.

“I’m gonna go see if I can find Jarn,” Roo said. “Meet you back here in a bit.”

We watched them disappear into the trees before turning back to the equipment.

“These are the gauntlets,” I said, holding up the two scram gloves I owned. “Everyone gets one, with three spells for offense and three for defense, which you pick ahead of time. The bronze claw’s mine,” I told him. “You can use the standard gauntlet until you figure out what works best for you.”

“Does it matter what kind you use?” Retis asked, looking at the two styles in my hand.

“Yes and no,” I said. “A shitty scrambler isn’t going to beat a guy who knows what he’s doing, no matter what they have on their hands.” Pebbles had explained the game pretty well, but I was enjoying showing off how much I knew.

“Still, a good glove always helps. Some won’t be able to do a certain type of spell very well, or even at all, and every glove has its own strengths and weaknesses. In general though, it’s not how much your glove cost, but how well it fits your style.”

I handed him my spare glove and wrestled the claw’s long black sleeve over my forearm.

“Why’s yours so much tighter than this one?” Retis flexed his fingers inside the heavy steel gauntlet. “It doesn’t look very comfortable,” he said.

“I can barely feel it once it’s on,” I told him. “Claws have to be longer and tighter than other ones so they won’t slip. See how yours has plate all the way around except for the palm? Mine doesn’t.” I held up my hand to show him the back of the glove—one light plate covering six inches of my forearm, and one on the back of my hand with four bronze talons arching forward over my knuckles.

“If yours wiggles around some it’s okay, but I’ll be slashing with mine, and if it moves around it’ll screw up the alignment,” I told him. “Casting spells is basically the same, except you have to gesture with the glove—I do a slashing motion, which works well with the claw, but you’ll have to figure out what works for you.”

“Oh, and one more thing,” I added. “The gloves draw on your energy, so you won’t be able to do anything beyond your power, and you can drain yourself pretty bad if you’re not careful.”

“Gotcha, no launching fireballs willy-nilly,” Retis nodded.

“Right,” I smiled. “Now lets go find those tree-dwelling idiots and Pebbles McPervert.”

“Hey!” shouted a rock a few feet away. I almost jumped out of my skin.

“Gai-damnit Pebbles, stop doing that!”

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Chapters, CotF Main Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.