Dungeons and Dalliances

2.01 – Facility

Finally, the first real day begun.

Tenet’s training facility was an enormous, sprawling structure, the largest of any Natalie had seen so far. Which made sense. Tenet was, at its core, a combat academy. So this structure—the training facility—was the cornerstone of Tenet: where students learned how to maximize their abilities and survive in the brutal kinds of life-and-death combat that pervaded dungeoneering.

The grounds sprawled much past the facility, too. Natalie and Jordan passed students in a variety of routines: spars, warm ups, conditioning, or whatever else.

The upperclassmen were easy to spot, and not just because of the distinguishing badge affixed to their right shoulder: black, for ‘fourth year’, where Natalie and Jordan wore green for ‘first’. They moved in a blur, faster than Natalie’s eyes could track … and fought inside reinforced sparring rings, where shimmering magical shields rebuffed their attacks with sparkling fanfare. Natalie could feel the impacts of their blows, even if she couldn’t see all of them, with how fast they moved.

That kind of strength was what awaited Natalie, assuming she made it to Tenet’s upper years. It was hard to wrap her head around. Each of their blows could probably bend metal. Natalie didn’t know how hard it was to make those defensive shields tremble, but some of the combatants were doing just that.

Inside the training facility, she and Jordan beelined for the map. They weren’t the only first-semester student there: a small crowd huddled around the board, either looking for their destination, or inspecting what sorts of equipment were available to them. The first portion of the morning was theirs to do with as they wanted. Combat classes started at nine thirty.

As first years, many of the facilities were closed off to them. Tenet’s resources were vast, but not unlimited. Most of the groundbreaking facilities were reserved for the upperclassmen—though lower-year students could schedule their usage during specific hours. But walk-in usage during morning training was reserved for the students who had earned it.

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Natalie was interested in using some of the fancier equipment and facilities. There was, apparently, a room that actually simulated dungeon monsters. How, she hadn’t a clue—but it was apparently realistic, and hosted a whole variety of common monsters. She doubted she’d get to use it any time soon. It was one of the more premier tools, and the upper years had priority.

“Heading to the mage hall?” Jordan asked.

“Yeah,” Natalie said, somewhat reluctantly. She didn’t have much choice, there.

She’d rather join Jordan in a physical training routine, but it was clear as day that wasn’t the aspect of her class she needed to improve. Her [Illusion] spell needed practice more than anything else. And spellcasting fundamentals in general, assuming she would receive others spells in the future. Seeing how she’d gotten one at level one, that seemed safe to assume.

Having memorized their destinations, she and Jordan split up. Natalie walked through twisting halls, peering in through glass windows at students in various stages and intensity of their warm-up or training regiments.

Arriving at the mage section of the building, Natalie leaned against the receptionist desk.

“Hey,” she said. “There’s like, lessons, right?”

“There’s a board over there,” the receptionist—a name-tag identified him as Rodger—said. “But I can help you.” He slid over a clipboard and flipped through it. “What level are you?”

Natalie’s first thought was that he meant the question literally, which would’ve been an oddly intimate question, even knowing Natalie was a freshman and almost certainly level one. Levels just weren’t talked about in specific terms, most of the time. But she realized a second later he meant the question in the general sense.

“Uh, beginner,” Natalie said. “Like … I didn’t expect to get a class that used magic. Starting off from scratch.”

Rodger gave her a sympathetic look. “Happens more than you’d think. Let’s see … we have two student instructors for beginners. Silas and Tess.”

No faculty-level instructors, only volunteer students. That made sense. Real instructors would be leading classes for higher level training sessions, where their talents were better suited. Natalie didn’t need world-class instruction for the bare-bone basics.

“Tess?” Natalie asked, picking, naturally, the girl’s name.

“Outside,” Rodger said. “Pad twelve.” Then, looking up and seeing Natalie’s blank face, he said, “Out that door, all the way down, into the courtyard. There’s sixteen pads in a big grid. She’ll be on number twelve.”

“Gotcha,” Natalie said, tapping the desk. “Thanks.”

“Have a nice work out,” he said idly.

Outside, the air was chilly, biting into her. She’d forgotten, having warmed up in the facility’s heated interior. Still, not uncomfortably so, just enough Natalie rubbed her hands together absently. She preferred when it was cool out—kept her focused, and was better for training, so she wasn’t sweating up a storm.

Which still mattered for mage training. It had a similar effect on the body as physical effort did, though not as pronounced.

As Rodger had said, the outside courtyard—one of many—was arranged in a huge grid of four rows of four concrete pads. The scale of the training facility really was impressive, even for Tenet’s standards.

She found her way to block twelve. There were a few students gathered there, already.

Like usual, she could tell a group of mages. Mages had a tendency to seem frail when stacked up against their tank and fighter counterparts. And they lacked the lean musculature of a rogue, too. The flimsiest looking role by a significant margin, besides maybe healers.

A spindly-looking girl was the worst of the bunch; she looked like she’d blow away with the wind. Natalie’s biceps might be bigger than her thighs, and Natalie wasn’t especially bulky. More so than most girls, obviously, having grown up fighting and training till she was exhausted, day in and day out, but she was, ultimately, still a girl. It was hard to pack on the same amount of muscle boys could.

That gender disparity vanished quickly as a person leveled up, and muscles mattered less … but the gap existed as a level one. She was looking forward to it not. It wouldn’t take long. Only a few levels, even—by three or four, the difference would have disappeared entirely.

There were two students of the collected eight that didn’t have the typical ‘academic’ look of a mage. Likely, they were the ones in Natalie’s situation. Though, it made Natalie wonder why the mage-looking students were in the beginner’s course, without her excuse? Natalie sucked at magic, but she was good in a fight. For any number of reasons, she guessed. Everyone had a story.

Tess—the student instructor—arrived sharply at 8:00.