Mantle of the Gods

Soak was a tame term.

Submerged was more like what happened. The marble released an impossibly large amount of water. By the look in her red eyes as she flung the covers off I guessed that it was cold water as well. Her entire bed was soaked all the way through her sheets and her jumpsuit. She glared at me. “You're dead.”

I held up my hands. “Class is outside and you're late.” I began to back up. “The teacher told me to do it.”

“Oh, so you're the teacher's pet now?” Ether stormed up to me. She was a good six inches shorter than my six-foot-tall frame, but somehow it felt like she was towering over me. “Are you going to do everything your teacher tells you to? What if he told you to jump off a cliff would you do that?”

I knew that Trent had sworn to help me grow into a force to be reckoned with, which drew an answer that I should have thought about before I responded. “Yes if he had told me to jump off a cliff then I would trust that he wasn't trying to get me killed.”

It wasn’t the response she had been expecting. She started to respond but must have registered what I said because her face changed from anger to confusion.

There was no way I could explain my situation to her. I decided to go with an apology, “I'm sorry.” I reached out and put my hand on her arm, “Next time I'll try to get you up first before I throw the water bomb like he told me to.”

The apology seemed to embolden her. She moved her gaze from me to Justia. “What about you? Did you help do this?”

Justia shook her head.

Ether began to shiver and I wished I had a way to warm her up. She really needed to get out of those wet clothes, but I knew that Trent wasn't going to give us the time for her to do that. I didn’t think Trent would look too kindly on her changing back into her own clothes either. I went over to my bed and pulled the blanket off of it and threw it around her shoulders.

“Take this until you dry off.”

Her anger toward me seemed to subside. Those red eyes of hers no longer promised pain as she accepted the gesture.

“Thank you.” She rubbed her eyes, “Sorry I'm a grump in the morning.”

I simply nodded and followed the two women into the yard. I was about to ask about Rix when I saw that she was leaning up against the wall where Trent had been sitting under the tree. The other three students were already standing beside the tree ready for whatever lesson Trent had in store for us.

“Looks like we had one straggler.” Trent looked at Ether then moved his hand in her direction. The water that had thoroughly soaked her vanished as his hand finished the flick. She dropped my blanket on the ground as she began to inspect her clothes which were now dry.

“How'd you do that?” She asked

“Magic.” Trent simply replied as he began to wave his hand and held up one finger, “That is your first lesson. Always be able to get up and out of bed in under a minute.” He looked at each one of us. “When you come back to the surface, sure you can usually take that moment to relax a little, but dungeon parties sometimes spend days weeks, or even months exploring lower depths of the dungeon.” He made sure that we were all paying attention. ”Monsters will always attack a camp at some point, which means that if you can't get out of bed quickly then you might wind up dead.” He casually pointed at Ether, “It won’t help out your team and could lead to a party wipe. Dead is dead.” He emphasized the word ‘dead’. “I expect you to be able to wake up quickly from now on.” He smiled, “As well as unexpectedly or expectedly since you can expect that I am going to wake you up at inopportune times just to train you.”

I participated in the group groan.

“Is there more or can we go back to bed?” Ether pointed back at the dorms.

“Since everyone is up we're going to keep going.” He started walking towards the door to the training room. “There's no reason not to start preparing you for what life will be like.” He began throwing ration bars at us. “Get used to the taste.” He chuckled, “I know it's an acquired taste, but you can acquire it.”

I bit into the hard bland bar. I wasn't sure I was ever going to get used to something that tasted like this, even if it had been mostly what I’d eaten over the last four years. It was like eating paper, but at least they kept well and could be eaten quickly. I followed the team to the door and waited for Rix to finally join the group.

“When did you leave?” I asked. I was sure she was in bed when I got up, but now I wasn’t so sure.

Rix looked at me like I had asked her a stupid question. “Before he did.” she nodded towards Trent.

I didn’t remember seeing her the first time I was in the dorm yard, but I also didn't have any way to disprove her claim.

“Cool.” It was the only thing I could think of to say. I let her go in before me and then shut the door to the training room as I followed the rest of the class.