Weight of Worlds

Physical

6 - 7:30

Meditation

7:30 - 8

Breakfast

8 - 9

Theory (Warfare/Tether)

10 - 12

Lunch

12 - 13

Tether

13 - 15

Weapon

15 - 16

Free Study

16 - 17

Dinner

17 - 18

After Period

18 - 19

Ranvir looked at his new schedule. It was a lot more encompassing than he’d been expecting. There were a few additional notes, detailing the specific etiquette when arriving to class. The schedule didn’t assume each student could magically move from each class to the next, but it detailed how long was too long to arrive.

He was slightly impressed that Ragnar had set time out each day for dedicated meditation, though he wondered how the other teachers would react to it. Would meditation be removed from the other classes?

“Guys, I think I might’ve gotten one of yours.” Es was holding out his paper, offering it for the others to take a look at. Ranvir rubbed his eyes carefully, before accepting the paper. His eyes were still sore at times, particularly in the morning and they burned with sudden changes in light.

It took a second for Ranvir to recognize what Esmund was talking about, before he realized that his and Esmund’s schedule wasn’t just similar, they were the exact same. Ranvir frowned as he handed it to Sansir.

“Maybe weapons just slots into your free study period?” Ranvir said.

Es shrugged, but had a distinctly uncomfortable look on his face. Sansir handed the paper on to Grev. “You should probably show up to weapon today. Then you can ask Master Vigo. He has mentioned wanting to make it a requirement for all students.”

“Are you sure?” Es asked.

Grev handed the paper back to him as Sansir answered him, “I’m sure it’s better to be safe than sorry. You could risk it, but I doubt it will play out well for you. You’ve heard how he punishes students.”

A shiver ran down Ranvir’s spine. It wasn’t a good experience.

“I guess I’ll give it a go.”

Ranvir strode up to his theory classroom. It was in the Wethorn building. The same as he’d first visited, when they’d gotten the announcement that somethings had fallen through and they wouldn’t get a full course load last trimester.

He’d been walking slightly behind the others coming from breakfast, thinking about his upcoming class. They’d been split up and none of them would be in the same classroom, which was a little scary to him, despite everything he’d been through.

He said goodbye to his friends, as he headed for a different hallway than the other three. The schedule had also held information such as classrooms and which specific class he would get in theory. Odd days for warfare, even days for tether theory. He was pretty excited for tether theory, the thought of it lighting a blue fuse, throwing off yellow sparks of excitement in him. Unfortunately, he was on an odd day and had warfare theory.

Opening the door, the first thing he saw was the teacher. The door opened to the floor of the audience hall. He glanced up at the ascending seating and saw that he’d been pretty early not a lot of students had arrived yet.

“Master…” Ranvir greeted his new teacher. The man didn’t feel like a tethered to his senses, even sharpening his attention on him didn’t bring any semblance of power to the forefront.

“Eirik.” He said. For a teacher, he was definitely on the younger side, probably even younger than Ayvir, if Ranvir were to guess. “And this is my assistant Siv.” He gestured to a girl in an administration uniform. Ranvir noticed Eirik was wearing one too, instead of a Master’s uniform.

Siv handed Eirik a book, and he handed it on to Ranvir. It had seen better days. The canvas cover was fraying at the edges and one corner had broken entirely the wooden backing visible.

“This is what we’re going to be working out of for this class. You’re expected to bring this with you to every class. There’s a bag you can put it in under the benches.”

Ranvir nodded, “Thank you, teacher.” He examined the book as other students streamed in behind him. Despite the wear and tear it was evidently not that old. Ranvir had seen books ten times this one’s age with less than half the wear. Opening it, he noted the paper was shoddy, it wasn’t all cut exactly straight and the grain was readily noticeable.

This was a cheap book, intended to be mass produced. As he looked through it, examining some of the letters burnt onto the paper, he sat down at the end of a row, where no one else was sitting. The letters were aligned well, surprisingly. Actually, they looked to be the only part of the book that had been done well. It was easily legible, despite some student having scrawled in the margins leaving illegible stains of ink.

Ranvir had read a little about the printing process, but would like to see it for himself one day. He knew it involved starjute, which was the same material that was woven into the Masters uniform to make the icons of their Discipline glow.

Someone settled down next to Ranvir, causing him to look up. The big man shuffled, trying to make himself comfortable on the small seat.

“Dovar?” Ranvir couldn’t stop himself from asking, though he stopped anymore from blurting out. Inside a flicker of red anger rose unexpectedly, though pink embarrassment quickly won over. Ranvir looked back down at the table in front of him.

“Yes.” Dovar replied. “I just wanted a class where I could sit next to someone who wouldn’t try to talk my ear off.”

Ranvir glanced back, recognizing the stoic look on Dovar’s face. He was keeping his face calm, but he remembered Ranvir’s late night outburst.

“That’s fine, I guess.” Glancing around Ranvir noticed that Dovar had a book similar to Ranvir’s, not only did Dovar have one, but every student was given one by Eirik and Siv. A few students were murmuring about Siv. It was evident to Ranvir that some people hadn’t been allowed to the Capitals ‘gardens’ for far too long. Just the way they talked about her made Ranvir have to control the foul yellow disgust from creeping onto his face.

Doing his best to ignore it, Ranvir sat in silence until Eirik called for the attention of the class. Then he started lecturing about basic military protocol, like ranks from a simple foot soldiers to the Lord General. Ranvir assumed he only went over the basics, since he pretty quickly moved on to battle positioning within a squad, or even a section.

This was once again basic stuff. It wouldn’t take a tactical or strategic genius to come up with these methods and solutions. Ranvir glanced around noting how few people seemed to be paying any attention at all. Ranvir cringed inside, thinking back to his conversation with Sansir at the start of the year.

Back then, he hadn’t fully grasped the possibility of soldiers dying because of an incompetent tethered, but as he was seeing for himself that idea was suddenly a lot harder to dismiss.

The bell rung for the second of their two ten-minute breaks, and Teacher Eirik called out, “Everyone, I will have Siv pass out papers onto each desk, along with a quill and a pot of ink. She’ll split you into pairs before you leave.”

“I’ll split her, alright.” A student on the row ahead of Ranvir said to his friend, not even deigning to murmur it.

Eirik frowned, then wrote something down on his slate tablet

“Huh.” Ranvir let out.

“What?” Dovar asked.

“He’s done that a few times now.” Ranvir said, gesturing to Teacher Eirik. “Every time someone says something about… Miss Siv, he started writing on the tablet.”

Dovar looked back at the teacher. “You think he’s writing them down? Then he’d have to know all of our names already.”

“He does.” Ranvir replied. “When he calls on a student he always calls on them by name.” Ranvir raised his hand in example.

“Yes, Student Ranvir.” Master Eirik said.

“I just wanted to know what you think would work best. If you’re set up in formation A at the top of a hill, with a full section, and the flesh-torn are pushing in with a spear formation to get to the tethered at the top, what’s the best counter?”

Formation A, hinged on a tethered with the Discipline of the Piercer, as soldiers surrounded the tethered and let them rain death from a distance where the Ralith oppression couldn’t touch them.

“Well, if you’re in a whole section, then likely there’s another two to four tethered with you. If there’s any Body Disciplined I would send them down to reinforce, maybe with a Wings as support. Otherwise, redirect some manpower from the back.”

Ranvir knew the answer of course, they were still dealing with the most basics of combat situations. He turned to Dovar, who looked at him with a raised brow.

“That was an easy question. You sure he wouldn’t think less of you for asking?”

Ranvir shrugged, “I don’t really think this is going to be my strong suit.”

Dovar spent the rest of the break trying to convince Ranvir that he would actually like warfare theory, but the founding principles they’d learned so far just didn’t appeal to him. There was nothing… extra about it. The best parts of the academy revolved around their tether and training it. Not preparing for war.

At some point, Siv had put them into pairs, though Ranvir didn’t notice when. He realized why Dovar was pushing so hard for Ranvir to try harder at the theory, when they began the first test in the book given to them.

Dovar was visibly excited to go through each problem and find the solution, despite them being quite simple requiring only the barest understanding of logic and reason.