I turn back towards the door as it opens, revealing three others in the room besides this. All of them producing an excess of noise and moving very slowly in an attempt to reduce that. The third one apparently had his leg caught in the shutter. He was the only man in the group. I want to facepalm but I have to leave as soon as possible. Who knows when my friend in the other room will end his dangerous conversation.

The boy finally breaks free and tumbles to the floor in such a way that I wouldn’t doubt he was carrying a full orchestra and had smashed every instrument. It was little wonder that it caused the old lady to dash from the other room. The boy had no chance. He was tagged immediately. The rest ran. Only one of the two girls had a scroll. She was the neater of the two with sharper features and a slightly lighter shade of my own brown hair. Fortunately for her she was faster so unlike her companion made it to the grass. She was still caught but her smug smile and the lack of a scroll when tagged showed she knew she would be.

I was the fastest of the group and am running from the woman. I have to out-run her and can think of only one way. I cast haste.

Suddenly, I gain a burst of speed.

I am moving faster than her.

I would make it.

Unfortunately, it seems the one who sprung up and grabbed me had other ideas. I remembered him from the hall. He was standing alone in the dining hall and, with his raven black hair and inflated features, seemed to show the most obvious distaste for the favour of the instructor. I am so close, only a dozen more steps from my goal. I feel it is over as I struggle free of my saboteur.

The old lady had run back. Aiming to head off the final trainee as she dashes to the cabin. I am sure she will make it. I dash the final few steps to safety and then notice that my scroll was taken during the scuffle. I turn once more to face the trainee who took it from me. “Give it back!” I shout moving to prevent him from crossing the safe line. “make me.” He replies smugly, his oversized nose distorting his voice to be higher and more winey. He literally asked for it, I think as I dash forwards, flipping to put my legs either side of his head. An instant later he is in a headlock and I have the scroll. I let him flail about and hit me before I disengage and move past the safe line scroll in hand. He was not hurt badly but I am sure he didn’t enjoy the fall and the feeling of helplessness that came from being in the lock.

I cursed myself for my over-confidence. He was far less sneaky than a goblin and a lapse like that could have cost me my life in the great eastern forest. It was a bad way to go about the task but I wouldn’t hold it against him. It was never against the rules in any case. A short while later Macias came out of the house, gave one last bow to the old lady and left back down the road. We all watch in either awe or anger as he performs a stylish jig of delight. Scroll in hand. I’m just about to warn him of the black-haired boy but then I notice some movement in the grass. Something big is approaching him. From his expression as he walks back towards the line empty handed I assume it was our instructor.

A moment after Macias finally crosses the safe line my suspicion is confirmed. A large man springs up from the grass. He is slightly on the larger size with a distinctive white moustache. A few of us are obviously a little shocked that the current town crier is a ranger. “well done,” he says in the well-spoken and clear voice familiar to all those that decide to listen to the kingdoms key events. “you got quite a few more of those scrolls than I was expecting. I can see you are all wondering what I am doing as an examiner here. Both myself and my wife were rangers. Now she is a scribe and I’m sure you all know what I am. This means that every document you stole is the genuine article. Even if you only helped to get one you passed. However, for all those that successfully escaped with a scroll, you can have a bonus award of reading its contents or having them read to you if you are illiterate.” I am burning with excitement as I gently peel off the wax seals of the king and academy. For me, they are priceless treasures. I wrap them and pocket them before slowly unravelling the message.

It reads:

To the esteemed crier,

On behalf of Faireblot academy I am pleased to announce that we will be accepting a single student from outside the usual student body of the rich and noble in the year after the sending of this letter. With the basic requirements: capability to read and write, basic talent in magic and a reasonable personality, I request that you select a few candidates for this position for final testing in the western capital.

The candidates will be identified by letters of recommendation sent to arrive at a similar time to this message. We are planning to accept more of such students in future years as we gain further backing from the king bare this in mind. I ask you consult your lord on the exact nature of the announcement. However, we still wish for the general population to be made aware of this development so expect some announcement to be made in this regard.

Thank you for your service

Headmaster Cantwrite

Now in a small fit of excitement, I realise the importance of my other message. this is what I have been waiting for my whole life a chance to learn the great magics. A chance to become one of those that can change lives with a few magic words and the wave of a hand.

I know where I will go after the trials are over and my spirit weapons have been bonded to me. I will head to the capital and try for a chance of mage craft. If I fail I will have a life as a ranger waiting for me. I will lose nothing.

The old man collects our scrolls and directs us to the next test location verbally. I assume that his slightly dodgy directions are a part of the trials and take off with the rest of the group falling in step with Macias after we hit the ground inside the wall. “what did you do to get a scroll and what was it?” I asked. “I told her my story.” He replies smiling. “a shortened version of course. She gave me a recommendation with a travelling performer’s caravan that she rescued many years ago and is still close to. I finally have a backer and a place to go that my father can’t block me from. But I will have to leave of course.”

“I got a message from the crier. Faireblot magic academy is opening its doors to a single commoner. It may be me. I just need to get all the way to the capital so maybe we will not be separated so soon anyway.” I had told him about my dreams of becoming a mage and for us that previous trial may have been the best thing to have ever happened to us.

We continued to follow the instructions with only one or two wrong turns. It turns out that his reference to a statue of a golden lion referred to a man who carved miniatures and when he said “a shrine” he meant the holy goblet pub. We finally approach the final waypoint and our destination. A wooden door with large brass bolts holding it together. In front of this door sat a woman, standing up at our approach. She was younger than many of our previous instructors. She was easily identifiable as a priestess by her pure white robes broken only by the black hems and wide blue belt long enough to leave tassels almost touching the ground and so wide it prevented the free-flowing nature of the robe from hiding her figure. I saw some of the older men looking at her in a clearly lustful way.

“Macias?” she turned towards him “I’m afraid that after your apprenticeship it is clear I should fail you here. Is that ok?” I had heard about this. He had, of course been apprenticed to the healers’ complex but it turns out he has a serious fear of any injury larger than a minor cut on someone else. A fear that caused him to disrupt and complicate a surgical procedure and throw up in the wound in question, causing an infection. The worst part was it was a fear he never knew he had. “that’s ok.” He replied siting down on the now vacant step. The rest of us headed into the market part of the medical complex.

The healers’ complex is one of the larger buildings in the city and is responsible for its health. It has four parts. The living quarters for healers, priests, priestesses and long stay patients. This is only for those with nowhere better to stay or those who are so keen on their job they feel they can’t afford to spend time away in case of a crisis of some kind that overburdens the main part of the complex, the hospital. For medicine, there is the market. It sells everything a patient may need and is all verified to be actual healing application by a healer of the complex. The final part is a temple for those who are religious or close to death. The hospital proceedings can be extremely stressful, especially when a loved one has a 50% chance of surviving an amputation that is unavoidable. It is the job of the temple to, even in only a small way try to relieve that stress.

The market is teeming with both life and the shadows of death as we receive our instruction. “With this final exam we will be testing to see if you know what to do about the minor stuff. Cuts, burns, bruises, poisoning, illness and maybe even a minor breakage. None of what you heal will be too serious, just bad enough to warrant the attention of a healing hand. I will oversee your actions so you don’t kill anyone. To succeed you must use those healers’ tokens I gave you to pay for medical treatments for these. The merchants have mostly been informed of this test so will probably avoid giving you hints. Your money is limited so you can’t just buy a huge number of magical cure-alls and use those on everything. You must then use these herbs to heal the injured for half an hour.”

With this we left to do just that. I stocked up on the basics that I could easily identify despite the plants I knew from the forest changing form from the drying process and the products using strange extra ingredients that changes their appearance from the mixtures we made in the forest. I bought some wood for splints in the event of a break, clean cloth for cutting circulation, dressing a wound or tying the splint and basic medicines, antiseptics and creams for the rest. I noticed one or two looking confused at the mass of different medical herbs and their different purposes.

Another was muttering to a friend that he was hoping for a combat trial like last time. In the end we regroup now mostly confident with just under half of our original number having left during the previous trials. We seem to be mostly those both prepared and expecting these trials. We are led into the main building to a medium sized room over half full, with seated patients in need of attention, not urgently but still obviously holding injuries of various kinds. “go help them.” The priestess said, “you have half an hour.”

I moved among them targeting unattended patients with the most serious injuries first before approaching the more minor wounds. It was a tactic I saw similarly employed by my companions. By the end of the half hour only three of our number were relieved for incompetence and a fourth by a sudden bout of food poisoning, I am amazed he had gotten this far after poisoning himself. This left the final group to consist of 9 people. First are the two girls who had teamed up to use Macias as a distraction and the third who had waited until the end. The remaining boys are Macias, the people that took the initiative on the stealth challenge and finally the jealous black haired boy. I am the youngest of the group by what seems to be at least a few years.

“you have all passed!” the priestess seems excited. “Now, it is getting to the end of the day. You will choose your weapons tomorrow! Go back to the rangers’ guild for the night. Have fun next week!”