A week had passed since Syron had first woken up. His days were mostly spent reading or going through physical therapy that involved his mother blasting him with magic and him trying to walk around. It… hadn’t gone well. Despite being in much better shape than people typically are after around a year of complete inactivity due to his mother’s magic, it didn’t save him from almost complete muscular atrophy. His insides all seemed fine… the muscles used to move his bones around not so much. Realizing he didn’t have any trouble breathing or swallowing was a little eye opening, once he thought about how bad his physical situation really should be.

In retrospect, wasn’t he able to move the covers off of his body that first day? Being in a coma for a year, even with electro-whatever-treatment, would mean he’d need a long time to recover enough to do something like that… right? He never was a doctor or physical therapist, so maybe it is all wrong, but something told Syron that his body was in much better shape than it had any right to be. His mother had even told him in a few week’s time, he’d likely be able to completely forgo using the cart. He still wouldn’t be running a marathon, but he’d definitely feel much better once her magic had more time to work on his recovering physique.

In other words, magic is dope. Yes, Syron was aware of how outdated the term was, but if it fits, it fits.

Sadly, he couldn’t find anywhere that told him what the basic illusion spell was in any of the books he had tried reading. He may have decided to forgo using a tutor, but he had no plans of giving up magic completely. He could just try manifesting magic without a basic spell in mind, but he was worried that it was dangerous. The books did say intent was important, but so was structure. Was that structure the predefined spells that he was allowed to use? If he tried something else would it damage his magical pathways like grinding gears in a manual transmission? He could ask around… except that would mean everyone would know he was still planning on practicing.

In the meantime, since he had decided to read more on the topic before committing to his ‘made-up-spell-experiment’ of one floating light, he continued pushing the ‘Magic Soul’ around his pathways, trying to get it to cycle faster and faster. Sadly, the pathways were a labyrinthine maze going all around his body, and if he lost track of where he was pushing he might start moving it ‘unnaturally’, undoing all the momentum he had going. He hadn’t managed to memorize parts of it since a full cycle still took him around a half an hour to complete. Perhaps to make the situation worse, the book lied about how difficult starting out would be. It said that the Magic Soul would be small and unobtrusive. It would be so small, in fact, that a new practitioner would likely spend weeks meditating before they managed to locate the starting point, the warmth and density so miniscule that some may never locate it if they give up after a few weeks of effort. The first few cycles would be easy, taking no more than a few minutes to complete. As the pathways became better tread, they would start to spread to other areas of the body, ultimately filling the whole body.

Lies. Unless he was pushing something else around with his subconscious, his Magic Soul was large, bright, obvious, burning hot and had a near physical weight to it when he focused. Trying to cycle too long usually resulted in being drenched in sweat and Mari would check to make sure he hadn’t just broken a fever.

“Syron! I’m coming in!” His mother called from outside his room before bursting through the door. He suddenly felt happy to see her, even though he had already spent time with her earlier that day.

“Today, I’m going to show you what it means to be a Warden of the Woods. Marigold, get his cart ready.”

What it means to be a Warden of the Woods, huh? I wonder how you can show that…

They quickly made their way to the stairs where a lady knight carried him and his cart down to the first floor. They went straight down the main hall and into a huge foyer where there were yet even more monsters on display, this time utilizing taxidermy. Taxidermy being a practice Syron always found rather morbid and even a tad disgusting, he only spent a little time examining the various creatures. A short, grey, and leathery creature that could only be a goblin stood with its mouth open and a spear brandished into the air at an enemy only it could see. Nearby an electric-blue horned-horse with lizard like scales on its body, its tail thin and ending in a spade shape wrapping around its body to point forward, stood on its hind legs like it was boxing someone eight feet tall. Before Syron had a chance to look at any more of the creatures, he was outside.

He hadn’t gone outside since he woke up in bed a week ago, but he had seen outside from a few windows. From his room, the window overlooked a hedged garden maze the size of a football field with various arches and small gazebos dotting here and there. In the very center there was small, cleared zone surrounding the largest gazebo. On its roof was a stylized phoenix looking bird large enough to be seen from a little over fifty yards away, its long tail feathers draping down and around the dome of the gazebo like a bronze colored silk ribbon.

However, outside the front door was a different situation from the garden. If the side of the house was a hedge maze, the front was a grand parking lot for carriages and stables on a pristinely flat cobbled surface, the stones of various emerald, light grey, and black colors depicting yet again even more creatures in variously sized hexagons. In the center a fountain sat, taking up nearly thirty yards worth of space in diameter. Sitting atop the highest point of the fountain was a sleeping dragon, forged from a bronze looking metal, each scale glistening separately in the sunlight.

The knight that helped carry Syron down the steps to the first floor picked him up again and hauled him down nearly thirty stone steps to a waiting carriage with absolute ease. She looked as though she didn’t even notice his weight, despite her being slightly below average in height for a woman. As she carefully placed him into the carriage, he turned to get his first look at his home. Sitting on a raised foundation of around fifteen feet, Rowan Keep was a large and beautiful home. The emerald green and black was of course heavily present, but it seemed somehow more tasteful than the constant monster facsimiles everywhere. The outer walls were black and the rounded clay shingles on the rooves were the green, giving it a dark but elegant appearance. Perhaps the color palate was a little limited, but it certainly was grand and beautiful.

Once he had his fill of looking at the house, the knight shut the carriage door and they took off. The Lady Forrester watched Syron intently, smiling contentedly at every new expression he made based on what he was seeing from the carriage window. Marigold just sat still, not looking around or even at something. She just… stared blankly at the back of the carriage next to Syron’s head like she was a doll.

A short journey was all they took. At some point the rattling of the carriage had started to become painful for Syron… until his mother noticed him wince in pain from a particularly large bump and started blasting him with healing magic. They arrived at a stone fort only a few miles from the front of Rowan Keep. Coming from within the fort was the sounds of clashing metal and grunts of exertion.

“Welcome to the Forrester Family Training Grounds. Within these walls hold some of the best and brightest warriors of the Kingdom. They practice only one thing here. Care to guess what it is, son?” Lady Forrester asked regally, as though she was suddenly aware she had an audience beyond just Marigold.

Okay, so the Wardens of the Woods kill monsters… so clearly that’s what they are training for. Since that seems like an obvious answer, what she is going to say is likely one of those idiotic phrases meant to inspire but are ultimately meaningless. No, you aren’t practicing ‘preserving the lands and protecting the people’, you are practicing stabbing monsters with pointy metal sticks. Or blowing them up with ‘pick an element’. Oh well… let’s just walk into this trap… she seems to be having fun anyway.

“Killing monsters?” I asked tentatively, knowing it was the wrong answer but trying to sell it anyway.

“Precisely! It is what we Wardens are best at, after all!” My mother chimed, her face lifting into an angelic smile while she clapped her hands merrily.

Sometimes… she is like a child. Syron thought, chuckling to himself.

In a good way. He finished, feeling the addendum was necessary.

Also… I guess I was wrong about it being a trap so that she could floor me with the ‘wise’ answer of “We practice Betterment!” or some other such nonsense.

As the group entered into the fort, rows of knights lined up as they noticed their presence and stood at attention. Syron was once again reminded of one very strange circumstance… why are there no men here? Seriously every single person he has met since waking has been female. While that does support his whole ‘this is the afterlife’ theory, it still seems a little strange. After all, if it were a Heaven filled with women just for him, he wouldn’t be spending all his time with a caretaker that referred to herself as his mother. That’d be weird. Having enough of the mystery, Syron accidentally blurted out his question.

“Okay seriously, I have to ask! Is there not a single man on the estate?” His mother laughed out loud at his question, as did a few of the nearby knights before attempting to straighten their faces. Most still ended up smirking or holding back a giggle.

“Syron, his Majesty the King has forbidden any man from living in or visiting Rowan Keep until your father is found or I am remarried due to him being declared deceased. This is all to protect my marital fidelity, and to stop rumors from spreading about the family.” She stage whispered to Syron. He didn’t really get the joke. Clearly, if her remarriage was politically motivated, not allowing any men near was just an attempt to stop her from creating a new heir. So… unless those knights were laughing at his expense for being unworthy… he really didn’t get it.

“But enough of that. I was told there is a Trial today for an initiate! I brought my son to witness her ascension into Warden. Who is attempting the Trial?” The Lady called out into the rows of knights. One young woman with a raven black pixie cut hair style and a single shortsword strapped to her back stepped forward and kneeled.

“I am, my Lady. It has been my life-long dream to serve someone as great as you, Lady Forrester! Please watch and enjoy my Trial!” The fangirl cried out with her head down so it was more awkward than necessary. The Lady’s expression didn’t change, but she did nod to a knight in the back of the fort. They opened a gate in the back and started dragging a cage into the training grounds while the remaining knights started backing into a large circle around the pixie cut initiate. Within the cage was another one of those grey leathery skinned goblin creatures, though this one didn’t have a weapon. This one was also alive and thrashing against the steel bars, insanity in its eyes as it slobbered on the bars and broke a tooth off trying to bite its way out. Once all the other knights were in place with their weapons out, the initiate took her spot fifteen feet in front of the cage, pulling her sword from its leather sheath. She bent her knees low and crouched into a low striking stance, further pulling a parrying dagger from her hip with her offhand.

The knight that dragged the cage out tossed a rusty axe between the bars and unlatched the door.

“Don’t die, Initiate.” The knight said empathetically, stepping away from the cage as the door got violently kicked open.