Chapter Six - Whirlwind

Chapter Six - Whirlwind

Vurden is larger than I thought it would be.

I suppose, prior to now, I hadnt really thought about it much, but the image I had in my head of medieval cities was much smaller than this. Of course, I say that like I have even seen a fraction of the city; weve just walked down a street. Verduns main street, which was - to my great delight - paved. With cobblestones, true, but that is at least something.

Finally, I was free of our home!

For a certain value of free, anyway. Father had me hold his hand the entire time. I cant complain that much, because I am only ten years old. Still, there are other children running around all over the place, or helping at their parents stalls.

The city had many different market areas apparently, but the greatest of which was along the main road that connected the ducal palace to the outer gate. House Feliuss manor was, as one might expect, close to the palace, and so it was only a short walk to the main street.

My first shock was the sheer amount of people that there were around! Crowds of people, divided only by the passing of cattle drawn carts or horse pulled carriages. Some buying, some selling, some straight up stealing, but all of them moving about and making noise. It was loud and the less that was said about the smell, the better.

On the other hand

Hey, what do they sell there? I point to a shop with large, clear glass windows displaying items of various kinds, that were glowing. Is it magic?

Maybe, Father says as he sees what I am pointing at. But that isn't the kind of place we shop at.

We cant even go in and look? I mean, I havent actually gotten to see any magic yet! Minus Mothers cleaning skills, which I still think are magic.

No Annie, Mother says, It isnt for us.

I wanted to look, but there wasnt any point in behaving like a child even if I was one. However, for a fantasy world it is a shame not to be able to actually see the most fantastical elements in it. Although, if I pay attention, I can see examples all around me. The Class and Skill system is a fascinating thing to see in action.

I saw a [Thief] appear - seemingly out of thin air - when my brother grabbed him, and then somehow escape from my brothers grip and disappear into the crowd in barely enough time for me to blink!

Id chase him if I was on duty, my brother grumbled and spat off to the side. But there is always another one; youd be amazed how many people have criminal classes.

That was just one example though. I saw [Merchants] using skills to haggle or to display their goods. I saw [Messengers] slip through gaps in the crowd that were certainly too small for them as they ran at full sprint. A [Laborer] off on the side of the road picked up a giant crate without any visible effort and carried it effortlessly.

Wow, this is amazing! I shouted, practically jumping with excitement. How does everyone even manage to live here?

My family just laughed as I gawked all around me.

Come on Annie, Father said as he chuckled. We are almost there.

Almost where? I asked curiously, I had just wanted to see outside of my home for once. Are we going somewhere?

You dont think we wouldnt celebrate your Awakening Ceremony, did you? Mother chided gently, I have felt terrible about keeping you at home for so long, Im sure youve been lonely, so I really wanted to make this day special for you.

Mother and Father guided me towards - instead of a stall like I expected - a shop, with glass windows and everything. The wooden entrance was decorated and the building was wholly made out of quality stone. When I saw it, I instinctively slowed down.

That man disappeared, and Im not sure what happened to him. I am even less sure that anybody will ever go looking for him, much less find out what actually happened. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Still, every night I found myself in tears at home. Mother would try to calm me and soothe me, but she never suggested that I stop. No, from her point of view - from this worlds point of view - this training was not a punishment but a privilege. The chance to earn so many new Skills was something to celebrate! Even if the [Head Maid] and the [Knight Captain] would push me harder than anyone else just because I had awoken to a (Rare) Class; I had taken to using [Burst Of Speed] just to complete my cleaning duties and relying on [Work Is Never Done] to keep me from falling over!

But, I did gain Skills. I gained a lot of them actually. [Expert Cleaning], [Improved Laundry], [Improved Sewing], [Instinctive Etiquette], [Improved Cooking], [Improved Makeup Application], [Improved Styling], [Improved Gardening], [Enhanced Stamina], [Enhanced Recovery], [Stealth], [Detect Poison], [Enhanced Dodge], [Improved Footwork], [Improved Throwing], [Accurate Strikes], [Lightning Strikes], and [Counterassassin] were the easy ones. The last two I learned made me question whether this job was even worth taking at all.

I dont think I am comfortable with this I did not even try to hide the unease in my voice, is it really necessary? Because I cant say that I would have taken this job if I had known this was part of it.

We have a healer standing by the whole time, the nondescript man assures me as he straps my wrists down. You will be in no danger.

I can honestly tell you that death scares me far less than this does. I say, although it is a bit too late to back out now when Im already strapped in. At this point I cant help but wonder what kind of maniac would go into a trade that involved teaching skills like this. Behind that nondescript face is quite possibly a very functional monster in human flesh.

Interesting, he says with all the enthusiasm of a man resigned to oblivion. My Skills tell me that you arent lying. Would it help you to know that your future ward went through the same procedure two years ago?

I was stunned. I was twelve years old now, and Catherine Felius was the same age as me. The procedure I was going through today was to earn the Skill [Pain Resistance] and it involved being strapped to this table in my small clothes and then being tortured until I gained it. And they had done this to Catherine at ten years old.

But, she is just a kid I say, which probably sounds ridiculous coming from my mouth as I am in the body of a twelve year old. The [Torturer] nods however, taking my words completely seriously.

Oh yes, he says as he pulls out various tools, my heart rate spiking up as he lays them all out. It is standard practice among the nobility to have the newly Awakened learn their resistance Skills as soon as possible so that they have them in the event they are ever captured by an enemy.

Now, my Perception is unfortunately high, and I find young girls voices to be rather shrill, the [Torturer] says as he pulls out a gag. We will be here for quite a while before you even have a chance of learning [Pain Resistance], so I am going to spare my ears from the first part of it.

It wasnt until a little over six hours later that I got a notification saying that I had gained [Pain Resistance] and the pain Well, it didnt go away, I just suddenly found that I could ignore it. My throat was raw and my voice hoarse when I finally stopped screaming uncontrollably and the [Torturer] had smiled and said, Congratulations on your new Skill, and released me like nothing had happened.

I fled the room. I used [Burst Of Speed] all the way home and hid under the sheets weeping until Mother came home. I clung to her and cried and cried and cried. Not because of pain, but out of sheer terror. What made it worse was that the man had just kept talking during the whole thing, ignoring my cries and begging whenever he removed the gag and simply prattled on about his Class and Skills.

He told me about the Skills he wasnt using, and how that [Pain Resistance] really only delayed the inevitable anyways. There were ways around it and everyone broke eventually, which made the whole thing so much worse, because if it didnt work then what was the point of going through it all!? Even today, I still have nightmares about being on that table and wake up screaming

I met the [Torturer] again to learn one other Skill, [Poison Resistance] and merely seeing his face had caused me to end up cowering in a corner of the room until Father was called over to coax me back to my feet. The experience was just as bad as learning [Pain Resistance] was.

I was fed poison after poison of all kinds. Some painless, while others left me on the floor, begging them to just let me die. While generally not as bad as the torture was, it took me a week to gain the [Poison Resistance] Skill and I was poisoned the whole time, even while I slept.

Why did I put up with this? After all, I was a Freeperson, and I could leave if I so chose. I didnt have to endure this, I could work for someone else. However, the Class that I was so proud of turned out to be a trap in this regard. Anywhere that I would go would see that I was a [Battle Maid] and want to use me as such, and that meant having a certain set of Skills.

Conversely, if I tried to work at a different job I would likely be unable to gain the Skills I would need to compete with other workers, so there was no point in hiring me when they could hire someone with a specialized Class. The only job that I could certainly get is the one job any woman with any Class could get, and I decided to take the pain and poison instead.

That wasnt the only reason for my decision to stay though, the other reason was that I had grown to like Catherine Felius herself. [Lady] Felius was a bright girl and a model [Lady], educated in poetry and the arts and with a talent for both. By the age of fifteen, I was truly her [Maid] and my training was done so I was with her from dawn until dusk. In public, I was ever her loyal [Maid]; unseen and unobtrusive, yet always there to provide anything she needed and always watchful for any threat.

In private, she would sometimes draw me into conversations about philosophies and ideas from my old world. Of course, I was hardly an expert on any of them, but in this world I might very well be the first person to even mention the basics of some of these ideas, so it didnt matter that I was more simplistic than I could have been.

Surprisingly, I think I enjoyed being a [Maid]. As a modern woman, I wouldnt have thought I would have, but then, this life is hardly what I would have imagined then. For one thing, with [Expert Cleaning], [Burst Of Speed], [Work Is Never Done], [Elegant Movements], [Improved Stamina], and [Improved Recovery], I could walk into a dining hall after a feast for one hundred people - with the mess still on the table and floor and even the ceiling - and walk out five minutes later with the place looking spotless and not even be winded. With the Skills I had, my job was mostly free time, and because Catherine had yet to debut in public, that essentially meant that I got to spend all day talking, reading poetry, and admiring art with a good friend.

However, that debut was coming soon, and the society around us was starting to show some cracks.