After lunch, the entire group met up outside for some training.  For some, those who had fought earlier in the day and a few other multiclassers, the sparring was fun and educational.

For others, it was going a little rougher.

Carter had already had to deal with tears, cursing, thrown swords, and threats in the first couple hours.  And that was all just from one person.  Gritting his teeth, he managed to keep his cool.  “Look.  Meredith.  You’ve already made a ton of progress.  You didn’t even-” he stopped, trying not to let a smile through, despite his frustration “-you didn’t even know how to hold your sword at first.  Now you can parry and block, which is mostly what you’ll need.  Are you terrific?  No, but then again, that’s not what we’re going for.  Competency is our first step and you’re getting there.”

“I’m never going to actually be able to survive,” she said, wringing her hands.  “I’m gonna die because I suck.  I always sucked back at camp and it’s just more of the same here.”

Carter gave a testy laugh.  “You don’t suck.  You need practice-”

“Everyone else is doing better.”

“Everyone else made their characters better!  Even people who sucked at camp had this vague idea that their characters new how to fight and that translates here.  It has nothing to do with how good Navin or Sam are, it’s all about how good Quentin and Feng were supposed to be.”  He took a deep breath.  “You made Lorianna a mage, right?”

She nodded, lips still trembling a bit.

“And are you good at that?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Can you do magic?”

She crossed her arms for a moment before nodding.  Then a begrudging smile graced her pouting lips.  “First one to get the light to stick around more than a second.”

“You think I could do that?  Meredith, little secret, I’m not this good.”  He gestured at the fields.  “I’m good.  Can take on the campers.  But it’s like my brain had 16 years of hardcore fighting installed in it overnight.  Don’t compare yourself.”  She nodded, swallowing hard.  “Alright,” Carter said.  “You know what?  Time out.  Go get a drink of water, take a little walk, clear your head.”

Meredith bowed her head and slowly turned away.

“I’m not mad at you,” he called after her.  “I get that you feel pressured to learn this.  Just be a little more patient.”

“Ok.  And I’m sorry.”

He held up a hand.  “Nothing to be sorry about.  I’m gonna go watch a couple others, you go and calm down a bit.”

---

Sam watched a grumpy Meredith tromp over to the water buckets.  She poured herself a drink, muttering under her breath.  Sam hopped on over to her, grabbing a mug of her own.

“Having fun?” 

Meredith gave a wry smile.  “Pft, yeah.  A crap ton.”

Sam nodded off towards the archery range where Shawn and Fiona were practicing.  “Want to go on a walk?  Watch them a bit?  I need a bit of a break.”

“Yeah, that’s what Carter recommended.  And I wouldn’t miss the clanging swords.  It makes me jumpy.”

The two set off.  They watched the archers go from barely holding their bows right to landing in the target every time, even scoring a few bulleyes.  The girls cheered Fiona until Sam noticed Shawn’s red face, eyeing them every time he drew his bow and how his shots had started falling short of the target.

“Oh, you think we’re stressing him out?” Meredith asked.

Sam nodded.

So the two girls moved on, past the archery range, around the side of the castle, where they found a building they hadn’t seen before, hidden in the castle stable.

A smile crept across Sam’s face.  “A stable,” she said.

“Oh!  Oh shit, horses.  I hate horses.”  Meredith ran a nervous hand through her hair.  Eyes flicking over to Sam, she quickly added, “But I’m sure I can deal.”

Sam was only half paying attention.  “Come on, let’s go see what’s inside!”

Inside were more than enough horses for the CITs.  Shiny coated grey mares.  Huge, snorting brown stallions.  Some were heftier and spotted, some were slender and solid black.

Sam’s gaze was immediately drawn to a mare near the back of the stables.  She knew her blue eyes, hauntingly icy, although Sam had only ever felt warmth and tranquility from them.  She knew the scar on the horse’s back leg, the troubled look on her face.  She recognized the shabby, dark bay colored mare as if she had known her for a long time, but only in his dreams.

“Allyna,” she whispered, stroking her mane.  The mare rubbed her head against Sam’s hand, and she smiled.

Meredith tipped her head.  “Your horse?”

“Mmm.”  Sam checked the mare over.  “Shh shh.”  She could tell right away that Allyna knew she wasn’t Master Feng, but she didn’t seem to distrust her.  Instead, she nuzzled into Sam’s hand and Sam smiled, feeling just a little bit more at peace.

---

After a few hours, the group dispersed from the sparring grounds.  It was approaching dinner time and they were tired and getting sore from the fighting.

 As they all spread out through the castle, some to research, some to relax, Shawn remained  in the entry hall, deep in thought.  It was nearly getting late and they should start thinking about dinner.  He’d overheard Meredith and Evan talking about the food storage they had.  It was plentiful but wouldn’t feed 18 for long and they’d also eventually grow tired of cooking.

It took him a few moments to realize that he’d picked up a noise outside that hadn’t been there before.  Horse hooves?  Wagon wheels?  They got closer and louder before stopping abruptly.  Shawn grabbed the hilt of his sword, ready to call the alarm, when he heard the sound of voices chatting pleasantly outside.

The door then swung open and in walked two people, a young, blond woman, and an older man, with red hair and a beard.

“Good day,” bid the woman, dipping her head slightly, as she passed by him, still gripping his hilt.

The man walking behind her was pulling a small cart filled with various food items.  Outside there was a larger cart, being pulled by two large, old horses.

Shawn looked back over at them.  “Wait!” he called.

The two looked back at him.  “Is there a problem, Master?” asked the man.

They looked familiar but he couldn’t put his finger on it.  He would have to improvise.  He placed his hands on his hips, chin raised.

“Alright.  I understand you may feel these questions are irrational or crazy,” he started, mind racing.  “But stay with me.  All will be revealed later.”  The two looked visibly nervous, clearly worried they had someone angered him.  “First, your names.”

The younger woman looked over at the older man, shoulders relaxing.  Somehow, Shawn’s question seemed to have relieved them.  “Shannon Lark, sir.”

“Dan Thresh, sir,” he answered.

Shawn’s shoulders relaxed a modicum.  Alright then, so these were the chefs from camp.

“Has all been well today?  If you have experienced anything strange, anything pertaining to other worlds or travelers to and from, you are ordered to tell us now!”  It was harsh and Shawn could feel a sweat break out on the nape of his neck.

The two chefs blinked at him, faces completely blank.  “No sir,” Shannon said.  “None at all.”

Shawn remembered the year that the support staff at camp had dressed up as villagers to populate a festival.  Shannon’s acting had been so memorably terrible that it had been a running joke since.  This was most definitely an Echoterran resident.  The chefs hadn’t been kidnapped the way the CITs had been.

“Your business here.  Do not abbreviate, but do not ramble,” Shawn continued, authoritatively.

The two explained their typical day of work, traveling out in the evening to every other day to prepare dinner.  Every Sunday they prepared a larger amount of food and delivered supplies for the whole week.

“Then we entask a larger number of the cooks in town to prepare for Gathering Weekend.”  Dan paused.  “That is all I can think to add, Master Roth.”

“Around how far are the various Orders from the castle?  And how soon in advance can you provide us with provisions for an expedition?”

“Oh!  Are you planning a journey?” Shannon asked.

Shawn fixed her with a stern look and she flushed.

“Of course, sir.”  She cleared her throat.  “None of the Orders are more than a five day journey on horse.  And we can have them ready for you by tomorrow morning if you don’t mind us staying late.”

“That’ll be food for there and back?” he asked.  She smiled, nodding.  “Wow.  You guys are good.  How much do we pay you for this?”

The two of them were paid with gold coins.  Shannon mentioned a treasury somewhere in the castle that Shawn made mental note of.  As they left towards the kitchen, Shawn then went off to find the others.  Shannon had told him that dinner would be ready by six o’clock and he wanted to make sure people would be there, so that he could tell them everything he had learned.

---

“Well, we at least have to find a map or something.”  Fiona’s arms were crossed tight over her chest. “Enough for everyone so no one gets completely lost.”  She sighed.  “And pack supplies.  And ready the horses and everything.  That’s more than a night’s worth of work.”

Fiona felt like the sole voice of reason when it came to giving it a little time before setting out aimlessly into the world.  Meredith and Jasper were the only ones in her corner and damn, that just didn’t lend a lot of credibility.

Carter, however, seemed to listen.  “No no, she’s got a point.  The Orders are days away.  They aren’t corners of the tavern, they’re far.  We do need maps and we’ll go from there when we find them.”

“Then we can just go,” Morgan said.  

“You still have to be careful,” Meredith said.  “Take things easy.  If you get lost, you could die.  You can’t just run home in ten minutes or call for help, or-”

Weston rolled his eyes.  “Don’t worry so much.  Most of us can handle ourselves in the middle of the wilderness, right guys?”  There was an underwhelming response to this.  Weston waved his hand.  “See?”

Her eyes narrowed, but before the two could start bickering, Patrick spoke up.  “Sam, what’s the status on horses?”

“Ready as they’ll ever be.  They’re all in good shape.  And they should be able to handle each person’s individual provisions.”

Fiona raised her hand.  “What if we don’t find where we’re going?  Even if we have a map, maybe we mess up.  We’ve got ten days of provisions but if we miss it, what do we do?”

“Eat your horse?”  Weston suggested.  Meredith shot him a withering glare.

Fiona rolled her eyes.  “Well, if that’s the only solution…”

“Team,” Carter said.  “Bring it together.  We need to strategize, come up with a plan, and enact it.  And if that means we have to put this off another day, then we put this off another day.  And no one will be forced on something they aren’t ok with.  I have faith in you guys.  Now let’s split up and do what we can to figure out what we’re going to do tomorrow.”

---

William and Bastian discovered a trapdoor that led to a massive storage room.

William whistled low at the rows of boxes and barrels and shelves that dwarfed the library.  “Are we just filthy rich, or does everyone in Sidleterra have this much stuff?”

“I’m gonna go with filthy rich.”

William had to travel a few rows before he found Bastian, standing at the entrance of what could only be the Treasury that Shawn had told them about.

“Well then,” William said, a grin on his face.

The room was stocked with chests and shelves filled with priceless valuables.  Nearly every chest was full to the brim with stacks of coins, bronze, silver, and gold.  On the shelves, there were priceless artifacts, things that weren’t money necessarily, but still beyond price, kept here for safety sake.  There was no lock on the door, but there was a small note.

‘Warning.  This room is highly protected by wards.  They will only open to the hands of one of the Masters of the Castle, the Retired Heroes.  DO NOT attempt to open.’

“At least it registered us as the Masters,” Bastian said.

“Let’s grab some money,” William said.  “I mean, we honestly don’t know what we’re going against, maybe we could buy food or something, if people run into other villages.”

After grabbing some fistfuls of money, to be divided later, William shook his head in impressed disbelief.  “That didn’t even make a dent.  What on Earth do we do to earn this?”

Bastian shrugged.  “Save the world?”

“Yeah, but who pays us?  Do we demand the villagers to pay us tribute?  Are we living on retirement funds?”

Bastian shrugged.  “Maybe we get a stipend.  Like at camp.”

“You get paid at camp?”  William asked, eyebrows raised.

Bastian grinned, a bit abashed.  “Yeah, uh, new program this year.”

William’s lips slanted, displeased, but he pushed past it,  shook it off.  “We’ll sort out our money later.  If we want to convince people that we’re ready to go tomorrow we need all sorts of supplies.”

As he began gathering various implements, such as tents, enchanted to keep heat in and cold air out, Bastian moved over to the other side of the room, where there was another door, identical to the Treasury door, with the same warning.

Did the Masters really have two treasuries?  He yanked the door open greedily but found, instead chests of treasure, hard cold stone and thick iron bars.  “Oh shit.  Dude, William, we got a dungeon!”  He took a step inside, peering through the darkness, before being struck with a sense of foreboding.  “Uhh, anyone in here?  It’s, uh, dinner time?” he added, not sure how to rouse prisoners.  There was no response from the dark interior.  “Um, ok.  Then.  I’m not going in here.  I’m going to assume it’s empty.”  He paused a moment longer.  “We’re gonna be out for a while, so if there’s anyone in here, you’re gonna starve to death when we leave.”

“What’re you doing?” William asked.

Bastian jumped.  “What?  Just.  Rousing any prisoners.”

“Damn.  We never took prisoners at camp.”  William abandoned Bastian’s caution and strode into the room.  There were four cells, two on each side of the room.  The place was surprisingly clean but there was the slight smell of something gone bad.  At the end were a few assorted weapons, along with a bizarre looking contraption.

“Torture device?”  Bastian suggested.  They both went a little closer.  There was a small note on the device: ‘Property of the Lady Lumiernoir.  DO NOT touch.’

“Those are Meredith’s?”  Bastian shuddered  “Some people need to lay off on the edge.”  He stretched out a hand to touch it, but William stopped him.

“It could be warded or dangerous.  Besides, I don’t think she’d hesitate to show you what it does.”

Bastian pulled a face, before replacing the note, and the two quickly backed out of the dungeon.

They stood outside silently for a few seconds, before Bastian grinned wryly.  “A dungeon.  With torture devices.”

“Guess our characters aren’t as…”

“Sane?  Moral?  Merciful?”  Bastian offered.

“That works.  But hey.  They grew up in a rough environment, where killing is something you do to defend yourself.”  He shrugged.  “I suppose they’re a bit more medieval than us.”

---

“Would you like to see the Alchemy Lab?” Jasper asked Jake, after he’d reemerged from his room, finally clean of bloodstains.

Jake’s eyes took on a near maniacal glint as a huge grin spread across his face.

The two guided him up to the Lab as he practiced walking on his new legs.  Weston was promising all the cool stuff they’d find up there, his voice echoing off the stone walls.  Jasper smiled, pleased at the effect it had on Jake.  The boy could use a positive impression of Echoterra, after his traumatic introduction.

That warm, fuzzy feeling vanished within seconds of entering the Lab. 

“You can’t just scatter things everywhere!  Murkwhispers with bitter murkwhispers, are you insane?  Guys, guys, you can’t do that.  Didn’t you read the potion books back at camp?  I thought it was required reading.”

They’d been up there for maybe ten minutes, watching Jake reorder everything they’d touched earlier that day.

“Ok, hold up, since when have there even been books on alchemy?” Weston asked, face baffled.

Jake winced.  “I wrote three in the off season to apply for my Mastery!  They were there last year, so you really have no excuse.”

Weston snorted.  “No fucking way.  Those tomes that sit there on the table during guild hours?  Those things are like, a hundred pages each!  I don’t think I even touched them.”

Jasper recalled the books.  He too did not open them.  “I just thought they were lorem ipsum, for decoration.  A Mastery doesn’t require… that.”

Jake finally paused in his frantic cleaning of the Lab to sigh.  “No.  It doesn’t.  I didn’t have to do it, I wanted to.  Camp asked me to help create the mechanics for alchemy.  I was between camper and CIT, so that was a huge deal for me.  And I did see people read them.  Both last year and this one.”

“Yeah, who?” Weston asked.  “Maximillian and Chilla?  Aren’t they also Master Alchemists?”

Jake frowned, deflating.  “Chilla got it this year.  But yeah.  I guess only we read it.”

Jasper fidgeted his fingers, uncomfortable both at Jake’s frustration and his defeat.  The silence hung in the room like a fading gunshot.  “You know,” he started, “it doesn’t really matter if anyone read it.”  Jake bristled, but Jasper continued before he could interrupt.  “It’s real here.  Canon is too weak a word.  Everything you wrote is law and all the alchemists here follow it religiously.  You did more than devise a system for camp.  You altered the reality of this world down to a chemical level.”

Jake seemed reasonably mollified by this and perked right up.  “Right.  Right, this is my system.  In that case, I’ve got a few pointers before anyone makes anything new.”

Later, as a drained Weston and Jasper descended the stairs, leaving Jake alone in the tower, Weston had some rebukes.

“You didn’t need to fuel his ego,” he grumbled.  “There’s gonna be plenty of time for that when his Echoterran genius kicks in.”

Jasper didn’t defend himself.  Jake had perked right up and had gone from obsessive control to excited teacher.  They could do with a bit more of that, especially once they saw more of what this world had to throw at them.

But this thought did the opposite of reassure Jasper, even though he thought it would be a positive thread.  Traveling out of the castle, even a mile, was such a terrifying prospect that it caught him breathless.  A wrong turn, a tumble down a hill, a freak storm, anything that caught them unawares could be lethal.  Jasper didn’t even like going to the grocery store without his phone.

With no safety net, no one knowing they were out here, leaving the castle, even for a few minutes, could be a life or death thing.

---

In the Library, Patrick and Morgan were combing through the maps, looking for something readable, something to do with the Orders.

“Aha!  Here we go,” Morgan said, laying down a large map, a grin on her face.  “Here’s us.”  She jabbed in the middle of the map, on the castle.  “I’ll bet one of the Houses are down here.”  She pointed vaguely at the desert down south.

Patrick frowned.  “There?  Are there any markers?”

Morgan shook her head.  “Nope.  Just us.  But…”  She trailed off, a puzzled frown on her face.  Then she shrugged.  “I think this looks like as good a spot as any for one of them!”

Patrick gave her a dubious look, before looking back at the maps, finger hovering over the maps.  He saw a small, faded map, rolled up, near the back.  It seemed promising, so he grabbed it and unrolled it.  “Morgan, look at this.”  He pointed at a section in the mountains, northwest of the castle.

Morgan glanced over. “Just some mountains?”  She looked back up at the maps.  After a moment, she pulled out another.  “This one might have something.”  She unrolled it.  “Something in the mountains.  You see that?”

Patrick shook his head.  “I don’t feel anything.  Plus that’s not where this one is.”

“Think it might be like how we knew how to find the guilds?” Morgan said.  “Like the mages were just kinda ‘thisaway!’ and found the Mage’s Guild.  I bet they’re magic or something.”

Patrick nodded, getting excited.  “Yeah!  And we knew exactly where the Amory was, up to literally stopping in front of the door.  It was like some kind of enchantment and I bet it’s on these maps too.  We gotta get the rest of the group down here, I bet we can find all the Orders.”

---

Fiona pressed her lips together as she watched the others pour over the maps.  When Patrick and Morgan first laid them out on the the table, Fiona had thought it was a joke.

“You all know these maps are, like, all the same.  Straight up identical.”

“It’s an enchantment,” Morgan said.  “It’s a thing.  You’d have to have been a camper.”

This wasn’t what Fiona wanted to hear.  She’d heard almost daily for the three years she’d been a CIT and no matter how much she busted her ass making Freya a kickass healer and Master.  She was always branded as ‘had never been a hero’.

She sulked off to the side, fingers tapping by her side, trying not to show her displeasure.  Sam joined her, a put out look on the girl’s face.

“Welcome to the club,” Fiona said.

Sam’s nose crinkled.  “Bastian and Weston look bummed too.”

“Shawn’s trying to pretend he knows what’s going on,” Fiona said, shaking her head.  “Poor dear.”

“Lotta new CITs this year that never went to camp,” Sam said.

“Yeah, used to never be the case.  It’s the stipend thing.  Before the only teens that could afford not working over the summer were from families rich enough to afford camp.  Now other teens can make a bit of money so we get a more diverse crowd.”

Sam nodded.

The crowd around the maps broke into groups, and Darren waved the girls over.  He wrapped an arm around Fiona’s waist as she drew near.

“I’m taking you into the mountains with me,” he whispered in her ear.  “The Njoku Order is up there.”

She smiled, pushing against him more.  “What do you suppose they’ll be like here?  They were kinda the nerds of camp, so I’m thinking, library?”

“Alright, so groups of three,” Aaron was saying.  “Who isn’t in a group, let’s keep the groups separate so we can see.”

Shawn was assigned with Carter and William to go west, to the plains.

Morgan looked a bit peeved.  Only Carter had felt anything from her map, but he was dead set on going west.  Zack hadn’t felt anything strong about the other maps, so he claimed, and latched onto Morgan.

Amanda had been trying to figure out how she’d join Jake, Meredith, and Aaron up north to , one of the three groups heading up that way, but when she saw an opening on Morgan’s team, she had jumped on it.

“You’re not sticking with Aaron?” Morgan asked.

Amanda sighed.  “I wanted to.  And he’s gonna need the backup, dealing with Meredith and Jake.”  She winced.  “But I don’t want to deal with Meredith and Jake, so, no.”

“They’re not that bad.”  Morgan craned her neck to see Meredith bobbing on her feet, trying to peer over Jake’s shoulder as he hoarded the map.  Aaron was talking near them, probably to them, but neither were paying him any mind.

“...welcome to the team,” Morgan said.

Bastian was sent north with Violet and Patrick, one of three groups that would be heading that direction.  Fiona and Darren were the last group going north.

Sam tossed Fiona a little wave as the groups continued to divide.  Fiona sighed and looked up at Darren.  “We’re gonna take her with us, aren’t we?”

“There are eighteen of us,” he said.  “Six Orders.”

“Fuuuck,” she muttered, before motioning Sam to join them.  She had no problem with Sam.  The girl was goofy and cute and pretty chill but Fiona would have loved the time alone with Darren.

The final group, going east, was Jasper, Weston, and Navin, were headed to the forest.

“Alright.”  Carter clapped loud enough to break over the din.  “Groups, huddle.  Check what you’re getting yourselves into, what you expect to fine, and prepare accordingly.  Again, remember, if you want to delay leaving, that is ok, but you have to make a decision together.  Everyone good?”  There was a cacophony of agreements and he nodded again.  “Alright team, break!”

---

Later that night, Fiona and Darren opted out of staying inside.  It was a beautiful evening, now that the sun had gone down, and it had cooled down a little.  Without light pollution the stars lit up the sky, incredible diamonds flashing brightly in a vast void.  Velvety darkness enveloped brilliant constellations and shapes.

Fiona drew closer to Darren, and he wrapped his arm around her waist, securely.  “Some of them are the same,” he murmured quietly in her ear.

“Hmm?”

“The stars.  The constellations.  Some are the same as back home.”

“Makes sense,” she responded, quietly.  “They did fall to the ground one year,” she reminded him, smiling up at him.

He smiled back down at her, brushing some hair behind her ears.  “They did hurt this morning, didn’t they,” he asked, a small frown of worry crossing his face.

She felt a hand up to her ears, avoiding his gaze.

He lifted her chin up to look her in the eyes.  “Fiona?”

“A bit.  I didn’t want to worry you.  It wasn’t a big deal by the time we met-”

“I’d still want to know.  I won’t worry if you tell me the truth.  But I’ll still care.”

She blushed softly, her face pale in the moonlight.  She looked back up at the skies, embarrassed.  “They’re so pretty,” she commented, face still flushed.  “Probably the prettiest things we’ve seen on this planet.”

He glanced up, before looking back at her, grinning.  “Well, there’s two things wrong with that.”

She frowned.  “Hmm?”

He smiled.  “The stars aren’t on the planet…”

She rolled her eyes, looking away.

“..and even if they were,” he said, tilting her head back up to face him.  “Even if they were, they’re far from the most beautiful thing here.”

He pulled her closer, into a kiss.