“Mutual kill.” She said, happy enough about it, as if she'd expected him to actually win somehow. Because, yeah, that happened. He didn’t even have armor on.
Tor just struggled to keep the tears from his eyes and waved at her with a grin. As he did that Kolb came over and started to tear apart everything Tor had done, suggesting improvements. He almost always did something like it, but this time Tor stopped him more than once, and asked why, instead of just accepting what was said. Then asked for specific demonstrations of moves and when the large man left he spent about an hour trying to work though each of them in his mind while striking the air using the move as precisely as possible. It may not make him better, but it felt more engaged at least, which was something. Everyone broke for lunch, which included pulled pork sandwiches with a creamy sauce and banana's on the side, which someone had flown in from the south. It was good and filling enough, a special and exotic treat for him still, and most of the people from the Capital had never had such things at all. It was all Warden food.
They were giving it away to everyone for free, and had set up tables, about twenty of them, for people to sit at while eating, with weird. Round focus stone benches that went all the way around them and didn't move. They were a nice light tan color though, like glass, so the local focus stone product. With crowding and a bit of elbow bumping six to eight people could use one at a time. It was kind of fun, even though he ended up at a table with a group of boys and girls that were all between ten and fifteen. Dressed in clothing that looked a little poor maybe, but they seemed happy enough over all.
The free food was good, and there was stuff for them to actually do this year. Games and prizes and events. Usually King’s week had a few rallies and vendors in the streets selling greasy foods and wine, but there wasn't a whole lot for the kids. They were really excited about the music that was supposed to start at nine that night and run constantly until the end of the week. It was free for everyone, which included them too, right?
Free for everyone except Tor, that was. He was paying for it all. More gold was going just to that than almost any single other things except refreshments and food. Connie had insisted though and musicians were notorious for spending their money almost immediately, so it would go into the general economy fast enough that way. Nearly as fast as if he'd just given it away, and to more places. Looking at the excitement of the kids around him he was glad he'd agreed.
They were all friendly too, accepting him easily, without hesitation, and one, a boy of about thirteen, asked if he wanted to go around with them and look at things being set up. There were, the boy informed him soberly, these magic things that no one had ever seen and even if they weren't allowed to try them out ever, just saying they saw it would be worth the time. Tor smiled and told them that it sounded like fun.
After all, Tor considered, he needed to oversee part of the set up anyway, just to make certain no one got hurt.
The group of them, he didn't get their names, or give his own, but that seemed fine with everyone so no one bothered, walked with him in the lead to the edge of a vast empty space, nearly the footprint of about half the King’s palace. Nodding to them all to stand back an older man, one of the Ward group, held up an amulet and activated it with his other hand, his white clothes and dark skin looking special enough to catch a little attention even before the mountain appeared before him. Then, as Tor had described, he carefully set the amulet into the “rock” in front of him, his right hand passing into the stone itself about four inches.
“Whoa!” The kids all said, or some version of that. One boy jumped and cringed away, then laughed about it, he was the youngest Tor thought, but not the smallest. Even the kids here were tall for their ages. All of them had normal looking dark hair, except one young girl with a sandy blond that set her apart slightly in this crowd, she was the shortest one, shorter than Tor even. He nearly blended with his own black hair and plain looking worn clothing.
The mountain had a cave that went underneath it and really, was only half a mountain. The other half was a giant pool with huge, vast really, stone slides that looked scooped out of the living rock itself. There was a staircase in the stone that you got to from the tunnel and climbed up to slide down. They all watched eagerly as a small flying river connected itself to the top of the mountain, which was almost two hundred feet high, turning the slides into waterfalls. The water collected at the bottom of each of the seven lines of falling water until the level rose to about four foot high making a swimming pool. Then another flying line cleaned the water and returned it from there to the King’s river.
It was impressive enough, and the slides went back and forth to slow the fall, it should work that way, he thought. He'd have to test it, since if there was any danger at all, he went first.
It was a rule.
The last time he'd let someone else go first he nearly died of a heart attack. Walking over to the tunnel mouth he was met by the Warden man who smiled and waved, first to him, then the kids behind him.
“These the testers then?” The man said with a huge smile, the go to expression for the people from his part of the kingdom it seemed. Better than frowns and curses, so he smiled back.
“Yes, but me first. No one goes down one of these until I do. If It's not safe only I should pay for my screw up, right?”
That got him a pat on the back and an easy sounding chuckle. The Warden people here were all easy going and nice, around him at least. Tor liked them. Then, they were the ones that did things like attend parties and things like that, even at home. So Larval attacks or not, generally happy people.
Behind him the kids milled uneasily, finally the oldest of them, a brown haired boy with deeply tanned skin, asked if that meant they were getting to try it too or not. At least the words were merely baffled, not demanding. The kids just clearly didn't expect to get anything for free, or have special treatment. Poor kids didn't.
Tor nodded and explained it all.
“Yes, that’s right, we’ll test each of the events. On this one we take our clothes off over here, by the benches, then walk through the tunnel, where water sprays over us, it should keep us cool while we're waiting to go up if there's a line and help keep the pool at the bottom clean, then we climb to the top and slide down. Wait for me though, to make sure I survive first, and don't go down till the last person has reached the bottom, we need to time everything so that the person managing it up top can make sure no one crashes, can everyone swim?”
To Tor's mild surprise they all could. It made sense, with a river being right there, but people didn't often do the sensible thing with their children. The kids all said they didn't know anyone that couldn't swim.
Huh.
Learned something new every day.
The next oldest, the blondish haired girl that wouldn't ever make it to cute, much less pretty, stared at him openly when he turned off his clothing device, but when he glanced at where her eyes looked he understood. She wasn't staring at him, but all the devices around his neck. Around hers was a similar piece of hemp string with a coil of wire wrapped tightly around it in the front. It was iron, he thought, she glanced down and blushed.
She thought he was staring at her breasts, which were a little small, but real enough. He hadn't been though. If she was thirteen Tor would have been baffled, but she looked back up and smiled at him and walked over before they went to the tunnel.
“Um, those are the new Tor's right? Mine is too, kind of. I went to the shop at the bakery, by the south gate? The lady let me look at some and hold them. I tried to make a copy of one later, it's just a light, want to see?” The girl tapped the metal and a small but well defined nimbus of light came from it. It was just visible as they went into the slightly dark cave but Tor felt a thrill of excitement.