Anika woke up to knocking on the door and groaned. Her entire body ached from yesterday. She thought she had been hurting the first day after archery practice and the dungeon. But yesterday doing nothing but archery practice and hours at the endurance and agility course left her with a new level of bone deep ache. It was exactly like she imagined an army recruit would have to go through in boot camp and she hated every minute of it.

  First, Leka had made her run circles around a large field. She had lost track of how many times she had circled before Leka let her stop. Every time she tried to slow down to walk, Leka was there behind her or beside her, pushing her to keep going. She threw up her lunch at some point during the running. That was the only time Leka let her take a break.

  Lily, meanwhile, got to enjoy a lovely long swim while Anika suffered. Every time they ran past the small pool, Lily had urged Anika on with her exuberant anime cheerleading. That had helped Anika push forward in the early laps, but by the end of the ordeal she didn’t want to hear from anyone, including Lily. She strongly debated throwing herself in the water at one point and just falling to the bottom and drowning as a far faster death than the marathon run with drill Sergeant Leka. She didn’t think Lily would let her do that though.

  After her cross-country workout, Leka showed her to an obstacle course that belonged in a Ninja Warrior competition, water to fall into and all. She had fallen repeatedly trying to leap between rocks or walk sketchy moving balance beams or swing herself on moving monkey bars. She hadn’t even been good at monkey bars as a kid. She had always spent recess reading a book or playing whatever the popular card battling game was that year. Her arms, already sore from a morning of archery practice, screamed at her when trying to move from even the closest bars, and she had fallen like a rock into the water below every time. Lily, the lucky brat, had spent this traumatizing part of the afternoon sunbathing and napping.

  By dinner time, she was a bedraggled, wet, swamp monster with soaking wet, dirty clothes and hair escaping her braids to fly in every direction. She could barely muster the energy to drag herself onto a bench and eat some soup. Even chewing hurt. She’d willed herself to stand long enough for a brief hot shower before collapsing into bed. She hadn’t even been able to practice her magic!

  Lily woke up beside her as the knocking continued. She nudged Anika, who was doing her best to ignore the knocking. “Anika, time to wake up!”

  Lily’s voice was far too cheery for how Anika felt this morning. She grunted, not even wanting to roll over for fear of triggering her loudly complaining muscles.

  “Anika! It’s time for breakfast and I’m hungry!” Lily nudged her again, more insistently this time.

  ”Don’t wanna,” Anika replied sleepily, keeping her eyes firmly squished together.

  The covers began to lift up and pull themselves off of Anika, exposing her to the cooler room air. She cracked open an eye to see her telekinetic capybara stealing her sheets and groaned. “Not fair!”

  Anika didn’t like it, but she did admit stealing her comfy blankets was a good trick to get her up. And she was a little hungry too. She stumbled uncomfortably out of bed and threw on a shift dress, this one similar to the first dress she had worn but green instead of lilac, and glanced in the mirror. Her hair was a mess. She quickly tied it up, her arms complaining very loudly at elevating to her hair, and then opened the door.

  ”Good morning, Anika,” Sinaya, their ever present wake up call, was in the doorway. “Are you ready for breakfast? I thought you might wake up on your own now that you have a time tablet!”

  “Hi Sinaya!” Lily bounded out the door and gave the younger girl a friendly nuzzle.

  Anika yawned, a strand of hair that she hadn’t managed to catch in her quick hairstyle falling across her face. “Yeah, I have a time tablet, but I can’t check the time in my sleep.”

  ”Leka didn’t show you how to set an alarm?”

  Anika looked at Sinaya just blinking. How had Leka failed to mention an important feature like an alarm. Seriously?! Not that she would have set it last night when she barely managed to collapse into bed, much less remember how to learn strange alien tablet technology.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  ”Yeah… Leka failed to mention that. I won’t remember if you tell me now. Show me later.” Anika turned and started trudging to the dining hall. No coffee to look forward to. Sigh.

  ———

  Somehow, Leka or Vok or both of them combined felt that she could manage another morning of archery practice after yesterday's physical festivities. After a little stretching, she had managed to - slowly and feebly - do some archery practice. Her aim was not very improved by her painful practice, but thankfully the only person… capybara… watching had been Lily. Vok had showed up briefly to remind her that she would practice with the practice arrows and then leave them in the hall so she could use the hunting arrows in the dungeon later. Because hunting arrows sounded like a great idea when she was so sore she could barely stand up much less draw the bow.

  Lily got plenty of practice in, however, with her Aether magic. She was getting better at controlling the arrows at a higher speed, and had managed to stick them into the targets by the end of Anika’s practice time. Lily was very excited for the afternoon dungeon time. Anika was not.

  She finished braiding her hair as Leka arrived to hustle them off to the dungeon. She carefully grabbed the quiver of danger arrows and attached it to her belt and dropped her time tablet, that she now knew how to use the full functionality of, into her belt pouch.

  “Hi Leka!” Lily bounded out the door and started running down the hall, “I did so good with my magic today! I am going to kill monsters this time!”

  Anika followed at a labored pace, falling into step beside Leka and grateful that the woman’s smaller stature allowed Anika to walk more slowly… but it wasn’t slow enough. Leka noticed Anika lagging behind.

  “Keep up the pace! We have a busy afternoon in the dungeon!”

  ”I’m trying… but I'm so sore I can barely move. Yesterday was terrible! I woke up feeling just as bad as I did last night, and now that I practiced archery all morning, my arms feel like limp spaghetti.” She couldn’t help the slight whine that crept into her voice. She really didn’t want to appear as weak as she felt, and generally she knew complaining didn’t get her anywhere, but pain made it harder to think logically.

  Trying to force aside the complaining and let her rational mind verbalize a more coherent reasoning than ‘it hurts, mommy,’ Anika recalled the incredibly scary looking tips on her new hunting arrows. She grimaced at the thought of tired muscles loosing the arrow at the wrong time, “And I’m worried because I don’t want to hurt anyone because I am too tired to think or aim!”

  “Sore muscles? That’s an easy fix,” Leka paused, reaching a hand out to Anika and, before Anika could react, placed her palm between Anika’s shoulder blades. A cooling sensation radiated out from Anika’s shoulder where the hand was, flowing up to her neck and down her shoulders and arms. It almost felt like the sensation of having fluids pushed through an IV, the cool settling into her veins before flowing over her muscles. Once it had flowed over all her sore muscles in her arms and back, then down her legs, the sensation evaporated, and with it, so did the pain and fatigue.

  “What was that?!” Anika asked

  “Soothing Waters.” Leka pulled her arm back and continued walking. “It’s a basic healing spell that you will get at level 7. It heals minor cuts and bruises at first, but improves in power over time. Eventually, it helps restore torn and damaged muscles from attack or overuse as well as repairing veins and small arteries. Healing major damage, however, requires a higher level spell with more mana cost. Soothing Waters is very efficient and effective for many injuries, but it requires contact with the person you are healing.”

  “Wow, Leka is awesome!” Lily perked up, “Now you won’t have to worry about hurting anyone, Anika!”

  “Can I use that spell on myself once I learn it?” Anika would be far more motivated and dedicated in practice if she could just magic away the sore muscles.

  “You can,” Leka started, pushing on before Anika could react with joy, “However, it is not recommended to magically heal yourself of every minor scrape and bruise. If I remember correctly, you have not gained your additional Vitality points from practice. Your Vitality will not improve if you never allow the body to heal itself, and you will be weaker and more at risk in the future. Allowing yourself to naturally recover now while you are in your early stages of training is important for the growth of your Vitality and Potency. Eventually, your Vitality will become such that issues like muscle fatigue do not easily occur. I make an exception today because you are new to this pace of training, and your body will take time to adjust. We do not want to miss an opportunity to practice in the dungeon. I will speak with Vok about adjusting your training schedule to ensure you are able to gain active practice before tiring yourself out in the future.” Leka finished her speech as they walked through the door of the temple to the outside.

  Anika sighed. She should have known there would be a catch. For once, she would not mind there being a substitute for hard work! She saw Philip waving at them from where he stood outside the stables, Epona standing behind them. At least, for now, she had the level 15 Philip to carry her - he was doing most of the hard work in helping her gain experience. She supposed eventually, she would have to make it up to him. She waved back at Phillip as Lily sprinted off, her capybara legs moving with shocking speed to greet them in person. Anika took a deep breath, put on a more enthusiastic face and strode forward after Lily, ready for an afternoon in the dungeon.