Chapter 5 – Guide
Year 3001, Saturday. 23 days until classes start. The Square
Larry pulled us to the side, “Yall choose guides yet?”
I shook my head, “We just got here today.”
Larry’s eyes lit up, “Oh! That’s great. After we play a few rounds, I can help you get acquainted with the campus. You two ever play ultimate frisbee?”
We both nodded. Larry smiled, “Well we play with a little twist. You might have noticed if you look at the frisbee.”
I pointed to the frisbee as it flew by, “It’s metal.”
Larry nodded, “It also has little ether balls inside that let you infuse a will into the trajectory of the frisbee.”
“Infuse a will?”
Larry paused, “Ah, you haven’t had any ether lessons yet.”
Larry quickly went over to a little bench with a sack and fished out another frisbee, “Try to imagine blood rushing to your fingertips and into the metal and try to imagine the frisbee hovering in place.”
David grabbed the frisbee and stared at it. Larry handed another frisbee to me, “Let go of it once you think it will float.”
We both let go at the same time and the frisbees fell to the ground. Larry smiled, “You’ll get it eventually. You should both join the ultimate frisbee club.”
“How do we join?”
Larry pulled a little pad of fliers out of the sack and handed each of us a flier, “We meet here every day after dinner. And if you do good enough, you might get on the team for your dorm.”
I looked up as a frisbee flew past us, “Do you think we could join in today?”
Larry shook his head, “An ether infused frisbee is pretty dangerous for someone who can’t defend themselves.”
“How?”
Larry pointed at a woman that just caught a frisbee and all the people quickly scattering away from her, “If you get hit by a frisbee infused with ether you could get pretty badly hurt.”
“Really?”
Tsch
Larry pointed towards the frisbee as it flew out of bounds, “Most defenders use this sport to train their ether shields while most attackers use this sport to improve their ether manipulation. That shattering sound was an ether shield deflecting a frisbee.”
David nodded, “Pretty creative practice technique.”
Larry shrugged, “Most teams run seven druids and three psychics but sometimes we change the ratios up depending on the school we are up against.”
“What do you get for winning?”
“Each block gets to choose their focus in the order of their class rankings. Frisbee is one of the games that contributes to that.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
We watched as the frisbee shot across the square while streaks of blue and red ether flashed like lightning as the players attacked and defended. I pointed to the field, “Other than the frisbee, what other rules are there?”
Larry cracked open a can and started sipping it, “When holding the frisbee you choose a foot to plant on the ground and possession is transferred on a successful ether shield deflection or interception.”
We watched as someone snatched the frisbee out of the air and flicked it towards the end of the field. Larry pointed at a figure standing at the far end of the field, “A team scores a point by getting someone to catch a frisbee in the scoring zone. Pretty simple aint it?”
David smiled, “How do you determine attackers and defenders?”
Larry frowned, “Do you two know the difference between a druid and a psychic?”
We both shook our heads. Larry let out a sigh, “Your guide will explain this much better than me but to sum it up, a druid borrows power from the earth while a psychic consumes their own blood as a fuel source for their ether.”
I raised my eyebrows, “Aren’t psychics descendants of the cultists?”
Larry rolled his eyes, “Cultist or not, does it really matter? World war five ended centuries ago.”
David looked at Larry, “Are there people who are both psychics and druids?”
Larry smirked, “Theoretically? Yes. The Republic has yet to see a mix between a psychic and a druid with enough purity to learn both branches.”
“Really?”
Larry nodded, “Apparently our generation should have adequate purity for the first mixed psychic druids.”
-----
The sun had almost set behind the shops on the edge of the Square, and Larry had said farewell to the rest of the club. Larry told us to wait for a few minutes so he could help us pick up our guides.
Larry swung the sack onto his shoulder, “When I first came to the academy nobody told me how useful a guide would be.”
I looked up at Larry, “What is a guide?”
“It’s a copied brain imprint of a fallen soldier which will help you through the rest of your time in the military.”
“Do you have a guide?”
Larry smiled and snapped his fingers causing a cube like object to spin to life and float out of his breast pocket, “Say hello to my guide Jerry.”
David chuckled, “Larry and Jerry.”
Larry rolled his eyes and looked up at the cube, “Call us a cab Jerry. We’re going to The Archive.”
-----
Year 3001. The Archive
“So why don’t they give us our guides when we first arrived?”
Larry shrugged, “Your batch is early so they might not have guides ready for everyone in your dorm.”
David looked up at Larry, “So we might not have a guide yet?”
Larry pushed opened the glass door to The Archive, “It’s worth checking since a guide can give you a headstart in your studies if they prepared it early.”
I was confused, “Headstart?”
Larry looked at both of us, “Most military families secretly teach their descendants their family techniques. Families that don’t are given permission to send their children to an academy of their choice early.”
David looked confused, “Family techniques?”
“Most families have developed techniques they believe are optimal for ether usage and such. The early headstart that you two get is to develop your own foundation to gain greater potential.”
Larry pointed towards a counter in the library like chamber we found ourselves in, “Your guides should be over there.”
We walked up to the counter where we met an android who looked down at the three of us with its camera, “Welcome to The Archive. How may I assist?”
Larry pointed to us, “These two are here to pick up guides.”
Two containers popped out of the counter in front of us, “Please insert identification into the scanners.”
I quickly fished my ID out of my pocket and slipped it into the slot.
The noise of spinning motors and beeping followed as the android verified the cards. Finally, two projections appeared in front of us, “Verify information.”
-----
Name: Kaiser Fritz
Guardian 1: Gaius Fritz
Guardian 2: Aria Fritz
Classification: !!ERROR!!
-----
Name: David
Guardian 1: Blake
Guardian 2: Grace Monday
Classification: B%$#& D&#%@&#
-----
I stared at the projection, “What does error mean?”
The camera spun for a second, “This unit does not have clearance to read this information. Verify information.”
We nodded and the android returned our IDs, “Please wait while I retrieve your guides.”
A few seconds later the android placed two cubes on the counter, “Initiating startup.”
In the middle of the cube that was placed in front of me was a little circle with a spinning light that began accelerating. A soothing tone echoed in my head, “Guide initiating ether link. Calibrating. Thread established. Locking. Connection established. Deploying.”
The cube floated off the counter, “Hello Kaiser, welcome to the academy.”
Yo. So, we're nearing the end of the first launch week. Kinda exciting huh? Still lots for me to do. I just started working on the community contest so we're gonna start eating into my backlog earlier than planned. Anyway, I think stuff is going to be pretty cool from here on. yeah? Oh and if anyone was curious, I have shouts starting on chapter 8. And I've read the stories I'm shouting so yee. Their probably better than me because they write a lot. I write so little haha. I'm sure nobody minds that I write so little. It's aight. Right?
Oh. The best way to ensure that I can keep doing this hobby is to give me $10 a month on to get 5-10+ chapters ahead of RR.
If you like me as a person and want to read someone rant about random ass topics daily check out my .
