The Disappearance of Class 12C

Joe nodded to the man. "Yes, I'm rather interested in using a shortbow."

"Well, try it out," the weaponsmaster said. He escorted him to a place where there were multiple targets.

"HYAH," the man yelled, running at Kyle while holding his axe at chest height.

Sue stood off to the side, content to just watch.

Joe took a bow and set himself up in front of the targets. The first couple arrows failed to hit, so he tried to alter his stance. With that adjustment, he was able to hit the edge of the target. "Well, it's something" he said to himself.

Kyle took a two handed stance and slashed in a wide arc from his side as the man approached.

The swings of the two fighters collided against each other. Kyle's sword became caught on the indentation on the top of the axe. Each of the combatants attempted to free his weapon from the other one.

Kyle struggled to free his weapon and once he managed it, he began slashing ferociously at his enemy. He loved this feeling of using his strength in his muscles, fighting at his top of form.

The others wouldn't understand the feeling he got from fighting.

Kyle's swings were deflected, but then he found an opening. His blade hit against the torso of his opponent...

...and then he was sent flying by the counterattack of the barbarian, who had been waiting for that moment.

"Ho ho," his opponent said, "Not bad for a beginner. You gave me a decent bruise there." He helped Kyle up, although for the next few minutes Kyle was fairly unsteady on his feet.

The afternoon sunset reflected against the walls of the training ground. Looking up, the students saw that the Queen was watching them from a landing.

"Nice to see you busy," she said. "Shall we dine together? I am curious to know if you have made any progress in your search."

Kyle did managed to rebalance himself, and he nodded, "...Thanks, for training with me."

He was definitely going to get stronger than this. He had to.

Joe continued training with the bow, and was now hitting the targets consistently. "I think I got this!" He said with a grin.

sorry, guys, I kind of like exploded.

Matt noticed the queen; he'd just been quietly watching the group train. He'd gotten pretty proficient with a sword while he was here, but fighting still made him kind of nervous.

"Sure, we'd love to," he told her, glancing back at his schoolmates to be sure.

After all the students who had been training were finished, Amelia invited them all into her private dining room. Although the furnishings were elegant, the space seemed more cozy than austere. Alice was amused to find that dinner was a fair approximation of a hamburger.

When they had finished eating, Amelia asked them, "So. Have you found anything?"

"Well, we would like to investigate the forest."

"Which forest are you talking about? Do you mean the Western lands? If so, they are very big. I could arrange for you to be taken there, but you will need to be more specific about where you want to go."

After a pause, the queen took out a map. "Here," she said. "Let me be more specific. As you can see, as you approach the Western lands from our kingdom, the grasslands soon turn to forest, at first patchy scrub, then deep woodlands. Eventually, in the far Western reaches of the kingdom, the forests end at the foot of a high mountain range that curves around to the south. A major river runs from this mountain range North, and the northern areas of the kingdom are full of swamps as the river approaches the ocean. The capital of the kingdom is on this river, about halfway between the mountains and the ocean."

"Now what will your strategy be? I could take you near the capital, if you think that would be the most helpful. You might have the best chance of getting information there. On the other hand, it might be easier for you to be discovered, in which case a less inhabited place could be more useful."