Penitent

Michael woke before everyone else, borrowed Pyotr's sword and made his way to the center of what had once been the farmer's field. He took his stance and swung his sword hard in a downward arc. He did it again, and again, and again. Once he hit one hundred downward strokes, he switched to diagonal slashes. Once a hundred of those were done, he switched to thrusts. Once that was done he switched which foot was leading and started over again. He hadn't been keeping up with his daily training as well as he had back in Stent. He felt that was forgivable, given everything he'd been through and the lack of room to swing a sword back in Stad, but he knew he needed to stay sharp, and keep improving as much as he could.

When he was done the sun was starting to rise.

He closed his eyes and focused on the divine voices that were whispering to him.

"I devote this effort to Bruntus, Lord of Diligence. I will spend every day improving and challenging myself in his name." As he finished his prayer he could feel the warm light of the god's approval settle on him. He intended to make a habit of this. While he'd been devoting his actions to all of the gods regularly, he needed to start devoting smaller actions too, and he could think of none of them that would appreciate a regular training schedule as much as Bruntus would.

After he was done in the field he washed himself as well as he could in a fresh basin of water and put on his clothes. He had at least another half-day before his equipment would be ready at Gurndan's Smithy, and he was starting to feel a little naked with so little of his kit on him, but decided to just keep busy as best he could.

The others were waking up with a bit of a hangover and so he took a moment to heal them as he moved.

"Thanks for that, mate," said Ollie, throwing back his canteen and drinking greedily. "Wish you'd been around when I was back home."

"You wanted a beautiful man with long blonde hair around you before you got here?" asked Marcus with a raised eyebrow.

"Well those were easy to find in Oz, you could scoop ten up on the beach blindfolded. One that could cure hangovers though? Hell, I'd marry him."

"I'll consider it," said Michael. "I just have to see how nice of a ring you buy me first."

They all made their way to breakfast where they found Devahn cooking. The cooking duties were rotated, but they seemed to default to him when there wasn't a mission upcoming or he wasn't helping Lys with recruitment.

He poured a healthy serving of some kind of spicy smelling stew into a bowl for Michael before handing it to him.

"I've heard that the twins have been asking about you," he said as he went to scoop another bowl for Marcus.

"Oh?'

"Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't call on you for a talk soon."

"Thanks for the heads up." He took his bowl and found a broken up piece of fencing that they could sit on while they ate. He'd always liked spicy foods back on Earth, but his new tongue didn't favor them quite as much. Luckily, a younger body and the younger stomach that came with it could at least handle the spice better later on when he had to deal with it.

Once they were done, he and the others did some sparring until Tai interrupted some hand to hand work Michael was doing with Pyotr.

"Mike, come with me, need to have a chat about rifts, and monsters and healing and all that."

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Pyotr had managed to tangle Michael up in a complicated hold on his leg and had been preparing to yank it backwards to force him into submission, but he released Michael's leg and slowly untangled himself in order to let him go.

"We'll call that a tie," Pyotr said with a smile.

"I appreciate your mercy," replied Michael, standing up and following Tai as they walked toward the farmhouse. They went inside and climbed up the stairs to a large converted bedroom with a table that had a map of the local area, a few notebooks, and a series of chairs all around it. Finnegan was already there, along with Lys, and Suraj. Tai took a seat next to his brother and gestured a hand toward the chair across from them and next the Lys.

Michael sat and smiled.

"Feels a bit like I've been called to the principal's office."

Tai smiled. "Don't worry, we won't be giving you a spanking, no matter how much Lys wishes we would."

There was a thud under the table and Tai grimaced as Lys shot him a look.

Finnegan sighed. "We just all took a moment to compare notes on the rifts and how everyone performed, and we found some pretty distinct differences between groups."

Michael nodded. He was already quite aware of how differently things had gone for the rest of them.

"You were in the smallest group, and you managed to close the rift the most quickly with the least casualties. You were also able to heal everyone who was injured on the way back, and I've been told that even after all of that you were seen this morning up and training before the dawn."

"If you're trying to renegotiate my pay, I'd say you really put yourselves on the back foot."

Tai chuckled, and Lys smirked at that.

"We are going to be paying you more, actually. It's clear that as long as we're working this contract, you're going to be an asset we need to have with us. That's not why we called you here though. We were hoping you'd have an explanation for the difference in your abilities versus those of the other diviners."

"From what I understand, Lys managed to seal hers with only a bit more difficulty than I did and that's with no rift closing experience. Trina struggled, but she's young and inexperienced in more ways than just with rifts."

"It's not just that. Is there a reason? An explanation for your ability?"

Michael shrugged. "It's the gods."

Suraj smirked. "Told you that's what he'd say."

"The divine isn't an active presence. Hasn't been for…well nearly forever," said Lys.

Michael smiled. "That's changing."

"I buy it," said Tai. "I mean, his sword apparently caught fire like a fucking lightsaber and cut down a bunch of monsters with it as he said a prayer. What more do I need?"

Finnegan sighed with a bit of exasperation. "That's not the point of this. We're trying to figure out if what you can do is something that can be replicated."

Michael shrugged. "I mean, possibly. I guess we'd all have to pray on it."

Tai laughed again. Michael liked Tai, he was an easy audience.

"From now on I want you to start training Trina. Whatever it is that makes you a more effective healer and fighter, I want you to try and instill it in her. Gods or no. Tomorrow I want you and Trina in a group with me and a few others to go after the last of the rifts we were forced to leave behind. I want to find out if having multiple diviners working at once can cause them to close more quickly."

"That's smart."

"Yes, it is," replied Finnegan, self assured.

"Lys, do you want to do some of the training as well?" he asked. "Not that you need it."

"This old bitch is comfortable with the tricks she has," she replied with smile.

Michael chuckled. "I can respect that." He looked around the table. "Anything else? Or can we jump into how much extra pay I'll be getting?"

Lys chuckled. "I told you he'd say that."

…

After some long back and forths that ended with Tai just saying they'd pay him at the rate he'd basically asked for at the start of the talk, blowing up the entire negotiation in his brother's face and leading them to go spar in the makeshift training yard, Michael went to go find Trina.

He found her sitting in a small group with some of the others that had been in the group with her when they'd sealed the rift with the twins.

"Trina," said Michael, nodding at her.

"Michael, what's up?"

"The twins just asked me to start training you. They want me to try and help you improve your abilities."

She put her bowl down and stood up rail-straight.

"You can do that?"

"I believe I can. Are you ready now or-"

"I'm ready now, let's start!" she started moving out toward the training yard where the twins were beating the hell out of one another to the cheers of the other mercs.

Michael looked at the others and shrugged. "I really could've waited until she was done eating."

They chuckled and he walked quickly to catch up with her.