*Note: This is the "Pre-story" Oliver has some growing up to do:
-Edgemont: Jontral, Vera, Ivana, Janse, Jeremy, Jacob, Oliver, Etanya
-Sea Witch: bosun:Maurice, helmsman:Liam, quatermaster:Noah and mate: Ezra, mate:Arturo and mate:Theo, nester:Adrian, crew: Morgan, Daly, Cabin:Hurly
My 10 minute break was almost over, I can't believe I ended up working at Starbucks, in the Mall of all places, doing closing shifts, while during the day I worked as a cook at the Silver Diner. Trying to save enough money to, do what exactly, not really sure as in one minute, I'll be taking out the garbage.
As the only male, garbage, and objects on the top shelf were mine to get, I was asked to be a manager, but that was too much work for not enough of a bump in pay to care about managing teenagers and shifts.
Walking down the back room hallways regular people never see in the mall, they smell like pee near the back door, scurry through the misting rain, try to lift the lid while heaving the bag in.
On the way back the security guard not only hit me while backing up, he never stopped and rolled both sets of wheels over me, I was going to die smelling like garbage and pee, he was late getting to the bank drop box at the edge of the parking lot to watch over the people dropping the day's tallies.
No family to tell, nothing really owned, what a waste.
----=====----
"Wake up! Wake up, you promised, wake up."
Opening one eye, the other is glued shut, Blaine did a number on me with that mall truck, I'm surprised I only hurt all over.
"Wuh"
"Yay! Oliver, you scared me." I hear the girl say, she sounds, young? And I'm not Oliver, I'm Roland Anderson, getting the second eye open and looking at a black haired little girl under 10yrs old, and a room that isn't a hospital, things aren't adding up.
"Who are you?" I asked, her eyes got wide and her head jerked back.
"What!? Silly, me Etanya, did you die?" She asks with the same look.
"I think so," I answered truthfully.
"Then you came back?" She asks climbing on the bed next to me.
"Uhh, what are you doing?" She feels my head.
"Mom said to tell her when you wake from the fever."
"Mom?" I haven't had a 'Mom', for a decade, my hands and arms are so puny. What the hell is going on?
I see a nagging three flashing dots upper right top of my vision no matter where, looking at the dots caused them to open.
Name: Oliver Edgemont
Age: 16
Occupation: Child
Health: 88
Mana: 176
Stamina: 88
Attributes:
Strength: 3 Wisdom: 3 Vitality: 3 Constitution: 3
Intelligence: 6 Luck: 3 Endurance: 3 Dexterity: 4 Charm: 6
Skills: Cooking: F,
Fast Learner: E,
Sixth Sense: Locked
Melee Affinity: Locked
Magic Affinity: Air-F
"You're up?!" I hear a woman's voice and shake my head to get the screen to go away, what guy doesn't know game stats when he sees them, and mine fucking suck, 3's? Holy shit.
"Yes, water?" I reply, she is wearing a flowing blue and white dress, also with black hair immaculately done up, and she practically glows, "you look beautiful," I say before my brain catches up.
"Aww, you always say the nicest things," She comes over and I get a kiss on the forehead, "no fever anymore." She hands me the glass of water from the side table, mmmmm, room temperature water.
'Duchess Vera Edgemont', comes to mind, okay, good, at least I'm not going to have to pretend I have amnesia. Oliver, Oliver, Oliver, I repeat a few times as I'm going to have to answer to that name now.
I spent the next few days, a prisoner in my room, going through my, his, memories, Jontral Edgemont was my father, I had three older brothers, Jeremy, Janse, and Jacob, hey, why is my name Oliver? Did Mom put her foot down and tell him no more J's?
Doesn't seem like there are many problems with the family other than the city Droisha currently being rebuilt after the last siege, and the lands around us being so bad, we are not allowed to go outside our compound.
Well, 11 years in the Army might pay off, spent some time in Sinop Turkey for a year, South Korea for a year, and 4 in Germany, though I'm guessing they don't have M16 rifles, tanks, or A10s for support here based on my room.
The food is bland, I miss the Silver Diner food I made and ate most days, a lot of soups and stews for me in bed, Etanya visited me several times a day, she was 8, Mom is popping out babies like crazy and still looks that good?
Day 7 of my incarceration, sneaking around early mornings before everyone else is up I am able to get down the halls, the kitchen, there is a courtyard with a big wall surrounding the back of the house. The house is mansion-sized, which is freaking great considering I'm used to the barracks and a my single bedroom crack apartment.
Day 8 of my incarceration I found the soldiers training in the courtyard before dawn, I stood well off to the side and mimic their static stretching, I'm guessing it was 2010 before dynamic stretching was a thing. I decided to do some pushups, was struggling at 3 when called out.
"What are you doing?" came from behind me that caused me to scream like my younger sister.
"Oh my god! You scared me to death," I say rolling over, it's Sergeant Jamison.
"Answer me, you are too sickly to be out here," he says sternly and then looks around, "Master Oliver."
"I'll never be as strong as you if I never get out of bed and breathe real air," I answer. "Please, I'll stay over here, I won't get in your way."
He stared at me for a moment, "what were you doing?"
"Push-ups, they help build arm strength," I answer and do another one shaking like crazy on the way up, and say, "Four, I want to get to twenty, eventually."
"Hmmm, don't get hurt on my watch Master Oliver, or you'll be banned."
"Yes, sir!" I answer and he smiles at that and walks to his troops.
A few moments later they are all doing pushups, 'I'm sorry guys,' I think, but then I watched, sword grip, foot movement, never stand still, ready position, when to step away from a cross-cut or to parry, hips facing opponent, the sparring was cool, they were using wooden swords, but people were going down left and right, those swords look like they hurt. Once it was done, I walked around until I found a stick that I could bring tomorrow and went back to my room.
Stick under the bed, I spent the morning with Mom watching how she cooks breakfast, we have servants, but she cooks for me and Etanya.
Cabbage, beans, eggs, oats, and brown bread, "the brothers too big to eat with us now?" I ask and Mom freezes, and then says yes. "Good, I like to keep you to myself." Got me a smile and a hug, I think I saved that slip-up.
The day, like every other day was absolutely nothing, I found a library that had some books, and this is the reason I like audiobooks, especially when it's all history-related.
"You can read?" Etanya asks as I was sitting in bed with a book, shit, am I not supposed to be able to read?
"I know enough to read a little," I answer.
"Mom! Oliver is reading!" Etanya screams from the bed next to me.
"Shhhhh, I'll teach you if you shut up," I answer but it was too late, Mom hearing is a magic all of its own, I hear the slipper steps coming down the hall.
"What happened?" Mom says walking into the room, taking one look at us on the bed, checking the fireplace and then walks over. "Books are expensive Oliver, you can't play with these." I think she thought I was feeding the fireplace with the pages.
"I'm not, really, look, I show her and read a few lines, making sure I do it slowly and sounding out the words like I figured a child would do it.
"Huh, who, when," she looks at the book and me, "how?"
"This is just the first time caught with a book," I nudge Etanya who nudges me back. "I have nothing else to do all day."
"He promised to teach me," Etanya says to Mom.
"IF you didn't tell on me," I answered and she pouted.
"Well, young man, if you don't want me to tell on you, teach her to read," Mom said sternly and when I looked shocked at her, she winked and walked out, "and your favorite pie."
---===---
The next morning, I started watching the big blonde guy, he was winning all of his matches, I would mimic his moves and realized it was random movements until the person stepped back with their weight on the back foot and then it was a fake lunge forward to move them more onto the back foot, feign at the front leg to get him to lift it, the others sword coming down to block, but the fake move swiped across the elbow and then back around to the head.
No matter how many times he fought, that move worked, until he tried it against Sergeant Jamison, who feigned his back step and instead stepped forward and pommel struck him in the chest. Okay, don't use that too many times.
There were a couple of times, when I practiced other moves until I was in a full-on flop sweat, exhausted, and sat against the wall, just watching them continue on for another hour.
Checking my Melee ability, it was still locked, though back in my room I was able to repeat the various combinations. "What are you doing!?" Mom says causing me to scream again, why do people keep doing this to a frail little kid!?
"I'm saving you from a dragon," I say turning around.
"Oh, really, how did it go?" Mom asks.
"I'll keep practicing," I say sadly, shaking my head no, causing a shocked laugh from her.
"Well, thank you for trying, but breakfast is ready." Mom says and ushers me out, "Don't get dirt on your bed with that filthy stick, ohh, look at your hands."
Looking down, my hands were filthy and bleeding in some places where the blisters popped, I hadn't thought about the fact my hands were baby-soft.
"It's okay Mom, it toughens me up so I can protect you two," I say and then cringe as she wipes my hands with a wet rag at a scale of 10 out of 10 on the pain scale.
"Who are you?" Mom asks sitting in a chair in front of me. "Are you a demon? What did you do with my boy?"
"What?" I ask looking up into her eyes.
"You can read, you are sneaking out to learn sword fighting, you think I don't know what my kids are doing?"
"I'm sorry, but I feel so much better after I go outside, I uh, have an air affinity that makes me feel so much better when I'm outside than when I'm in my room."
"Air Affinity?" Mom asks.
"Yes, mana filled me up during my fever and then said it was air-based, when I go outside I feel so much stronger."
"Still, you are way too smart for my boy," Mom says, what does someone say to that?
"I spent a lifetime when I was in that mana fever, it felt like years, I learned a lot of things, it says I'm a fast learner with air affinity and a sixth sense that is locked, I don't know what that means."
Etanya walked into the room, mom let go and went back to breakfast.
"Mama, I promise you I'm not bad, I will always protect you and Etanya above all other things," I say from my chair when breakfast was over.
"You use words Oliver never uses," Mom says with her back to me.
"Some are from when I was gone, and some are from the reading," I answer.
"Oliver died and then he came back." Etanya says trying to be helpful, "I kept telling him he promised not to do that and then he woke up." That set Mom to sobbing, she looked at me and I could only nod, she got up and left.
Well, I guess it was impossible to pretend to be a child in a strange world for very long.
That evening Mom came in, her eyes were still red, she was much more professional, "do you know where your good clothes are?"
"Yes."
