Speaking of which, someone who seemed to be the master-at-arms was busy drilling a group of Rookies who looked to be about six months in. It was less being able to tell by the children's age—as you could be summoned at any point from your tenth birthday to your twelfth—than it was by how they carried themselves. Despite probably having been summoned around the same time as Anthony and Parvin, they did not look like they had seen much action yet. In fact, they may have only been in Weinsberg a month at most.

The master-at-arm took notice of the new arrivals and left his pupils to continue their drills while he addressed Pawel, saying, "Yes? Can I help you?"

The master-at-arms motioned to the unused patch of ground to his right, saying, "Be my guest. You leading their training or are you expecting me to pull double-duty?"

Kliemar sniffed at this and said, "The smell's not half as bad."

Kliemar rendered a sort of half-salute and then returned to his crew of Rookies.

The two Parties lined up. Nowhere was it said that you had to line up in the order of Fighter, Archer, Thief, Mage, Cleric and Bard, but that was the order the Guild taught you the Tier 1 Jobs, so there was a natural tendency to follow it, which was part of the reason why Fighters overwhelmingly ended up as Party leaders. However, these two Parties did not follow that pattern. In Team A, Fedor, Arjun and Zsuzsanna stuck together and in Team B, Anthony and Parvin were practically joined at the hip a pace or two apart from the others. Pawel could see this split causing issues for their teamwork in the future, but he decided not to act on it for the time being. No point in making an issue of it just yet.

He began to pace in front of the children as he went into his spiel, saying, "Now, I know some of you are eager to get to some real rangin', not jus' walkin' down the road." He shot a knowing look at the boys who had nearly gotten themselves killed in the woods the other day. "Howe'er, you're not ready yet. Normally, you'd be in Axios gettin' your basic trainin' at Guild Hall for the firs' three to six months."

Fedor, Arjun and Zsuzsanna exchanged glances. They already had quite the first-hand experience on that count.

Parvin gave Pawel a look for that, the kind that told him she resented being called out but knew he was right.

"Now, 'fore we start focusin' on what makes each of your Jobs special, we're gonna start with basics e'er'one needs to know."

He held up the general issue Walking Stick all of them were given by the Guild when they set out.

He went over to one of the training dummies, basically a scarecrow built a bit sturdier for all the abuse it was meant to take.

He then demonstrated with a basic diagonal strike to where the neck met the shoulder with a loud shout. He actually stopped just short of letting the blow connect, for reasons he would explain to the children shortly.

"Now, let's get started. Pick yourself a partner an' give 'im the ol' what-for."

The children then split off and went to their respective training dummies. Pawel held his Walking Stick up and reiterated an earlier point, saying, "For a stick of this length, you be sure to hol' it with both han's. Gen'ral rule of thumb, don't one han' anythin' that's longer'n your arm. Got it?"

There were some scattered responses of acknowledgement. That would not do.

He got twelve 'uras' of varying degrees of enthusiasm. Still not good enough.

Some were still coming up short, but they would work on that.

As the children went to work hitting the training dummies, Zofiya walked up beside Pawel and gave him a playful jab in the ribs with her elbow.

With a bit of a wry grin, Zofiya replied, "I damn well intend to."

Pawel grinned back. put his arm around her and drew her in close, but she put her hands between them and gently pushed away. It took him a moment to realize. It had not even been a fortnight and already he had nearly forgotten. Zofiya had not, of course, and however convenient it would be for him to forget, she was not going to let him do it.

To redirect his thoughts and his energies, Pawel went around to judge how the children were doing. First he went to Team A's Fighter, the girl Elishavet. She was putting plenty of effort into her strikes, but her form was all wrong.

Pawel stopped himself, remembering that he was dealing with a girl, even if it was one who was probably too young still to be all that self-conscious. He hesitated for a moment, but decided that getting the lesson across was more important than any other concerns.

That seemed enough like consent for him, so he crouched down a bit and took hold of her by her hips. He could feel her muscles tense up, so she was not quite as aloof as she sounded, but now was not the time to be thinking of things like that.

He then let go of her and stepped back, saying, "Now try it."

She drew her stick back and stepped into a solid hit. A fast learner. That was good.

Good answer. There was hope for her at least, but how were the others doing? He saw Parvin making jabs at her dummy with the tip of her stick. She was fairly quick for a Cleric, but points put into Speed can also be applied to casting, so that was probably what she had in mind.

Parvin glanced over at her partner and said, "That's what I have Ton-Ton for."

As if to punctuate her words, Anthony broke his stick on his dummy.

Parvin looked at Pawel and then to Zofiya.

Pawel glanced at Leishi, who was simply doing her drills, albeit feebly. A quotable quote came to mind, so he then said, "You e'er seen Full Metal Jacket, kid?"

Before he could recite the quote, Zofiya intervened with a blunt, "Stop."

Seeing a teaching moment to be had, Pawel quickly closed the distance between them, kicked Bobby's legs out from under him and held him down with his foot.

Bobby took his Walking Stick and thrusted at Pawel's stomach with a loud, "Aiyaa!". Even if Pawel had not been wearing his Gambeson, he likely would not have felt anything, but at least the spirit was there.

He took his foot off Bobby's chest and offered his hand. To the boy's credit, he accepted it and was lifted back to his feet so he could continue his drills. As he returned to his place, Zofiya then told him, "And now I'm seeing Old Cormac."

Old Cormac was the master-at-arms in Axios, who had trained newly arrived Rookies for over forty years. Pawel was obliged to Ruslan for getting them through the latter half of the Game, but it was Old Cormac whose training was a big part of the reason they got through the first half.

Looking at the children, Zofiya then asked him, "How do you feel about them being mirrors of you?"

And so the children's training continued until sunset, with breaks along the way, of course, and different activities than just hitting the training dummies all day. Pawel was not exceedingly confident in his mathematical skills, but if he had it figured correctly, the children were on track to levelling up their first time in the next two or three weeks and they could easily be at Level 3 or 4 by the time he was ready to start taking them out in Martius. He was not much better at planning than he was at mathematics, but they could probably taken on the Old Green Devil in about six months or so. He definitely wanted to get it done before winter came again, but they were going to need to get plenty of experience in the field first. The real test would come then. The more he prepared for it now, the better things would turn out then, but the World always had a way of surprising you. However, with Zofiya there to help him, he might just be able to keep the World and its wiles at bay. The lives of these children were counting on it.