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Penitent Ch 51: Catching Up
🕑 Added 2025-03-19 12:00:07 +0000 UTCMichael bit into the meat of the King of the Forest carefully at first, not sure if the meat would prove as tough as its hide had, but he was pleased to find it perfectly tender. Even without spices, the meat itself had a rich savory quality to it. It was so good that he found himself quickly finishing his plate and asking for another. The entire village was gathered in the square where they’d built a massive fire and were slowly roasting pieces of stag flesh for everyone to enjoy. One older woman was playing light music on what looked like a lute, and in general there was a jovial air around the camp. Even Tain was enjoying an ale as he exaggerated his role in the fight with the great stag to the entertainment of a few of the village girls whose parents were keeping a close eye on them. Michael noticed a few of them looking his way every once in a while, but they quickly turned around when they saw him look toward them. It made sense, he was objectively handsome in his new body. With the silver armor on top of his looks he looked like a prince out of a storybook. He wasn’t particularly interested in sixteen year old girls though. He’d raised one, and that had been enough trouble for a lifetime.
He sipped his ale and frowned a bit.
“What’s wrong?” asked Ollie.
“I never really liked warm beer.”
Ollie smiled and tapped Michael’s mug. ‘Have a cold one on me, mate.”
Michael looked down and noticed fine cool vapor drifting off the top and took a sip. It was perfectly cold, like a beer taken out of an icy fridge and poured into a chilled glass. He took a longer sip, letting out an involuntary “ah,” at the end.
“There’s one thing I think all of our countries can appreciate,” he said, taking a sip of his own. “A nice drink.”
Michael smiled and took another sip, looking around at the gathered villagers enjoying their own food and drink. “I think that might just be a universal thing for humans.”
“Cheers to that,” he said, holding out his mug.
Michael tapped it with his own and they shared another sip.
Michael saw the headman talking to another woman nearby.
“She should be out of her house. She can’t stay cooped up all day, especially with a celebration going on,” said the woman.
“I know, but when I spoke to Rhea she seemed exhausted. Her legs were even wobbling a bit as she stood in the doorway. I think the healing of her hand took a lot out of her.”
Michael coughed a bit on his ale and felt a hand slap him on the back a few times trying to help him clear out the liquid from his chest. When he managed to catch his breath he saw Marcus looking at him with a wide mischievous grin.
“You uh, have a good time ‘washing your clothes’ earlier?”
Michael looked both ways, seeing Jakub and Tain far from them and the others a short way away letting Ollie chill their drinks again.
“How would you know that I had a good time?”
Marcus shrugged. “I pay a bit closer attention than the others, pick up on things others miss. I’ve always been smart like that. Also I may have left behind a belt that I needed to retrieve when you thought you were alone.”
“Ah… well I can tell you I definitely had a good time.”
Marcus smiled and held up a hand. “My man!”
Michael met the gesture a little awkwardly, unfamiliar with how to perform a good dab as an old white man in a young white man’s body, but he appreciated the bonding moment nonetheless and Marcus was amused.
“Hope the rest of us get some too at some point.”
Michael smiled at him. “I’ll pray for it.”
…
They left Rundling early the next morning, with Durn the headman nice enough to take them back to the main road by cart. They were two days behind the rest of the group, and their packs were all loaded with the hide, horns, and other parts of the King of the Forest, but in spite of that both Jakub and Tain were confident they’d be able to quickly reach the others.
“We marked one of the supply carts so we could easily find it again. We’re almost out of range of it, which means that we should be able to catch up fairly easily as long as we keep a good pace,” said Jakub as they started their walk up the road.
The next two days consisted primarily of walking, the occasional wave to a passing trader, and a lot of smalltalk. Tain was a sour bastard the entire time, and Jakub was quiet by nature so most of the conversation occurred between the Penitents.
Michael looked at Marcus as they walked. It had been some time since he’d tried to divine his friends, and he thought that now would be a good time to see if he could divine them beyond the surface level again. In Marcus’s case he couldn’t see beyond the surface level, but he was able to see that he had a new deed, “Slayer of the King of the Forest”, and he was very curious as to what benefits it conferred. Marcus and the others didn’t seem to have much interest in divining themselves, but Michael was curious enough to keep trying. He tried to divine the rest of them, but with Davi and Pyotr he still couldn’t seem to get past the surface, when he reached Ollie though, he was finally able to break through to the next level of divining on him.
Titles
Oliver Mason
Two-Lifed
Soldier of Stent
Ollie was the only one of them with no deeds, being unable to earn any in the events of the training exercise or the Festival of Blades. Michael already knew what the Soldier of Stent title granted, so he focused on Two-Lifed, the title he had for being a taker.
Two-Lifed
Grants:
Middling Magicka
Dual thoughts
Michael frowned. Middling Magicka was self explanatory, Oliver was a strong mage and seemed to have a larger pool of magicka than even the other mage students, but dual thoughts made no sense. He assumed that together the two things granted a benefit equal to the Major Recovery Michael was given by his own title. He brought it up to Ollie.
“Oh, is that what that is?” he asked no one in particular.
“Is that what what is?” asked Michael.
“Oh, I can think two spells at once. Cast them at the same time.”
“I’ve never seen you do that. Have the rest of you?’
Davi, Pyotr, and Marcus shook their heads.
“Well, I did it once when I was training with Teft and he freaked out. Told me that doing that even with simple spells was incredibly dangerous. I figured I’d leave well enough alone at that point.”
“So you haven’t experimented at all with it since then?”
“Didn’t really seem worth the bother. Nothing we’ve run into so far has really needed me to try it.”
“Wait, what does yours do?” Ollie asked.
Michael was still shaking his head over Ollie’s lack of care about what, to him, seemed like an incredibly powerful ability.
“It grants me major recovery. I heal and recover faster from exertion.”
Marcus barked a laugh. “Oh, that poor woman.”
Michael shot him a look and he held up his hands as if to say he’d leave it alone.
“Huh… that seems kind of shit compared to mine,” said Ollie.
Michael frowned. It was a bit more basic than Ollie’s, though he was still quite happy to have it. He didn’t think he would’ve survived without having that quick recovery at his disposal.
“Do all of us have abilities like that?” asked Davi.
Michael nodded. “Presumably, but so far I’ve only been able to divine the details for myself and Ollie. It usually has to do with how well I know a person.”
Pyotr suddenly moved closer to him and wrapped an armored arm around him causing a clank. “I was born in a town south of Saint Petersburg. My mother was a tailor, my father a drunk.”
“I don’t know if that will work.”
“Eh, indulge me either way, friend,” replied Pyotr.
Michael shrugged. “Fair enough.”
…
“- so I joined the ballet for the same reason men do anything.”
“To test yourself?” asked Michael.
“No, to meet beautiful women.” Pyotr said as he shook his head sadly. “I fear we have some ways to go before you know me as well as you need to.”
Michael chuckled. “Guess we’ll just have to keep talking until we’ve figured it out then.”
“This is true.”
Tain held up a hand for all of them to stop. He moved forward a few steps, and held his hand up to the sky to measure how much daylight was left. He looked at Jakub.
“I say we keep pushing. I think we can reach them before nightfall. They won’t be moving at this hour, I’d bet they're setting up camp.”
Jakub sighed. “Are you so eager to be cramped together with everyone in camp again?”
“Yes.”
“Fine, I agree then.” He turned around. “Let’s move fast everyone. I want to have time to get a decent sleep and meal tonight.”
Comments
ForbiddenPancake
She could also have refused healing. Have you considered she's into "feeling it" after? It is a book after all lol
Seersucker
I'm tempted to keep it since Michael is an old white guy and would definitely make that mistake, but i'll sleep on it.
on the upside
I believe there’s a mistake, it’s dap not dab, easy one to make
PatronTurtle
I do understand. She has no reason to be sore when they stop because he can just heal her. Not doing so is pretty inconsiderate
Jake
You don't understand. Refractory period.
PatronTurtle
Wouldn't he just heal his lover?
tibbish
They would've eventually gotten a scientist or teacher with the knowledge to make a lot of things so I could see them getting more tech over time. For tactics in medieval warfare much of the ingenuity and knowledge was in properly assessing a enemy force (very hard due to poor + delayed communication or conflicting info), actually gathering a fighting force in time (looots of politics and money involved), and getting your men into position to deal with them. Once the actual fighting started things got real messy since it was mostly melee (spears not swords, bowmen/slingers/javalins etc played a role but were more situational most of the time) and communication (drums, flags, etc) really weren't very good. That and soldiers often just got confused mid fight. Armies would often have to separate after a nasty clash to be able to form up again for more orders as needed. Assuming they had enough energy to keep fighting that is. Exceptions to the above absolutely exist mind you but as a broad sweeping (read: oversimplified) generality its mostly going to be true. Renaissance era I think is where the truly complex tactics and warfare came into play on a large scale both on land and sea. You see things like tercios and stuff pop up. Its really interesting to read about but must've been horrible for the people involved.
DAGr
Tbf your average person isn’t a genius or tactician. I really liked how they tried to introduce firearms but didn’t actually know how they worked, just the concept. Thus they have muzzleloaders and people blowing off their fingers often. Idk about you but I wouldn’t have a clue on developing most of the shit we have today. No way could I make a camera, phone, or any other tech. And as for tactics, I don’t really know too much about medieval warfare. Sure cavalry is probably the biggest advantage any medieval general could want, but other than that, I’d say tactics all ride on the location and type of troops you have. But truly I think the biggest obstacle would be earning the respect of the men, which seems pretty hard to do as a taker. Not to mention throwing in magic. It’s like a whole other field of warfare that they aren’t really familiar with.
NameGame
"‘Have a cold one on me, mate.”" RIGHT THERE! That's what so many stories miss. The utility of small magics to make life better. It's either giant fireballs or nothing. Nah, I think smaller magics would be more common, like chilling a beer, a small flame to light a fire, a bit of heat to warm a cooling cup of soup, a small breeze to waft through an outhouse before going in, things like that, and so on. People who can use magic would figure out ways to use it to make their lives easier, in the small ways, and over time it would be taught to family, friends, neighbors, word would spread for the small magics that don't require a lot of power or skill. I love that he chilled his friends beer, and I wouldn't be surprised if others wanted to learn how. Ahh marching. Nothing says soldier like walking and walking, with a side of walking, and walking for dessert. I wonder if Ollie will think Major Recovery is shit when, day after day, he's worn and exhausted and sore but Michael is doing great and feeling good jogging in circles around him. Inb4 SmugMichael, lol. Thanks for the chapter.
tibbish
1) They're hated & barely tolerated at best. 2) Other countries kill them while they're infants. 3) They're a minority of the population. 4) Lots if not all of them get sent off to die on suicide missions even if they're allowed to grow up. Basically a massively repressed group both in practical and social terms which is plenty
tibbish
Maybe not OP as fuck but its strong. Its only REALLY strong because he is also willing to put the work in on training, fighting, and improving his magic. Most people get lazy once they're comfortable enough.
J S
Maybe
J S
Yeah, it's fantastic since it let's him heal more.
J S
Uh-oh
BrandyLeeT
How is there not at least one country were Penitents rule? They all get an innate abilt, have modern knowledge of tatics and so on. Do they really all get spawncamped and repressed? Or is there a shadow penitent goverment out there?
MagicWafflez
idk, his recovery is OP as fuck if you count in his healing ability... He just doesn't realize it because he's never met another healing diviner... I bet they can't heal as much as he can by a wide margin.
Beeees!
Excited to learn what everyone else got too
Beeees!
Ooh, dual casting will definitely come in handy later down the line!
