Chapter 109 - 110
Alistar woke up in the early hours of the morning to find that he had fallen asleep with only eight more cords of rope left to cut. Shivering, he glanced at the discarded strands that he had already managed to shed. I’d better hurry, he thought, not wanting to be stuck outside in a potential downpour. It was much cooler today, and the sky showed signs of rain.
Without missing a beat, he sat up from where he had been curled up on the grass in the fetal position and within moments he was back to filing away at the rope with a thin, razor-like extension of swordsman’s aura. A few minutes in, he found that the process was much smoother than it had been beforehand. Annoyed as he was with his master, he had to admit that he had made a tremendous amount of progress during this stint of ’training.’
Tramon came outside about an hour after Alistar had woken up, enjoying a simple breakfast of soft bread and cheese as he watched his disciple patiently working away at the task that he had given him. Alistar found this quite annoying, since he could have easily slipped out of the last few layers of rope and run off home were his master not around. Unfortunately, he was forced to stay until he finally cut the last of the cords away from his shoulders, which took until around noon.
"Good thing you started from the bottom up," remarked Tramon, who handed him a wooden plate with bread and carrots atop it. "That might’ve been a single rope, but it had several enchantments on it. I’m sure you noticed how it became tougher to cut the higher you worked your way?"
"I knew it..."
Letting out a gruff laugh, Tramon gave him a congratulatory slap on the back that contained enough force to cause some carrots to fall from his plate. "Looks like you’re still my apprentice, eh boy? I didn’t think you had it in you."
Acknowledging that this was the closest thing to a compliment that he could ever hope to hear from his master, Alistar bowed his head out of respect and then abruptly turned to go. "Don’t speak too soon, Master. I still have to go deal with my family."
"You’ll be fine. That Alder fellow stopped by this morning while you were sleeping, and from what he told me your uncles aren’t aware of what happened. Seems like those brats were too embarrassed to bring it up."
"Alder came by? What for?"