Chapter Text
"Feats?"
Gorgug's eyes trailed away from the paper in his hands to look at Riz, sitting next to him and signing away at forms for one of his treasurer duties or another.
"Yeah dude. No offence, but a little extra credit might help you with your barbarian studies, and this is the easiest way. You write up about a thing you learned how to do during your adventures that isn't related to your classes at school and you get two points." Riz explained, not looking up as he sorted his papers. "It's just gotta be something that adheres to the list, so like, when I took Gilear's medkit and started using it, that's in the list as 'Healer's Kit'."
"Aah." Gorgug exhaled, eyes trailing down the list that Riz had printed. It was pretty long. There was a lot of feats.
But his eyes got caught on something very early on. 'Artificer Initiate'. Huh. He had been wanting to try learning how to artifice, ever since Spring Break last year, when he forgot to ask his parents about the cell tower and Zelda...
...And then again when they had stayed in Arborly. He'd have to make some time, and Porter might get annoyed about that, but as Gorgug thought about it, he realised how much fun this sounded.
"Okay. I'll make sure to do that." Gorgug said to Riz, just in time for the bell to ring. Not missing a beat, Riz nodded an "Okay, great!" and dashed out of the library, and Gorgug soon followed behind.
"-So, uhh, I'll need a little more time, to get this form filled out." Gorgug explained. He stood as still as he could and did his best to maintain eye contact with a currently very neutral Porter, who was looking at the shrinking half-orc with his arms crossed.
"Right. Sure."
Gorgug stopped fidgeting. Just like that?
His change in posture wasn't subtle. Porter gave a half smile. "Won't take too long, will it? Not the kinda student I raise."
Gorgug nodded in response. This was a better reaction than he expected.
"And, well, who am I as a teacher to tell you to not work on your studies. Feats make for very good Barbarians."
"Thanks, uhh, I'll try to be quick. Umm, bye." Gorgug said. He turned to walk away.
"Yeah. Off you go then. 'Sides," A glint appeared in Porter's eye. "Mary Ann got one last year."
Gorgug's hackles raised as he walked off. Yeah, this wasn't going to take long. He'd make sure of it.
"Like this?"
"Oh, almost! But you're really starting to get it, Bud!"
The kitchen table was currently occupied by two gnomes, their half-orc son, and a number of papers that had been neatly stacked just a few hours ago now haphazardly spread across it. It was late, but late was really the only time Gorgug had to practice this sort of thing, the rest of the day taken up by class, Bloodrush, Band practice with Fig, and the one-on-one classes with Porter. He'd apologise to his parents again, but he knew they would just say that it was fine again. But it shouldn't be this hard to learn a cantrip, he thought.
His tusks got in the way of his verbal components, and connecting the arcane dots in real time to stitch some torn paper together was harder than it should've been. It had taken days just to memorise the minute long chorus the cantrip required. Days spent on a cantrip; Adaine could've learned a third level spell- Oh. Right. She did.
Maybe he was comparing himself too harshly to others; Adaine, Ayda, Oisin, they'd all started studying magic years before even coming to Aguefort. Then again, maybe he was just too stupid to-
Gorgug breathed harshly through his nose. Touched his thumb to the tip of each finger, grounding himself. His rage would make this impossible. He redid the somatic component to Mending, again and again. His fingers twitched. Not quite.
"Now, there's a rhythm to this, it's usually good to imagine it like, uhh, a tick of a clock, or uhh-" His dad floundered for a second.
"Like the beats in a song!" His mom chimed in, beaming. They both nodded energetically at each other, as in sync as ever. Gorgug mulled the idea over, and tried the somatic component again. Like the tick of a clock, or the beats in a song. His brow furrowed. The motion seemed to fast for either of those comparisons. It was more like... A beating heart. And as he thought about that, he retried the cantrip. He could swear that halfway through that the ambient arcana he was pooling into the ripped page was also pulsing around his head the same way he could hear his heartbeat during a Rage. And as he focused on that...
"Yes! Yes! That's it bud!"
...The paper had been mended. Gorgug blinked, frozen in disbelief. Even after spending as much of his little free time on trying to learn this as possible, it was still a shock to see the results. A small smile stretched across his face.
"Wow, that's..." A nervous laugh escaped him. "I don't know. That's... wild."
His parents got up from their chairs to wrap him up in as big of a hug as they could. "Aww Bud, we're so proud of you!"
His arms were individually large enough to envelope both of his parents, pulling them both onto his lap. His eyes crinkled at the corners. They were always proud of him, but it never stopped being a sentiment he loved to hear. "I still need to uhh, to learn a spell. So I can fill in the form." He mumbled.
"And we'll be happy to teach you that too Bud! Now, there's a lot of spells you can choose from, there's Jump, there's a..."
"Cure Wounds!"
"Cure Wounds sounds good..."
"-Third time! Thistlespring takes the match!"
Gorgug's blood was pounding in his ears, and he took a gulp of air to calm himself down from his rage as it ended. It was his main Barbarian class, and he looked around at Fig and his other classmates who had circled around him and Tulak for their sparring match. Fig was cheering him on, as always, and he could tell she was using Thaumaturgy to make her cheering louder. He smiled at her and waved, before looking back at his opponent. Who was currently on the floor. Unconscious and bleeding out.
Shit! Gorgug stooped down and cast Cure Wounds. Tulak cringed and blinked blearily as the worst of his injuries knitted back together.
"Ah."
Gorgug turned to see Porter staring at him, eyebrows raised, hand outstretching downwards towards Tulak for a Lay on Hands that wasn't needed anymore.
"Coulda done that myself, Thistlespring." Porter turned his hand palm-side upwards, offering it to help Tulak off of the ground instead. As the student walked away to rejoin his own group of friends in the corner of the classroom, the teacher crossed his arms and tilted his head to the side. "Still. Sporting, I suppose."
Gorgug made an awkward smile. "Yeah. that's uh, that's the feat I took. I can do that now." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorta. One per day."
The bell rang to let the class out. Gorgug stayed back.
Porter made a noise like a grunt. "I take it that means you've filled in the Feat form?" At Gorgug's nod of confirmation, he continued. "Good. So we're back on for classes then?"
Maybe I shouldn't have told him immediately, Gorgug thought. But what was done was done, even though that meant a return to more exhausting lessons. He nodded again. "I guess, yeah."
"We'll do Saturday, then. Catch you up sooner."
He winced. "I actually had plans for that. With the Bad Kids? We were gonna go to Basrars, uh..."
"D'ya say something?"
"...No."
"Good."
Yeah. That was usually how trying to cancel plans with Porter went. At least he had the evening today to himself. Gorgug pulled his phone out to send the text to the group chat so everyone would get the memo. They'd understand.
The Bad Kids did in fact understand. So their hangout was rescheduled to that same evening.
They packed into their usual booth, and Fabian had ordered an extra scoop for Gorgug and himself, making a big show of himself and his impeccable choice in flavours. Adaine and Riz were comparing their class notes with each other, and Kristen was making a pyramid out of ice cream tubs as she listened to Fabian start talking about his first discovery of the best flavours in ice cream. Gorgug was so happy he didn't have to miss this.
"He's too hard on you!" Fig exclaimed, waving her spoon in his face. She took a few more angry bites. "He's gonna wear you out. You didn't even take a break to relax, what the hell's his deal?!"
"He's got his reasons." Gorgug muttered into his cone. "I'm an example student."
Fig looked confused, so Gorgug explained. "You know how he did solo classes with Zelda? Sometimes Porter will pick a student to show off what an adventurer is supposed to look like. She left, so I'm the next choice."
Gorgug didn't clarify that she was the model student, not just an example like him. He was just lucky enough to have already saved the world a couple times, and it was made pretty clear to him that that extra practical experience was the only reason he got the gig.
"So I need extra classes so I can get ahead of the others." Not that he could seem to get far enough ahead; Mary Ann still somehow managed to outclass him, and the thought never failed to get a rise out of him.
Fig's rolled her eyes. "That's such bullshit." She said, stabbing her ice cream, pretending it was Porter's face. Adaine frowned.
"Aren't teachers supposed to be impartial?"
Riz nudged her. "You've met Arthur Aguefort, I'm pretty sure bias is exactly his thing."
"And it's Porter, he's exactly the kind of suck to do that." Fig added.
"It's not like it's that bad, usually I just kick Twig Gremlins for an hour." Gorgug said. Or two. Or four. Occasionally he did this with a couple of the Rat Grinders, which usually sucked more, even when Mary Ann wasn't there. Porter said it was so they could study his fighting form, or something, but Gorgug really didn't see what he could teach a wizard or a bard, and the snide comments from Ivy and Kipperlily and Rueben would always manage to be the worst part of those days. There was other stuff too, but...
Well. The other stuff was rare.
"Ugh, that's worse! We're missing out on team hang time so that you can fuck Twig Gremlins?" Fabian scoffed.
Gorgug shrugged. "If he says it's important then I guess-"
"Waitwaitwait," Kristen interrupted, grinning at Fabian. "Fuck Twig Gremlins?"
Fabian realised how he fucked up. "Wait, no-"
"Dude, no one said anything about fucking Twig Gremlins" Fig laughed. "That's something you wanna see in the world!"
"No I don't! Fig- Fig I know what you're gonna do- Don't you dare make those-" Fabian slapped at Fig's hands as she went to form the somatic component to Minor Illusion. "No! NO!"
Adaine and Riz Mage Hand-ed the ice cream out of the way of the ensuing slap fight. Gorgug was glad for the distraction. It helped ease the thought of the day to come. Fabian was right, at least a little. Gorgug didn't want to spend time away from his team doing menial chores in the woods, but he couldn't exactly argue with his teacher, not when he could fail him, and besides. He could handle some Twig Gremlins.
Hopefully it was just Twig Gremlins.
Gorgug met Porter at the usual place; the entrance to the Far Haven Woods closest to the school. He was already waiting with his arms folded, alone. Gorgug looked around.
"Where are the Rat Grinders?" He asked. Porter nodded his head towards the trees.
"Off in the usual place. They can handle themselves alone for the day."
That was a relief. Porter clapped a hand on his back, and began to lead him forward.
"Come on, best get going."
Porter led him through the woods by the arm as they walked together to their sparring site for the day; a clearing deeper in than usual. The Far Haven Woods had a lot of clearings, Gorgug had learned. His solo lessons with Porter had him visit a lot of them, and monsters seemed to love ambushing people that stood in them for too long. His teacher led him to what seemed to be one of the smaller ones, only about twenty feet wide, with most of its grass grazed away or stamped flat. Not one he had seen before. Some of the trees in the treeline were bowing away, back towards the forest. One had been knocked over, as though ripped out of the ground by the roots.
Gorgug unsheathed his axe, but held it comfortably. He walked into the clearing a number of steps, and watched Porter as he walked a little ahead of him, about ten feet away. He waited.
"Say, Thistlespring," Porter began. His back was still turned, posture relaxed. "What's the point of a party?"
Gorgug frowned slightly. Porter sounded like he was in a bad mood. "Like an Adventuring Party? Uh..."
What was the most correct answer here? "...To cover for each other's weaknesses, right? Like what Arthur Aguefort said."
"Right." Porter seemed to lightly tap his hammer against his hand, like one would a baton. Even though it must've been insanely heavy. "Then, can you tell me what the weaknesses of a Barbarian are?"
Porter usually never mentioned the weaknesses of a Barbarian, not even in class. Gorgug thought about it. "Well, they're not super good at long range, and they're not good at like, investigations or mystery..." He readjusted his grip on his axe. "Uh. Most of them aren't magic, 'cause you can't cast spells when you're Raging."
He looked back at his Paladin-Multiclass teacher, and realised his mistake. "Uh..."
Porter turned slightly, enough to to look at Gorgug properly. His eyes were half lidded; his stare was disaffected. "Yeah. I'm hardly an ordinary Barbarian. Wouldn't be a teacher at Aguefort if I was."
Porter chuckled at that last part, though there was no humour in his tone. "You're right enough. Rage cuts out your ability to do spells, so it's pretty pointless to multiclass. Or learn spells at all, really."
He stressed the last part, voice lowering to a gravelly tone as he turned fully around. His grip on his Hammer tightened, and his face turned into a sneer. Gorgug had the sudden understanding that this was not going to be a 'Menial Chore' kind of lesson.
"So what the fuck was yesterday about?"