To Daemon, it seemed like forever, but finally he woke up when someone poured a healing potion down his mouth.When he opened his eyes, he saw Hummingbird.

  His reaction was almost instantaneous. He attempted to attack her with his fists, but quicker than a snake, Hummingbird grabbed his hands and pinned him down. He decided not to use his any of his water element because he figured it was best to have something in reserve for a surprise attack.

  “Calm down. We only used this method because we can’t just reveal secret locations like it’s nothing.” She said.

  “What do you mean secret location?” he asled, immediately suspicious as he inspected the room.

  The room was a nice,cozy room that had one bed, a wardrobe,a small table, a few chairs and some lamps hanging around the room.

  Hummingbird replied warmly, “Welcome to the Night Blades. We like to remain hidden, so we couldn’t just show you how to get here or have you follow us.”

  Daemon, “Ah.... So you and your husband are ninjas?”

  She replied in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “No, we’re just fluffy bunnies waiting for a nice owner. Of course we are ninjas!”

  She continued, “As elves of the water, we are the perfect candidates for being ninjas, since we have high agility, intelligence and wisdom. Ninjas use techniques which we excel at, and we use our high mobility to avoid attacks while countering, setting traps, ambushing and preparing elemental attacks to be unleashed.”

  Hummingbird started walking out of the room, and as she reached the door, she said, “Come…It’s time to train, so follow me.”

  Having where to go and no other choice he followed her through the dark hallways that were dimly lit by torches placed at even intervals. After a brief walk, they arrived at a large room with a padded floor Sparrow stood a the center and greeted him.

  Daemon, “Hello Sparrow.”

  “Greetings Traveler…” Sparrow spoke with a bemused smile on his face. “What is your name? Because calling someone Traveler gets old after a while...”

  “My name is Daemon. And are you two really going to teach me acrobatics or ninja techniques?” Daemon was happy to learn either but more interested in the latter. He wondered how many people were brought here and had the chance to learn from these ninja’s. He had never even heard of there being ninja’s in the game before.

  “Of course.We are going to teach you acrobatics and much, much more.” He spoke with a devilish smile.

  “Like what else?” Daemon asked curiously. He was a bit worried after seeing such a crooked grin.

  “That will only be revealed if you join our crew. So will you join our ranks as a fellow ninja?”

  TRRRING!!!

  “I would gladly join the ranks of your order and learn the ancient arts of the ninja.” Daemon didn’t see any problem’s in joining, it didn’t seem restrictive in any manner.

  TRRRING!!!

  Daemon was slightly bothered by the concept that until they deemed his skills worth…only then would he be allowed to leave however he realised that ninjas must be a hidden profession because no one had posted about it on the various forums as yet.

  As he was thinking, Sparrow spoke up, “Your training shall last from dawn to dusk. To start with we will focus on acrobatics and proper movements. You are in need of much training!”

  For the next couple hours, Sparrow drilled Daemon on how to take a fall safely, get up using the momentum from the fall, flip through the air, and run silently and quickly. After this was over, Daemon received some notices.

  TRRRING!!!

  TRRRING!!!

  Finally, Sparrow called for a stop. Daemon was relieved since he was worn out from constantly going about the movements and learning how to transition from one to the other.

  “Good. Now that you have the basics down, it is time to learn the more advanced stuff.” Sparrow said. He lead Daemon to a new room full of obstacles like radom walls, posts in the ground, tightropes, and ledges…if Daemon looked closer he could see slits in the wall...

  Curious about his surroundings, Daemon asked, “What is with this room?”

  Sparrow replied, “This is where you will learn about balance, climbing, and all other parkour related trainings.”

  Daemon questioned, “Parkour?”

  Sparrow sagely replies, “Yes parkour, it is the art of moving through any terrain and goes well with acrobatics, since they are used in parkour.”

  Sparrow then had Daemon start. He learned how to jump from wall to wall, make use of small surfaces as footholds, and run rapidly across tightropes. Daemon didn’t find the training particularly difficult since the gaming systems provided him with additional support. Finally, he received the notice he had been waiting for, and an unexpected one.

  TRRRINGG!

  TRRRINGG!

  Sparrow noticed the movements became better and congratulated Daemon. “Excellent, now it is time for stage two of your training.”

  Sparrow then led him to a suspicious-looking corridor.

  Daemon asked suspiciously, “What is this?”

  “This is the Hallway of Trials. In this hallway, you will be tested on the skills we are now going to teach you.”

  Sparrow then beckoned him to follow, and they soon arrived in another room. This time, it was Hummingbird who spoke.

  She said, “I shall teach you how to detect, disable and dodge traps.”

  She then showed Daemon that in the room, there were tripwires, pressure pads, and water barriers.

  He learned that with trip wires, you could simply step over them, cut them, or sacrifice someone /something to trigger it, but the last method was not advisable, unless you know what would happen when the trap was activated.

  Pressure pads were best avoided, by not using the floor. This method used a tightrope to avoid the floor, or by using parkour and acrobatics to jump from wall to wall, thus not touching the floor.

  But for the final type, water barriers, she taught him a new skill.

  TRRRINGG!

  Hummingbird exclaimed, “Congratulations! You are a quick learner. It took me weeks to learn that secret skill when I was little. The acrobatic suit you wear helps you learn ninja skills faster!”

  Daemon, “Really? I had no idea this suit was so valuable. Thank you so much for it. If your explanation wasn’t as good it would have taken me much more time to learn.”

  “Hahaha! No, you are a true genius. Now, let me teach you how to deactivate the barriers.”

  Hummingbird palced her hand on Daemon’s chest and till a message popped up.

  TRRRINGG!

  Daemon wanted to ask her how she did that but Hummingbird spoke first, “Now you can disable water barriers and even make your own traps. It seems that you have the basics down, so it’s time for you to learn your next skill: lock picking.”

  Daemon was a bit disappointed he could not see what a water barrier looked like.

  She then motioned for him to follow and they ended up in a room full of locks. There were big ones, small ones, little ones, hidden ones, trapped ones and many more. You name a type of lock, they had it.

  “As you can see, we have all types of locks. And you, are going to learn how to bypass them all.”

  “I’ll never be able to get past all of them.....” Daemon began to speak seeing the thousands that there were…

  “Ofcourse not. These locks are for all different levels of skill, and you haven’t even learned the basics yet…”

  She then pulled out a packet of tools and opened it.

  “These tools are your keys to any lock. You use them to push the right tumblers up and open the lock.”

  After a few hours of rigorous training, Daemon finally managed to acquire the skill.

  TRRINGG!

  After he unlocked the 100th lock, Humming Bird congratulated him. “Great, now it is time for the third stage of your training. We will now teach you to combat using various weapons and skills.”

  Sparrow and Hummingbird lead him to a room that had various weapons hanging from the walls. There were daggers, claws, short swords, long swords, katanas, throwing knives, needles and almost any weapon a player could think of.

  Hummingbird explained, “I will be teaching you long ranged weapons and magic, while my husband will teach you mid-range to short range combat. Sparrow will be teaching you first.”

  Sparrow, “First, let us see what weapon suits you best.”

  After going through various weapons, they decided that the katana, and dual claws, were what he’d do best with.

  “Now that we have selected what weapons you will use, Hummingbird will teach you some water elemental movements. After which you can finally rest.” Sparrow spoke with a smile. Daemon deserved a break for working so diligently and not even complaining.

  “What kind of water elemental movements?” Daemon asked curiously.

  “I will just teach you one basic skill.” Hummingbird said as she stepped forward. She went on to make a couple of hand symbols rapidly. When she was done, she held her hands outwards and a sphere of water formed around them.

  Daemon avoided touching the water…since it appeared to be moving around them very quickly. “What is this?” He asked as the barrier like sphere of water continued to whirl around them.

  “This is a simple water barrier. However, you missed the more important question.”

  “…”

  “How did I make one without calling out it’s name.”

  “…I never realized you need to call out names to actival elemental abilities.” Daemon said. “I always just visualized the attack itself.”

  Hummingbird and Sparrow stood in shock. That was a level higher than what they were teaching him.

  “However, I don’t think I could imagine something so complex…” Daemon said tapering down the achievement. “I can only make simple shapes…”

  Hummingbird and Sparrow laughed at their own stupidity…anyone can do that….so he isn’t as prodigal as they thought he was.

  “This is one of our ninja specialties. We can cast water attacks with hand symbols instead of verbal attacks.” Humming bird explained. “But during that time, you cannot have a weapon in hand.This is because you need your hands free to make the symbols, or else the spell could fail and the backlash will incapacitate you.”

  “Ah...” Daemon exclaimed. This could be useful when you want to keep the enemy guessing what attack you are about to launch. ‘This skill will go extremely well with my Water Forging.’

  After numerous attempts, Daemon managed to use True Vision by making hand symbols.

  TRRRINGG!

  “Nice job. Now take these and practice with them in your room.” Hummingbird said. “The target board should be in the wardrobe.”

  TRRRINGG!

  After he was led back to his room, he practiced with the thrown weapons until he acquired the skill.

  TRRRINGG!

  Finally having achieved his goal, he went to sleep....

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  Authors Note:

  1. So this is the last chapter of Daemon Side Story. Hope you all enjoyed it. You will get to see Daemon later on in RREV as character of the main story.

  2. Thank you Jetmann for letting me use material you had written.

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