OOC :
Essik narrowed his eyes slightly as he watched Alinar walk into the room. The student had been waiting for nearly an hour in the training hall for the teacher to show up, then the teacher walks in with nothing more than a casual gait and a smiling nod, as if nothing was wrong. It wasn’t as if Essik wasn’t patient. Hell, he could wait all day for a target to get lined up right for the right shot, or get just into the spot he needed for the quick kill. He’d done it before. It was just one of the things that an assassin did. They were patient, almost to a fault. So that wasn’t the problem. Well not entirely. The fact that this was just a simple training exercise to help him improve upon skills that he already had was. And Alinar deemed it necessary to make him wait here for an hour in the training hall. Essik had taken the time to relax himself and clear his mind, taking in the details of the hall for the ump-teen thousandth time. The room was vast in length, height and width. A person could run laps around the perimeter of the room, and they often did whenever they felt the urge. The north wall of the room, one of the longer walls of the rectangle, was composed entirely of windows, half again as tall and wide as an average man. They opened outward to allow access to the long balcony that overhung the front of the massive house, providing a nice view along the busy street that passed along the front of the building. The windows, as well as the rest of the room were adorned in decoratively carved Blackwood wood work, it’d ebony hues sucking up the light that streamed through the openings of the heavy curtains that usually down along the windows. The high vaulted ceilings were easily taller than three men standing atop each other’s shoulders. The room was massive, and it was where Alinar trained Essik in many of the arts needed for their line of work.
Alinar walked up to Essik, his attitude jovial and light, not caring for his student’s displeasure at his prolonged absence. He walked up, standing right before Essik, looking him over for a moment,””Well, my boy, today we’re going to be emphasizing a skill which you have been failing to utilize. That last job was almost a complete failure because your sense of hearing is lacking. Being able to hear a person approaching, even over the noise of a crackling fire or even a crowded plaza, can be the difference between life and death. Last night proved that, I hope. So, that is why we’re going to teach you to better use your hearing.” The man reached into his pocket, pulling out a thick, heavy scarf and proceeded to tie it around Essiks head. Essik remained motionless as the man completely cut off his sense of sight. He knew that Alinar was right. He had made a debacle of the mission the night before and the fact that the mistake was still fresh in his mind would help to cement this lesson into his head. Plus, he knew that Alinar was going to take it out on him. Alinar never held back in any of his lessons, but this one would be used to make an example. Essik knew he would be hard pressed to get out of this lesson without a new scar somewhere. But that was how it went. If you didn’t train like you life depended on it, then it wouldn’t help you when your life DID depend on it. So Essik stood there, patiently still, even as his teacher finished blindfolding him.
He heard the sound of footsteps, knowing it was Alinar just by how much time the two spent together. He could always tell when it was Alinar. Other people, on the other hand, were more difficult. He heard his teacher walking over to the windows of the room and slowly open them, one by one, to let the sound of the busy daytime commerce and traffic of the street blow them flood up into the room. Horses clopped along with carriages loaded with good or people. Vendors shouted, hocking their wares over the low roar of conversation that all the people below were having amongst themselves. Without his eyes, the noise seemed to wash over Essik like a blanket, blocking out everything else. The acoustics of the room only amplified the noise, raising the volume to even higher levels then it would have been had he been standing down on the street itself. He could even smell the people and animals below as well as some of the inns making their morning meals for their patrons. He felt the brush of the wind against his arms as it pushed through the now open portals into the room. Through it all, Essik tried to focus himself. He didn’t know what it was that Alinar was going to start with. Essiks head rolled from side to side slowly, searching for any noise out of the ordinary, trying to pick out any sounds amongst the noises of the crowd. For a moment, Essik thought he heard something unusual, but cast it aside as another sound from the street below. But that was only a half a second before what must have been a thin metal rod cracked down upon the back of his knee with brutal force, dropping the student down to one knee with a faint grunt of pain.
He heard Alinar chuckle from just behind him, tapping the metal rod loudly against his metal bracers. He could mentally see the man standing there, smiling, but shaking his head slowly,” You see. You must learn to be able to pick out the noises that don’t fit. Hear the sound of the stride that is different from all the rest. No one is able to mask their intent, when they are intent on killing. If it is a common person, or someone who is not trained in stealth, their footsteps will always sound harder, placed with a resounding purpose as they close in for the kill. If it is another assassin, you must listen for the hole in the crowd. That spot that is silent amongst the sea of sound. That is the only way to find such a person. Even in plain day, you will not likely see them. They will try, and succeed, to blend into the crowd, just as you do when you are hunting. We have already been through that lesson, have we not?” Essik nodded silently as he lifted himself back up to a standing position. Alinar continued as he walked away from his student once more,” We will cover another lesson on such later to help ensure you retain the knowledge. And with this, Alinar was lost to the sounds of the street once more as they continued to flood through the room.
