Solo Motivation and Injured Pride

[Belugnir]

Spring 24th, 517 AV, shortly after the 8th bell of morning, beach near Port Silence:


Ein was visiting his makeshift training ground again. The memory and humiliation of being beaten to near death by a slithering mass of living dung still rested too freshly upon him, as did the monster’s stench, albeit faint, even though he spent a good three hours trying to scrub it off last night. He had a mind to train the day trough, both to keep himself from remembering yesterday, and to better prepare himself for preventing a scenario like that from happening again. He had even brought his poleaxe with him, along with a full waterskin and some food, and in his left hand, the lad was clutching a simple belt fitted for carrying six throwing daggers, he hardly cared for how those ended up on a golem’s stall in the market, but he took them off of there after a couple failed attempts at haggling for their regular price none the less. It was unlike him to spend coin on something he didn’t desperately need, but after yesterday’s events, Ein found the spiteful thought of being able to end a whoreson from a distance before they can even raise a hand at him quite appealing.

After setting up three wooden beams as training dummies, he eagerly chucked one of the knives at it from a distance of some twenty feet. The blade went spinning straight past the beam, halfway loosing itself into the sand. With an ounce of frustration, a second dagger came flying, and missed, just as closely as the first one. So did the following three. The last dagger he had, however, accomplished the wondrous feat of actually making contact with its target, never mind the fact that it bounced off across the length of its blade without ever making a dent. With a sigh, Einar went and collected the daggers, he wasn’t quite frustrated yet, after all, the only practice in this little sport that he ever got previously was watching his bored-to-death foster fathers compete at who will let more wind trough the door with an old kitchen knife. Sure, those blades were specifically made for throwing with the intent of injuring a bugger, but that didn’t mean that he’ll be able to hit the mark every time, especially not in the actual heat of a real fight, and for all his brashness and impatience, Ein was aware of that. Frustration only came after he repeated the disappointing errand of emptying the belt of knives into thin air six times over, and after he had to spend a good four chimes gawking around the sand, before finally finding the last stupid hunk of metal that cost him a whole gold coin. Eventually he came to a sit, holding one of the daggers in his hand, giving it a most academic glare, with the belt resting beside him. His thoughts went to the old shack in Sunberth where he’d spent most of his childhood, and to the two men who tried their best to kill time in the heat of a tiresome afternoon.

Yet rather than remembering how the two mercenaries handled their tossing of knives, the little weapon in his hand reminded him of something entirely else. He remembered coming home from his childish mischiefs at the market to the sight of a busted door, one of his foster fathers missing, with the other laying injured in the wooden shambles that used to be the dining table, and to one meaty, hulking bastard who stood over the old mercenary with a wooden bat in his hand. He had probably been another good for nothing drunkard who thought all former knights and their ilk had a trove of silver just sitting somewhere under the rug, or maybe the old farts simply owed him money. It hardly mattered now. With a smug sigh, Ein remembered how all the whoreson’s strength couldn’t save him when a child, less than half his size, shoved the business end of a kitchen knife into the back of his head.

[Belugnir]

Ein spat importantly to the side as he stood up, and with a dull pride at the memory of the first sack of shyke he ever killed, he tossed the dagger in his hand at the wooden beam, with what he felt was zealous precision. Only the nimble weapon ended up hitting the wood with the entirely wrong end and bounced off.

‘’Cheva’s tits, COME ON, you sacks of shit! How hard can this be?!’’, the man yelled, kicking the belt of knives away across the sand. ‘’It’s not like I’m trying to shit out a fuckin’ growling monster like that useless warlock wannabe.’’

With one heavy sigh, he brought a hand to his forehead and shook his head away. After retrieving the dagger again, he decided to leave the wooden beams be for a while, and instead began sinking into a shallow meditation, blindly searching the inside of his being for the sight of his Djed’s flow, it occurred to him then that frustration and concentration aren’t exactly loved siblings. It took several chimes of entranced standing on the beach longer than usual before he grasped at the faint control he had over Flux. Yet rather than start moving what little Djed he could control trough his body, Ein simply let go, so the feeling of awareness faded, and after a brief moment, he was at it again, trying to find the flow of Djed within him. His fight with the monster yesterday, one in which luck carried the day far more than either wits, agility or sorcery, had made him realize that before he taught himself to control the flow in the midst of battle, he’ll have to be able to awaken himself quickly, and not have to meditate for a quarter bell before being able to use the Flux. For nearly half a bell he was at it, attaining the needed awareness and then letting go, just to look for it again, with an intend of honing the speed of the deed. Noon was still a ways off and Einar found himself sitting, dazed, upon the sands.

Hardly did it occur to him that the mind can tire from such an exercise just like one would tire from chopping firewood trough a whole afternoon, so now the lad sat, feeling both drunk and hungover at the same time. His mind began longing for sleep, yet his body was well rested. So he simply sat, in the most passive of conflicts with himself. It was minutes later that he stood up and reached for the belt of throwing knives. Mechanically, without very little thought or frustration, he aimed to hit the wooden beams again. He paid little mind to his highly improved rate of success, namely, having at least two out of the six knives hit their mark proper, his thoughts were no longer so vulgary abundant to let him feel irritation for the failed shots or accomplishment for the ones that connected, he would simply collect the knives to toss them at the makeshift dummies again. It had been some time before his mind had rested enough to let the lad be his own, bickering self once more. He had just missed the wooden beam again, and thought brought another echo of his foster father's advice. ''Practice not alone, lad. That'll only serve to embed your errors.'', With a grumpy sigh, Ein went to collect the daggers again. Well it's not like you're here to teach me now, old fart. And he hardly imagined that the talking tin cans at the market or the buggers who made them would either be able or care to occupy their time by teaching a good-for-nothing Sunberthian how to nail a rabbit from forty steps away with a hunk of metal.

Ein's gaze briefly went to the sky. The sun's high seat betrayed nearly an hour past noon, and only then did Ein realize that his whole upper body, though mostly his arms, were aching from shoving the daggers away without pause. With a strech of muscle, he brought himself to a seat again, now with a mind to actually rest a while, and ponder his brief lack of mind. Spitting to the side, disapproving of himself, he thought how badly actual magic could mar the mind if merely exercising for the exercise of practicing it could leave him as dense as a log for an hour and some.

[Belugnir]

For about half an hour Ein rested, pondering upon meaningless things, before he brought himself to his feet again, poleaxe in hand this time around. This was going to be a dull series of familiar exercises, ones he was already somewhat comfortable with, yet didn’t want to fade from memory of both mind and muscle. He made a downward slash with the axe end, followed by a pair of waist-height stabs with the weapon’s spearhead, each beginning from a separate side of the body, and each done in accord with the opposite foot sharply stepping forward with a swift, heavy exhale. A standard opening move… for fighting in a line and against some glory-hungry lunatics that come charging at you full swing. None the less, it was good exercise for the muscles, and for reminding oneself the proper handling of the long, crude weapon. Another good exercise was to repeat a forward shove that came at the opponent with the horizontal length of the poleaxe, a move that could easily block and repel a downward strike from a sword or an axe thanks to the leverage and weight the poleaxe provided, this would be followed by an attempt to bring the hammer end across the enemy’s head or upper body, and then return the weapon for a third hit with either the axe or the hammer head, usually lethal against any bugger who’d think they have the advantage in closer quarters with a more nimble weapon.

A move that he sometimes added to those two combos was a sideways parry, followed by a counter attack, meant to deal with incoming thrusts from either sword or spear. It was somewhat easy to adjust the height of the parry, thanks to the sheer length of the weapon, simply by shifting the angle at which it is held, the point was to redirect an incoming thrust with the steel head of the weapon, before sharply stepping forward to deliver a thrust of the spearhead or a bash from the other ends of the weapon, depending on the position of the parry, while the opponent’s weapon was freshly out of place. There was, however, one tricky part to executing the parry properly. All it would take for it is a sharp, controlled, but brief movement to hit the incoming weapon to the side, yet it wasn’t such a breeze to remain stone cold when a growling bastard was coming at you, jabbing a sword at your face. Thrusts had an advantage to lashes, as they came out quicker and finished their momentum quicker, so they were harder to predict and react to, and thus it was easy to forget oneself and wildly flail the poleaxe to deflect the attack. A cheap, easy ticket to getting killed, as once the control over a weapon so large is lost, it’s nigh impossible to establish it again without giving the opponent a lethal opening.

[Belugnir]

Most of Ein’s exercises and their combinations with the poleaxe consisted of three distinct movements at a time. That was the average duration for which he could keep his breathing and footwork in sync with his upper body without taking a breath-long pause to initiate a new combo. He was taught that holding his breath was a valid option in combat, sure, it was, it required a good deal less concentration for a novice, and thus allowed the faintest advantages when it came to speed, but if he didn’t rightly end your enemy before having to breathe in again, the overall synchronization of breath and footwork would swiftly go to shit, and his stamina would soon follow.

Ein spent nearly two hours, with proper pauses, repeating his poleaxe exercises. Parry, thrust, shove. Parry, thrust, retreat. Shove, bash, bash. So on and so forth, offense always in sync with stepping forward to add force behind the hit and take ground from the enemy, defense always in accord with slow retreating back-steps. He still didn’t attempt to practice four-move combos, simply because his skill with the weapon and his self-control, as he knew, weren’t ripe for it yet, and because three distinct, sharp moves were usually enough to either end a bugger for good, or to wound or kill one bugger, and then retreat from the fellow who was trying to gut you from your left flank and was almost always either the first bugger’s ugly brother or uglier yet tavern buddy. Though, taking another long rest, Ein supposed that he won’t be fighting drunk Sunberthian child rapists any time soon, and that his business will be more akin to what he had to deal with yesterday. Mind went to pondering on the fact that he’ll need more than his poleaxe and his beginner free-form combos to take down the spawns of Sahova that will be thrown his way.

[Belugnir]

After an hour-long pause for rest and several bites of bread and dried meat that he had brought with him, Einar was back at the practicing for the final time for today, as both the day and his endurance were nearing their dusk. This time he took a moment of meditation, and although not nearly as quickly as he’d like, he accomplished a Flux-aware state at a surprisingly quicker rate, and then he was back at the poleaxe exercises. Parry, thrust, shove. Shove, bash, retreat. All empowered by Djed that he kept faintly concentrated into his general upper body, stronger and faster, slightly, but so, yet all in requirement of twice as much control, for several forms of restraint were required to use Flux properly. There was still slight thought required for breath, and slighter but present requirement of mind for footwork. His muscles still haven’t remembered well enough to work without aware guidance. His one mind would have to do the work meant for five, six, or seven even, if he’d attempt this against one or multiple opponents that weren’t made of good old, harmless thin air, or if he wanted to add a cheeky knife toss into his exchange of blows, an execution he just attempted and poorly performed. But that was the point of training, becoming able to do that which he couldn’t do presently, he won’t need to grow another head to think with, breath, weapon and footwork will one day come as easy as sleep, just like his foster fathers always preached about, and he imagined it will be so with sorcery as well, for far too similarly did Flux handle to a weapon, never mind not one of wood or iron. Einar’s mind and body both tired swifter under the strain of Flux, and his exercises weren’t quite as splendidly performed as the majority of his concentration went toward self-restraint with the magic in order to not hurt himself or end up fainting out of the blue. Brief pauses he had to take almost twice as frequently, and even so, the overall length of the exercise barely got near to twenty-five chimes, before he had to take a nearly equally long rest.

Afterwards he decided to once again take helm of Flux, though slowly and with very little output. This time without the poleaxe, for his arms ached far too much to handle it any more today. Instead he gave a brief, hardly meaningful series of punches and elbow shoves to one of his training dummies, meant more to harden his knuckles a bit and quickly remind himself of several series of movements and of the feeling of being up close and personal with a possible opponent, as opposed to a somewhat comfortable distance that the poleaxe could provide. The exercise was almost sloppy, not overly long, and halfway through it he lost awareness of his Djed. His elbow shoves gave room to ‘dirty’ kicks with the knee, that’d be aimed at the opponent’s groin. And, when he collapsed for the third time after attempting to follow a waist-height kick with one aimed for the head, Ein decided that the dummies have had enough. As did he. The lad wasn’t quite exhausted, as that was the whole point of the pauses he took between sessions, but he felt he’ll barely have the strength to get back to the Citadel after another half an hour of exercise, so it was time to call it a day. He lowered the dummies and kicked a pile of sand over them, not being in the mood to conceal them any better, took his poleaxe, his somewhat expensive new belt of toys, and began making his way to the Citadel’s glorified broom closets where a stiff bed and a long night’s rest awaited him.

[Languish]

Your grades have been summoned
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Belugnir

■ Observation +3
■ Weapon: Dagger +3
■ Flux +2
■ Weapon: Poleaxe +3
■ Tactics +2
■ Meditation +2
■ Unarmed Combat +1

Lores

Lore of Combat: The Appeals of Ranged Combat
Lore of Magic: Can Leave the Mind Numb
Lore of Meditation: Frustration Makes it Difficult
Lore of Combat Magic: Speed is Essential
Lore of Poleaxe: Blocking with Horizontal Thrusts
Lore of Poleaxe: Executing a Parry
Lore of Poleaxe: Using Three-Move Combos
Lore of Tactics: Advantages of Thrusts over Lashes
Lore of Tactics: Holding Your Breath For Concentration
Lore of Flux: Tires Mind and Body Quickly
Lore of Unarmed Combat: Hardening the Knuckles

Additional Information

None.

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Comments:

Keep an eye out on typos. Your most common seems to be "trough" instead of "through", and while that doesn't impede comprehension, it can be interruptive. The squiggles won't underline "trough", so that'll only be fixed with a good proofread.

Don't forget to delete your post in the grading queue. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to PM me about your grade.

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