Completed Daggers and Drugs II

Darvin starts Kelski's training, but is the cost too high?

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A lawless town of anarchists, built on the ruins of an ancient mining city. [Lore]

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Daggers and Drugs II

Postby Kelski on February 21st, 2018, 1:40 am

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Timestamp: 18th of Winter, 517 AV

Continued From: Daggers and Drugs


Darvin smiled, pleased. "Good. That's the sort of attitude we need you to have to survive." He said, circling around her again. She was fierce, in her own way, but only when cornered and provoked. The Dragoon Guardian wondered again fleetingly about Kelski’s history. She never talked of the past… nor of the future for that matter. He was the one providing for her future by giving her this training. And even now he didn’t know why he was doing it. There was nothing really in it for him. He could test his drugs out on Kelski at any time, whether she liked it or not. This way, he felt just a little less guilty.

Kelski watched him closely, the wooden dagger he’d given her clenched tightly in her hand. She’d taken a forward grip and was standing absolutely perfect. Darvin thought she looked exotic and dangerous.

“Okay… now we’re going to talk about reverse dagger grips. When I say a reverse grip, I mean when the dagger blade and point oppose the thumb.” He demonstrated with his own wooden dagger. “That means the dagger is reversed and opposite of the actual forward grip. These grips have a ton of different names…. The stabber, The Icepick, The Talon… Let me tell you though. People formally trained in dagger will tell you that reverse grips are for the inexperienced person that just wants to stab something. They fill this is unrefined and improper. I’m telling you now Kelski that there is no proper or improper way to hold a dagger. Your hand can accommodate a ton of different positions, holds, and grips. Use what feels comfortable to you. This is Sunberth. There is no elegant, proper or distinguished ways of fighting. The only goal is to save your life or take something from someone weaker than you are. If this grip feels good to you and you can use it, then use it. I’ll be going through each grips disadvantages and advantages, but you still need to choose for yourself.” He offered, tossing his dagger up in the air for a moment and then catching it neatly.

Kelski shifted uncomfortably. She kept moving the dagger from forward to reverse positions over and over, swinging, and taking a minute to get a feel for it. Darvin watched her then stepped closer to catch her wrist and make some adjustments.

“Now the first one is called Reverse Edge Out. This is important if your dagger only has one sharpened edge or a sharper edge on one side than another, which many people that fight with daggers train for. There’s a whole host of daggers out there, Kelski and edges matter. That means you want your best edge orientated outward, away from your body. You want to make sure the daggers you own can accommodate both grips – forward and reverse – because you don’t always have time to look at how you are grabbing your dagger if you need your weapon in a hurry. If handles and hilts only fit your hand one way, get rid of it because it’s a disadvantage. Now… what does this grip do for you?” As he talked Darvin reached out and adjusted her grip on it, pushing her fingers closer together and wrapping her thumb over the end of the dagger, giving her a serious ability to drive the dagger deep into something or someone.

Kelski nodded once the dagger was re-positioned in her hand. It felt good, dangerous even, and she smiled slightly.
Last edited by Kelski on February 25th, 2018, 5:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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They laugh at me because I am different.
I laugh at them because they are all the same.


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Kelski
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Location: The Wildlands of Sylira & The Empyreal Demesne
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Daggers and Drugs II

Postby Kelski on February 21st, 2018, 2:03 am

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Kelski wasn’t sure why Darvin was teaching her all this. He seemed to be treating her as he would a young recruit, and it was completely unexpected. And truth be told she was torn over the whole thing. In her heart, she was a predator – the top of the aerial food chain – but that was just among birds. She’d been happy as a Sea Eagle. Lonely, sure, but happy too. Here among humans her wicked sharp beak didn’t matter. Her razor-sharp talons didn’t concern anyone. They didn’t even see that aspect of her. They didn’t want to. Instead they wanted to give her human weapons. They gave them more credibility than natural born talent. It frustrated her, angered her, but it was a quiet rage she tamped down deep inside. She’d have to learn this… at least until she didn’t have a collar holding her back.

Darvin was speaking again. His deep voice was a growl with years of tough living and hard liquor. She liked listening to him, truth be told, and liked even better the feel of the dagger in her hands. Kelski watched him attentively, imagining herself doing to him what he instructed her to do to others.

“You have so many advantages with this technique. It causes your sharp edge to be facing the enemy, no matter where the hand is. You act like you are going to throw a punch with your fist, and that will drag the blade and cutting edge across the enemy in a slashing motion. It can also be used like an ice pick, meaning you can bring down considerable force on the tip, easily sliding it within the enemy and gutting them. I have you holding this reverse grip edge out capped… which means your thumb is over the end, giving you incredible control. You won’t easily be disarmed because your grip will be far stronger this way than any of the other ways I’ve shown you so far.” He said, looking unimpressed as he circled her once more. She looked ready to fight and not afraid of the weapon in her hand. Most first-time students were, so in that she was different. But she should be afraid. And she shouldn’t look ready. Eager students got killed. And to his way of thinking, she looked far to eager.

Kelski nodded, curling the dagger up to look at it more closely, running her thumb across the pommel and biting her lower lip. Steel grey eyes turned to Darvin again as he moved onward with the lesson. “I understand the difference. I can feel the difference too.” She added, shifting her stance and taking a few casual motions using the dagger in her hand in its reverse grip. “Can I also fight with the edge in?” She asked, wondering what the difference was if indeed she had daggers that were specific sided like he’d spoken of.

“Yes. Flip the edge in your hand, Kelski and then stop capping the blade and instead connect your thumb with your forefinger and re-secure your grip. The point should oppose the thumb and the cutting edge should face you. This has the same advantages as the Reverse Grip Edge Out technique but you can claw with it, like a beast, and some knife users like yourself might be more comfortable with that. This technique is great for hitting enemies at your side and back.” He said, causing Kelski to step away from him and test the new grip, swinging to her side and pretending to swing around to her back. It definitely had advantages to attacking someone who might be attacking her from behind.

The Kelvic smiled slowly, and kept at it, moving with the blade, swinging it comfortably around in a tight secure grip, switching the blade mid-motion from blade in to blade out and back, reversing and forwarding the dagger as well. She would have never guessed dagger fighting had so many tiny components, but since Darvin was breaking them down for her, she was slowly getting a bigger picture.
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They laugh at me because I am different.
I laugh at them because they are all the same.


Painted Sky Jewelry (The Wildlands) | Crossroads Jewelry (The Outpost)
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Kelski
Freedom is earned. Fight for it.
 
Posts: 1598
Words: 2015452
Joined roleplay: July 3rd, 2014, 11:08 pm
Location: The Wildlands of Sylira & The Empyreal Demesne
Race: Kelvic
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Medals: 11
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Daggers and Drugs II

Postby Kelski on February 22nd, 2018, 4:23 am

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Kelski tilted her head sideways when Darvin seemed to pause in his instruction. He seemed to be considering something, and she wanted to know what it was. “Are there other grips, or are these the core ones you want me to learn?” Kelski asked, curiously still cycling through the grips, moving the dagger around, swinging up, down, and trying to hit opponents that she was obviously imagining were behind her, beside her, and in front. Never once did she glance at him when she was doing this, but Darvin knew the look.

He imagined either himself or Jaren were the invisible opponents. Though the Kelvic had no obvious tells she was unhappy, he knew she was. The way she tilted her head against the collar that held her in her human form often gave her away. He simply didn’t care though. It was enough that he mind his own circumstance. Everyone else in Sunberth were better off that way… minding their own circumstance and not someone else’s. Kelski wouldn’t survive slavery. He knew it as much as Jaren did. Her clock was winding down and that was all there was to it. Teaching her dagger was stretching out the chime hand, but in the long run it wouldn’t make much of a difference in her life. It might make her a little less dead a little faster, but that was it.

Even Darvin could admit wild things needed to stay wild.

He started to speak, paused, then continued. “There are several unusual grips. I’ll show you a couple, but mostly they aren’t things you need to know. We utilize them for specialty moves, things you will learn later.” He added, but showed her anyhow. Kelski was notoriously quiet, and the truth was Darvin listened when she spoke because she asked so few questions in their day to day work. He often attributed it to her being half animal, at least as far as he was concerned.

The truth was closer to the fact that Kelski simply wasn’t interested in much she had to do day to day with Darvin. Running errands, looking pretty, modeling jewelry, being one of Jaren’s ornate collection wasn’t her idea of fun. She was only alive in her workshop. Darvin didn’t understand that. And if she wasn’t interested, she wasn’t interactive.

Darvin stepped closer, reached out and adjusted her grip on her dagger again. “This is a palm reinforced grip, Kelski.” He said, aligning the pommel of the dagger so it was nested in the crook created by her thumb joining the palm. Her pointer finger he aligned along the top spine of the dagger against the crossbar. “This grip relies on the heavy base of the palm on your hand to apply pressure to the point of the knife for piercing. You have the knife aimed at the enemy, and the point shoved forward like a nail driver. You use a punching motion to apply piercing force to the knife blade. You can penetrate layers of cloth and lots and lots of flesh, even bone, this way.” He added, nodding as she tested the grip and switched from it to a forward then reverse grip and back to the palm reinforced.

“Its good for a quick attack, but let me assure you that this technique is severely limited in its usage. The dagger is barely secure. Your grip is uncertain, and you can’t really close your palm around the dagger to keep yourself from being disarmed. You can quickly injure yourself this way as well because there’s actually very few points of contact with the handle and because of that the knife can be easily rotated by the nature of the material you stab.” Darvin added.

“I feel like it could be easily knocked out of my grip or that I could lose it by simply stabbing something with it this way. Is there a way to have a dagger that I could grip but would also have a handle that would fit into my palm so I could both hold it and punch with it?” Kelski asked.

Darvin laughed. “Yes, its called a punch dagger. I actually have a variety of daggers for you to look at over here…” He said gesturing to a table all set up draped with a cloth on the far end of the room. “I was going to save that for a bit later, but I can see we might as well talk about it next.” He added, beckoning for her to come with him.
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They laugh at me because I am different.
I laugh at them because they are all the same.


Painted Sky Jewelry (The Wildlands) | Crossroads Jewelry (The Outpost)
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Kelski
Freedom is earned. Fight for it.
 
Posts: 1598
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Joined roleplay: July 3rd, 2014, 11:08 pm
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Daggers and Drugs II

Postby Kelski on February 25th, 2018, 4:33 am

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Darvin pulled the cloth back from the table, revealing a wide array of blades laying out on its hard surface. Each one looked more wicked than the last, and though some of the Kelski could guess the usage of, the remainder of them completely eluded her. The Kelvic gasped and stepped forward, moving to the edge of the table and overlooking all the weapons on it. Darvin chuckled. “These are just little tokens of affection I’ve collected off of people that have wronged me in some way throughout the time I’ve known them. Might be from shorting me on money for drugs or being a bad lay, or even those that watered down my ale. I know you are just learning daggers, Kelski, but I think its important to know what sort of blades are out there.” He said, gesturing at how he had them arranged… which was small to medium sized, to some that felt very large to Kelski.

She reached out and touched one, then at Darvin’s urging, picked it up. It was a claw-like weapon that fit in her palm which her fingers curled around that sported five claws that sprang from a crossbar and rose out between her fingers. “That’s a Bagh Nakha… a claw. I thought you might want to see it because of your nature.” Kelski nodded, rested the weapon back in its place on the table and then ran a finger over a very chunky but small dagger with a wide blade. “That’s an assassin’s dagger. The wide blade is designed to cut someone, Kelski…. open them wide up… and make them bleed out. There’s death in that dagger.” He said as the Kelvic picked up the chunky dagger and admired its girth. It looked like death attached to a handle. The Kelvic smiled.

“There’s all kinds of blades, Kelski. Some of these have hollow pommels you can hide poison in. Some of these attach to the wrists.” He gestured to each type of weapon as he talked about it. He even had double bladed daggers, and a punching one like he’d talked about before. Kelski picked up the double bladed dagger and swung with it, but didn’t like the way the weight felt. The punching dagger was interesting and felt good in her palm, but she still liked the plain dagger better that she already used. Then, Darvin handed her a Tamo dagger, which looked like a thin plain wooden club and two daggers slid out of it, fitting to each other perfectly. Kelski loved them immediately, and grinned at Darvin when she held them.

“You’ll need to get better at dagger first, but I can arrange for a set of those for you.” He said confidently as Kelski moved on to more daggers. She investigated the Stiletto and looked over the Kukri. Darvin even had a Kopis and Kris for her, though she didn’t like either of those nearly as well as the plain dagger or the tamos. She looked over a Kama, but the curve through her off and she didn’t like it. Finally, she played with a short sword, and while it had better reach, it didn’t comfortingly remind her of her talons like the shorter daggers did. When she was done, he nodded, and then she carefully raised her hands, both of them, so he could measure her for a set of daggers.

Taking a simple ruler, Darvin made Kelski hold the straight ruler across the inside of her hand, aligning the edge with the inside of the second knuckles of her fingers. He carefully wrote down the measurement, then had her curl her fingers around the ruler and took a second measurement. With her hand folded over the ruler, there was a difference between the relaxed and the gripped sizing. Then he took a third measurement. He had her keep her hand gripped around the ruler, but this time she stretched her thumb out along the spine of the ruler and he took the distance between the outstretched thumb and her first forefingers. “This gives me the dimensions I need to calculate the most comfortable distance between quillions, Kelski, if I have something made custom if you get good at this.” He said, noting down the measurements.

Then he turned, nodded, and said quietly…”Now lets actually talk about fighting.” He said carefully, getting to the meat and bones of her training.
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They laugh at me because I am different.
I laugh at them because they are all the same.


Painted Sky Jewelry (The Wildlands) | Crossroads Jewelry (The Outpost)
User avatar
Kelski
Freedom is earned. Fight for it.
 
Posts: 1598
Words: 2015452
Joined roleplay: July 3rd, 2014, 11:08 pm
Location: The Wildlands of Sylira & The Empyreal Demesne
Race: Kelvic
Character sheet
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Plotnotes
Medals: 11
Featured Character (1) Featured Thread (2)
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Daggers and Drugs II

Postby Kelski on February 25th, 2018, 5:26 am

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Kelski knew Darvin was serious when he pulled the cloth back over the table full of daggers and turned to her. “I can turn you into an elegant fighter with a dagger, Kelski. And I promise to do that. But I also want you to survive a fight more than five minutes. Daggers kill. They kill quickly and it’s not a pretty death. I’ve been in thousands of dagger fights, Kelski. And there’s things you need to know about them to be effective in fighting with daggers that your tiny little bird brain isn’t thinking of.” He added, looking at her on the sly as he handed her wooden dagger back to her.

“I’m also going to turn you, first and foremost, into a quick and dirty fighter. So, listen carefully. I want you to understand that when people go to fight, the last thing you want your opponent to know is that you have a dagger. Always lead with your empty hand. I want you to wave that free hand around before the fight starts, get your opponents attention on it, and have that dagger out but partially concealed. I want you to get as close to your opponent as you can, little bird, and then latch onto them. This is especially true if they aren’t immediately armed or taking you seriously. Then I want you to hold them, bringing them right up to you… and I want you to stab them repeatedly, fast and hard, with your dagger. Kill quick. Open them up. Hit the guts, the heart, the kidney, the liver…. puncture their lungs, open up their guts. I want them bleeding in a dozen places deep and hard before they even know you’ve attacked. You’re not a tiny woman, but you aren’t nearly as big as most men. I want your advantage to be that you are fast and fight smart, Kelski.” He said suddenly, and as if to emphasize the situation, he waved his hand around a moment.

Kelski’s eyes immediately latched onto his waving hand, and he reached out and grabbed her with it, dragging her into his body as soon as he latched on. Then he tapped her hard, making her grunt, over and over and over again with another wooden dagger he’d pulled when she wasn’t looking. Kelski was so surprised she dropped her own dagger, and caused Darvin to shake his head in disgust… pushing her away from him.

“Focus. Never loose your weapon. If you do, you’re dead. And if someone is waving a hand around to get your attention, its because they are holding your death in their other hand and don’t want you to see it coming.” He said, reiterating what he’d just said. Kelski nodded, then tried it herself unasked.

She knelt down and retrieved her dagger and switched it to another hand. She made sure she bent over far enough that the boys shirt she wore gapped over her chest allowing Darvin to look down a good deal of her front. Then she slowly rose, a handful of dirt clutched in her hand unnoticed by him. She stood back, seemed to gather herself, then took her hand that was full of dirt and reached out with it shaking her fist as if she might be threatening him with it. Her hand she had the dagger loaded into was pressed discretely to her side. Darvin wasn’t looking for a sneak attack, so when Kelski shook her hand again to get his attention, she released the dirt she had in it and tossed it in his face. Then, instead of grabbing him, while his arms were up and his hands were rubbing at his eyes, she darted forward and punched her wooden dagger at him just below his ribs repeatedly, bouncing off armor he had concealed beneath his shirt.

Her instructor cursed, stepped back, and blinked muddy tears…. but he was smiling. Kelski thought that was a good sign, even as he smeared the dirt out of his eyes and leaned forward to cuff her sharply upside the head. “Stop it sneaky bitch. I’m teaching you for the price of testing on you…. don’t actually abuse me.” He snarled as he took the time to wipe out his eyes.

Kelski didn’t even mind the almost instinctual reaction from the Dragoon. It was worth a cuff or two to get in a hit the old man wasn’t expecting.
Last edited by Kelski on February 26th, 2018, 3:13 am, edited 2 times in total.
Image
They laugh at me because I am different.
I laugh at them because they are all the same.


Painted Sky Jewelry (The Wildlands) | Crossroads Jewelry (The Outpost)
User avatar
Kelski
Freedom is earned. Fight for it.
 
Posts: 1598
Words: 2015452
Joined roleplay: July 3rd, 2014, 11:08 pm
Location: The Wildlands of Sylira & The Empyreal Demesne
Race: Kelvic
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 11
Featured Character (1) Featured Thread (2)
Mizahar Grader (1) Trailblazer (1)
Overlored (1) Donor (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Sunberth Seasonal Challenge (1) Power Fork (1)

Daggers and Drugs II

Postby Kelski on February 26th, 2018, 3:11 am

Kelski
Experience

Dagger +5, Observation +5,

Lore

Dagger: Reverse Dagger Grip (stabber, ice pick, talon), Dagger: No Improper Way To Hold It, Dagger: Reverse Edge Out Grip, Dagger: Reverse Edge In Grip, Dagger: Palm Reinforced Grip, Dagger: Types Of Daggers, Dagger: How To Properly Measure Ones Hand For A Grip, Dagger: Lead With Empty Hand For Surprise, Dagger: Attack Fast, Stab Hard, Multiple Times, Dagger: Distracting Opponent Away From Weapon, Dagger: Never Drop/Throw Away Your Weapon, Dagger: Combining It With Brawling, Dagger: Blinding Opponent With Dirt
Image
They laugh at me because I am different.
I laugh at them because they are all the same.


Painted Sky Jewelry (The Wildlands) | Crossroads Jewelry (The Outpost)
User avatar
Kelski
Freedom is earned. Fight for it.
 
Posts: 1598
Words: 2015452
Joined roleplay: July 3rd, 2014, 11:08 pm
Location: The Wildlands of Sylira & The Empyreal Demesne
Race: Kelvic
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 11
Featured Character (1) Featured Thread (2)
Mizahar Grader (1) Trailblazer (1)
Overlored (1) Donor (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Sunberth Seasonal Challenge (1) Power Fork (1)


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