Solo Sword and Sand

Nayato undergoes a bit of sword training.

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Syka is a new settlement of primarily humans on the east coast of Falyndar opposite of Riverfall on The Suvan Sea. [Syka Codex]

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Sword and Sand

Postby Nayato on March 20th, 2018, 3:02 pm

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Spring 5th,
518 A.V.

The Khopesh.

It was Nayato's primary weapon of choice. It was a weapon designed to have a thick blade because the blade was curved, able to apply an intensely greater pressure to its target than a straight edged blade. As Nayato stood just on the edges of the beach of Syka with his weapon in his right hand, he held it upright to slash it downward in a heavy arc to slam the blade into the trunk of a random tree standing on the treeline away from anyone walking The Cobbled Pathway.

“One, two, press, four! One, two, press, four!”

Nayato swung the Khopesh in rhythm with each of the commands. The commands were ones being shouted at him by the flickering image his female ghost companion. A ghost clad in the warn armor of a squire in the Syliran knights. Jaleh was the ghost of a deceased squire who'd latched onto him since they shared the same goals. Nayato allowed her to live vicariously through him in hope that she'd find peace with him. But that also meant she always wanted him to be training in his free time.

“One, two, press, four! One, two, press, four!”

He swung his arm to guide the blade of the Khopesh into the tree with a diagnal slash, then in a backwards arch gashed at the tree with the back end curve of the blade, then lifted his left hand to raise his buckler shield. When Jaleh yelled press, Nayato flexed his left bicep to brace his shield arm. Then pressed his heels into the ground to shoulder bash the tree. it caused the near area to ring out with a horrid clang of steel against wood before the Squire leaned back to slash in an upward ark with his Khopesh. The upward slash sent bark and bits of the trees soft vegetation flying.

In a way, Nayato had realized that the weapon handled more like an axe when it was swung, but was controlled like a sword. Its slight trait towards being unwieldy was due to its extra weight. And yet, that also made it perfect for blocking.

All of the shouting and loud banging was enough to draw the attention of the settlement's defender, Buraga Shamzen. "Good form, but the follow through leaves much to be improved. Likewise, a tree won't fight back." The rather imposing looking human said while resting a hand on the hilt of the longsword on his hip. Nayato stopped in mid swing to greet the person who'd started to chat with him.

"Trees seem to be in abundance, so using them for practice seemed a good place to start." He said while waving his khopesh in front of Jaleh's face to get the specter to stop shouting commands. "Enough. Calm yourself." He said in a soothing tone to ease the ghost back into a proper civil mindset.

"I'm never one to turn down helping someone train who would aid in defending the settlement. So if you are up for sparing with another person, lets test your metal. It will also save many trees from your wrath." Buraga said with a slight chuckle. Nayato nodded to him and followed the Settlement guard out onto the beach where they stood across from each other in preparation to begin.

Last edited by Nayato on March 22nd, 2018, 1:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Sword and Sand

Postby Nayato on March 20th, 2018, 4:20 pm

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"Come on, then." Buraga aid with a slight gesture of his hand for Nayato to initiate combat. The Squire had been beaten around by his patron knight back in Syliras enough times to know that when a man doesn't draw their weapon, they must be damn good with both the weapon and their fists. Nayato lifted his left arm to keep up the buckler shield strapped to it ready to defend. "By the way, My name is Buraga." The Human said with hardly any hostile singles showing from his body language. All Buraga seemed to be wearing was leather armor, which was the same type of armor Nayato was wearing at the moment.

Nayato kept his sword down by his hip with the blade pointed forward, ready to stab when needed. "Nayato. And I assume you want me to actually try to hit you given we don't have practice weapons?" Buraga suppressed his own fit of laughter as he motioned his head over towards the tree the Chaktawe was attacking. "From what I saw, you won't even be able to dirty my armor, let alone scratch it with your blade."

It was then that the two men realized that the challenge had been set and accepted: Nayato needed to scratch Buraga's armor with his khopesh's blade.

Nayato took the initiative, closing the short five feet of distance between them until he was only three feet away with his sword arching through the air in a sudden slash directed diagonally downward cross Buraga's body from left shoulder to right hip. Nayato only closed in two of the five feet because his blade was an extension of his hand, able to damage from the same distance as a typical longsword.

Buraga responded by taking a single step backwards to avoid the slash by an inch, then pivoted on his right foot as he lifted his left leg. The human warrior cocked his left leg back like a snake ready to lash out, then launched a heavy boot forward in a side kick aimed for Nayato's chest.

The Squire's right hand was still in the motion of following through with his slash, but he did shift the buckler to take the brunt of the kicks force. The kinetic force released against the buckler felt just like it did when he bashed the shield against a tree. Only this time he was the tree. Nayato's whole body was sent toppling backwards about three feet before his feet got tangled up underneath him, causing the Squire to fall backwards into the sand.

"Yeah.. he can fight."

Nayato thought to himself as his theory about 'unarmed people welcoming attacks by an armed foe means they are great fighters' came true. The squire slowly stood to his feet, then shook his shield arm to shake the pain out of it from bracing the blow. Nayato held a tight grip on the hilt of his sword in one hand, then shifted his left arm to grip the bottom of his swords hilt. He decided to forego the need for his shield to wield the Khopesh in a two handed hammer grip.

Nayato the ran in close to do the same type of downward slice after lifting the Khopesh high into the air. The Squire wanted to see if Buraga would do the same thing if challenged in the exact same way, but with a slight modification. The Human warrior dodged the attack in the same way, forcing Nayato to miss by an inch after taking a step backwards. But Buraga seemed to see through Nayato's plan.

Nayato used a double grip to have more control of his sword, forcing the weapon to pause mid strike soon after missing. The tip of the sword halted with the blade pointed right at Buraga and Nayato lunged forward to try to hit the mans armor with a piercing bees sting.

In one of the most impressive displays of swordsmanship Nayato had ever seen, Buraga simply unsheathed a quarter of his long-sword from its scabbard to let the steel block diagonally across his body. The tip of his khopesh slammed right against the flat of the Human's long-sword who used the weapon like a shield. Nayato let his shield hand go of the hilt to hold it up, then continued the forward motion of the stab to try and shield bash Buraga.

It was an action that failed just as miserably once Buraga kicked out with a low round house kick to Nayato's outer thigh. The pain that jolted up Nayato's leg caused him to grit in pain and topple down onto the knee of his uninjured leg. he stood kneeling in the sand for a chime before standing up once the main feeling of pain went away.

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Sword and Sand

Postby Nayato on March 20th, 2018, 5:40 pm

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Nayato was not enjoying being tossed around like a rag doll, however he knew that it was a learning process. He was better than he was when he first started training, but his skills were still no match for a person like Buraga. The Squire sighed to himself as he twirled the Khopesh in his right hand. He was about to prepare for another attack when the apportion of Jaleh appeared next to him.

"I want to try and train." The ghost of squire said with an ecstatic glee. Nayato looked towards her with a raised brow. "You sure that you're up for that?" He asked as Buraga looked back and forth between the two of them. Jaleh then smiled as she floated closer to Nayto. "Just remember not to fight me, okay?" She reminded Nay as she walked right into his physical being. Nayato trusted her enough to do nothing to resist her, he simply did all he could to embrace the cold sensation the ghost of the ghost's soulmist degrading within him as it sacrificed its own power to force his body to take a jagged step forward.

His grip on his word grew tighter not of his own accord. "Come on. Lift." Jaleh spoke while within him, controlling his voice. His slowly lifted high into the sky before pausing. Jaleh attempted to slash with the sword but mistakenly let go of the hilt resulting in the blade falling to the sand. Buraga stood in silence for a moment before chiming in. "You alright, Nayato?" He didn't repond as that would instantly rend control away from Jaleh. She tried to make him kneel down to pick up the sword, but it was such a dramatic process that by the time he'd knlt down to touch the sword because of her.

Jaleh had exhausted her supply of soulmist to then become ejected from his body. She was so weak that she hardly had the soulmist left to materialize, so just lurked invisibly around where Nayato now shook from the cold sensation of a ghost exiting his body. Even though he'd been getting slapped around by Buraga, the after effects of possession left him sore in places he'd not even worked out. His head was sore and he felt that pain all the way down to the balls of his feet.

"I'll make you some soulmist later tonight."
He said with a smile, then picked up his sword.

Buraga knew Nayato was alright the squire began to roll his shoulders to shake away the fatigue. "Where were we?" Nayato mused with a sly smirk. The Human warrior chuckled while motioning a hand to his longsword. "Not sure about you, but I was waiting for you to get serious enough for me to draw my blade."

Nayato gave the man a smirk of his own before running in close with his sword raise high in his right hand. He acted like he was going to slash at Buraga with it, but instead sent his balled left fist out in a jab of a punch that he often used when boxing. Nayato pivoted on his left foot as he sent the punch forward in attempt to really dig it into Buraga's nose.

The Human put a palm in the way of the punch to slap Nayato's attack aside. "A boxer?" Buraga said with slight intrigue from the way Nayato had thrown the punch. Nayato then let the faint of his sword attack turn into a real attack by slashing down with the Khopesh. Buraga side stepped the slash to stand towards the Chaktawe left side, then balled a fist to bash it into his lower left side. He only hit Nay hard enough so that he could feel the small shock through his leather armor.

The pain was sudden, but his left arm lashed out in an arc to try to bash Buraga with his shield, both as an attack and a means to force the man to back away form him. Nayato fell down to his knees shortly after getting socked in the gut. "That explained a lot why you don't seem to be defending kicks or using kicks of your own. That a hard path to follow, but you'll be a monster if you learn to power through pain and hit your targets someday. You might want to do a bit of body building to gain mass to hit harder and up your defense."

Nayato forced himself to breath deeply to ignore the pain. His chest heaving as he shuffled his knees in the sand in preparation to stand back up. Pain was just a learning curve that needed to be overcome.

Last edited by Nayato on March 22nd, 2018, 2:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Sword and Sand

Postby Nayato on March 21st, 2018, 9:06 am

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Nayato stood to his feet while pointing the tip of his blade at Buraga. They both shared a smirk with each other before The Squire initiated a flourish of movement between the two combatants. His arm lashed out in a horizontal slash aimed at the Human's collarbone, which Buraga ducked below; and Nayato brought his buckler shield across his chest to front bash it against Buraga's knuckles when the man tried to punch him straight in the solar plexus.

The block did not even feel like it had worked given that Nayato's forearm felt like it was being hit with a club. However, at least the blows were being deflected by his defenses.

They both stood in close range of each other as Nayato dug his boot heels deep into the sands. He lunged with his right arm forward in attempt to jab the tip of the Khopesh into the thigh guard of Buraga's leg armor. All of the Chaktawe's previous attacks were focused on the upper torso, which caused the Settlement defender to pause for a moment upon noticing the downward arch of the lunge.

Buraga took a large step to the side to avoid the stab, then finally saw fit to draw his longsword from its sheath. As the large man moved with practiced speed, he guided the flat side of his longsword through the air to arch around behind Nayato as he walked to his side, then bashed it against the side of Nayato's leather greave that protected his shin.

Nayato could don nothing else but grit and bare that pain as he pivoted on his good leg to keep facing Buraga. He knew that he did not want to have the much better warrior behind his back, so lashed out with his Khopesh while in the middle of his pivot in hopes of just slashing the edge against the other mans armor in the chaos of the flourish.

In the fog of war, he'd forgotten the obvious fact that Buraga had drawn his longsword. His attack was easily parried aside when their blades slammed together. It was a loud sound that served as the bell for the two of them to take a step back away from each other to reset for another flourish.

Nayato chest was heaving under his armor as he tried to control his breathing. He took a deep breath that raised his chest, then slowly exhaled through his nostrils. His body was tired from the stressful action of sparing and his past possession. And yet, he still wanted to force himself to train for a little longer.

The leather armor clad squire was ready to go, but Buraga appeared to pull a banana from a belt pouch he wore, and started to eat it. "We are only sparing, take a brake if you need one." Nayato started to laugh as he waved the thought of fatigue off. "I've drunk deeply from the fresh river waters. My people keep water like the cactus, I'll not need water for several more hours even with extreme activity."

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Sword and Sand

Postby Nayato on March 22nd, 2018, 3:20 pm

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"Mind if I asked where you learned to fight?" Nayato asked curiously. He wondered what it took to get as good at fighting as Buraga was. The Master swordsman let out a soft sight at the question. "Fighting was my only talent, or that's what I thought growing up. I was raised to be apart of a Denvali militia to help defend my birthplace. And even though my birthplace is no more after the previous great djed storm, Syka is now my new home, but I'll keep the memory of Denval alive."

He could hear the slight hints of sadness in Buraga's voice, even as the man tried to hide it behind a hardened warrior like facade. Nayato had never had a home, so did not know what it felt like to lose it. He'd only recently gotten his plot of land in Syka, so his attachment to it had not yet become a permanent thing in his mind. And yet, he knew what it was like to be homeless. It was a lonely road to walk without family or loved ones to keep a person sane.

In a way, he was happy to have a travel companion in Jaleh. A ghost who was always there when he needed someone to talk to. It was true his Gurdian was always there to talk to since his searching, but Ibiski was never a person to have a serious conversation with unless the situation was dire. Nayato decided to drop any further questions he had on the topic for later, he did not like the tension of gloom it was injecting into his training.

"What would be a great way to gain more stamina? Besides combat training?" The reason Nayato decided to change the topic was an obvious one, but Buraga was glad to take the bait. "By always going one step beyond what you think your body can do. If you have a long day of sword training, then end it by running up and down the entire beach while wearing as much heavy weight as possible. Then only after you gave it all you got, try to beat that line the next time. If you only ran for two chimes, then run for three the next, then five, ten, and ever more."

Nayato took an attack stance with left arm held up horizontally across his body to allow his buckler to protect his chest. He then moved his Khopesh so the inner curve of the blade was touching the bottom of his shield. The point curved up along the bottom of the shield to let the tip of the blade point forward like a scorpions stinger ready to stab.

He shuffled his boots to the side which left dragging marks in the sands. Buraga watched as The Squire moved in a semi-circle around him. Buraga just stood with his longsword held absently down to his right side. Nayato knew his wide open stance was just bait to trigger him into action. It was bait that was going to work since he knew Buraga's guard was going to trigger as soon as he got into attack range.

That was when Nayato decided to hold his shield arm outstretched towards Buraga. If he couldn't get in, then he could give himself an extra second to respond to anything the human could do by sensing his movement through disruptions of air flow from the black freckles on his fingertips that all Chaktawe had. He still kept his sword pointed at Buraga, then charged in at the man once he'd circled to behind his back.

Nayato expected Buraga to respond once he was about four feet from the mans back. It was a self fulfilling prophecy when the Settlement defender pivoted on the balls of his booted feet to face the charging Squire. Buraga's right leg slightly lifted, which was a drastic enough movement for Nayato to feel it like water cascading over the sensitive skin of his fingers. When the foot lashed out in a low kick towards his shin, Nayato lifted the heel of his foot to touch it against the back of his thigh to avoid it.

He was thrown off balance by having to use only one foot in the middle of his charge, but committed to the charge as his body weight along with his forward momentum sent him flying right at Buraga. He tucked his left arm in, with the buckler braced against his flexed bicep and upper shoulder. Then tried to just tackle Buraga head on.

It failed just as miserably.

Buraga quickly planted the foot he kicked with down onto the sands, then lashed out with his opposite foot in a high front kick. The Warrior planted the heel of his boot against the dead center of Nayato's shield to kick the Squire backwards away from him. His momentum was instantly halted, and his upper body was sent flying backwards towards the ground. It knocked the air right out of Nayato as he sat there laying on his back in the sand for a moment. His mouth opened wide to gasp for air as it felt like he'd tried to brake down a brick wall with his own body. To not seem like he was tottaly out of it, the grip he still held on the hilt of his sword tightened. Then swung his sword slowly, but still with enough force to hurt someone, at Buraga's shin armor.

Buraga just lifted his foot high enough to avoid it, but quickly brought his heel down when the blade of the Khopesh was under it, and stomped his boot onto the flat of the sword to pin it down to the ground. "Nice try... but now would be a perfect time for you to get up and go for a run. Its when you are out of breath that you should push yourself."

Nayato laid there for three chimes before he'd managed to catch his breath again. "Time to run all this soreness off.."

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Sword and Sand

Postby Nayato on March 23rd, 2018, 11:41 am

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Self-Grade

Skills

Weapon: Khopesh - 5
Weapon: Buckler Shield - 5
Socialization - 3
Tactics - 3
Observation - 4
Endurance - 3
Spiritism - 1
Boxing - 1

Lore
Sword & Shield: One, two, press, four combo.
Nayato: Jaleh to live vicariously through him.
Khopesh: Swings like an axe, stabs like a sword.
Buraga: Master Swordsman & Syka’s Settlement Defender.
Nayato: Challenge accepted, cut Buraga’s armor.
Khopesh: Two handed hammer grip.
Khopesh Faint a slash to perform a stab.
Spiritism: Graceful Possession.
Spiritism: Not resisting a ghostly possession.
Boxing: Left jab.
Boxing: Faint a sword strike to open up the Left jab.
Tactics: Only attack the torso, then surprise attack the legs.
Tactics: Don’t let an enemy take your back.
Denval: Destroyed by the Djed storm.
Running: Running to build endurance.
Endurance: Built by going one step further.

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Nayato
Embracing Eternity
 
Posts: 187
Words: 146321
Joined roleplay: December 24th, 2009, 9:03 pm
Blog: View Blog (1)
Race: Chaktawe
Character sheet
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