Flashback Kendoka Sasaran: Of Reaching for Grace

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Built into the cliffs overlooking the Suvan Sea, Riverfall resides on the edge of grasslands of Cyphrus where the Bluevein River plunges off the plain and cascades down to the inland sea below. Home of the Akalak, Riverfall is a self-supporting city populated by devoted warriors. [Riverfall Codex]

Kendoka Sasaran: Of Reaching for Grace

Postby Bandin Everdance on May 30th, 2021, 1:36 am

15th of Winter, 520 A.V.

"You've learned to move your djed in a flux from one muscle to another," Arival's words echoed in Bandin's head as he entered the Kendokan Sasaran some days later. "You learned it in the old way, through observation and study. Now it is yours to continue learning the same way."

The young smith's body was sore, bruised, and beaten. His arms especially felt almost stretched out and throbbing; his first use of the Flux had been sloppy and had left its calling card. He figured his next uses would be too; he had an uphill battle ahead of him.

Arival was gone, sent off on some mission or another with the Akalak infantry. A chance encounter had led to his meeting the man, had led to him unlocking, if only just barely, an even greater control of his own djed through observation of the warrior's unnatural movements and grace. Now, however, Bandin found himself needing more than just an unlocking of an undeveloped talent; he needed to get better.

He'd always felt a strong connection to weapons, he'd even recently felt such a strong connection as to feel on the cusp of a breakthrough, but never had he truly dedicated himself to the study of arms; even with vorilescence, he had always only been a crafter with an affinity for combat that'd never been realized. Arival had changed that, the Akalak culture had changed that. Now Bandin wanted to learn at least a little of their ways.

Mizra Aqdas towered over the young smith. His silver and onyx lakans hung, perfectly at home, by his sides. Here was a man who glared with war and moved with a step set to battle drums.

"Instructor Aqdas?" Bandin approached the massive warrior and without hesitation or shame made his ask: "I need your help."

The akalak looked down to the small, twenty year old man. His eyes narrowed. "Do you?"

The warrior approached him, saying nothing and had to shift his gaze down even further just to maintain eye contact with Bandin.

"Well," he paused, "do tell."

***

Bandin blocked the blow from the wooden halberd; Mizra wasn't necessarily as fast as the flux-powered Arival had been, but he almost seemed to be at the same time. His movements were near perfectly fluid, close to the pinnacle of expertise certainly. Each individual strike was able to be dealt with, but Bandin feared what the master of the Kendoka could do if he hadn't been holding back, if he chained those strikes.

Once again a practice glaive filled Bandin's hands. His arms were especially sore today, even so after taking a few days off; the sheer stress of his consecutive week of sparring with Arival had left him near bedridden, barely able to make it into the shop, after their final bout.

The Flux hadn't helped. He'd used it wrong and for the first time too. He'd done too much; as far as he could figure he'd directed a greater amount of energy than he should've from way too many places. It was more than he could handle and he'd passed out cold afterwards.

Now, he was doing his best to work his way back up.

His djed flowed in and out of his glaive, as always, an interchange of information and something else he still couldn't put his finger on. The practice glaive hadn't felt the same as his own had, not at first, but now it was beginning to. It was a forming familiarity, as far as he could tell, of some kind.

There.

Bandin accelerated the djed in his arms, almost imagining a vacuum of sort that started in his knuckles and pulled slight amounts of power towards his fist. The djed was dispersed across the entirety of both limbs, as he lacked fine control, and he did his best to draw on only a little. He tied the flow to his breath, remembering to limit his focusing on the energy to only a breath's length; he didn't want to overdo it again.

His arms moved much quicker for a split second as he tried to capitalize on the opening that he'd thought he'd seen Mizra leave. The akalak twisted his torso to create space and caught the younger warrior's glaive against his halberd.

Bandin exhaled and allowed his focusing on the djed vacuum within his fists to dull.

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Kendoka Sasaran: Of Reaching for Grace

Postby Bandin Everdance on May 31st, 2021, 5:48 am

Bandin blocked the counterblow, but only just. That seemed to be about all he could hope to do against Mizra: only just barely blocking and just almost hitting him. Though the young smith had a growing suspicion that was less to do with his skill and more to do with Mizra's teaching style--which was already proving very different from Arival's.

Bandin took in another inhale and flowed the djed into his legs. He'd have liked to focus on his calves only, but found that he couldn't quite figure out how to time the flow as it exited his quads to do so. The feeling was too new; it was still hard to divert the energy flow at first and, when he finally did start it, making it stop was almost just as difficult.

He sidestepped quickly and was surprised at how light even just a little bit of djed could have him feeling. He was tempted to keep the energy flow going, but allowed it to dissipate as he exhaled and struck once more.

Mizra performed a downward deflection and, despite Bandin's efforts against it, pinned the smith's practice glaive down against the mat.

"Try to widen your base when you move to the side and don't do so when you're in my range," the massive Akalak offered while he looked over their locked up weapons. "For a sword wielder it wouldn't be a problem, but I'm much larger than you and I'm using a weapon of similar length."

Bandin struggled to pull back.

"I'm stronger too," Mizra said; truly, Bandin was outmatched in every category: skill, speed, strength, and even reach.

The young smith widened his stance and inhaled deeply. His muscles were already starting to burn more than they should've been. It wasn't that the Flux hurt it was that it left the muscles it'd filled feeling deflated and empty once it'd left. Like they were weaker and needed more djed to compensate.

It was odd and felt a bit deceptively dangerous. Bandin made a mental note to stick to his self-imposed limits. He'd already experienced first hand what drawing on too much energy could do. It was all too new of a Djed manipulation technique to him for him to be acting foolishly.

He pulled the djed from his shoulders, but imagined a blockage when it came to drawing energy out from his head. He wasn't at all willing to mess around with the djed that fueled his mind and thoughts.

It was a drip at first, but then a surge as the djed from his back changed direction. It was as if the enerfy flows were rivers, resistant to re-routing, but then flowing powerfully of their own will once they'd been forced to change their path.

He used the flow to force his glaive upwards and knock aside the Akalak's.

He was never much for battle cries, especially during training, but he found one leaving his mouth.

The djed flowing from his weapon seemed to meet the djed he'd moved via Flux and there was an almost difference in temperatures between the two types of magic-manipulated energy, with the vorilescence touched power being distinctly cooler.
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Kendoka Sasaran: Of Reaching for Grace

Postby Bandin Everdance on May 31st, 2021, 6:06 am

Mizra couldn't get his halberd in the way of Bandin's glaive in time to stop it, but he didn't need to. When blocking was impossible, dodging became a very viable fallback plan; the Akalak twisted his upper body to the side and by combining this move with a sidestep of his own moved out of the way of his student's Flux-fueled strike.

He came back with a lateral slash of his own. Mizra was seemingly more found of straightforward strikes than the spinning attacks Arival had favored.

They were easier to see coming, but seemingly quicker because they wasted no movement, though they weren't as force-generating.

Bandin inhaled, but didn't have the time to redivert more djed, instead he rode the tail end of the last diverting and flexed his shoulders hard as the last of his back's djed left them. The timing was sheer chance and he wouldn't have been able to focus on an induvial muscle usually, but it gave him just enough of a boost to quickly lift the back end of his glaive up to catch the halberd blow.

"I watched you with Arival," Mizra said and attempted to dislodge Bandin's glaive from his grasp.

The smith quickly stepped back and attempted to catch his breath.

Mizra pushed the advance. "You learn quickly, even if you make a lot of mistakes."

The Akalak threw a side kick. Bandin wasn't expected the man to use anything but his weapon and was quickly forced to back peddle in shock.

The Akalak flowed through his missed blow beautifully and proved that he was not at all incapable of spinning attacks. His halberd caught the momentum of his turn and came at Bandin like a twister gale wind.

Bandin inhaled rapidly and attempted to fill his legs with djed. They inflated and flexed sure enough, but by the time they had it was too late.

The Akalak's halberd caught his glaive and it was sent flying from his hand.

"Shit," he cursed; he felt the djed flow between his hand and the glaive break and the ever-present hum of the weapon was lost to him.

Mizra landed firm on his lead leg and used the planting of his body to flow into a weight-shift. With a force only slightly under what he'd previously initiated he sent another strike flying for Bandin.

The young smith exhaled and felt the djed leaving his legs. He was so tempted to break his rule and try and force more djed to flow during his exhale. His head was feeling a bit swimmy.

He knew that if he could just move a bit faster he might be able to get out of the way of the strike. He knew he couldn't do that, though, something told him that he just couldn't do that.

He bit down hard on his jaw as he prepared for the akalak's strike to make contact.

Only it didn't.

"I saw Arival disarm you before," Mizra said and held the mock halberd to Bandin's neck. "You've got to stop letting your opponent get angles that give them enough leverage to do that."

He lowered the halberd. "You'll get a feel for those leverage points as time goes on. It'll be like a tingling of warning in the back of your neck; your eyes will know, you've just got to give them time to figure it out."

The Akalak gestured to his student's fallen glaive. "Another go?"
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Kendoka Sasaran: Of Reaching for Grace

Postby Bandin Everdance on May 31st, 2021, 6:30 am

Bandin exhaled. Mizra's teaching style was certainly seeming a lot more sustainable than Arival's. It seemed he wouldn't be walking out of the Kendoka bruised beyond recognition, for one, which was nice.

"Sure," he said.

The smith stretched out his arm as he went to retrieve the glaive. He flexed his hand instinctively before putting palm to the wood; he took a calm breath in as his djed began to flow into the weapon and then back into him, coming back slightly different than before.

It was faint, but he could almost feel the patience of the weapon; it spoke of long days of training and having passed through the hands of many students.

"Alright," he said and took up a stance before Mizra. "I need to watch for angles. Which ones?"

Mizra stepped forward and came in a mock strike from his diagonal. "From here is a bad place for you to be approached from. It gives them the leverage of a twist, which is how I disarmed you."

"The same goes for here," the Akalak said and came again from the other side. "You see? Let them get here and they can hit you hard, or worse."

Mizra smiled. "I saw what Arival did to you when he took your weapon. That's the worse, but just imagine the stick had a cutting edge."

Bandin laughed a bit. "Might feel better than getting the shit beat out of me every day. I don't know why I kept walking into that every day."

The Akalak still smirked a bit. "You want to learn and you're feeling that you might be good at it."

"So," the eight foot tall giant stepped back. "Let's see if that's true."

Mizra readied himself and Bandin widened his stance. He spread his awareness throughout his many empty feeling muscles. The Djed seemed harder to feel now that it wasn't surging in any one place.

The Flux definitely had an effect on how his energy flows behaved and how his body reacted to them, even when he wasn't using it. Though, hopefully, it'd go back to normal after a little rest. He wasn't sure he was prepared to dedicate himself to a permanent change.

Bandin stepped forward and came down with a direct strike to open the reinitiated encounter.

Mizra blocked the glaive from above and drove forward with a powerful knee as the two men's weapons were tied up.

Bandin inhaled and drove his front foot down. He felt his own knee shift a bit oddly, but the Djed did its job and threw him backwards. He found himself a bit unsteady when he came back down on the affected leg, however.

"You get stiff," Mizra said. "That's a lot to give up for a little extra speed."

Bandin wasn't surprised that the Akalak could see through his Flux. The man was a veteran warrior and a master of a school of arms in Riverfall of all places. It'd have been more odd if he didn't see through it.
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Kendoka Sasaran: Of Reaching for Grace

Postby Bandin Everdance on May 31st, 2021, 6:47 am

Mizra came back fast.

"I think it'll be worth it," Bandin said as he blocked the first strike.

"You might as well try now that you've attained it," Mizra said. "People don't often give up that sort of power; just respect it. Know its, and your, limits"

The Akalak redirected and hit again, this time even faster. Bandin was starting to sweat; things were heating up further than they had before; he began to doubt whether he'd come out unbruised at the end of the day or not.

He just barely blocked this time, but it was worse than before. He'd only done it by the faintest of slivers and by such a close margin that he wasn't sure how much of it hadn't just come out of the adrenaline of his surprise at the strike's speed.

Bandin felt the man's halberd go a bit limp as the Akalak let one hand come off of it. The fist drove hard at Bandin's liver.

The young smith had seen enough at Tall Johnny's back in Sunberth to know that a liver blow was bad news.

He inhaled rapidly and felt the Flux fill his shoulder to bursting, then his bicep, forearm, and... he caught the Akalak's fist against his Djed filled palm.

Bandin glanced to Mizra's face, looking for a reaction, but only saw a self-satisfied smile. "Stiff."

The Akalak lowered himself and, upon changing levels, swept Bandin from his legs. As the large man did so, he took advantage of Bandin not having both hands upon his glaive and caught it as the man fell, disarming him yet again.

Bandin hit the ground rather hard against his Flux-fed arm, yet he felt almost nothing.

He felt a new sort of frustration pounding in his now aching head. It was a mixture of the same foggy feeling from earlier and something else.

He tried to resist, but found himself inhaling hard. Djed coursed strongly from his core and then down into his legs.

He heard something. A humming. He should've been disarmed, should've calculated for that when he lunged. He wouldn't be able to do much at all without a weapon, however, for a split second his mind believed that he was armed for seemingly no reason at all, though the thought felt so natural and right that he'd acted upon it.

And, before he could even doubt his actions, he was armed, but not with the practice glaive.

His own glaive, previously strapped to his stowed away backpack, now filled his hand. He could hear a clearer song than ever before as his Djed flowed into the now-glowing weapon, it was an orchestra of hammers and hearths.

He sliced through the weaponmaster's wooden halberd as if it were butter, though he stopped just short of actually engaging the man for a kill or lethal strike.

Bandin found himself, a pace away from the Akalak, breathing hard. His glaive smoked a whispy red illumination; the blade itself glowed white hot, as if enshrouded in forge fire.

Mizra's playful gaze had become one not quite of murder, but of serious observation.

"Holy shit," Bandin said as he panted and sweat covered his brow.
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