[Antinous Training Grounds] Of Tentacles and Blades

by **Ball** on August 22nd, 2013, 4:06 pm

22nd of Summer 513AV

Ball had his sword for a little over two weeks and this was the first time the pycon had brought it out for use in training. Coiling the tip of his tentacle around the supple leather hilt Ball had to bulk up the bottom portion of his tentacle in order to gain some purchase so he could use it properly. With a mediocre swing of the rapier Ball could tell he wasn’t going to get a swing worth a lick in the current positioning he had it in.

Blast! Shifting the bulk of his tentacle Ball moved it to the left on the tentacle, thus outweighing his tentacle. Ball thought he had it at a good placement and then swung the sword again. The sword did indeed arc through the air but his tentacle overpowered it in sheer weight displacement and the sword curved towards Ball. This sudden change in sword path cause the squire to release the blade and scurry back as the sword clattered harmlessly on the cobblestones noisily, it was just inches from a tentacle, he would’ve surely took off the tip at least.

Double Blast! Ball nearly swung a tentacle at his rapier in frustration but stopped, it wasn’t the blade’s fault he nearly injured himself with an improper swing. He couldn’t hold the thing properly to get a proper swing! Ball wrapped his tentacle around the hilt again, picking up the blade so it’s shimmering flat of the blade mirrored his appearance in it. I am a round mass with a slit of a mouth for a main body and four rather short in length nubby tentacles;. Useful for attacking, the tentacles allowed for a better range of attack and easier to grapple with, but useless with holding weaponry. The form had served the Pycon well, but right now it wasn’t cutting it. Ball remembered how difficult it was to hold Thorn while practicing earlier in the season.

Lowering the blade with a look of displeasure across his mouth the pycon swiveled in place, looking at the other squires and knights practicing. They have two sets of appendages, one holding them in an upright position that gave them balance and movability, a second set that extended from their sides giving them the ability to balance even better and use things. Seeing that both sets of appendages had flatter and wider tips with what appeared to be several smaller appendages attached to them Ball realized that was how they were holding their weaponry and items more effectively.

Why their tentacles are placed differently about their mass. Both sets of tentacles have flat ends with a set amount of smaller tentacles that wrap around their swords or whatever they need to use at the moment. That is why they can keep a hold of them and not hurt themselves.

Ball realized what he needed to do. It was time to set aside his advantage based solely on his own body and work with what the knights and squires of the Rock-Beast use.

Created goes to Euthisa

by **Ball** on August 22nd, 2013, 4:50 pm

Looking at his sword and then back up to the others practicing and then back again Ball had released a second sigh. Flattening the tip of his tentacle and then pushing out several small tentacles from the flat end the tip of his tentacle now looked a bit like a cartoon character’s gloved hand. Grabbing the rapier’s hilt with the flat piece and curving the smaller tentacles around it Ball realized he could pick up the sword so much better. The additional smaller tentacles allowed him a better grasp of the object.

The shape of his tentacle didn’t stay long and the blade immediately clattered to the ground when his tentacle reverted to its standard shape. Petching shyke! The small squire grumbled. Looking at the other squires and their knights Ball watched their movements, their bodies, their limbs. He tried to picture himself taking on that shape. It was an important task that Ball needed to succeed in if he was going to continue down this path he vowed to Blue Pycon he would see to the end of.

Settling his body down on the ground, mindful of the blade before him, Ball pulled in his tentacles, willing them to remain within. The time had come for the clay squire to take his next step in gaining knighthood.

Breathe In… Picture the larger Pycons…

Breathe out… Picture yourself…

The obvious differences were clear to Ball. The larger pycons were quite a bit taller than him; their appendages were arranged as a pair of them below their main mass, and one on either side just below a smaller mass protruding at the top of their mass. Ignoring the range of skin and hair color and the obvious facial features of nose, eyes, and ears, Ball did see that their mouths were quite similar.

Their appendages stick out in three spots… Ball pushed and urged his mass to take on the basic appendage shape of his larger counterparts. It wasn’t easy, each push outwards produced a small lump of clay that when he relaxed his conscious mind on the pushing the lump would just suck back in. It wasn’t easy to force four lumps of clay to form appendages at the same time.

Relax Ball, you can do this. A knight doesn’t back away from what they need to do. Liege Lord would urge you all the way. Ball could hear the large blue knight urging him on, saying ‘You can do it Ball’ and ‘I have faith in you Ball!’ It was the emotional fuel that Ball required to get his body to coax itself onward. One step at a time…

Focusing on his former Patron Knight’s words of encouragement Ball pushed at what would be his left side of his body, a small lump of clay bulged at his equivalent location of a shoulder. This time though when Ball relaxed his forcing of the limb development the lump remained protruding there like a deformed appendage.

Created goes to Euthisa

by **Ball** on August 22nd, 2013, 5:09 pm

Beads of moisture trailed down the clay mass known as Ball, the single appendage he had forced out was nearing an inch, it was a bit too long being nearly a third of his total length. Sucking a bit of the appendage, Ball had effectively shrunk the appendage down to three-fourths of its original length. The pycon shifted the clay through his body to start the lumping process on the other side, in the same region as the first appendage. This one wasn’t do hard to push out, using his mental focus of the images Ball could mentally view his body shifting into a rudimentary formation of his brothers-in-arms.

Using the mental encouragement of his former Patron Knight, Ball managed to form two appendages that one could call arms for the sake of placement alone. The mental image in Ball’s nexus was an oddity, but accurate appearance of his current shape.

The tugging , pushing, and altering of the placement of his usual three inches of spherical mass into appendages maxing out at three-fourths of an inch each left him with a remaining mass of an inch and half in height to use. That wasn’t much to use. Ball’s mental image showed a slightly smaller ball has his main mass and then two appendages sticking out as straight lines from this central mass. At this rate I will never have the central mass to handle the movement that the larger pycons can do with their appendages… The hefty weight of each appendage was a pound a piece, if Ball kept up their weight to that he would have four pounds of weight in limbs and a pound in his central mass, it just wasn’t going to work out in that fashion.

I need to shrink their thickness down, making them lighter, but not shorter. So using his mental strength he started to pump the inner mass of the two appendages down so that they were skinner, more like small twigs in thickness. Now each appendage weighed in close to half a pound each that left him with a more likely weight allowance for the rest of his body.

Thank you Liege Lord for your encouragement. Guide me the rest of the way. And once again the words rumbled through Ball’s nexus, words of encouragement and having faith in the small clay being. The next to appendages Ball felt he could do together, keeping in mind their proportions to the rest of his needed body mass Ball pushed at the two small lumps he started to form legs.

Created goes to Euthisa

by **Ball** on August 22nd, 2013, 5:49 pm

The legs took a full chime to complete, but their spindly form was evidence that Ball had what it takes to give himself arms and legs! All four appendages were skinny, massively skinning… Being three-fourths of an inch long and nearing a half a pound each Ball still had three pounds of mass in the center, those poor spindly legs wouldn’t be able to handle that mass and so Ball did what he needed to do at that point.

Pumping more of his body mass into his legs Ball beefed up their twig like appearances to a thicker twig, stopping when he felt his body slimming down to nearly meet the curving front edge of his legs. Adding a bit more thickness to his arms was next, it took but a second, in the end his mass was nearing two pounds and each appendage was three quarters of a pound in weight. Ball knew he could stand on his appendages now and not crush them with his body weight, the distribution was as accurate as he could make it, but there was a small issue of requiring a head and the formation of the small flat parts on the ends of his appendages.

My appendages to main mass are effectively the same ideal proportions of my larger counterparts… Now what about those flat bits with the nubs on them? What do they call them… hands? Yes! Hands! And the flat parts on their legs… Uhh… Feet? Yes, that sounds right… Ball pushed at the bottom of his legs, forcing a small part of them to push out and then flatten, they weren’t very big… just large enough to form flat square-ish paddles on which he could stand upon, perfect for distributing his weight even more.

His mind focused in on the mental image of the larger pycon’s hands, they were a flat circular tip with several small little appendages coming off of them. So it was a next simple task to complete in this mass transformation. Flattening the tips of his arms Ball had rounded the tips off by pulling in the extra bit of clay he had there. The little tips are going to prove interesting… Focusing intently on each hand Ball pushed out slowly four small appendages on each round disc of clay. In the end he had created four stubby fingers around a flat round palm that attached to his arms.

Ball’s arms and legs were complete, it was time to finish off the whole transformation with the intent of gaining a head, but try as he might he just couldn’t seem to muster the strength to do it… Even with his Liege Lord’s encouraging words.

Created goes to Euthisa

by **Ball** on August 22nd, 2013, 6:07 pm

OOC :

Ball’s body released a sigh of relief that the majority of what he set out to do was complete. Liege Lord is no help in forming the last portion of my body… The Head… Why? The sorrow in his thoughts echoed in his body. Other Pycon… She would be thrilled if I produced a permanent head upon which to adore. He could feel his body pushing at the top of his mass, the emotions boiling over and doing the work he would normally have forced himself to completely. It wasn’t hard. The enduring love he had for Other Pycon, even if he didn’t know the proper name of it, was the catalyst to finish off his transformation.

The head formed like a bubble, rapidly expanding and rounding off after it reached a total of a half a pound. It was basic and simple head, nothing fancy about it’s round façade, it just lacked one thing…I must be able to talk to my brothers-in-arms and the knights… And the sound of hissing ushered from Ball as a slit of a mouth ripped itself free from the flat emotionless head. Once that was finished Ball breathed a huge sigh of satisfaction, his mental image of himself nearing the likeness of his larger counterparts as best as he possibly could muster.

Sitting up Ball placed hand on his body, examining everything to ensure it was in the proper location and felt normal, it all did of course regardless of what it really looked or felt like. A smile graced his mouth as he took hold of his sword and stood up. It was then that Ball realized his torso wasn’t as long as his counterparts, but that was okay. He was standing on two legs, grasping his rapier in an actual hand.

Holding the blade up like the squires and knights could Ball tilted his head to see, the fingers laced themselves beautiful around the hilt, giving it a light swing the squired Pycon realized he didn’t have to fear losing his grip with just a swing. A feel of great accomplishment came through him as he stepped forward and swung the sword into the air.

The blade whooshed through the air, causing the air to whistle as it rushed back into the empty space that his rapier once resided in. It was a great feeling, it truly was…

oocBall has a humanoid body of about three inches tall and all five pounds of his weight distributed proportionally through it.

Created goes to Euthisa

by **Ball** on September 23rd, 2013, 9:23 pm

… The sword curved at first quite brilliantly through the air, halfway through the swing though Ball watched his sword and arm start arching downward, the momentum of his sword's movement proved far more than he had anticipated and the blade skittered across the stones beside Ball's new foot and he was forced stop the swing. The screeching sword was loud and alarming, yet it didn't stop Ball from leaning forward his free hand on leg and gasping for breathe.

It was a feeling he knew he would never forget. The exhilaration of swinging that sword and hearing the air crashing back into the previous spot of his blade. Standing straight Ball lifted the sword with his rising. Staring at the flat shiny side of the sword Ball was amazed at how simply he was able to hold the weapon with an actual hand. It really was a miracle.

Turning to Imass Ball reached over and grabbed the sheath and trying to slide the sword's length into the scabbard was a piece of work. After several minutes of fumbling Ball had managed to place tip to opening and then angling the blade to a straight shot with the sheath's hole he slide the blade until the metal band at the top of the plain leather holder knocked gently against the cross guard.

Created goes to Euthisa

by **Radiant** on October 26th, 2013, 2:25 pm

Ball :

Notes :

My radiance is not bright enough?

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, beam me a PM and we can work it out.

Skill	XP Earned
Weapon: Rapier	+2 XP
Observation	+2 XP
Meditation	+1 XP

Completed [Antinous Training Grounds] Of Tentacles and Blades