Closed [The Anthonius Fighter's Pit]Crossed Staves[Arch]

[Clyde Sullins]

While further information would take time, it was always good to be aware of ones enemy in Clyde's experience. It would mean he'd have an awareness of the pycon as a niche within his aura sight, and he wouldn't have to fear the clay thing creeping up on him.

Of course, if he couldn't properly react to it the fact of being able to see the attack wouldn't matter much.

Once he pressed in deeper he'd look for djed remnants, excess leftovers of djed transfer from personal mage, which would indicate if the pycon was a personal mage.

This would take a bit longer, and an extensive examination of the peripheries of his aura.

The clay man's words were completely non-committal, showing to Clyde that perhaps the pycon was unsure of his own skill. Or perhaps simply unsure of it as compared to Clyde's. Either way he was refusing to commit, and not sure of his own skills.

Then again, Clyde knew all too well how new he was to fighting physically.

This to him meant the pycon's words meant one of two things. Either he was equally unskilled as Clyde, or he was "a petching non-committal layabout who had no conviction."

Either way Clyde would learn something, though if the pycon did turn out to be skilled it would show Clyde just what sort of person he was. One unsure of himself and his abilities, and weighed down by propriety.

“That's like saying you'll find out if the sun will rise, tomorrow when it either rises or doesn't. Could you be more non-committal? Its not a prediction if the events have already happened.”

As he was using Cha as an extension of himself, and a conduit for his aura sight, he felt the reverberation of the clay man's staff striking his own, felt the impact of aura on aura as the two staffs met.

It took a moment for Clyde to register the motion, which had been quite unexpected.

He'd used his own weapons momentum and added to it, pushing it along, as a means of getting within his guard.

Clearly if he kept doing the same thing, he'd fail here.

Instead Clyde picked Cha up off the ground straight up almost in a arcing curve sweep carrying some of the sideways momentum of his earlier motion into his upward motion, and then slung it straight back down attempting to squash the clay man.

Then, more by reflex at seeing the tiny thing like a mouse at his feet upon his staff, he kicked out with a booted foot as if he was trying to kick its head off.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

Things were looking up. Not that he could see what was happening in the background, just beyond the visible - his aura being carefully picked free of the last remnant djed strands, pushed around during his failed Flux use. Something he still barely had any ability in; he'd likely never use it, unless he found someone else who could at least explain what the petch djed was and why it was so important.

"Hmm? Well, I'm not going to stand here and boast myself dry. I would, if this was anything other than a fight. But.. since it is.. I'm going to show you with actions and leave the talking to later. Whether I live up to my words or I don't, at the end of the day, they're just wasted air I could put to much better use." They'd talked for long enough, really. At best, it was just some distraction to take his mind off the fighting. A war of words was all good and well but a sharpened sword hurt a whole lot more when it was pushed through your chest than a sharpened tongue. It had its uses, of course, but here, now? Outdated, inferior.. worthless tactics thrown out by men with nothing better up their sleeves.

He was growing closer to Clyde. Range was no longer on his side. When the staff was lifted high into the air, he turned his head, keeping his sight on it - it'd do him no favours to turn his eyes away from the weapon. Then it came down.. and he hopped to the left, feeling on his face the small cloud of dirt it brought up with its violent thrust. Well that didn't seem very thought-out. Maybe he'll sweep it next, now that it's so close. From such a close distance, where the Pycon was practically brushing it with his shoulder, there was little danger. If anything, he could ride the staff. Shame it didn't have a sharp edge like a sword.

Wait. A twitch? No, Clyde was going for a kick next. Opportunity. He sprung on it like a predator. This was what he'd needed, what he'd aimed for and now that it was here, he seized the moment and dug the pointed metal cap of the Py-Pole into the ground, feeling the dirt and sand shift as it lodged deep in place. Perfect. It wasn't, really - there was too long a gap, the foot was too low - but none of that mattered now, he didn't even see the pitfalls. On the next step he crouched down and bounced, gripping hard around the Py-Pole and swinging himself around it vertically.

He knew how to do it, he'd done it before. All the momentum he'd built up in a full-out sprint he brought with both feet, straight for the tip of Clyde's incoming foot. He'd not had the foresight to push extra clay down into his feet to condense them down more, he'd needed the mobility to keep up the run, so if this worked, he knew it'd squish down his limbs considerably... but he also knew what'd happened last time he threw all of his weight into someone successfully. There was no ambition to recreate that image here in the Fighting Pits, but if that could be used for reference.. this was going to hurt. A lot.

[Clyde Sullins]

As Clyde's focused shifted and honed in, the pycon's aura expanded and grew into clarity. In his mind Clyde pictured the pycon, and imagined the image growing clearer and closer, picturing the image and willing the intent into action, the method by which most personal magic worked. More instinct and willpower than specific methods.

The clay essence of his body was a off brown shine within his sight, overlaid upon the actual substance of his "flesh." Clyde as a Reimancer was familiar with the ground, with earth and soil and dirt and clay even. Therefore he knew right away this wasn't traditional clay. It seemed to hum with a light flow of energy, akin to that of living flesh. It wasn't just a lump of dead clay. But then, he knew that by the way it was talking and walking and fighting.

Still, it was good to be able to see a noticeable differentiation between what this pycon was, and normal clay. It could hide and blend in his aura sight no more than a person could. And people as Clyde knew shone hot and bright, unlike the dimmer animals without sentience whose auras were literally less bright and potent than a sentient persons. A pycon's aura then was more akin to a persons in terms of strength, albeit of a smaller size, and less like an animal.

However it did seem to be just clay. Pressing within he didn't see any bones or such, which made Clyde puzzle over how the pycon was able to stand erect and move his body.

Pressing within though, Clyde did see one odd spot, a single point or area of brightness with a hum akin to a yell compared to the general hum of life throughout the clay flesh body of the pycon. Clyde was reminded of a vine monster, Vinumia, which he had fought seasons ago. That beast had a single vital spot, a heart of sorts within its body that was the core of its being. By destroying it, he'd been able to destroy the Vinumia.

Making a connection between the two, it seemed obvious that this core bit was the pycon's heart or something similar.

As he thought on this and his aura sight plucked at the pycon however, the pycon was making a move of his own. Just as Clyde saw some shading, some faint remnants just at the periphery weakly, the pycon launched himself with his pole and landed on the tip of Clyde's foot.

Clyde, having committed a bit to his motion quite literally lost his footing and more importantly his balance.

Just as the pycon landed his weight on the tip of Clyde's foot, Clyde had been in the process of leaning forward and shifting his weight. This resulted in shoving Clyde foot down at a very awkward time, and making Clyde lose his footing. His foot was pushed downward turning the landing and push into motion backwards the way Clyde had come, and the rest of his body carried on with the forward momentum, sending Clyde falling forward onto his stomach nearly flat on his face.

Considering the pycon had just landed on Clyde's foot, this would mean if he didn't move Clyde might very well land cleanly on top of him, squishing him underneath.

Now that the human with all of his size and weight had begun his tumble, there was really nothing to stop gravity from taking over and sending him sprawling across the ground to land in an undignified lump.

Either way, once he did come to land, it'd be a bit before Clyde would be able to regain his footing and extricate himself from the ground.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

It was nothing short of worrying, sometimes, how little his body could achieve. Able though he thought himself, his launch seemed to have only stopped the foot a little prematurely. No cry of pain, no annoyance, no noise whatsoever.. he must have angled himself too far down, glanced a blow off the tips of Clyde's toes, or something similar. Arch had to admit, he was pretty disappointed in himself. Unlikely a chance like that would ever open itself up again. Next time. Undoubtably there would be one, eventually.

Regardless of Clyde's fall, Arch needed some time to slip away and recuperate. Not that he was tired.. but the moment his legs impacted Clyde's foot, they inverted, crumpling down against his torso as they struggled to absorb the full brunt of impact. The rest of his body rippled and condensed soon afterwards; inertia was a horrible thing to deal with. By the end, his body had been reduced to a dented orb crumpled around the toe of Clyde's boot. Still aware, still conscious, still able to see and move, mercifully.. to be honest, not even in that much pain. Well, he'd not taken the full impact, same as Clyde.

After the world had stopped spinning, he peeled himself away from Clyde's foot through a brief rippling in his clay, then threw himself sideways in a lopsided roll to clear a little distance. Petching shyke. That was about all he had to say for himself, at that moment. He couldn't even press for an advantage because he didn't have any limbs to grab the discarded Py-Pole still lying in the ground somewhere under Clyde. Reshaping himself would take longer than he had to work with. Frantically, his nexus worked to try and think of something, anything he could use at that point, but it was pretty much already over. The foolish mistake had robbed any chance of recovery.

I can't punch, or kick.. rolling limits my mobility too much, one swipe and I'm done. He sighed mentally in defeat. Another loss. Well, just goes to show how shyke I've become. Really need to learn how to get out of the petching way of some things. Something easier said than done.

After a few ticks of silence, Arch pushed at the clay around his midsection, drawing out a horizontal slit to act as a temporary mouth while his limbs went about their natural reformation. "Well, it was fun, but.. I think you've got me beat there." He pushed some cheer into his voice, even though he was feeling absolutely none of it. He'd shown a poor example of the fighting competency of the knighthood as a whole. Perhaps the Pycon had just found himself ill-prepared to deal with a battle of both mind and body. He desperately wanted to believe it but his own nexus refused; it was a poor excuse. "I must say though, it was a genuine pleasure."

[Clyde Sullins]

As Clyde crashed to the ground in what was likely as ungainly and unacrobatic a fashion as was likely humanly possible, he was rather naturally distracted from his body.

But then, something he'd ponder to himself later, surely a good bit of learning acrobatic maneuvers was learning how to fall. Clyde had certainly just taken one such lesson in learning one way to not fall. Which while not much was one more than he'd known before.

It wasn't till he was a heap on the ground that he noticed the various aches and pains. His foot ached from where the pycon had struck it, similar to as if he'd just kicked a tree. Admittedly not as bad as say kicking a steel door or a stone wall, but a tree didn't make the striking appendage feel good.

His knees and elbows also hurt from the impact on the ground, though as he'd only fallen from a standing position they weren't too bad, even if they did ache right then. His chest also hurt in a stripe diagonally across it as he'd managed to land not only on his elbows and knees but also his chest, and as Cha had managed to get stuck against his chest he'd landed directly atop her.

By the time the pycon had peeled itself off his foot and tossed himself aside, Clyde had regained his wits enough to roll off of Cha and onto his back, a position from which he found it easier to sit up.

Clyde had managed to keep a hold of his viewpoint of the pycon's aura within his aura sight through the episode, though he'd stopped drilling deeper and only managed to keep a general low level awareness of the pycon's aura. It was enough that he knew where the pycon was positioned relative to himself, and was thus able to roll onto his back in the opposite direction the pycon had taken to fling itself clear.

He was only just sitting up and retrieving Cha, which he planned to use for her leverage as a aid in standing, when he heard the pycon speak once more.

It took a confused moment for Clyde to understand that the pycon was surrendering, and was saying it had lost. Confusing as Clyde was fairly certain he'd just lost, since he was also laying on the ground.

But as he took a better survey of the image of the pycon in his aura sight, he could see the pycon had been squished by the combat.

He thought back to Ball and fighting in the woods, and wondered what that pycon had done differently to not get pulped as this one had. Surely there was a way, as the pycon from before had fought a good bit more without such an outcome.

“Ow.... Seemed like it was a bit of a pain to me.... Literally. The fight itself was a good learning experience though. I don't think anything broken at least. And well... pycon don't really have anything to break now do they? How do you move by the way, without bones? What supports your... Clay bits? I'm just not sure I understand the mechanics of motion and support.”

Clyde would give the pycon a bit of time to answer, taking in what he'd say, before asking another question.

“Say... Just something I noticed, but are you a mage? I noticed about you, and also the last pycon I met was a mage. Do you practice any magics?”

Unlike most in Syliras, this wasn't spoken with any negative emotion or connotations. Instead it was asked as casually as some might ask where they'd bought a particular shirt, as if it was a totally normal and common thing to ask, and certainly not a hot or sensitive topic.

[Archailist]

For all the 'fun' he'd supposedly had, Arch rolled his body back and forth in the closest thing he could make to a nod when he didn't have a head or neck. "Well, that's quite normal I think," he replied honestly. It seemed no matter when he fought with someone, whether in friendly competition or otherwise, there was a bit of pain felt by both sides - physical or emotional, mostly the former. "But, yes, we've both learned something today," namely to put a little more effort into avoiding large objects aimed at his face, "and I'm, aha, sure we'll both find ways to improve for next time." He knew he'd only just been squished into the dirt like a common bug and once again nearly killed, but he really wanted to go back again at Clyde.. mostly because he didn't want to back down from a verbal fight such as this, but partly because he wanted to make sure he wasn't somehow becoming worse as a fighter. It felt like it.

It seemed like for all they'd 'learned' though, Clyde was still eager for a little more. Classic Pycon questions he'd answered many times before, so he didn't mind. It seemed like Pycons either utterly fascinated people, making them ask a million different questions, mostly the exact same ones though - or they seemed to utterly disappear from peoples sight, to the point that they could step on and potentially kill one without so much as a glance down to do anything other than scrape the remaining hardening clay from the sole of their foot before carrying on as if nothing was out of the ordinary for them. "Well, we do have one thing to break, actually," he answered while slowly reforming his arms and legs from tiny stumps, "and that's what supports the rest of us and allows us to move. S'called a nexus. Little bit of hardened stuff deep inside. Kinda like a.. err.. whatchamacallit. Sane.. mane.. err."

He'd forgotten what humans called that thing in their heads that held the rest of their body together.. or at least it was one of the things, although a lot of them seemed to think it was much more important than all the other parts in their body. Which of course was very silly, because if someone stuck a sword in any part of them they'd still die, so all of them was rather important. Didn't matter if one part killed them faster than the rest, dead was still dead. "Brain!" he exclaimed at last, almost cutting into Clyde's next question. "It's like a brain. Yeah anyway what were you saying? Oh."

He'd not really told anyone about the little bit of magic he knew. Or really that he didn't know; ever since that lesson practically two seasons ago he'd not touched the stuff, try as he might. He'd thought about it a lot but meditation was an alien thing and what little he'd tried had gone horribly wrong - he was no closer to learning about this djed thing than he was spontaneously growing to the same height as Clyde. "I'm guessing you must have met Nivel. Yeah, I.. I'm not a mage. I've never used magic, any practices of it. Tried to, didn't work." Well it was only the truth.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde had long ago learned a certain trick of asking questions when interrogating someone. And with Clyde every conversation was an interrogation.

He was once more using this tactic, something he did almost instinctively, asking a question he knew the answer too. The way someone answered it, if they told the truth or lied or told a partial truth or lie, all said something. With interrogation there was no such thing as not answering, as even not answering was an answer, and so everything served to expand his knowledge if he payed enough attention.

Nodding along to the pycon's earlier statements, he did agree with the clay mans words that they'd both learned something. With fighting one learned not just by making improvements, but also by learning what not to do. The pycon hadn't worded it quite that way, but he'd meant more or less the same Clyde felt.

Additionally his mentioning of a Pycon's Nexus, the bit within that was vital, seemed true enough. It also explained something Clyde had seen when examining the clay squire, that inner bit that was so... Alive. Alive in the way a bird was compared to a branch it sat upon, both alive but one more so.

Clyde did find his comparison of the Nexus to a brain as a bit odd, as he'd been thinking of the heart himself as a comparable organ. But then, differences in analogies did happen, and weren't so odd.

No, the bit that struck Clyde as wrong was his answer on magic. However it wasn't that he seemed to be lying, no the bit that got him as wrong was the semantics of it. Semantics was something Clyde used when misdirecting, and the squires answer seemed far to similar to something he himself would be saying. And when others started to speak in ways similar to how he himself did... Well then he knew something was off and there was something deeper to the story.

Clyde peeked an eyebrow at the squire, shaking his head.

“Who? No, I met a squire pycon named Ball. We fought together outside the city, ended up working together to take on some bandits. He had magic, not that he liked to admit it. Didn't even want to admit he'd done it when I'd seen him do it right before my own eyes.”

“I offered him some help afterwards, in some of the things I know, meditation and control and the like, but... Well, he felt he knew better, and didn't need my aid. I'd argue it was foolish of him but it was his decision to make.”

“Here you are, same as him, saying you don't do magic... Its just well... Practicing magic and not doing it well, its not the same as not being a mage. If you've ever done even the smallest bit, used even the tiniest bit of magic, then you've crossed the threshold and are by definition a mage.”

Clyde paused for a moment, before going on, leaving much unsaid and giving the squire plenty of room to make assumptions about what was said and about Clyde.

“Everything leaves traces. Its like fire. Even if the wood doesn't catch aflame and get burnt up, there are still traces of the fire. The little burnt and blackened bits. I figure magic is kind of like that, in more ways than one, though perhaps its not a perfect analogy in some ways. It doesn't spend you up like a fire spends a twig, but it does leave traces like a fire does on what it touches.”

OOC: Well this is going to be tricky, since Clyde meets Nivel in 3 days IC, and doesn't know him... I guess Clyde will just forget the name by then.

[Archailist]

One hand reached up and brushed across the top of his head, between both pointed ears. This was a very awkward situation indeed. Two seasons he'd spent burying this information deep inside.. holding it away from everyone, including his own patron. Mostly because he still couldn't use it, nor could he find anyone who'd give any information on it, besides obviously Nivel.. who'd tried before and unfortunately failed to wrap his nexus around the strange concepts he was supposed to believe in. Now, though, he might have actually found someone suitable for the job, but he was still hesitant. Magic, at least as he was told about it, was something to be kept highly secretive.. after all, they didn't want everyone knowing about it and all that, especially those who weren't exactly trustworthy. Plus, there was all the discrimination and whatnot. It was there, even between knights. This guy wasn't even a knight! He could tell that much, because nobody not of knighthood would ever be down in the Fighting Pits without a good reason.

But.. listening to Clyde, it felt almost as if he had to open up. "Yeah, I did magic. Once. But I still struggle with it.. I haven't used it in two seasons and I've kinda forgotten about it since then." Even that one time he'd used it had been.. oddly questionable. It didn't even feel really like he was doing anything out of the ordinary.. after all, it seemed like a good portion of magic was just trying to believe that something different was happening - and that meant that any progress felt oddly hollow, as if he was just trying to believe so hard that it really did feel like there was something, when in fact he was doing nothing at all. "It's in the past now. I can't wrap my head around it and I've accepted that," he answered truthfully with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders.

Then, as he was about to drop the subject, an odd thought drifted across his nexus. "Wait, why are you grilling me on this anyway? You can't know I was doing magic.. and I wasn't. I haven't done it in two months and Ball definitely didn't tell you," he said, narrowing his gaze at the man. It did seem odd for him to start pushing at the Pycon for any signs of magic.. especially since he didn't use any, even the tiniest bit, for their entire fight. He'd not used it at all since first learning it in private so nobody else could have told him, either. Was it really just an odd hunch or something similar? "What did you notice about me?" Clyde had had his turn for interrogation.. now it was the Pycon's turn to try and gleam some answers, if he could.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde to fought to keep a smile from showing on his face when the pycon admitted he was a mage, or had at least used magic.

It was something you really couldn't explain to non-mages, or at least if you did it was with a great deal of difficulty.

Explaining magic, how to access ones djed and use it, was like... Like teaching someone to turn their heart on and off, or some other such thing, Clyde thought to himself. It seemed impossible, even if someone told you and showed you it could be done. It wasn't till that moment of understanding, that spark of knowledge and awareness that all personal mages reached upon becoming a mage, that they could understand.

Clyde had been initiated into Reimancy, and so he'd had that moment aided by another forcing the fact upon him, but he'd still had the moment.

It was something non-mages and even those who were strictly world mages couldn't understand.

Hearing that the pycon had used the magic once, and then hadn't touched it in awhile, those facts made sense with what he'd seen. He'd only been able to detect the faintest touches of djed remnants upon his aura, faint ghosts of a trace left behind as the magic was done.

He imagined if he looked and examined his own aura, the outer layer would be fairly coated with djed remnants left behind and rubbed off as magic occurred and was performed.

When he questioned how Clyde knew of his magic though, Clyde did let a small smile slip onto his lips, though he cloaked the reason for the grin. In actuality he did it because the pycon had steer the conversation exactly where he'd wanted him to, where he'd led him with his hint and measured question. Clearly he'd known from somewhere, and so he wanted to know where from if he'd in fact been hiding his magic.

Clyde let one finger come up and awkwardly scratch at his forehead, as he gazed down at the clay person with the tiny smile on his lips. Likely, or at least it was his intention, the pycon would think the smile was because he'd been found out and let something slip. He'd let the pycon think he hadn't wanted him to know, and that he'd prised out some secret.

Clearly though with knowledge of his own plans, he knew it made sense to reveal his knowledge at that moment. If he didn't appear knowledgeable, didn't appear to be a mage, then why would the pycon want to learn from him?

“Well, like I said, magic leaves traces, like fire upon a log. If you know how to look, where to look, there are things to see. I'm quite skilled at looking at such things. Its nothing physical, nothing you can see with your eyes, but its there all the same. Not obvious, but there if you look carefully.”

“Well, looking is the wrong word, its more of a... Sensing. It doesn't really use any of the normal senses, not your eyes or nose or such... Its a neat little trick I picked up at some point, among other things...”

“So, what is it you can do? Which type of magic? What does it do? Perhaps its one I've seen before. Even if its not, I know quite a bit about the principles of magic, even if not all of the specific types and how they work. And like with anything even if the specific's are different, often enough the principles are the same.”

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

He didn't like any of this. "Really? A sensing, huh?" He had to wonder if any of it was similar to what Nivel was able to do.. that weird sensing that pointed out the weak-points in that mage-man's invisible shield, during his last patrol with her. Wait, has she even mentioned what that thing was? For a moment, he wracked his brain trying to think. "Oh! Auristics?" If he remembered correctly, it was a personal magic.. a gift from Avalis or something of the like. It was weird how different users of their magics had always talked about it in all different ways. 'Sensing of the traces of magic', well, that was pretty close to what Nivel had called it.

If it really was a magic similar to Nivels, it'd be rather worrying to think that Clyde was avoiding calling it a magic. Then again, Arch wasn't one to try and decide what could or could not be magic - no matter how much experience he had around people with magic, he hardly had any magical power to show for it himself. Who was he to say what could or could not exist beyond what he knew right now?

Besides, it looked like he'd already pushed Clyde far enough with that little tidbit of information. He'd have plenty of time to make up his own mind. Right now.. there really wasn't that much to lose from letting go of his little secret, even if it did mean his patron found out. "It's called Flux. Magic that.. manipulates djed flow," he forced out after a few moments of deep thought and hesitation. That was about as much as he could remember from the long lectures Nivel had given him, for the moment at least. "Like squirrels around tree branches." Oh yeah, how could he possibly forget that? "It kinda.. enhances the body, I think. Makes it punch faster and move faster and all of that nonsense. Heard of it?"

As an afterthought, looking at Clyde, he had to wonder how much magic the man really knew.. and how much he'd be willing to part with. Of course he could always just turn to one of the mage knights, if he really so wished, and just ask them for as much knowledge as they could handle. There were so many of them hanging around the city, sooner or later he'd find one to take pity on a poor little inquisitive squirrel hungry for knowledge, desperate to sate his piqued curiosity. He could even pull out his little pouty-face routine for added brownie points. But, that might take a lot more effort than just asking Clyde for it.. even if it was the much less secure route. After all, learning magic with a stranger, well, that was everything they told you not to do on your first day of squirely training.