The first kids’ class of the season was filled with glorious chaos. After being snowed in for months with only a few hours of sleep between nightmares, the chance to swing swords invigorated the children of Gomi. For their parents, they were grateful that none of that excitement would be indoors. Their personal indoors, specifically.
Seventeen children attended, with roughly half the children having trained with Hans previously and the other half completely new. Were Hans alone, that quantity of sticky hands and snotty noses would have been unmanageable, but with Kane and Quentin volunteering to help, he could keep everyone safe and engaged.
The boys were Apprentices now, though, so they wouldn’t be available to help with every class. They were due to rotate into shifts at the cabin the following week, a bittersweet moment for Hans where he was proud with how they had grown while also sad that they wouldn’t be ever-present company at the guild hall anymore.
That was the job, though. Train them up and send them into the world.
Class began with push and pull balance drills and then a simple line drill that emphasized footwork and managing the space between oneself and an opponent. After that, he split the class in half. The students who trained with him before broke off to review the drills they learned in other lessons while Hans gave the new students the introductory treatment, starting them at the true beginning instead of dropping them into the flowing stream of in-progress curriculum.
After Hans got the new students started on a drill and watched to see if anyone needed help, he shifted his attention to the other group to give them a more skill-appropriate lesson.
“We’re going to start a unit on attack combinations, but everyone always gets confused about what that means. We will learn to string multiple movements together, but we’re not learning a dance that has set steps in a set order. Who here has played chess?”
Blank faces stared back at him, and no hands went up.
“Okay, bad example… How about a morning routine? Who does the same thing each morning?”
Most of the hands went up.
“Is it the same exact routine every morning?”
Heads nodded.
“Is it though?” Hans rattled off a list of factors that could change a morning routine, from rain to a camping trip to oversleeping. The children agreed those things affected what they did each morning. “Combination attacks are like that. We might learn a sequence that works for us most of the time, but if it’s raining outside, grab a coat. If it’s late in the day, take a lantern… You know what I mean?”
They worked through a three technique sequence where each attack flowed into the next, using the finish of one to set up the beginning of another with their partner using the most likely blocks or parries in between. From the outside, the drill didn’t look complicated, but for a beginner, completing all three movements–attack, parry, counter–without making a mistake was difficult. Mixing in a child’s lack of coordination and capacity to be distracted made that challenge even larger.
With coaching and patience, they managed.
He alternated between the two groups for the rest of the class before dismissing students for the day. A few parents stayed behind to ask questions but soon the yard was empty except for Hans, Kane, and Quentin.
“Mr. Hans,” Quentin began, “What do you do if someone gives you the ‘wrong’ reaction and messes up your combo?”
Hans pointed for Quentin to pick up a sword and a shield while Hans grabbed a sword of his own. He waved for Kane to join them as well.
“Suppose I attack with a thrust,” which Hans did but slowly for the sake of demonstration. “What can you do in response?”
With some brainstorming and coaxing from the Guild Master, Kane and Quentin came up with the following list of potential reactions to a thrust: Shield block, shield parry, inward sword parry, outward sword parry, downward sword parry, upward sword parry, dodge left, dodge right, and move backward.
“That’s not a short list, but it’s finite, right? I know if I thrust my sword, you have to pick one of those or get stabbed. Could someone invent something on the spot that you’ve never seen before? Maybe, but not likely.
“Since I know what you can do ahead of time, I can have my next attack in mind from the start, but the trick is to keep your choices manageable. Instead of mastering the followup for every possible thrust counter, I’ll pick the three most common and drill those, which in this case are shield block, outward parry, and move backward.
“Now I can have a combination prepared but match it to what my opponent is doing, and I’ll keep working in clusters of three. My preferred response to a shield block, for example, opens up another possible yet finite set of reactions.”
Hans used the tip of his wooden sword to draw a decision tree in the dirt, a series of branching possibilities with a clear path between the beginning and the end. That line represented the trajectory of a single sequence of choices in a battle.
“You have to be decisive in your attacks and confident in your plan for this to work. It’s also difficult to do when you’re the one defending, which is why you hear me talk about keeping pressure on your partners so much. If I give you room to decide what you want to do, that means we’ve left my combo path and started on yours.”
Before taking more of their questions, he added the disclaimer that his advice to pressure an opponent only applied to humanoids or creatures they had fought previously. If they were fighting a monster for the first time, they wouldn’t have the knowledge to predict actions and reactions, so they should be extra cautious in those scenarios.
“Does this work for defense too?” Kane asked.
“Yes, and there are some really talented counter fighters out there. It’s a legitimate strategy, but I won’t teach it to beginners.”
“Why not?”
“Counter fighting takes a ton of timing and finesse to do safely, but more importantly, it lets your opponent control the fight, and they could do anything. If I’m the aggressor–and that doesn’t mean being reckless–the number of possibilities I have to account for shrinks by a lot. That’s easier to manage mentally, easier to practice, and easier to predict. Boxers do something similar with a jab, so don’t think you need anything more complicated than that to get your opponent to open up.”
With Kane and Quentin’s questions answered, Hans retrieved a shovel and began his project for the afternoon: Digging the slopes for the footwork training aids.
Three shovelfuls of dirt later, he wished he could ask the dungeon core to renovate the guild yard as well.
Quest Complete: Expand the Gomi training area to include ramps for footwork drills.
***
“How complicated is distillation? I mean, really, the Tribe should be bottling gallons of this stuff.” Hans passed the bottle of fool’s root vodka back to Olza, setting it on the guild hall table between them.
“It’s not too bad,” Olza replied. “I still won’t use Mazo’s Earth magic to grow fool’s root. Sorry.”
“Please.”
“Nope. If you go pick enough for a bottle, I’ll make it for you. You’ll be lucky to find that much let alone what you’d need for a commercial still.”
“I wasn’t asking for me. I was asking for Gomi. Do you know how much they’d make? It would be bigger than the beer business.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Olza rolled her eyes. “Sure. For Gomi. Try growing it in the dungeon,” she said with half-seriousness. “Seems we can get pretty specific.”
Hans laughed. “One day, we’re talking about the reagents that would make the world a better place. Today, we’re talking about using those powers for booze instead.”
“It’s okay to talk about silly dreams you’d never live.”
When he heard the latch on the front door, Hans braced himself for a burst of frigid air. When Chisel and Yotuli appeared in the light, loose attire of springtime, he mused to himself about how quickly his mind had adapted to the Gomi winter being his new normal.
“Kane and Quentin aren’t here yet but should be soon,” Hans said.
Today was a shift change for the cabin, and the two new Apprentices would be making their first visit to the dungeon. The Guild Master wanted to be there with them, but he couldn’t force them to wait until he had the free time to dungeon crawl.
He could, however, ensure that the challenges they faced were appropriate for their experience level, so the Silvers and other Apprentices were instructed not to take the boys beyond the skeletons that now grew in the earliest region of the dungeon. While skeletons were potentially dangerous, they were weak, fragile, and slow, making them ideal monsters for young adventurers. If they froze up, as inexperienced adventurers often did when they first encountered true danger, their mistake wouldn’t end their careers.
Goblins were barely stronger than skeletons, but they were faster, more aggressive, and ruthless. The weakest goblin in the kingdom would happily slit the throat of a stupefied Apprentice, which could happen quickly in the chaos of a shadowy dungeon skirmish.
When neither Chisel or Yotuli responded, Hans went to repeat himself, stopping when he saw their enormous grins.
“Miss Olza,” Yotuli began, “Honronk asked if you could check his work.” She pulled up her sleeve to reveal a tattoo on her left wrist, like several runes drawn on top of each other.
Olza inspected it, tracing a finger around the design. With her eyes closed, she held her palm flat over the tattoo, half an inch above her wrist. “This is an active ward. This is–”
Chisel held out her arm. “Mine?”
The alchemist repeated the process with Chisel’s tattoo. With her mouth agape, she turned to Hans. “He did it. He really did it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Pretty sure. I’m no expert on enchanting, though. Testing it will give us the definitive answer.”
While her reasoning was sound, Hans was uncomfortable with having to tattoo a child to conduct the experiment. “We can’t keep doing this to Gunther. He’s just a kid, and Ed’s not here to speak on behalf of his interests.”
“You think Gunny would say no?”
“I know for a fact he wouldn’t, and that’s my concern.”
“I see your point,” Olza said. “We’ll have the same dilemma with any of the children. If Gunny is out, how do you propose we do this?”
“If I’m out of what?” Gunther asked, standing between Kane and Quentin who were each packed for their first stay at the cabin as Apprentices. Kane’s rucksack was as large as his little brother. And Hans hadn’t heard them come in.
Damn it.
“It’s nothing,” Olza said. Chisel and Yotuli took a noticeable step back to signal that they didn’t want to be involved.
The young tusk scowled. “I’m not a baby. Anything at all. I’ll do it if it helps.”
“What’s going on?” Kane asked.
“Honronk made working wards,” Hans began, “but we aren’t sure if they’ll be effective.”
Gunther held his head high. “Mr. Hans, Miss Olza, I want to do this. I want to do it for my family.” The bravery on his face was both inspiring and heartbreaking.
Hans agreed to let Gunther be the first child to take the tattoo ward but under the condition that Kane and Quentin delay going to the cabin. If the experiment had any risks, foreseen or not, he wanted Gunther’s older brother there to help and support. The new Apprentices agreed to stay, without hesitation.
***
Gunther looked at Honronk’s drawing of the ward while Honronk set up his books and tattooing materials in the main area of the guild hall. “Can we do a dragon instead?” Gunther asked.
“No,” Honronk answered.
“How about a skull with worms in the eyes?”
“No.”
“What about flames with a–”
“Gunny,” Kane gently interrupted, “the spell only works if it’s drawn a certain way.”
“Okay fine, but I want it here on my chest.” Gunther pointed to his left pectoral muscle, roughly where his heart would be.
“That’s fine,” Honronk said.
Gunther never stopped talking, unbothered by the pain of the needle moving in and out of his skin. Drawing the tattoo correctly was critical, but Honronk had to pause after specific lines to build up more of the enchantment before he could resume tattooing. When the Apprentice Black Mage scooted his chair back, announcing that the ward was complete, Gunther looked down proudly at the artwork on his chest. Roughly the circumference of the base of a wine glass, the ward looked oversized for the young tusk’s body, but he had a great deal of growing yet to do to balance the proportions.
That night, without the help of a Sleep potion or any other spell, Gunther slept soundly. He had his first pleasant dream in months–something about the gnolls making Gunther their king and then riding a sailboat to the stars–but no nightmares.
Tattooing the Repel Possession ward on every tusk in Gomi took eleven days. Honronk sat in the guild hall that entire time, giving stick and poke tattoos to weave wards with a blood enchantment. Over. And over. And over. His demeanor and his movements didn’t change from tattoo to tattoo, like he was unaffected by distractions or exhaustion, until he would say simply, “I need to sleep.” Then he was back in the morning, doing it all over again.
Olza told Hans that Honronk might be a genius. Not only did his tattoo wards work, but he made a more advanced version of the original design. Since the enchantment was powered by the person’s own blood, presumably from the mana and life force within, the wards were weakest on the tusks who needed them the most: the children.
The advanced design networked the wards together. Typically, networked wards were used for large-scale security, like a barrier or an alarm around a treasure or a hideout. Linking the wards increased their strength and kept the ward up even if one of the nodes was destroyed. Applying that system to the tattoos balanced the mana across every tusk in town, so the children could have wards as strong as the adults.
Honronk’s supernatural work ethic played a major role, of course, but the Apprentice’s ability to extrapolate conclusions and insights from limited material suggested that this feat–teaching himself Blood enchantments without a guide–would not be his last unprecedented success. His intuitive understanding of magic and spellcraft would take him far.
When Hans told the Apprentice about the festival Galad and Galinda were organizing to celebrate, he asked if they could credit the chapter instead of him personally. Large crowds made him uncomfortable, and so did receiving attention. Hans agreed to honor his wishes when it was clear Honronk would not be convinced otherwise.
After the final tattoo, knowing that every child who had received it was already sleeping soundly without potions or other aids, Hans closed the most fulfilling quest of his career. Not alone, a fact he had no issue acknowledging, but the victory was no less sweet.
Quest Complete: Implement a Repel Possession ward to stop the nightmares, permanently.
“Honronk… It’s hard to describe how grateful I am–how grateful everyone is–for what you’ve done,” Hans said when he and the Apprentice were alone in the guild hall. “Thank you.”
“You always say a party is strongest when they trust one another and work together.”
The tusk was correct. The Guild Master repeated that often.
“I played my role for the good of the party. That’s the job.”
Hans asked Honronk if he planned to continue practicing enchanting.
“Items, perhaps. People, no.”
Honronk rolled up his right pant leg. Hans already knew the other leg was covered in Nightsight enchantment attempts, and he now saw that Honronk’s right leg was covered in Repel Possession runes. The Apprentice had little canvas left to practice on. If he could reach a patch of skin with his right hand, it was already tattooed.
“Well, let me know what interests you, and I’ll place an order for every book I can find.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The next day, Gomi was abuzz with joy and relief. The celebration began under the sunlight so the children could take part. Spring planting had already begun, so a late night of drinking wasn’t practical for the adults either. Back-to-back days of working the fields from dawn until dusk made for tired bodies and early bedtimes.
But the party was no less raucous.
***
Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):
Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.
Mend the rift with Devon.
Complete the manuscript for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."
Research the history and legends of the Dead End Mountains, more.
Protect Gomi.
Earn enough gold to free enough workers to build the new campus. Bonus Objective: Pick a secret passage cooler than a bookshelf door.
Find a way to share new knowledge without putting Gomi at risk.