Over the course of her first few hours of being an apprentice Kori has come to an exceedingly difficult conclusion, she does not like meditating. Sitting still? No talking or asking questions? None of these are things that come naturally to Kori, hell, her Trait even says ‘The mind of a dragon never rests’ and she’s becoming more certain of that single phrase’s validity the more she sits and thinks and tries to follow the droning guided meditation of her senior apprentice. The image of mana drifting as a haze of smoke through the air lingers in her thoughts, but sinking into the state that her fellows seem to be able to evades her active mind.
As she sits and fidgets, her tail swishing back and forth like a nervous salamander’s, calling attention to herself from those around her and from the apprentice guiding the group and receiving dirty looks from those whose focus she disturbs. She tries to ponder on the whole ‘nature of mana’ thing, tries to look within to 'see what is around her', but honestly it sounds like something that the Minders would have told her when she was being particularly inquisitive and wanted some peace and quiet for a bit…
Around midday the guide stands from his seated position and ends his droning guidance, “Well done group, most of you looked like you were able to settle into the exercise today,” A pointed look at a certain newcomer, “Has anyone attained their [Mana Sense] or [Mana Control] skills today?”
A pair of hands are raised amongst the group as Kori looks around, both young Kobolds that she does not recognize, “Well done! Once you’ve gotten the hang of [Mana Control] you can join Zephyr Mage Kore’s group in working on your [Spell Shaping] exercises.”
These new skills sound much more interesting than simply sitting on her tail and trying to ‘settle her mind’ whatever that means…
“Now, the part of the day you all would rather skip… I know, you want to be mages, sorcerers, or whatnot, I do too, but when you’re out of mana and facing a goblin with a knife, you’ll be a lot better off with a staff in hand and some skill levels to back it up. Take a few minutes to stretch, gather a stave from the barrels,” Pointing over to the side near where the entrance to the supply room was, “And meet me in the sparring ring.”
Wait, staff training? I know I was bored but now we have to play with sticks? I thought I was going to learn magic, fling fire or something? I guess he has a point, can’t cast if you’re out of mana, but still…
Kori catches her brother’s eye as he stands and waves, “Hi Plk!”
“Kori? I thought you were going to be a trapper?”
“Nope! Apparently, I have magic! Though I didn’t have much luck with the whole meditation thing…”
“Oh, congratulations! It took me a good few days to get the [Meditation] Skill, but once I had that it became much easier to follow the guide’s instructions. I think I’m really close to [Mana Sense] I caught a wisp of it today!”
“Wait, it’s a Skill? Why didn’t they mention that part, just the Sense Skill?”
“Not sure, but it is. Most of us have it already, it just kinda happens as you follow along.”
Kori grumbles a little under her breath about not getting proper explanations for things, one of her biggest peeves really. “Any tips? I couldn’t get into it really…”
“Just stop thinking about anything, focus on the guides voice and let their words sink in.” Plk thinks for a few seconds, “That’s at least the advice they gave me, it worked eventually. Come on, we need to get to sparring, it’s actually kinda fun. And here you can’t break up the fights cause we’re supposed to be bonking each other!” Plk sticks his tongue out at Kori teasingly as he says the last bit, still a bit sore over all the times that Kori stepped in and ruined his fun as a hatchling.
“You know I was just trying to keep you guys from smashing your head on a rock or somehow drowning in our puddle… Right?” She’s still a bit sad over some of her siblings, the Culling might be a natural part of Kobolds lives because they grow faster than they learn and sometimes just pass in their sleep even, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t hate it and the [Rapid Growth] trait responsible for it.
“I know, I know, at least now, none of us really did for a long time. I’ve talked with some of the other Apprentices since coming here, did you know that most of them didn’t even have 30 hatchlings in their clutch when they moved to the brood chambers? All of them said that barely 20 made it to their apprenticeship…” His mood turning somber for a moment as he talks about the other clutches, “I think the others are all realizing too as they get to interact with all the other apprentices and hear the other Kobolds speak about our clutch like we’re an oddity. You and Losq really did make a difference.”
“Enough about that though, lets grab a staff and get to it, if we dawdle, they’ll give us extra cleaning duty.” As he rushes off towards the barrels, Kori following behind. “Here, use this one.” Handing her a staff, while it’s just a bit taller than Plk, it looks comically long in her hands in comparison, easily 40cm taller than she is. “That might be a bit big for you… I don’t think there are any shorter though… Maybe they’ll let you trim it down a bit?”
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“Stupid long stick… Stupid oversized robe too…” Kori grumbles under her breath at yet another reminder of her less than average stature. Looking back to her brother, “I’ll make do…”
The next hour becomes an exercise in frustration for the young Kobold, all of her fellows are taller, mostly stronger, and they’ve at least a few weeks of practice on her. So, she takes to doing what she does best when in a fight, she starts playing dirty. Striking toes, knees, fingers where they grasp their staves, hooking feet and tripping, and all around just taking cheap shots. Their instructor admonishes her several times to stick to the forms, but every time she tries that it ends with her in the sand and her sparring partner’s gloating looks of superiority, something Kori can’t stand.
Her brother watches all of this with great amusement, except for the times when he’s paired with her, as he himself or his siblings have been on the receiving end of Kori’s particular style of fighting for years whenever she was provoked to it, though he’s glad that there is no food involved, the little glutton always got serious then.
One particular opponent seems to take offense to Kori’s tactics though, she sees her glaring at her after she knocked down a Kobold closer to her own height, though he was still a good 5+ cm taller than her.
After a few more apprentices come and go in the rotation of opponents, she finds herself confronted by the one that was glaring at her. She’s almost as tall as Losq, though with a lot less bulk on her frame, and still looking at Kori like she’s in need of a good bashing with that staff of hers.
“I’m going to enjoy this; you didn’t have to go that hard against my brother. He’s not very strong and still learning.”
“I’m not that strong either and todays my first day, so what’s his excuse?” Kori taunts back, clearly the wrong thing to say as she gets a sneer from her foe.
With little warm up or setting of stances, the larger Kobold rushes Kori with her staff raised, aiming for a downward strike on Kori’s head and not holding back. Kori raises her staff in response, angling it slightly to let the blow deflect, but fails to account for her fingers, which she should know better since she’s done the same already to others, and the staff rolls over her hand causing her to flinch back her probably bruised knuckles.
“Ow!”
“Heh, just getting started runt.”
Runt? Runt! I hate being called runt. Oh, I’m going to enjoy this now.
“You’re gonna regret that!”
Kori immediately starts fighting like there’s food on the line, her staff blocking a follow up blow from the side as she grounds the butt of it, then immediately she steps into her opponents reach, pulls back and drives the top end of the staff forward like a spear towards her muzzle, missing her target, but still connecting at the shoulder.
A smile crosses Kori’s face as her blow lands, not strongly enough to hurt, but still lands and throws off her foe’s balance. They separate and this time Kori begins the attack, a wide sweep with her hands closer to the end of the haft, not a particularly stable position, but one that gives her extra reach, barely missing as the blow is dodged back. The melee continues, back and forth, Kori clearly outmatched but still giving her all.
This is starting to be at least a little fun…her frustrations from earlier being channeled into swinging the staff around. She receives an unexpected surprise, a little blinking light at the edge of her vision indicating a notification.
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After gaining the skill she finds that there is a slight pull towards the forms that she had been shown in her swings, not changing them but guiding the swing slightly towards her targets, like her muscles know just a little better where to place her force to strike her partners toe or where to slide her hands along the haft of it to keep her balance when she blocks a heavy swing. The improvement isn’t dramatic, but is at least a little noticeable and she starts having an easier time striking where she intends and blocking her opponent’s swings.
She uses this newly acquired deftness to take her opponent off guard, blocking a swing from the side and repeating her first somewhat successful strike of the bout, stepping into her reach, pulling back the staff, this time her hands positioned to get better control and accuracy, and driving the end of the stick up and into her foes chin. The larger Kobolds feet leave the sand as she topples backwards several feet, her staff rolling off to the side as she lands on her tail, not moving for a few seconds until groaning and rolling to her side, her hands going to her chin where a welt is already forming.
Now that their little fight is ended Kori looks around realizing that she’s the center of attention, several of the other apprentices having stopped to watch and even the instructor nearby.
“Your form is off, and that little strike of yours is liable to get you stabbed moving in on a goblin like that, but it’s a good start apprentice, nobody else has dropped Ury like that. I’d like to see less aiming for toes and knees though.” The instructor looks about to the others and calls out, “That’s it for today. Take a break, then it’s time for chores.” To the displeased groans of all the young apprentices.
Kori tries to give her opponent, Ury apparently, a hand up but just gets a glare back for her efforts.
“Scale off, runt.”
Again? Oh, I’m not gonna like her…
Approaching her brother while shaking her head at Ury’s reaction “What does he mean chores?”
Plk’s amusement plain on his face, “Kori, that was great! I thought you didn’t like fighting? Ury’s been bullying us all week, everybody except her brother over there.” Pointing to the smaller kobold that Kori had knocked down earlier.
“I don’t like fighting… She called me runt…” Kori mumbles her response out, Plk must of still made it out as he winced when she said runt. Kori has made her dislike of that term well known. “So, what’s this about chores? I thought we were here to learn to be a mage?”
“Oof... No wonder." Shaking his head at hearing what Ury said. "Yeah, that’s what we just did. Now we’ve gotta do the dirty work none of the older apprentices or mages want to. There’s a water basin over by where we got the staves, lets get a drink and I’ll show you around what we’ll be doing til we go back to the brood chamber for dinner.” Plk begins walking over while explaining that the first thing they’ll have to do is clean the basin they’re getting a drink from, and their staves, and then go rake the sparring area. After that they’ll get broken up into groups and assigned tasks like running errands for the mages, fetching supplies, cleaning the meditation grounds, and the list goes on.
“When do we get to learn more then if we’ve got all these things to do?”
“Tomorrow Morning.”
“Oh… That’s… But… I wanna learn more now!”