Reis cursed Trekuta as he stood opposite the child in the ring. The child had light green skin, almost olive, and his weapon of choice was a stick two-thirds his height, with a knot gnarling it’s business end. Most of the crowd was laughing and cheering to see a human enter the ring, others were jeering and, Reis imagined, hurling insults. All were highly entertained.
The two began circling one another and Mathias began to spin his weapon. The same person who began the first fight began theirs the same way, slamming the butt of their weapon into the ground. They did not bother erecting the barrier they had for some of the bouts.
As soon as the beginning of the fight was signaled Reis flung the ball of his weapon at the child. He lobbed it relatively slowly, and aimed at the chest instead of the face, worried he might wound the child.
His eyes widened as the child deflected the ball easily, and a wave of energy rolled off of him in much the same way it had with the first warriors, though only with the impact rather than the rapid waves that some of the best warriors had put off during their bouts.
He pulled it back quickly, and his flail flung behind him, but the boy advanced farr too quickly for him to launch another assault, hitting him in the side, driving the air from his lungs, and releasing another wave of intent. The attack sent Reis rolling across the ground, and he launched the ball at the boy once more, no longer going easy on him.
He blocked this attack as well, with less ease, and another wave rolled forwards. The boy once again advanced and struck before Reis could reposition his weapon, but this time he thought he could at least tell what the boy was doing.
He felt the mana running up the boy’s weapon and then being drawn back into his body in the moment he struck. Rather than putting off a wave of pure mana as he thought, it seems to him to be more like a reverberation resulting from the impact or the way the mana flowed. He attacked again, this time trying to push the mana into his weapon the moment he struck.
He managed it, but it didn’t let off a wave like the young Goblin’s strikes did, he thought because he was too slow drawing it in, but the boy could still clearly feel the difference, this latest blow pushing him enough that he had to shift his footing to keep his balance, giving Reis enough time to meet him with another attack halfway through his charge. The unexpected attack caught him in the stomach and knocked him to the ground, and Reis was quick to pull it back, and bring it around to slam into him on the ground.
The Goblin rolled out of the way of the attack, but for the first time Reis’s attack let out the same kind of wave of intent that his foe had been putting off with his attacks.
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Many of those in the crowd near to the battle abruptly stopped their cheering and jeering and began muttering to one another. Those further back were too far to feel the reverberation, but a number of them also quieted, trying to discern what had caused the change in mood up front.
He swung the flail around to meet the boy as he stood. He planted his feet and defended the shot, sliding back almost a foot from the force of the blow, while a loud crack sounded off. The next attack the boy dodged rather than block, and closed the distance once more, ducking underneat the head of the weapon and driving his club into Reis’s stomach with a shout. Reis flew back, and before he even hit the ground was swinging at the Goblin once more, with a powerful over-head strike.
The Goblin hadn’t been expecting a counterattack so swiftly, but managed to bring his weapon up to stop the attack. When the weapons met, there was a flash of light, not blinding but noticeable nevertheless, and the stick the boy carried broke. Before either combatant could carry on the fight, the Goblin who had started the battle called it to an end, and Reis was declared the victor.
Trekuta stepped into the ring and clapped him on the shoulder, laughing all the while.
“Reis, I did not know that you had such fine control of your aura, you might have fared a little better against the wolf to use such attacks!”
“Aura?” Reis half laughed at the statement. Auras were the tools of high-level warriors and mages, not a farmer, “No, no, I just cycled my mana through my weapon. I’d have never thought to do it but I felt yon youngin’ doing it while he whacked me,” It was Trekuta’s turn to give Reis a confused look.
“You talk in circles, friend. Mana, aura, is all same thing. And to have picked it up so quickly, in the midst of battle, is no small feat. Your weapon is a stringy thing, these are particularly hard to cycle aura through. If you were scamperling, or even a Goblin your own age, I would offer you a place in my throushk,”
“Throushk, what is that word?” Reis asked, doing his best to pronounce it the same way that Trekuta had.
“Throushk, is group of Yunwei entrants led by full Yunwei warrior”
“Yunwei?”
“Yunwei. Yunwei is- hmmm, you would call battlemage I think, but is different,” Reis accepted the answer and stopped himself from loosing a barrage of questions for clarification. After another few hours of the festival, and a few more servings of the food, Trekuta put Reis up in a small shack with several young Goblins inside, some already fast asleep, and some talking loudly amongst themselves. When one looked over from the conversation he was having and saw the human enter, he started to speak, only for Trekuta to say something.
The Goblin nodded at Trekuta, and then turned back to Reis, and mimed spinning a flail around and whacking something with it, and then gave him a thumbs up. Reis laughed and returned the gesture, and almost as soon as he laid his head down, he was asleep.