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The Matriarch’s assault was fast and relentless. Tristan was immediately pushed on the defensive as he had to intercept the intense flurry of strikes with the shaft and pommel of the maul. It was well-balanced but still top-heavy, which he had expected. But this type of weapon was not suited to a fast, single opponent who was relatively unarmored. It was much better against slower, heavily armored foes.
Tristan was able to get enough distance to make use of the weapon, taking large, wide swings that kept The Matriarch at bay while he spun his essence crucible. The swirling, silvery and icy-blue energy filled him up and he pushed the flow down to his right hand. I’m going to have to say the spell phrase, then take my hand off the maul for as long as it takes to launch the icicle.
The Matriarch didn’t even give him a second to speak as she got inside his reach and rained down several harsh thwacks against him that were so impactful they dented his armor. He grunted in pain as he dropped the maul and jumped backward as he drew his long, thin blade with extreme speed. The essence that was swirling in his right hand shot into the blade, and it elongated as the silvery-icy-blue clouds cascaded from it.
The Matriarch pulled back and frowned, “Lord Tristan, I do not wish to fight you with you wielding a lethal weapon.”
Tristan glanced down and grimaced, “Sorry. Instinct.” He let the essence flow fade and the blade reverted. He sheathed it, took off the belt, and put the weapon on the ground. “Go a little easier on me, okay? I’m not skilled with a maul.” He bent over and grabbed up the enormous hammer.
The Matriarch tossed the practice sword to the side and glanced to the trees nearby, “Children, your mother requires another training dummy.” She gestured to the trio still running in the field, “And tell them to take a breather.”
A few fairy dragons flew off to the ones in the field who were carrying the training dummies back and forth across the space, and they scattered to the outskirts of the clearing before shifting into their animal-dragon shapes and flying over to the trees nearby. At the same time, two fairy dragons flew over with a training dummy and buried it into the ground.
Tristan glance at it as he hefted the maul, “I don’t think a practice target is a good starting point, Matriarch.”
She chuckled and shook her head, “I saw how you wielded it. Like a quarterstaff. Too much focus on holding the center of the shaft.” She took it from his hands and showed him a proper grip – with his topmost hand at the center of the shaft, and her other hand near the base. “The way you swing it is that you begin the swing with your leading hand, but then pull it back to the base of the shaft to ensure the most powerful rotation you can muster. Observe.”
He stepped away as she took up a ready stance in front of the dummy. Pulling the weapon back so that it was upright alongside her shoulder, she slowly demonstrated the strike and technique. Pulling the hammer down and around, she transitioned her center-shaft grip to the base, letting the weight of the maul’s head increase the force of the blow as it hit the wooden target with a resounding thud. “And now, at full speed.” She pulled it back, and repeated the move once more. Tristan was able to follow it, but the force it imparted on impact was jarring – completely uprooting the target dummy and sending it flying a few feet.
She gestured and the two fairy dragons who had set up the dummy repositioned it. “Now, the maul requires very specific knowledge of range and reach. If, for instance, my swing is too close-” she swung again, and this time stepped forward as she struck, which caused the shaft of the weapon to hit the dummy and deal almost no real harm. “-You lose quite a bit of power. And if you are too far away-” once more she pulled back and swung, but she took a step back as the hammer head came around, and it just missed the front of the dummy. But, he saw her swing had taken her a little bit off balance – just as it had when he had allowed her to knock the practice sword out of his hand.
“-Like that, you will just miss entirely.”
Tristan nodded as she handed it to him. “There is a lot to learn about a simple hammer.”
She smiled gently and patted him on the shoulder, “Yes, there is a lot to learn. But you have a very, very long life ahead of you. Now, start swinging, and I’ll give you feedback on your strikes.”
Tristan nodded and spent the next few hours drilling relentlessly with the weapon. The Matriarch was a fount of knowledge about the use of the weapon, and once he had grown familiar with the range of the maul, she began teaching him various weapon swing combinations. By the end of the day he was covered in sweat and shaking from the exertion…but he was happy. For the first time in a long time, he was really, truly happy.
Planting the hammer next to himself, he wiped away the sweat and let out a small laugh. “I was going to spend today focusing on essence-weaving…but this has been useful. Thank you, Matriarch.”
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She dipped her head, “Of course, Lord Tristan. Well, the potions have all been prepared and await your imbuement spells.”
“Tomorrow,” Tristan replied. “I have three things I want to do tonight before heading back.” He grabbed his sword and re-equipped it. “First…have some of your children carry targets back and forth. Small ones – even flying ones – are fine. I just want to practice Frost Flurry until I get used to the travel speed to hit moving targets.”
“Of course.” The Matriarch looked up to the branches where there was a group of fairy dragons who had been lounging about all day, watching Tristan’s training. “Come on, boys and girls. You heard Lord Tristan.” She looked at him as the fairy dragons went to grab some targets. “Do you require my assistance further this evening?”
Tristan nodded and fished around in his hip pouch for the spell primer on ice elementalism. “You said you read this already, but I want to practice the other two First Order spells. Could you refresh yourself to teach me the Defense and Control oriented spells?”
She nodded and went over to the edge of the clearing; sitting down on a fallen log that had been grown over with moss, she flipped open the primer and began re-reading it.
Tristan looked out to the fairy dragons and spun his essence crucible, feeling the energy cascade through his body and soothe the warmth of physical exertion away. He repeated the spell phrase and gesture for Frost Flurry several times over; using the smallest amount of essence possible since he knew the speed and range drop-off was not affected by the size of the projectile. He began dialing in the correct angle and how much to lead each target. Barking out instructions for varying speed and patterns, he challenged himself over the next hour as he drained and refilled his essence crucible.
Eventually, as the five moons began to crest above the trees, he stopped his training. That is good progress for one day, he thought. This is something I should practice every day. In fact, I should establish a routine while I’m here. Martial training in the morning, perhaps. Spell training after. End out the day with some artifice or imbuement, and the evening read the spell primers to add to my repertoire. Thinking of that… He looked over to The Matriarch who had set the spell primer aside and was watching with a mildly bored expression.
Walking over to her he nodded, “Ready?”
She stood up and handed the primer back to him, which he tucked back into his hip pouch. “The First Order Defense spell is called Frost Wall. The spell phrase is “Ich beschwöre eine Wand aus Eis herauf.” (I summon forth a wall of ice).
“Seems fairly short.”
“It is. Elementalism spells tend to be complex in the Control category, middling complexity in the Offense category, and trivial in the Defense category.” She held up a finger, “Do not forget that there is a backlash effect of crusting yourself with ice.”
“And the gesture?”
She knelt and placed her fist on the ground. Her thumb was curled inside the other fingers – which, if done during a punch, would break that finger. “You place it on the surface you want the wall to emerge from. It will come out perpendicular to that surface. So, if you put your fist on a wall, it would emerge horizontally.”
Tristan nodded and spun his essence crucible. He put his fist on the ground, curling his thumb inside the other fingers, and felt the cool energy spread through his body. “Where should I direct the essence?”
“All elementalism originates in the hands.”
Tristan nodded and pushed the essence through his channels – which, he noted, were far more readily accepting of the increased flow. Must have grown over the day, he thought. Stretched from my constant use. He took a deep breath and uttered the spell phrase. “Ich beschwöre eine Wand aus Eis herauf.” (I summon forth a wall of ice).
Just in front of where his fist was planted, a wall began to grow. It was slow, and The Matriarch commented, “If you want it to grow faster, you must spin your crucible faster and push more essence into it.”
Tristan nodded and did so, and the whole wall manifested before him. Ten feet tall, and as he got up and walked around the side, he could tell it was a foot thick. Width wise, it was the same size as the height. “A giant square,” he commented.
“The ice is thick and can take several heavy hits.” To emphasize this, she grabbed the maul from the ground and swung it with the full strength she could muster, and where the hammer head hit, cracks began to spiderweb out. But Tristan looked at the other side and could not see any damage.
“Quite a few hits,” Tristan commented. “Very neat.” He felt the drain on his essence from casting the spell, and knew that he could only do four of these walls before draining himself.
The Matriarch set the maul down. “And the last of the ice elementalism, First Order spells from this primer is simply Melt Ice. Freezing water is higher Order, and changing the ice’s properties is even higher Order.” She put both of her hands at her midsection, and bent her fingers so that each was like a small crook. She interlaced them so that, from the front, Tristan saw a small lattice. “This is the spell gesture. And you must stand within ten feet, facing the object.”
Tristan repeated the spell gesture and stood in front of the wall, “And the phrase?”
“This is the most complex. Repeat after me. Ahem.”
She began speaking, and Tristan spoke right after her as she paused between words in the lengthy spell phrase. “Ich befehle dir, Frost und Eis vor mir, meinem Befehl zu gehorchen. Schmelzt in meiner Gegenwart und werdet wieder flüssig.” (I order you, frost and ice before me, to obey my command. Melt in my presence, and become liquid once more).
The wall of ice immediately turned to water and splashed down into the grassy ground below. Tristan felt winded and lowered his hands as he sucked in lungful of air. “That…is…amazing!”
The Matriarch smiled, “It has been many, many millennia since I have seen ice elementalism used in this Realm. It pleases me.” She looked at him, “Come, let us return to the Queen’s Wood. You must eat, and rest.”