"The difficulty isn't exactly the point…" Zack replied, rubbing his right temple as he squinted his eyes shut with a long-suffering sigh.
"I'm sure you guys can figure it out," Beth answered, waving to Blood while Zack was fighting off his mounting frustration. The huge wolf loped over to her just as Zack opened his eyes and lowered his hand, Beth jumping on her back as he made to say more.
"I expect you to come by this evening to help out when you're done with your…whatever that's so urgent," he said coolly before turning and marching across the field while starting to bark orders.
"Let's get while the getting's good," Beth said to Blood while stroking her firmly atop the head between the ears.
With a short *yip* of affirmation, Blood was off and running, heading back out to the highway to follow it back down to the northward turn, wherein they proceeded to dart away from the road and through the woods. Beth cried out with a loud whoop, pumping her fist briefly as she held onto the massive wolf, her dark and inky hair streaming behind her like a thick brush had been drawn quickly across the page of the world. The smile on her full lips and the gleam in her dark emerald eyes broadcasting exactly how she felt about riding Blood through the wooded terrain.
It didn't take long for the two of them to arrive at the CRA Hall, Beth dismounting like usual before they entered the lobby. Tazeen was alone behind the counter today, and Beth strolled up to him before she went down the hall.
"How do I get in the side doors? Is that something I'm allowed to do?" she asked as he nodded a greeting.
"Your room key will suffice," Tazeen said calmly, making a motion with his hand toward the small machine he had used to set the room key to the proper room.
"Okay, thanks, I'll see you around," Beth replied with a nod of her own before heading down the corridor to the lounge.
She found several of the instructors in the lounge, including Baelvyr, and she made her way towards his usual table. Before she had made it across the room, John intercepted her with a laconic question.
"Where's the rest of 'em? They're not slacking already, huh?" he asked.
"Went hunting today," Beth answered calmly. "They're all helping with the aftermath of that still. Probably won't be in here till after lunch, at this rate."
"Pah, coulda told us, the absolute goobers," John grumbled in response.
"It was more a last-minute thing," she replied. "But we should've had someone stop by. Sorry."
Baelvyr stood as she got to the table, waving his arm at her to get her to follow instead of sitting down. "If'n ya want to pay for communicators for the lot of 'em, John, ya'd be welcome to," he rumbled out as he led the way out of the lounge. John’s reply was sharp, but muttered too low for Beth to actually make it out.
Baelvyr led Beth and Blood down to the old training room, indicating for Beth to set her sword by the side and grab a practice blade off the racks. Beth was still wearing her armor, but the training room's central equipment would make sure even simulated fights didn't leave lasting damage.
"Swords?" Baelvyr said to her, making it sound like a question.
"Eight," she answered, understanding his meaning immediately.
"Unarmed?" He continued.
"Eight," she replied again, repeating it in the same tone as the last time.
Baelvyr grunted in response, scratching at his massive gut as he stared off into space, seeming to run some math in his head that only he understood. After a moment he nodded to himself and walked over to the front of the room, picking up the controlling tablet before moving back over to Beth. He pressed a few buttons as he gestured for her to climb up on the sparring area and nodding. He then set the controller down and, with a heavy grunt, stepped up on the sparring area in a single movement, his massive frame allowing him to bypass the two small steps on the long side of the sparring ground entirely.
"Uh, okay," Beth said nervously, shifting her feet as she stared up at her instructor. "I guess we're doing something different today?"
"Yeah girlie, we're gonna get your Swords to nine today," he replied calmly, a massive greatsword appearing in his hand from nowhere.
"What the hell is that!?" Beth exclaimed, staring at the five-foot-long black blade rather worriedly.
"Just some ol' junk I got layin' around," he answered with a shrug, assuming a ready stance.
"Uh, i-is that safe?" Beth asked, taking a step back and raising her training blade warily.
"Should be," Baelvyr replied with a shrug.
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"What do you mean, 'should' be?" Beth asked with a glare, starting to get a little upset at the huge ogre's flippant attitude.
"Defend," he growled in response, a single step eating up all the distance between the two of them.
"Shit, shit, shit," Beth muttered, taking another step back and swinging her sword around from right to left to deflect a lazy, one-handed chop Baelvyr made with his right hand.
Baelvyr continued his swing with a lazy backhand, the strike seemingly made with no effort but still directly and quickly moving for Beth's vitals. She once again had to deliver a two-handed cross-body swing to deflect his effortless one-handed slash, knocking his sword up while she stepped back slightly. Baelvyr didn't even have to step forward to follow, his reach so great that he was able to launch a third slash at her after she had retreated.
Beth stepped into this attack, an overhead slash coming in from high up to her left, ducking slightly while slamming her sword into and down the length of Baelvyr's blade. She continued with a second step and slashed at her instructor by continuing the deflection movement into an overhead of her own. Baelvyr responded instantly by twisting his right wrist and smashing the pommel of his sword into her blade, knocking not just her sword but Beth to the side.
She stepped into the movement, bringing her sword back around from her right to chop at Baelvyr's left side, but he easily deflected the blow without moving. Even his simple taps to deflect contained enough force to send her staggering, and she had to take three steps to regain her balance and re-orientate herself. She immediately returned to the spar with a two-handed thrust towards Baelvyr's massive gut, but he batted it away with a backhand from his empty left hand with a gesture like flicking off dust.
Beth was back to staggering for a moment yet again, glad that Baelvyr was content to watch her recoveries every time with only a slight smirk. She righted herself again and moved forward with a right-to-left slash across his gut, which he easily deflected with a mere tap of his blade before thrusting forward as she staggered. Beth quickly set her feet and slid slightly to the right, holding her sword up with her right hand while bracing the flat of the blade with her left forearm.
The thrust knocked her sliding back four or more feet, Beth's heavy boots scraping across the metal of the training platform. She responded with a flurry of one-handed slashes, rapidly slicing across Baelvyr's midsection repeatedly. He parried effortlessly, redirecting the movement and energy from her swings away from himself with little more than flicks of the glimmering black blade. He replied to her flurry with another thrust, which she avoided with a step to her right, then immediately had to slash upward to the left, as he had transitioned from the thrust to a slash in a fluid motion.
Beth leapt back, ready to lunge forward, but stopped at a motion from Baelvyr. She rested against her blade, panting a little from the strain. While Baelvyr was moderating his strength greatly, he was still extremely strong. That, combined with his great skill, meant she had to fully utilize her body and mind just to keep up with him for a minute or two. Of course, this was a good thing for her, as the strain was pushing her to perform even better.
"Are you some kind of Swordmaster?" Beth asked as she regained her breath.
"Grandmaster," he replied calmly. "But I ain't too good with 'em. I'm more a blunt weapon kinda person. Hammers especially, though I got a couple maces that do me right."
"How long does it take to get to grandmaster?" Beth queried as she readied for another round.
"For ya to do it, at least fifteen years," he answered, casually flicking the massive sword at her as she entered guard position. "And that assumin' ya train or fight quite a few hours a day, pushin' your limits, every single day for close to two decades."
"Right. So, not any time soon," she responded, moving forward into a thrust as they resumed the training.
"It's all relative," Baelvyr replied as he casually derailed her thrust with a flick of his wrist, the tip of his blade tapping the center of Beth's to knock it too far off course for her to safely continue the motion. "Fifteen years seems a long time to ya, but it ain't that long. 'Sides, unless ya die young to some monster that's outta your league, your gonna live at least a millennium."
"I can't even wrap my head around that yet," Beth grunted out, parrying two swings of his before going in for an overhead slash of her own.
"It'll take ya time," he replied, easily deflecting the slash with a tap of the side of his blade. "Best not even to think 'bout it too much; don't want to get too cocky, or worse, too obsessed with the idea."
Beth just nodded in response and the two continued, Baelvyr doing little more than simple slashes and thrusts. These were simple slashes and thrusts from someone with a grandmaster level of weapon skill, however, and Beth was shocked, quite frankly, with how precise, powerful, and fast the attacks were. She could tell that it wasn't just stats as, while the blows were heavy, they certainly weren't more than she could handle, and she just got the sense that Baelvyr wasn't putting in more than a tiny drop of strength.
They sparred like this for the rest of the morning, stopping when it was time to eat lunch. After Beth had eaten and freshened up, the afternoon was spent on more team training with Blood, the two of them practicing fighting as a pair, further refining their teamwork.
Beth collapsed on one of the benches in the late afternoon, totally exhausted from the day. Even with the training ending slightly early and starting slightly late, it was intense enough that it wrung every little bit of energy out of her. Every little bit of sweat too, she thought, catching a good whiff of herself. She sat back up and turned to see Baelvyr finishing putting away the equipment they had used for the afternoon session.
"How long do I need to get to journeyman?" Beth asked as he ambled to the front of the room, setting the control unit back in the charging cradle before turning to her.
"Month or so, I'd say," he rumbled in response, walking over near to where Blood sat on the floor beside her.
"It feels a little, I don't know, slow?" she replied, tapping her chin for a moment.
"Slow, she says," he grumbled back. "The speed yer goin' at firmly puts ya in the realm of elites. We'll see how long it actually takes ya to get over the first wall, that'll be a good tell."
"The hell is the 'first wall?'" she asked, giving him a pinched-face side-eye.
"Climbin' a tier up girlie; ain't ya been payin' any attention to me?" he replied with a glare of his own.
"Eh, sometimes I fade in and out," she replied with a slight quirk at the corner of her lips.
"Real funny," he replied. "Ya know what I mean. When ya get to nine here in a little, yer gonna need to really put in some effort to move up into journeymen."
"Put in effort? What have I been doing then?" Beth asked in a slightly petulant tone, crossing her arms as she stared up at the massive trainer.
"This?" he answered, waving his arm at the training hall. "This is trainin'. Next, ya gotta step up and do some work."
"Do teachers talk in riddles intentionally, or is it just you?" she fired back with another question.
"All I'm tellin' ya is that if you think this is hard, maybe ya oughta settle for being second rate or, better yet, pack it in altogether," he replied with a shake of his head, moving towards the door.
"I expect ya every day at least until we get ya nines, then we'll see where we're at," his deep voice echoed out as he crossed the room and thumbed the door open.
"Yeah, yeah," she answered languidly, levering herself up before heading toward the door, patting Blood on the side with a few solid thumps as the wolf followed along.
The two of them headed up and out, traversing the arena section, glimmering with its bright lights reflecting off the highly polished marble, before heading through the front areas to the lobby. Tazeen and John were on duty as they moved through, neither of them giving the girls more than a quick nod before the two were out the door, Beth hopping on Blood in a smooth motion as they took off for home.
It didn't take more than a few minutes for them to arrive back at the Bell house, finding it empty. Not a great surprise, considering it was still fairly early on in what had turned out to be an especially busy day for everyone. The two made their way in through the back, well used to using the old, weathered green door as their main entry and exit. Beth shucked her armor and sword in the mudroom, keeping her belt and pouch with her as always.
The two moved to their favorite room of the house first, raiding the kitchen for whatever they could find. Beth decided, unsurprisingly, on meat, considering the massive amount of premium boar meat they now had available. She started heating the oven in preparation for roasting quite a lot of the porcine delicacy, getting something to drink for herself and Blood in the meantime.
Beth was able to cook for the two of them and they had finished eating before there was any sign of anyone else in the house. This turned out to be Sabs, who had never bothered to go into the Hall today, as Beth had actually guessed when she saw John already manning the front desk as she had been leaving.