“Hm… well, I can kinda see why you were so reluctant to bring it up,” Corbyn said as he sat across from his apprentice. It had been a few days since Damien had received his Profession, and he had just told his master about one of the most important developments since he’d arrived on Xaunis: his development of a unique Spell along with two other Epic rank talents during his fight with the Mountain Wyrmling. It had taken Damien longer than he’d wanted to to muster up his courage, but he had, and Corbyn seemed… not as surprised as Damien thought he ought to be.
“I thought you’d be mad I kept this from you for so long,” the Traveler admitted.
“Nah, Travelers do a bunch of weird shit all the time. Always have,” Corbyn said. “Really dangerous shit, but weird shit nonetheless. It can kill ‘em, but I think it paid off in this case. Still, Unique doesn’t automatically translate to powerful. It just means that you’re the first person to possess the Spell. You also get the honor of naming the thing. What did you name it, anyway?”
“Uh… Chains of Tartarus,” Damien said, slightly sheepish. He’d thought the name sounded good, but it was slightly overdramatic. Still, given that it had turned the Mountain Wyrmling into paste, he thought it was worthy of an appropriately grandiose name. Though that had required him to use both Invocation and Bloodcasting at the same time. not an experience he was all that excited to relive, especially not in those circumstances.
“Tartarus? Never heard of that place before,” Corbyn said, hand on his chin. “Is it a place from your world?”
“In a sense,” Damien explained. “It’s more of a myth than an actual, physical location; a portion of the Underworld where beings of great power are kept bound and sealed. And given that this power involves chains… well, I thought it was appropriate.”
Corbyn shrugged. “Hey, I’m not going to begrudge you some flair. It’s a good name, all things considered. Even if whatever or whoever you use it on won’t know what it’s referencing.”
“… is the ‘what’ part of that even sentient?” Damien asked. “As far as I’m aware, monsters don’t have that kind of capacity for higher thought. They seem more like rabid animals than anything else.”
“Trust me Damien, I meant what I said,” Corbyn answered with a slight growl, as though he were recalling a particularly unpleasant memory. “Not all monsters are mindless beasts. And if you ever come across one that’s intelligent, kill it if you can or run if you have to. There is no in-between. No matter how many times we’ve tried negotiating with monsters, even the smart ones only want to scour as much life from the world as possible.”
Damien really needed to touch up his world history of Xaunis if something as interesting as that had thus far escaped his notice.
“Now then… call up as many of those chains as you can. I’d like to see them for myself.”
The Traveler did so, sending Mana into the patterns that reminded him so vividly and eerily of the chains that manifested themselves from his shadow. They hung out from the silhouette like tentacles, shifting with his motion and thoughts as he had them go in some basic motions. As it turned out, his chains acted less like a Spell and more like an extension of himself. Given the incredible circumstances that had been required to force it into existence in the first place, they had better.
“Hm… yes,” Corbyn said in approval. “Perhaps not the best Spell in the world, but certainly your own. And flexible too - you don’t see too many Spells like that. If we can integrate this with Way of the Night Wolf once it fully manifests, it’ll be another amazing tool in your arsenal. One that will most definitely keep you alive. Don’t use it today, though.”
“Why not?” Damien asked. Corbyn had been mentioning something about getting him a proper sparring partner, now that he’d gotten to the second stage of Way of the Night Wolf. As it turned out, all of the knowledge in that Grandmaster Tome was inside his head, it was just locked off in stages, and he had reached the second one after his fight with the Mountain Wyrmling. Eventually, the Skills would combine into the full Martial Art, but until then, they were all there, dormant and inaccessible.
“Because we’re going to be judging you based purely on martial ability. She’s two tiers higher than you are in terms of her Martial Art, and out-levels you, but she’ll be taking it easy. It will be your first time sparring, after all.”
“Easier than you do?”
“Kid, you know that if I took so much as a half-hearted swing at you with a rusty knife I could cleave you in half, right?”
“Oh, I know. I was asking how much in comparison to that.”
Corbyn gave a brief chuckle. “Not too much. Still, I doubt you’ll get her to fight you at her full strength. Not at your Level.”
“I’d object to that if you weren’t right,” Damien said jokingly.
“I am right,” Corbyn said. “Don’t expect to win, even if you have overcome the odds before. That’s not the point of this. We’re trying to see where you are and how you can improve overall. Plus, Anya wants to see where her apprentice stands by her standards, so keep that in mind while you’re fighting Dove.”
“So…”
“Yes, you can bring your knives.”
Damien gave a little fist pump. Sure, he wasn’t a master of thrown weapons, but now that he could hit targets consistently, he was feeling a lot more confident in having ranged options outside of magic. Especially if he could get his hands on some paralytics or other poisons to coat his knives. He wouldn’t use them in the spar, of course, but he would definitely consider taking them out into the field with him.
“I’ve been meaning to ask about something,” Damien said, catching what Corbyn had called Anya’s apprentice. “Why aren’t me or Dove using our real names or showing our faces? And why don’t those rules apply to you?”
“Well… it’s a bit of a long story, but the story version is this,” Corbyn said after a moment. “A long time ago, apprentices of various Arbiters got jealous or angry or downright spiteful of other, more accomplished apprentices, so they tried to kill them in spiteful rage. Some succeeded, others didn’t. But the point was made, and the masking tradition was made true. It’s impossible to use Identify on another living being with a soul, so if you had a mask that obfuscated both the wearer’s face and their voice, then it’s incredibly hard to find out who they are if you weren’t already familiar with them.”
“So, it’s a safety measure to keep apprentices from killing each other?”
“Yeah,” Corbyn said. “It’s also tradition for the Arbiters of both apprentices to be present whenever they spar or meet up as apprentices.”
“You’ve gotta babysit us because if you don’t you’re afraid we’ll kill each other?”
“Basically, yeah.”
“I can see why. Some people are just plain petty.”
“… well, get ready for tomorrow. It’s going to be a somewhat painful day.”
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Damien was standing at one end of a sparring ring with a practice jian in one hand, wearing skintight black clothes and his obfuscation mask along with a sword belt and a set of throwing knife harnesses across his chest and waist. Corbyn and Anya stood to one side of the relatively blank room, its only decoration being a hardwood floor and faded, slightly beige walls. He didn’t know where this place was, and neither would his opponent, to keep them from sneaking in without their mentor’s supervision. Which, he supposed, was a reasonable concern, given the history of apprentice Arbiters killing other apprentice Arbiters.
Dove stood across from him, a white obfuscation mask on her own face, her silvery hair flowing out behind her in a tight, practical braid, marking her as a Seraphite, with patches of dark brown skin revealed where her own skintight white clothes did not cover her completely, with soft curves and hard muscle in equal measure, doing more than enough to suggest her competency as a warrior. Unlike Damien, all she wore at her side was a single sword belt, a practice saber sitting at her left hip, the blade gently curved to its point. It wasn’t like a cavalry saber, but looked more like something that one would use in actual combat, only a bit more slender than one would typically expect that kind of sword to be.
This feels kinda weird, Damien thought to himself. It was true that it was traditional for apprentice Arbiters to fight without armor and only their weapons, but he hadn’t expected to be fighting someone with such an obviously distracting physique.
Damien shook his head slightly. That was part of the challenge. If you got distracted by something like attraction to an opponent on a conscious level, then they would probably use that distraction to kill or maim you. Pretty people were pretty, but that didn’t make them any less dangerous.
“Okay. I think you both know how this works, but I’m gonna go over it one more time just in case,” Anya said, her voice clear and firm. She wasn’t wearing her armor today, instead settling for a plain grey tunic and green pants. It was a bit weird seeing her out of her armor, but even Corbyn only wore the stuff when he actually needed to. “You’re going to start sparring until one of you lands a hit or calls for a break. A clean hit scores a point, and a lethal hit scores two. Best of ten wins. Any questions?”
Neither Damien nor Dove spoke a word.
“Alright then,” Anya said, raising her hand in the air. “On my mark… begin!”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Her hand cut down through the air like a sword, and the two burst into action, drawing their weapons and flashing forward at speed.
The first thing that Damien noticed about Dove’s style was that she was fast. Incredibly, stupidly fast, which could only mean that her Dexterity was much higher than his. Her blows came one after another in a split second: first a thrust, then a light wrist cut, then another thrust followed by a testing kick. Damien barely managed to parry the sword blows with his jian, sliding around her final thrust to avoid her foot. His Reaction and Danger Sense was what kept him in the game, but not by much.
Dove twisted around, giving her saber a light flick. She tilted her head slightly, as though surprised to see that he hadn’t been hit yet. Then she spoke, her voice clearly feminine, but muddled and obscured, as the maks promised. “You’re good. For your tier, anyway.”
“Haven’t even started,” Damien replied in his own obfuscated voice, reaching for a few of his knives with his offhand. He threw his hand outwards in a whipping motion, the three flying blades he'd pulled from the belt across his chest soaring straight towards Dove’s form. She knocked two of them out of the air with her saber and dodged the third, but Damien hadn’t been aiming to hit her. Instead, he lunged forth in a straight thrust, aiming directly at her chest. The white-haired warrior managed to deflect the strike, but Damien swiftly pulled his blade back and came at her with a questing slash. She parried this one as well, the edges of their practice swords scraping against each other as she began a counter.
The Way of the Night Wolf, as Damien currently understood it, was all about getting an opponent off balance and keeping them there in order to find an opening and kill them as swiftly and efficiently as possible, while Dove’s own fighting style, The Way of the Radiant Seraphim, was all about overwhelming offense, and she wasn’t playing to her style’s strengths.
The fact that she was using what Damien assumed had to be a Dexterity weapon suggested that she wasn’t trained in the classical style, like Eric Forsythe probably was, but a variation that focused more on overwhelming speed. Given Anya’s own Mana Blade, which he had only seen once, it was probably her mentor’s own version of the style.
Damien deflected another return blow and followed up with one of his own, aiming for her unguarded left side. She twisted her body out of the way, flowing around his sword and turning the motion into a spinning kick that caught him in the face.
“One point to Dove!”
Though the mask caught most of the blow, it still sent him sprawling to the floor. She probably could’ve hit him much, much harder than that, but it seemed that Dove was holding true to the promise to hold back. Still, the impact was enough to leave him dazed for a few moments.
“You alright?” she asked, actually offering Damien a hand up once he managed to regain some self-awareness. He took it, smiling under his mask as he was pulled to his feet.
“I’m good. Just a bit rattled. You kick hard,” he complimented.
“I should hope so,” Dove said, stepping back and giving a quick demonstration of a trio of jabbing kicks. “I worked my ass off to get the motions down.”
Damien was glad for the mask when he saw her kicks in action from a different perspective. On the one hand, he was again awed at her sheer speed. He probably wouldn’t be able to match her even if he managed to get up to her Level. And on the other, he was suddenly reminded of the fact that the skintight clothes they wore left practically nothing to the imagination, highlighting every inch of her slender, well-toned leg.
Get your head on straight, dumbass. You didn’t come here to ogle her, you came here to spar, Damien chided himself, backing up a few feet and taking up a ready stance once again. “Well, I can only hope my own kicks will be half as good.”
“They probably won’t be, but that’s half the point of sparring. Learn what you’re good at already, and where you need to improve.”
Then, as Dove brought her saber up in a stance, the two began sparring once again.
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Felicia was surprised. Though she was winning her rounds against Rook, and she was still holding back, he always seemed to know where she was going to strike. It was less a matter of him comprehending where he was and more a question of whether he would be fast enough to block or parry her blows.
Still, as the fight went on, he seemed to be getting… better. Marginally, but it was forward progress nonetheless. Rook was starting to predict where her blows were, and seemed to be starting to read her rhythm. Felicia didn’t like the slow approach to combat, and her style reflected that. If she played to its strengths, she could have Rook on the ground in seconds. But that would defeat the purpose of the spar.
So, as she and Rook stood across from each other for the fourth time, with three points in her favor and none in her opponent’s, she was wary. Because although she was sure she would beat him, she also thought that he might surprise her somehow. Felicia began with a light, flowing cut that trailed against her opponent’s dark hair, missing him by inches. He responded with a kick from the right, which she managed to block with her left arm. Rook was a lot less hesitant about attacking her now, and she was grateful for it.
She pushed off the limb and twisted, using the momentum to turn the motion into a back kick. Her heel nearly brushed against Rook’s mask as he bent back, leaning away from her foot and what surely would’ve been a devastating blow, even if she was holding back. There it was again - that unusual ability to react to things before she fully committed to them. It didn’t always help, but it helped him just enough that she was starting to get annoyed.
Shade Hunters tended to focus on Reaction, finding it the Stat of choice alongside Dexterity and Intelligence. Dawn Hunters like her tended to focus on Strength, Dexterity, and their recovery Stats to the detriment of almost everything else, though she tended to avoid powering up her Strength as much as possible. It didn’t play into her style of combat all that much.
Still, she was starting to see the differences in their combat styles. And she had to admit, Rook kinda scared her. If he ever managed to get to her Level, he might not need to be fast enough to counter her, because he would be able to react to her faster than she could even process her own speed. Reaction wasn’t a Stat that she neglected per say, but she was seriously considering dumping her next set of Stat Points into it just to get the one up on this guy.
Felicia spun on her heel before Rook could take advantage of her position, her motion allowing her to jump off the ground with her stabilizing leg before it could be swept out by a sudden hook kick from her opponent. She spun in the air in a side flip, determined to find steady ground and strike out at Rook as soon as she could. Then something happened that she wasn’t ready for.
He stepped up and forward, thrusting the tip of his practice jian into her sternum, sending her out of her flip and into a slight tumble. She managed to catch herself, rubbing at the spot where she’d been struck with her free hand. Felicia… well, she was certainly surprised, for one thing, but more than that, she was impressed. The timing that it would take to strike at her dead-center in the chest while she was in an active flip would have to be absolutely perfect. So perfect, in fact, that she doubted he would be able to do it again. Still, the fact that he had been able to do it at all was impressive.
“Two points to Rook,” Anya said with a smile. “Guess I owe you some Camori, Corbyn.”
“I said he wouldn’t win,” the Canis said with a pleased grin. “Not that he wouldn’t do any damage in the meantime.”
The Night Wolf apprentice looked surprisingly pleased at his compliment, even though his face was currently being covered by a mask. It would have annoyed Felicia if she didn’t know just how much of a difference there was between them in terms of raw power. It was definitely something to be proud of.
“Feel free to take it up a notch, Dove,” her mentor said with a soft smile of her own. “We wouldn’t want this getting too deep in his head.”
Felicia smiled as she lowered herself back into a stance, saber raised lightly in one hand as Rook fell into one with his jian. And then, without waiting for Anya, the two clashed once more.
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Damien had lost the rest of the rounds after that, not because he hadn’t tried, but because Dove never gave him another chance. Truth be told, he wasn’t entirely sure how he had made that strike in the first place. But he had, and he had been proud of it for the few seconds he was allowed to. Then it was back to getting his ass kicked. He didn’t really mind, since he had expected to lose today, but Dove had upped her game after he’d struck her in the chest, not even giving him the chance to hit her back.
“She’s fast,” Damien said to Corbyn, the two sharing a meal in his room’s front area. It was a noodle dish that reminded the Traveler of a classic ramen dish, but using a different colored wheat to make the noodles and with a dark broth that complimented the beef well. “A lot faster than she was letting on. If we’d been fighting for real, I’d be dead in less than a second.”
“Good observation,” Corbyn said, slurping down a bunch of his own noodles before continuing. “She’s already at Level twenty, so no matter how you slice it, that’s a bad matchup for you. Still, you did well.”
“Happy I won that bet for ya?”
“Partly,” his mentor admitted with a smile. “But I’m also glad that you didn’t stop trying, even in the face of a stronger and more skilled opponent. Keep that fire in your eyes burning bright, kid. It’ll take you far as a Shade Hunter.”
“Speaking of which… when am I going to get inducted into the Order of the Night Wolf?”
Corbyn looked thoughtful for a few moments, taking a sip of water before returning to the conversation. “That’s a longer process. There are two main ways to join. One is to be put through our boot camp and learn everything you need to in order to pass your final Trial. The other is to be trained by someone in the order who’s at either the Pilgrim rank or higher and pass the same trial, though you won’t have to if you’re either at or above level fifty. At that point, you’d qualify for the Scribe rank, and have to take an entirely different kind of Trail. Still, I don’t think you should rush into joining just yet. I think the Adventurer Guild tryouts are a little less than seven months out now, and it’ll be much easier to get you prepared for those.”
Damien nodded. “I’m planning on taking it with Leon, once it comes around. We’re actually planning on going on a minor hunt in the forest tomorrow to get some practice in.”
“That kid from the sewers, right?” Corbyn asked, to which Damien immediately nodded. “Good call. Neither of you are particularly good at defense, but as long as you have some potions to tide you over, everything should be good. It would also be a good idea for you to get used to working in a duo or a team. While it doesn’t happen often, Hunters of all kinds might be assigned together to take down a particular monster.”
“That’s fair. But he’s also one of the only friends I have,” Damien said with a shrug. “I wouldn’t want to let him go out there alone. Plus, he did ask.”
“I suppose that’s fair enough,” Corbyn said. “Just be on your guard, alright? The forests around Lamora are mostly filled with wolves, but there are worse things you might encounter there.”
“Like what? Magic wolves? Because I’ve got one of those myself.”
Ash came up from Damien’s shadow with a smug look on his face. “And I don’t think you’re going to be encountering something like me anytime soon.”
“No. Worse than that.” Corbyn looked Damien in the eye, his voice entirely serious. “Rich kids.”
“… I’m sorry, did you just say that the way I think you said it?” Damien asked, simultaneously amused and confused.
“I’m serious, kid. If you see some pompous brat in the forest trying to show off for whatever lad or lass they’re bringing along with ‘em, just walk away. A lot of them like to go into the forest to show off their Classes, and some of them are so fucking overconfident that they’ll challenge anyone to a duel in order to prove their own strength. If they do challenge you, just try to step away from it as best you can.”
“I will, but… it is really that bad?”
“Depending on the person? It can be even worse. A lot of the nobility and rich brats will be so infuriated at having their egos shattered that they’ll use literally any means to get back at you. I know from experience how that tends to go. Some of them actually know what they’re doing, and they tend to be a lot humbler than others who share their status, but… well, I think it’s a case-by-case basis, but avoid anyone who looks rich if you encounter them in the forest.”
Damien nodded, until his mind caught on something. “Aren’t you rich too, though? How did you come into that much money?”
“Heh. Trust me kid, when you’ve been around as long as I have, you learn how to make certain investments and take certain jobs. Anyway, you should get some rest. You’ve got big things planned in the morning.”