Blake's Guild House: Training room
"Please, have mercy on me..." Nathan begged, down on the floor covered in sweat, cuts, and bruises, in other words, the usual outcome after a day of Gwyn's Knightly Training Regime, said regime contained the following:
1) Mountain climbing via Mt. Nod which was a 2500 meter tall trial.
2) Wolf/horse vaulting where one tries to mount an animal over and over again, in this case, it was Nash or Gram both ordered to be as unruly as possible for added effect.
3) Somersaults, done in full armor minus a helmet.
4) Woodcutting with an axe.
5) Hot potato with Bomber Golem Bombs made by Bread.
6) Boxing...with Gwyn...no rounds...and only ends when she feels like it.
7) Dancing or toe-crushing when Gwyn got involved.
8) A 'light' run which was a lap around all of Gorz by Gwyn's standards.
"Ugh!" All of which Nathan endured for a week straight with two more days left in Gwyn's house of pain and gain.
"What was that!?" The knight yelled at the mage before grabbing him by the scoff of his collar and tossed him into the air like a wet rag.
"Ah!" Scaring the pain and tiredness out of the mage as he waved his arms around and let him land back on his feet. "Phew..."
"See? Yesterday, you fell flat on your ass! That's an improvement!" Gwyn smirked at how far Nathan had gotten over the time they spent together. "Alright! Time for a light run, and then you can get back to your books!" She cracked her neck and did a little bit of stretching to get ready for their run. "Hey, where are you going?" That is until Nathan turned around and walked off.
"I'm going to take a hot bath..." Nathan answered while taking off his shirt, showing the fruits of his torment. He now had defined muscles on his back, arms, and abdomen, although he did not have the mass of Blake or the sleekness of Lu, he was a good medium between them. "...Besides, I believe this much training is enough for me to handle Lightning Cloth without much worry...hmm?" He turned back to Gwyn to find her staring at him.
"Damn, I'm good..." The knight muttered to herself as a hand went to her chin. "...fine, I know not everyone wants to be a mass of meat like Blake and me. So you can have your little hot bath now, ~Mr. Mage~" Gwyn teased, trying to take a page out of Baba's book and winked at Nathan.
"Oh? I have ranked up from 'useless' to 'Mr.' have I?" Nathan rolled his eyes at her joked and turned his back to her. "Hmm?" Yet still felt her eyes on him as he made his way to a door connecting the training room with the pool area.
"Hey! Magic man!" Moco waved at Nathan as he went by with a fishtail in her jaws.
"How can you eat this stuff?" Blake was there too, currently feeding Moco her lunch, and held up a weird-looking fish that was about seven different colors and had tusks. "You finished fast, huh?" He asked Nathan after tossing the rainbow fish at Moco and watched it get ripped apart in a bloody frenzy under the water.
"No, I stood up to that beast of a woman and took a break." Nathan groaned as he kept walking and left slightly bloody footsteps behind him.
"Sheesh, he's got more endurance than I thought," Blake muttered, as much as he liked going at it with Gwyn be it an all-out brawl or some random game but trying to keep up with her insane training guide was something he was never up for. "Heh, but that doesn't mean I'm not gonna laugh at 'em!"
Throughout the entire week, Blake and the rest of the guild were enjoying the show...okay! He and Baba were. Everyone else was more or less sorry for the trainee. There were all the good bits where Nathan would be put to tears, ready to off himself for the first two days, then came the failed attempts by Gwyn to cheer the weakly mage on, which were more like death threats followed by double-up on their current workout.
Then there were those special moments where Blake with a bit of help from a certain playful wind spirit, got the two into the funniest of moments. From making them trip over and end up on top of eachother to the whispers of sweet nothings sent off by the wind, apparently, Baba was pretty good at mimicking voices with her winds. All of that left the knight and mage with faces as red as the smith's hair.
"Hey, Baba? You there?" Blake spoke up once Nathan got out of the pool area and headed into the men's changing room.
"~Oh~ I'm always around if you need me, Hubby." Baba mussed as she appeared out of thin air, wrapping her arms around Blake's neck from behind. "So, what's the play for today?" She asked, nuzzling into Blake's shoulder, even though it wasn't anything romantic getting to tease someone she thought was her biggest rival for Blake and that cute little mage was worth it.
"Well, Nathan's finally had enough of Gwyn's 'training' and went off to take a hot bath, good for him, right? Wanna make it a bit hotter?" Blake offered while he was picking bits of bone out of Moco's teeth.
"~I like it~ Buuuut how are we going to do that, Hubby?" Baba got the idea already, but the closeness she was getting from Blake right now was too good to pass up yet. "Hmm..." Then there was a certain fishy girl crawling up on Blake as well taking his front while she had his back. "...the fact that I can't tell if you're just playing or not is worrying..." She thought when all Moco did was smile at her.
"The usual, I'll get Gwyn into one of our dumb games, and you make sure Nathan doesn't catch on. Maybe whip up a bit more steam in the bathhouse?" Blake explained, currently getting sandwiched between the youngest and as far as he knew the oldest of his items. "Really hoping Saffire or Mari don't walk in right now."
"Sure thing, Hubby!" Baba was all set to go but nibbled on Blake's ear a little. "But Mama wants some 'me' time later." She whispered and disappeared as a light breeze went towards the bathhouse.
"I didn't get to say no..." Blake whimpered after Baba left his side. "Ow! Stop that!" Then had to hold Moco by her dorsal fin when she started chewing on his ear trying to copy Baba by the look of it.
"Can I have 'me' time too? It sounds super fun!" Moco cheered not getting what Baba and Blake were talking about, but whenever they did the two looked happy to her.
"Maybe when you're older, okay?" Blake patted her head with those orbs of black staring at him. "Hmm?" And made it pretty hard to tell what she was thinking.
"Okay! I'll wait!" But thankfully Moco went along with it and sunk into the water after letting go of Blake. "I'm I older enough yet!?" The Merechild shot up the moment Blake got up.
"Not yet, but I'll let you know when," Blake assured as Moco sank back down after nodding like a good child. "Why do I feel like that was the wrong choice of words?" He asked himself as he made his way to the training room. "Come to think of it the last time I made a promise like that was with Baba on our way to Gorz.." The result of this; was Blake finding out about Baba's more age-appropriate form and that she had a son. "...I should watch what I say around people more often." He made note of that as he got inside the training room.
"Grrrah! Hey, Pepper-boy!" Gwyn was currently doing some powerlifting with two wooden logs on her shoulders. "Ngh! Hold on! RAAAH!" She got down low then shot up and forward a bit to lift the logs up and over her head. "110!!!" The knight cheered/roared before throwing the logs behind her.
"Not bad; you're getting faster." Blake grabbed a towel from a rack and tossed it her way. "Were Baba and me talking that long?" He had to ask himself. Sometimes he wondered if Gwyn was some half-breed between an Ogre and a human like he always joked about. "Nah!" He shook his head at the thought and got down to his plot. "Up for another match today?"
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"Heh! You think just cause I'm a bit winded you can take me on!" Gwyn stepped up to Blake with the towel around her shoulders and stared him down with a toothy grin. "Since you're offering what's it about?"
"Hmm? Hold on; let me think?" Blake held a finger up to the sweaty knight and tried to act like he was thinking hard about it. "Hmm?" Until he turned to the door, he left open and saw some steam rising from the bathhouse. "Oh? About a heat test in some hot water!?" He offered, pointing a finger at the steam.
"Oh, yeah! I remember those! Haha! And this time Reiner's not gonna kick our asses for fooling around with the furnace!" Gwyn cheered, it was an old but straightforward game she and Blake used to play when they thought Reiner wasn't looking, which usually ended up with one of them nearly dying of a heat stroke. "Alright, get out of those clothes and meet me in the bathhouse!" Before Blake could add anything more, she ran off without him.
"Did I even need to trick her?" Blake was left scratching his head in disbelief. Usually, it would take a little bit of teasing and some boasting to get Gwyn into a match with him, but this time she went along a bit too fast. "Hmm? Guess having her little training partner walk out, left her a bit lonely?" Blake thought, watching Gwyn make her way to the women's changing room. "Well, don't worry, I'll fix that right up for you, Gwyndolin, hehe!" He sneaked when his best friend disappeared behind a door as a gust of wind came by.
"Hehe!" Which soon turned into a giggling Baba who waved for Blake to come over.
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Bathhouse
Inside the bathhouse was as you would expect a pool of heated water. However, this one was an elevated bowl made of stone that took up most of the otherwise empty space. The bottom of the pool had steel shutters where wood could be thrown in to start heating the water and gave off some steam, which was strangely thicker than normal after Baba worked her magic.
If the steam wasn't there, then one would see two doors leading to the changing rooms. Men on the left and women on the right, since the bathhouse was set up by Stefon Ovis as a way to help him win over Lu's heart, it didn't have a barrier between the two genders. (Someone tell him)
Of course, mixed bathing wasn't a thing with Saffire making that rule after having to nearly boil Blake alive when he 'accidentally' walked in on the girls and then there was that time Baba did the same to the guys. As it stands currently, the men and women were given their own time to use the bathhouse.
"Hmm?" But right now, Nathan didn't care about any of that as he was pleasantly sitting inside the pool's warmth with all 3 of his spellbooks floating in front of him. He was seemingly reading all of them at once and had his hands held out. "...alright, if that does that? Then this should do...?" It looked like he was trying out a new spell with some electricity jumping between his fingertips and a floating piece of metal. "Almost ther-ah!" He was about to get it down when one of the doors got slammed open and then shut with the same force.
"Who could that be!" The mage screamed in his head, by his guess, it could be one of three people who'd enter like that. The first and best option would be Blake. The second could be Saffire, which meant Nathan had to get his words straight and quickly. The third and the worst as far as he was concerned would be Gwyn. "Please, Goddess on high make it that idiotic smith!" Nathan begged as he heard footsteps getting closer and closer.
"Huh? I thought I heard something?" Gwyn's rough voice came from the steam, wearing only that towel Blake gave her resting on her shoulders. "Hmm?" In other words, she was bare for the world to see. "Guess it was Moco cheering about fish." She shrugged and headed for the pool, hoping to get adjusted to the heat before Blake to gain an advantage on him.
Which was all it took for Nathan's voice to leave his side as a last-ditch effort to stop himself from screaming in horror was made by him holding his hands to his mouth. "Wait! Calm down! This pool is huge, and the women's side is on the other side of the room! And with this thick steam, there is no way she could find me!" The mage's mind worked ten times as fast to come up with a logical way for him to live through this. "~Ah~" From there he allowed himself to sink into the water and rest his head on the pool's edge. "Eh?"
"Nathan?" And got an eyeful of Gwyn as she was about to get into the water after somehow making her way over to the exact spot Nathan was at.
"Ah?" Nathan didn't know what to say, do, or think at the moment. So, he kept staring at her, and be it the work of divine protection or some sick joke of the gods the steam was covering up the knight's more tantalizing bits from the mage's eyes. "By the Goddess on high!" But that didn't stop him from looking on in awe as for what stood over him was the image of a war goddess. Thick muscles from years of training, short yet radiant platinum blonde hair, the sky blue orbs that were clear as day even with steam rising around her face form and finally the... "Scars?"
The scars that littered Gwyn's body, from long and jagged slashes to the small cuts and nicks to the holes made by arrows and stabs to the patches of either burnt or ripped-off skin. If the owner weren't standing there in the flesh, anyone would wonder how she kept going. The hardest to look at was the gash on her neck that went down, between her steam-hidden breasts and stopped at where her heart would be.
"Are you going to keep gawking at me or what?" Gwyn finally broke the silence between them and crossed her arms over her chest, covering that part of herself up since Nathan kept looking there. "Was it the scar or these?" She looked at her pushed-up chest and felt both pride and worry from Nathan's roaming eyes.
"Ah! Yes! I'll get out rig-AH!" Nathan tried to get out, but Gwyn dropped right next to him with a second thought. "Uh!? Uh!? Uh!?"
"What? Never got in some hot water with a woman before?" Gwyn asked, seemingly okay with the current situation while Nathan was a shuttering red-faced mess. "So, what're you up to with all those books?" She wiggled a finger at Nathan's spellbooks still floating in the air despite how scattered-brained he was. "Come on! You jerk! Make this less weird!"
"Oh!?" Nathan gasped with his books knocking into eachother at Gwyn's question. "I was trying to combine my spells, you see!" He tried to keep his eyes and mind off Gwyn there next to him as he held out his hands.
"Oh? You mean like a combo attack, yea?" Gwyn didn't get magic that much, but she at least got the usefulness of using two spells at once.
"Well, yes, and no? You see, I'm quite able to use two spells at once like so..." Nathan pulled his hands apart with one holding a ball of lightning and in the other was a floating ball of iron. "...however, what I am trying to achieve is having the qualities of these two spells become one..." He brought his hands together and with a bit of effort the iron ball, and the spark of lightning fused to become a glowing ball of iron and lightning about the size of an apple. "...Haha! Take lightning magic and metal magic to get electromagnet magic!" He cheered finally getting it down.
"Neat! So? What does it do?" Gwyn asked, nodding along to Nathan's success but with a simple mind like hers, she was only wondering if this thing could hit hard and fast.
"You just thought about how this could be used to hurt someone, didn't you?" Nathan eyed Gwyn, reading her mind like it was an open book. "Uhm!" But soon turned his head back to his newest spell after his eyes went down a little. "B-b-but you are not wrong in thinking that! You see right now this ball has the speed of lightning and the hardness of iron! And by changing the flow of mana in my hands, I can send it of-!"
The moment Nathan did that the electromagnetic ball zoomed out of his hands, parted the waters, blew away the stream, put a person-sized hole in not one but two walls as it went through the men's changing room and exploded on the outside of the Guild House in a grand display of lightning.
"Eh?" After the water and steam got back to normal Nathan looked at the random destruction, he caused, then at his hands then back at the current forest fire. "Ahem, quite potent you see? Hmm, hmm, hmm...?" He tried to laugh it off as best he could. "...Oh..." But when he saw Mari, Os, and Moco trying to put out the fire, his face went blue.
"Yea? Might need a bit more practice with that one?" Gwyn pointed out, staring at the damage as well and since Nathan didn't use an incantation on it, that meant the spell wasn't even at full power. "Ugh, you mind if we work on that one for the rest of the day?" She offered while blowing things up was fun to watch and all, but that was only when she knew it wasn't going to kill her. "...away from anything important."
"Agreed..." Nathan nodded and with a snap of his fingers, his books closed and stacked themselves away from the pool. "~Ah~" Then he sunk into the water with Gwyn right there with him, it seemed that showcase put his mind at ease. "Uhm? Gwyndolin?" Yet something was bugging him now.
"Yea?" Gwyn answered, looking up at the ceiling as she was trying to make things out of the stream. "...oh, and drop the dolin, please?"
"Noted, Gwyn?" Nathan nodded, doing the same as the knight. "Why exactly did you come here?" At first, he thought she was going to force him into some odd underwater workout, but after taking an interest in his spell, he was left wondering.
"Oh? Blake came at me with a match, and I rushed in here." Gwyn answered, then raised her head to look around for the Smith-Knight. "I don't get it? I left him in the training room a while ago?"
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Men's changing room
"The fuck was that?" Blake whispered currently flat on his back with Baba on top of him. The two of them were enjoying the show until Nathan tried to kill them with a weird lightning-ball thingie.
"I have no idea, but I think our fun ends here for today." Baba faked a whimper, laughing at lovebirds was one thing but nearly getting killed by one of them was not a part of the plan. "~But~ since we're like this care for some 'me' time?" She offered, beginning to saddle Blake. "Oh?" Until a clawed red scale-covered foot slammed next to Blake's head.
"Hey, ~Saffire~ what's up?" Blake was looking at Saffire in all her scaly glory with her face partly covered by her chest. "Uh?" And Blake felt a burning gaze coming down on him. "Now I know this looks bad, but the holes weren't our fault! Right, Baba? Baba?" He looked at Baba, but all that was there was the air. "Hmm?" So, he went back to looking at Saffire, who had her wings and horns out now. "I'll go fix them now..." Blake groaned, crawling away under the watchful eyes of a Dragon.
Chapter end