Chapter 4

Naturally, Errrkkkk didn’t ease up on Roden’s training. With Riakon severely weakened without his magic, Errrkkkk seemed to make it a personal goal to whip Roden into shape with his new abilities. They went back to the basics. Roden had to relearn his sword. His old flamberge was longer and hit harder. His new Elven style blade was more finesse than power. Roden didn’t love that, especially when training against Errrkkkk.

After that first night when they had sparred, Errrkkkk made it a point to get some sparring in before they relaxed for the evening. After their third session on the evening of their second night on the road, Roden fell to the ground exhausted.

“What? Are you tired already, cacaw?” He said while also breathing heavier than usual.

“Yeah, I’m tired. You’re whipping my ass. It’s pointless for me to try and match your speed.”

“Then stop trying to, cacaw.”

Roden narrowed his eyes, “when I do that I end up getting hit twice for every one of mine that hits you. And if you hadn’t noticed I’m not exactly doing twice as much damage.”

“No shit, your sword isn’t your only weapon, cacaw.”

That made Roden pause, he hadn’t really considered if he was being too hard on himself. Maybe he was expecting too much from his new sword. His old swords were able to make up a lot of the difference in skill between him and his opponents because they packed more of a magical wallop, even his Flame blade was less about being a sword and more about just touching his target with a piece of solid fire.

“Okay what do you suggest?”

Errrkkkk thought for a moment, “Well you are faster than before, but not just with your sword. You need to mix in your ranged stuff more to make up the difference in damage, cacaw.”

Roden ran their recent sparring sessions through his mind. Upon review, he had to agree with Errrkkkk. He had been expecting his current sword to fulfill the same role as his old one and he wasn’t using his ranged abilities, which would probably make up the difference in damage. His cloak gave him much faster ranged attacks than when he just had ranged spells and didn’t require any incantation or drain on his own reserves.

“Good point, I’ll think about it and we can try again tomorrow.”

Roden spent a good piece of the night reconsidering his fighting options. After really considering his new spells, abilities, and Errrkkkk’s words it became clear to him, he had been going about things all wrong. Some of his more powerful new spells would make it impossible for enemies to do what Errrkkkk was doing to him without them paying a hefty price for it. Having his abilities changed while already being at such a high level…

‘How do people in this world describe how strong an adventurer is without level?’ He thought with a hint of frustration at Miriana’s deception.

His other domains had been with him from the very first day on the road. He had a lot of time to get used to those abilities and they had been through some intense fights. Roden was amazed at just how wild his experiences had been during his months on Mir. Where he came from people didn’t fight monsters. People hunted animals, but that wasn’t a fight. People fought people, but rarely would someone actually fight to the death.

It was truly a one of a kind experience reserved for fantasy and story…It was then he remembered the fights that were to come and he started to panic. He took a calming breath and tried to push those horrific thoughts from his mind. Not long after finding himself in this world, he had come to the conclusion he couldn’t focus on what he knew was going to come. He would let himself strategize a bit, but even then he tried his best to not let those thoughts linger. He was always the type to never worry about things he couldn’t change and given his divine mission to keep things as he knew them to be, worrying about the things he couldn’t change wasn’t going to do him any good.

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As he drifted off to sleep, he was content to block out his worries by imagining just how different the next sparring session with Errrkkkk was going to be.

Their next day of travel should have been their last, but they had been moving much slower than their usual pace. Errrkkkk had taken the lead for the most part and would stop them early. Again they stopped with more than a few hours of daylight left.

Riakon had stayed relatively sullen compared to his pre-ritual self. Even Grok seemed to be a bit depressed, most likely feeding off of Riakon’s own disposition. Roden hoped things would get better for him once they got back to Port Sept and had a better idea of what they could do for the big man.

They set up camp as usual and once the chores were done, Errrkkkk started stretching to prepare for their sparring. Roden manifested his Grove Armor and set to his stretches too. He had gotten into the habit of stretching in his armor as he was rarely without it in combat. At first he was shocked by just how flexible the wooden armor was despite its rigid appearance.

When Errrkkkk was done he hopped up and down a few times before addressing Roden.

“Okay so what rules are we going with this time, cacaw?”

“I think we could stick with basic ranged stuff, no beams. I’ll use my cloak and Storm Strider. You can use your chi blasts. Sound good?”

“Errrkkkk nodded, “sounds like a good choice, cacaw.”

Roden activated his usual suite of abilities. He snatched his sword out of the air as his cloak and shield formed. However, this time his shield wasn’t as large as it had been in the past. Roden made it a point to shrink it down into something smaller and more rectangular.

Errrkkkk dropped into his martial arts stance. Roden had taken to calling it Eagle style in his mind for obvious reasons. They each settled in and waited for Riakon’s cue.

“Ready…Set…Fight!”

Errrkkkk was off in a flurry of movement. He immediately leapt into the air and twisted, unleashing a series of spinning kicks. Roden met him with his shield high, absorbing each impact. Errrkkkk spun off Roden’s defense, landing behind him.

‘He was using that insane speed again.’

Roden just managed to get his shield around in time to block Errrkkkk’s punches. Roden was stuck on the defensive as he backed up and continued to use his shield to blunt Errrkkkk’s assault.

Errrkkkk was a master of movement with his practiced style of aerial strikes and rapid wing and footwork. He poured on attack after attack, each one bouncing off Roden’s shield. Until one of his kicks snuck around the edge and knocked it to the side leaving Roden wide open.

Except Roden had been waiting for something like that to happen. His blade had been poised ready to thrust out the moment his defenses were breached. He dismissed the shield and threw himself forward. His surprise thrust caught Errrkkkk off guard and out of position.

Just as it seemed his blade would strike home, Errrkkkk fell backwards avoiding the strike while causing Roden to overextend. Errrkkkk used a taloned hand on the ground to pivot his lower body enough for a sweeping kick over top of Roden’s shoulder.

Seeing Errrkkkk fall back Roden activated Leap. He bounced into the air as if on a trampoline. He sailed over Errrkkkk in an aerial flip. He landed softly as Errrkkkk kick whipped threw the space Roden’s head had just vacated. Errrkkkk used the momentum from his missed kick and a slight flap of his wing to spring up to his feet. An intense expression on his face. He charged Roden again.

Roden’s back was to Errrkkkk so he spun his blade around in a reverse grip and loosed a jolt of lightning from the tip of the sword. He had built up a decent amount of charge that the discharge for the attack struck Errrkkkk with just enough force to slow his rush. The discharge alone was all Roden needed as he activated his Storm Strider ability.

He absorbed the stray arcs of energy increasing his speed twice over. He used that speed to dart back and forth around Errrkkkk in short zig zagging attacks. Errrkkkk was fast enough to block or dodge most, but he wasn’t able to land any successful attacks, which was Roden’s whole plan.

His instincts had told him he just needed to get Errrkkkk on the defensive. Once that happened he could use his boosted speed to at the very least build up an even greater charge. As Roden darted around Errrkkkk, he noticed his cloak growing darker and darker, going from a dingy gray to an almost black storm cloud that crackled as he moved. He was gathering more charge than he was expending.

Errrkkkk would lash out from his stationary position, but Roden’s combination of abilities made him incredibly difficult to pin down, now that he had gotten going. Roden would strike out with his sword in passing, he would empower each strike with a bit of the charge he was collecting adding to his damage, but more importantly fueling his Strom Strider ability.

Seeing the current situation was not to his advantage, Errrkkkk made his move to take to the sky. Roden had no intention of letting him leave his cloak’s aura. Roden pointed his sword at Errrkkkk, directing all of his stored electrical energy straight toward the birdman. The resulting bolt was incredible and greater than anything his ability had produced up to that point.

Before the incredible bolt reached its target, Roden saw a golden light erupt around Errrkkkk followed by a bellowing, “Caaaaaaaaa, Caaaaaaawwwwwww!!!!!!”

Errrkkkk’s golden beam met Roden’s bolt in a flash. The light was blinding. After his vision returned Roden could see Errrkkkk had glided back to the ground.

Roden couldn’t help, but let a smug grin spread across his face, “You broke the rules.”

Errrkkkk nodded, “Yeah yeah, you win this time, cacaw.”

“Barely, I still have a long way to go. I haven’t even worked in my spells yet.”

Both men then looked to Riakon who sat with Grok off to the side, both man and garg just listening to their exchange. When he noticed them both looking at him he spoke,

“What?”

“You need to do some sparring too, cacaw.”

Riakon looked crestfallen, “I mean I guess…”

“I was talking to Grok, cacaw.”