“Can we stop for a second?” Halvor rubbed his knuckles. As they slowly reverted from stone to skin’ areas where the stone was chipped or cracked were either bleeding or bruised.

“You good?” Draxl asked, sheathing his shortsword.

Halvor sat down in the shade of a nearby tree. “Yeah, knuckles are just sore.”

“Here let me see.”

Halvor put out his hands.

“On your feet, [Second Wind].”

The wounds of Halvor’s hands began to close shut; the red tint left Halvor’s skin. “Thanks.” Halvor stood to his feet.

“No problem. You want to keep going?”

“I think I’ve had enough sparring for today if I’m honest. Fighting isn’t really my thing,” Halvor said.

“Your form is pretty solid. Who taught you?” Draxl asked.

“My dad taught me how to throw a punch, but for the most part I figured it out on my own.”

“I’m telling you, if you work on your grappling, it’ll fit perfectly with your hybrid abilities,” Draxl said. “Bait them in, then turn your skin to stone, block their attack, and take them down now that they’re up close. You’ve got the size, strength, and durability to hold onto anybody forever.”

“I appreciate the advice, but I’m not really planning on getting into any fights,” Halvor said.

“Sure, but sometimes fighting isn’t always your choice. Good to have a plan when that happens.”

“Fair enough.” Halvor squeezed his hands a few times. “Still, sparring you hurts quite a bit. You hit pretty hard.”

“It’s not like your actual opponents are gonna hold back. If it hurts that bad why not use a weapon,” Draxl suggested. “I’m sure blocking with your hands, even if they are stone, is all that pleasant.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do with a weapon,” Halvor said with a slight chuckle.

“I guess the big advantage of a golem hybrid is being able to use their body as the spear and shield all in one. Oh, do you have any way of turning something to stone?” Draxl asked.

“Yeah, [Petrify]. Why do you ask?”

“I was thinking, if you could get hand wraps and use [Petrify] it could sort of mimic turning your hands to stone. Of course, it wouldn’t be exactly the same, but it might be good for sparring to just reduce the pain,” Draxl said.

“I don’t know how to wrap hand wraps.”

“I’ll do it for you.”

“Actually, could you teach me how to do it?” Halvor requested.

“Sure. Any comments for me?” Draxl asked.

“Huh?”

“Well, sparring is to improve both parties. I was wondering if you had any advice for me.”

“No, no, no. I’m a whole lot less studied when it comes to fighting compared to you. I’m pretty sure anything I said would probably be wrong or stuff you already know,” Halvor insisted.

“That’s fine,” Draxl assured Halvor. “Just tell me what was going through your head when you fought me.”

“Okay. I guess, I felt like you used [Quickdraw] too much.”

“How so?”

“It’s just you were jumping around so much with [Accelerate], [Flash Step], and other movement skills that I couldn’t keep up. I would get super nervous whenever I lost track of you. Then I’d get hit, and it was pretty minor. My guess is you were using [Quickdraw] since it's super fast, but I felt like I had no idea where you were gonna strike next, that you could get away with using a slower attack if it meant it was stronger,” Halvor explained.

“You’re saying I’m creating a big window of opportunity, but not fully taking advantage of it?”

“Yeah.”

“I think you might be right. I was scared of getting hit in retaliation, so I kept trying to be as non-committal as possible with my attacks, but I guess in hindsight I can’t be so risk averse in a real fight,” Draxl muttered to himself.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not wanting to get hit,” Halvor said.

“I get that, but what you said does make sense. I’ll think about it for sure.”

“Should we go get those hand wraps?” Halvor asked.

“Let’s go.”

----------------------------------------

The door to The Traveler’s Trove swung open with a soft jingle that announced the entrance of Draxl and Halvor.

“Welcome!” An elderly man at the front counter called out to the two.

“Hello there,” Halvor replied. “We were looking for hand wraps.”

“Right wall,” the man said.

“Thank you.”

Glancing at the wall, a myriad of different items—picks, hooks, poles, torches—adorned it. Halvor’s gaze drifted to a selection of wrappings on display.

“Which one is good?” Halvor asked.

“Go based on flexibility and feel,” Draxl answered.

Halvor brushed his fingers along the surface of the wrappings and gave each a gentle tug. “I like this one.”

“Cool. Go talk to the man at the counter,” Draxl said.

Halvor reached to grab the hand wrapping off the wall, but Draxl put a hand in front of him.

“What are you doing?” Draxl asked.

“Taking the item to the counter so I could go buy it.”

“I told you to distract the man at the counter.”

“You told me to talk to him.”

“Yeah, and while you’re talking to him, I’ll snatch it off the wall, and we’ll be out without having spent a single copper,” Draxl explained.

“I am not stealing from a shopkeeper,” Halvor insisted.

“Then why aren’t you mad at him?” Draxl pointed to the only other customer in the storm: a lithe man with pale skin. The outline of various items could be seen stuffed into the man’s jacket pockets.

Halvor marched across the store toward the man.

“Here we go,” Draxl sighed.

“Excuse me, sir?” Halvor placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “What’s your name?”

The man looked over his shoulder. His gaze rose to meet Halvor’s. “Zaz.”

Halvor shifted his hand to stone, adding to the weight on the man’s shoulder. “Zaz, could I see what you had in your jacket pockets?”

“That’s none of your business.” Zaz jerked to throw Halvor’s hand off, but it didn’t move an inch.

“It just seems like you might be stealing, and I just wanted to make sure that wasn’t the case,” Halvor said.

“The fuck did you just say?! I didn’t steal shit!”

“What’s happening?” The man at the counter asked. “If there’s some sort of dispute please take this outside.”

“I think this man might be st—”

Before Halvor could finish his sentence, he felt Zaz shift, and make a run for it. Halvor immediately tightened his grip around his shoulder and grabbed the back of his collar with his other hand. In one swift motion, Halvor slammed Zaz to the ground.

“Remember what I told you about grappling,” Draxl called out. “Once you get them to the floor, you wanna restrict their movement. Right now your hand is on their knee, what you wanna do instead is wrap your arm around their leg like a snake. That way you—”

Crunch!

“AH!” Zaz screamed, as his knee shattered with a crackling crunch, under the force of Halvor’s grip.

“Forget what I was saying, if you can break their knee, that’s probably best,” Draxl said.

Halvor immediately stood up. “I’m so sorry. Are you alright?”

“No!” Zaz shouted, clutching his broken knee.

“He’ll be fine.” The shopkeeper stepped out from behind the counter. “People know healing skills in this town. I appreciate your help. Back in the day, nobody would dare steal under my watch. My eyesight hasn’t been the best in my old age, so it’s hard for me to notice these thieves.”

“Happy to help,” Halvor said. “I think my friend over here noticed him stealing. He also managed to grab some wraps the man stole. Isn’t that right?”

A tiny smirk crept onto Draxl’s face as he held up the wrapping Halvor had picked out earlier that he swiped the moment Zaz hit the floor. “That’s right.”

“Oh, you were looking for hand wraps, weren’t you? Why don’t you keep those,” the shopkeeper insisted.

“That’s very kind of you, sir,” Halvor said.

“Of course. Now you might want to get out of here. His shouting probably alerted the guards, and I doubt you want to meet them.” The shopkeeper pointed to Halvor’s neck.

In the chaos, as he flailed on the ground, Zaz had pulled down Halvor’s collar just enough to expose the golden chain mark.

“Uh,” Halvor stammered, quickly popping his collar back into place.

“It seems the gods have blessed me today. This thief tripped as he tried to run out of the store, and collapsed onto his knee,” the shopkeeper said with a smile.

“Huh, what a blessed day it is,” Draxl said.

“Oh, I get it. Thank you so much,” Halvor said.

“You as well,” the shopkeeper replied.

Halvor and Draxl exited the store, moments before a pair of city guards entered inside.

“See, stealing from people is never good,” Halvor said.

“No, there are definitely times where it’s good. We all met trying to steal something,” Draxl reminded Halvor.

“Okay, there are some exceptions.”

“A lot of exceptions.”

“Well, we got the hand wraps for free. That’s what you wanted right?” Halvor asked.

“That’s results-based analysis. You shouldn’t do that,” Draxl said.

“You’re assuming I do any kind of analysis,” Halvor joked.

“Good point. Very good point.”