Ulric didn't stop jogging until he made it to the cafeteria on the same level of the fortress as his loaned housing. A quick loading of plates and a hasty retreat saw him, at last, safely ensconced within the walls of his apartment.

He'd swear on both the suns of this world that was the most awkward godsdamned experience of his entire life. Way worse than anything Bald'rt or his wives had orchestrated. And, worse, it wouldn't be the last time. Uldin was too great an asset to just avoid on principle. Ulric could tell when he was looking at a savant, that Elf knew more about the materials and methods of working them on this world than he'd find in any dozen lesser craftsmen. The "test pieces", useless failures good only for banging around to the Elf, were of a greater quality than anything he'd seen outside that outlandish Smith's workshop.

Now that he thought of it, he hadn't ever actually seen Bald'rt or Idra'se or any of the other characters of reknown in Iriel draw their blades. Certainly the dagger Geyrt wagged around was of a high quality, simple, elegant, no nonsense, and of exquisite sharpness. But none of the soldiers or guards carried anything like what Ulric had seen almost casually disregarded in the Smith's home. Gods he hadn't even gotten to see the interior of the smithy.

What are the odds that Galed Uldin, famed smith of Iriel, hadn't done his good friend and royal kin a solid and made arms for he and his kids? Unless there were some kind of bizarre Elf customs involved, Ulric would bet they were all using personally crafted items from the Master artisan. Ulric would have to ask Geyrt later, when he could bear to look her in the eye.

"Ohh, Watcher's Tits, I broke her bow." Ulric groaned. In all likelihood he murdered a bow Uldin made for his godchild personally. That stung a little. It was a wonder she'd helped him meet the man at all. He didn't know if her being there had been a boon or a curse.

Gods she'd nearly blown the whole thing to pieces, outside of the negotiations, in which she'd latched on like a bulldog and hadn't let go until she'd wrung the most favorable possible arrangements. He'd gotten essentially everything he'd needed. It had just been more painful than it needed to be. Which, now that he thought about it, seemed to be exactly how the damned woman seemed to like things.

Sudden doubt entered into Ulric's mind. Was it possible that she'd arranged that meeting for the purpose of dragging him over the coals? She did like to plot small inconveniences but this past experience was on a scale unthinkable.

"Ulric, you've hit a new level of neurotic old man." He told himself aloud.

That was too paranoid, even for him. Wasn't it?

He shook off the uncertainty, surely his Shadow had better things to do than go to those kinds of lengths to fuck with him. He nearly laughed at the idea before discarding it.

Turning to his meal he inhaled it, washing it down with the pitcher of juice in his rooms. He gave silent thanks to the Duties, their tenacious upkeep making life damned comfortable within the fortress.

Ulric had some rare time alone, there was still some five or six hours until he was to meet with Bald'rt for the "strategy dinner". He was still somewhat thrown off by the earlier meeting, he needed to recenter and refocus.

"It's been a long time since I overloaded on people." He laughed at himself.

The first months were total isolation, which pretty well agreed with his constitution. Meeting Brighteyes had introduced company but on a small scale and the kid was agreeable, if snarky. The two of them had got on great, matter of fact. Then there was the introduction of the Irielhos folk and his immersion into Elvendom. That was less great, too much social shit, not enough context.

It was stressful as hell not knowing the rules to interacting with the locals, but he was dealing with it. All the exercise helped him decompress, and, for the most part, he had to admit that he liked these folk. He was integrating better here than when he'd moved between cities in his old world. The Iriel'en were fairly down to Earth, when you realized that they had basically internalized struggle and made friendly competition into a social infrastructure. He supposed it served as a survival mechanism, they pushed each other to improve, to grow, throughout their lives. Probably, that saved a great many from being killed by some monster or another through under preparedness; he would lay coin or bark chips, or whatever the fuck they used for money around here, that the pressure to compete also got more than a few killed when they overreached.

His old society did the same kind of thing but it was way, way more materialistic. Who owns the better house, who has the better job, that kind of thing. These folk were like that but with a far greater emphasis on your personal skills, the ability to fight, to forage, to process game and forest goods, the proficiency with mana or depth of class progression, that sort of thing.

At least he hadn't lived in a time where people cared about something as ridiculous as what mechanized coach you took to work. Half of humanity was using trains and trams exclusively, it was somewhat rare to need a car and the things were manufactured to be uniform and, mostly, automated, you didn't really drive them anymore. You could, but, why bother? He had been amazed to learn about the vehicle fetish that emerged in the mid-twentieth century. Apparently major global automobile giants produced a new run of all of their model lines annually. Every. Single. Year. A new look, new manufacturing, new parts, all produced at inconceivable scales. No wonder those idiots collapsed the ecosystem.

Anyway, best not to dwell overlong on the mistakes of the past. Ulric was working his way through his unanticipated social withdrawal.

Bound to happen, he supposed. He'd always been running on a limited budget for social graces. It didn't help anything that he and that nut brown die Schöne sewed to his hip were locked into a battle of wits and wills, neither one giving an inch. Ulric didn't mind her prodding, she was keeping him sharp and, in a way, it was like training to interact with the rest of her people. Just, you know, most of them were less abrasive. But, even though he could admit privately that he enjoyed sparring with Geyrt, their interaction did draw energy from him that would normally be spent on maintaining interpersonal interactions. At the end of the day, Ulric was going to have to get over his reluctance to engage.

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"Suck it up, buttercup" Ulric told the walls of his room. "You aren't just some nobody materials engineering punk anymore. You aren't even a forest hermit, a wannabe Merlin on his hidden plateau. You are a Lord and that's got baggage. So, either you gotta run for it, drop everything and hide, or you gotta put your face into the wind and go fucking be [Lord of the Ancient Glade]. These Elves don't do shit half way, they won't tolerate some wishy-washy nonsense."

A realization came to him while he scolded himself. The Iriel'en had good reason to grant him some leeway, he'd built up a certain amount of good will with them. But not with the rest. Kind of the opposite really. By making friends here he'd created enemies elsewhere, even if no overt ones. If those Zelussin were anything to go by, there were deep currents running. If Ulric didn't get his act together and take his role seriously, some Elf Lord was going to smell weakness and cut his throat. It might not even be personal, it was just the way of things on this little corner of Varda.

The Lord's Instinct was buzzing now, it was coming, sure as the tides rolling in, there would be another challenger and, Ulric's lizard brain was telling him that it wouldn't be a blustering soft skin next time. The next time he was caught in that kind of public trap he had a feeling the attempt would come from an older Elf with hard edges, looking to make his play for a new kingdom or advancement of his or her house. They'd be hungry, driven, willing to risk their lives against an opponent who was now known not to be just some weakling human, but a real threat.

When that happened, Ulric would be forced to fight again for his life. Not in an ambush with a bow, but right up front, in direct conflict. And his opponent would be, potentially, hundreds of years older than him and steeped in the blood and conflict that pervaded this land. The instinct whispered ultraviolence.

Ulric felt a sudden tiredness, a sort of ennui with the whole thing. Weakness. That's what that was, and it would get him killed. Life has given you lemons, Ulric, he told himself. Sour as hell lemons that might be hiding razor blades. It has also given you a great big ass juicer in the form of knowledge from a world about a thousand years more technologically developed, a body literally from the gods, and power beyond your wildest dreams in magic, if you can learn how to use it. So, with this second chance, I am going to make lemonade like nobody's business, Ulric told himself. He might be a soft human raised in a world of peace, spoiled by comfort but, to everyone else, he was [Lord of the Ancient Glade], the slayer of the old terror and a scary sonofabitch. It might not be true, but the old phrase "fake it till you make it" came to mind.

He'd been happy to accept his new lot as a budding woods witch, with rather limited ambitions. Ulric wasn't a man with a great deal of ambition, he'd always been happy so long as he could pursue his own interests. Being crippled and born in an unfortunate time had mostly voided his interests, once upon a time. This go around, Ulric found that he had an incredible opportunity to explore, to roam, and to discover what oddities this vast world hid up its sleeves and, his new status provided for that as well. If only he could figure out how to leverage this whole [Lord of the Ancient Glade] thing to carry it off.

That all started with not getting his ass slagged by the first asshole who wanted his seat by the fire. Which meant he was wasting time here.

Slapping his face with both hands a couple of times, Ulric got to work.

First, The Dance. Christ killed three [Polar Weasels] in a couple of seconds and didn't get touched. It wasn't an accident. Christ was able to do it because he was a better fighter than Ulric, because he was applying the lessons Idra taught as they were intended. Ulric decided that his exercise needed a new focus, not just on what his body was doing but on what the movements were supposed to achieve.

Entering the Undan ready, Ulric envisioned two [Polar Weasels] in front of him. The first had charged him directly, the second had leapt for his head, low and high. They'd attacked in the same way against Darla. Keeping the memory of their attack fixed in his mind, he began to work out a response. First a sidestep, the animals were fast in their charge but had not demonstrated great agility, their movements were all downhill, rushed aggression.

Ulric's stance shifted into branch side step, putting the two imaginary lesser beasts into line. He transferred his weight to the branch foot, his extended right leg, and lunged forward with his left leg forward, letting the right leg drive him, imagined thrust of the trident catching both of the animals in its widespread tines.

He shook his head. It was sloppy, the transition was slow and off kilter, even he could feel it. His subclass, warrior, seemingly at work with its emphasis on armed combat, [Battle Rhythm] assisting his feel for imagined foes and the pace of the conflict.

Resuming his ready, he repeated the process. Ready, branch side, lunge and thrust. Still off. Repeat. Ready, branch side, lunge, fuck! it's not right. Something was off, Ulric could feel it, even if he couldn't put the feeling to words. There was something missing in what he was doing. Each time he'd tried that routine, he could feel the same outcome as his real encounter. Even if he dealt with the first beast, he was too out of position to deal with the second. It was the same problem as with the [Heckler Monkeys], and it cost him a broken arm when Goldie caught him off balance.

Ulric relaxed and tried to sort out what he'd seen of Christ, Idra, and the other experienced warriors when they sparred. He'd been paying attention mostly to their blades, not their feet, which, he realized, was a mistake that would have earned the blademaster’s ire.

After a few moments concentration regarding Idra's drills, the Elf’s insistence on absolute perfection of even the most basic of movements, the way the Master warrior made everything out to be a process of continual progress against the enemy that was one’s own incompetence and realized that he was ignoring one of the fundamental concepts. It was a Dance of One Thousand steps. Not three or four. He felt off balance, slow, unstable, because he was trying to do too much at once. He was shifting his weight and trying to step forward at the same time and it was killing his posture, weakening the motions, removing crispness from everything.

This time, with the senior-most of Bald’rt’s elite’s drills in mind, Ulric envisioned the weasels again. This time he decided to go slow, take it one single, small, deliberately chosen, step at a time. Breathing deep, he fell into himself and concentrated on the vision of that aggressive charge, and how poorly he'd responded, how easily the monsters had gotten on top of him. With that image secure he started. Undan ready, hold.

The lead beast was now four paces away, the trailing six, he had two seconds, at most, before they were on him. Breathing in, and out again, he moved, root side step, hold, he shifted to a deep rightward lunge, his posture and balance as they were when he was being tapped into position by his pointy eared instructors.

The [Polar Weasels] were now three and five paces away, Ulric, eyes closed and brow furrowed in concentration, shifted to Fyir ready, his weight distributed seventy percent on his right leg, knee bent, and felt the freedom, the power gathered there to move. Imagining the trident in his hands, he moved again, root forward, hands thrusting forward, he fell into the forceful lunge and new in his mind's eye that he could have speared the weasel squarely in its side, before it could gather itself to turn. The trailing monster was still three paces away and had to divert its course to match Ulric's new position, granting him time.

Hands rotating Ulric brought the imagined trident around, the harpooned beast still caught on its barbed tines, as they had caught the [Heckler Monkey] before, as he assumed the Undan ready again, bringing his weapon in line with the now leaping monster. Ulric retreated into the back branching step, pulling his chest and exposed head away, even as he brought the metal shaft in a vicious down stroke, the blow would have caught the beast's head cleanly, spiking its skull on the pointed metal endcap, killing it instantly.

Ulric breathed out, letting the simulation play out again, and again through his memory, trying to find holes in his balance, weaknesses in his position, or clumsiness in his attacks. He found none. Gone was the wavering in his step and the openings in his position from before. Instead of three movements full of flaws, Ulric had broken the counter attack into six crisp, clean steps of the dance. Each with a purpose, each without error.

Undan, root side step, Fyir, root forward thrust, Undan, branch back step down swing. It took two seconds, when he moved at full speed. This was vastly superior to his previous effort, this line both cleared him from the angle of his attackers, slowing their assault, and put him in position to actually utilize his weapon's reach and two sided striking potential. Idra'se was correct, the battle was won with your feet. No surprise there.

Why hadn't he used his training before, when it mattered? He asked himself, quickly providing his own, painfully obvious answer.

He hadn't done it because he'd panicked. He lacked the experience. He lacked focused intent in his training. Every practice session, from here on out, he would do this shadowboxing. He put that thought into action immediately. Instead of just moving his feet and body, he imagined a scenario playing out in front of him. An ambush, a fired arrow, a thrown knife, a stabbing sword, a sweeping cut. Each time he moved he would do it with an enemy in his sight. His own brain killed him a good many times in these scenarios.

That was how his Shadow found him, some hour and a half later, dripping sweat as he mentally dueled [Heckler Monkeys], [Polar Weasels], and was drubbed over, and over against imagined Christ. Even in his head he didn't dare face Idra.