Evren was running back to town. He had run as hard as he could for about an hour before turning around. Walter had started running with him, but he lost track of him after a quarter of an hour. After some time, he saw Walter who turned around as soon as he saw Evren and began running as hard as he could. Evren smiled and continued his pace, eventually catching up and surpassing Walter’s speed.
When Evren reached town, he ran until he reached the house and began stretching his muscles lightly. When he saw Walter approaching, he had finished his stretches and was now getting his practice swords from the back of the wagon.
When Walter arrived, he needed time to catch his breath, so he walked around the street, breathing heavily. “Ha… ha… how much do you… already know… about… sword fighting?”
Evren half grinned and said, “Only what the skeletons on the 21st through the 25th floor would teach me.”
Walter nodded, then comprehended what Evren just said and looked at him confusedly. “Huh?”
Evren chuckled, “I have no prior training in swords. I tried copying the sword wielding skeletons of the dungeon, but that’s it.”
Walter, now understanding, nodded and said, “Buffel.”
It was Evren’s turn to not understand and he copied Walter in saying, “Huh?”
Walter blushed a little, “I’m sorry, it means ‘buffalo’ someone who powers through fights using only strength.”
Walter shrugged and took one of the practice swords from Evren and said, “No worries, we’ll start from the beginning. This is heavy, do you always practice with this?”
Evren nodded, “Yeah, balance is off too, but they’re dull, and it forces me to emphasize my techniques.”
Walter raised an eyebrow and said, “We’ll try it for now, see how things work out.”
Walter walked out to the clearing behind the house and said, “Do what I do for now. We’re going to go over stances first and reset your foundation. Once the foundation is set, we’ll go into strikes and blocks and parries. Then once you’ve gotten good at that, we’ll move on to the advanced techniques.”
Walter takes a stance with his right leg back and left leg forward. He holds the sword with two hands with the weapon by his head, blade pointing slightly downwards towards an opponent’s face, “This stance is called ‘Ox”
He glances over to Evren who is copying him to the best of his ability. Walter breaks his stance and goes over to fix Evren’s. Once Evren is doing it properly, Walter says, “Ok, now relax. And do it again.”
He repeated this over and over again until Evren could get the stance right.
He then took a stance, similar to the first one, but this time the sword was at his hip and pointed upwards towards the opponent’s face, “This one is called ‘Plow’.”
He then had Evren practice both Ox and Plow repeatedly until he got both of them right.
“The third stance is similar to ‘Plow’, but the sword is pointed downward instead.” Walter said as he took his stance, “This stance is called ‘Fool’.”
After practicing the three, Walter moved onto the next stance, “From ‘Ox’, turn the sword around and hold it over your head at an angle upwards.” He said as he demonstrated. “This one is called ‘From the roof”.”
“The last one I’m going to show you is called ‘Near ward’. From the ‘Plow’ position, rotate the sword down and to the side.”
Once Evren got the hang of the final position, he would switch between the different positions as Walter called them out.”
When Walter was satisfied, he moved onto the next section of training, “Now, the three principles of action are to thrust at long range, cut at medium range, and slice at close range. Thrust is something you would use against a longer weapon or someone who is at a distance. Slice is like this.” He moves his hand in a slicing motion both forwards and backwards. “You can slice both under and above.”
Walter steps in close to Evren and has Evren hold his sword to Walter’s side. Walter pulls his blade back against the wrists of Evren to demonstrate, then nods to Evren to see if he understood. Evren nods in return.
“The last one is cut, which is where you want to be most of the time as it is easier to defend and attack from this position. The first is the ‘uppercut,’ which cuts downward either straight down, or at an angle.” Walt demonstrates both versions of the upper cut.
“The next is called ‘undercut’ which cuts upwards like this. And the last is ‘crosscut’, where you cut from the left to right, or right to left.”
Walter lowered his sword and turned to Evren. “And that’s all I’m teaching you for now. We’re going to practice the different stances and the cuts from each of them. Oh, and your sword has two edges, the first is the side you normally cut with, the edge, the other is the side that may be dull, or sharp, depending on the sword, but that is called the false edge.
“When you swing your sword, you always want the edge leading the swing. If you swing upwards, the edge faces up, if you swing downwards, the edge faces down. There are a few strikes that uses the false edge, but I’ll let you know when that comes up.” Walter said as he demonstrates how the sword is always ready to cut as it moves.
“Let’s start with Ox uppercut.” Walter and Evren move to the Ox position and slice downward. “Now Plow and crosscut.”
As Walter called out the stances and the strikes, Evren moved through the strikes at an even pace to get his technique correct. As noon approached, Walter was still calling out and Evren was still doing as he was told. There was less hesitation now as he had gotten more familiar with the moves and stances.
They took a break at noon. While chewing on jerky, they walked over to the blacksmith, Levi’s forge so Evren could have a talk with him. As they walked up they could see that he was working steadily with the tools he was borrowing, a smile across his face as he hammered away at the metal.
Evren approached and said, “Levi! I wanted to ask you a question.” He was ignored of course. Evren called out his name until he finally realized it with a start.
“Ah! Evren! I’m sorry I was just… with these I…” Levi stammered as he tried to explain.
Evren nodded and waved his hand in front of him to calm him down. “It’s ok, I understand. Listen, in order to work with different metals, I need a forge that’ll get hot enough that I can work the metal easier. I’d like to build it here if that’s ok with you. It’ll take a lit…”
“Of course, you can!” Levi interrupted.
Evren smiled and finished what he was saying, “It’ll take a little while for me to finish it, plus I’ll have to head up to Plinth to prepare the mana gems before I start construction. Try to think of a good spot for me to build it. It may take up to a month to make it. Fortunately, I have the perfect materials to make the forge able to process most metals, if not all of them if you add a little magic.”
Once Levi heard the plans, he had already forgotten Evren was there and was thinking about the optimum place to put the forge. He would imitate pulling a bellows cord, or hammering, then would move to another spot and do the same. Evren looked to Walter and smiled. They turned around and headed back towards the house he was staying in.
“What sword do you use now, Walter?” Evren asked.
He drew his sword and showed it to Evren. “This one that Levi made.” Holding up a steel sword that looked decently made but was made from pig iron.
When the got to the house, Evren went to the wagon and opened up the back, fishing around under the false floor. When he exited the wagon, he held up a sword to Walter, “You want to use this mithril one for now until I make a better one?”
Walter almost dropped the sword in his hand from the shock. He sheathed his sword and took the sword from Evren, examining it closely. He turned it over in his hand and drew the green blade from its scabbard, admiring it in the light.
“I got that from the dungeon, I didn’t make it. I’m not sure what the special properties to it are.” Evren said as he backed away a little bit. Walter swung the sword a few times, getting used to the weight and balance, then executed several powerful and fast moves in rapid succession.
“Yeah, I would love to borrow this sword if I could.” Walter said with a big smile. Evren returned a smile and put the practice swords away.
As Walter was switching out the swords at his waist, Evren went inside the building to get the books on magic he had in his possession. He placed them in his basket and exited, walking over to Walter.
“I’m going over to Joseph’s to teach some magic, did you want to come along, or do you have something else to do?” He asked.
“Magic?! Yes please!” He replied enthusiastically.
When they had gotten to Josephs, Evren knocked on the door and Joseph let them in. Evren said, “I hope you don’t mind if I brough Walter with me to learn magic.”
Nobody disagreed, so then Evren said, “Before we begin, who all can read.”
Nobody.
Evren made a face. It was a face that said, “Well shit, now what do we do?”
After looking around at the faces who seemed to get more and more disappointed, Evren said, “Well, that’ll make this difficult. You see, you need to commit the formula to memory, and you need to understand the formula because a lot of magic involves mental images.”
Evren selected one of the books he had with him and held it up. “I’m going to teach you one spell and I’ll walk you through the whole process first, that way you can keep casting it and work on your magic while you learn how to read.”
