Instructor Lenios moves to grab a spear from the weapon rack that had appeared a few strides beside him back when he snapped his fingers. He then returns to his original position, getting into a combat stance. If you’ve ever played a sport requiring rapid and diverse movement, it is your general athletic stance. It is a stance with your non-dominant foot in front of you and facing forward while your dominant foot is beneath you, facing to the side at an angle (somewhere between 45 and 90 degree angle compared to the front foot). You balance on the balls of your feet, knees bent, and torso straight. From here is where the instructions diverge from a general stance and into discipline-specific instruction.
From this point, Instructor Lenios begins instructing again: “Take the spear in a two-handed grip, hands separated by at least the length of your forearm, the center of the spear in the grip of your furthest hand, palm facing out. The hand matching your dominant foot should be closest to you, palm facing in. Bring that hand even with your hip, your other hand slightly raised like so,” he says while showing himself in the stance with the spear tip pointed slightly upwards.
He spends a minute giving general corrections to stance before continuing. “This is your first guard position. In this stance, you are threatening the head and torso of a human opponent. If you straighten your forward arm, you will now threaten the groin and legs of your opponent, making this your second guard position. If you then straighten the arm at your hip, your thrusting arm, you will find that your spear is pointed up again if your forward arm is far enough apart. This guard allows you to sneak beneath shields or armor, making it your third guard. If you then raise the spear over your shoulder and rotate your hand on the staff so that they maintain the same palm direction, the spear points down from an overhead position, allowing you to attack small critters or people below you if your on a raised surface. That is your fourth and final guard position. Now drill the transitions between each one,” Instructor Lenios instructs with a commanding voice. Throughout his instruction, he shows each stance before doing a single thrust and then moves to the next.
I get into my combat stance, left foot under me and right foot ahead, and pull my left hand right above my waist, palm facing in. My right hand extends ahead and slightly up, palm facing out. Now in first guard, I move to the second guard, extending my right hand, pointing the spear down. Then I move to the third, extending my left hand while keeping it in line with my hips, turning the spear to a more exaggerated upward direction. Finally, I move to Fourth, bringing both my hands above my shoulder, and spinning them about the staff, keeping my left-hand palm in and my right-hand palm out, the spear now facing down. Then I repeat it again.
Instructor Lenios has the class drill the transitions for about 15 minutes, by the end of which most of us have burning biceps from lifting the spear so many times in a row. Throughout the time, he walks around the area, correcting imperfections in stance, hand position, and guard position. He only says a few words each time, but they almost always solve the issue. He stops the practice only once he’s satisfied with the class’s guard positions.
“Good. Now that you can transition between the different guards, you can learn to walk.” Before anyone gets a chance to even get confused, he continues, “As I said before, you started this class on the floor, crawling like a baby. You have now learned how to stand up, so you have earned the right to learn how to walk,” he says. He pauses to give time for the class to absorb his words, but not enough time to interrupt him.
“To walk, you must make small, controlled steps. Your forward foot becomes your leading foot, extending forward ahead. Once it has secured its footing, you shift your weight forward, quickly pulling your dominant foot along below you again. Your dominant foot is your foundation, and should be below your hips as much as possible,” He instructs, again showing how to complete the actions. As he moves, it is clear that at no point is he unstable, and that even in the middle of the movement, he can quickly secure his position back into his combat stance. When the class replicates, most of them look awkward, like toddlers learning to walk. Those with sports experience, like Ash and I, do better, managing to largely replicate the movement. Even still, we aren’t able to replicate the grace and confidence that Instructor Lenios has when he moves.
In my combat stance again, I move my right foot forward about a foot. Once it hits the ground, I stabilize, keeping my center of gravity on my back foot. Then, I quickly shift my center of gravity toward my front foot, at the same time dragging my left foot along in the sand, ready to be planted at any time. Once I close the distance, I plant my left foot and stabilize. The movement is awkward and clunky, but it works. I begin again.
We practice walking for a while, Instructor Lenios moving between everyone, telling them their mistakes and how to fix them. His words are still short, and yet he manages to say the right thing nearly every time, proving his words at the beginning of the session. Those of us with sports experience master the basics of walking after 20 minutes, and by 30 minutes, some of the non-sports players start to get the hang of it. It is at this point that Instructor Lenios pauses the practice saying, “Those who I’ve told that they’ve mastered the basics, come over here with me. I will teach you the next steps, those who have yet to do so, move to the other side of the arena.” He then gestures to the left side of the arena while walking to the right.
Once there, he finds a spot in the middle of the crowd. “Okay, spread out like earlier.” he waits, “Good, now that you’ve learned to walk, you can finally learn to strike. This movement is very simple to learn, and deceptively difficult to master. The basic movement simply requires you to thrust with your thrusting hand while allowing the spear to slide through your forward hand. For extended range, you can extend your forward hand as well, so that they don’t meet. From here is where the technique reaches as much complexity as you choose to embrace. Aiming.”
“Precision is achieved with your forward hand, making small adjustments to target something like a weak point or a gap in armor. Larger changes are made by the thrusting hand, allowing you to entirely redirect your strike mid-attack. Once you learn each individually and begin to use them together, you will unlock the full versatility of the spear in attacking,” He says with a certain solemness that gave greater meaning to the words than they otherwise warranted.
He is silent for a few seconds, seemingly reflecting on something, before he quickly refocuses, snapping his finger, and summoning straw dummies from the floor. “You will practice striking the dummies for the rest of the session. I want you first to practice aiming with each hand individually. Once you can control where you hit, try to hit with some force. Once you achieve that with both hands individually, start over but use both hands simultaneously. When you go on a quest tomorrow, ask the attendant at the guild for a spear, and they will provide one for free.”
Instruction complete, he walks off to continue inspecting the form of the whole class. 20 minutes later, Ash’s figure dematerialized, the spear in her hand falling to the ground. She is not the first one; 13 others had over the course of the class. After another 20 minutes, 10 more people have dematerialized, and I’ve just started over, now using both hands to aim simultaneously. I only get to practice for 5 minutes before I disappear as well.
✧ ✧ ✧
My eyes come into focus with the sight of a blinding blue light beaming directly into my retina. I feel sensation slowly come back to my body as the light dims and the edges of the pod begin to glow with a blue light instead. Before I can fully register the restraints on my body, they disappear into the internals of the machine, and the lid of the pod opens. I sit up slowly as my mind has yet to fully come into focus; the process of de-synching scrambling my brain slightly, similar to the first few minutes after you wake up.
Sitting on the edge of the pod, I stretch my arms out after the extended still period. The stretch is satisfying in the way only a morning stretch can be. I release the stretch, my arms falling bonelessly to my side as my mind finally orders itself enough to boot up.
‘What a day,’ I comment internally, ‘New friend, emotional breakdowns, and learning a martial art. I really am turning over a new leaf from my year of soulless existence. Now I can express how much my life sucks before curling into a heap in bed and doing nothing. Progress!’ I conclude self-deprecatingly.
Now fully conscious, I stand up and walk to my room. Once there, I change into normal clothes, splash my face with water to clear the final fragments of scramblage (A/N) from the machine, and walk to my sister's door and lightly knock.
*knock* *knock* “Hey, you ready to move the pods?” I ask.
After a few seconds, a “Whaaaat?” sounds from behind the door.
“Are you ready to move the pods?” I ask again.
“Ohhhh… Yeah I’m ready. Just give me a second.” My sister replies.
After around 30 seconds, Samantha opens the door, coming out of her room in jeans and a dress shirt. “Okay, do you want to move mine first or yours?” She asks as we walk to the guest bedroom.
“Uhhh… Let’s do yours first ‘cause your room’s further away,” I decide after some thinking.
“Sounds good,” Samantha agrees as she opens the door to the guest bedroom.
Once inside, I move to the back of Samantha’s pod. I grab the car jack that we had left here yesterday after moving around the pods. I push a button on the back that raises the back enough for me to get the jack under. As the jack lifts the frame, a pair of wheels come out of the bottom, staying connected to the ground. The higher it lifts, the more the wheels have space to move under the frame and straiten out. Eventually, I raise it high enough for the wheels to leave the ground, allowing me to click them into place. I then lock the wheels and repeat the exercise on the other side of the pod with the help of Samantha. Once both sets of wheels are set, I slide my hand under and unlock the first set of wheels. Even with both sets of wheels rising off the floor, there is only a 2.5-inch gap.
We roll the pod out from its place in line with the others. Then I lift the back side and walk around the side of the pod, rotating it 90 degrees. I have to do this because the wheels can’t steer, a precaution to help with stability and weight-bearing capacity. What follows is tiresome. Roll to the door, lift and turn; roll into the hallway, lift and turn; roll to the bend in the hallway, lift and turn; roll to Samantha’s door, lift and turn; roll into her room, lift and turn; roll to the spot she prepared in her room, lift and turn. I reach under and lock the wheels before turning to Samantha.
“You can lower it back to the floor,” I say, not taking any disagreement after doing the more demanding job.
We then repeat the whole process with my pod, bringing it to my room, leaving me in a heap on the bed, totally beat. Completely done with the day for the next few hours, I take a nap.
✧ ✧ ✧
At some point, While I’m sleeping, I begin to dream. This usually irrelevant thing, unworthy of mention, becomes relevant when my dream begins to try to make sense of the different Impressions I got from the aspect in the forest. At first, the dream is simply me flying between each fragment, some fragments of a memory, others are partial thoughts, and a few are blurred recollections, so old to have lost most of the context and information. As I fly between them like screens on a vast empty plain, my mind begins to try to sort these fragments into the full picture, like pieces of a puzzle. With that idea, the dream shifts to me sitting at a table, Ash across from me, and a vast set of puzzle pieces displayed before us. I look at the pieces, pondering what to do. I reach out for a puzzle piece to get a better look at it. When I touch it, the impression of a woman hitting a volleyball with strength and precision flashes through my mind quickly before fading. Once the memory fades, I see that of the four sides of the puzzle piece, only 2 are visible, while the others are blurred. Looking back at the pile, I see that many have no sides visible, and some have all four.
After some time of sorting through the different pieces, trying to find one to start with, I find a corner piece; it has the impression of a strong, burly man with muscles on his muscles, tied with a feeling of disgust. It looks like a piece oriented for the top left corner, so that's where it goes. Then I continue looking. Sometime later, Ash picks up a piece and connects it to the left corner piece. Oddly, her piece has an odd color to it, one that shines like golden wheat. In contrast, mine looks silvery white. I touch the piece she placed, seeing the memory of when I had looked at Instructor Lenios and the conversation with Ash afterward. The piece has all four sides visible.
The sorting continues, I manage to find a group of Impressions that seem to be a part of the same area of the board, but I don’t know where that is. As I complete more of the group that I had placed in the middle of the board, I get an understanding of what it represents as the image begins to appear. The blob is the collection of impressions that represent my depression and its connection to this aspect. I keep adding more and more to the blob as time goes on, each piece I add causing the sides of random puzzle pieces still in the pile to appear. I continue to sort through the pile after every piece I find, largely keeping the pace until the blob takes up nearly a 6th of the board and their appearances slow. At this point, I also start finding pieces for a new set, though I’ve yet to figure out what is in the set.
The new set gets a place next to the depression blob, and it slowly grows. At first, only a few pieces find their way there. But as time continues, I find more and more pieces faster and faster as more surfaces appear on the new set. The blob starts to get a feel to it as it grows to take up an 8th of the board. In that time, I’ve built out three of the corners 3 pieces deep. All the while, Ash occasionally adds one of her pieces, playing key roles in helping build out the puzzle. Once the new blob reaches 1/7th of the board, I get a sense of darkness from it. I still don’t know what it is, but it’s dark somehow. At this point, the depression blob has grown to a 5th of the board, though it is now starting to branch out beyond depression. As Ash places a new piece on the depression blob, I leave the dream realm to enter the waking world.
✧ ✧ ✧
I wake up with vague memories of a detailed dream about puzzles. It was one of those dreams where you’re lucid, but only enough to actively make decisions, not enough to recognize it as a dream. I look at my clock to see that it’s 6:23 pm. Meaning I’d been asleep for around an hour and a half. I feel better, but still quite drained. Unsure what to do, I check the form I’d checked the other day to see if anything new had shown up. I find some rather interesting conversation on the 5th page from earlier today.
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♦Topic: Order and Chaos: Magical Awakening?
In: Boards ► VR ► Full Dive
Tech Master (Original Poster) (Moderator)
Posted on January 1, 2000:
Earlier today, it was announced the previously anticipated Full Dive VR system was a joint project between Penumbra Inc. and the US government. Additionally, the game that was promised to come packaged with the gear was revealed to be a Fantasy MMO called Order and Chaos: Magical Awakening. I want to see what everyone knows of this as well as any information that may not have been obvious until now.
(Showing Page 5 of 7)
► Bark_Disaster
Replied on June 3, 2030:
Apparently, another company has announced its own brand of full dive gear earlier today. They are a European company and plan to service Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. They also said that they would be serving Iceland for some reason. Apparently, there working on getting a deal with Penumbra to use Order and Chaos: Magical Awakening on their gear as well.
► TechLorax
Replied on June 3, 2030:
Yeah, that was definitely weird. It also revealed that Penumbra only sells its pods to the USA, parts of Canada, and Greenland. They had as fast as one-day delivery for places in the surroundings of RTP, and they had 5-day delivery for people on the extremities like Greenland, said parts of Canada, and the west coast. When somebody rechecked the Pre-order forms, they found the regions they would ship to were limited to those mentioned above.
► MagicalFlyingOar
Replied on June 3, 2030:
I've heard whispers of other projects of similarly limited scope popping up everywhere. Apparently, each one is sponsored by at least one government. Now all of this is totally unconfirmed, but some of the sources I've gotten this from had some compelling evidence. Suffice it to say: I wouldn't be surprised to see similar companies pop up in China, Russia, Japan, Korea, Australia, and another for Europe. Also, for some reason, all of them want Order and Chaos: Magical Awakening to come with as well.
► AnimeChipmunk
Replied on June 3, 2030:
I heard that the people working for Penumbra are actually fantasy races. I bet there actually teaching us all magic in preparation to summon us to their world as heroes to save them. Each company is from a different world, each in need of heroes of their own. Worry not Cat-sama, I am here to save you!
► Tech Master (Original Poster) (Moderator)
Replied on June 3, 2030:
And that's a ban. He must be a new person to the form because I think we've removed or muted most of the trolls from the past.
► SwivlingMoon
Replied on June 3, 2030:
Don't worry. You and the other mods are doing a great job on the sight. It's a normal part of the internet to have trolls. You mods act fast, and that's what matters.
► Tech Master (Original Poster) (Moderator)
Replied on June 3, 2030:
Thank you, Swivel. I appreciate hearing that from a long-time contributor to this form like yourself. You have yet to add anything to the conversation. Do you have anything to say?
► SwivlingMoon
Replied on June 3, 2030:
Well, as I've said before, I've worked in this industry for nearly 3 decades now, so I’m aware of many of the goings on. With that in mind, much of the information around Penumbra, its game, and these supposed other companies that are popping up has been unusually quiet. Like, I know what secret projects normally look like. They may stay under wraps at first, but stuff eventually leaks. However, the stuff that's 'leaked' about these projects has been barely more than a trickle, and it's almost always days before the official announcement, so it's largely meaningless that it got out. It's just very strange.
► MagicalFlyingOar
Replied on June 3, 2030:
That's a good point. It's odd that the most I've heard about these companies are that they exist, their source of funding, and that they want the only currently available game built for full dive. These companies should have been working for years on making their product. How is it that this info is only leaking now?
► CherryFire
Replied on June 3, 2030:
Does anyone know the reason behind the whole ghost thing with the players? I don't get it. Is it trying to get a full body scan? ‘Cause that takes a few minutes max. What are they playing at over at Penumbra?
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Beyond the troll, the information is certainly intriguing. The idea that with the release of the first pod, competition suddenly arises within days is odd, though the announcement of its development was months ago. The fact that they’re all government-sponsored is downright suspicious. ‘Like sure, they need money to research such innovative technology, and the tech has a multitude of government and military applications. So the partnership is sensible. But why is it that every single one is? Was there a secret leak on the tech that was made available to different governments around the world, and so they are each trying to catch up? Why is the European company ahead? Did they get earlier information due to their close relationship with America? I feel like I was given only questions and no answers!’
I keep thinking about the comments I’d read on the form as I walk out of my room to see if anything is happening downstairs and to get a snack. ‘The comment on page 6 was interesting. They mentioned they had heard that Penumbra recently scheduled press conferences on the end of the 5th and the end of the 7th. Definitely in line with the odd characteristics of the leaks that SwivlingMoon mentioned.’ Walking down the stairs, I hear the sound of conversation coming from the direction of the dinner table. At the foot of the stairs, I look around the corner to find that Dad and Mom are having a discussion while eating some leftover Chili.
I walk over and join in. It is another discussion about Dad's work. He doesn’t mention anything I don’t know, though he does mention how just before work ended, he heard that Penumbra is going to make an announcement on Wednesday evening, confirming what I read. I don’t really talk all that much, preferring to simply eat the food. Dad pesters me from time to time about my running, and Mom nags me about whether I’m gonna get a job over the summer. It’s irritating, but the food tastes good, and I’m hungry, so I suffer through it before excusing myself and going back to my room.
I lie down in my bed and think about tomorrow. ‘Well, Ash said that getting that tablet would be important for her to unlock magic, which probably means that it’s crucial to her as a person in general, based on how I understand the game. She said we’re friends, and she helped me a lot today. I think I should pay her back in full! To do that, we’re gonna need to fly through those missions and get to silver fast, ‘cause the bronze quests don’t pay. I need to practice!’
With that in mind, I find a broomstick in the house, bring it to my room, and practice. I go over the drills that Instructor Lenios had taught, from the different guards, to walking, to striking. I focus in the same way I do on races, my mind zeroing in on the task at hand. The only thoughts that flow through my head become ‘Strike!’, ‘More!’, ‘Precision!’, and ‘Power!’. As my arms begin to burn, I tell myself the same lie I do in the middle of a race ‘If you go harder, the adrenaline will kill the pain,’ and once the Addrenilin briefly does, I tell myself, ‘Your going to slow, you need to feel the burn.’ I repeat this mantra over and over, in complete focus. Step, strike, guard, repeat.
For hours I continue, achieving a level of focus I’ve achieved only thrice before in my life, all my best races ever: The most influential was in my Freshman year, when I showed the team that I was something more than the average runner. At the time, I had already been getting Prs every race, but I had yet to approach the speeds of varsity runners, and my Prs were getting smaller every race. But I knew that on that race, if I got a time below 17:20 in the 5k, I could get 7th position on varsity, meaning I needed a 40-second Pr. I had hyped myself for the race like never before, and the results were something to behold. This was the race where I mastered the mantra of using pain as a means to speed up. ‘If my legs hurt, go faster for adrenaline. If they don’t, go faster 'cause you’re clearly not going fast enough.’ I came through the finish at 17:13.
The next time it happened was in my junior year, in my last track race with my old high school. I signed up for 4 events, knowing it was my last time. We first ran the 4x800 relay, where I Pr’d in my 800 by 3 seconds. I then ran the 800m, and matched my new Pr. I then ran the mile, and Pr’d by 6 seconds. By the time the 2 mile came around, my legs were exhausted, and I’d been on the field for hours. But I wanted to run once more. I knew the final race wouldn’t be a Pr, but I wanted to break 10 minutes one last time. I went through the first 400m lap with the only goal to run 75-second laps; it was the hardest 75 of my life. The next lap was the same. After 4 laps, I was barely still going, but I wanted the sub 10. Then something amazing happened. I don’t remember when but for the last mile, someone from the other team tried to pass me, and I was having none of it. He kept with me for the next 3 laps, but on the last lap, he tried to take the win. At this point, my legs were gone. I had long stopped even checking my pace. All I knew is that he wasn’t gonna win. He would pass me, growing the gap to 10, 20, 30m before I would get the adrenaline rush I needed to catch up again, closing the gap. This would repeat 4 times in the last lap before the final 100m, the finish in sight. He sprinted for the finish, thinking he had the win in the bag. Alas, I was not going to let him take my victory. I gunned it for the finish, my legs flying and arms pumping, no feeling in my body. I passed him 20m from the finish taking the win and discovering that I had run a 9:51, only 3 seconds slower than my Pr.
Something about today, interacting with Ash, has brought me to the same mindset to achieve something beyond my standard capacity. So I train for hours on end, sweat pooling below me and the broom poll growing slick. Yet none of that matters to the current me, only the continuous improvement of my technique and skill. I can feel as the ideas begin to merge with my understanding of the other sports I’ve played, allowing me to draw from my experience to improve rapidly.
Eventually, the energy in my muscles run out; my arms fall to the side. Knowing I’ve hit my limits, I go take a shower, dry off, and go to bed. Yet even as my mind goes to sleep, I know I am prepared to help Ash with the issue that plagues her.
Thanks for the chapter. And as for you fight with Google...I'd also call it a win!
I thank you for your support in my quest against Google's tyranny. To arms!