Reincarnated as a Spider (Draft/Writing practice)
Chapter 40: Intermission 3: …and a warrior.
Timing of this chapter might not be very good considering events happening somewhere.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
I am aware that certain topics like racial tensions and conflict are still a sensitive subject in western culture. I do not intend to diminish, discredit or in any way make less of the subject. I am open to limited editing proposals to the following content.
Google docs version here.
Accounts of former colonel Ashlan Weard;
‘The girl learns fast… Just yesterday she had a shaky grasp on edge alignment, today the precision of those cuts and slashes…’
‘What is aerodynamics? Is it magic? Hm… I should ask her later…’
…
‘Day by day she grows stronger, faster, sharper… with her ability to quickly master techniques at the current pace it won’t be long until she passes me. I could only lead her by the nose because of the difference in experience and now as that gap closes in it will be ever more challenging for me… Besides, my tricks aren’t going to work on her forever… just recently she read what I was planning. Quite the surprise.’
…
‘There is something strange about her… Some different side of her that’s savage and primal. It always gives me the chills, like I am just another sacrifice to a starved beast. Thankfully it only surfaces on occasions. It is frightening how fast she can change between these two… personas at a whim to the point I wonder… Which one of them is the real Alicia? The girl on the surface or the monster beneath? I pray that I won’t have to find out… But if… she turns against us… How long can I hold her back? This body of mine, although not decrepit yet is a far cry from my prime… No even then I would need to be lucky to win…
One thing I have noticed is that it is more likely to reveal itself when she’s pushed hard. Is it some kind of defense mechanism against an observed threat? Maybe I should go a little easy on her… I can’t imagine what she would be like if she loses her presence of mind…’
…
‘Her stamina is inconceivably high… It would be more precise to say she doesn’t get tired and I haven’t seen her eating very often either… I only remember that she is a young girl when seeing how her face twists at the bitter nuts she’s eating…
If that… tragedy hadn’t struck… I probably would have had a daughter around her age by now…
…
Digging into Alicia’s memories Alice savored the remnants of the taste left behind as a memory. This only served as an unsatisfying tease for the real deal.
‘If I want to stay alive I need to keep moving, footwork is a bit awkward, strafing is easy but stepping backwards needs some getting used to… On the topic of movement there’s forms of it but basically it boils down to constant movement and telegraph or as the old guy puts it a ‘Tell’. Constant movement is ‘normal’ something like circling your opponent, closing or making distance. Essentially filler movement leading up to something. ‘Tells’ on the other hand is the preceding action before an attack, taking and switching stance. If it's an overhead swing for example raising the sword up is the tell.
Better you can hide your ‘tells’ more likely it is that your attack is going to surprise the opponent and land a hit. If you can hide your tell within your constant movement then it’s even better as the other party doesn’t expect it. In addition ‘tells’ can ‘morph’ - As Ashlan calls it - into a different attack. Or less technically, multiple techniques can share the same or similar tell making it a guesswork on which attack is coming. Like thrust turning into a slash and the ‘tell’ of overhead strikes actually being pommel strikes.
Unfortunately you can only learn these through experience… Bitter experiences to be more exact. Ones that include me being the testing dummy for these. I suppose it's better to learn it through being beaten up by wood than steel. Furthermore there’s the role of hips, twisting your hips following your in a swing generates more force and speed while turning against your swing drags it down, since parrying is very timing sensitive, having your attack be delayed or travel faster than expected can throw them off.
And there’s also unpredictability & conditioning, Couching, Chambering, Parries, Deflections and Ripostes. I didn’t know shanking someone with a long knife was this complicated… Better cry now than later. Sword fighting is basically getting the blade from point A to point B fast or more bluntly; how to quickly stab someone without getting stabbed…
Apparently yelling is a real thing and not something they made up for action movies. Keya…? kya…? kaya…? Whatever it's called.1Kiai It makes you emotionally invested into your attack and core something, fixes breathing or something didn’t really stick to me.
‘I couldn’t make him just call me by my name… well milady is a little better than the ‘mistress’, that he used to call me… I’ll take my small victories wherever I can.’
Following up his words he unsheathed his weapon made of some metal Alicia hadn’t seen before. Some sockets for ornaments empty or twisted out of shape. Despite the visible wear & tear and bends around the basket hilt and guard, straight blade of alabaster, polished well enough to be like a mirror, was in pristine condition. Raising up his sword and aimed at a nearby tree well out of his weapon’s range, instantly the wind seemed to change its direction, gathering around him… no around his weapon.
Just as the tip of the blade reached its apex, taking half a step forward Ashlan brought it down in a 45 degree slash striking into nothing. It would seem that he missed, however the trunk of the tree bearing a huge gash one thirds of the way deep - following the trajectory of his slash - from the violent squall of wind that smashed against it tells a different story.
Whistling internally and no stranger to magic Alicia quickly analysed the information she gathered from seeing the strange occurrence;
‘My guy I don’t think that was the wind… Wind doesn’t cut into something like that otherwise we would have tons of fan and air conditioning related injuries. So what is that…? While technically wind or specifically molecules of air for this matter can cut if they somehow ‘magically’ arranged themselves perfectly and uniformly like that of a sword achieving that requires some serious precision and the moment that “wind” comes in contact with open air it should disperse turning into a breeze. …Then it is wind, just not normal wind that behaves as it should… I’ll call it magic wind or something like that.
I guess answered my own question there… Magically tricking wind into acting like a blade. I should ask the maestro about its range… shouldn’t be too far despite being called ‘ranged’ since even wind is subject to air resistance…’
There’s a flaw with this technique in that it’s ineffective with thrusts as the wind doesn’t cut like a sword would. In an environment you can’t swing it will be difficult to carry out…”
Implication of the fault of his long employed technique could be fixed, improved was enticing and frightening one.
Holding her wooden sparring sword from a side stance; hilt pulled all the way back near her shoulder she assumed a variant of posta bicorno guard3Two horn guard, similar to German Ochs. more suitable for thrusting.
As she spoke she gently revolved the blade in a counterclockwise turn and emulated the technique, gathering flows of wind around her blade. Though their cyclonic spin was inherently different from the parent technique.
You did it a step forward… Was it the right leg or the left first? Ah that doesn’t matter for this.”
Briefly interrupting herself, Alicia took a step forward at the same time of her thrust. The twisting winds dancing around each other as if in orbit were let loose, aimed at the center of the wound bore through creating a small hole, shooting chips and fragments of wood on the other side.
Epiphany. Alicia didn’t blindly pursue the art but actively looked for ways to improve it and in this example, created a derivative technique from something she saw moments ago. Creating one’s own technique was one of the hallmarks of mastery, before he knew it she was already on his own level, possibly even far ahead of him.
Although surely a content statement there was some hidden grief underneath.
Walking to some indeterminate place through a secluded path Alicia followed the old master.
‘It’s hard to imagine this person with slow and sure actions who doesn’t react too much to anything being that active.’
“Youngblood driven by unusual wanderlust I left my duties behind and travelled the world as an adventurer. I challenged many who called themselves “The best” with the blade. There was an overall disdain for other races amongst our people. I wasn’t an exception… but by my journey leading me through kingdoms of men, I came to understand the misconceptions, the faults in our view. That we’re different but still individually… right.”
‘Smiling…? Now that’s something rare to see… Nostalgia is nice every now and then…’
“However not many of us saw the same… We called ourselves Highborne… a title of reckless pride. Even my home… bore the name The High Kingdom… Better than any other.
At this point the already simmering racial tensions were escalating to a boiling point. I was called back… There was conflict looming on the horizon… When I came home, I was hailed a hero… A hero who struck down the enemies of our kind beyond our borders… Appalling mockery of my beliefs…”
Clenched fists trembling with emotions. He carried on.
“Our royalty - our king - would have never made the situation go out of control like that… true enough aristocracy had amassed much support campaigned for the supremacy of our kin. ‘The lesser should serve their betters!’ Denunciation, Enslavement, Despoiling. It was only a matter of time before war broke out. I could only persuade a small portion of people against their ideal… Soon enough they took notice of my activities. Their symbol of supremacy itself was advocating for peace and understanding… A thorn on their side… I was stripped of my rank and banished out along with many others. Mostly who didn’t share their view but also their political enemies. We became refugees, with all the other races at our necks we were outcasts without a home. Some turned to other kingdoms… I fear their life wasn’t as easy as they would’ve hoped for. I watched our armies clash against that of men… Our soldiers were a match for 10 or so men. However humans outnumbered us by 20 then 30 and soon enough by the hundreds…
Eventually we turned to this forest… Velauhart…5Heart of green woods. known for its wild and brutal monsters… But even so it meant more chance of survival than outside… establishing the… place called Verdun… meaning shelter in our tongue. Ironic how us labelled pig sympathizers are the only remnants of their culture and history…
Have you counted how many of us there were in the village?”
Alicia didn’t have the exact numbers, but estimating:
‘Something tells me this story doesn't have a happy ending…’
Poisonous spouts, utilizing flames through magic, strong body with powerful claws and mace like tail. It had too many advantages over someone…
Arriving atop of a hill overlooking a beautiful grove full of life and young trees he stopped and sat on top of a conveniently placed boulder…
‘I would say the place recovered well but…’
Closing his eyes as if trying to swallow a bitter pill…
‘Tale of pride and fall hm… …I had a close call with that boar too… And I had god’s gift… what if I didn’t…? No It’s enough that I had the chance to live again at all… Being confident to take action is good but too much and it will kill you…’6Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.
Auratic
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
I am aware that certain topics like racial tensions and conflict are still a sensitive subject in western culture. I do not intend to diminish, discredit or in any way make less of the subject. I am open to limited editing proposals to the following content.
Google docs version here.
Accounts of former colonel Ashlan Weard;
‘The girl learns fast… Just yesterday she had a shaky grasp on edge alignment, today the precision of those cuts and slashes…’
‘What is aerodynamics? Is it magic? Hm… I should ask her later…’
…
‘Day by day she grows stronger, faster, sharper… with her ability to quickly master techniques at the current pace it won’t be long until she passes me. I could only lead her by the nose because of the difference in experience and now as that gap closes in it will be ever more challenging for me… Besides, my tricks aren’t going to work on her forever… just recently she read what I was planning. Quite the surprise.’
…
‘There is something strange about her… Some different side of her that’s savage and primal. It always gives me the chills, like I am just another sacrifice to a starved beast. Thankfully it only surfaces on occasions. It is frightening how fast she can change between these two… personas at a whim to the point I wonder… Which one of them is the real Alicia? The girl on the surface or the monster beneath? I pray that I won’t have to find out… But if… she turns against us… How long can I hold her back? This body of mine, although not decrepit yet is a far cry from my prime… No even then I would need to be lucky to win…
One thing I have noticed is that it is more likely to reveal itself when she’s pushed hard. Is it some kind of defense mechanism against an observed threat? Maybe I should go a little easy on her… I can’t imagine what she would be like if she loses her presence of mind…’
…
‘Her stamina is inconceivably high… It would be more precise to say she doesn’t get tired and I haven’t seen her eating very often either… I only remember that she is a young girl when seeing how her face twists at the bitter nuts she’s eating…
If that… tragedy hadn’t struck… I probably would have had a daughter around her age by now…
…
Digging into Alicia’s memories Alice savored the remnants of the taste left behind as a memory. This only served as an unsatisfying tease for the real deal.
‘If I want to stay alive I need to keep moving, footwork is a bit awkward, strafing is easy but stepping backwards needs some getting used to… On the topic of movement there’s forms of it but basically it boils down to constant movement and telegraph or as the old guy puts it a ‘Tell’. Constant movement is ‘normal’ something like circling your opponent, closing or making distance. Essentially filler movement leading up to something. ‘Tells’ on the other hand is the preceding action before an attack, taking and switching stance. If it's an overhead swing for example raising the sword up is the tell.
Better you can hide your ‘tells’ more likely it is that your attack is going to surprise the opponent and land a hit. If you can hide your tell within your constant movement then it’s even better as the other party doesn’t expect it. In addition ‘tells’ can ‘morph’ - As Ashlan calls it - into a different attack. Or less technically, multiple techniques can share the same or similar tell making it a guesswork on which attack is coming. Like thrust turning into a slash and the ‘tell’ of overhead strikes actually being pommel strikes.
Unfortunately you can only learn these through experience… Bitter experiences to be more exact. Ones that include me being the testing dummy for these. I suppose it's better to learn it through being beaten up by wood than steel. Furthermore there’s the role of hips, twisting your hips following your in a swing generates more force and speed while turning against your swing drags it down, since parrying is very timing sensitive, having your attack be delayed or travel faster than expected can throw them off.
And there’s also unpredictability & conditioning, Couching, Chambering, Parries, Deflections and Ripostes. I didn’t know shanking someone with a long knife was this complicated… Better cry now than later. Sword fighting is basically getting the blade from point A to point B fast or more bluntly; how to quickly stab someone without getting stabbed…
Apparently yelling is a real thing and not something they made up for action movies. Keya…? kya…? kaya…? Whatever it's called.1Kiai It makes you emotionally invested into your attack and core something, fixes breathing or something didn’t really stick to me.
‘I couldn’t make him just call me by my name… well milady is a little better than the ‘mistress’, that he used to call me… I’ll take my small victories wherever I can.’
Following up his words he unsheathed his weapon made of some metal Alicia hadn’t seen before. Some sockets for ornaments empty or twisted out of shape. Despite the visible wear & tear and bends around the basket hilt and guard, straight blade of alabaster, polished well enough to be like a mirror, was in pristine condition. Raising up his sword and aimed at a nearby tree well out of his weapon’s range, instantly the wind seemed to change its direction, gathering around him… no around his weapon.
Just as the tip of the blade reached its apex, taking half a step forward Ashlan brought it down in a 45 degree slash striking into nothing. It would seem that he missed, however the trunk of the tree bearing a huge gash one thirds of the way deep - following the trajectory of his slash - from the violent squall of wind that smashed against it tells a different story.
Whistling internally and no stranger to magic Alicia quickly analysed the information she gathered from seeing the strange occurrence;
‘My guy I don’t think that was the wind… Wind doesn’t cut into something like that otherwise we would have tons of fan and air conditioning related injuries. So what is that…? While technically wind or specifically molecules of air for this matter can cut if they somehow ‘magically’ arranged themselves perfectly and uniformly like that of a sword achieving that requires some serious precision and the moment that “wind” comes in contact with open air it should disperse turning into a breeze. …Then it is wind, just not normal wind that behaves as it should… I’ll call it magic wind or something like that.
I guess answered my own question there… Magically tricking wind into acting like a blade. I should ask the maestro about its range… shouldn’t be too far despite being called ‘ranged’ since even wind is subject to air resistance…’
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Not expecting Alicia to recover as quickly as she did from the spectacle and ask him a question he was flustered to say at least. Afterall it was one of his flashier and prized techniques.There’s a flaw with this technique in that it’s ineffective with thrusts as the wind doesn’t cut like a sword would. In an environment you can’t swing it will be difficult to carry out…”
Implication of the fault of his long employed technique could be fixed, improved was enticing and frightening one.
Holding her wooden sparring sword from a side stance; hilt pulled all the way back near her shoulder she assumed a variant of posta bicorno guard3Two horn guard, similar to German Ochs. more suitable for thrusting.
As she spoke she gently revolved the blade in a counterclockwise turn and emulated the technique, gathering flows of wind around her blade. Though their cyclonic spin was inherently different from the parent technique.
You did it a step forward… Was it the right leg or the left first? Ah that doesn’t matter for this.”
Briefly interrupting herself, Alicia took a step forward at the same time of her thrust. The twisting winds dancing around each other as if in orbit were let loose, aimed at the center of the wound bore through creating a small hole, shooting chips and fragments of wood on the other side.
Epiphany. Alicia didn’t blindly pursue the art but actively looked for ways to improve it and in this example, created a derivative technique from something she saw moments ago. Creating one’s own technique was one of the hallmarks of mastery, before he knew it she was already on his own level, possibly even far ahead of him.
Although surely a content statement there was some hidden grief underneath.
Walking to some indeterminate place through a secluded path Alicia followed the old master.
‘It’s hard to imagine this person with slow and sure actions who doesn’t react too much to anything being that active.’
“Youngblood driven by unusual wanderlust I left my duties behind and travelled the world as an adventurer. I challenged many who called themselves “The best” with the blade. There was an overall disdain for other races amongst our people. I wasn’t an exception… but by my journey leading me through kingdoms of men, I came to understand the misconceptions, the faults in our view. That we’re different but still individually… right.”
‘Smiling…? Now that’s something rare to see… Nostalgia is nice every now and then…’
“However not many of us saw the same… We called ourselves Highborne… a title of reckless pride. Even my home… bore the name The High Kingdom… Better than any other.
At this point the already simmering racial tensions were escalating to a boiling point. I was called back… There was conflict looming on the horizon… When I came home, I was hailed a hero… A hero who struck down the enemies of our kind beyond our borders… Appalling mockery of my beliefs…”
Clenched fists trembling with emotions. He carried on.
“Our royalty - our king - would have never made the situation go out of control like that… true enough aristocracy had amassed much support campaigned for the supremacy of our kin. ‘The lesser should serve their betters!’ Denunciation, Enslavement, Despoiling. It was only a matter of time before war broke out. I could only persuade a small portion of people against their ideal… Soon enough they took notice of my activities. Their symbol of supremacy itself was advocating for peace and understanding… A thorn on their side… I was stripped of my rank and banished out along with many others. Mostly who didn’t share their view but also their political enemies. We became refugees, with all the other races at our necks we were outcasts without a home. Some turned to other kingdoms… I fear their life wasn’t as easy as they would’ve hoped for. I watched our armies clash against that of men… Our soldiers were a match for 10 or so men. However humans outnumbered us by 20 then 30 and soon enough by the hundreds…
Eventually we turned to this forest… Velauhart…5Heart of green woods. known for its wild and brutal monsters… But even so it meant more chance of survival than outside… establishing the… place called Verdun… meaning shelter in our tongue. Ironic how us labelled pig sympathizers are the only remnants of their culture and history…
Have you counted how many of us there were in the village?”
Alicia didn’t have the exact numbers, but estimating:
‘Something tells me this story doesn't have a happy ending…’
Poisonous spouts, utilizing flames through magic, strong body with powerful claws and mace like tail. It had too many advantages over someone…
Arriving atop of a hill overlooking a beautiful grove full of life and young trees he stopped and sat on top of a conveniently placed boulder…
‘I would say the place recovered well but…’
Closing his eyes as if trying to swallow a bitter pill…
‘Tale of pride and fall hm… …I had a close call with that boar too… And I had god’s gift… what if I didn’t…? No It’s enough that I had the chance to live again at all… Being confident to take action is good but too much and it will kill you…’6Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.
Auratic
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