Chapter 13: Chapter 12 – Every Journey began with a small step

"I have trained many youngsters in my life, thousands of them probably, but never had I seen one with the drive that young lady Aideen possessed. Despite being born into privilege, she clearly knows the value of hard work, and practiced it accordingly. Truly, she puts to shame those who just relied on their connections and talents to coast by in life." - Huang Ren-Gui, martial arts instructor in the Bone Lord's employ, circa VA 35.

Palace of Bones, Tohrmutgent, Ptolodecca, fourth day of the second week of the second month, year 35 VA.

 

"The speed at which you have improved has been very impressive, young lady," said Huang Ren-Gui as he parried a blow from Aideen's staff with the staff he held in his left hand. At the same time, his right hand blocked a scything flailed blow from the other end of her weapon aimed low towards his legs. "It probably took me a year before I was at your level when I started learning this weapon myself."

 

"No longer needing sleep has its advantages, I guess, though a good night's rest every now and then still feels good," replied Aideen as she took the recoil from her blocked strike and spun with it, sending a blow to crash down vertically at her mentor with speed and weight behind it. "That, and not having to worry I'd knock myself silly from too many hits to the head while practicing."

 

"Both advantages to learn a difficult weapon fast, indeed," said the old Huan man as he caught her blow with the middle staff of his weapon. Ever since he had demonstrated his weapon to her, Aideen had taken a shine to the weapon, and asked if she could also try it out.

 

He had allowed her to do so, and lent her his spare weapon. At first everyone had a good few days of amusement as the girl repeatedly hit herself - often painfully - while she practiced with the unusual weapon. That amusement ceased soon afterward though.

 

Merely a week after she begun to train with it in her spare time - she still practiced the staff when it was her training hours -, Aideen had mastered the weapon enough to control it properly, and no longer accidentally hit herself with it. Something that impressed Ren-Gui since that feat, was something that took him a month to learn.

 

Then again, back when he trained he had not devoted nearly all his free time to practice, or forewent sleep in favor for more practice.

 

In a mere three months, the girl had mastered the weapon to a level it took him a year to learn, and she was still constantly improving, too. The past month or thereabouts, they started to alternate which weapon she used during her training sessions.

 

"That said, young lady," said the old man when Aideen took the recoil from the strike and used it to rotate and swing the other end of her staff in an upwards strike. A strike Ren-Gui had predicted and stopped prematurely with one foot, while he gave a thrust with the staves he held in both hands against Aideen's chest. "You still have a long way to go. Be less predictable. Flexibility and creativity are the main advantages of this weapon, and you have not fully harnessed those yet."

 

"I'll work on that, teacher," Aideen said as she picked herself up from the floor. Ren-Gui's thrust had broken a couple ribs, as well as her chest bone, but the cracks mended themselves as if the damage never happened in moments. By now, the use of her new affinity had become a second nature to her, much like before.

 

She found that while her magic now mostly focused on mending flesh - and to a lesser extent, bones as well -, she could use it for other purposes as well. While it wasn't exactly efficient, and very difficult if the target was also mage, she could cause muscle cramps to someone in close proximity to her. A minor discomfort at best, but the moment of distraction might prove fatal in a fight.

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On the other hand, she found that her affinity allowed her to easily cripple undead constructs, barring the higher tier ones, since those usually had so much of their creator's mana within that just fought off her attempts at intrusion. For lesser constructs though, she had easily fused their joints stiff, which rendered them into little more than eerie statues.

 

Besides the weapons skills, Ren-Gui had also taught her barehanded combat techniques, which she learned with eagerness as well. Diarmuid's lessons on barehanded combat was also Ren-Gui's responsibility, and Aideen was surprised the first time the small old man - Diarmuid was easily a size larger than him, younger and fitter too - easily flipped her brother over his shoulder and dislocated his arm in the same move.

 

Nowadays she and her brother often sparred with one another in their spare times, and to Diarmuid's dismay, he quickly found himself unable to gain the upper hand in their spars. Those losses incensed the young man to intensify his own training regime, yet he still lost more often than not to his little sister.

 

After all, he still needed sleep, whereas she did not.

 

For her own part, Drietven and Myrddin also started to take part in her practice regime. The latter mostly helped her train her defense against magical attacks, which she found to be surprisingly ineffective on her. Flesh corroded by death magic, she could replace as fast as they were corroded away, while other spells aimed at vital organs, like a spell to stop hearts, were just entirely ineffective. Then again, hers no longer beat in the first place.

 

Between the injuries she received during daily training with Drietven and Ren-Gui, she confirmed one other thing she had long suspected, since the day she had risen.

 

Physical injuries in general, barely affect her. She still felt the pain, sure, but the injuries just became little more than inconvenience than anything. Vital organs were no longer vital to her. Her body had long died, yet somehow preserved itself in a fresh state, little different from when she was alive, unless one were to inspect her closely.

 

Her grandpa Aarin, the Bone Lord, theorized that perhaps it was her soul that remained alive, and that now it simply controlled her dead body as it used to when she was alive. The irony was not lost on her, for it was similar to the soul puppetry necromancers from Junora specialized in.

 

It was a rather unpleasant thought, that she was now similar to what killed her.

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