Chapter 118: Chapter One Hundred Eighteen

We ran into a few groups of wights on the way down the tunnel, but  honestly it was less of a problem than I expected in such cramped  quarters. The tunnels were pretty cramped with the exception of the  occasional big side cavern, and we'd expected to trip over undead every  ten steps. In reality it was more like once an hour, given how slow we  were forced to go because of Seek Hidden and trying to keep an ear out  for ambushes. The wights were few enough that they wouldn't have made  decent targets for training for us, so we let the H rankers handle them,  though we kept an eye out.

Aside from the wights we did  run into a single pair of Dullahan patrolling alongside a few ghosts.  Turned out that poison fire works as well on ghosts as normal flames,  and I was able to help wipe them out easily enough while Cark, Callie,  and Benny worked together to take down the big guys. I jumped in to help  Benny and Callie with the Dullahan after I finished clearing out the  ghosts, but Callie had been giving them a ton of thought since our first  fight, and had a detailed plan of attack to use on the armored brutes.

Finally  we made it to a cavern like the one we'd been in before, packed wall to  wall with zombies. It was my first time seeing normal zombies, and the H  rank animated corpses were surprisingly spry for the walking dead. We  waited outside, staring in at the rabid corpses, who seemed to be  switching consistently from standing eerily still to lunging at each  other like animals. Sarah, of course, was well aware of what the deal  was. It was nice to know despite being more involved we still a subject  matter expert on hand for all this nonsense.

She actually  seemed fascinated. "H rank flesh based undead, revenants. Zombies are  the I ranked version, though most people use it as a descriptor for the  whole category, since it covers quite a few varieties. Revenants are  vicious, hair trigger attackers who are often used for guards. They're  extremely Might heavy, though only for H rankers, so the two of you  should be fine. Are you absolutely sure you want to go in there just the  two of you? I know they aren't a threat but this is going to take quite  a while. There's easily two hundred of the things in there."

It  was a valid concern honestly, given the location we were in, there was a  non zero chance we might get jumped from behind by a higher level enemy  or something. Still, this wasn't a chance we could pass up. Callie had  seen an opportunity so her geas was pushing her into this, and I wanted  to learn that Balam fighting style because I was pretty sure it would  apply well to my DS skills and would really push my combat abilities to a  higher level. We nodded solemnly and Sarah, knowing Callie was the boss  and it was ultimately her call, didn't say another word.

Instead  of stealthing around we left the others in the hall and walked in  through one door, making sure it was obvious where we were coming from.  As we did Callie gave me a confident smile. "Alright, to start out, I'm  going to demonstrate a few forms for you. Just watch how I move." Her  confidence was intoxicating and my eyes were glued to her as she stepped  forward to engage the revenants alone, easily the most captivating  thing in the room, angry horde of rabid zombies included.

We  didn't have time to continue the conversation further because we'd come  in range of the revenants and those bastards did NOT waste time. The  instant they sensed us (low Perception to offset the high Might  presumably) they swarmed us both, and I took a step back just to make  sure I was out of range of her fight. It was pretty overwhelming to  watch the tide of rabid corpses fall on her like that, and I admit I had  to remind myself they couldn't hurt her...for about five seconds, and  then she started moving, and I didn't need any other reminder.

The  forms of Balam were intricate and circular. Lots or rotation and  momentum, and an almost dancelike quality that made the style seem to be  almost made for this situation. I knew some of that was stats and the  experience she'd gotten from the Skill, but some of it was just the  constant movement and extremely precise steps. Callie spun through the  forms, and rather than use them in a sequence, she demonstrated them as  they were meant to be used, showing me exactly which situation each form  was made for.

She made a few moves between her spinning,  pushing the revenants into position to set up the next attack, but it  was obvious even those linking moves were part of the style, and as I  watched, I started to understand how it worked. Much like boxing, the  key to Balam was footwork. Placement of the feet decided how far, how  fast, and even which direction she could spin, and she had to read the  steps of the revenants themselves to decide where best to place her own  feet even before their next attack.

It really was like a  dance, except Callie didn't get to know the steps ahead of time. She had  to read the room and understand the directions and movements of the  enemies. That was where the forms came in. Certain stances or patterns  evoked certain responses, the original creators of the style having  identified certain keystones of movements and created reactions to  those. The rotations and footwork were precise, but Callie was able to  work her own movements and attacks into the patterns, creating her own  flavor of style even as she used the move set she was trying to teach me  to mimic.

She was using the sword and dagger forms, and  it was amazing seeing them in action, blades whirling through the air as  she spun, taking heads and limbs. No matter how many of them attacked  her, she managed to spin between the rampaging corpses without letting  them touch a hair on her head. She spoke as she moved, talking steadily  and describing the basic principles of her movements and how they  chained together into an effective fighting style.

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After  a few minutes of demonstrating she flicked her fingers and a wall of  shadow rose up, cutting them all off from her as she stepped back to  look over at me. "Alright, those are the basics. You won't get the skill  until you actually try the style out and make it work. You ready to  give it a shot?" I could hear the revenants clawing at the shadow wall,  but they weren't making any progress yet so there was no rush. Callie  looked excited to see me try out the new fighting style though, so I  stepped up to fight.

Before  she dropped the wall I decided to get ready for the fight by setting up  my weapons. I didn't have a sword and dagger and I didn't want to use  my tonfas because I was already overpowered for this fight, so I knelt  down and used stone limb on each of my arms. I straightened my hands out  like they were blades, and then decided to stack Consecration of Flame  on the hand blades just to safe. The earth on my limbs lit up like magma  and I nodded to Callie that she could drop the wall.

Just  like she'd told me at the beginning of her demonstration I took the  first stance. Like I'd noticed early on, footwork was important in  Balam. By placing my feet at a certain angle and then using the rotation  of my ankles to align myself with them, I could build up twisting  momentum and lend that force to my blows. I lashed out with a pair of  magma infused chops at two revenants coming in to attack, and with my  Might and the fire imbued coating on my arms my arms tore right through  them.

I cut  down both of the zombies...and then tripped. Callie muffled a slight  giggle as I clawed my way back to my feet, very deliberately not looking  at her after the embarrassing move. I wasn't hurt, with so little  Impact they couldn't have actually damaged me at all. I just focused on  my training. The movements for Balam felt odd and stilted. I wasn't used  to standing in the weird positions required to start the rotations, and  with literally no room to move it was easy to trip over one of the  revenants, but I got back in position and tried again.

It  took me two tries to get the first form. Then about six for the second.  As I moved through the forms it got harder and harder to perform the  unusual actions necessary, but at the same time I got more comfortable  with the strange way of moving and standing so while each stance took  longer, it also made the next one easier. I couldn't say I was mastering  them or anything. Despite my stats, Balam was a complicated and off  putting series of movements, but I WAS learning. I continued along those  lines for another twenty minutes or so before I finished.

There  were thirteen primary forms of Balam, and I learned all of them one  after another, and by the time I was finished with them, I knew for a  fact I'd gotten Minor Balam Mastery. Granted, Minor was the lowest  possible level of the Skill and I wasn't really very far into even that,  but still, I'd picked it up. Callie spent quite a bit of that training  time correcting my form, giving me notes on my movements and generally  helping me adjust until everything was good enough to count towards the  skill.

Once  that was done I took the time with all those easy enemies to train,  repeating the forms over and over until we had cleared out every single  zombie from the cavern. Callie threw herself on me happily as soon as I  was done, easily avoiding my still magma clad arms as she tackled me  from behind. "Baby that was so great! You picked it up so quickly! Most  people don't learn the skill so fast on their first try." I personally  thought she was being too nice, given that I was also way higher ranked  than most people learning it, but I was happy she was trying to be  supportive so I just took the compliment.

I  groaned and slumped down to the floor in an empty spot. "Ok, ow. My  muscles are not used to moving like that at all. You'd figure my might  stat would make that a non issue but I'm crazy sore." I was guessing  since my muscles were exerting tension on each other it was a workout  regardless of weight or strength, sort of like some of the stretching  exercises I'd seen people doing at the park when Benny and I were  growing up. "Can you have Jessie come over and fix this up for me?"

Callie  smiled sweetly and pressed a quick kiss to my mask. "Nope. You'll have  to suck it up. With your Vitality it should be gone in a few hours, even  though your own muscles were the thing that did the damage. You need to  recover naturally though. The pain helps you learn the right way to  position yourself and helps you figure out what motions to avoid in the  future. Sorry about that." She didn't sound sorry, she sounded kind of  smug, but I didn't hold it against her, knowing how easily stats came to  me I imagine it was nice seeing me have to work for something.

So  I just grunted and held out a hand, letting her pull me to my feet.  "Fine. Well at least I got the basics down. I can continue on from  there." Still, I did have one other idea. "I could use a bit more  Vitality though, I still have two more wishes available for today. You  want a Might top up in exchange for those points?" At the very least  that would help me heal faster. Despite her intention to see me work for  it my girlfriend wasn't turning down easy Might, and I grinned  triumphantly as she agreed to make the wishes. Once that was done I put  an arm over her shoulder and we headed back to our friends. All in all,  not a bad first training session.

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