“Ahhh, visitor. I find it interesting that you have been here so long yet never seen fit to visit me before now." The vampire stood watching coldly, his two assistants waiting behind him. "Are you, perhaps, afraid of me? Have there been rumors spread in the world beyond?”

Mayon did not approach. “Why would I be afraid of you? That’s silly.”

“You do not learn mastery of close combat by standing far away from your foe. That is what is silly.”

Mayon grimaced and approached. He took the two steps down into the sandy practice area with care, and managed not to trip or fall flailing. Progress!

“It’s only a step,” said the vampire coldly. “You look as though you think it’s plotting against you.”

Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm.

Mayon took a deep breath, then stepped forward and did not attempt to punch the arrogant jerk in the face.

“I’ve been instructed to come here and learn to fight. Please teach me the basics.”

“Here.”

The vampire moved in a blur, and Mayon instinctively flinched and ducked. Something sharp flew past his face.

“Hey!”

“It’s a sword. You were supposed to catch it.”

Mayon turned, and saw that indeed it was a sword. Sitting quite innocently behind him.

“Well. Thanks.” He picked it up and turned back, only to have something move in a blur and smash into the blade so hard it spun out of his hand entirely. “Hey! What was that?”

“A demonstration. Pick it up. Keep a hold of it, and face me.”

Mayon did as instructed, silently seething. Did the game creators have to make this teacher as off-putting as humanly possible? What was the point of that?

The moment Mayon stood with sword ready, the vampire darted forward again. This time, Mayon switched to a two-handed grip so the sword wouldn’t be so easily smacked aside.

But, this time, the instructor made no attempt to disarm him. Instead, he stabbed forward with a quick motion that bypassed Mayon’s blade entirely, driving straight through his chest.

-6 health. Damage nullified.

“Hey! I thought you were supposed to be teaching me, not showing off!”

“One cannot begin instruction until one knows—” he switched weapons in an instant, slashing at Mayon’s legs. Mayon jumped back, but not quite quickly enough despite his high speed. “—exactly what one has to work with.” The instructor sneered. “And in your case, the answer is very, very little.”

-4 health. Damage nullified.

Maya was tempted to throw the sword at him, but knew there was a very high probability that he’d just catch it and throw it back with significantly more impact. She did not attempt any such assault.

Instead, Mayon attempted to block the next swing with the rather predictable result that the instructor simply struck at his shoulder.

-5 health. Damage nullified.

“Ow! How much longer do you need to assess?”

The teacher began circling, and Mayon scrambled to keep him in front. In this case his speed was sufficient. He backed away and turned, keeping his blade up between him and the vampire.

“Were you going to actually teach anything, or just keep attacking me without explanation?”

The vampire didn’t respond at first, instead lunging again and stabbing directly at Mayon’s face. With a yell, Mayon swung wildly and actually managed to smack the blade aside before it could make contact.

“Hey!”

“At least you attempt to protect yourself now.”

Mayon glared, but the instructor didn’t seem to care. “I prefer to avoid close combat whenever possible.”

“Hah. Then you are even more stupid for refusing to prepare for it. Anyone who sees you attacking from a distance will know your strength, and assume your weakness. It is common practice to close in on mages or rangers in order to slay them. Do you want to be easy prey for those you ought to be slaughtering?”

“Of course I don’t want to die, but I don’t see how you smacking me around—”

The instructor took advantage of this distraction to slap Mayon’s sword out of his hand. It spun across the ground, sending up a small cloud of dust.

“—is supposed to help,” Mayon finished bitterly, then leaned over to pick up the sword.

Something struck him from behind and sent him toppling over, landing on the ground and getting a faceful of dirt.

-10 health. Damage nullified.

“Unpreparedness is unacceptable!” the instructor shouted, pressing a foot to Mayon’s back to keep him from standing. “Do you want to be helpless?”

Maya wanted to protest, to insist that Mayon wasn’t helpless, that he could do a lot of things. . . decently at least.

But lying facedown, hands trapped beneath her, no weapon. . . it reminded her of her inability to escape Zarene’s trickster minions. Without her hands free, without magic readily to hand, there weren’t a lot of options.

“The idea is to not end up in situations like this,” Mayon said. With a concentrated application of effort, he rolled over and grabbed the instructor’s leg. The idea was to twist him off balance and knock him over, but instead the vampire crouched, putting all his weight onto Mayon’s shoulder, and smashed his other knee into Mayon’s face.

-15 health. Damage nullified.

Even the way pain was muted and distant, Maya felt that lingering for a few seconds.

“OW! What was that?!”

“Has your situation improved?”

He sounded so smug, so sure of himself, gloating just becaues he was better at this already and had probably centuries of experience. Maya wanted to smack the confidence right out of him, knock him down for a change, see how he liked it with his face in the dirt.

But how?

Mayon scrambled for the sword, still lying nearby, and snagged its blade. Ignoring the -1 health, damage nullified that popped up in response to grabbing it by the edge, he gripped it tighter and swung the hilt toward the vampire’s head like a club.

Of course, the instructor easily caught the weapon, twisting it free of Mayon’s grip. He stabbed downward, still pinning the sprite beneath him with one foot and one knee, and there was nowhere Mayon could move to evade.

-7 health. Damage nullified.

“How’s that ‘avoid unpleasant situations’ plan working out for you?” sneered the teacher.

Maya nearly logged out then and there, but remembered just in time that she hadn’t saved once since beginning. She’d put enough effort into Mayon by now that she didn’t want to lose his progress.

But keeping her temper with this guy was so hard. It’s like he was trying to infuriate her, trying to scare her off with every part of his affect and mannerisms.

Mayon stopped struggling as a thought struck her. That was it, wasn’t it? This wasn’t about teaching, it was a test. A challenge. To see if she’d give up.

And last time, she had. Proving herself unworthy.

Not this time.

Strength wasn’t actual strength. Players could carry the same weight regardless of their str stat. So, logically, any two people in a strictly physical conflict should be evenly matched. The instructor may be technically more skilled, better at positioning himself and utilizing his weight against her, but Mayon wasn’t weak.

Mayon lay on his back, the teacher on his chest, holding him down and keeping his right arm immobile.

But not his legs.

Maya had never done anything like this, but at this point anything was worth trying.

Mayon twisted, then doubled up and lunged, launching himself into a backward somersault. The teacher, leaning forward against his chest and face, wasn’t in a position to react to the sudden movement, and stumbled forward.

He recovered at once, naturally, twisting as the momentum threw him forward, and landed on both feet and with weapons held ready in both hands as he faced Mayon, but something in his glare had lessened in sharpness.

“Hm. I’d begun to think you were incapable of progress.”

Mayon scrambled to his feet. The teacher flung his sword at him, and Mayon reacted at once, leaning to the side and snatching it out of the air. He missed the hilt and caught it by the blade, but that didn’t seem like so much of a problem any more.

-2 health. Damage nullified.

“So you can be taught. Let’s begin.”

“Begin? Then what was all that?”

“Assessment. Tell me, which is more important in a fight? Attack, or defence?”

“Attack. The sooner you take them down, the sooner they won’t be attacking you.”

“Wrong. They are both precisely equal. Because if you both go at each other heedless of defence, then the more skilled fighter has an equal chance as the untrained buffoon who has only ever flailed about at ‘training dummies’ whose intellect mirror his own. If you focus solely on defence, then you will never win. Both must be kept fully in mind at all times.”

“But the best defence is a good offense.” She’d definitely heard that more than once.

“The best defence is to never allow an enemy to strike you in the first place. But an ideal defence does not exist. When you fight, you will be hit, and you will attack in turn. There is no way to block or evade every attack every time. Defence must be a priority, but not your only priority. Offense must be a priority, but not the only priority. Do you understand?”

“I suppose. So what will you teach me first?”

The vampire grinned, eyes glinting with red light, but he didn’t verbally reply. Instead, he lunged with his blade leading. Mayon sidestepped and brought his own blade up to block, but stumbled over a sudden obstacle. Before he could regain his balance, the teacher had jumped forward and knocked him to the ground.

Mayon groaned. “This again?”

“An immobilized enemy is a defeated enemy. If you cannot prevent yourself from being eliminated so easily, you will never win.”

They spent the next several hours with Mayon on the ground in various unpleasant configurations, trying to figure out some way to flip over, knock the teacher off balance, get a hit in and twist away, or otherwise free himself.

It felt like a stupid way to begin swordfighting training, but any attempts to move on to actual swordfighting only resulted in being stabbed before being knocked down, instead of simply being knocked down.

After about a dozen repetitions of the same theme, Maya couldn’t take it any longer.

Mayon promised he'd return later, then headed to the central plaza.

“Save game Mayon 1 tutorial.”

Save Mayon 1 tutorial created.

That taken care of, Mayon headed back to the magic area to continue the attempts at modifying Wind Whisper.

Unfortunately, this proved just as hopeless as the previous day’s attempts. Whatever instinctive understanding had allowed Maya to create the fire and frost spell variations in the first place, she had no access to even ability-casting them now. Attempting to reinvent them from memory ended up being nearly as frustrating as being repeatedly pinned to the ground and told to figure out how to escape - though significantly less painful.

The avatar of magic flatly refused to offer any more magic to test with no matter what Mayon said, so any higher power spells were off the table. And there wasn't much modification to be done with Spark. If he couldn't even reproduce the custom spells Maya had already discovered, then trying to turn Spark into anything different would be even more futile to attempt.

Frustration mounted upon frustration until she wanted to scream, and she decided the best answer was to find something to stab. Luckily, she didn’t have to entirely rely on the combat instructor for that.

She returned to her favourite place, the ranged training area, and spent a satisfying several days firing missiles into targets and hitting more often than she missed.

Then she visited the nature room, hoping to convince the sprite to grant Mayon the Path of Life specialization. But in that, too, she was doomed to disappointment. She did find the area pleasantly relaxing, and spent a while just resting and thinking about nothing in particular.

Once she’d relaxed enough that she thought she could handle another session with the vampire swordfighter of doom, she reluctantly headed back.

It couldn’t be as bad as she was remembering, right?

This time was worse. This time, the two human assistants stepped forward as Mayon entered. And the instructor set both on him at once.

Mayon had to try to escape from not a single person holding him down, but two.

This could have been intolerable, but for one small improvement. This time, between each attempt, the instructor had them hold him down, and Maya was able to observe the tricks he used to slip free.

It was still hard to implement them. And it didn’t help that he spent the entire time standing with arms crossed, observing with an impassive scowl as though expecting nothing but endless disappointment.

The day ended up being even more frustrating than the previous one. Thankfully, between magic practice, ranged practice, and just relaxing in the nature sprite's room, there were enough options within the tutorial area to recover between practice sessions.

This went on for several cycles, until gradually Mayon began to automatically see and think in evasions. How to twist his body free of any hold or attack, where to strike to provide an opening, and how to avoid being knocked down and pinned in the first place.

Then the instructor added swords into the mix, and an already painful training regimen became even more so.

If not for the game dampening everything to an extremely bearable degree, Maya would never have made it through. But this was a game, and even the most intense combat training still fell within possible but very challenging, and maybe a bit fun if you were the right sort of person, rather than just outright torture.

(Which would be sickeningly easy, here particularly, if not for the generally lessened physical sensations. With the damage nullified thing happening, Mayon’s health never decreased even though the attacks landed. There would be no escape through respawning. But, thankfully, it wasn’t that sort of world. 9352 may have exploits like ‘drown prisoners in magic so they can’t possibly escape’, but it was obvious the developers had put a lot of effort into keeping things relatively sane even at extremes.)

Eventually, Mayon could actually block an incoming attack, strike back, and be ready to dodge or block again at a moment’s notice. He’d accumulated a wide variety of abilities, everything from throwing multiple knives at once and firing arrows in a rapid flurry, to specific lunges, slashes, strikes, and blocks with a sword.

Magic, frustratingly, remained his one failing. Despite spending time attempting to modify Wind Whisper after every combat training session, he proved incapable of duplicating Maya’s custom spells.

“I’ve seen worse,” the vampire grudgingly admitted, after Mayon survived three whole minutes without being disarmed, tripped up, or pinned despite both human fighters attempting to corner him. “You’ll never be a fighter, but at least now you won’t be so much of a liability.”

“Thanks. Does that mean we’re done here?”

The vampire grinned. “Do you want to be done here?”

“Very much so.”

“Then you have my permission to depart. Keep the sword. You’ll need it.”

Character sheet Mayon Windheart Average Male Sprite Level: 9 Affinities: Absorptive Mental Tier: 1 Class: None Total Base Equipment Modifiers Strength: 7 8 0 -1 Momentum: 40 42 0 -2 Agility: 8 8 0 0 Control: 11 8 0 3 Attunement: 11 8 0 3 Focus: 10 8 0 2 Intelligence: 8 8 0 0 Flexibility: 12 8 0 4 Unassigned: 0 Health: 80 of 80 Will: 20 of 20 Stamina: 136 of 136 Energy: 81 of 81 Speed: 240% Switch penalty: -49%, 9.9 secs Stealth: 90% Chain bonus: +13% Awareness: 69% Cooldown: 94% Max abilities: 2 Item Name Slot Str Mom Agi Con Att Foc Int Flx Newcomer Tunic Body Newcomer Leggings Legs Basic Shortsword (2 dmg) Held 1