Thwack

Thwack

Teng

Schoot

Bing

Pack

Ching

The blade flew to the side as I brought the hilt of my sword up and over the just parried blade and whacked Brad in the jaw. He stumbled backwards and I tried to follow up but stumbled a bit as my feet were too close. Brad took this chance to get take a chop at my arm. Gaaahahg, as I shouted in pain I dropped my sword but used my other hand for a solid punch into his upper-right chest. He dropped his sword in turn, looks like those old karate lessons and the new self defense lessons came in handy. A follow up round house kick into his chest and me grabbing a dagger reverse-gripped from my belt turned the situation around entirely. Brad took his dagger out in turn, he is moving slowly as that must be some nasty bruises on his body but my sword arm feels on fire. He pushes out and tries to take a thrust but I dodge left and hold up the blade to his neck.

“Alright end, good work you too”

“Brad that hit to the arm was a good idea to deprive him of his weapon but you need to be careful as any well trained warrior will still retaliate. Young master, good counter-attack but you need to work on your footing. You did not take full advantage of your body to put in power to your attacks and you also stumbled.”

“Brad, you can also get some work in on using your body, instead of just dropping his sword you could have gotten your sword stuck in his arm in real battle. Full power hits make you vulnerable to counter attacks as you can see, learn to be able to reposition yourself after attacks”“Yes ma’m” “Yes maam”

As we both replied and grabbed our dropped stuff along with a good bit of wincing, Cade came over to grab the practice weapons.

“You two gotta work on footing, someone experienced would break your stance and proceed to destroy you in a follow up both of you”.

“Don’t get prideful youngling, you are good at outlasting your opponent but sometimes you need to be able to deal a killing blow, just delaying an enemy could be what they want”

“Yee..yes Ma’m”

“Alright you two head over to the healers, Cade help make sure they get there”

“Understood”

A bit of interesting character the healer Relan, he was an old hand at the manor from the same generation as the butler and father. He has been with the family as a young fledgling healer since father’s time. He was at this point a deductor magi with an interest in alchemy and healing, whenever I got banged up more than usual during training I would go to him. Well I say go to him but it was more like he would have Dalen practice his observation and healing/first aid skills on me. That was the first time I have seen magic used so far in this world, though it was not actual healing magic unfortunately. At first it was Dalen just bringing a bucket of water over and using his magic to move the water to wash any bruises or cuts but as time went on he would learn to use heat and cold spells. He was essentially a magic hot/cold pack and a water hose, only recently has he learned to do more actual healing in the form of regeneration. The thing was though it was just speeding up the body’s natural capacity to heal. The previous stuff was to make sure that any injuries were clean and uncontaminated as any fuckups could leave me with splinters stuck deep inside the body, not something anyone wants. The first time he did this successfully Relan was quite ecstatic going on about how Dalen could now call himself a hedge mage but then clamped his hand down on him and said that the hard part was still to come since now he had to master his current spells and then learn more. He then went on about the pride of a magician and how you must be better than that since Relan is the master. During the weeks afterwards I heard whispers from Cade and the other maids about how there would be times where parts of the training grounds had to be rebuilt due to magic practice. They spoke about craters, scorched earth, and blown up dust/dirt clouds being a common occurrence when those two come out. Is Relan not a healer, this sounds like some crazy martial artist teaching a foolish disciple in the secret arts. That or the aftereffects of grenades being tested, well let's pray for Dalen’s soul in the coming years.

Well now that we managed to hobble our ways over to Relan’s quarters in order for Dalen to treat us. After a bit cleaning up we got ourselves a regeneration spell cast and had to sit still while it went to work. My injuries tallied to several minor bruises, multiple minor cuts, and the most severe being a heavily bruised arm. Brad’s wounds were heavy bruising to his torso and various minor cuts along with a bruised jawbone. After the bruises went down aside from some slight discolouration Relan came over. He has a bag in his hand, that face though.... Why do I have a sudden thought about college professors?