Chapter 84 – Bringing a knife to a knife fight

By the time she stumbled into the brood chamber that evening, a few hours after she had been expected, everything hurt. Even if her Status didn’t show she was missing any Health, she was sorely tempted to apply some of her currently limited supply of ointment to her feet just to see if it would help.

There were still unasked questions that were expected from her siblings, but after taking one look at her drooping eyelids and wobbling gait, all but the most persistent decided to let her be. Plk on the other hand was not deterred. He still wanted to hear more about his sister’s claimed heroics and honestly, he thought that she might need help getting out of the leather tunic she was wearing.

He wasn’t wrong, without even noticing that he had followed her, Kori simply flopped forward onto her sleeping mat and would have stayed that way until morning if no one intervened.

Plk just shook his head and bent over to help her to sit up. “Come on then, you can’t just sleep like that.” He received a mumbled response, muffled by the fact that she was facedown on the mat, that was mostly unintelligible but could have been either ‘go away’ or ‘oh okay’, he chose to believe it was the latter.

By the time he’d managed to turn her over and coax her into a seated position, with next to zero assistance from Kori, Plk was wishing that he’d brought Losq along to help.

“Alright, we should get you out of that armour.”

Without her muzzle pressed into the floor it was much easier to make out the long drawn out “Fiiinnne”, punctuated by a wide yawn, that he got in response this time.

There was of course a significant problem with the plan of aiding in doffing the armour, made evident after a few ineffectual tugs and a grunt of discomfort when Plk tried to pull it off over her head. He had absolutely no idea how you actually went about taking off the protective garment.

“Uhh… Kori… how do I get this off of you?” Plk sheepishly asked, embarrassed that he needed to ask when he had been trying to help her.

“Huh?” She blinked in response, taking a moment longer than normal to process what was going on, “Buckles…” She fumbled at her sides, trying to pull the straps free.

Plk followed her example and began undoing the buckles that held the jerkin against her scales. First the ones at the sides, then after some more ineffectual tugging and with a bit more instruction from his semi-conscious sibling, a second set at her shoulders that kept the gap between back and front closed. The armour needed to nearly come apart in halves just to let the neck hole fit over a kobolds muzzle and horns.

The pants were much easier, a simple tie above the tail the only bit that needed to be undone. Once she was freed of the leather, Kori sighed in relief and flopped back onto her mat once again. Plk gave up on trying to get her out of her tunic and britches that she had worn underneath and simply helped straighten her out on the pad so that her feet weren’t sticking out awkwardly and bid her goodnight. His questions would have to wait until the next evening.

When morning arrived, Kori had little recollection of the interaction with her brother and was a little confused as to how she’d gotten out of her armour. Especially given the notification she awoke to.

<<Skill Acquired, Basic Leather Armour Mastery, Common, Level 1>>

After all of her blindfolded doffing and donning of the suit, she’d somehow managed to receive the Skill while half asleep and only barely recalling that someone had helped her. If the crick in her neck from sleeping strangely wouldn’t hurt so much, she’d have probably laughed at getting a Skill in such a manner.

When she realized that she heard her siblings up and about in the brood chamber it caused a panic in her. She was with Blonc again today, they’d given him the first day for her ‘physical training’, which had almost entirely consisted of running while carrying loads of sand with a bit of tactics whenever she could barely take another step, then back to running as soon as she was able to. To Kori, the worst part of it all, was that it was too effective to really complain about.

She looked back over her Ability Score gains from the prior day and she could barely remember having gained quite so many improvements in such a short time ever before. Well, except that time she poisoned herself.

<<Ability Score improved. Might increased 30 -> 33>>
<<Ability Score improved. Endurance increased 29 -> 35>>
<<Ability Score improved. Vitality increased 24 -> 26>>

The worse the day got, the faster the improvements had seemed to flow. The gains in Endurance had been especially frequent in the final hours of her day when just putting one foot in front of the other had consumed the entirety of her focus. She was a little surprised that after all of that moving around, she hadn’t seen any growth in Agility, but she supposed that simply running in circles probably wasn’t enough for that.

Putting her armour back on over her rumpled clothing was definitely easier this morning. She even remembered to keep the buckles properly aligned after Blonc had admonished her for it the day before.

Once she was properly attired, she practically ran out of her den and the brood chamber, scooping up a fish on her way out, and yelling a quick ‘thanks for the help last night’ towards Losq, having assumed he was the one that had assisted with her armour. She didn’t look back long enough to see the confusion on his face to realize that she was mistaken.

Her feet and legs were still sore from the prior days exercise, but she couldn’t pay that too much mind right now, she was far too focused on eating, and not choking, while she ran towards the training yard and hoped she wasn’t late enough to incur Blonc’s wrath for a second day in a row.

Arriving at the training yard, Kori was perplexed by what she saw at first. And a bit dismayed. She was definitely late, though not as late as the day before. She knew this because she entered to see the entirety of the warriors, apprentice and veterans alike, jogging around the outskirts of the grounds. They were doing a full loop of the massive cavern, even passing through what was typically considered the ‘Mage’s side’.

It seemed there was some form of hierarchy at play that she wasn’t certain about, those running closest to the wall were all veterans and the further away from the wall the younger the kobold. Though age didn’t seem to be the deciding factor. The speed also decreased outward in, making Kori think that it was more likely a matter of ability, or perhaps Ability, that determined one’s place.

While she pondered the logistics, the runners passing her by noticed her presence. Some waved beckoningly to join in, others hollered, mockingly informing her that she was late, and a few shouted conspiratorially telling her to join quickly before he noticed. She didn’t have to think very long to understand who they meant.

Kori knew that he had probably already noticed. She wasn’t exactly an apprentice to be lost in the crowd, afterall. But on the off chance that he hadn’t, or at least in the hope that joining in before being explicitly told to would lessen any punishment for being late, she waited for a gap in the quicker runners and darted through to the slow side.

She was surprised to see that there were also a sizable group of what she assumed to be veterans on this side as well. These ones differed from the rest of the runners in that for the most part they were traveling even slower than Kori would. They were also creating a cacophony of clanging and jingling metal as they tromped forward. She had seen plate armour before, first when Blonc arrived at the trapper’s workshop during the flame flask incident and then several times in Whatzakt, but she’d never seen someone running while wearing the stuff. It did not look comfortable.

The group she ended up falling in line with was mostly the newer apprentices, many of whom pestered the ‘new girl’ with questions; clearly assuming them to be of the same age. She tried not to let it bother her. It didn’t work, but at least she tried. By the time they finished she had found out that she had been late by about half an hour. They were supposed to arrive, do some stretches and warm ups that she didn’t know anything about but were apparently really good for not ending up feeling like someone beat your joints with a stick when you were done running, and then do laps for half an hour. She had arrived just a few minutes after they began running. Also, participating in the stretches was supposedly optional, but the other apprentices called her dumb for skipping them.

By the end of the half hour, most of the apprentices had lapped her at least once. But at least she stayed ahead of the slowly moving wall of metal made up of the armoured brigade. She also spotted a few armoured figures moving faster within the outer ring. Including one that she had watch move across the entire field, adapting their speed to whichever group they happened to be alongside while they chatted for a minute or two. The figure stood out from the crowd, their armour shinier, their gait smoother, and even the noise of their passing lesser. She assumed that was likely Blonc and her assumption was proven correct when the figure raised a hand and called a halt after the group had finished their prescribed time.

“We’re done!” He bellowed, the steps of those surrounding him slowed and it passed through the spread-out crowd like a wave, hundreds of kobolds slowing to a walk before turning towards the various training rings or equipment stations and heading to whatever came next for them that day. “Kori, come here.”

When she started moving towards the Elder, she heard whispers from the others wondering why she had been called out, as well as jeers from some of the younger warriors. The one that stood out was ‘never good when he knows your name, Apprentice’, the rest were mostly childish taunts of being in trouble or assuming that she had been late.

As she neared, she heard the words she was afraid he was going to say. “You were late again.” He shook his head. “You didn’t even ask when you were supposed to be here before you left yesterday.” His tone communicated his disappointment better than the words did.

“No… I…” Kori stammered out trying to respond before drooping her head, “You’re right… I should have asked.”

“Good, at least you acknowledge it.” Her hopes began to raise when his tone softened, seemingly on purpose just to crush them when they did. “Now, go grab a backpack and five bags of sand. You owe me another half hour and I intend you to work for it.” She wasn’t sure if his grin was mischievous or just plain malevolent, either way she was appalled.

“Five?!” She shrieked. “But I only did three yesterday…”

“Do you want six instead?” His grin only widening.

She quickly shook her head no.

“Then get moving before I have to tell you again.” He pointed off towards where the supplies were stored, many of the other warriors close to them suddenly feigning interest in whatever else was nearby in an attempt to disguise the fact that they’d been listening to every word, glad that it wasn’t them.

Kori stomped her first few steps away until she heard Blonc clearing his throat behind her, thinking better of it she picked up the pace and tried not to meet the gaze of the many onlookers who’d begun chuckling.

Her half hour of torturous jogging, which even with the increased weight wasn’t enough to garner another increase in any of her Ability Scores, went by at a pace slower than the one she herself managed to keep. By the time Blonc called for her, she had been starting to think, incorrectly, that he’d forgotten about her and left her running for much longer than her assigned time.

When she heard his voice, she’d stopped dead in her tracks and just stopped herself from dropping to the ground, only the knowledge that she was being watched preventing her.

“Good, I’ve got you for one more day this week, if you’re not on time then the weight goes up again.” She could practically hear his grin, even without looking towards the man to confirm its presence. “This is for you, catch.”

She barely reacted, turning just in time for the hunk of wood to descend from above and land directly on her muzzle startling her and before clattering to the ground. Her feet felt like stone blocks as she tried to jump back from the object that had just struck her and before she could identify it, she too had clattered to the ground. It took her several moments rubbing her muzzle where she had been struck to realize that the object he’d just thrown at her was a long wooden practice knife, the blade roughly the length of her forearm with a leather wrapped handle.

Blonc was again shaking his head and trying very hard not to laugh. “Need to work up that Agility… and Perception too…” He walked over and gave her a hand up before continuing. “Now, we’re going to go over the basics of knife fighting, the dos and don’ts and hopefully get your understanding of fighting beyond it’s current ‘the pointy end goes in the bad goblin’ stage.”

He bent down again and retrieved the knife, this time passing it to her handle first instead of tossing it, before drawing his own larger practice knife that had been stuffed in his belt. It was only at that point that she realized that Blonc had changed out of the massive suit of metal armour and was wearing leathers similar to her own.

When he saw her looking at his outfit, Blonc gave her a smile and shrugged, “Plate is not exactly compatible with knife fighting, figured it’d be best if I lead by example.”

He led them off to a smaller training ring that was sheltered between the wall and a pillar, they’d practically run through it earlier but now it was barely visible from the other training areas, though one of the mage’s spell ranges had plain view of them. When they arrived, he pointed to one side, “Stand there and face me.” Then walked a few feet away and turned towards her.

What followed was both lecture and practical lesson, everything from posture and footing, to when to hold the blade forward or reversed, how to use the knife defensively and even suggestions on adding reinforced bracers or a small shield with which to block. The part that came next was what she had assumed her entire time with Blonc would be, her getting her tail kicked sparring with the Elder, who claimed he was going slowly and giving her plenty of openings, while he continuously corrected the things he perceived as wrong.

As tiring as the sparring was, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the running the day before. The constant stop and go while he lectured her on her mistakes, or highlighted her rare improvements, gave her quick breathers and made it all much more bearable.

It wasn’t too long, perhaps shortly after midday, when she received the notification that they had both hopped would come.

<<Skill Acquired, Basic Knife Combat Mastery, Common, Level 1>>

She thought the Skill name was a bit wordy, but also knew that there were several variations, with the cooking version of knife mastery Imelda had suggested called Knifework Mastery and that there were others for multiple other professions. Knives really were a versatile tool, or in this case, weapon.

She was so startled when the notification finally popped up that she ended up stepping straight into what was intended to be a feint and once again ended up on her tail. She was beginning to think that that sort of thing happened a little too often.

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A/N: Putting this at the bottom this time. Chapters this week will be Tuesday and Thursday nights, by which I mean they'll probably be up sometime around 2am my time, so technically Wednesday and Friday.