Private Tales No Holding Back

[Arlo Talworth]

The library in it's well organised array of knowledge to lend to the knight not of the resident order.

The lessons learned from well placed word from senior and junior alike, in age and in title.

The unlocking of further refinement of the craft of arcane defense.

All of this and more to reach the point the Enshrined Blade, Arlo Talworth, was presently. Studious, courteous, diligent and sharp, Arlo had played to his strengths with this assignment. As was foreseen. Out of all their limited in number Order, Arlo had proven himself to have the most aptitude and vocation for the arcane arts. Had he the liberty of learning indefinitely, what miracles could be gestured into being? But his purpose, both assigned and self determined, was single minded.

Defense. Much had been lost in the art of it in the craft of being champions. Steady numbers of the Enshrined had met their end from all too anachronistic arcane defenses. Such things were loaned attentions by virtue of Arlo's presence. A shimmering brute thing could be wreathed, yet too fragile under the sophistications of the academic world and sorcerous talents the ever encroaching moment revealed in combat. And laid low his number.

Arlo acted with all due diligence and effort to the importance of his task. To bolster and educate his comrades and organisation in their toolset, so that they as a whole might weather the magic-user's whims and pressures on the field. In metted killing arts they had few equals, able to lay low great numbers which shocking efficiency and galvanised purpose. Oath bound, vow sworn, Arlo had committed himself to the act of learning so that he might lend further shield to his fellow knights.

And so it was that he had formed new techniques and bolstered foundational skill using the fusion of the two Orders's wellsprings of talent in the art of magic.

But lessons untested where just theory in the brain. And the knight Arlo had a need within him to fulfil his purpose to contest, to defense, to service to his order. And so, to the training fields he had made with glad heart to enter, plate upon his personage, sword at belt, mystic principle to be measured against a foe. Offense was not the key to this progression, a simple resounding of combat would not suffice.

His exact words.

I require of you the full bore of aggression, so much it would make the lesser a fool to learn his mistake in thought, and the greater proven in their mastery of the wealth of knowledge imparted.

And so, Arlo stood to attention, waiting, his wits replaying the principles so recently pressed into publication in his doctrines, his mind recalling training manuals to be penned and spaken of, not yet worthy by deed to truly bring to form.

Today's the day I face from new found friend
A blow that would best the mightest of men
To shield my comrade is my diligent teaching cause
No glory to be won except to escape Enshrined flaws

Hector

 

[Hector]

Hector tapped with the toes of his boots as he stepped to the field with purpose. A request made, and an opportunity presented. A practice of technique.

He let out a breath and looked to the knight across from him. He was an awfully serious sort, though it was awfully serious business.

A nod, from the half elf with half an ear. Plated and helmed. He raised his sword in salute, blade to his heart. "In Trust and Strength, Sir Arlo," he commenced. Shut the visor of his sallet, and felt the heat of his breath swirl within the steel plate, at the ready.

No magick just yet.

Arlo Talworth

 

[Arlo Talworth]

“Duty bound do we commence our deeds, honour interwoven with diligence to the cause, lay steel upon me to raise the blood to action, and then, well. I trust you will not disappoint.”

Arlo drew blade slowly, the blade wreathed in wrathful blue flame that did curl and coalesce about the crossguard, spitting upwards in consistent heat Arlo's signature spell. His gauntlets seemed to breathe to give this function life. Into guard and approach did Arlo stride, his disposition growing more comfortable for commitment to the fore. Where better to place trust of purpose than in the dedications of melee?

Slow cuts to begin, probing, a rhythm attaining action. Footwork pivoted perfectly on the level ground, armour giving way to precise tight cuts from longsword. Blue flame remaining tight to the blade despite it's angles, exploding into whiteness where blades did touch and reposte. No brutality in his performative motions, technique that seemed chilled to violent tempers. The longsword moved in fluid motion, a whirling thing of blue flame. Through the basic cuts did Arlo perform, the names of the attacks well penned in training manual.

Arlo's body took comfortably the speed of duelling, his mind reserved to be ready for a shattering blast of magic at any point. His goal was to endure, indeed, his task. Advantages not taken were spared their employment for virtue of temperance. This was indeed a duel not a drill, yet the fledgling motions of combat were doled out with equal temperament of force. The sound of clashing steel and sparking flame, the occasion grunt to exaggerate the motion of the blades meeting to provide some safety to his duelling companion. Heat rising from plate that loaned only expedient motion, heat rising from steel to secure all notions of competency in the martial field.

“Ready for your utmost,” Arlo informed, inviting further assault by slicing steel or mystic means.

 

[Hector]

Blade's met with twangs and hisses and spits of sparks as limbs warmed to motion, feet worked across circles long learned by practice and memory. Ground kept. Ground given. Strength tested, and measured as quickness showed true here, and feigned there.

A line of fire drew up from the earth. Through the heel of Hector's lead foot, and up the run of his sword arm as hips twist and turned. The blade's met again. The pop and fizzle of fire bloomed like sparks from raw steel met hammer's blow.

A step back, a cut lopped from tail's rise, and a jab of flame arced up alongside it. Like ball let fly from finger's flick, the spell rolled off the run of longsword, and curled in to crash upon Arlo.

 

[Arlo Talworth]

The appointed time has given rise to the interplay of steel, and now, the long tail cut performed with arcane puncture of flame was delivered.

Arlo felt confident in his response to this, his own longsword wreathed in flame. The aligned magic in element loaned well to reaction, blue flame matching orange hued attack. With tilting blade outsprung, he stabbed at the flame attack. No dome of force raised, for Arlo saw no need to go beyond his reaction, for it was the correct one.

Flame obeys the stronger heat!

Crossguard consuming, blade stab extinguishing, the defence carried, the heat ravenous of its own kind. As the thrust was held, it was pivoted, along with the a side step to make sure the scorching air did not pass across him in full part. The air settled after a moment, and the blue flame was the victor of this meeting.

He span the blade within the hand and seized at it, the blade tip bobbing up and down, not in threat but as if it had replaced the gesture of the head to affirm what had just happened.

"Again, my good man, something more fierce that I might not cut in twain," Arlo said with good cheer. Just as the chain of cuts had been delivered as a warm up, he felt this too was in the same spirit of things. He rotated the blade slowly, the whine of steel warming his heart, the crackle of flames completing as it resumed it's strength through the orbit.

Hector

 

[Hector]

A tip of his own sword, to acknowledge over the hiss and roar of blazing blue flame.

The pulse of his heart quickned. The heat in his arm felt. The swords point flit left, flit right, like wand conducting the streams of magick.

Hector guided the price of will and energies.

Where the sword pointed first, left, a bright sphere of fire did orbit. Where he cut second, came another. Two flames, hung easy about the squire, rippling and shimmering as bright flames do.

His sword looped from left to high with a cut and step forward. The orb to the left willed to launch with the motion of his attack. Off the line, and from a flank.

The one to his right would soon follow behind a second cut, measured wrath from on high.

 

[Arlo Talworth]

Knightly eyes did perceive this increased power. His wits seized upon the moment.

This approaching magic did illicit the desired force required to truly test the foundations of his new found discoveries. Longsword went into the position known as The Crown, where cross guard was above head, tip raised upwards, as shimmering shield like a copper coloured flower petals blooming did will itself into existence about his person from the knight's command.

The bubble shield flared and pulsed as it sensed the direction of the arcane attack and grew stronger in effort. This in of itself was a sophistication of the basic art of the Order's arcane defense, previously wrought to render defence with equal strength across the surface entire, instead of strengthened to the point of impact. The shield whined and shimmered a stronger burnished copper as it coalesced and bristled in welcome of the attack bestowed by Hector.

The spheres of fire a mere half second before colliding about him slowed, as if entering molasses, dragged into slowness by another element of protection that the shield was now capable of. To reduce the velocity of assault. And then with a hiss and explosion did the shield receive the spheres of fire.

Arlo felt the shockwave course through his frame, a copper sheen passing over him as the shield held. This was new. The additional intelligence behind the shield had further cost to it's refinement. An intricate, responsive framework of magic had been gridlocked into existence, and with a shudder of his mana did it relax and dissipate as smoke drifted from where the shield had stood.

Arlo breathed in the burning air and a smile crept into his features at his own success, but his brow was still furrowed in the expectation of further tests.

"Excellent Hector, excellent. Now, to test the ablation of the shield. Again! I cannot let up of this test yet, not without this technique pushed as far as it might! It shall be forged within my Order if I stand true! I do so compel you, friend Hector," Arlo said, seemingly growing all the more amiable and familiar the more adversity was thrown and promised against him, "Again!"

 

[Hector]

A breath out from pursed lips. Hector's limbs had the pleasant ache of work and effort. The test of competition.

He saw the shimmer of the Enshrined's shield. The coppery light of magick, that had caught and slowed the sphere's with ripples of effort before they sputtered and boomed to smoke trails.

"Very well," he said with grin behind his visor. He traced his foot back, stood with shoulder bladed as his sword came to close right, long across his frame.

The runes etched into the fuller lit gold and red, shimmered white to blue. Tongues of flame licked across the edge. To where it's point aimed, a spiral of sparks and a rain of embers. Smoke and ash washed out in a spread of wing. A shape cracked into the air. Beaked and sharp.

A bird of fire, a rook that sizzled and skate, traced by long tails of sparkle and haze. It flew in a long lazy arc, about the duelists who passed in steps. Its wings beat strong as the squire's heart.

"Again," he affirmed, his foot struck out, slid across the earth. A line of magick traced across the grass and through the soil, bright with the feint green glow of new leaves. Welled at one point to Arlo's flank, just outside the sphere of shimmer Hector's eyes had seen. A light sweep of his foot saw pillar of earth crash out toward Arlo. A two cut to the air, right across the steel, left then back to cut.

A sphere of fire once, twice. Small and precise where sword had been made to point.

Like lamp lights, spun tight, the fires arced round and crashed

The bird still sailed above, wings a shimmer with threat.

 

[Arlo Talworth]

Injury to great effect, no doubt healable, yet still ran close to the bold face of Arlo in multitudes of magic. Coursing from Hector came the assault, and framed by his own copperish light did Arlo stand against it, blade aloft, shimmering protection availing. A pillar of earth did set about it's course; a crackle of burnished intelligence as the shield did thrust out to greet it with halting field. Arresting in time and space that assaulting soil.

Arlo's eyes darted towards the rook, furrowed and intense with concentration beyond the theory and into the realm of practice, which in flight presented the test. He felt his pulse quicken, his heartbeat growing more insistent in torrent of life for such was the compunction of mystic forces rendered viable through his diligence. A multitude of threats, to be made dim in ferocity by virtue of his discoveries. His face illuminated, his steel ashimmered by that bird that threatened much, yet was not quite apparent in it's harmful nature.

Crackling, spiralling in fiery force, the arcing of projectiles did collide at vulnerable angles. Arlo gasped, his eyes so taken with that rook that the wit of his defense was lacking. Rudiments of protection traced in the air, sigils writ with scribed word of his dedications that flashed, reminding the knight of his true and better nature. Were the threat of injury should such things collapse not looming as powerful as his own conscience, his sense of intelligence would have regarded such discoveries with cool temper.

But in such efforts of breaching did Arlo's resolve come full bear true. A downward stab of the longsword into that soil, tip sinking into earth, magic redoubling it's will to manifest by virtue of such maneuverer. Copper shifted to quicksilver glimmer as the second class citizen of his conjuration techniques made passage through his frame. A gasp as the might of mystics did demand it's toll. Heartbeat slowed as time itself seemed to drag it's long claws upon his senses, blurring the line between here, then and now.

The shield, a blend of copper fading pulses and twirling silver light, did crackle and crack upon the air like ice cracking underfoot. Another flash of ancient script, intermingled with symbols learned from those Anathaeum.

"Do as you must!" Arlo resolved, inviting further calamity from Hector, his eyes upon the bird aloft, his hands shaking as new ground was being firmly tested. Near bested as the silver light did strain and belabour itself to unravel the flames of it's construction, and fade it into the realm of possibility, instead of the pressing pressure of actuality. A double layered thing, this defense of Arlo's, the copper to rebuff, make sluggish and less impressive a force against him, the silver a unravelling of the weave. All too slow did it unwind the coils of magic, yet strive on did this knight of multilayered oath and single minded ambition, inviting yet further complications to the protection he so wreathed about himself as present minded contingencies sparked from concept into practice.

Hector