Fourth Cycle of Kalendryas
Eightteenth Candlemark in the Brightening of Solaria
The Winter of Era I of the Celestine Mandate
Thirteenth Era Post Fractum, the Second Era of the Reign of Arabella
Paradigm: The Eclipse of the Sun
A fine, needle like rain was spat from the fluffy white clouds above, perfecting the icy glare the winter sun seemed to give off. Each hit of freezing water could be compared to a single cut from a razor, though the sweet rays of sun seemed to be the most perfect of cures. This brightening was going to be one of aches and pains, exhaustion and satisfaction,
hopefully.
An apparently abandoned peice of training field would be the seculded home of a novice's cycle, as this would hopefully, after many, many brightenings, produce a master of an art. A gloved hand slipped over the top of a mountain like shoulder as leather touched Dwarven Steel, a cheap yank following. Rhargn now stood alone, his flanged mace in hand, not really knowing what to do.
First thing was first, however stupid he felt doing it, he would do what he had heard one was meant to do before exercising and such. He jogged, slowly due to his size, round the patch he was in. Several times he went before grinding to a wheezing halt. After a few minutes regrouping within himself, Rhargn began doing star jumps and shaking his limps about as he wasn't the most aware of exercise, this was clear from his stature. He didn't know why he was doing it, just that people had said one was meant to.
'
Eeeerm, now what?' The ruffian - a - like thought to himself as he gripped the end of the weapon. After a few wild horizontal swings, thoughts began to formulate within Rhargn's mind. It was pretty clear this weapon wasn't going to be the best to use for defense, however, if word of mouth was right and it could break shields and damage armored foe, then offense through strength was clearly the way to go and the size Rhargn was, this seemed pretty well put together.
Several heavy, one handed horizontal swings followed, leaving the mountain man off balance time and again, his feet tightly together.
"Right, this is pretty much a waste of time", Rhargn thought to himself as he couldn't achieve what he wanted to immediately. With this, he pushed his right foot out, bending the knee slightly, ready to walk off, and swung his mace in resignation. Suprisingly, balance was retained much better, and a child like grin of excitement pulled at the hidden lips of Rhargn.
"So, that's how ya' do it aye?"
After luckily finding a stance that kept balance, Rhargn spent several candlemarks upgrading this. He started swinging horizontally with right foot forward, then the left footward. He began switching which shoulder was facing forward too. This was of great benefit, as Rhargn realized that if left foot was forward, along with left shoulder, then the mace would be behind him, allowing for more of a swing to be thrown and more damage to be done. On the flipside of this, if right foot and shoulder were forward, he had a much greater range and speed then the first, but not as much power.
As the Gods began to alter the weather, needle rain began to warp into glue like sleet. The watery, mush replacement for snow was much worst then the rain of before, as this clung to ones skin and hair and froze those parts with vengence. Unfortunately, the happy, go lucky clouds of before had been won over by greed as they morphed into a dark grey, over hanging sea of pain. Still in a rapturous state of curiosity however, Rhargn barely felt or noticed the change and continued his training.
Now, after several candlemarks of repetitive basic footwork techniques, switching feet as fast as the great lumox could, he performed a poor attempt at a back handed attack. This however, slowly began to evolve into useful stances, names and recognition which would be oblivious to Rhargn, as he was learning from pesistence and luck.
It seemed apparent that if right foot and shoulder were forward, that a swipe from left to right could be used with sufficient ferocity. This meant that unlike before, where Rhargn was only attacking from right to left, he could now attack from left to right.
This strenuous exercise was sure taking its toll on the overweight human as he wheezed with great exercusion. The sands of time had drizzled away faster then Rhargn realized and surprisingly, the grey of this brightening was being canvassed by a deep shade of navy, signalling the darkening.
"I'll give it another candlemark or two, then I'm gona' have to get back", Rhargn said out loud, as if he was training with a partner. Next, his free left hand came up to his boulder like head and ran arduously through his knotted hair, brushing those stray wanderers from his face.
Now, with this new back handed technique noticed, Rhargn switched his feet cumbersomely, so that his left foot and shoulder were leading. This was the powerful swing stance he'd worked out, however, it didn't seem as though a well established, horizontal back hand attack could come from this. After several attempts, with not much to show for it, Rhargn accidentally came down diagonally from his left shoulder to his right foot. '
Now this would work', and with this came a whole bunch of ideas that could be utilized in the next brightening. For the next candlemark, Rhargn went about practicing his foot positions and stances, as well as his back hands and this new diagonal back hand he had just thought up.
With the ferociousness of the razor like wind gaining power steadily, the ruffian decided it was time to get back home, to a nice, warm bed. His muscles ached him, and his saturated, grease bed of hair clung to his face, causing the winds to tear aggressively at his skin.'
It's time to get back', with this thought, Rhargn quickly reharnessed his mace and bolted back home
slowly due to his size, having to stop several times on the way to regain energy and composure.
"Tomorrow better be a better chuffin' brightening then this."