[Antinous Training Grounds] Heavy Duty

by **Cantillion** on October 17th, 2014, 4:39 am

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30th of Fall, 514 AV

"Step lively, Squire."

"Yes...Sera..." Cantillion wheezed, catching his breath. He had never worn full plate armor before. The armor didn't fit him quite right, but that was to be expected from a training suit. Dra-Nelsa assured him that protection was not the lesson he was learning today, and so it wasn't important that it all fit together perfectly. What was important was that he was basically covered in steel from head to toe.

She had taken him to the Antinous Training Grounds today, fulfilling yesterday's promise of a varied training regimen. The weather was still pleasant, the occasional chilly breeze blowing past. Not that he could really feel it, in this suit of armor. Seasons were changing, in more ways than one. Despite the fact that his Voiding training had caused both him and his patron to miss out entirely on the Harvest Festival, neither of them seemed too disappointed. If anything, Dra-Nelsa was more pleasant than before, if only by a few degrees, now that he had proven himself capable of learning what she had to teach. And of course, Cantillion was eager to learn. She had even gone so far as allowing him to speak freely with her, to an extent. Of course, when she gave orders, he would still be expected to respond accordingly; when she said 'Squire', he said 'Sera', but she explained to him that unnecessary formalities would just hinder the both of them.

At last, she settled on a more-or-less empty stretch of even-footed land. Even through the thick metal helmet, Cantillion could pick up the sights and sounds of nearby Knights and Squires training in various martial disciplines. "Well, you're still standing," Dra-Nelsa remarked, setting a pouch down on the ground next to her. "Barely." Cantillion nodded, bending forward and bracing his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. She stepped up to him, flipping up the visor to his helmet, and giving him the air he desperately needed.

"It's...heavy!" he managed to get out, before having the visor dropped back over his face.

"I gave you permission to speak freely, with respect," she admonished him. "Complaining about your training, or your orders, is not respectful. Is it, Squire?"

"No, Sera," he cried out quickly, and his visor was open once more.

"Stand up straight," she commanded him, circling around him as he did as he was told. "Have you ever carried something as heavy as that armor before?" Cantillion considered the question, recalling the times he had been used as a pack mule to carry hunting equipment for his old masters' own training.

"On my back, yes," he told her. "But this is my first time wearing armor."

"Believe me, it shows," she scoffed, giving a few light taps to the backs of his knees with her own metal boots. His legs quivered with each impact. "You're doing alright with the heavier pieces, relatively speaking. The breastplate, and the helmet, are thicker than most of the other pieces, for obvious reasons," she explained quickly. The fact that she didn't wear either pieces of armor showed her stance on such equipment. "Even though the armor on the legs isn't as thick, we don't carry our things with our legs," she continued, walking back over to the pouch she had set down just earlier. "You'll have to get used to moving around in full plate." Dra-Nelsa crossed her arms and stared him down. "Step lively, Squire."

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by **Cantillion** on October 17th, 2014, 6:32 am

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He trudged around in a wide circle around Dra-Nelsa like a man possessed. Cantillion had at least had the good sense not to try and jog in full plate armor; her command was to "step lively". I'm certainly stepping, he thought through ragged breaths. Whenever his already-slow pace began to drop even slower, his patron would order him to sit down and rest. Though he only received a few chimes to do so, it felt like entire lifetimes were going by as he relieved his legs of their burden. After the sixth rest order he received, he began to realize that it wasn't so much a reprieve as a punishment. Each time he sat down, he would inevitably have to get back up again. This too, no doubt, was a part of his conditioning. An extra incentive for him to keep a steady pace.

"Sit down," she ordered him. Cantillion relented, sitting down once more. "Your tenacity is noted," she remarked. In his short time as Dra-Nelsa's Squire, he had begun to notice the subtle difference between a compliment and an observation: the difference being that Dra-Nelsa didn't give out compliments. "But by now, the question must be burning a hole in your head," she continued. "Which is, 'when does this training end?' Can you guess the answer, Squire?"

"When you say it ends, Sera," he answered with the first thing that came to mind. Dra-Nelsa smirked at his quick response.

"You're not wrong," she admitted. "But the training ends when you can prove to me that it's not necessary anymore. No need to wear such heavy armor if it's never going to get hit." The pouch that she had held in silence as he walked around in circles was finally opened, revealing a number of small metal spheres. She held a few in between her fingers for him to see; Cantillion knew that her weapon of choice was the sling, though he had yet to see her put it to use. "Stand up," she commanded, and Cantillion slowly rose back to his feet again. "If you can avoid a single bullet," she offered. "Just one bullet, then you'll be done with that breastplate and helmet." Cantillion furrowed his brow, obscured by his helmet's visor.

"What if you miss, even if I didn't do anything to avoid it?" he asked. Dra-Nelsa didn't bother answering such a pointless question, taking one of her bullets in hand and rolling it between her thumb and index finger eagerly. Cantillion stepped slowly to the left, eyes on his patron; all he would have to do is wait for her to throw the bullet, and then he could step to the right and avoid it.

The bullet bounced off the center of his breastplate with a loud PING!, leaving Cantillion standing still, trying to wrap his head around what just happened. As she took another bullet in her hand, he realized that she hadn't thrown the bullet in the way he had been expecting. Instead of rearing her arm back for power, she had simply flicked the bullet at him; a reasonable method considering she was only trying to hit him, and there was less than twenty feet between them. He quickly began stepping backwards, increasing the distance between them. "Good strategy," she confirmed. "More distance means I'll have to actually throw it at you." He had increased the distance between them by another twenty feet. The sound of some other Knight or Squire letting out some kind of battle cry behind him caused him to instinctively look over his shoulder. The moment his eyes were off Dra-Nelsa, another loud PING! bounced off his armor, instantly drawing his attention back to his patron, who was preparing another bullet. He resumed his first strategy, trying to lure her throw to the left, and then step back to the right.

It didn't take long before her arm began rearing back to the side, just slightly, but it was enough of a lead for Cantillion to recognize that she was about to throw. As her hand whipped back forward, he feinted to the right, only to hear a PING! near his left shoulder. Dra-Nelsa just shook her head in disapproval, taking another bullet from her pouch, still nearly full. "Instead of trying such an obvious feint," she shouted out to him. "Try hunching over, to make yourself a smaller target." As much as he wanted to ignore her taunts, he did as she advised, bending his knees and getting lower. This only served to put more of the armor's weight on his already-sore legs, but if it paid off, then it would be worth it. She had seen through his feint before, so this time, he would play into it. Cantillion would move slowly to the left again, but rather than just step right, he would turn sideways, making himself as small a target as he possibly could. Once more her hand moved back, ready to hurl the bullet. As her hand moved forward, he executed his plan flawlessly. Crouched there, turned sideways, and entirely uncomfortable, another PING! resounded. He stood up straight, meeting his patron's gaze from afar, another bullet already in her hand, ready to be thrown at him.

"Rrrrraaaah!" Cantillion cried out, fighting against his own exhaustion and breaking into what felt like a sprint, but was actually closer to a fast walk. He kept his eyes on Dra-Nelsa, who stayed at the ready as he did his clunky dance back and forth. Eventually, her arm prepared to throw, and as she moved to let loose, Cantillion dove to the side with all his might, landing face-down on the grass. For once, his efforts paid off; he was certain that he avoided the bullet with his wild maneuver. "I, I, I...did it!" he huffed through his visor, only to be startled by another PING! against the side of his helmet. He slowly turned his head sideways to dimly see Dra-Nelsa walking towards him calmly, throwing another PING! bullet against his armor, then PING! another.

"That," PING! "Was," PING! "Foolish." PING! "Running around like a headless animal," PING! "Panicking like a lost child," PING! She stopped in front of him, her Squire breathing heavily on the ground, and dropped the pouch, now only half-full of bullets, in front of his face. "Do you feel accomplished, Squire?" It took him nearly ten seconds to give her the response she was waiting for. Each agonizing second that it took just made the answer sink in even deeper.

"No, Sera."

An armored hand reached down for him to take, and he limply took it with his own, as Dra-Nelsa pulled Cantillion up to his feet, seemingly holding him in place with her own strength. She opened the visor to his helmet, staring into his eyes. While they might normally have been shining green in anxiety, his exhaustion left him with a dull mish-mash of yellow, green, and blue. "I doubt I need to tell you, but you won't be doing that, ever again," she told him to his face. "Second law?"

"Willpower," he answered automatically, and with that, she turned away from him, heading back the way they had come in. To his own surprise, he was still standing on his own legs, somehow.

"Pick up my bullets," Dra-Nelsa commanded him. "You're done with the armor, for today."

"Yes, Sera."

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by **Cantillion** on October 21st, 2014, 8:20 am

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"Thank you for the meal," Cantillion said, taking the bowl of hot stew from Dra-Nelsa: some meat, some vegetables, and a piece of bread floating in the broth, eagerly soaking it up like a sponge. His patron's bowl was filled with what he assumed was a slushier version of his meal, fit for her Symenestran physiology. "And I really am sorry about today's training."

"Stop apologizing for it," she verbally shunted him, exhaling steadily over her lunch in an effort to cool it. "That's what training is for, making mistakes. Just remember to learn from your mistakes, so you don't have to make them more than once."

"Yes, Sera," he answered, digging into his stew with a fork. The two of them sat together in his patron's quarters, a room that was quickly becoming a familiar home to him, silent except for the sounds of eating. The sounds of bustle outside betrayed their true location, but they seemed so far away when he was here.

It was Dra-Nelsa who broke the silence, pausing from her meal long enough to throw a question at her Squire. "So what did you learn?" Cantillion blinked, blue eyes seemingly swimming back and forth as he thought about his error from the training grounds.

"Jumping around in full plate is not a good decision," he remarked. Even now, back in his normal garb, his muscles ached and pulsed in exhaustion. "Every movement counts," he added. His patron nodded, crossing her arms across her chest and a long leg over the other.

"That's the obvious lesson, yes," she agreed. "But not the centerpiece of the lesson. Consider the following: we made a wager, that if you could avoid one of my bullets, your time in full plate armor would be at an end. Correct?" Cantillion nodded. "And in the end, you did manage to avoid one of my bullets. Nevertheless, you'll be back in that armor tomorrow," she promised him, the faintest trace of a smile at the corners of her mouth. "Why is that?"

"Because," he sighed. "I made a fool of myself."

"No," she answered back quickly. "Your punishment for that stunt was being pelted by bullets after you immobilized yourself. The reason you'll continue training in full plate armor is because I had no reason to honor the terms of our arrangement," she explained. "And you had no reason to expect that any leniency that I offered was genuine," she added with a small shrug of her shoulders. After a moment of consideration, Cantillion frowned and nodded. In retrospect, Dra-Nelsa's merciful wager was entirely out of line with how he had been trained thus far. "In a real combat scenario, you will not always have the advantage. Your enemy may come for you after you're already at the brink of exhaustion," she told him, closing her eyes as she talked, as if she was reciting something from memory. "Any resolution offered by your enemy should be considered suspect. Especially if they have no reason to abide by their word."

"I understand, Sera," he told her with another nod.

"You think you do, Squire," she snapped at him. "But it's more than just knowing when your enemy has your throat in their hands," she paused, looking at Cantillion. His eyes widened slightly with a sharp breath, as blue gave way to green. "You're going to learn how to lose, in just about every way that I know how, because once you've wrapped your head around how you lost?" she asked rhetorically, piquing the interest of her Squire. "You'll be clever enough to never lose that way again. That's the idea, anyways," she sighed. "All I can give you is the tools, and the training to use them. How much of that training sticks depends on you."

"If you can teach it, I can learn it," he smiled back. When Dra-Nelsa met his smile with a stoic blink, he added a hasty "Sera," and went back to his food. The look she gave him as she returned to her own meal said "we'll see about that".

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by **Cantillion** on October 21st, 2014, 9:14 am

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"Please, Sera," Cantillion asked of her, careful to restrain his enthusiasm. "We still have most of the day left, it just feels wasteful to not do any more." Dra-Nelsa chuckled briefly.

"Most Squires would be more than happy to have an afternoon free from training," she smiled, sitting behind her table as her Squire pleaded for more to do, practically exhausted from his exercises. "But look at you, you're exhausted from the armor, not to mention your initiation. What else could you possibly do, Squire?"

"I," he hesitated, not wanting to sound more eager than he truly was. "I want to practice Voiding, Sera." Rather than turn him down right away, she appeared to give the idea some thought, and after a few pensive seconds, she relented.

"Alright," she gave in. "There's an important lesson you need to learn about Voiding, the sooner the better." She stood up from her seat and made her way to Cantillion's side. Cantillion couldn't help but grin briefly, raising his arms in front of him, index fingers pointing out. "You'll be relying on the familiar as you practice the manipulation of your Djed, using the memory of your initiation as a catalyst. As you practice, you'll find new sensations to draw on, until eventually, you'll be able to move your Djed as easily as you move your fingers."

"Okay," he responded, taking deep breaths to calm himself. In all honesty, the memory surrounding his first portal to the Void was something he had had trouble getting out of his mind. He had plenty of time to consider what he had done, in his delirious mind's eye, and as he recalled that memory into fresh detail, he was at once deathly afraid and eager for what came next. All he had to do was imagine her, standing there in the room with him, coming towards him with outstretched claws and wings. And then, as she stood there, in her menacing state, he would tear open a hole to a place so cold and so dark that even she would be afraid, as afraid as she made him feel.

It took nearly a full sixty seconds, but the effort paid off in the form of a tiny black hole just a few inches in front of his outstretched fingers. Small, spiraled arms seemed to spin on its edges, as it gasped for as much empty air as it could, pulling at it for all of two seconds, before it collapsed on itself. Cantillion breathed deeply in satisfaction. Though he was tired, he wasn't nearly as worn out as he had been when he made his first portal, and he benefited from sensory awareness this second time. "I could feel it," he told Dra-Nelsa, looking to her for approval. "Like my fingers were moving the Djed in front of them, pushing it away."

"Precisely so," she nodded. "That's all a portal is, turning a place with something into a place with nothing."

"I can do it again," he offered, once again looking to his patron for approval. She seemed reluctant, but nodded, gesturing for him to do it once more. He raised his arms again, fingers extended, as he recalled the memory once more. Mistress was standing there, right there, ready to drag him back down to Xy's depths once more. But he wouldn't go back so easily. He had found a power suited to disposing of her, one that surpassed her talents and strengths in every feasible way. The Void was exactly where she belonged, and he would be the one to push her into it.

Just as before, a portal opened up in front of him. This one was about an inch bigger than the last, and now that it was open, and he was entirely focused on his magic, Cantillion could feel the strain at his fingertips, his Djed struggling to keep the Djed around it from flooding back into the portal's core, like trying to pry apart two pieces of wood that had been nailed together. Though it seemed much longer, he managed to maintain this second portal for just over three seconds, before it too collapsed. His hands fell to his knees as he breathed heavily. "Amazing," he managed to get out, still smiling. The struggle was intense, but the feeling of his Djed buzzing at his fingertips left him with a euphoria that mundane exhaustion would never fulfill. He looked over at Dra-Nelsa, who nodded slowly. "Again?" he asked, ready to try once more.

"No," she refused him quickly. "Touch your face, Squire," she ordered. Cantillion didn't understand at first, but he knew better than to ignore a command, and so he began prodding his face with his hands. As his fingertips reached his lips, they came away sticky, wet, and red. Another touch higher showed him the source: his nose was bleeding. Only now that he realized it did he pick up the scent of blood right under his nose.

"What happened?"

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by **Cantillion** on October 22nd, 2014, 5:51 am

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"This model will be your method for understanding the concept of 'overgiving'," Dra-Nelsa said, gesturing to the glass objects sitting on the table in front of Cantillion. One was a drinking cup, empty and dry, while the other was a pitcher, filled with water. "This cup is yourself," she told him, taking the pitcher up by its handle and pouring water steadily into it, until it was filled up nearly to the brim. "And this water is Djed. When you will your Djed into changing, it ceases to be your Djed, explicitly," she explained, pouring most of the water back into the pitcher. "You get that Djed back by consuming other sources of Djed. Food, water, whichever," she trailed off, filling the cup back up again, about halfway. "But magic isn't the only thing that takes Djed," she went on, picking up the cup in her free hand, and rocking it back and forth slowly. The water sloshed around in front of Cantillion's eyes. He looked up at Dra-Nelsa's face, not entirely sure what he was supposed to be learning from this particular demonstration.

"Physical exertion," she answered the question in his eyes. "When you exert yourself, physically or mentally, your Djed is spent, and lost." She began to rock the glass around faster, the water within it splashing up the sides to the top, trace amounts of water flying out of the cup in the process. "The result is, you become exhausted. You become hungry, thirsty, and tired. Your body's way of telling you that you're running low on Djed. And for the average person, that's where the story ends. But magic puts the control of Djed into the hands of the mage, and as you push yourself further, and further," she paused, pouring more and more of the water back into the pitcher, leaving less than an inch behind in the cup. "Something curious happens. Through willpower, a mage can go beyond the limits of exhaustion, and use up all of the Djed at their disposal." Dra-Nelsa emptied the glass into the pitcher, and held it in front of Cantillion's face. She was clearly waiting for his input.

"What happens next?" he asked, not sure he really wanted to know.

"Even though this particular mage has used up their Djed, transforming it for magic," she went on, holding the empty glass by its base. "Their ability to will their Djed into changing allows them to continue, using..." she trailed, tapping lightly on the side of the glass with a fingernail. "The Djed that defines the mage. Once you begin to transform the Djed that defines yourself, you run the risk of losing yourself, mind, body, and soul." She emphasized her point by squeezing the glass in her hand, fingertips gripping into its sides until a small crack appeared under her thumb.

"Sera," Cantillion spoke up. "What's the worst that can happen, with overgiving?" Though his words might have seemed a statement of arrogance, the tone he used conveyed nothing but fear for his own safety.

"Depends on what you're transforming the Djed into," she shrugged, looking at the glass in her hand and surveying her handiwork. "What you experienced today is what I like to call 'The Warning'. You run out of expendable Djed, and the body compensates with what it can replace. Blood, vessels, skin, things that can heal, with time. But there's a reason I don't call it 'A Warning', or 'The First Warning'; it's the only one you get. Third law, Squire?"

"Some things cannot be undone, Sera," he repeated, the meaning sinking in even deeper than before.

"Sometime during 'The Warning', your frame of mind changes, as well," Dra-Nelsa added. "You might not notice that you're starting to change yourself, and you begin to think you're better than you ever were before, and you won't want to stop transforming your Djed." She set the glass down on the table, near the edge. "My patron called it the 'Sweet Whispers'. Once you reach that point," she hesitated. "By that point, you'll keep going until some part of you just can't keep up anymore. You'll keep changing your Djed, until," she paused again, sweeping her hand quickly down to the glass and knocking it off the table, sending it to the floor, where it shattered. "You break. Or in the case of Voiders like me and you, you completely empty yourself of Djed, turning yourself into a neat little portal."

Cantillion gulped at the thought. He hadn't realized just how dangerous this kind of magic could be for the person making it happen. "I didn't know, Sera," he managed to mumble.

"Imagine that I were to teach you to constantly push yourself to your limits," she carried on, unfazed by his meek attitude. "Imagine if I told you to shrug off exhaustion at every turn. How would you be able to notice 'The Warning' if it looked exactly like your normal state?"

"You," he started, wiping away a little more blood from under his nose. "You wouldn't notice at all." Cantillion realized his error; in his haste to learn more magic from his patron, he had neglected the limits of his body, and his mind. He had spent a good portion of his life being pushed to those limits, and now that it was time to learn something new, he went about it the only way he knew. That would have to stop, or a bloody nose and his Zith pursuers would be the least of his concerns. "When you tell me to stop training, I will, Sera."

"You understand the lesson, then. Good," she nodded, waving her hand towards the door. "The rest of the day is yours, to rest." Cantillion stood up, his eyes falling upon the shattered glass on the floor. "Leave it," she commanded; it would be no trouble for her to dispose of it herself. "Report to the Antinous Training Grounds tomorrow, Squire."

"Yes, Sera," he answered her, as he took his leave.

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by **Archailist** on November 16th, 2014, 5:24 pm

Cantillion :

Notes :

Was I a little too nuts in my grading?
If you've got concerns, just call me.

Solo [Antinous Training Grounds] Heavy Duty