Cormer Adventurer's Club

Amerbarn Duelling Club

[25-12-2022]

Alex stared down at his fingertips. Blood. The red oozed ever so slightly from underneath his nails. His eyes went slightly wide and he looked to his coach, who gave him a stern look. Davies was his name. Known throughout the university as an exceptional trainer of duellists, every graduate who'd been the least bit involved with the club was able to find a story about him. A squat man, with a hard face and an alarmingly fast walk. Davies came over to him and put his hand on the boys face. Eyes. Nose and ears. "Teeth." the man said. Alex bared his teeth. Davies looked to the ground at Alex's toes and got on his knees, checking the already naked feet. He nodded and looked up at Alex. "How do you feel?"

"I..." his body ached. Not pain, exactly. But there was a stiffness to his limbs he couldn't shake, a cloudiness in his head that was persisting. "Tired." he said. "Not pained."

Davies made a quiet grunt. "In that case. Everything else is fine. It's only your finger nails. At least we know your limits now."

"Does that mean training is over?" Alex's heart sank slightly.

Davies nodded again. "Yes. And for tomorrow. We begin training again after that."

His chest started to feel slightly hollow and Alex walked slowly over to the side of the room, picking up his socks and shoes. "It wasn't that bad."

"Your performance?" Davies asked, narrowing his eyes. "Or the fact that you were in the first stages of greening?"

Alex gritted his teeth slightly. "It was just a few drops of blood. That's nothing."

"Listen here, boy. Greening is a runaway process. It grows. Fast. Don't push yourself unless you want to end up next to the alchemists block."

The field by the alchemists building. A cemetery, filled with the graves of famous alumni. Many of the graves tended stretch back a few hundred years, but of course there were talks that thousands of year old bodies were buried beneath the soil. The fact that you had to gather there in the case of a fire was a bit morbid, not that any of the students minded.

"So I'll said it once more and only once more. No more magic until thursday. None at all. I don't care if your teachers ask for a demonstration, tell them you can't, under my orders. They'll understand, if they've any sense. If they don't... well just tell me which of them don't understand the importance of rest and I'll talk some sense into their thick heads." he took a sip from his water bottle and gestured for Alex to come over to him. Along the sides of the hall were rows of benches, each made from the same varnished wood as the floor. Normally, they'd be pieces of crude art, covered with carvings from students hoping to leave their mark. These, however, were pristine. Davies took a seat on one of them, Alex following suite.

"So." he said. "Aside from the greening... what happened today?"

Alex knew the answer. He knew his coach knew the answer. Why are you asking me this? He responded quite slowly, his words having to be pulled from some deep place. "Things were getting sloppy. I wasn't as sharp. The timings were all good, but the quality wasn't there."

Davies nodded once. "Exactly. You're rushing things and your technique is suffering. The power behind your spells is lacking and if things get too bad you might end up casting the wrong ones."

Alex frowned. Being so sloppy that you cast a completely different spell? His eyes flickered down to his hands. Is that really where I am right now? Davies appeared to see this and Alex heard a sharp intake of breath before "You're not there yet. Not even close. Don't worry about that. Right now all that is happening is the power is lacking. It's not dangerous, like a wrong cast is, but it will cost you points."

"So we'll do more speed training?"

Davies stroked his chin and pondered this for a few seconds. "I think the best course of action is to slow things down."

Wait, what? That's insane. How's that going to help me with my speed? He looked at his coach with a frown.

"If you slow down, we can make your movements more smooth, more precise. Then we can bring things back up to speed. Your use of Malham's Second Ward? Your words were close to bleeding into each other. That's what we have to nip in the bud. Same goes for your sympathy spells. So we'll have to slow things down."

Alex's vision began to blur slightly. He swayed and kept himself steady by placing a hand on the higher benches. Slowing down. What would that mean? Falling behind, inevitably. Falling behind... no. How far away were the tournaments? Months, how many months? Several numbers came to mind, each one looking as likely as the others. Would he be ready by that time? He'd seen some footage of the other duellists. They were powerful, strong. Not as strong as him, but if he slowed down, would that still be the case? He blinked a few times and everything came back into focus. He took in a deep breath. "Slowing down?" he said. "That won't work, I'll lose speed."

"You need to lose some speed so you can perfect your technique, then we'll rack up the speed. You'll be fine for the competitions, don't worry about it." he waved his hand in a dismissive motion. "You'll be fine, now go and change. And remember! No magic until thursday! Got it?"

Alex nodded. "No magic until thursday." He slowly made his way to the changing rooms, pushing the doors open with a slight grimace, the aching in his limbs remaining. He pushed his key into a locker door and withdrew his regular clothing, setting it down onto the benches. He took a seat himself, trying to steady his breathing. He closed his eyes.

The tension in his limbs became liquid, but did not disappear, not even for a minute. It shielded him, keeping all the noise from the outside world at bay. Then, a single word started to pierce through.

"Alex!"

He opened his eyes with a start, but the heaviness in his limbs persisted. In front of him stood Eline. Another member of the duelling club, having joined two years prior. Generally accepted as the captain of the team, she walked with her shoulders back, her head high. She cocked her head at him. "You've been staring at nothing for five minutes. You okay?" She smiled but her brow was furrowed, as if trying to search for something.

What to say? Is there anything to say? Alex opened his mouth for a moment before nodding, still trying to think of some excuse for his behaviour. "I'm fine." he said. "Just tired. That's all. Last practice took more out of me than I thought it would." There, that sounded reasonable, didn't it?

Eline nodded slowly. She turn on her feet and let herself collapse onto the bench, sitting right next to Alex. "Davies pushing you hard on the technique, I'm guessing?" she said. "I remember my first year, he would make me do the same spell over and over until I got it right. For hours. Sometimes it was a struggle staying awake." Her eyes went to her fingers. "It worked, in the end, but it wasn't the best way of doing things, y'know?"

Alex smiled a bit. "He must have softened up then. My technique was sloppy, but... he's telling me to slow down."

She raised an eyebrow. "He's what? He's telling you to slow down?" she let out a chuckle. "Lucky bastard, wish he'd done that for me."

Gritting his teeth, Alex stood up, his hands pressed into the sides of his legs. "It's not going to work." he said. He went to his locker and began pulling out his casual clothes. "Do you know what that is going to do? It's going to put me behind. I'm going to be lacking in the advanced spellwork and my opponents will have at least a level up on me. I need the level five spells to succeed, but all this is going to do is get me strong in level four." he took off his sport shirt, slipping on his polo. "His methods with you worked in the end, didn't you say?" he eyed her and shook his head. "They worked for you, they'll work for me. If it works, it works."

Eline gave him a steeled look, clearly fighting back some urge. "It worked." she said. "But there's no way I'd go through it again. I made that very clear to Davies. So did Jamie, so did Kieran, et cetera. If you continue casting the way you do, you're just going to get more and more sloppy, trust me. It's good Davies is telling you to take a step back."

Alex shut his locker a bit too hard, grimacing.

"At least try it. For a week or something. You'll see it'll work."

Silence.

Eline came over, jabbing him in the small of his back with her fingers. "Hey! Promise me you'll give it a week."