Instead of joining the others for their morning break Sam made his way over to the classroom where their Culture and Etiquette class was to being held. He wanted to speak with the professor to see if he could get permission to read some of the more advanced books. He had nearly finished the ones he had picked up from the library and wanted to return a couple of them and pick up a few more but to do that he would need to get permission to read the more advanced books from the professor.
When he arrived at the classroom, he peeked his head through the door but saw no one in there. Just as he was about to give up and head over to the dining hall he heard someone clear their throats from right behind him “ahem”. Sam turned around and saw who he assumed was the professor. “Good morning, and who might you be” the woman asked him. “My name’s Samuel Holdridge, I’ve got the Culture and Etiquette class shortly but wanted to speak with the professor for the class beforehand” he said slightly nervous after the stern tone the woman had used to ask him. “Well then you’re in luck as I am your Culture and Etiquette professor, Penelope Loupis at your service” she said with a short bow.
Sam returned the bow and moved out of the way of the door to allow the professor to walk into the classroom. The professor walked into the room before pausing and looking back at him as he waited by the door “Well, what are you standing around for. Come on in” she said as she continued over to the desk located in the back right corner of the room. Sam quickly followed her into the classroom and sat in the seat across from the desk. “Normally one should ask if they can sit” she said curtly. Sam immediately shot back up off the chair standing up stick straight “Um, sorry can I please sit?” he asked her. “Go ahead” she said clearly irritated. Sam hesitantly sat back down in the chair and watched as she looked through some of the papers she had brought into the classroom with her. This isn’t going well Sam thought, I’m asking for access to higher level books but have already upset her. Maybe I can do something to make myself look like less of an idiot he though before his internal monologue was interrupted by the professor speaking to him again.
“So, what was it that you wanted to ask me?” she questioned. “I read ahead on the history text book before the start of school… well actually I finished reading it and when I went to the library to ask for more books on some of the topics that had caught my interest they told me that most of them were for second years only and that I would need permission from my professor to gain access them” Sam explained as politely as possible. He watched as the professor looked at him with a raised eyebrow and appeared to be contemplating something.
“I see, so you like history. And what topic was it that you were looking into?” the professor finally asked after a brief pause in the conversation. “The Founding of the Kingdom of Keivania and the Fall of the Jardish Empire” Sam said. “That makes sense. Most of the books on the fall of the Jardish Empire are restricted to third year plus and most of the books on the founding of Keivania are second year and above” the professor explained. Sam watched as she pulled a form out from one of the draws on her desk and began filling it out. Sam watched as she signed the form and handed it over to him. “This is an advanced reading form specifically for situations where students have advanced in topics beyond what the class will be taught for the year. There are many other topics you may also want to expand on with some further study during this class. If you appear to be well beyond the others during the history portions of the class I will get you to work on something else but for the meantime you can have access to ‘The ultimate guide to the Jardish Rebellions’ which is a third year book as well as ‘The founding of Keivania a chronological guide’ which is one of the first topics covered during the second year. Once you have read those ones I will give you access to some more so long as you maintain a high standard within my class. That includes the etiquette portion which you clearly are quite lacking in” the professor said bluntly. “Sorry, I’ve never had any proper tutelage in etiquette” Sam explained. “Yes, I can tell” the professor quipped.
Sam was dismissed shortly after and was told to find a seat among those in the gallery and wait for class to properly start. It wasn’t long before students began filing into the classroom and he was reunited with his friends. Sam didn’t know what to expect from this class but was looking forward to the history portion even if he was already familiar with the subjects they would be covering.
“That was awful” Sam grumbled as he trudged out of the classroom. “That’s etiquette for you; you’re expected to always be perfect and if you’re not… expect your hands or butt to be sore” Alice said with a shrug. “I feel like they should at least go a little bit easier on me since I’ve not been raised with it like everyone else here has” Sam complained. “Hey, I wasn’t raised in it either” Bryce said with a smirk. “I bet you’ve at least had some lessons though” Sam objected. “I don’t know what you’re talking about” Bryce said trying to hold back a smile. “I just hope advanced combat isn’t quite as strict as this is as I’m not sure I will make it to the end of the day at the rate we’re going” Sam groaned as they descended the stairs.
“Well, this is where we split up” Alice said as they reached the front of the academic building. “What about you Bryce?” Albert asked. “I’m going to the library to do some extra study. While dancing could be useful as a merchant having to attend functions, I made the executive decision that I would be okay not being able to do so” he said. “I understand you completely Bryce, well then see you all at lunch” Sam said as he gave them a short wave.
Albert and Sam made their way over to the combat arena which was the designated location for Advanced Combat class. Sam had been a little bit worried about it as he was limited in what he could do in terms of combat skills and wasn’t whether he would be negatively affected by it. When they arrived, they were greeted by two men one looked to be an older gentleman while the other looked to be what a common ranker would call middle aged. “Good afternoon, can we please have your names and what combat skills you have” the older looking man asked them as they approached the front entrance. “My name is Albert Sallimar and this is Samuel Holdridge” Albert answered. “My name is Adam Freed and this Gaius Jasmon. We will be assisting the professor in your instruction this year. Now what are your combat skills?”.
Sam waited as Albert listed off an endless list of combat skills before the attention of the instructor turned back to him. “And yours?” Adam asked. “Basic Archery and Mounted Archery” Sam replied. “Is that it?” Gaius asked. Sam shrunk back a bit at the question. He was a farmer just a little over a month ago he didn’t have anything to be ashamed of he reassured himself as he answered. “Yes… that’s it” he replied. “Alright, head into the locker room and put away your bag and change into something you can move in and then head out to the main arena floor and wait for further instructions” Adam said. “Yes sir” Sam and Albert said simultaneously giving a quick bow of their heads before heading into the arena.
Albert and Sam entered the arena grounds and saw two others who had arrived before them one of them being Lillie Coldstone. “Good afternoon, Lillie, I see you’re also taking Advanced Combat” Sam greeted her. “Yeah, I don’t see much point in taking weapons combat but not advanced combat as well. Not to mention dancing isn’t really my family’s thing” she explained.
After a few more minutes the rest of the class had arrived, and the instructors took their places in front of them to begin the class. Sam was half expecting professor Jirkemf to be taking the class but instead it was someone else. “Good afternoon and welcome to the first year advanced weapons combat class. My name is Professor Nicholas Goldblade and yes, I know a swordsman with blade in his last name is very funny” he said immediate addressing the amused faces of some of the students. “Now I know that most of you have few combat skills and therefore we will be limited in what we can run through as a class. Nearly everyone from this class is also in weapons combat so we will be working alongside Professor Jirkemf for the first few lessons until you gain the basic combat skills required. That being the case we will be splitting you all up. Samuel, August and Lillie, you three are all without a sword skill so you will stay here with me, and we will be practicing sword combat. The rest of you will split between Gaius and Adam to work on other skills.” Professor Goldblade instructed.
The other two instructors stepped up alongside the professor “Samuel, August and Lillie please follow me to the other side of the arena” the professor said as he stepped back and motioned for them to follow him. Following the command Sam stepped forward and past the other two instructors as they began their explanations to the rest of the students while Sam, Lillie and August followed after the professor stopping shortly before some wooden dummies and a rack of practice swords.
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“Alright, we’re going to start off with the basics. I know you didn’t get much practice in with Professor Jirkemf but you also have practice after your second break as well so this is going to be almost a double length lesson and if you want to you can continue practicing during the break as I’m happy to hang around supervising until professor Jirkemf takes over if you want to get in some extra practice” he said. That was certainly useful and while he would be tired later Sam thought that he might just take him up on that offer. The faster he can get the skills the sooner he can begin leveling the skill up ready for when they are diving into their first dungeon.
“Alright, first we’re going to do a quick warm up to get the muscles loosened and joints moving smoothly. First up, we’re going to so some arms circles like this” the professor said as he demonstrated moving his arms stretched out to the side in small circles. “We’ll do 10 of those clockwise and then 10 more anticlockwise followed by shoulder rolls once again 10 both clockwise and anticlockwise”. Sam and his fellow students followed along watching the examples and beginning their exercises. Sam could tell the impact they were having immediately as his arms loosened up and the rotations became easier.
“Now we’ll do some wrist rotations with the same number of repetitions as before” the professor said as he demonstrated rotating his wrists. Sam expected this to be easy but coordinating both wrists to go in the same direction was surprisingly hard as he kept messing up and rolling them in the opposite direction.
“Now for the final warm up. We’re just going to be doing some simple footwork exercises. To start what I want you to do is stand in front of the dummy and step forward and through the dummy so that your body is just slightly behind the dummy imagining you have just done a strike to the dummy and the sword has passed all the way through. Just like this” the professor said as he demonstrated the action. “I then want you to step back into position in front of the dummy and then do it again on the opposite side. Once you have done ten repetitions on either side I want to you stand in front of the dummy and just bounce on the balls of your feet from the left and to the right like so” he said showing them the smooth movements he wanted them to perform”. “So, it will be one bounce in the centre and the once bounce over to the left. After that you will bounce back to the centre before bouncing out to the right before returning back again to the centre and repeating it over again” the professor explained as he finished demonstrating the exercise. “In martial arts practice they will mostly focus on back-and-forth movements backing you in and out of the fight, but these principles work the same for sword combat and being able to move left and right quickly while being light on your feet is essential” the professor explained as he took a short pause. “Now please begin the exercise” the professor instructed the three students.
Sam and the students began their footwork warm up. It was quite difficult trying to time the bounces left and right, but the forward steps felt quite natural when performing them and he could see how they related to combat and how they worked to position the body when striking. After all it is the same with all fighting, you must use your whole body not just the arms. At least that was what James had told him a couple of months ago when he was teaching him to shoot a bow. It felt like it made sense in this regard Sam thought.
Once they had all finished their warmup the professor picked up one of the wooden practice swords from the rack. “Alright, now that we’re all warmed up let’s begin with some practice strikes. First up will be vertical strikes. The first thing I want you to do is to raise your sword up above your head and bring it down just in front of the training dummy. Use the nose as a guide and go from his head down to the bottom of the torso” the professor said demonstrating the strike. “Raise the blade back up and then take a half step forward and bring the blade down again onto the dummies head. You will feel the force reverberate back through your arms and it will leave you sore by the end of it but getting used to it is key as the same thing will happen with a real opponent unless your blade is sharp enough to cut through bone easily. Now once you have done this once through, I want you to step back and repeat it. Once I am satisfied with your progress we’ll move on” the professor instructed.
The three students walked over to the sword rack, and each grabbed a wooden practice sword before positioning themselves in front of the dummies and beginning their vertical cut exercise. Sam realised after his second repetition that the step through warm up and the half step forward for the second strike on the dummy were very similar despite the smaller distance he moved. As he practiced, he began to pick up speed with each repetition. After about five minutes the professor brought the vertical cut practice to a close.
“Well done, all three of you showed significant improvement from your first rep through to your last. Now that we have done vertical cuts we will now move on to diagonal cuts which are the type of cut you’re going to use the most when fighting with a bladed weapon. Now I want you to do the same as before practicing the cut in front of the dummy before stepping forward and actioning one on it. I want you to do four cuts per repetition. The first will be a right shoulder to left hip cut followed by a left shoulder to right hip cut” the professor instructed as he slowly demonstrated the movements. “After that I then want you to cut upwards from left hip to right shoulder and then right hip to left shoulder” he instructed again demonstrating the cuts. “Once I am confident you’ve gotten a handle on this one we’ll move on to the next one” the professor said after completing his demonstration of the moves again at an increased pace.
By the time the professor stopped the diagonal cut practice Sam’s arms were starting to feel heavy. It was less the high to low cuts and more the low to high cuts that were making his arms fatigued. Once class had finished Sam would have to ask to see if he could borrow a practice sword to help build his arm strength, otherwise he would probably need to buy one. He could use his own sword in its sheath, but it was a lot heavier than a practice sword and it would be better to start off a bit lighter. His strength stat should help him out in actual combat but practicing like this showed just how much they relied on their stats and skills Sam thought as the professor began giving his next instructions.
“We will leave horizontal cuts for now and move onto thrusting. The key to performing a solid thrust it to ensure the energy from the thrust is focused down the tip of the blade. This requires you to thrust the sword precisely and with a straight-line extension. Now you can either thrust straight from the hip like this” the professor said as he performed an example thrust towards one of the training dummies. “Or you can thrust using both you’re hips and a step-in like this” he said as he once again demonstrated the action gaining significantly more reach as the tip of his blade pushed the training dummy back. “Using your hips is key to putting power into the thrust. If you thrust in with just your arms you lose considerable strength as well as reach. Now I want you to practice each of the two thrusts 25 times and once completed we will move onto something a bit more involved” the professor instructed them.
Once all three of them had completed the thrust exercise they were given a short break. It was just as well that he did as Sam felt as if his arms were ready to fall off. Holding the sword up in an extended position made his biceps burn. It was a good burn that meant his sword practice was improving his body, but he really needed that rest.
After a five-minute break the professor partnered them up Sam being partnered with the professor when he explained the next move they would be practicing. “Alright now, the next thing we will be practicing is blocking and parrying. We will take it in turns both blocking and parrying. Now, we will use a combination of low-speed strikes, and you will need to block them. After that you will repeat the strikes and instead of just blocking them you will try and parry them like this. Sam, please strike down at me vertically” the professor instructed.
Sam did as he was instructed and struck down vertically at the professor with a controlled strike. The professor raised his blade one handed and blocked the strike. “Again” the professor instructed. Sam repeated the strike and this time when the professor blocked the strike he stepped through pushing Sam off balance and placed the tip of the blade at his throat. The professor removed his blade from Sams throat and stepped back. “One more, this is an alternate blocking option if wearing thick gloves” he said. Sam once again repeated his downwards strike. This time the professor raised his sword up his other hand supporting the blade as the strike came in. Using the supporting hand, he directed the strike down towards the guard as he stepped across swinging the blade in a horizontal back hand blow towards Sam’s side. Off balance with no way to stop it Sam felt a light tap on his lower ribs.
“That was an alternate way of using the blade which is maybe better used against other people rather than monsters. Either way I want you to practice those three block and parry actions alternating after one completes a rotation” the professor instructed.
“That’s the end of class; everyone is free to go. Those of you with Weapons combat after the break feel free to stay and practice further”. Sam decided it was worth missing lunch to do some extra practice. He had a large breakfast and would just have to have a large dinner to make up for the loss he thought as he approached the professor. “I would like to continue with practice, although I could do with a quick breather” Sam said to the professor. “Alright then, take five minutes and then let’s take it back to the start”.
