Chapter 4: From Bad to Not so Bad!
When the sun came up, Corkk was more relaxed than ever. The night had gone off without a hitch, and he had spent the last hour, relaxing in a small lake at the end of the clearing. He had taken this opportunity to use his knife to shave the stubble off his chin, leaving him clean shaven and feeling clean. As he was sitting on the top of the boulders overhang, he waited for Colin to wake up. He heard steps behind him, expecting Colin to be sauntering up to talk to him; he turned around, a goofy grin on his face. He stopped cold.
It was not Colin who was behind him, it was Kasa. Great, he thought, time for another argument about how pigheaded men are, when will this woman leave me alone?
Her words left him more startled than he could have ever expected.
"I need a sparring partner, and Friiy over there has said good things about you." She said, her voice feminine yet firm at the same time.
"You don't want to spar me, you wouldn't have a chance," he muttered, his voice filled with confidence.
"I don't know about that," she replied, a weird gleam in her eyes.
"Whatever," he smirked, "pick your weapon. As for me, I will use my sword, and shield."
"Sounds like a good plan, I think I'll do the same," was her only reply.
They both, whispered an age old charm. This would cause their normally deadly blades to become, in a sense, guarded, meaning that they would not cut or stab.
They took their places; he adopted a defensive stance, intending to figure out just how good this chick really was. With breathtaking speed she lunged forward, in a complex maneuver intending to finish this in one hit. Corkk however had seen, and used this technique before, and knew exactly how to counter it. He stepped to the side, out of the way of her thrust and leaped in closer to her. He aimed a wickedly fast swipe at her head, and was shocked, when she pulled her shield up just in time to block the attack. She thrust her shield foreword, delivering a dizzying blow designed to addle the opponent. Corkk however had a thick skull, and was able to take the hit, countered with his own shield, a hard thrust into her side, which she took, in mid stride.
The duel went on, neither side gaining the upper hand. The others woke up, to find them breathlessly locked together, parrying and stabbing, and supporting each other with their shields.
Finally the others pulled them apart, telling them that they should have never started that fight in the first place, and they were obviously evenly matched.
After a fight like that, both of the combatants where able to forget their perfect records and Corkk couldn't help but become attracted to the young blonde. That was how the first four days went, Corkk and Kasa fighting till near exhaustion, then getting healed by the acolyte, whose name was Claire.
All the while they gathered food, getting ready to move toward the exit of the course, which would take them a week to reach.
During this time each person was assigned a job to do for the party. Friiy with his potent fire spells, was assigned the job of lighting the fires, and also was entrusted with the position of cartographer. The thief, Anya, was placed with Colin, and they were both tasked with collecting food, and scouting the countryside. They would come back chatting merrily about some beast they had killed or narrowly escaped, and it was readily apparent to everyone, except naïve little Corkk, that they thoroughly enjoyed each others company. (Could this be a possible Romance? Maybe!)
Claire was tasked with the job of cooking, after all the others proved that the best thing they could cook was burned ashes, and spent a lot of the day chatting with Friiy about the arcane arts. (Another pairing, Yay, that makes three.)
Meanwhile because of an exact tie, Corkk and Kasa where deemed the leaders. Slowly they grew closer, though they never let anyone else know.
Then one day, while they where hiking, they where ambushed. Apparently, one of the other groups was not as skilled as they and had resorted to ambushing others, as the main source of food.
If it hadn't been for Colin's sharp hearing, the arrows, tipped with a special sleeping potion, would have incapacitated the whole group.
With almost inhuman speed, he snatched four of the arrows out of the air. The last two, bounced harmlessly of the armor of the two swordsmen. As quick as the lightning he summoned, Friiy struck down the three archers. He hit each with a single lightning bolt, not enough to kill the aggressors, but enough to knock them out. Before the rest of the ambushers could move, they where knocked out cold, two of them had taken the butts of spears in the back of the head, leaving them with nothing to expect, but a headache when they woke. The last one was taken out by Anya, who skillfully pegged him in the temple with a large flat rock.
Not able to resist themselves, they tied the would be ambushers up and hung them from a branch of a large tree, so that they where just out of reach of the ground.
Suddenly for seemingly no reason at all, Kasa collapsed! Corkk was there almost before she fell, and managed to prevent her from hitting her head on a nasty rock. Turning her over, he saw that the arrow had not been deflected as easily as they had thought, and had in fact cut her just enough to get the potion into her blood.
With Claire still at camp, there was nothing for the group to do but carry her back, so Corkk picked her up cradling her like one would cradle a baby, and carried her back, unaware of the strange looks, and snickers coming from the other two, who must have thought that it was hilarious that these two, who had fought continuously until two days ago, could even possibly ever be together.
Finally the day came when they had to start to head toward the gate, which Colin and Anya had found and helped Friiy map the for the past 3 days.
With an air of sadness, they left behind the place that they had called home for the past 5 days.
And so, they began their 6 day trek to the gate, while in the distance, the teachers, with the help of potent magic, watched them the whole way.