Alas…another chapter!!!!
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Suddenly, Saura was jerked out of her dream by someone roughly shaking her. She opened her eyes and glared at Grayson, who had been the one to wake her up.
"Sorry," he said sheepishly, "But Master Torak said that training starts soon and you'd better be up and in the courtyard asap."
The yellow female lupe groaned and sat up, and Grayson said another 'Sorry' before searching for his own sword. Saura sighed and found her squire's uniform and began to fit it on, only to see once she had turned around, that Grayson swiveled his head to look in front of him, instead of at her as he was just doing. Plus, she could tell that he was blushing. Seconds later, the two walked out into the courtyard, the green one with a distinct red paw outline on his cheek.
They went into one of the three fenced in areas where Master Torak was located.
"Alright," said Torak, "Today we are going to practice the basics of sword use. Any fool can swing a sword, but real knights time out their attacks, and increase the amount of damage upon their enemies. Grayson, go over to that target dummy over there," he pointed to his left, "and Sar, you practice with this one. Now, the move I am going to teach you is the 3-point strike. To perform this, swing your sword once, and look for the telltale shine on the end. Then, strike the other direction, and watch for the next shine, and swing once more in the direction opposite of that, the first way you swung. Soon enough, you'll get used to timing out the strikes that you may not need to watch for the shine. Now get to it!" and he backed away a few steps to give Saura room.
The yellow lupe looked up at the dummy and examined it. It was made of straw tied together and stuck to a wooden pole. She did as Master Torak said, but after so many times of playing the Darkest Faerie game, she did not need to watch for the shine. It was just like using the 3-point on the game, except that she was doing it in real life. Or was it real? Eh, who cared?
Saura had thought that Squire Squiggle would be heavy, but he was light and easy to use. It only took her once to perform the move on the target dummy, and she glanced at Grayson to see him still trying to get it right. 'He can get to the second swing all right,' she remarked mentally, 'But I think he panics at the third and does it either too slowly, resulting in doing a 1-point strike, or he does it too fast, and almost hits himself with it. I would sympathize if it were not for earlier…'
She turned to Master Torak, who nodded, saying, "Good job, Sar. But none of what I teach you is effective without discipline. Go to Mistress Faun, the cleaning woman in the storage room, and help her with whatever she needs you to do. And Grayson…once you've mastered the 3-point strike, you've got Clog Duty."
Taking it that she was dismissed, Saura walked away and back to the castle. Without really thinking about where she was going, she went down to the main entryway, walked down the passage that led to the right from there, and took the left of the two doors at the end of the corridor. She found herself in the dining hall, and knew she was on the right track. Passing the tables and pets scattered everywhere, she traveled down the hall at the corner of the hall, and came to the storage room.
A little creamy green blur shot instantly away from her as she entered it, and smiled at the innocence of the miamice. She approached Faun, a.k.a. Fauna the Pet-pet Handler and asked, "Do you require assistance, ma'am?"
Faun nodded and told her, "Yes, thank you. As you can see, there are miamice running around, and of course being next to the kitchens, the cook doesn't like it. Could you please catch the little dears and put them in that box over there?" the yellow acara gestured to the cage-like box against the wall, "And you have to SNEAK UP ON THEM, or they'll hear you and just run away. And do be careful, the last squire almost squished them!"
Saura nodded and turned away from Faun, looking for a miamouse. She spotted one, and frowned. Was sneaking as instinctive as tumbling after landing from a high jump like at the farm? She bunched herself up, bowing her head below her shoulders and crouching slightly. She lifted her lower arms a little so that they were straight out from her elbows and upper arms, a 90 degree angle.
But it didn't feel right. In fact, she felt just plain retarded. So, she concentrated, and thought about feeling like she was sneaking. Again, she tried to assume the sneaking position, and found that if she didn't concentrate SO much, it came to her naturally. Now she could easily imagine herself looking like Tor.
Saura looked back at the miamouse, whose back was fortunately turned away from her, and she crept up to it. At the last second, she snatched it up, and it started to squirm in her clutches. She walked over to the box and set the startled and shaken pet-pet down in it.
This continued four more times, and Saura finally had all five inside the box. She reported to Faun, who thanked her, saying, "Oh, thank you, my dear! I shall tell Master Torak what a wonderful job you did!" and she spoke to the miamice, saying, "Don't worry, my dears, you'll be back in the courtyard where you belong, safe and sound!"
So Saura exited the storage room and returned to the courtyard.
This time, she found Master Torak and Grayson in a different fenced area that contained three target dummies. Master Torak greeted her with, "Ah, good, you're back. Your friend here finally was able to perform a satisfactory 3-point strike AND finish clog duty before you. You are quite slow, fix that will you?"
'Hey, those miamice are vicious, okay?! YOU go and pick one up and see what happens! The little demons could be meepits in disguise for all we know!' thought Saura, looking at a bite mark on her finger.
"All right!" said Torak, "Now, we will go on with the 360 attack. See the three target dummies in a circle over there?" he pointed to them, "Stand in the middle and spin with your sword outstretched from you, and you will hit all dummies in one swing. Mind you, you WILL be dizzy afterwards, so don't keep on using this move! It is designed for hitting multiple enemies at once, and it can be pretty useful."
Saura approached the target dummies first, stood in the middle of them, and swung out her sword while turning a full circle. "Good!" she heard Master Torak say, "Now Grayson, you do it. Sar, you have clog duty." I didn't think anyone could have put more emphasis on the words 'clog duty', but I wasn't scared. Go into the sewers, slash away a few clogs, avoid a few slorgs and tentacles, and whoop-de-doo, I'm done.' Then, a sudden thought echoed in her mind. 'Sewers…………………….ick.'
So she set off to do what she was told. A few minutes later, she found the dungeon entrance guard, and got permission to enter the dungeons. She descended the steps and blinked a few times. It was dank and the lighting wasn't so good. Nonetheless, she saw the sewer's entrance to her right and walked over to the switch, flipped it, and ventured down into the muck, all the while thinking, 'Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew….'
Down in the sewers, Saura wrinkled her nose, and stood frozen for a second, a completely humorous, grossed out look on her face. It took all her self control to not scream out in horror, "OMIGOSH!!!!"
She lifted one foot out of the greenish water, and one of her eyelids twitched. She put her foot down and finally let out a wail of distraught. But she knew she had to get it done, so she inhaled slowly, and then let it all out, which wasn't easy considering the smell.
She ventured forward, and took the hallway to the right. Starting to run, she raised Squire Squiggle in the air, and clobbered the unsuspecting slorg in the room. She had only gotten one hit in, though, before the slorg lunged at her and bit her, and she noticed that she started to glow red for a second, then turned yellow again.
Saura bared her teeth at it, and swung Squire Squiggle down in an arc, and the slorg exploded into neopoints.
She began to collect the neopoints when a thought entered her mind. 'Am I low on health? Do I need to eat a juppie?' She bit her lip, wondering what to do. The red negg after Shadowglen had just disappeared, so wouldn't the juppies also disappear? But how was she to get one in her paws to eat it?
She held out her paw timidly and waited. "Um, appear juppie!" she said in a commanding voice. Nothing happened. 'Dang it, I really need a juppie right now!' she thought, and all of a sudden, a small red juppie appeared in her paw and she gasped. Okay, now what?
As suddenly as it appeared, it disappeared and Saura realized that she was feeling quite well and full, at least, more than she was a moment ago…
Nodding to herself in satisfaction, the lupe bounded out of that area and went to the left this time, running down the curved tunnel. She came to a clog and performed the 3-point strike on it. With a loud crunching and crashing sound, it disappeared and small bits of debris flew everywhere.
Saura turned and backtracked, knowing that she could not go any farther if she tried, and that meant she had to take the path straight ahead this time. A tentacle suddenly came out of the water, but Saura was ready. She leaped into the air and brought Squire Squiggle down with much force. The tentacle hissed and sank back into the water. Saura stood staring at the place where the tentacle had gone down, mouth slightly agape. Did…that tentacle…just hiss? How in the heck did tentacles hiss?! Not wanting to know actually, she kept running forward.
As she went on completing the quest, Saura remembered how much she had hated it!!! Getting lost, killed, and just plain frustrated. Especially the larger rooms with the pillars in the middle, containing several tentacles and a slorg or two. Finally, she came to the last clog and heaved an overly dramatic sigh of relief. DONE. She was done.
So Saura climbed back up the ladder into the castle, SUPER self conscious of the smell clinging to her, but knew that there was nothing she could do about it. Exiting the castle and in the courtyard, she saw Master Torak on that big wooden platform thing. You know, next to the canopies?
When she had run up the stairs, she heard Torak saying something about motes, then said, "Now, any volunteers?"
"I'll do it, Sir!" yelled Saura, stepping forward.
"Alright then, Sar. Get over here!" said Torak.
Saura approached him, endured more boring and useless, to her at least, explanations of motes. Finally, he ordered her to equip the fire mote to her sword, which she did. She did as he said, and hit the target dummy in front of her, then hit it after holding in the power, and set it on fire. The first thought that entered her mind was, 'Pretty….glowing….oooooooohhh……How much does it hurt to get burned?'
She reached out to poke it, but Master Torak saved her from her stupidity and told her to meet Chamber man Lazlo on the second story in the castle. Reluctantly, Saura walked away from it and headed towards the castle, when suddenly…
"Hey Sar!" came Grayson's voice. Saura whipped around to see him running to her. Once he'd reached her, he asked, "What was it like, using the motes?" She stared for a second as he panted heavily, then asked a question herself.
"And how far did you run again….making yourself all out of breath?
"…"
"You know that you only ran here from the fenced in area over there, right?"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"You're seriously out of shape, dude."
"I know, I'm working on it!" snapped Grayson. Saura glared at him and shrugged, then walked away. 'What is his problem?' she wondered.
She jogged up the stairs to the second story of the castle and arrived to see Lazlo pacing, wringing his paws, and muttering nervously under his breath. Saura approached him slowly, but still surprising him anyway.
"Oh, thank goodness, there you are!" cried Lazlo, quite obviously relieved, "Did you hear that racket in the courtyard? Of course you did, you were just out there," he answered for her before she could say anything, "Well, those crokabeks out there are keeping the king up, and if he doesn't get his nap in, he'll be very cranky. PLEASE go and destroy the crokabek nests and get rid of the crokabeks, or the king will be in a very bad mood!" Saura backed away from the stressed Chamber man and dashed back out to the courtyard. 'Which one do I get rid of first?' she questioned herself mentally. She was able to decide, and ran to the left to the fenced in area where they had practiced the 360 spin attack. Climbing up the ladder, her eye twitched as she was faced with a problem. There sat a crokabek at the top of the ladder, staring her down. Saura gulped and said, "Sup, crocky. Um, listen, can I get up there so I can defeat you and destroy your nest, please?"
"SQUAK!!!" screeched the crokabek and gave her an almighty peck on her head. "Argh!" she cried, letting go of the ladder and tumbling to the ground with a small 'thud'. Opening her eyes, she saw the crokabek diving towards her at an amazing speed. "OMG!!!" she shrieked, jumping up and slashing Squire Squiggle as fast as was possible to her.
Feeling Squire Squiggle hit something, she turned her head back to the crokabek, or at least what should have been a crokabek, but was now a juppie hovering in midair. Saura gaped at it, and reached a finger out to poke it. When she did, it disappeared, and she knew that it had been put into her inventory.
Now that the crokabek was gone, the girl was able to climb up the ladder, onto the canopy, leap onto the large block of stone, scramble up another block of stone, then destroy the nest with a 3-point strike. 'Yayness.' She thought happily.
She jumped down and ran back to the platform thing, bounced across the canopies, onto the roof of the stables, and took out another crokabek and its nest. Saura also jumped off of it, really amused at not dying when she hit the ground. She ran down the courtyard path, and arrived and climbed up the green, leafy vines that grew up the wall in a straight line. She destroyed yet another nest behind the King Skarl statue, along with its maker (the nest, not the statue!). Again, she leaped off the ledge, and landed unscathed.
She did the same with the nests that were on the construction crew's platforms, and on the roof of the stables. After having destroyed all the nests, and killed all the crokabeks, she went back over to the turtum and smiled evilly. Saura smacked the turtum on the shell, and clambered onto its shell….and waited. Suddenly…
BOING!!! Saura was ejected into the air. She repeated this five more times before deciding that she'd better hurry to Lazlo to tell him that she was done. Once again, she had to reluctantly leave something that piqued her interest. But she was still pretty glad that she was done for the day.
She reported to Lazlo, and finally was allowed to return to the Squire Barracks to get some sleep. Settling comfortably in, she smiled as she thought about the adventure she'd be going on the next day.
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Me: I finally finished another chapter! Sorry for the long wait!
Saura: Read and – 'WHAM"
Me: Hey, only I'M supposed to say it. Ahem. Read and Review!
Saura: Ow….