The Pinnacle Warrior

“You are a crippled lion unable to bite when you stand like that! Get your bloody hips under your shoulders and your hips over your knees! Center! Center! Center! Center!”

Muti refused to stop calling out instructions to Felix, and that she was able to do so while taking care of the rangers on the back line was impressive. She shredded through the last two, leaving them literally disarmed and crippled on the ground as she shouted commands to Felix. The party had retreated to the third floor, where they fought with even less of a struggle than they did on the fourth, and Muti was putting Felix through his paces. To his credit, the Bodyguard took her strict instructions very well, learning how to step with the weapon, how to ground himself, and how to keep himself mobile while swinging around what was, in essence, a stick with a giant lump of steel at the end of it. 

Astrid ducked her head behind her shield as the brawler turned its attention back to her. They’d found an irregular here, and as it was just a single irregular brawler alongside eight regular gnolls, each delver felt more relaxed than usual. With this context, Astrid had been willing enough to step into position as a frontliner, holding off the enraged strikes of the brawler while Felix was drilled by Muti on how to correctly deal deadly blows with the axe. After three punches, the brawler turned its attention away from her again, and Astrid lunged forward to get back in front of it as it turned its fists towards Felix. Sure, the Bodyguard would be fine dealing with the monster’s attacks, but right now, Muti was giving him an active education in making sure that he wasn’t going to set any bad habits for himself.

With a grunt, Astrid smashed the face of her shield into the brawler’s chest, knocking it back several steps. It snarled as it lunged forward, jaws slathering, while it snapped at her time and time again. The party had already dealt with every other gnoll in the pack, leaving the irregular trapped in the middle of all of the hale and hearty party members. The beast sent several more punches Astrid’s way, and she heard its bones beginning to crack between the fury of its unrelenting hits and the implacable wall that was her shield. It started to lose the last of its insanity as it was stuck continuing to attempt to fight to survive while Astrid held it back like a child.

“Are you gonna finish this thing off? It’s losing all the fight it had, and it’s gonna get harder to deal with the longer this goes on.” Astrid found herself having to put in more energy into her defense as the monster changed its attention from trying to kill to trying to escape.

“If you do not strike it cleanly,“ Muti warned with a finger pointing at Felix as Astrid strafed around the monster. He’d cut relatively deeply into the monster’s flanks by its tail several times, but nothing good enough to satiate Muti’s demands, “then I will strike you. Cleanly. Repeatedly.”

“Skandr, give it a Lightning Bolt too, slow it down enough to make sure that he has a snowball’s chance.” As soon as Astrid asked as much, the Lightningmage sent a series of Lightning Bolts at the monster, each one making it slow further from its frenzied hope to escape. With a scream of effort, Felix raised the axe and smashed its blade down into the base of the gnoll’s spine. The blade cut through scale, sinew, and bone, and the monster fell on unfeeling legs. With just its arms holding it up, the monster whimpered in fear, making Astrid realize just how strange the monsters were. Created as whole creatures, fully grown, but without any instincts except for how to kill humans and survive. Unaware of her thoughts, Felix adjusted his position, raised his axe like a headsman, and chopped down again. The blade cut most of the way through the monster’s neck, and it was dead. The three level 11’s had already left the party, letting the two lower leveled members soak up as much experience as they could manage. 

“Acceptable.“ Muti granted. “You will do it again.”

The Rogue was demanding, but it was obvious how effective her training was. She knew her way around an axe, and Astrid wondered how many axes were used in and among the Hordes. Muti had explained before that there was very little metal to be found in the plains claimed and ruled by the Hordes, so whatever ore was processed was probably made into items that could be as deadly as possible with the least amount of metal they could manage. An axe seemed to be pretty in line with those two requirements, especially given the Barbarians’ propensity to value pure brute strength and violence over everything else. Despite the passing curiosity, Astrid couldn’t bring herself to be so curious about the individuals and lifestyle found within the Barbarians’ civilization, even after all she’s been through with Muti herself.

Felix laughed as he rolled his shoulders and reset his footing to better practice the same hit that he had just made. Muti’s training went through every variation of method to wield the axe. One handed, two handed, from the middle of the haft, from the base of the intended handle, thrown, aggressive, defensive, and more. She went through each possibility, though they lacked the time to get into the weeds of each stance and style. 

The Bodyguard did as he was instructed, never complaining, even though this particular weapon’s size was a little awkward for him, too long to be used as gracefully as a hatchet or handaxe, not as long as a two handed axe would be for most people of his height. Even so, with his attributes and the bonus +3 to Power that the axe gave, Felix was able to control his body with the weapon without too much difficulty. The particular decapitating below he’d executed was with both hands on the haft above his head, leading to a firm chop on the base of an enemy’s neck. It was much like splitting wood, which Astrid’d done hundreds of times, just with a much bloodier result.

He huffed out a breath as he struck down again, the long, curved head of the axe singing through the air. After the first repetition, Felix settled back into the same stance and cut down while engaging his back, hips, arms, and shoulders. Time and time again, he repeated the movements while Muti observed and made minute corrections here and there. The head of the weapon was something like 15 centimeters long at its widest and tapering to a thick knob where it mounted on the haft, and Astrid guessed it weighed about as much as the head of her hammer did, though with the cutting edge, it was a vastly different weapon. Its unadorned head was a dull silver, looking much like brushed steel, and the 80 centimeter haft was made of a solid, light colored wood.

Again, Felix showed his dedication as, after taking a second to reset himself from practicing the killing blow, he then got into the same stance that he’d used when he had made the less satisfactory blows on the monster’s flanks. The precision with which he was trying to swing a heavy, forceful weapon was awkward, given the weight and inertia of the weapon as he used it, but Felix was surprisingly well-suited to the movements. Though Astrid had never used an axe in live combat, she’d practiced with one enough to know that it was a strange combination of bladed instrument and blunt weapon. Felix‘s own fighting style was something of a reflection of that, with his own finesse in dodging paired with how he then resorted to bludgeoning his enemies with his fists. Astrid hadn’t expected the man to take to the weapon as well as he did, but between Muti’s instructions and his own dedication, it didn’t take long for his training to bear fruit, considering it was only his first day with the weapon.

“Onto the next? “Astrid asked as she looked down at the broken body of the gnoll. She quickly cut the ears and fangs free while looking at the rest of her party members.

“Of course! Oh, Duchess above. I’m turning into you! I’m becoming one of you!“ Benedict gasped as he realized he’d been the first to jump so quickly on continuing to fight. Despite his partially genuine disgust and displeasure, he did  hop to getting ready to move. They’d already spent a fair amount of time allowing Muti to drill Felix on how to use the axe while still on the fifth floor, then been unavoidably detained by another pack on the fourth floor, and only then on the third floor gotten into real delving and now had already exterminated three packs.

“Yes. Join us, become one of the battle thirsty, those who manage to get beyond Iron!” Skandr poked a finger roughly into Benedict’s side, but only managed to bend his own finger backward on the cured drake leather cuirass. He grumbled to himself as he looked down at his own brightly colored leather jerkin.

“Yes, we must continue to show this one how to use his weapon in battle!“ Muti pointed with near disgust at Felix, though he scoffed in return.

“I’m brand new to the weapon, and despite having a good instructor, there’s only so much someone can learn in so little time.”

“You speak much and do little. It is better to be the other way.” Muti turned her nose up as she said as much, though her tone was obviously pleased at having been praised as an instructor.

“Then give me an opportunity to do something, teacher“

The two continued to good naturedly argue back and forth at each other, while the other three looked on with a hint of surprise.

“I’ve never seen her quite so playful about something like that.” Skandr pursed his lips as he looked at Astrid for confirmation.

“I have.” Astrid squinted. “But she’s only been that happy when she manages to get the drop on me and punches me in the kidney.”

At that, all three looked at each other for several seconds, before Astrid looked at the other two, then back at her companions, and said, “No way, right?”

“I mean, maybe.” Skandr countered.

“She told me that in a relationship for her people, they literally fight for dominance to see who gets to have a harem. This isn’t the precursor to a fight, is it?” Astrid couldn’t believe it, but before they could think or confer anymore about it, the Barbarian stopped forcing Felix into a battle-ready position out of nowhere and instead perked up and pointed in a direction while looking at the rest of the party.

“A small pack, another irregular as well.”

Any levity melted away at that, and the party moved together to hunt, gain experience, and give Felix an additional opportunity to use his axe.

***

“Are you getting pretty close to that next level?” Astrid asked Benedict as they settled down from watching Felix get dressed down by an incensed Muti. He’d gotten overconfident and stepped forward in an attempt to deal a killing blow before a crippling one, and had managed only to barely scrape the top of the axe’s head across another irregular’s side in the last fight. Of course, he’d been fine and had dodged out of the way of its follow up attack, but having abandoned his previous solid position to attempt to score a quicker killing blow was an obvious fault on his side. In fact, Felix nearly failed to hit his enemy at all, since he’d just thrown himself forward on a whim, and Muti had, as she’d promised, shown him exactly how to cleanly and repeatedly hit something. Different from other times, it was obvious that the Rogue’s instructions weren’t some attempt at proving superiority or usefulness, but instead was genuine disgust at Felix having left behind the fundamentals.

“All right, Muti, that’s enough.” Astrid attempted to calm the Barbarian as she said as much, but to limited effect.

“To learn a weapon is to trust your future to what you learn. The first days are worth more than the next hundred! You cannot do things like this or you will always do them! If pain is the only teacher that is respected, pain shall teach!”

“Muti, you’re being a little crazy.“ Astrid squinted at the taller woman. “It’s true that the mistakes you frequently make at the beginning are the mistakes you’ll always be, but isn’t this just a problem of overconfidence? Overconfidence isn’t the worst thing to deal with. Felix is intelligent and a good fighter so he can be taught, and he isn’t cowering in terror either, which is a common difficulty to overcome. There’s no reason to think that he’s always gonna make this mistake, and I think he’ll do good, don’t you?”

Muti granted, but didn’t disagree. Then, Felix stepped forward with a hand between them.

“She’s right. I’m not used to fighting like this, and making sure that I don’t allow a single bad habit to develop is key. She’s a better, kinder teacher than any of those I had before. Although I would prefer that the explanations of just how I screwed up were shorter moving forward, I don’t have any other complaints.” Felix chuckled as he said as much, trying to keep things calm. Astrid  put her hands up and looked at Muti as she surrendered.

“He’s right. You’re right. I am too used to having years to iron out the failures. My mother drilled me in practice, but I had a decade to learn. You don’t have that, and I should have better appreciated what Muti is doing for you and for us.“

Muti worked her jaw, and then managed to force out, “I will be patient.”

The rest of the party laughed a little at that, seeing that she acknowledged what she’d done wrong, but was unable to apologize or anything like that. Funnily enough, everyone else realized that, and Muti then seemed to be more embarrassed by being unable to apologize than if she apologized in the first place. She didn’t love that, obviously, and turned her embarrassment into finding the next pack to hunt.

“There, there’s another pack, no irregular in this pack.”

The Rogue led the way, and Astrid smiled as she strode forward with her chainmail jingling as she followed after the Barbarian who knew where they were going.

***

“OK, I’m no longer one of you crazies. I’m ready to take a break.“ Benedict panted as he stopped running away from the brawler and felled it with a hefty application of Scathing Scream. He’d been convinced by some of his fellows (Felix) to train himself with Quickened Step and Scathing Scream against a single brawler while Felix himself continued to practice with his axe. Unsurprisingly, Benedict made faster progress than the Bodyguard, and that mostly because Benedict was working with Skills while Felix was looking to develop one. Even so, the differences in their temperaments were obvious as Felix continued to throw himself at the challenge while Benedict quickly realized that so much effort was, in fact, a lot of effort.

“It’s probably about that time anyways.“ Astrid said in answer to Benedict’s desire to retire. “It’s about dinner time, so we should finish off this pack before we get down to the stairway and set up for the night. Unless there’s any complaints?”

Muti looked like she wanted to voice one, but she thought better of it as the rest of the party expressed their readiness to be done for at least a while. Instead of saying that she didn’t want to, Muti nodded her head once in obvious displeasure before she pointed in the direction of the staircase. Most of the party was pretty good at navigating in cases like this, but Astrid found herself getting turned around in the fields that looked the same in every direction. It wasn’t often that she felt her mind drift in that direction, but this time, for the first time in a while, she settled on remembering just how frequently she’d found herself getting lost on the way back to town back in Schteldt. As they strode to where they would rest, Astrid pulling the sled behind her, Felix took special care to settle into his ready position every other step or so, his axe at the ready for whatever came his way.

There wasn’t any need, and as they settled down for the night, Astrid planned on how they would better tackle the Boss in the morning.