Realm Quest - A Fantasy Text Adventure

[Raziel]

I agree, use the dance, and wait for her to make a mistake. She'll get flustered by how easily you're dodging, and get angry. Wait for her to over-extend, then grab her arm like cadorean said, pull her over, stomp the fist, pin her. Don't neccesarily beat her right away, only if she doesn't yield.

[stagnantAntler]

Instead, try to quickly enter your dance trance, dodge a few of her attacks if necessary and knock the sword from her hand.

I agree, use the dance, and wait for her to make a mistake. She'll get flustered by how easily you're dodging, and get angry. Wait for her to over-extend, then grab her arm like cadorean said, pull her over, stomp the fist, pin her. Don't neccesarily beat her right away, only if she doesn't yield.

Darde backs up quickly, then alters his movements to the flowing dance movements he's come to know so well.

Instead, try to quickly enter your dance trance, dodge a few of her attacks if necessary and knock the sword from her hand.

surely youve trained using your dance as a part of combat im your time here.

Darde hasn't had much use of the dance outside of wielding at this point, the dance is hard to put into effect even in water wielding practice, it takes a little too long to start up and the flowing motions are too slow to allow dodging and parrying, picking up the pace only unsettles the trance. No matter how skilled he is, the dance is still only one of many. He remembers seeing a few books in the acedemy library on the subject of the Kartusian dances, but with everything going on he never got around to reading any of them. Darde decides to attempt the dance anyhow.

Darde backs up quickly, then alters his movements to the flowing dance movements he's come to know so well. Cris stops her advance as Dardes movement pattern completely changes, she's skilled enough to not immediatly rush into something unknown like this.

I agree, use the dance, and wait for her to make a mistake. She'll get flustered by how easily you're dodging, and get angry. Wait for her to over-extend, then grab her arm like cadorean said, pull her over, stomp the fist, pin her. Don't neccesarily beat her right away, only if she doesn't yield.

Use the chance to rest a little, and go back down, avoiding her attacks as you do so. Run and dodge, and wait for her to lunge. Sidestep, grab her arm, and pull her down, then stomp her hand when she's on the ground.kick the sword away from her, and let the beating up of a girl to ensue.

Cris is waiting for Darde to make his move, giving Darde ample oppurtunity to catch his breath and clear his mind. As he notices Cris starting to move towards him, thinking she's figured out his movement, he throws himself out of the trance and quickly steps to the side grabbing the womans arm, she's so surprised at his sudden change of pace that it doesn't take much to get her off balance. Darde stomps on the womans hand and kicks the sword away.

Darde has no problem with the thought of beating up a girl, the thought of chivalry doesn't exist between the ranks of the Kit'Aegar, the strong rule over the weak regardless of age and gender. He's about to start beating Cris up as the examiner calls "You win again, impressive." come to think of it, the examiner only told him to disarm Cris, nothing further. Darde backs away, trying to act as if he wasn't on his way to pound another novice into a inch of her life. This has happened way too much, whenever the adrenalin kicks in Darde can't stop himself. He's lost count of how many time an instructor had to pull him away from a defeated opponent because he was going too far. Darde lets the thought slip his mind for now, as he faces the examiner.

"You're showing alot of promise. What would you rather do next? archery or hand to hand?"

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These fights being all one right after the other is unfair to Darde, because he doesn't have a chance to rest in between.

Well no one ever said the system was fair, I like to see it as a way of preparing the novices for war where you won't have time to rest in between fights. That, and I'm much too lazy to describe how Darde goes to take a rest in the grass or something between each fight :P

Sorry for the long time of not posting. I just don't know what went wrong, derp.

[Jetroid]

>Archery.

[Cadorean]

Archery. wood wield the arrows to cheat the test. win.

[stagnantAntler]

>Archery.

The archery test is pretty simple. Darde has to hit targets from different distances with both practice bows and crossbows. The test goes as smoothly as could be expected, he hits his targets straight in the center for the shorter distances, and manages to get good firm shots in on long distance. Darde is slightly better with a regular bow than with a crossbow, it goes well with his wood wielding.

"Well aimed," the examiner announces after a particularly good shot from a crossbow "Now that that's done with, let's move on to the more interesting part of the test. Obviously this part is not mandatory, but it's a good oppurtunity to earn some bonus points for the final evaluation. I'd like to see what you can do when you combine your archery with your wielding. You can use any arrows, bows and targets that you'd like. I can also set one of my novices to make some moving targets for you if you want."

[Cadorean]

-ICE ARROWS

-Homing arrows with wood wielding on moving targets

-Hold a pair of crossbows and wield them to auto fire; all you have to do is aim (poorly, thank you item two)

-Turn some of the ruffage into a bow, fire arrows made of more ruffage

-Poison arrows

-turn the tree into a giant bow, shoot branch-arrows with it

-Destroy a bow with wood wielding. Useful for disarming an opponent.

-Water dance WITH BOWS

as an added caveat, you must hit all targets in the knees. (not sure if bullseyes have knees; oh well)

[chimericWilder]

You can technically use your wielding to auto-load crossbows. Theres bound to exist crossbows specifically designed for wood-wielders, were you use your wielding to turn the crank or whatever. Use this together with a repeating crossbow of some kind (with the bolt box thing). That way, you can very quickly send out a hail of crossbow bolts, especially so in relation to how long loading an ordinary crossbow takes. Give a display of homing the bolts, maybe even hitting your other bolts midair. End by sending all of your controlled bolts at a target from all sides, even as you reload a fresh clip of bolts.

[Raziel]

If you could somehow get a scout behind the enemy lines with waterwielding, then you should make a balista out of the tree, and shoot a giant water arrow. Since you wont have to fly it there yourself, it will fly way past your range, and into the scouts, which he can use to take out the enemies from behind. Maybe? Seems like it would work better in a battle than a test

[Raziel]

Ooh, Float a couple longbows in the air around you, like 6 or 7, and have a shitload of arrows on the ground. Then just auto fire from all of them with wielding, and maybe even guide the arrows to one point. Just use woodwielding to fire the bow, and then lift the next arrow up to it.

[Jetroid]

>Explode Wooden (Or possibly ice too) arrows as they approach the target, creating deadly shrapnel.

>Ice-Tipped wooden arrows (Can use both abilities to make it more powerful).

>Use of Wood-Wielding to help accelerate the fired arrow to such speeds that even a 15 Wood Wielding wouldn't have the ability to shake it off.

>Super long, Javelin-like arrow (Akin to that fired from a Ballista), but fired from a regular bow/crossbow, with help from Woodwielding to help it to fly right.

>Woodwielding assisted Polybolos.

[stagnantAntler]

>Woodwielding assisted Polybolos.

Darde is not even sure what these are, he knows of a ton of different stationary crossbows, repeating crossbows and large siege crossbows, but only standard training crossbows and longbows are available in the acedemy.

You can technically use your wielding to auto-load crossbows. Theres bound to exist crossbows specifically designed for wood-wielders, were you use your wielding to turn the crank or whatever. Use this together with a repeating crossbow of some kind (with the bolt box thing). That way, you can very quickly send out a hail of crossbow bolts, especially so in relation to how long loading an ordinary crossbow takes. Give a display of homing the bolts, maybe even hitting your other bolts midair. End by sending all of your controlled bolts at a target from all sides, even as you reload a fresh clip of bolts.

Darde doesn't have access to a repeating crossbow, but he demonstrates how fast he can reload an ordinary crossbow with wood wielding, and controlling the bolts while drawing the crossbow.

Ooh, Float a couple longbows in the air around you, like 6 or 7, and have a shitload of arrows on the ground. Then just auto fire from all of them with wielding, and maybe even guide the arrows to one point. Just use woodwielding to fire the bow, and then lift the next arrow up to it.

Darde demonstrates this, floating the bows does take up alot of concentration and it's hard to aim them, floating the bows parallel with each other makes it easier than having all the bows focused on a single point. It woud most likely be easier if he had several stationary crossbows instead, so he could use all of his concentration on reloading them.

[QUOTE]-Homing arrows with wood wielding on moving targets[/QUOTE

Nudging arrows along to make them follow a moving target is pretty easy as long as the arrows are within range. Darde shows this off against some moving targets, wielded by a rock wielding novice.

>Use of Wood-Wielding to help accelerate the fired arrow to such speeds that even a 15 Wood Wielding wouldn't have the ability to shake it off.

Acceleration is harder to perform, but with timing and enough concentration Darde wields an arrow to fly much faster than he could shoot it out of a bow or simply toss it using the wielding. Not only does this make it hard to avoid the arrow, it also flies further and makes it able to penetrate thicker armor.

>Ice-Tipped wooden arrows (Can use both abilities to make it more powerful).

-ICE ARROWS

Adding a tip of ice to an arrow, Darde can force the arrow to accelerate further once it exceeds his range, he can also change it's direction further away.

>Explode Wooden (Or possibly ice too) arrows as they approach the target, creating deadly shrapnel.

As an added bonus, Darde pressures the ice and wood of an icetipped arrow to the bursting point, maintaining the arrows form until it's out of his wood wielding range. The result is an explosion of sharp ice and wood, covering a large area. The shrapnel will hardly go through armor, but might poke out an eye or two.

-Destroy a bow with wood wielding. Useful for disarming an opponent.

Darde breaks a bow in much the same way (at a safe distance of course).

-turn the tree into a giant bow, shoot branch-arrows with it

This wouldn't just take way too much time, there is also no way of creating a bowstring strong enough to accelerate the giant arrow.

>Super long, Javelin-like arrow (Akin to that fired from a Ballista), but fired from a regular bow/crossbow, with help from Woodwielding to help it to fly right.

Shooting a javelin sized arrow out of a bow would not send it far, Darde doubts it would fly farther this way compared to just throwing it, maybe adding a little wielding strength to the throw. Darde doesn't exactly know much about throwing javelins though, apperently they're very rarely used in the Kit'Aegan military, at least he hasn't been introduced to them during his training.

-Water dance WITH BOWS

Darde is not really sure how this would work, is he supposed to have bows floating around him while dancing? He sees this as more of a distraction to the dance rather than something the dance would add to.

-Poison arrows

Darde is a bit anxious about this, his poison tricks haven't exactly been received well so far. He poisons the tip of one of the arrows with some hailroot and shoots it into a target, letting the poison seep into the wood of the target, leaving a smal stain.

Darde thinks about his next move for a second then shrugs "I guess that's it" the examiner nods "as ingenuitive as ever I see. Hand to hand combat is next. Let's have a rematch between you and Kiffon first, I'm sure he's ready again." Kiffon grabs a large training axe, not made of wood but with a blunt edge and stands face to face with Darde. He seems a little annoyed from the beating Darde gave him before, he seems pretty intent on winning this time. "Feel free to pick any weapon you'd like from the rack over there"

Darde approaches the weapon rack. All the weapons are dulled, but they are the same weight and size of those in the actual military. Darde can pick between the following:

-Large two-handed axe (similar to the one Kiffon is using)
-Long spear: made for use with both hands
-Long dagger: light and quick
-Quarterstaff:
-Short sword: short enough to be held effectively in one hand, yet still very strong and powerful, lacks range
-Fine blade: a thin light blade, has trouble piercing armor and is hard to parry with, but is very useful if you want to move quickly
-Long sword: A long sword, which can be wielded in one hand, but is most useful with two
-Common battle axe: Wielded in one or two hands, allows for more powerful blows than most swords
-Hatchet: techically not a war weapon, but it's added here because awsumness
-Mace: For use in one hand, allows for crushing :P
-Flail: Slightly more unpredictable than the mace, but can get really nasty with a good swing. Found in variants with up to 5 small heads
-Tower shield: A huge slap of wood, protects a large portion of your body, but decreases visibility
-Round shield: the most common Kit'Aegan shield is round and made from either wood, metal or a combination of both, good for keeping yourself alive
-Short spear: Faster than the long spear, but also much well... shorter, can be held in one hand and thrown if necessary
-Claymore: Longer than the common long sword and also much heavier, more of an anti-cavalry weapon than anything else, but still a decent weapon with enough training
-Poleaxe (or halberd): Long axe that's easier to use as a spear than an axe, but has its uses
-Other: Feel free to suggest anything I might have forgotten here, basically any melee weapon will do, you can even customize one with wood wielding if you feel like it.

Keep in mind that the weapon you pick will be the one Darde is most proffecient with, you can pick two weapons to go together if you'd like of course and Darde will also know how to use other weapons, just not as well as his main choice.

[Jetroid]

>What are each of the weapons made of?

>I've got to say Flail, because I've always loved them since I was a kid. Plus the whole grappling the opponents weapon with the chain things. oohhhssh.
(The longer the chain, the better. Preferably 5 spiked heads - metal, but with a wooden core.)

>Dual Hatchets as backup weapon.

>Maybe Bolas? (Though not exactly a Melee weapon, they still be a weapon Darde is proficient with. They're friggin' awesome.)

[Cadorean]

Take the tower shield and a razor tipped whip.

Basically the only difference between this whip and normal whips is that instead of having thin fibers with which to make a sonic boon, there's a small blade that slices opponents deeper. The whip fights similar to a flail only much faster and more slicing damage than crushing damage. Plus, whips are probably going to be made out of plant matter that can be wielded.

I agree with dual hatchets as secondaries.

Bolas would be good if we were going for scout. Most of their combat prowess comes from trapping rather than killing, and scouts would want to subdue enemies to interrogate or assassinate. Because we're going for Officer, a more defensive strategy is called for. Therefore a tower shield to protect our off side, and a good 12 or maybe even 14 foot whip to keep assailants off our front.

e: I just noticed that we're going to make at least Tactical Lieutenant with or without armed combat. I'd suggest passing the armed combat trial because it puts our recognized class at 37 instead of 29, but at this point it's not mandatory. If we do well at the tactics test, we'll make Lieutenant Officer.

ee: Screw the tower shield, just remembered the shield cape. Wear that over your squire cuirass.

[Raziel]

- A hand and a half sword, or Bastard sword, which is mainly for one handed use, but can be used with two. Strong enough to parry, but light enough to be quick, and then a long dagger as well. Use the sword to parry, and move axe away to expose him for a counterattack with the dagger. Be faster, be more balanced. You should have more control with those then him with his axe. Use the axe's momentinum to throw him off balance, then go in with dagger.

[stagnantAntler]

>What are each of the weapons made of?

Decide for yourself xP The metal on them will most likely be iron though. Maybe except for the fine blade, which probably wouldn't work very well with iron. I imagine them as sort Katana-esque in use, though perhaps not quite as sharp and finely crafted.

>Dual Hatchets as backup weapon.

Hatchets are maybe a little too heavy for carrying around on your belt. I guess you could carry one along, two would be too much.

>Maybe Bolas? (Though not exactly a Melee weapon, they still be a weapon Darde is proficient with. They're friggin' awesome.)

they are awesome, this is hand-to-hand combat though, so I'm not gonna let you have any. I might let you pick some up later, but for now we'll have none of that

Take the tower shield and a razor tipped whip

I was actually considering whether I should add a whip to the possible weapons, I decided not to because it's sort of hard to fight with in close quarters, I guess it would work with a shield though, so feel free to pick this if you feel like it.

I'm not gonna continue until you're in agreement as to which weapons to use.

[Cadorean]

The purpose of a whip is to keep assailants at a distance. Its damage is minimal, but its versatility in combat is unmatched. You can deliver a flurry of overhands and reverse-overhands to keep your opponent away, then you can grapple like Indiana Jones, then you can strangulate your opponent. If the whip is made of plant fiber, Darde can wield it to get momentum for lots of long, deep slashes.

Whip is the greatest weapon of all time, and really isn't that hard to fight with if you know anything about strategy *cough*cough*tookthegoddamnclass*cough* wow I really need to get that cough checked out.

Again, put the cape on over our current armor.

[Raziel]

- A hand and a half sword, or Bastard sword, which is mainly for one handed use, but can be used with two. Strong enough to parry, but light enough to be quick, and then a long dagger as well. Use the sword to parry, and move axe away to expose him for a counterattack with the dagger. Be faster, be more balanced. You should have more control with those then him with his axe. Use the axe's momentinum to throw him off balance, then go in with dagger.

I still think this, because no matter what they do, all you need to do is parry with sword, and then quick dagger to side. Even against a whip this would win, because all you need to do is to get the whip tangled around sword, and then move in close, making it impossible to swing whip, while you're able to stab with dagger

[Jetroid]

>I second everything Cadorean just said. Whip's could be awesome with wielding!

>And how about lightweight, small wooden hatchets? Please?
>So that if the Whip gets unusable you can whip-out (puns yay) your Hatchets. Potentially also used as wielding-enhanced throwing hatchets?

yessss

[Cadorean]

I still think this, because no matter what they do, all you need to do is parry with sword, and then quick dagger to side. Even against a whip this would win, because all you need to do is to get the whip tangled around sword, and then move in close, making it impossible to swing whip, while you're able to stab with dagger

Fighting with a whip forces you to be even faster than fighting with a dagger, specifically because of that reason. Whips get tangled in enemy weapons, so the user has to either be able to dodge or block. given that we have a shield cape, I'd assume block to be our tactic, but it's still necessary to know how to dodge. Hell, we already fought an armed opponent while unarmed and won, what other proof do you want that Darde can dodge?

>And how about lightweight, small wooden hatchets? Please?

Best you can do is wooden handles on your hatchets. A wooden bladed axe is sort of useless against everything outside of minecraft. If you're adamant about as muck wood as possible for side weapons, carry a pair of small wooden tonfas that we can wield a stabbing blade onto.

Wait a second. Whip in the dominant hand, wooden tonfa in the off hand. At this point we need to use our cape shield for defense, but that'd just make us look all the more badass.

[stagnantAntler]

>And how about lightweight, small wooden hatchets? Please?

A small light weight hatchet, that would be more like... a tomahawk or something. I think those are pretty light anyhow, you could definitly carry around two of those.

Again, put the cape on over our current armor.

Before I let you do this, consider that you won't be allowed to use wielding during this match and the cape is pretty heavy without it. I can see how the cape would be useful in any other situation, but it might slow you down a little too much for this match, if you have reason to believe otherwise, please go ahead and pick it up.

[Jetroid]

>Tomahawks, yessss.

>Whip, yes.

[Cadorean]

Darn, nevermind for the cape then.

Tomahawks and whip.

[stagnantAntler]

Tomahawks and whip.

Darde picks up his favourite weapon, the whip. The whip is long and slender, Darde hasn't heard of many soldiers using these, but those that have become profficient with it are deadly. The combat whip has a razor sharp blade on the end, though the one Darde is using lacks this. The rope of the whip is made from plant fiber, allowing Darde to wield it, though that won't be possible during this fight.

Darde also picks up two light tomahawks, they're not long, but are good for situations when his opponents are too close for the whip to be effective. Darde puts one of the tomahawks on his belt and carries the other in his left hand. He's pretty good at throwing the tomahawks, so it makes sense to have two around, though usually the range of the whip is more than enough.

Darde announces himself as ready, and the duel begins. Kiffon eyes Darde with caution, he's not too keen on getting hit by the long whip. Darde will have to be careful too, though the axe is blunt, getting hit by could be catastrophic, especially considering Kiffons strength. Accidents do happen in the acedemy. Darde has actually been knocked unconcious several times, he's also watched a novice get his neck broken once, he died instantly. Darde prefers not to think about it.

With this in mind, Darde decides not to rush things. Darde has about twice the reach of his opponent, but the tomahawk most likely wont do much good in parrying that huge battle axe, so he'll have to either keep Kiffon away or dodge out of the way of his swings. To win, he either has to get Kiffon to give up or disarm him, besides wielding he can use every trick he knows.

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I still think this, because no matter what they do, all you need to do is parry with sword, and then quick dagger to side. Even against a whip this would win, because all you need to do is to get the whip tangled around sword, and then move in close, making it impossible to swing whip, while you're able to stab with dagger

Sorry Raziel, you've got good points, but the majority has spoken :P

[Raziel]

It's all good, I understand. I do love the whip as a weapon, but it can leave you vunerable was my only concern. But I'm cool with this. He should make a few lashes at Kiffon, just to unnerve him, make him hesitant to try somthing. Gives you a couple more minutes to think

[Jetroid]

>Dance around him whilst whipping him. Keep out of his reach the whole time, not letting him get a swing in.

Yes, I linked to Shaun of the Dead for no reason. But Darde should be havin' a good time. The concept is the same, though.