Warrior of the Void Book 1, Chapter 17

“Made time to join us, I see?” When Muur arrived at the Black Blades’ training grounds, she was quickly noticed by an Algar sitting on the sidelines and sipping from an earthenware water vessel.

“Been meditating and doing aetheric exercises for nine, almost ten hours now. Really needed a change of pace and I figured, hey.” The lizard wizard’s tail gestured languidly at the grounds. She was hoping that watching them go at it may give her some useful insights, whether for upping her defenses or just being a better thaumaturge in general.

“I’m afraid that you are a tiny bit late,” Putting away his water, the bunny grabbed a towel and dabbed at his sweat slicked brow, “Our training is nearly over for the day. It will perhaps continue for half a bell still?”

“Just means I will batter you with questions instead, I suppose.” Muur said with an easy shrug, letting her tail lay limp on her lap. “What does your training bias? Quite a few approaches to defensive fighting even before you get to the topic of magic.”

“Learning how to endure blows would be my first answer,” Slinging the rag across his shoulder, Algar ran a hand through his white hair in an attempt at putting the short tufts in order, “Due to our role as bodyguards, avoiding blows is somewhat disincentivised, lest they strike at the priests for whom we serve as a bulwark for.”

“The real answer would be scriptures,” He explained with a sigh, “Before the establishment of the Thaumaturges as a guild, rather than the religious order that it was, initiates of the Thaumaturges and of the Blades were one and the same. Those more talented for the spiritual aspects were sent upon the path of priesthood, those more apt at wielding a weapon joined our ranks, and both were made to learn the scriptures before a choice was made.”

“Whatever the Guildmasters say about sitting tight in the backlines and my adventurer friend says about Eorzea taunt tactics, I stand by being able to handle yourself in a messy melee being indispensable if you expect to step into a battlefield at all.” The younger mage grunted agreeably, knowing exactly what sort of lead she was laying down for the guy. She may not be one hundred percent sure of the intentions behind it, but he clearly wanted to build some sort of rapport with her. Muur was not above using that to get some training that the Guildmasters wouldn’t provide her due to their insistence on turret mage-ing. “There’s a reason I shelled out most of my advance pay on commissioning a full metal magic staff.”

Reaching, behind his back, the knight grabbed one of his drooping ears and started to clean it, “I can’t say I agree with the idea of a priestess going into battle in melee,” With a quick flick of his tongue, he got rid of a bead of sweat going down the corners of his mouth, “But far be it from me to stop the Guildmasters’ apprentice. Are you trained in any way?”

“I’m not going to be jumping recklessly into the frontlines, don’t worry, but it doesn’t sit well with me if I can’t crack some skulls if someone manages to flank.” Muur explained with a wiggle of her hand, “And aye, my first mentor was this hoary Bangaa who liked to deliver his spells point blank from his knuckles and kneecaps. It wasn’t the most formal education, but I sure learned the fundamentals of how to move and strike while slinging elemental wroth. Could sure use some proper training to polish it into a proper style, though. Nevermind the time I’ll need to get used to the new staff.”

Algar stayed quiet, looking over the other fifteen or so fighters still going through slashing motions in the courtyard, “I don’t believe anyone in our order knows how to wield a staff in combat,” Fiddling with his ear, he looked towards the instructor haranguing men and women that looked to be ready to drop dead the moment he would relent, “But I suppose that I could spar with you? It wouldn’t be quite as effective as learning from a proper instructor, however, it would be better than nothing.”

“And plenty fun! Helps that staff fighting is about as straightforward as it gets short of a cudgel, so lacking an instructor isn’t anywhere near as punishing as with a sword.” Muur chirruped, a hint of teeth and bloodthirst on her earnest grin, “I actually picked up the basics of how to use a sabre a few years ago, but my instructors didn’t do much instructing and the whole thing was for sport rather than murdering problems. Still picked up some useful stuff, like profiling stances and how to do a proper lunge and backstep, though, so hey. Silver linings.”

“Sabre?” The bun asked, his curiosity evident, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of such a weapon. I’d guess some sort of staff?”

“Naw, variety of sword. The one for sport is built like a rapier, but with a guard like a cupped hand over your own, and it is allowable to hit with the whole of the blade, unlike with a rapier or foil.” Muur explained, crackling smoke oozing from her palm as she drew up an extremely rough approximation of a sabre’s guard. “The one made for war has about this much of a curve on the blade, although some have a sharper or shallower bend.” This time, her tail was the one who illustrated the point, bending into the right shape from where it sat on her lap. “Popular with some cavalry and sailors, since it empathises seizing the initiative and forcing the enemy on the backfoot. A lot of the motions are quick twirls from the wrist to make area denial and quick deflections and strikes.”

“That description rings a bell. It sounds somewhat similar to a cutlass at the very least, or our local scimitars– though those don’t have any sort of basket to protect the hand.” Grabbing the wooden sword at his side, he drew a very… lumpy looking blade. Which vaguely resembled a reversed kukri.

“A cutlass is a sub-category of sabre, as far as I know. The blade is wider and the curve tends to be shallower. Then there’s scimitars which I’m not entirely sure how they fit the classifications, but there’s definitely some overlap between them and sabres.” The lizard woman said with a bob of her horned head, before the glowing rings around her irises frayed in a wince at the sight of what the man pulled out, “That looks like the lovechild of a kukri and a falx.”

“I’ve no idea what either of these are. But I can assure you their shamshirs are as poor as you seem to think,” He said without any sort of shame, or reservation, “I am fully convinced that they’ve been scammed into signing a contract that offers them these subpar–things, and are forced to use them either out of pride, or due to contractual obligation.”

“Right, get yourself comfortable and let me tell you about the sword that forced an entire empire to redesign their armor, so we can stop thinking about those glorified hockey sticks.” Muur stated primly, tail-tip smacking the bench to punctuate her words.

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In the end, she never did explain what a hockey stick was.

But the two of them parted ways after having a long and surprisingly in depth discussion about weapons of all types. According to Algar, the reason why many of the weapons in this world were impractical at the best of times was due to heavy use of magical materials. Things like ores, gemstones and lumber were a given, but it even extended to specific quenching oils heated at an exact temperature. In the case of the Black Blade’s weapons, a specific type of natural mythril-cobalt alloy, harvested with blessed tools on a specific day that changed with every turn of the calendar based on celestial alignments.

They’d apparently done genuine scientific studies on the subject, and found that not following any of these steps led to subpar weapons that were no better than a regular mythril blade. Superior to most others on the market, yes, but far from what the order normally wielded.

“Hey it’s–” When Muur left her room the next day, she found Orliane on her doorstep, ready to knock, “Oh, you’re up already.”

“Miracles do happen sometimes.” The lizard wizard chuckled as her tail closed the door behind her. “What’s on the menu today?”

“Actual breakfast menu?” The small elf asked as she took the lead, “Or stuff to do for the day?”

“The former, unless you caught wind of something interesting.” The lizard woman replied with an easy shrug.

“Same as yesterday, lentil soup, roasted tubers and lamb with flatbread, honey glazed vilekins instead of bacon though,” The girl answered easily, “As for anything interesting? Well, apparently mom spent all day with the Guildmasters yesterday after you fetched her. And it’s been causing weird rumours to crop up, dad’s been in a tizzy because of it.”

“It is a personal thing rather than a Guild thing, is all I can really say on the topic.” Muur sighed, shaking her head, “Oh, right, do you know anything about the big spooky warden down in the wing with the purple torches? Really tall, likes to teleport and do weird stuff with their voice?”

Orliane scrunched up her face, as if trying to remember something, before shaking her head, “We don’t have any purple torches anywhere that I know of?”

“Either someone playing around for ambience or I ended up in a really out of the way wing. I’ll ask around at breakfast, I guess.” The tiny lizard decided with a quiet groan. Bottom bothering the warden was going to be more work than she’d anticipated.

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Before she could really ask around, she was summoned to the Guildmastesr’ office once again. When she arrived, rather than all five of them, only one seemed to be in the room, “Hm? Ah, it is most fortuitous to see you apprentice,” Cocoboha(?) said as he looked away from the enormous pile of documents stacked atop his desk, “I hope yesterday has been a pleasant day for you, in spite of our– incident.”

“Made a few friends and had a pretty successful first gander into meditation, so yes, I would say so.” Muur said, politely sidestepping the matter of the ‘incident’.

“That is pleasant news,” Sifting through the various papers on his desk, the diminutive mage eventually slid three of them her way, “When we called for you yesterday, we had made plan to both give you your protective talisman, which I see you are now wearing, as well as these.”

Parsing through them, one looked to be some sort of schedule. While the other two a series of directions? Discovering that eorzean was just english in a trenchcoat meant she could read everything just fine, but unfortunately, she wasn’t to the point where she could substitute the latin characters for their fantasy counterpart with just a glance, “The first is a schedule, it lists times of prayer, of training, learning and so on of those in the Ossuary’s service. As you are residing within our walls, I am afraid that you will be required to obey some obligations. Lest you worry, they are very light. In part thanks to your status as both an adventurer and initiate. For the most part, the order requires that you offer it two hours of your time each day, so that you may commune with the Brothers. There are numerous ways to do so, most choose prayer, but due to your own faith, I would understand if you found the idea distasteful,” Steepling his fingers, he leaned back in his seat, “You’ll be glad to know, however, that due to how closely related to our faith the art of thaumaturgy is. Practicing it would be more than sufficient for the purpose of ‘filling out’ these two hours. Otherwise, if the fancy strikes you, I invite you to participate in the activities listed in the schedule.”

“Oh, no, the Dusk Mother is very clear that she’s happy with even her devout worshipping other gods alongside her so long as they are respectable. Which mostly means having guts and not being, y’know, a mad monster hellbent on turning half a continent to glass.” Muur chuffed with a wry grin, waving off the concern. Nhaama worked on vibes, according to her fabricated memories. “I haven’t heard anything that’d make me think The Twins wouldn’t make the cut, although I would obviously have to read up on them and have some one-on-one talks with a priest before I even think of starting to worship.”

Religion, in her view, was an incredibly intimate and personalized thing. It was between you and whatever higher powers you wanted to build a rapport with. If you wanted to worship YHWH by tending to a flock of sheep and thus paying heed to the roots of the faith, or by climbing the mountains the faith said He built and beholding the land He supposedly crafted, that should be just as valid as attending Mass. 

She… really should figure out where she stood with Nhaama, honestly.