"Are you absolutely sure that it is ok for her to accompany us into the dungeon?" Evren asked.
Amelia smiled and said, "I think she'll be perfectly safe if you're there, Evren."
Evren's eyebrows raised in surprise. "You put a lot of trust in me."
Pascal nodded, "We think it's well founded. You've shown us nothing but competence since you've arrived. You've trained hard daily, and you've still managed to fit in some time to train us in magic and make a sword for Walter. Plus, we know Harley has been working hard since she started to learn magic and if you say you'll train her, she'll impress you."
Evren looked from Pascal to Amelia and back. He sighed and said, "Fine."
"Yay!" Harley cheered from behind Evren.
Evren gave Harley a sideways glance over his shoulder. "You'll listen to everything I say and do everything I tell you to?"
Harley nodded and said, "Yes Mr. Evren."
Evren nodded, "We'll start training tomorrow. For tonight, cast 'squall' until you get a headache and keep doing that until sunset."
Harley started to head out and Evren stopped her, "Harley, aren't you forgetting something?"
She turned around and tilted her head to the side thinking about what she forgot. She blushed a little as her mind wandered and Evren held the bicorn wand over his shoulder.
Harley grabbed the wand, said, "Thanks Mr. Evren!" and ran out the door.
Evren looked at Pascal and Amelia, "She's got a long road ahead of her. Aside from learning all the spells I know, increasing her magic capacity, and learning how to read, she's also got to learn how to fight."
Evren sighed as he left the home while Pascal and Amelia smiled at each other.
The next morning, Evren had everyone from the team out doing morning exercises, "Mr. Evren, I'm so tired from yesterday. Do we have to do this so early in the morning?" Harley asked.
Evren looked to Harley and asked her, "Oh, are you complaining?"
"No Mr. Evren." She said as she began to run again.
Evren jogged next to her and said, "I don't mind if you walk sometimes, eventually you'll be able to run the whole thing. And then you'll be able to run faster and farther. Right now, the only thing I ask is you keep trying."
"Yes Mr. Evren." Came the reply.
Evren picked up the pace and caught up with the two guards, "Evren, why do I have to run? I'm just going to be shooting from the back." Fletcher asked.
Evren shook his head and mumbled, "This is a morning for complaints…" Then louder, "Fletcher, when I was coming through the dungeon, I had to run away from fights all the time. Sometimes to spread out the enemies, sometimes to gather them up. If you can't run while shooting your bow, you'll never be able to survive."
Fletcher asked, "Are you even tired?"
"No." Evren said, then to Isobel he asked, "How are you doing Isobel?"
"No problem, sir." She said.
Evren picked up the pace again and caught up to Walter. He only turned his head to look at Walter. When their eyes met, he smiled and started running at his normal pace, leaving Walter behind as well.
When Evren finished, he picked up his practice sword and began practicing his forms and strikes. One by one people arrived and began their individual exercises. Evren walked over to Harley and chanted, 'restore' on her to relieve her fatigue. Harley gasped and said, "If you could do that, why couldn't you do it while I was running?"
"It's good to stress your muscles and exceed your lactic acid threshold. I should let you cool down normally, but I want you to get started on your magic training. I'm going to teach you a spell, then you're going to cast 'squall' until you're tired, then I'll teach you another spell." He said.
He smiled and continued, "You should feel privileged, Harley, you're the first person I've cast 'restore' on."
As she smiled in return, he said, "Now, for the first spell, we're going to finish out the general category and start with 'push.' It's a spell that'll let you push something away from you at a distance."
He explained the spell to Harley and demonstrated how it worked, "That's like your ability to move things right Mr. Evren?"
Evren nodded and said, "A little bit, yes. It only moves stuff away from you. The spell 'pull' does the opposite, so you should be able to cast that as well since the only difference is the mental image and the chant."
Harley tried both spells on a rock in the field and succeeded in both. She gave a little cheer, and Evren sent her off to practice increasing her magic capacity.
He turned to fletcher and pointed towards the field where Evren had set up targets. "Here I've placed targets at 25, 50, 75, 100, 150, and 300 meters. What I want you to do is shoot at each target in turn starting from the closest to the farthest. You probably aren't going to hit each one, but you need to be able to know where to aim for each of the different distances.
"Eventually you're going to run out of magic. You will need to increase your magic capacity too, but I want you to work on yours by pouring it into the bow instead of casting spells, because that's a different technique than spells. Eventually, you'll begin to create arrows quicker, and be able to fire more arrows at a time."
Evren nodded at Fletcher as if to ask if he understood. Fletcher nodded back and prepared to fire the first shot at the 25 m target. Evren watched as Fletcher fired the arrow and said, "Relax the grip on the hand that's firing the bow. The only time you really need to grip it is after you've released the shot. Gripping it too much will cause your muscles to strain and could cause the bow to shake. That'll throw off your shot, especially at the further targets."
Fletcher nodded and relaxed his grip while firing at the 50 m target. Evren nodded and moved on to Isobel. He handed her a wooden dagger with a thick cloth glued on along the edge and point. He dipped the daggers in a small bucket he had filled with chalk. He handed one to Isobel and held one for himself.
"How are you with swords? Have you learned from Walter?"
She nodded and said, "I'm not as good as Walter, but I can do well enough."
"I want you to try to use those techniques against me. I'm going to show you where to aim against your targets. I've learned that it's similarly effective against animals and monsters as well, as the body has the same basic location for the organs and nerves." Evren said, "Don't worry, it shouldn't hurt much."
"Wait, much?" Isobel asked, but it was already too late, she had a chalk line across her throat, and another over her heart. She swung at Evren with a side cut, and Evren ducked under, putting a chalk line on her lower abdomen and her inner thigh. She tried to swing back at him, but Evren had already slid around behind her. He caught her hand with his left hand and left a chalk line across her armpit and then again across both of her kidneys.
She spun around and swung at Evren, he blocked with his own dagger and with a flick of the wrist, had a chalk line across her wrist. He then dropped to his knee, pushing her stomach back with his left hand, and leaving a chalk line on her Achilles tendon before rolling away and getting to his feet.
As Isobel lie on the ground, she looked at all the chalk marks on her and the lack of marks on Evren. He helped her to his feet and said, "These spots will cause significant damage to the balance of the person, significant blood loss, or render them incapable of fighting."
He pointed to the inside of his upper arm. "Here you have a large artery and a nerve cluster that's a good spot to hit, but if you go higher to the armpit, you can also render the pectoralis muscle inert."
Isobel looked at Evren and said, "What?"
Evren smiled and spent the next hour explaining the different spots to aim for on the body and what damaging those areas would do to the body. In the time that he finished, Harley approached and said she had finished resting and would be going back to training. Evren taught her the spells 'cut' and 'mend.'
After Harley returned to her magic training, Evren walked through the ways to hold the dagger, and the different strikes and slashes she would be using. Then his training went over how to react to different attacks, "Knife fighting is not like sword fighting, where there's give and take. Its more like a reaction give to the take. The stances are very aggressive, but the training is very defensive in nature. Most of the time, you're going to use your reactions and speed to your advantage. Your strikes won't always be one hit kills. They're designed to weaken the enemy for the killing blow.
"When the target is not paying attention to you, you attack blind spots, weaknesses, or just whatever you are able to, then get out. Only when you have the element of surprise should you try for the one hit kills." Isobel nodded and Evren continued, "You could spend an entire fight just guarding yourself and waiting for one or two strikes."
He stepped back and said, "Now, I want to introduce you to someone. This is Mr. Ropey." Evren pointed to a dummy that had been made from ropes coiled around a wooden and tied to each other in the shape of a body. The dummy had been planted into the ground so it would be able to take a few hits. "Mr. Ropey loves to play with knives. You're going to use the moves you learned on him. I made him with his arms able to be pointed forward or to the side, so you can adjust according to the move you want to perform.
"Today, you're going to work on taking your dagger out and slashing. Just use the wooden dagger for now, I'll make something that's like your dagger later that you can use without destroying Mr. Ropey." Isobel nodded and held the wooden dagger where she would carry, her dagger and swung at the dummy, drawing a line across the stomach of the mannequin. "Don't forget your weak spots." Evren added. Isobel nodded and continued practicing.
Training continued until noon when Evren released everyone for the day. Evren headed over to the forge and made a quick dagger for Isobel. The dagger was the same side as the one he had given her before, just a little heavier and with rounded edges. He made a simple leather sheath for it and then set it aside. Evren's plan for the day at the forge was to make a mold to make different sized scales for his armor.
He would also need to make a die to cut the metal into the appropriate shapes. He could make these out of steel as he would be putting runes on them and enchanting them to be harder. Evren worked hard into the day before he finally finished the mold for the smallest scale.