Chapter 4: The Yari

For being in a hand crafted realm that was totally manipulatable, It was scorching hot. Dolan sat outside under a large oak tree tending to the large boar rams that were grazing in the valley below Edgar's house. The grass glimmered and swayed as the sun and breeze blew across the valley. Dolan took a deep breath and smiled. "This is way more peaceful than the life I once had." Dolan thought back to his time as a normal human. When he lived in ignorance of the supernatural. "What a kid I was" He laughed to himself.

Just then a large boar ram began to get haughty, and began to bellow and huff, blowing fiery steam from its nostrils. Dolan scurried out from under the shade of the oak he was resting under, and grabbed ahold of his shepherd's staff that Edgar had given him. Holding it out in front of him he yelled, "Chill out bro!" The boar just turned towards Dolan and dug it's hooves into the ground getting ready to charge. Dolan sighed. As the boar ram charged straight at Dolan, he quickly jumped out of the way, rolling across the grass. Quickly recovering, he stood up on his feet again, and prepared for a counter attack.

"EDGAR!" Dolan yelled. "HELP! THIS GOAT BOAR DEMON IS GONNA KILL ME!" Dolan smirked at the beast. "Just you wait, you little rascal. The big dog will be here to take care of you soon." As soon as Dolan blinked, Edgar appeared, his body flying through the air as he descended the cliffside. In his right hand he held a spear, in his left a weird shaped knife with a rope attached to the end of it. As he ran down the side of the cliff, Edgar hoisted up his spear high above his head, and hurled it down towards the enraged goat boar. The spear thrust deep into the boar's side, causing a squirt of blood to spray out. Staggering, the boar goat gracefully fell over, the life leaving its body. "Good job Edgar! I for sure thought I was a goner there. If you hadn't shown up I don't know-"

WHACK! "You idiot." Edgar said glaring at Dolan. "Are you useless? Beat the thing with your friggin stick." He said, pointing towards Dolan's staff. "That thing isn't for show."

Dolan looked towards the ground. "Yeah but, you were here." He said, his voice coming off smooth and flirtatious.

Edgar snatched the staff out of Dolan's hands. "Give me that. Take this." Edgar placed the 3 pronged knife with a rope attached to the end into Dolan's hands.

"What's this?"

"It's a yari. A three pronged blade invented by Hephaestus to combat Artemis's long range bow attacks."

As Dolan gazed at the weapon in his hands he could tell that it was worn. The rope was slightly frayed, and the blades were dull. "How long have you had this?"

Edgar shrugged. "I don't know. I found it under my bed."

"What?"

"I'm joking. It was given to me as a toy when I was younger. You see, in the spirit world there aren't too many fighters. So any sort of weapon or armour was treated as a toy. Although my father never saw it that way. He actually believed in the thoughts of the ancients, and believed it was best to be strong and be able to protect yourself and others in the case of a crisis. And this was the first weapon he ever showed me how to use."

"That's incredible." Dolan began to swing the yari around above his head. "So how do I use this thing?" Before Edgar could stop him, the yari came sliding down at an angle and bashed right into Dolan's calf. "Ow! Ow!"

Edgar chuckled. "Always impatient. The yari is a special kind of weapon. You see, Hephaestus didn't just tie some string to the end of a knife. The blades attached to this rope are special. They are what make the yari, the yari. If you look at them, the blades actually jet out at different angles on all three blades." Dolan looked down and inspected the blades. They did! The blades, although incredibly dull so it was hard to tell how many different incisions and cuts there were, but there were definitely tiny incisions that caused the metal to jet out of the knife by a few millimeters in every direction. "Pretty cool right?" Dolan shook his head. "What those cuts do is allowed the blade to fly in crazy direction that wouldn't normally be possible. For example, just now you were spinning the blades in a circle high above your head, and all of a sudden the blades dropped down and smacked right into your calves. If the blades had been sharper, I'm sure your leg would've been cute clean off."

Dolan looked at the weapon in his hands, and felt a sense of history and pride. "I want to learn how to use it." Looking at Edgar, he said, "Teach me."

Edgar gave Dolan a disappointing smile. "Unfortunately, I can't. I don't really know how to use it myself. I gave up after I nicked myself a few times with it. But since it's been so long, and the blades are dull now, you can safely mess up and only end up with a few bruises."

"Thank you Edgar. This is really cool. But why did you even bother giving this to me?"

Edgar's face got serious. "Because we need to be prepared for when we travel to the spirit world in a few months."

"But wont the Vulga be dead?"

"He should be, but you never know. Plus there's still Emilia. She wouldn't have died. And I don't think she has the power to leave the spirit world on her own."

Dolan got depressed remembering Emilia is now an enemy. "Yeah. I guess you're right."

"Well have fun training yourself. I have some gilled sheep I gotta tend to. It's as fun as it sounds." Edgar said, raising a hand up waving bye as he walked away.

"Train myself huh?" Dolan looked towards the sky. "In my past life, all I ever did was gripe and complain and get other people to do it for me. The one time I decided to fight for myself, I died. Horribly." He looked down at the yari. "Maybe I can change that."

Dolan trained himself day and night. He whipped and whirled the yari in every direction. He spun it. He tossed it. He even threw it out and tried pulling it back towards him again, but everytime the yari would just go out in some crazy direction, or it would come flying back towards him with a vengeance. Eventually 3 weeks of painstaking training passed, and Dolan was no better than when he first started. Finally, he went to Edgar for some advice. "Edgar! Isn't there anything you remember about this weapon? I can't seem to make it do anything other than murder my thighes or the grass. Even just a tiny tip would help me."

Edgar put his hand on his chin and thought. "I do remember my father telling me that the movements of the yari arn't random."

Dolan's eyes lit up. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I was never able to do it, but my father explained that what made the weapon so amazing was that a masterful user was able to make the weapon go in those crazy directions at will. Not by fighting against the weapon, but by going with it. He always said that weapons were like people. Argumentative and obstinate."

Dolan nodded. "Thanks.�� Scratching his head, he headed back off into the field, the yari in his hand. "Ok, so let's think about this. This weapon was designed to fight against a bow right? And not just any bow, but Artemis's bow. She was the god of the hunt right? So her bow must be pretty epic. So what makes this weapon so great? How could anyone get this thing to do what they want?" As he was thinking, the breeze began to blow, causing the yari, which was hanging a few inches off of Dolan's palm, to sway slightly. As Dolan watched it, a light bulb clicked.

He loosed his grip on the rope of the yari and allowed it to dangle a little further from his palm. He slowly began to sway it back and forth, and watched it. As he watched it, he noticed that small, micro movements caused no unintended movement in the weapon, but anything that was greater than the smallest of adjustments, caused the weapon to sway either left or right. Dolan then began to figure out which movements made the weapon move right and left. And curl, and twist.

He figured out that by jolting the rope up and to the right, the weapon would cut diagonally to the left. If he just flicked the rope up and down, the knives would fly straight up until the final wave from the flick reached it. Once it reached it, it would kill it's movement, causing it to fall straight towards the ground. "Holy crap!" He shouted. "I did it! I freaking figured it out!" But then he began thinking again. "But how would these be useful in combat? Or even in everyday life?" He then looked at the yari and began to study the blades. He recognized that the blades jutted knives resembled that of a fishing hook, and wondered if he could use the yari as a sort of grappling hook, but as he went to try, he pictured himself stabbing his eye out and decided he'd try another day.

That night, as Dolan and Edgar were eating dinner, Dolan began to explain what he had learned to Edgar. Edgar gave him a proud smile. "Congrats kid. You'll have to show me in the morning what you can do." He said, placing a bowl of beef stew in front of Dolan.

"Oh no! I'm not that good yet! I can't really even use it. I can just swing it around a little bit." Dolan was smiling from ear to ear. Happiness radiating from every pore in his body.

Edgar put down his spoon and looked at Dolan. "I know you're excited, and I hate to burst your bubble of happiness, but we need to talk."

Dolan settled down and looked at Edgar. "What's up?"

Sighing, Edgar began, "So. I didn't initially explain this to you, but you know how we decided that we were going to wait till the Vulga (or the spirit king) was drained of all his power and then travel to the spirit realm?" Dolan nodded, taking a huge spoon fool of stew. "Well, time flows a bit differently here."

"Wha- Du- You mean?" Dolan asked, liquid dripping from his lips.

Edgar pursed his lips. "So time moves slower here…" Edgar sighed again. "Here's what I'm getting at. For 3 months to pass in the spirit world, it would take five years here in our time."

Dolan spit his food out. "WHAT?!"

"I figured that would be your reaction. But look! Before you overreact and think of this as a bad thing, look at the positives. Here, in this world, you won't age, and you can continue to train and get stronger so that when you get your normal body back you will have acquired a very powerful skill,"

"I mean, I get that. But 5 years? What are we gonna do for 5 whole years?"

"I just told you. Train and tend the fields. And you'll study."

"Study? Study what? If you are trying to teach me algebra Ima have to take a hard pass on that one. I'm not about that. If you start bringing up A and B, ima C my way outta here."

Edgar laughed. "No no. I mean about this world. About history. About these powers. About gods and monsters. About devourers."

Dolan began eating again. "That sounds interesting. I mean, it's not like I have another career path at the moment, so what the heck. I might as well learn what all this world is made of."

Smiling, Edgar said, "Perfect. That was surprisingly easy. How about having a short lesson right now?"