Night Talks and Day Fights

Vesta and I sat on the wagon in an uncomfortable silence. I distracted myself by focusing on the sky. Both the moons, Lasna and Antona, were in their waxing crescent phases. The larger of two, Lasna, had a shorter rotation and would be full in about seven days. It would leave being full before Antona also became full. They were close enough that I'd have several days close together to cultivate my Lydos aura under full moons. It would be a few months before they were full at the same time. I used to pay close attention to the moon cycles to train in secret. I needed to do that again.

There was a very quiet popping sound. "I put up a One Way Sound Barrier, we'll still be able to hear outside of it but they won't be able to hear us." Vesta broke the silence.

"Do you think they're eavesdropping on us?" I asked.

"Yngvarr is. He can go over a month without sleep and is monitoring to make sure we're keeping watch properly." She said.

"So what did you want to talk about?" I asked.

"I think you should join the Rainbow Blades." She said.

"I'm not interested in joining a guild. It would make it more difficult to hide." That was only part of the reason now.

"With your strength you'll do well and they have the resources to help you improve. Once you establish yourself, they'd be willing to protect you. The Osgar's don't have much interaction with house Torgeir. It's unlikely that they'd be willing to hand over a talented adventurer, when they could make use of you." Once again she displayed a greater set of knowledge than most people would have and her reasoning was sound but there was one problem.

"I don't want to be beholden to anyone. Whether that be a guild or a noble house." I replied.

"Do you really think you'll be able to do this alone?" She asked.

"Not really. I'm gathering allies in my own way and when I can, I'll form my own guild. You can join if you'd like?" I said.

She blushed slightly and looked away. "I like where I'm at and who'd want to join a guild run by the likes of you."

"Even if we're not in the same guild, I'd like to think of you as an ally." I said.

After a pause she asked, "What really happened?"

"I'm not fully sure. There had been a celebration that night and I remember going to bed, in my own room. Then I was being pulled out of my bed by my father's guards. I was horrified at what they accused me of." I said.

"Could you have been so drunk that you don't remember what you did?" She asked.

"I know I wasn't that drunk and I had uninterrupted dreams. I know to most people that might not mean anything but to me that means that also I slept uninterrupted. Beyond that I wouldn't do that to my sister or to anyone else." I said.

"Why didn't you try to defend yourself?" She asked.

"I planned to but two nights after I was thrown in the dungeon, two of my father's trusted men took me out of my cell. They told me that my father was arranging for me to leave the kingdom but shortly after we left the castle, they tried to kill me. Once that happened I knew it wouldn't matter if I was guilty or innocent. So I ran and I've been doing everything I can to keep a low profile." I said.

"So you became an adventurer? A career path known for being 'low profile.'" She smirked.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I admit it isn't the most logical thing for me to do but I have my reasons. If I really wanted to fully and permanently disappear I'd have boarded a ship and left for a distant continent." I said.

"Well officially, they declared you dead having been killed while trying to escape. Very few know the truth, so the number of people looking shouldn't be too many. If you can work out the little inconsistencies in your story, you should be fine." She said.

"You believe me then?" I asked.

"The evidence against you wasn't that good. Your sister claimed to not remember, so it was only the two eyewitnesses that pointed towards your guilt. Servants are all too easy to buy off, so I put little stock into their testimonies." She said.

"You seem very well informed about what happened." I said.

"My uncle was very well informed in most things and wanted me to be also." She said.

"Can you tell me how Aethel's doing?" I asked.

"It's been a few months since I had access to anything." Vesta paused. "She grieved you heavily and that led many to believe that your relationship wasn't pure even before that night. It has negatively affected her standing. Several marriage proposals have been withdrawn and many of her ladies have left her side. Whatever happened that night has destroyed her socially. There was one report that said she's holding strong."

"She never really wanted to get married and she hated how much her ladies gossiped." I knew that the aftermath wouldn't be good for her, I was just hoping that she'd be able to hold her head high.

"I would have guessed that the person who set you up would be Lady Osgar if it had been anyone other than your sister. Secretly many saw you as a better heir than her son Eadri. Beyond her, I'm not sure who it could be. A number of people could benefit from a scandal within house Osgar but there were no indications that anyone made a move." She said.

If it was about house Osgar in general, I also had no idea who could have done it. If it was specifically about me, I had a good idea about who it was.

She asked me a few questions about my fake background. They weren't things I wouldn't have thought of but it let me fill in some details. After that we fell into a comfortable silence for the rest of our watch. Kalfr gave me another dirty look when we switched shortly after. In the morning we ate our rations and started to prepare for the road. Before Yngvarr could call for us to head out, Kalfr approached me.

"How about a little match before we get going?" He said.

"Maybe at another time." I wasn't interested in participating in a pissing contest.

"Come on, a duel between two Eldritch Blades. We might learn a thing or two about each other." He said.

"We're in the middle of a quest, maybe after we're done." I said.

"Now's as good a time as any." Yngvarr said.

Damn it. I wasn't going to be able to put this off. We soon found ourselves squaring off.

"This is going to be a friendly sparring match. You don't need to go all out." Yngvarr said.

Of course this was another evaluation for him. He no doubt wanted to see how I fought and determine if Kalfr could control himself. We shook hands and took a few steps away from each other. After Yngvarr gave the signal to begin, Kalfr charged and began a relentless string of attacks with his longsword.

The Osgar sword style was developed to utilize the Lineage aura and had three main stances; defensive, aggressive, and counter. Being masters of defense, users of the Osgar aura were first trained to be defensive. I easily fell into the familiar patterns of blocking and parrying. The focus of the Osgar defensive sword stance was to use your opponent's momentum to redirect their attacks into glancing blows and put them at a disadvantage for their next attack.

Kalfr was getting frustrated off the bat as he no doubt thought he'd over power me right away, his thinking being he was on the verge of becoming a B ranked adventurer and I was only D ranked. We were both using Speed and Sturdy Spells as Eldritch Blades, but his sword soon became covered in fire as he cast another spell. This caused me to have to use part of my Osgar aura to keep from being hurt by the fire. I held off on using my Lydos aura as I learned his fighting style.

When I became more comfortable with his technique I switched to the aggressive stance. This involved me circulating my Osgar aura and putting it all into my shield and leading with my shield into his attacks and following up with my sword. He was thrown off at first but cast another spell and his form became blurry and I began to miss with my shield. The first few times I was able to take the hits, then he altered his Flaming Weapon spell and it began to burst out fire whenever it would land.

It forced me to switch back to my defensive stance. After only a few moments of fighting I realized that if I truly wanted to be called an Eldritch Blade, I needed to expand my repertoire. The fighting style I was trained in only relied on two spells, Speed and Sturdy. I already had Raginhard looking for more mote catalyst but maybe I needed to ask around myself.

"If all you can do is defend and kill little sewer monsters, I wonder how you ever think you'll succeed?" Kalfr smirked as he started to mock me.

He did have a minor point as the main part of my training relied on a balanced party. I was trained to fight alone but that wasn't the focus. House Osgar had a number of lesser houses sworn to them that specialized in archery and spears. We tended to rely on them to deal the damage as we held off the threat, this was why Lariss and I worked well together. Perhaps I needed to call myself an Eldritch Shield?

When I finally landed a decent hit, an arc of lightning leapt through my sword. I had to back off as my arm felt numb for a moment. As I did, Kalfr gave a smile to Vesta. The idiot thought this was going to impress her.

Then my eyes met hers and I caught the sight of worry and a bit of disappointment looking back at me. Was it going to bother her if I lost? Why would she care? I didn't care about his insecure masculinity. This entire fight was to prove that he was better than me to a woman that didn't like him. It was absurd that I should have to prove myself to her by beating him.

Lightning arced across my blade as I circulated my Lydos aura. He grunted and backed away as my Moonlight Lightning Slash hit him square in the chest. I switched to my aggressive stance and went on the offensive. With a stomp on the ground, Kalfr sent dirt flying around himself. It began to swirl around and I had to back off and squint my eyes to keep the dirt from blinding me.

As I was pushed back on the defensive I entered my counter stance. This stance relied on the Osgar auras ability to turn any part of my body into fortified armor. Leaving those spots open for attack, he then opened himself up for my counter swing when he pressed his apparent advantage. Again and again, he found his swings not doing the damage he wanted it to and found my sword making contact.

My Osgar aura was absorbing most of his sword swing and I started to rotate my water mote to keep his flames at bay. Some of the kinetic energy was still being transferred to me and having only one water mote limited how much of his flames I could counter at once. It was becoming a war of energy attrition.

"Alright that's enough." Yngvarr said.

I pulled back but Kalfr kept at me. The intensity of his Flaming Bursts was increasing and he started to aim for more vital areas.

"I said." Yngvarr leapt between us and swung his hammer. "That's enough." The shockwave was visible as we were pushed back. Kalfr was thrown back further than me as I saw that the shockwaves on his side were stronger.

I released my spells and stopped circulating my auras and Kalfr followed suit. He gave me a scowl as he went to check the wagon for travel. As I went to check my horse Vesta joined me.

"That was an interesting spell on your sword." She had a slightly shocked look on her face.

"My Lighting Slash is my own invention. It was… complicated to develop." I replied.

"I see." She left me to get Zephyr ready.

Damn it. I had already outed myself when she saw my Osgar aura and now she figured more out just by seeing my Lydos aura despite my efforts to hide it. I already knew she was more knowledgeable than the average person and that the uncle who raised her had a keen mind that he seemed to have passed on to her.

She hadn't done anything to earn my distrust at this point. As long as it stayed that way, it shouldn't be a problem. Maybe I needed to do more to earn her trust?