Born a Monster

Chapter 63: Born A Monster, Chapter 63 – Geralt the Bladorn A Monstehapter 63

Geralt the Bladeralt the Blade was tall, thin, and balanced like a plains-cat. He was a shade more blonde than white, which spoke of an uncommon bloodline. He was dressed in frills and lace, and made it look natural and elegant.

"Show me your weapon of choice.” He said. He tsked at my knife, and it vanished into his inventory. “No, that ABSOLUTELY will not do. Let me see the length of your arms. Hrm. Flex your wrist. I see.”

He plucked a light blade from a nearby table. “Show me your stance with that blade. Oh, dear. No, you do NOT treat that like a knife. Show me your sword stance.”

"Ugh. I suppose there’s no help for it. I shall simply have to train you. And you, young lady?”

.....

"You’re not getting either of these beauties, but you can pick a blade for me.”

He went through the same assessment of arm and wrist. “Stabber?”

When she nodded, he picked a blade. “Foil for you, then. This third near the grip is for blocking. The other two thirds...” he bent the tip with his fingers. “Always remember.”

Katherine looked at me. “You’re paying for these. And you should probably buy that shield you were eyeing yesterday.”

"Shield? Nobody ever killed anyone of competence with a shield!”

Well, I checked Truthsayer against the purchase of weapons. It seemed to be a legitimate purchase. Wait, was it treating me as a combatant?

Nothing in my oath said anything about actually fighting. I could... Crap. Yeah, I’d probably have to fight, if only defensively.

He picked quality blades for us, but they were also costly. As in, I didn’t feel the least bit guilty buying the shield and a child’s set of chainmail with a slit for my tail to fit through.

[Warning: Reasonable rates of expense for this quest are 10 to 15 gold coins. Your recent purchases are still within this limit.]

There was a helmet styled after a canine that almost fit my unique head. A day to make modifications?

"No, it must be ready, and delivered to the Knight Rampant by tonight, completed or not. We leave before dawn tomorrow.”

"Impossible. I need the night, at least.”

"A moment. Do you trust your son to make delivery before dawn?”

He haggled me up to two tin coins for the delivery, and I paid all three of them.

"Thank you, sir, for what efforts you can put into the helmet in such a short time.”

"Uh, helmet. Learn to parry, and you need no such metal.” Still, he waited until we were in the street to spit.

"Until I can parry like that, I intend to use both armor and shield, the tools that have kept me alive so well.”

He rubbed his eyes. “I will teach you what I can, but this is not the way to start learning. I need to piss in this alley.”

He grabbed me by the shoulder. “You need to take a piss in this alley, too.”

"Okay.”

"We’ll speak no more of this, but you’ll not outlive the Oriestes scion by more than a half day.”

"I understand.”

And we never spoke of that again.

#

We met the crew for lunch, decked out in a mixture of leathers and mail, much of it covered in runes. Kyle even had a swan amulet that glowed with a pale yellow light.

What type of magic WAS that?

Honor, it was explained to me, required me to pay for lunch. They also wrangled fifteen percent of the budget from me, a full thirty gold pieces.

"Hey, I want my ten gold pieces, too.” Katherine said.

Well THAT argument went on well after the Crew had agreed to meet us before dawn and departed. I lost, and even agreed to pay Geralt for training for myself and Katherine.

Man, I needed Charisma to back up my Resolve.

Counting the eighty gold for Philecto’s group, I was just glad that centaurs and elves had a reputation for not being motivated by coin.

"You look stressed.” Geralt said. “It’s a great time to learn how to use your flavian.”

A flavian is a blade much like a shortsword, but with double edges. For reasons I won’t go into, it is also known as a leaf blade. In Athal, it is regarded as one of the blades you start using when you’ve worn out your wooden practice sword.

It’s a pain to keep sharp, requires constant maintenance, and is just all around annoying. And that’s my assessment of the higher quality one that Geralt found for me.

"First thing, your grip is all wrong. Hold it like this, the knuckles of your hand inline with the blade, inline with the strike.”

"I’ve got no blade, do I align my knuckles with these handguards?” Katherine asked.

"Foil and Flavian are different styles of blade, but yes. That’s the grip. Thumb there. Practice using your thumb to roll the tines of the guard in your hand.”

"So. Stance. No, this isn’t a knife. You need to actually move, so your stance needs to be closer. Closer. There.”

"The balance is higher.” I said. Exactly what shields don’t need. Lower is more stable.

"Yes, and therefore you can move with less effort.”

"So I’m going to need to balance my stance between offense and defense.”

"No. You use mobility as your defense, not that slab of metal. Set it aside for now.”

And so we went for several hours about how my basic instincts were all wrong, and why the ones he was trying to teach me were better.

The innkeep was right; I never saw his son or my armor again during that visit.

When it was delivered in the morning, the helmet wasn’t a perfect fit, but it would serve.

"So our first problem,” Kyle said, “is that Whitehill doesn’t have a reason to send diplomats to Montu’s Glory. It doesn’t even show up on our maps.”

"I know who to ask in Narrow Valley.”

#

As predicted, the crew knew nothing about camping. Or walking, as it turns out. We paid for them to ride in a cart of flour and dried meats.

I had to teach them about tents (we had only the one) and campfires, about what to forage, and how to cook. Honestly, I suspect they feigned ignorance just to get me to do everything. The idea that someone had never slept outdoors, let alone in the rain, was hard to believe.

But I wasn’t hiring them as campers or guides. I would need to arrange those once we were in Narrow Valley.

They complained about dirt, about insects, about pollen and drifting bits of foliage. It was maddening. Except for the constant questions, and the way they bantered plans back and forth, it would have been easy to conclude I had wasted my money.

But their biggest complaint was the trail forage stew. They accused me of living off of grass, which was actually true.

Thinking back on it, I did a lot just to forage and survive in the wild; I suppose it is uncharitable for me to think poorly of them for their lack of ability. But I still did.

Katherine had learned Lunge, a swift attack that covered a surprising amount of distance. She still lost when sparring with Geralt, but he always explained to us why we lost.

I had not learned any special attacks, although I found it easy enough to parry with the short blade. This sent waves of fury through Geralt, who accused me of ignoring his teachings.

"Battles are not duels.” I said. “This is all well and good for one-on-one combat, but real life rarely presents only one enemy at a time.”

"How can you win against three when you can’t even win against one?”

It took us three days to reach Narrow Valley, and each day they complained as if I could change the weather or shelter them from the realities of nature. Then, they got to complain about how inferior our inns were to those in Whitehill, which, to be fair, they were.

"Look. I need to make arrangements for a diplomatic envoy to be sent to Montu’s Glory. Make do, and enjoy.”

And I took a short walk to the Shrine of the Sun.

"Well, I don’t arrange for such things.” The Hellene explained. “And I certainly don’t think the city can be persuaded to release their diplomats without recompense.”

"Then perhaps a delegation to discuss such terms?”

"And whom do you think is going to bear such words, risking being held as hostages in Montu’s Glory?”

I blinked. “Narrow Valley was under siege just over a week ago, and the town council is just waiting?”

"Some Truthspeaker swore to see a tyrant overthrown, I believe they are waiting on the results of that.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “So rather than assist, they plan to deny involvement should I fail.”

"Can you say you would do differently?”

"Cowards. No wonder there is a dearth of accomplished adventurers compared to the days of legend.”

"The days of legend had the Weapons of Legend. Without them, you have normal people, capable of normal deeds. Only those who put themselves into positions that would kill lesser people evolve into the tiers of heroism.”

#

"So, we don’t have the diplomatic cover.” I explained to the crew. “Is there another way that you professionals can think of to get inside the city without risking being enslaved?”

.....

"Doesn’t sound like slavery.” Said Peretta. “Not as I understand it, anyway.”

"An occupied territory, at best.” Phoenix said.

"Give us two days.” Kyle said. “We’ll figure something out.”

"If you can’t figure out a way in, possibly a backup as well, then don’t go.” I said. “Keep the half up front, and just go home. I’ll just go back to the original plan.”

"The dumb plan?” asked Katherine. “That plan sucks monkey balls.”

"If you can come up with a better plan, I am willing to go with the better plan.”

"For one thing, we should at least find out if the clergy of Montu’s Glory have any kind of resistance. If we can have a gate opened for us, if only for escape, it increases our odds of survival.”

I sighed. “I need to have met someone to contact them through Dreamtime.”

Katherine had a blade out, and pointed it in my direction. “You mean I could have been contacting my children every night, and you’ve said nothing?”

"Not every night.” I said. “Possibly one night in four. As we get further from Whitehill, the success rate drops off rapidly.”

She squinted at me. “Tonight, you try to get me in touch with my children.”

My fingers scraped across the table edge.

"Fine. Just be warned that magic is unpredictable; it should be safe enough, between you and your children. But it is neither certain nor entirely without risk.”

As if to disprove me, the Lucid Dreaming and Enter Dreams both went without a hitch, that night. But I get ahead of myself.

Clan Skyhoof had returned a list of names and contests. Much as I liked Ptolemon, I doubted that the fishing champion was one to approach for this. Oh, he and his wives were accomplished Sagittarii, and good enough to fight Uruk. But if it got to that point, we’d failed to get in stealthily.

I composed messages to the champions of the Archery and Lancing championships, and commissioned teams to deliver those messages. It was a risk, the elves hadn’t responded to my message about the quality bow I needed, wouldn’t for another week or so.

I checked with Amendea; I had little enough coin remaining. Gods, if there were anything else I could do to help make this work, just let me know.

I mean, things looked to be going well. That was always when something went wrong.

#