Where Nobody Knows Your Name(Mint, Karlsen)

Karlsen says, "The biggest thing that will probably be asked is what you plan to do about the fact that Caine killed your father." He holds up his hands. "I don't want to know. Not my business. I am just letting pointing out what I would ask if I were Random."

He reflects for a few moments. "Can't even advise you there, I have no idea what you felt for your father. I have no childhood memories of a father, and precious few of my mother. Gerard . . . . didn't know about me until much later. My mother worked very hard to keep us fed and with a roof over our head. She rarely had time to spend with me. I have so few memories of her." He lapses into a melencoly funk.

After a lapse into silent thoughtfulness for the better part of half an hour Mint rouses herself. She stands suddenly.

"We need a distraction. Something fun. Something physical. Do you enjoy sparring? I admit that I'm curious to test myself against another of my generation. I can't ever beat Bleys. I'm undefeated against Shadows. That leaves me no real baseline as to how I compare with my generation. All we would need are a couple practice weapons and a space free of easily damaged laboratory equipment."

Mint looks around for those very things.

He pulls himself out of his funk. "That is a wonderful idea. I don't keep practice weapons here though. But there are staves downstairs that would do for staffs. There is an open patch behind the bar we can use. Course we will get an audience back there. The boys will get a laugh out of watching the boss getting his butt kicked by a woman." (assuming she agrees)

He gets up and heads to a the wood working area. "Just a moment." He dissappears for a few monents behind a sliding pannel cleverly disguised as a shelf. He reappears and says, "Man guard. I have a date later this week and don't want to dissapoint the lady." He heads downstairs and (assuming she follows) finds a few staves at the right size and thickness.

"Ah don't mind staves, but do you have anyplace less conspicuous than behind the bar? Normally ah don't mind an audience, but ah do want ta keep a low profile for anothah day or two."

Karlsen, "Well we could take a small trip..." He walks over to the painting area of the workshop. He opens a drawer and then appears to shuffle through the contents. He opens a compartment at the back and removes a card case. He then pulls out three trumps.

Two he gives to her. The first is a picture of himself. It is in a very unique style, a chinese watercolor. The subject is himself. In the picture he is wearing green armor and carries a glaive. His beard is also very long, down to his navel.

(Occ-Ok how do you post a picture? http://www.orientaloutpost.com/proddetail.php?prod=jb-guangong-7 is wat the pic looks like but I can't seem to post it. )

He explains, "Well it is an old picture of me. When I traveled a lot more and worked around fire a lot less."

The second is the street outside the bar, in the same style. "Just so you have a way back to Amber anytime you need one."

He holds up the last, a picture of a field in a forest there is nothing very remarkable about it other than all of the leaves are various shades of orange. There appears to be a small one room cottage at the edge of a clearing. "This is a quiet place, fast time stream, pleasant people we can spend a day there and be back before dawn, roughly 4 hours to 1 Amber hour. I use it for gettting some thinking time in when I am under a tight deadline. Unfortunately it is a resort area so finding practice weapons would not be very likely."

"Thank you."

Mint is quite visibly grateful for the Trumps. It seems almost excessive except that Karlsen realizes she must have been stuck in Shadow finding her way to Amber for quite some time.

"We could just practice with staves or..."

Mint looks around at the workshop.

"...it sounds like we have enough time to make our own practice weapons if we bring a few supplies."

Karlsen brightens, "Of course!" He picks up a small box in the wood working area and fills it with the necessary tools. They then collect some staves from downstairs and he comments, "We don't have any padded armor, but I for one don't feel it is necessary for me. If you wish though there are leather arm guards and shin guards for the foundry workers that would work if you wish. Though they will be a bit stiffer than armor would be."

"Ready?"

Mint waves away the padding as unnecessary.

"Ready."

He pulls out the trump and concentrates for a moment. Then he reaches out a hand to her. "Take my hand and we will step through."

Once through they notice that the field has changed only slightly. The oranges are a bit deeper with reds appearing on some trees.

"Ah, autumn." He takes a deep breath of the cool crisp air. "A great time to be here." He unrolls an oilcloth and lays out the tools. He then lets Mint take first pick of the staves and they set to work fashioning practice weapons.

(Occ- That is all I have time for right now. Feel free to post up to the begining of the bouts. How detailed do you want to do the bouts?)

Mint travels through the Trump alongside Karlsen. She quite clearly takes a few minutes upon arrival to orient herself and enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of the new location before setting to work.

After examining the staves Mint selects the inferior one for herself, although they are both of such quality that the difference is negligible. Whether she made this selection by chance or design is not immediately obvious.

Mint clearly has a confident hand with a knife for carving as well as other purposes. She has no problem creating a training weapon quickly and efficiently. The resulting weapon is demonstrably of master-work quality. While she carves Mint will make small talk with Karlsen asking many small questions about Amber, this Shadow, and any other subject that Karlsen brings up.

Once both weapons are ready, Mint takes a few practice swings and then offers the sword to Karlsen for inspection.

OOC- Did you read the practice bout between Winnow and Fergus? I thought we might do something similar.

After they both have a chance to examine each other's practice weapons, Mint will stand with the weapon she is using held loosely in her left hand.

Mint waits patiently for Karlsen to make his move. An insouciant expression on her face, she smiles a secret half smile. Something about how she carries herself may seem familiar if Karlsen has ever seen his Uncle Bleys fight. Her approach seems not unlike a reflection of his.

Karlsen takes an unusual stance (from a western point of view). His body is in a rear weighted stance with his sword in his right hand, but his elbow is down and fist is 90 degrees up in front with the practice sword resting easily on his palm, point towards Mint. His left hand is in front of his forhead palm out.

Since she seems to be expecting him to start, he will oblige. He starts with some sliding deflecting attacks in standard lines against her sword, attempting to draw it off the line of her defence (H). He will use exellent, but a bit rusty footwork and pull the attacks a bit at first (Human). He will rapidly increase the difficulty of the attacks (Chaos) when it becomes apparent that she can handle it. If he successfully draws her guard off line he will go for a light touch with the tip of his sword in a thrust (C).

Mint parries his initial attacks with ease. (C) She allows her guard to be drawn off line, but dances out of the way of Karlsen's strike. (A)

Mint smiles as if amused.

"Don't feel the need ta hold back on mah account."

"Who says I'm holding back for you? I haven't picked up a sword in longer than you have probably been alive. I warned you I was rusty." He starts a series of attacks (C) but the angles start to stranger and stranger. The practice sword comes in from unusual positions and the angles start to become larger and larger. One moment a stab inwards from almost straight down from a small hop, then next a slashing attack from low up to the underside of her wrist. If Mint counterstrikes he will stop moving back from the blows but will instead deflect them the minimum amount and start moving his body aside and under the blows. He will probably take a hit or two at this point until his muscle memory kicks in better. Mint will realise that he is limbering up, and refreshing muscle memory. (occ - remember he worked a full day in the foundry before she came.) When he finishes his warm up he will back off a half step. "Do you want to limber up? Or are you ready to get started?"

When Mint realizes that Karlsen is warming up, she does likewise. She still hasn't bothered to actually attack him. By this point she has also stopped bothering to deflect Karlsen's attacks. Instead she merely moves her body out of the way of each attack. (A)

Mint smiles. "Ah was born ready, old man."

(Occ - Do you mind if I wait a bit on this? I want to have some fun with it, and right now between work pressures and the main thread I'm afraid I would just rush through something that should be enjoyed.)

OOC: I'm hesitant to put things on hiatus just because getting things moving again can prove difficult, but if you need to limit your posts in this thread to one or two a week for a while that works for me.

Not that far, just till the weekend. Then I should be able to have a bit more time. Just getting stretched a bit thin and was looking forward to writing some combat so I didn't want to rush it.

Karlsen sighs. "You are going to make me regret spending so much time in the factory and not much on the practice yard aren't you?" He seems to consider her stance and guard for a moment and the launches into a blinding series of feints and slashes (Amber Warfare). All from a high sword position and his feet are closer together than before, gaining him a bit of additional height.

"Nothing wrong with the factory, but yeah practice is essential"

Mint seems to pick out each feint smoothly and easily. (10 Warfare)

As Karlsen has gone for a high stance Mint comes in low actually bothering to parry a few blows in order to get close enough to Tweak Karlsen's nose. (Chaos Strength)

"You take the high road..." Mint sings.

Karlsen sighs. "And one shiny day long ago I used to think that I was hot stuff with a sword." Karlsen brings his sword into contact with Mint's then he uses his high stance to lunge forward using bodyweight and skill (Amber) to force the blade off line to his right and upwards. (She is still fighting left handed correct?) {Super fast actions take longer to describe!} His left hand starts to move forward and he steps forward with his left foot. His left hand completes the movement and grabs Mint's left forearm above the wrist. His right leg then passes behind him and he attempts a hip throw Mint. (Strength? Amber)

(Occ - I came up with this beautiful sequence and when I got done writing it I thought, "Of course by this point Mint will reacted half way through it. Sigh. How to handle it?)

Mint allows herself to be thrown. Her sword goes flying through the air in a high arc. With Strength equal to that which Karlsen has shown so far (Amber), she gets her arm free at the cost of losing her footing. Mint rolls with the throw and stops rolling in just the right place to catch her sword. (10 Warfare)

"Ah used to think that ah was pretty strong. Nicely done."

Mint smiles widely. She is, for the moment sitting on the ground holding her sword once again in her left hand.

Karlsen also smiles, "Thank you." He salutes with the sword. "You learn to mix and match when fighting pirates. Some are deadly with blades, others with brawn but very few with both. Am I to come after your Antonio Inoki stance? Or would you like to learn how to deal with that attack? There are a few defensive options if you don't know them already."

"If ya can show me an option Bleys would not have taught me ah'm interested. Ah only know about fahve better responses than the one ah picked. Otherwise ah'm just trying ta keep this interesting. So fah seated on the floor with mah blade in mah off hand seems about the right speed. If ya like ah could close mah eyes too."

Kalsen shakes his head. "I think I should be asking you for critiques then." His blade hand rotates down from his upper guard position to a more traditional lower guard stance. With the blade and guard protecting against a stab he lunges forward bending his legs up underneath himself. He slides with his body at a 45 degree angle backwards, knees forward and feet beneath him. He hits the ground and slides into range on Mint's left.

There follows a furrious exchange of blows and blocks by both combatants (OCC - Amber warfare).