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TRAINING GROUNDS - AFTERNOON
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Louma slithers back from the dummy posts, having just set three in place to start some spear practice, a nostalgic desire to try despite the improper feel of the wooden spears having been brought on by her dinner with May the night before. She hums, hefting the far-too-light tool, setting it down on a table and considering how to adjust the weight. She looks to the pouch she'd brought along, humming again.
Kira is perched on the edge of the roof, watching the training grounds as is her usual free-time activity these days. Upon spotting Louma, she takes to the air and flutters downward toward where her friend is setting up the dummies. "Hello captain!" she calls out.
Louma looks around to find the source of the greeting, spotting Kira and turning to her to talk. "Ah, hello Kira! I've heard word that you've been around the grounds. How does the day find you?"
Kira lands on the head of one of the dummies and smiles at Louma. "Yes! I have my blade finally, but I don't really know where to begin in learning it..." She draws the tiny rapier from an equally small sheath on her belt and waves it around inexpertly.
Louma watches Kira, smiling with an approving nod. "That's excellent, I'm glad you've got an appropriate weapon. My training with thin blades is somewhat limited, but I can try to help." She slithers closer to Kira to better examine her stance. "Really, it will come down to what works for you, not many swordsmen in the guard can fly."
Kira nods, lowering her sword as Louma approaches. "Yes, I'm waiting until I see someone training with a similar weapon to ask questions, but most here seem to favor chunkier weapons..."
Louma nods, rubbing her chin. "You're not wrong, a rapier handles differently from other swords, many consider it a noble weapon for upper class folks, not something for regular combat. I think it suits you well. I have some training with them, but well..." She glances at the wooden spear on the table. "I have other preferences as well."
Kira flutters up and does a few dives and swoops with the blade, making some stiff contact with the dummy's head, but still clearly not at ease with the blade. "I'll learn. It will just take some time."
Louma nods, watching Kira and taking mental notes on her handling. "You really might have to make your own technique, honestly. Parrying is a big part of fencing, but not much of an option for you."
Kira lands again and sheathes the blade. She nods. "Perhaps more some basics of how to attack and not have to stop..." She looks at the blade. "It gets stuck sometimes if I try to sting with it... maybe I should slash more?"
Louma nods. "Slashing is a good idea, but a wooden dummy is different than cloth and meat. You've probably noticed most of the weapon training guards do is slashing and cleaving. Ideally, we don't want to kill someone, so disarming and disabling techniques are encouraged. I prefer a club to a sword, personally."
Kira nods, just listening. "Ok, right... so... no stabbing?"
Louma shakes her head, considering Kira and her weapon. "I don't think it's necessarily off the table for you, your rapier won't do as much damage as a short sword would, and your slashes might not be as effective against thick cloth or scales. Perhaps we can consider a poison coating..? Just something temporarily paralytic."
Kira cocks her head. "Poison? I guess so? I mean, if it's to protect my friends..."
Louma chuckles, shrugging. "Know I don't mean any insult, I do admire that you want to help and protect folks. If you can't overpower someone, making it so they can't swing their weapon or flee is your next option."
Kira nods, thinking. "I just want to do the best I can..." She looks down at her blade. "I know I can't fight like the others, so I have to find my own way..."
Louma smiles, turning back to the table. "I'm sure you will manage it, Kira. I'll be happy to act as a moving target for you any time you like... Without the poison, preferrably."
Kira giggles. "Right... basic technique first, I think, though." She looks to Louma's spear on the table. "So what are you practicing today?"
Louma opens the pouch, it's contents rattling before she dumps out a stack of thin copper strips. "I've been wanting to do spear practice, but nothing in Respite has the right feel to it. Think of it like if your lantern was suddenly twice it's weight and you had no other option." She picks up one of the strips, beginning to wrap it around the spear shaft near the end.
Kira frowns. "Ah... that sounds awful..." She watches Louma work with the copper strips. "So you're making it even heavier?"
Louma shakes her head. "I figured your lantern being heavier than you'd like would be a better analogy than it suddenly being lighter. Orelan snake spears are much heavier than these wooden ones, and still have more heft to them than our iron ones." She giggles as she begins working a second copper strip around the weapon. "Perhaps I'm just too picky?"
Kira shakes her head. "No, it makes sense... the weapon should suit the user..."
Louma nods, picking the spear up after having added nearly 12 pounds of copper to the head end, shifting back a bit from the table. "You're right about that, of course." She gives the modified training weapon a few test swings, being careful at first.
Kira flies up to perch on a crossbeam above the table, watching Louma curiously. "How long ago did you learn how to fight?"
Louma thinks for a moment. "Hmm... 28 now, so I entered the military 12 years ago... But Mother taught me how to use axes and a regular spear some years before that. More than half my life ago, I suppose." She turns the spear over in a bit of flourish before starting to repeat a simple, flowing set of strikes on the air in front of her. She hums a sigh afterward. "Shaft isn't right, either. It's too rigid."
Kira watches Louma work and nods. "Ah... I probably won't ever be that old..." She flutters in the air, moving around the swan snake to watch how her friend moves.
Louma nods somewhat sadly. "I don't know how long anyone can really expect to live, so we make the most of our time, right?" She turns to the training dummies, grinning. "At the very least, be happy during that time." Louma starts a routine of swings at the first dummy, leveraging the spear's length into solid blows that shudder her target. Splinters of the wooden spear head fall as it connects. Her final movements are a thrust that misses the dummy by a few inches, before she drags it up and backward. She settles into a resting stance, barely breathing any heavier from the routine.
Kira nods in agreement with Louma and just watches her friend train for a while.
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RESPITE MARKETPLACE - LATE AFTERNOON
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Louma flies over the city, a bit tired out from her time at the training grounds, the only change to her uniform being a bag of unbent copper strips hanging from her belt. Her conversation with May the night before had piqued her interest in a certain giraffe and wolf, though she had already considered questioning them about recent information. She banks, descending in a tight spiral before landing on a clear section of cobblestone, the Minnow just to her left, and the market bustling some distance ahead of her.
Gareth makes his way through the marketplace, having been just browsing the stalls for the past while, chatting with the merchants and generally just passing time. He hasn't taken notice of Louma yet, his attention more focused on the food on display at a stall specializing in kebabs.
Louma may not have been spotted, but Gareth certainly has been. Admittedly, both stand out pretty well in a crowd. She grunts slightly, her official aires already on as she slithers towards the marketplace. She glances at the stalls as she passes them, but doesn't make any moves to stray as she approaches the kebab stall, speaking to the vendor. "Good evening, Andres. Two please, game hen. And whichever two this seafarer likes."
Gareth blinks and looks up at the other patron with a raised eyebrow, only to blink when he notices it's Louma. "Oh, evenin', Louma. Thank ye kindly, though I was just browsin' a bit." He dips his head at the vendor and points out a couple of kebabs that he'd like, "Guessin' yer off fer the evenin', then?"
Louma nods, taking her food after handing over her coins. "My pleasure, Gareth. Just consider it a small bribe for another sparring session in the future. And yes, free from the desk for another short stint."
Gareth chuckles and accepts the wrapped kebabs, though he does slip the vendor a small extra payment in thanks. "Then consider me properly bribed fer a sparrin' match. Good to see ye again."
Louma smiles as she turns to Gareth, gesturing towards a bench against the front of the bakery. "It's good to see you as well, join me for a short rest?"
Gareth nods, smiling in turn as he makes his way towards the bench with Louma, taking a seat without much prompting at all. "Sure, could be nice to get off o' me feet fer a little bit."
Louma smiles, taking up a spot off the end of the bench, coiling up on the grassy patch as she unwraps the first kebab. "Well, I would share the same sentiment, but lack the equipment." She sighs somewhat dramatically. "Perhaps in my next life I'll be so lucky to have feet to get off of."
Gareth laughs. "Well, let me tell ye before ye get any wrong ideas: havin' feet isn't all sunshine and roses." He lifts a leg up a bit and wiggles his boot, "Fer one, ye don't have to deal with footwear. Two, ye don't need to worry about gettin' sore feet."
Louma chuckles, nodding. "Or pants, although armor is far more expensive. And a sore tail is nothing to joke about, except these scales are made to move. 'Bed sores' from sitting behind my desk all day was torture."
Gareth looks along Louma's tail, nodding. "Guess we've got our own sets o' problems, eh? Though, I guess I can't say I'm not too surprised at that."
Louma shrugs, slipping a morsel of hen from the kebab and swallowing it whole. "If not for burdens, we would not have relief."
Gareth nibbles on a bit of meat from one of his own kebabs, chewing thoughtfully. "Mmh, that's a fair way to look at thing, aye."
Louma chuckles, shrugging again. "Too much time to think, sometimes. Poring over stacks of paperwork is incredibly boring. I can't imagine you've been having a particularly great time, either though. How long has it been? Nearly two months? All that time in Respite with so little to do, perhaps you could post up as a part time guard."
Gareth laughs again, grinning. "Is that how ye recruit folks into the guard, here? Never heard that one, before." He sighs a bit as he leans back in his seat, "But, aye, it's been a couple o' months now. Though, at least it's not too borin', as Fiora and I came upon a job to do the other day, and we've got our eyes on the target. Just waitin' on the proper time to pounce."
Louma pauses halfway to biting onto the second piece of meat, finishing that task before responding. "Oh? That's good news then. I was actually going to ask you a question about bounties, but if you're already on track of the target, then you're probably not too worried about the half dozen others that arrived over the past week or so." She finishes the last of her first kebab, setting the stick on the end of the bench.
Gareth blinks and furrows his brow as he looks at Louma. "Other hunters have been showin' up lately? Damn, we might have to move faster. Last thing we need is to have a bounty poached. That always gets messy..."
Louma slowly opens her second kebab, glancing toward Gareth. "Try not to make the guard move against you, at least. But consider yourself alerted, I suppose. James Hatnay 'the merchant from Sarn' is the one that made me look closer. He's a bit famous in Ondonga." She gives him a bit of a grin. "I don't think I should list the others, wouldn't make things fair for them."
Gareth thinks for a few moments, then nods. "I'll have to run that name by Fiora, see what she makes of it." He shakes his head, "As fer dealin' with the poachers, if they try that... well, we'll try to make it look like they just vanished." He gives Louma a bit of a look, "Best I can do, considerin' how... insistent some o' them can get. It'll be self-defense, otherwise."
Louma sighs, turning to her food before it gets cold. "I'd prefer it if you could leave them tied up somewhere so they show up on the 'leaving' list eventually, but whatever you have to do to protect yourselves if it comes to that." She picks off a chunk of game hen, asking before she enjoys it; "So who is the bounty, anyways? Someone who snuck in on a caravan?"
Gareth shakes his head. "If only it was someone bein' chased for somethin' so simple, then maybe we wouldn't have to worry about poachers. No, the target's a Kobold inventor. They're wanted fer apparently stealin' some tech from Sarn, and those university folks are willin' to pay a pretty penny fer their capture."
Louma nearly chokes on her food, coughing for a moment before she recovers enough to speak. "Strix is your mark? I'm sorry, but that Kobold might be somewhat skewed, perhaps caused some concerning smoke clouds, but a thief is the last thing he would be labelled. Do you have... No, you wouldn't need evidence, would you?"
Gareth raises an eyebrow at Louma's reaction, but shakes his head. "A bounty's a bounty. Fiora might try to put on airs about what we do bein' fer good, but you and I both know bounty huntin' can get dirty sometimes. If Strix isn't the mark, he'd better have a damn good excuse fer matchin' the description on the bounty poster."
Louma grunts, looking at her kebab and losing her appetite. "I don't fault you in any way, just a little surprised, and forgive me, skeptical. I suppose the other hunters wouldn't care, but Strix has done right by the town and the guard. If he's earned the price on him, then so be it, but it would be severely disappointing for him to be dragged to Sarn for nothing."
Gareth shrugs, seeming unbothered by the details. "He'll have all the time in the world to try and dissuade us while we're busy bundling him up. He's just got to convince us he's not the mark, and we'll let him go."
Louma sets her food aside, turning to Gareth, a realization hitting her. "You were asking Maybelline about an engineer that had floating discs. Is that what the Sarn folks say he stole? If he can prove they're his own invention..."
Gareth nods, only to blink and give Louma a look. "Miss Maybelline told ye about our meetin', did she? Guess I wasn't quite as subtle about the questions as I'd thought. Ah, well..." He shakes his head after a moment, wrapping his kebabs up again for later, "Not the discs, specifically. He's apparently wanted fer stealin' counter-gravity tech, as in the methods, even if those discs are his interpretation fer it."
Louma huffs, leaning back into her coil as she watches him pack away the food, though she can't help but chuckle somewhat. "She was more interested in telling me she was visited by a 'pirate' than anything else about you, actually." She shakes her head, crossing her arms. "If that's the case, then there's nothing else to say, other than... Try not to hurt him if you can, as a favor to me?" She pauses, shaking her head and keeping her next thought to herself.
Gareth blinks and looks at his clothing for a short second, then chuckles. "I guess I do stick out a lot, wearin' this, though I guess that's kind of the point, too." He nods as he settles a bit more comfortably into his seat, "Don't worry, we won't rough Strix up if he cooperates. If he doesn't, then rope burn and chafing might be about as bad as it gets."
Louma nods, seeming to relax a little bit. "I'm still not happy about one of Respite's citizens having a bounty, but it is what it is..."
Gareth shrugs again. "To be fair to Strix, it's not completely certain that he's the mark, but he does match the details given completely. If he didn't, those other hunters wouldn't be swarmin' towards town."
Louma chuckles dryly. "They better not cause any trouble. If I can be honest with you, I'm just waiting for an excuse to kick any number of them out of the gate again. You and Fiora are more exceptions than the rule, and I'm guessing Erika's presence and the lack of bounties out here both have a hand in that."
Gareth gives Louma a bit of a smirk. "I mean... if you want, a word here and there at the right time can stir up enough to warrant a "disruption" expulsion from town. I won't say you should just give them the boot outright, but..."
Louma gives him a sidelong look, humming. She grins after a moment, shrugging. "Like I said, as long as there's not trouble, they're welcome to stay. I think, due to concerns stemming from unrelated recent events, I'm going to have a guard or two posted near the taverns, just in case."
Gareth chuckles and nods. "Might not be a bad idea, that. Show folks yer bein' serious about keepin' order around this place, and they disregard that at their own peril."
Louma chuckles in turn, beginning to uncoil. "Indeed, wouldn't be anybody's fault but their own. Perhaps I should stop procrastinating on drafting that order." She turns to Gareth, pausing. "When... If Strix is found to be wrongly accused, how long will it be before he is returned to his home?"
Gareth shrugs again as he shifts on the bench, getting a little more comfortable for the moment. "Most likely, if he's got a good excuse, however long it takes him to get back from Bairnell's Folly. Worst case scenario, a few weeks' travel from Sarn." He smiles a little, "If it's a mistaken identity, we'll personally escort him back here so no one else tries to bag him fer the bounty."
Louma nods, sighing. "That was going to be my next question, that would be appreciated. I suppose I'll look forward to your return for that sparring match, then." She bows slightly to Gareth, preparing to head on her way. "Enjoy the rest of your evening, Gareth."
Gareth raises a hand and gives Louma a brief wave as she goes on her way. "Have a good evenin', Louma. I'll be sure to let ye know when Fiora and I get back from this job, and what all happened with it." He chuckles as he stands up and dusts his jacket off a bit, "And tell Miss Maybelline I don't intend on changin' me taste in clothin' any time soon."
Louma chuckles as she passes in front of Gareth, nodding before she pauses, one final question coming to mind. "I'll do that, though she's not going to be terribly happy that you're hunting her friend. On a side note... Roughly how much would be the expected bounty to retrieve a certain tool from a certain fool? Such as a spear from an Orelan bounty hunter?"
Gareth blinks and tilts his head at the question, thinking. "Depends on the difficulty of the retrieval. Skilled fighters are harder to disarm and escape from... or, er... 'sneakily liberate' items from than lackwits. How skilled is this bounty hunter mark o' yers?"
Louma grunts. "Perhaps too rich for my coin purse, then. He's in his mid fifties and still taking a few contracts a month. Does that tell you?"
Gareth smirks. "Depends. Is he the sort to go fer easy contracts?"
Louma shugs, unsure. "Fiora would be able to tell you that if she knows Hatnay at all. Only briefly glanced over a dry Ondongan report for recent reference. Like I say, I have no reference for value, but that contract paid out fourteen-thousand."
Gareth hums thoughtfully, crossing his arms and tucking his chin against his chest. "Hmm... And this Hatnay fellow... he's the one carryin' that spear ye want? Ye said he was also comin' here to Respite, to try and claim the bounty on Strix?"
Louma nods. "I know he's come to town, probably for Strix, and no idea if he's using the spear or if he's favoring some other weapon now. I do know he had a hooked spear some years ago, and his attitude... Well, I wouldn't be sad for him to lose that particular weapon."
Gareth nods in turn. "Well... just point me in the right direction, give me some details, and I'll see what I can do for ye. We can figure out the payment later, but scarrin' costs extra." He chuckles, "And I'm sure we can always work out some kind o' payment plan if it proves pricy. Either way, ye'll have yer spear if he still uses it."
Louma grins, the expression tainted by a somewhat selfish shadow. "I would be the happiest snake you'll know. Would make for a far more interesting sparring match, as well~" She lets the expression fade into a more appropriate one for her station, bowing again to Gareth. "I won't keep you any longer, good evening."
Gareth grins in turn. "If I get ye that spear, our next sparrin' match uses our preferred weapons with edge and point guards." He dips his head in acknowledgement and waves again, "Good evenin' to ye, Louma. I'll keep ye posted on all this as it goes."
Louma waves back; "I look forward to your news." Turning toward the nearest clear section of road, the guard takes off into the sky overhead, waiting until she's well airborne before laughing quietly to herself, not sure if she's more elated by the prospect of obtaining that spear or dealing a blow to that bastard, Officer James Hatnay.