Arcaea/Dining Hall/Goffrey's Garrulous Gallantries
“You know me so well,” Goffrey said with a wry grin, as he pulled his sword from his sheath and held it aloft in a leisurely inspective manner. It looked worn, but serviceable, with nicks here and there along a still sharp and sure edge.
“That is the sword in about a literal a sense as you can get, but I like to think of it in a more…nonlinear fashion…,” spoke Goffrey as his took in the ‘length of folded metal’ attentively, “I see it as a…symbol, of sorts, a shining beacon in a world that was once much darker than it is now. When often a sword was all that separated a man from a monster’s belly…in that sense it’s a symbol of defiance, a cry from mortal lips condemning the natural world for assuming us so small. But even that picture is a fragmented vision of the whole painting, for in another, far greater capacity, it a weapon, used by those who would take, and by those who would keep. Equally dependent upon the hands that wielded it as it was the manner in which it was forged, and while widely considered a noble weapon, and yet more often than not it is used to ignoble ends. Its’ is a conflicting nature that knows no loyalties, not even to the one who wields it…betraying nothing and everything at the same time…”
Goffrey stopped his ramble here, convinced he was probably confusing and concerning Jenred with his inane rant…as it was he was just a bit confused himself but at the same time he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was on to something…something important…
So he continued…
“…the greatest judge of a man’s character is the weight of a sword at his hip, and the why behind that sword is not as important as the manner in which it is wielded…in that capacity, it could be said, and thought be my…that the sword…is truth…personal, and universal in its reach...you just have to know how to look for it…”
The rain was gone at this point, having tapered off at the onset of Goffrey’s impromptu lecture, and silence was all that filled the space between the Duke and the King. That and something else that hung at the back of the hero’s mind that he couldn’t quite pin down.
The king also seemed to pick up on it as well…there was a quiet here that was concerning especially seeing as they were both about 5 minutes away from help in every direction…and a lot can happen in minutes.
The King mouth opened to acknowledge the tension that had suddenly filled the air, before some thing leapt from the brush and snapped the tense like an over taut violin…it was fast, and strong, slamming into the pair’s horses and collectively knocking the two of them to the dirt.
Goffrey’s sword slipped from his finger’s, and Jenred and had found himself trapped beneath the unconscious form of his horse even as the…whatever it was loomed over Goffrey’s horse like a child peering into a candy shop.
And from this angle Goffrey’s picture of the creature developed. It was large by the standards of man, 7ft tall, and built powerfully with skin that seemed subtly off until an eye jarring moment rendered it a dark shade of brown. The word chameleon popped into Goffrey’s mind before he could fully process what that meant, but it didn’t much matter at that point to him as he was already moving.
He felt it happening before the idea of resistance entered his mind…a letting go of sorts as a series of subtle changes rippled throughout his body as he rushed to his feet and plowed into the creature before it had a chance to sample the taste of Duchal traveling horse.
Momentum took over as the pair spilled over to the ground, rolling about as they struggled for a dominate position before they rolled clear of each other, as the monster dropped down to a crouching stance in appraisal of his adversary growling and showing his many fanged maw…even as Goffrey responded in kind, not quite dropping to all fours, but maintaining a very close distance to the ground…
He didn’t know at that point but his eye’s had silted once again as a roar escaped his lips even as an eerily similar roared answered back at him from the monster staring him down…a second later and they were upon each other again. The monster rising to his haunches and charging forward extending claws from his paws as he swiped at Goffrey, who deftly ducked the attack, and rolled inside the thing’s guard, where he struck, fast and hard his fist slamming into a series of pressure points and nerve cluster’s located on the monster’s side and soft under belly.
Even as the beast reared back, howling with either rage or pain, and smashed the hero with a mighty back hand. A blow the warrior had seen coming, leaning away from it as he grabbed a hold of the offending arm, and as it completed its stroke he lanced out with a doubled footed blow straight into the maw of the creature, shattering bones and sending bits of teeth flying alongside spittle and blood.
Dazed the monster fell over, with Goffrey still clutching his arm, holding it aloft as he landed on his feet next to the thing’s head. He gave a savage twist, and a jarring pop signaled the dislocation of the creature’s shoulder a minute before it arose again, pissed and hurt swinging wildly with it’s one good arm, as Goffrey swirled just outside it’s attack range, usually minimal effort to evade and every clumsy heavy handed blow waiting for the perfect opening…
And then eye stingingly fast it was over, one minute Goffrey was ducking another back hand from the thing and then another he had impaled it through the throat with his right hand, not closed but flat in a shape reminiscent of a dagger with a roughly equivocal effect.
It took a moment for the monster to realize it was dead by at that point the nerve endings below it’s shattered neck could do nothing but fire off ineffectively until a lack of oxygen killed the muscles and stopped the blood flow…
It took Goffrey a second more to pry the thing off his fist, ‘easier going in than it was coming out’ his father had said when he had taught him that technique, and then he laughed…
Goffrey didn’t particularly feel like laughing at that point, as he shook his arm vigorously trying to get the gunk off of it, when Jenred approached, having pried himself free of the unmoving mass of his horse to stand by Goffrey’s side somewhat belatedly…
“A small one,” he said after a moment’s quiet, unsure how to broach the suddenness of the moment, “Probably just a cub…which is odd, because you usually don’t see them that far away from their mother’s…”
And just because the universe loves ironic statements the forest directly to the right of the Duke and King suddenly parted before a truly leviathan creature, towering nearly 12 feet tall the alpha monster took a moment to take in the mangled corpse of it’s child before rearing it’s ugly face back and issuing a ear piercing roar that was equal parts horrifically angrily as it was oddly mournful…
“Oh…” was about as far as Jenred got before Goffrey finished for him, “…****.”
And then the thing moved frighteningly fast for something of it’s size lancing out with arms the size of tree trunks at the two seemingly immobile figures before them. Jenred was moving but Goffrey saw it wasn’t going to be fast enough, and with a great push he knocked the king out of the way a second before the world seemingly disappeared beneath his feet only to turn into a hellish thicket of wooden limbs and dead leaves seconds before a jarring impact knocked his vision fuzzy, and all the world grew dark.
Goffrey Massey Duke of Topenah
