Ash stood among the audience members at the sides of the sparring ring, watching with rapt attention at the bout going on within. Even though the combatants had switched weapons, they were both skilled enough fighters that they adjusted quite easily to the difference. The duelist who changed his rapier for a pair of daggers spun on his heels to duck out of the way of the thrust of the heavy lance-wielding knight, even though wielding a lance must have been a jarring change from a morningstar and shield that he set aside. That was the trick of this training ground: that you had to use a weapon or fighting style that you didn't have much experience with. A lot of players usually stopped by to try out new fighting styles if they were looking for a respec of their masteries, though there were also a lot of new players who didn't have the funds to buy weapons of their own coming by to train for a bit. There was a whole array of practice weapons and tools laid out on a long wooden table beside the sparring ring, where you could browse through and pick up what you wanted to give it a go. Ash had come here in the hopes that she could find some magical tools to try out, since she had seen many other practitioners of magic carrying around such items to improve their casting. The match finally ended in a victory for the knight and the jovial atmosphere remained as the referee called the results of the match. "Who would like to try next?" the portly man announced, scanning over the crowd for anyone who would volunteer to spar. This was her chance! Ash raised her hand before her embarrassment got the better of her, saying, "Me! I want to try!" When she was called upon to come to the table to choose a weapon, her eye was drawn to a small ring. She heard from other casters that magical accessories helped with focusing one's energy to more efficiently cast spells. Slipping the worn copper ring on her finger, Ash tried sending a few experimental sparks of magic through it. Huh. It felt much smoother than casting through her hands, as she usually did. Though also very strange. Hmm. She almost forgot that she was going to be sparring with someone until the announcer called for her opponent to go to the table to pick a weapon. Looking up in surprise, Ash examined her sparring partner to see what kind of weapon or tool they would pick. @Verity
Upon learning about the training ground, Verity knew it might be a good place for him to try out his fighting skills. So far, he managed to get the hang of using his Aeromancy spells and since he managed to get used of the oral incantations, he might try to practice reciting them without the use of the panel. With his name called out, he walked over to the ring and nonchalantly picked a sword from the table. He would like to try the other weapons, but he still needed to try out some new sword skills that he learned when his mastery leveled up. Besides, with some recent battles that he fought so far, he felt very wrong if he abandoned a weapon that he just recently gotten used to recently. Though, he felt a little guilty since the woman picked a magical tool as her sparring weapon. He then walked over right in front of the woman and positioned himself with his right foot in front of his left and his right arm that was holding the sword stretched out as he aimed the 'blade' to his sparring opponent. "I never fought someone with a magical tool before. But even this is just a spar, I might not able to be easy on you. So I hope you're prepared for this spar." He didn't want to take this spar seriously since he just wanted to try out his new skills and spells, but he stared at his opponent very cautiously as he prepared to fight. @Ashiore Evretto
Ash grinned and nodded. "Absolutely! The whole point of this is for us to learn, and we can't learn if neither of us is doing their best." Which, you know, everyone going all out was not really the best way to approach a friendly spar. Especially with a magical tool that enhanced her abilities in ways that she didn't even really understand. But nobody ever really called Ash someone with a reasonable attitude towards... well, anything, really. So, of course, the best way to test out this completely awesome magical tool was to bring out the biggest, baddest spell she had! She'd been collecting a couple of seeds from various plants around Falderen and boy had she come across some interesting ones. Growing one from scratch took up essentially all of her energy meter, to the point where she actually fell unconscious the first time she tried growing even a mundane tree. But now she had the ring! So it would definitely go better now, right? That was just simple logic. That thought in mind, Ash brought up her game menu and quickly started tracing the runes of the spell in the air, paying close attention to how the energy seemed directed towards the ring rather than her actual fingers. Of course, she also kept an eye on Verity, making sure he wouldn't catch her off guard. Throwing the appropriate seed on the ground, Ash watched in wide-eyed glee as it began growing a hundred times faster than normal. Thick green vines sprouted almost instantly, obscuring the floor of the arena and making the entire area difficult to traverse. And then the vines began moving. A few spectators had to take a step back just to avoid being grappled by the vines. As the voracious vines started wrapping around whatever was within reach, Ash let out a happy laugh. It was working! And she only felt sort of drained after expending all that energy! Haha, these magical tools really were amazing! Of course, she barely even noticed it when her own vines wrapped around her ankles and yanked. @Verity
Upon he saw vines growing out of the ground after his opponent threw something down, he realized that this was a battle between the wind against nature. It was a strange matchup, but it might be a good way to train how to cast spells without the help of his panel. Once he saw everything, he prepared his sparring sword to commence the spar. But just as he can charge in, he quickly noticed that one of her vines wrapped one of her ankles and somehow yanked her away. Okay, this was not he was expecting for his first training spar, but the sight of the vines began to lose control was never a good sight. "Oh, no... Hang on!" Instead of charging into @Ashiore Evretto to train on some of his spells, he charged in just to cut the vine from her ankles. If the vines began to attack him, he quickly swung his sword, cutting them down in the process. And while he was busy with the vines, he then turned to Ash and shouted, "Hey you! You have to stop these vines now! Otherwise, the whole training ground might be engulfed by it!"
Soo, dangling upside down from suddenly out of control vines was not the most accommodating situation for trying to rein in said out of control vines. "R-right!" she called out, and yelped again when the vines seemed to take offense to @Verity's suggestion and started thrashing about even more. Luckily she didn't get slammed against the ground, but all this was making it harder to concentrate on stopping the vines. Oh, um, but how exactly to do that? She'd been quite rudely interrupted by the vines earlier, so she had already stopped supplying energy to them. And yet they were still there, squirming about, trying to capture everything they could see. Ash bit her lower lip and looked through her spell menu. Cornucopia, Healing Pollen, Hamadryad--ooh, and that looked like a new one she never saw before, maybe she could try that out later- Nope, nope, had to focus now--but nothing that looked like a spell she could use in this situation. W-was there a way to sort of... leech out the energy again? Glancing through her spell list, Ash found something that looked like it might work... With a shrug, she did her best to trace the runes of it in the air, now that Verity was keeping most of the vines occupied. As the glowing green energy swirled around the ring, Ash touched a hand to the vine holding her, and tried to siphon the energy out of the vine. The ring really did make it easier for energy to flow in and out. It was almost disturbing how quickly the vine shriveled away, and she felt a corresponding rush of electric warmth by her hands. As she was dumped on the floor, it looked like the vines were indeed all retreating, curling back in on themselves until all that was left was a little, tiny seed on the ground. Ash looked around to the frazzled Verity, the wary onlookers, and a few of the other more experienced mages who looked like they were just about to step in. "Uh," she started, feeling her face heat up in embarrassment. "Oops...?" She stood up, brushed herself off, and mustered up whatever dignity she had left to turn to Verity. "Um, sorry about that. I know you were looking forward to this, but I, um, might have used up all my energy doing that just now? So I wouldn't be much of a sparring partner. Maybe next time?" 'Well,' she thought, depositing the ring back on the table, 'at least I sort of know how it works now?'
While he managed to save Ash from the vines, there was still a problem on distracting it while she worked on reversing her spell. Using an Aeromancy spell might lessen her chances to destroy the vines, so he had to rely on his sword in order to avert its attention away from her. Swinging his sword from left to right, he tried to cut off more of the vines to prevent it to grab more innocent bystanders. And while he didn't call it names just to get it attention away from Ash, his actions did offend it a little bit, which he wanted to expect. Eventually, the vines managed to shrivel away as he watched it curling itself around until all he can see was a small seed that Ash threw before this chaos. The first thing Verity did afterwards was a sigh of relief before he fell on his knees as he stabbed his sword into the ground. The spar ended up a mess, but he was relieved that it was over. But the aftermath did have it's downsides as Ash called the spar off due to her energy depleted from reversing the damages she unwittingly made. "T-That's alright... I'm actually exhausted from distracting the vines, so I feel it might be wise to have it in the near future." It was a little disappointing, but his time limit to play Terrasphere was almost up and he didn't want to be late for work tomorrow. But despite the disastrous spar, it did help him train his body enough in preparation to use a sword skill. "Just... make sure you planned ahead before using that spell again. And try to control it better next time." With that, he left the ring and the training grounds and head off to the inn to log out for the night. [Exited Thread]
