Ferenike 1 - Clan History and Friction
"Brace!" Ferenike's trainer shouted. She wasn't that good at the language of the Clan, not yet, but she'd absorbed the words relevant to Legion training and formations like the desert absorbed spit and blood.
Setting her shoulders she braced and rolled with the blow of one of the opposing squad's spears on her aspis, the 'Argive' grip allowing her to take it and rotate away and bring her own spear to bear. Seeing the moment she waited for it lashed out towards the girl across from her as she cried out with a kiai.
Bang, it hit, skipping over the enemy's own aspis and bouncing off her helm, leaving the enemy girl unharmed but stunned. As Ferenike anticipated her four squad mates were emboldened by her cry and leapt forward themselves, the training field becoming a morass of yells and enthusiastic shouts.
It was instinct to slam her shield into the chest of her opponent, bowling her over with her own greater height and mass as a weak spurt of Qi caused sand to burst away from her feet and her body to shoot forward. She liked the aspis, smiling as her enemy stumbled back and her squad dived in amongst the enemy, taking her opportunity.
But she
really liked the spear. It flicked out
one two three, a blur of reddish bronze glinting in the sun. In her ears she could hear the grating scream of the Glass Scorpion, and knew her blows were far too slow to kill that monster still, even scarred as it was now. Comparing herself to a being in the 8th Heavenstage was almost farcical in the enormity of the gap, but she was doing it anyway. It worked to drive her on.
Her bad memory was broken as she glimpsed her comrade Tiu Shen stumble. "Back!" She shouted, slipping into the Turtle Tongue in excitement
again dammit, and her spear slapped down the spear of the enemy menacing Tiu Shen, giving the stout boy time to bring his aspis up and charge in return. Instinct had Ferenike twisting away from another enemy's own retaliatory strike, that girl she'd initially stood against. Her name was Nakaterina right? Using a blip of Qi Ferenike lightened her body to the maximum she could and bent like a reed away from the other girl's lashing spear.
She couldn't dodge the sandled foot to her nose, causing her to flip back and land in the middle of the training field. Her shield was up to catch the follow up blow and her spear hung over her mirror bright shield like a threatening scorpion tail. Then Nakaterina's eyes widened as another spear from behind scored a "fatal" blow, a burst of light from the basic array in their training gear letting out a red burst. Ferenike's friends had banded together and attacked while the other girl was distracted and she could see the other three of the enemy squad on the ground.
"Break! Good job everyone!" Her trainer Lu Zhiang said with a clap. The 9th Heavenstage expert was nodding. "Good showing all around."
His eyes locked onto Ferenike as he walked over to her. "Do
not let your excitement get the better of discipline."
Clang! His gloved fist impacted her helmeted skull, causing her skull to ring disorientatingly.
Ugh.
"That goes double for all of you, I liked what I saw here but you all got too distracted by individual battles, and that was the downfall of one side under the spears of the other." He said, crossing his arms as he finished his lecture. "Let's take a break to breathe."
Ferenike frowned slightly in disappointment. She could still go fine! But her better nature won out and she settled in to meditate, seated crosslegged on the sand, spear balanced on one shoulder and shield on the other. She breathed, cycling her qi as she shut off every sense but her hearing and sense of touch.
It didn't take long for her to hear quiet words wafting in from another training field nearby, one of many in the larger training courtyard of the Fortress they were toughening up the newbies in. If she opened her eyes and turned her head she knew what she'd see.
Agatha Pherras and Pollia Kakistos, gossiping and throwing her name around. Not the first time those two had talked in the language of the Clan where she could hear and bring up her name in mocking tones. She wasn't quite sure precisely what they were saying due to both distance and her limited grasp on the language, but what she did hear made her thoughts turn long in the night while she studied and plotted.
Then with an effort of will she shut them out too and fed her desire to stand up and ask them precisely what they were talking about to her will, fanning the hot Qi that came in on every breath with spite.
It wasn't long before Lu Zhiang had them back to slamming into each other in formation, sometimes even fighting against him as one group of ten in ever more frustrating maneuvers. She didn't mind, willing to keep going as long as he was and more. By the time the sun was far below the horizon she was utterly soaked in sweat and her joints were screaming at her for mercy as she paced slowly around the training yard to cool down before they went to dinner. Some of her comrades were laying flat on their backs and Ferenike was tempted to use her spear as a crutch but she knew if she did she'd be cleaning the latrine for a week. So she kept her back straight even as it whimpered at her and a quiet moan escaped her lips.
She had something she needed to do however, so with feet that felt like splinters and knees that felt like they'd clack together she made her way ploddingly to Lu Zhiang. He looked over as she stood in front of him and saluted.
"What is it trainee?" He asked her with a slightly bemused tone.
"May I have leave to work extra on my spear Master Zhiang?" She asked, the moans behind her quieting slightly as her comrades blinked in surprise.
Lu Zhiang cackled, clapping his hands once and then spreading them. "I was wondering when you'd work up the courage to ask. Sure. Try and hit me." He said, a smile she thought was slightly proud but also patronizing.
She set down her aspis and held her spear in two slippery hands and crouched, old memories driving her movements as a guttering ember of Qi burned in her gut. "Hah!" Her kiai was wobbly but still loud and she lunged at Lu Zhiang. The man blurred with the speed of a Second Heavenstage, truthfully not that much faster than her, but to Ferenike it might as well have been the difference between the foot of Mount Tai and its peak.
She didn't care and much to Lu Zhiang's surprise and concern she kept attacking, coming closer and closer to strike him for over an hour. By the end she couldn't see due to sweat running into her eyes and her fingers were locked around her spear as circles of agony, before she finally became so exhausted that she stumbled and collapsed into his arms.
"Right then kid, time to get some food in you." He said quietly, the training field empty around them with the other trainees already having been sent to dinner. He guided the almost delirious girl out of the courtyard and into one of the many mess halls.
Sitting her down Ferenike was blearily aware of hot soup and rice being put in front of her and the stern face of her trainer in front of her. She blinks, faint energy returning to her as she shoveled food in gracelessly.
Lu Zhiang sighed. "Alright trainee. What you did just now was as stupid as trying to walk into the mouth of a Thunder Tortoise and saying 'eat me!'"
Ferenike flinched, a slurred word coming to the fore.
"Ahh ah." Lu Zhiang held up a hand. "It was stupid, but I have to commend you for your persistence and patience. Don't let it become stubbornness that does you more harm then good."
He let out another long sigh.
"What... happens now." Ferenike asked, her voice almost soundless and halting, in the language of the Clan. Exhaustion and lack of fluency combining to make it awkward in her mouth.
He nods. "If you've got this much drive and energy we're clearly not pushing you in the right ways. I'll talk to the Centurion about changing your schedule."
She's... happy about that? She wasn't quite sure since she was too tired to think straight.
Regardless when he hustled her off to a shower and bed she falls asleep like a log, slightly earlier then her norm.
A scream tore Ferenike out of bed in a leap, fist flying towards the shadowy figure standing in her room. Her fist was caught easily and she was flung out of the room with a contemptuous huff.
"Really Zhiang?
Really?" A haughty voice says.
There was a smack and a cry of pain. "Head in the game Liao Bu."
Ferenike stood up in the hall, having bounced off the wall with her feet and righted herself in midair. A hard object bounces off her forehead. She catches it reflexively. A low grade Spirit Stone.
"Right then girl, I'm Liao Bu and Lu Zhiang pulled in a favor to have me play with spears with you." The tall black haired and pale man said as he stood besides the bronze skinned and white haired Lu Zhiang.
Ferenike straightened up and saluted. "Thank you for your time sirs." She said politely in her slow Clan tongue. She cursed herself for missing out on study time last night. She'd have to rectify that tonight.
Her thoughts were interrupted as Liao Bu and Lu Zhiang move her off in a flurry of activity that ends with her facing off against the Liao man in a training circle, each of them holding Legion spears in the early morning darkness. The sun wasn't even beginning to come up yet and the desert air was nearly freezing cold.
She'd replenished the last of her missing Qi with the Spirit Stone on the walk over and it felt like her muscles were bathing in searing hot flames, drive pushing her forward faster and faster. She kept a tight rein on herself however and waited, crouched almost cat-like as her memories and instincts pushed her to do. She wasn't sure exactly what stage Liao Bu was at, but higher than her by a
significant margin was what it seemed like. If she had to make a guess probably 3rd or 4th Heavenstage.
"Go!" Lu Zhiang shouted. He was going to be here to referee their first few matches and then Lu Zhiang and her would go off to the rest of the trainees when the sun rose.
She sprang forward, spear held in a wide two handed grip and she made to
thrust at Liao Bu. He reacted, his own spear moving to come around hers, but he was moving slower than she expected.
She flipped her forward hand and her feint turned into a strike into the ground between his feet, transforming the spear into a lever lifting her body off the ground. She span around the haft and her sandled foot flew for Liao Bu's head as Qi drove her muscles even faster than mortal limits could allow. She felt her foot impact into something, saw Liao Bu flicker back as his light body accepted the impact easily, and then an iron manacle on her heel flung her ass over head out of the ring. Her face scraped over the sand for a solid six meters and then she stopped, blood running down her forehead.
"Owwwww..." She moaned as she lifted her head and flipped back upright, spinning shakily to watch her enemy.
He was standing in the middle of the ring, spear held loose and comfortably in the Legion standard stance. She spat out some sand and came at him again. This time as she tried to stay out of reach their spears flickered back and forth for a few moments more than the first time before he was able to toss her out of the ring again. This time she landed flat on her back, sand burn on her back now matching her face.
"Huh. She might actually be worth something Lu Zhiang, possibly enough to go outside the Fortress a bit. I owe you a drink." Liao Bu said as Ferenike stood back up.
She snorted. "Glad to hear it." She snarked.
The three of them laughed and Lu Zhian motioned to Liao Bu. "Your father the Centurion said the same thing, minus the drink."
The dark haired man cackled. "Mother did always say I was a filial son."
He cracked his neck, resting his spear on one shoulder as he rubbed his chin with one hand. "I'll teach you Ferenike when I have spare time. The good fellow over here will take care of you otherwise."
Huh. A bubble of excitement and joy grew in Ferenike's belly as she thought about going on a patrol outside the Fortress walls. She spent the rest of the spars with Liao Bu and her training even more hyper-focused than she usually was, eager to get to studying tonight and then her first trip out tomorrow.
The moon found her awake an hour after the other trainees had gone to sleep, reading the pamphlet that kind Centurion Magnus Lenurian had given her back near Hong Xuan Clan lands, and books and scrolls stacked all around her on her desk above head height. A candle in a lantern burned nearby, low, though her Qi enhanced eyes didn't need much light to see nowadays.
"
The Clan stipulates these Laws..." She read out slowly in the Clan tongue. Ugh no that wasn't the right words, argh! She took a breath, pulling in more Qi and then she tried again, finding ways to cultivate while doing other things was a necessity for her. She sighed and rubbed her eyes.
"
The Clan stipulates these Laws, which herein define the Crime of the Blood Path, and its attendant punishments." She smiled. Her dogged persistence was starting to pay off. She yawned. Covering it with her hand, she cracked her neck and then went to look back at her law book.
Then she paused as Lu Zhiang's words wafted back into her skull.
"Don't let it become stubbornness that does more harm than good..."
She sighed, rubbing the back of her neck and decided to get some sleep. This stuff would be there in the morning.
She went to sleep thinking of what she might do with some scorpions and Agatha Pherras's bed.
There was a part of her that was achingly bored, as she stood on watch outside the Fortress, about a hundred
li away with a bunch of other trainees and Lu Zhiang. This was her fifth week of exterior guard duty and barely anything of note happened this close to the Fortress. Which was rather the point she imagined.
It was not exactly the kind of practice for her Dao she liked to consider much, but it worked. And that was enough for her.
Around her was a sea of small dunes, only about 50 meters high, surrounding a 100 meter spike of stone worn and pitted by desert wind that she stood upon. The rock made pretty sounds as she stood upon it, butt of her spear resting near her feet. The sun beat down like a furnace but the tiny array on her breastplate gave a small of pocket of cool air around at a minuscule cost in Spirit Stones. It wasn't
much, but it made it bearable for her. Though some of her comrades found it insufficient and complained frequently.
Like Agatha Pherras. Ferenike smiled smugly as she imagined that horrible girl cooking in her armor. Then she frowned, recent bad memories surfacing. A part of her spiraled off into grumbling over what she had found out while the rest paid attention to her post.
Apparently Agatha and her crony Pollia had a fondness for insulting her parents.
"I heard she was the daughter of a bastard and a barbaroi whore, and that's why she's so feral and stupid she can't even speak correctly. Her parents must be writhing in their graves, cursing such a terribly unfilial daughter."
It
nagged at her. You didn't say that kind of shit out in the sands where it was only you and your walking companions. That invited in ghosts who liked to climb down your throat and wear your skin. And the other things they say impugning upon her purity and discipline were a horrible icing on the cake. And while she had friends, of a sort, amongst the squad the rumors meant it wasn't much. Just... acquaintances, at best.
But Ferenike smiled as she considered her plot, evolving as it was over the course of months. Now that she knows what her enemies are saying and plotting she can play fair turnabout.
She glanced up at the sun, shielding her face. About time to move on to her next post.
She leapt down the spire, Qi making her muscles ache wonderfully. She was rising steadily in cultivation, enough to satisfy herself, and she'd probably make it to the next...!
"Ahh!" She screamed abruptly as she leapt down to a small dune of sand and
dropped straight down. An Seven Gold Antlion!? A trap!? Tucking her arms close she blinked, a minor bit of relief as she realized she hadn't been swallowed by a giant insect spirit beast. But she was falling through darkness extremely quickly, along with a rush of sand. She glimpsed little fragments of what was probably stone around her in the faint light above.
Thud.
Her back spiked in pain as she bounced off of a rock. Her Legion training was all that saved her grip on her spear,
never ever let it go, and then she scrambled to grab onto the rock she could barely see.
Hanging there by one hand and a braced foot, she looked around, dust caking her body. Ugh.
Crack.
Bother.
She fell as the poor abused rock holding her up broke and unceremoniously dropped her. She fell for another few meters and her feet slammed into sand before she fell forward as a mass of sand hit her in the back and she skidded facedown the sand hill.
Oooowwwwwwwww. Fucking...
Oh spirits she had sand up her
nose. Ewww eww ewwwwwww. She sneezed, a glob of ick flying free and fresh wonderful air filling her lungs.
Surprisingly Qi filled fresh air. Ferenike blinked. Light surrounded her, like a faint firefly glimmer pervading the entire... cave she seemed to be in. She got up cautiously, holding her spear and shield up as she looked around.
Hmm. It wasn't actually a cave, it seemed to be the interior of a sunken temple or... possibly caravan cart with a shrine in it. Strewn about were a bunch of broken crates and uninteresting wreckage. At one end of the room there was a faintly visible idol like figure though she could not properly make it out in the faint light from above. A look up at the hole in the roof, a tiny thing barely the size of her pinkie nail showed faint sharp edges like broken wood. Probably a caravan cart then. In the faint light she saw on the nearby walls circular designs of light and dark wood, reminiscent of clouds and the waves of sand dunes.
She walked slowly to the end of the buried room and the idol emerged from the dimness. Slinging her shield onto her back she peered at it. It was a ambiguously gendered being seated in a lotus position, its carven stone hair bound up in braids wrapped around an elongated skull. Wound around its four raised granite hands was a knotted rope of grey and red silk. From the rope hung a brass bell inlaid with old Turtle script. Probably, she wasn't entirely sure. Hadn't gotten there in her studies yet.
She approached the idol and tried to examine the Qi she could feel searing in the rope. There was none in the bell, and the Qi had an odd shifting surface to it. She reached out carefully. The red on the rope came
alive as a dozen finger sized Pearl Blood Agony Scorpions moved around and one leaped at her! She swatted it out of the air, they were incredibly weak beasts which only gave a small threat to a mortal, though they had an incredibly annoying ability to cause intense burning itching in the blood of anyone stung by them.
Hmm.
She had an idea.
Carefully pulling a satchel off of her back she held it open and stepping close, goaded the scorpions to leap.
Swish, she caught them in the bag, a wriggling awful little surprise she'd have to cultivate in secret. She hooked it back onto her lower back for safekeeping.
Now then. The rope.
Looking at it now free of the scorpions it was clear to her it was grey and silver with eight knots in its length. A red tassel hung from the eighth knot. Definitely a Treasure of some kind, that much was blindingly obvious. After a long moment of careful examination she took hold of the rope near the upper right hand of the statue and began tugging it free.
It came loose surprisingly easy and then when she had finally tugged it free there was a loud groaning boom. She was already running as the room started to collapse and a horrible insectile screech from a huge throat sounded behind her. Slinging the rope around her neck she scurried up the wall as fast as she could with one hand, the other holding her spear and and sprinted across the dunes towards her next post.
A glance back showed the very angry form of a horse sized bright pearlescent red scorpion spinning around agitatedly over the collapsing remains of its burrow. She kept running away from the distracted creature and eventually made it to the shaded outcrop that was to be her next post. She hid the thing by wrapping it around her hips under her linen shirt and breastplate. Slightly uncomfortable but she'd survive and the Qi in the thing was a comfort.
When she eventually returned to the Fortress and discreetly removed it so she could show it to Lu Zhiang, he identified it as an Eight Silver Wind Binding. He, and research she did later to confirm, described it as a Lifesaving Treasure that if worn when the user might take a lethal blow called up winds and golden sand to cradle the user and spirit them away one hundred
li towards a "home" whose name the user whispered over them in the light of the moon
. After setting it to the Fortress training courtyard, she took to wearing the thing whenever she went out on patrol hidden around her waist. With her low cultivation it'd be a literal life saver, once. Bearing such a thing though... she wanted to be strong enough to not
need to use it and resolved herself to cultivation. Of herself, and her little, prank.
Six months after Ferenike came to the Fortress, after four months of careful preparation, Agatha Pherras shot out of the barracks screaming horribly one night, with bright red and swollen skin before diving into one of the pools strewn about the courtyard for water and cooling. When she emerged crawling from the pool, one hand frantically itching at her shoulder, she found Ferenike standing on the bank holding a satchel of iridescent powder.
"Heard you had an issue with Pearl Blood Agony Scorpions. I just happen to have the antidote here." She said, shaking the bag a little before tossing it casually towards her. Agatha caught it and stood shakily, not able to stop itching at random spots all over her body. She looked too furious to speak.
Ferenike walked forward with a smile and laid a hand on the other girl's swollen, beet red shoulder. She leaned in and whispered. "Don't insult me or my family. The ghosts of my parents will climb down your throat and curse you with agony a thousand times worse than this."
She let go and turned away with a pleasant hum, as Agatha simultaneously paled as much as her damaged skin would allow, tried to apply the antidote and itch at the stings covering her body.
Ferenike was satisfied. She'd spent the lives of all of her carefully bred scorpions for such a wonderful little prank. That should teach Agatha not to mess with her. Now she could
focus.
@occipitallobe omake for you! The Bonus I'd like for this is a Lifesaving Treasure that can save Ferenike from Foundation Establishment folks, and at least give her a chance against Core Formation experts. Or whatever scale the other ones people have gotten so feel free to adjust it as necessary.
