Soul of the Warrior

"So, do you care to elaborate on what you said about monsters in the water the other day?" Reivyn asked Kahl.

Reivyn was busy tightening straps and ensuring all of his gear was accounted for and properly secured. It would be a disaster for something to come loose and fall into the open water, especially if it was impossible to dive down to try and save it. All around, over a hundred other people were likewise seeing to their gear.

Kahl had coordinated with a couple of other groups of local guardians to put this entire thing together. Reivyn didn't know what kind of deals he had struck with the others, but they were still only responsible for including Kahl and his own contingent among their training sessions. Reivyn found himself focusing less on his personal Skills and more on instructing others, but he didn't mind too much. One could easily gain insights they otherwise wouldn't have from instructing others, so it wasn't a loss of his time, either.

The plan was to split the groups in two. Refix would command the defenders, and Reivyn would command the attackers. There were six long boats beached on the shore that they would use to transport everyone back and forth. There wasn't much in the way of preventing someone from falling over the edge of the boat, either, which was one reason Reivyn was so concerned about making sure everything was as tight and secure as possible.

"Well, there's really not any danger in the local waters," Kahl admitted. "There isn't anything that's going to pose a threat to your person unless you just get super unlucky and happen to get tangled up with more than one octopus or squid and they drag you deep into the water. Even then a high enough Stamina will see you through the lack of oxygen while you fight your way free.

"No, the real danger comes from seeing too much. I say don't go into the water under any circumstances mainly to avoid the possibility. There are things down there that will break your mind. I've seen seasoned veterans turn nearly catatonic. Mild cases give someone the shakes for a couple weeks. Bad cases make a man invalid."

"Seeing too much will break your mind?" Reivyn asked, quirking an eyebrow skeptically. Kahl just gave him a deadpan look.

"Those are Tier 8 monsters out there, lad. None of us are ready to face something like that."

"You have a point there. Still, it's hard to believe someone will lose their mind from just looking at one. I'll take your word for it, though. You're the expert. It might be some sort of Skill for all we know," Reivyn nodded his head.

"Yeah, there's been a lot of speculation on it. It might be a Skill, but it could just as easily be raw, primal fear. Best to just avoid it all together."

"Alright, well, let's make sure nobody does anything stupid while we're out on the water, then. The defenders have instructions to not actually aim their projectiles at us. They'll just be flinging spells and missiles all around us to simulate coming in hot. We'll compensate the owners for any damage done to the boats, but it shouldn't be a problem."

They had already gone over the plan multiple times. Reivyn was just repeating things for the benefit of those standing around and to reiterate. It was never a bad idea to be 100% certain of what was going on. The spells and missiles that would be flying about were all going to be the minimum levels and wouldn't cause any dangerous damage to anyone participating.

"It's all good," Kahl said with a grin. "We're all excited about this little training exercise. We've never really had a reason to do something like this before. Even though it's for training, this might give some of the lads the boost to their Life Experience they've been waiting for."

"Hey, win-win situations are the best. Alright, let's get loaded up!"

At Reivyn's call, everyone quickly finished their final checks and headed to the boats. The half of the people who were going to defend the beach headed to the embankment. They were already hard at work digging holes and building fortifications to Refix's specifications. Reivyn deliberately didn't look at what his father was up to. It wasn't a big deal, but he was going to try and make the assault as realistic as possible. He usually wouldn't have knowledge of the exact layout of the defenses prior to making the landing in such an attack.

Reivyn was one of the first to get onboard his own boat. He would be standing in the back of the boat, one of the last to get off, but he would have a better view of what was going on while they made their assault. The local guardians quickly boarded the boats. Teilon and Kimberly were with Reivyn, but they were on their own separate boats. They wouldn't normally be together during a combat situation in the future with Teilon being in command of the scouts, so Reivyn didn't want them to get too used to leaning on their familiarity with each other.

The boats launched out to sea. The man controlling the boat wasn't one of the local guardians. He was a fisherman who spent a lot of time on the water, and he had the Skills necessary to propel the boat all on his own at quite a fast clip, even with all of the added weight of the bodies onboard. They spent several minutes shooting toward the distant storm wall, but they didn't get anywhere close to it. The wall looked like it was just right there, but it was actually several dozen miles away.

"This should be far enough," Reivyn said to the man in control of the boat. He turned his head so his voice would carry to the side. "Turn about!" He infused Commanding Shout into his voice.

The defenses that were being thrown up were mainly aesthetic, but even then, with high Stats, they were able to be erected quickly. Reivyn didn't need to give his dad any additional time to prepare, so as soon as all of the boats were facing the shore oncce more, Reivyn ordered the helmsman to head back to shore.

Reivyn looked at the distant beach. There were walls, holes, and obstacles erected all along the beach, and he could see people moving about behind the hastily built fortifications. His sight bobbed up and down along with the waves, and almost immediately Reivyn sensed the Mana of the incoming Spells.

Dozens of bolts flew toward them and crashed into the sea all around them. Occasionally, a larger Spell would impact nearby causing a small explosion and huge blast of water into the air. The water rained down on everyone's head as they hunkered down trying to present as small a target as possible. Even knowing that the Spells were almost entirely harmless to them as well as the fact that they were aimed at the water, the sheer amount of Spells did the trick of simulating a hostile environment. It seemed real.

A stray, large bolt smashed into the water right next to Reivyn's boat, and the world shifted as the the boat was lifted and tilted to the side. One of the local guardians flailed his arms for a second as his center of gravity tried to drag him over the side, but his quick thinking companions grabbed ahold of him and kept him on the boat. They shared a look with each other and chuckled nervously. Being natives to the area and having seen the effects of those that had seen the Tier 8 monsters in the distance first hand, they were all well aware of the danger.

I'll need to have a word with the Casters after this, Reivyn thought. That was entirely too close. Someone needs to get a handle on their aim.

Reivyn suspected someone was getting chewed out by Refix as he could see his dad in the distance pop up near a group of the Casters. He couldn't see or hear what was said or done, but the sudden slow down of Spells indicated the Casters had their attention shifted away from the approaching boats, at least for a moment. The Spells quickly resumed, but there was a noticeable shift in the targeting of the larger Bolts. The smaller bolts still flung about so close that several even actually impacted some of the boats, but the larger Spells that caused the explosions and splashes were much further away, now.

The approach to the beach seemed to take considerably longer than the ride out to the open water, but a glance at his System clock informed Reivyn that it was the virtually the same amount of time. The beach got closer and closer, and it grew in Reivyn's vision every second.

"Shields up!" Reivyn Commanded.

His voice carried well over the water, even over the sound of the Spells. They were close enough now that blunted arrows accompanied the Magic flying through the air. The guardians coordinated their Group Shield Skills, and the front couple of rows lifted actual shields to further block their front.

The boats were just regular long boats, so there wasn't a convenient hatch to lower for everyone to storm onto the beach. The boats glided onto the sand, and the front rows immediately lept out of the sides, raising their shields once more. The others waited for a heartbeat before they followed, and they grouped up behind the shield-bearers and started running ashore.,

Reivyn leaped out among the men and surveyed the other boats along the way. Everyone was moving according to the instructions that had been given during planning, and there wasn't a real need to adjust anything at this point. They hadn't thrown in any surprises for the first run, though Reivyn was sure they would graduate to that in the near future.

The larger Bolts ceased as soon as the boats hit the sand, but the lesser Bolts and the blunted arrows still rained down around them. Some of the guardians were struck by errant Spells, but there wasn't the same level of danger as getting spilled into the ocean. Their Group Shield Skills flared and protected them. There wasn't enough behind the Spells to even get close to breaking the shields, much less cause actual damage to the people.

"Move! Move! Move! Get off the beach!" Reivyn yelled. His yelling was more for himself than the others at this point. Nobody was bogged down, and everything was moving according to plan. This was one of the bigger downfalls of structured training. It was hard to train for unforeseen circumstances. They would think of ways to get around that in later exercises, though.

The guardians ran up the beach to the first trenches. The opposing guardians put up a token resistance, only going so far as to casually spar with the attacking force. They exchanged some moves, and then the defenders laid down as if they had been defeated. Three of the attackers likewise laid down, and the two groups began to laugh and joke with each other about what they'd just been through. Reivyn didn't pay it any mind. They were only simulating casualties at this point.

"Converge with the next group," Reivyn ordered his group of guardians. "We'll combine our strength and punch through the next line."

Reivyn whistled toward the group closest to him. When they looked up, he waved to them and the two groups changed their course to meet up before hitting the next wall that had been erected.

The next obstacle was much like the last one. The defenders struck at them from their position above and behind the wall, and the guardians had to climb over the obstacle while fending off the attacks. Reivyn, and probably most of the guardians, could have blown right through the wall, but that wasn't the point of the exercise. Reivyn parried several spear thrusts as he waited for his turn, and when a space opened up, he fully used his Acrobatics Skill to quickly vault over the short wall.

Again, the defenders laid down and several of the attackers sat down next to them. Reivyn grouped up with the remainders and surveyed the final obstacle: the embankment with holes dug throughout and a wall on top.

"Alright, we're going to head straight to the wall above the short hill," Reivyn explained his plan. "Take out the defenders in the fox holes, but we're not going to storm the wall. Instead, we'll turn and charge along it to the next group down and reinforce them. This will put us out of the range of their Spells and arrows, but we'll have to be vigilant for anyone paying attention and sticking a spear through one of the gaps or over the wall. Hopefully this maneuver will catch them off guard, and we can get up and over with the other group in a solid position before they can react and reinforce on their own side."

Reivyn was hoping that he had landed in a spot where his father wasn't overseeing things. It wasn't that others couldn't figure out what was going on and react quickly enough, but they had it set up that Refix was really the only real leadership role on the other side. If they had more people to work with, they could have expanded the oppositions officer pool, but, again, that wasn't the point of the exercise. Most of the conventional units they would be fighting against, especially those from the invaders, had more limited leadership roles than how Reivyn had structured his own units.

They didn't have anything to wait for, so Reivyn led the charge up the hill. Defenders popped up out of the holes dug into the side of the hill, and they were quickly "dispatched." They reached the wall, and just like Reivyn had said, he turned and led them running along the top of the hill with the wall now acting more to conceal and cover their movements than that of the defenders. Nobody seemed to react to the change in their direction, and they quickly made it to the next group of defenders.

They coordinated their assault, and they quickly got up and over the wall. More defenders and attackers laid down, and Reivyn charged ahead to the designated area that would signal the end of the exercise. There was a little flag pole erected about thirty yards beyond the makeshift wall, and Reivyn let out a lout shout as he lifted it up and swung it about.

The sparring sessions all along the wall ceased and everyone turned to see Reivyn "conquering" the objective. Refix appeared with a smile on his face and clapped his son on the shoulder. Kahl was close behind him as the others ambled their way over.

"That was fun!" Kahl exclaimed, face flush with excitement. He wiped at the sweat beading his brow, but other than that he seemed ready to keep going.

"Yeah, other than that little incident at the beginning where one of the boats almost capsized, I'd say it was a success," Refix said, nodding his head. He wasn't even a little out of breath. His face and posture were calm and sweat free.

"Yeah, I was on that boat," Reivyn said, chuckling. "Luckily, the guardians were paying attention and snagged the one guy who almost lost his balance. Speaking of that incident, though, do you know what happened?"

"One of the Mages got distracted," Refix rolled his eyes. "How do you get distracted while launching a siege Spell at an impending invasion? Anyway, he looked away from his target just as he cast it for whatever reason, and it went a bit wide. I chewed him a new one, though, and I don't think it'll be a problem again."

"Yeah, we don't have to have everyone pull back on their siege Spells. Just get with the Mages and figure out which ones were the most accurate and responsible, and have them continue like they had before. I think moving through the water with the explosions and water splashes was effective in building the right kind of environment."

"From what I've seen, everyone loved it," Kahl said again. Many of the guardians congregating around nodded their heads with smiles on their faces. "Those running the attack had it better, but even the defenders had fun."

"Alright, but it's time to spice things up a bit," Reivyn said. "This time, each boat will designate two people as 'wounded.' They won't be out of the fight, but they'll have to be carried up the beach. Once they get to the first obstacle, they can participate in the sparring. We'll go a little harder with the spars, too, and if an someone gets tapped three or more times during the time sparring, they're out. We'll designate a minute of sparring for the initial fox holes, five minutes for the wall, and ten minutes for the final obstacle. If everyone gets tapped out, it's a failed invasion."

"Sounds good to me," Refix agreed. "I'll try and switch some things up on my end, too, try and throw some surprises at you."

"Not anything too elaborate for the second round," Reivyn said. "We don't want to lose sight of the point of the training."

"Sure, sure. I'm not going to activate my Skills and take out an entire boat, if that's what you're worried about," Refix laughed.

"Alright!" Reivyn turned to address the crowd. Everyone had made it over to the end point by this time. "Thirty minute break, then we go again. The team leaders will explain the changes this time around to each boat. Good job on the exercise this time, everyone. Let's keep it up."

There wasn't much more to say, so Reivyn didn't say it. There had been a person designated as the team leader for each boat, but it was more to handle miscellaneous things than to take charge. They had all been present for when they had decided to add the changes to the plan, so Reivyn let them disseminate the news.

Teilon and Kimberly were standing nearby talking with Kefira and Serilla. Kefira and Serilla were among the defenders. Xudrid and Vyria were off to the side talking to each other. They had been split up for the exercise with Xudrid being with the attackers and Vyria among the defenders. Reivyn and Refix walked over to the group and pulled out some simple rations.

"Eat up while we have the chance," he said. "No telling how long each new iteration of the assault will take. No reason to be hungry."

Kefira broke away from speaking with Kimberly and walked over to Reivyn's side. She pulled out her own rations, and everyone sat in a loose semi-circle. Reivyn was busy thinking about the next exercise and what other things he could implement to change things up, but the others happily chatted and joked with each other about the experience. Kefira was content to just sit next to him while she ate her own food and listened to the others.

Reivyn quickly munched through his rations and let himself relax while waiting for the time. All too soon, the thirty minute break was over, and he leaped to his feet.

"Alright. Once more into the beach."

Nobody else caught his little joke, but he still chuckled to himself.