Synergia: Ianoren's Jounal

Chapter 2

         A comfortable sheath of darkness enveloped me, and it relieved all exhaustion and weariness from the day before. Then all of a sudden the darkness faded. I felt a sharp pain in my side which forced me to open my eyes to glaring light. The most horrid sight stood over me, Krisiana with her two-handed sword threatening to cut through my neck.


         With the new motivation I awoke quickly and ate without chewing. She tossed me a long and thick branch still green. She held one nearly identical and said in a harsh tone, “Let’s see watcha know. Give me your best shot, so I can see how good you are. Kay?” She beckoned me with a wave of her hand to attack.


         I charged as fast as I could toward her with my branch over my head. When I got up to her, I swung my stick at her with full force. She easily deflected the attack knocking the branch from my hand, which was now ringing with pain.


         She replied to my poor show of swordsmanship, “You have a lot to learn...”


         We practiced the rest of the morning and she showed the best ways to use the branch and gave me tips for maneuvering, blocking and attacking, until the rest awoke and we all were ready to continue the trek.


         The next three days continued in similar fashion as the first day had. I would be awoken before everyone to train my swordsmanship with a stick after a poor night’s sleep. Then I would have to go through an extensive mix of jogging and walking with minimum breaks, though I was able to keep up better than the first day. After dinner I would tell a story, the second night I told the culture of Mentality and their desire for knowledge. The third night I spoke of the brutal and war filled culture of the Physiques. And on the fourth night, I told the little I knew of the culture of Spirituality and Davlamin helped fill many of the gaps I did not know.


         All of us were becoming friends with one another. I knew each of them better than I had fist expected. Davlamin, though externally was a calm monk, had a strong passion for becoming one the greatest Spirits of Ulthoran. Markus, who at first seemed to be ultimately selfish and egotistical, was exactly as I presumed, but also a narcissistic ass. Krisiana, who I believed to be both dim-witted and a poor leader, turned out to be a strongly devoted swords women who wished to become a high ranking officer of Synergia. Alluvia and I never truly bonded in the few days and never would for my own bias opinion of Physiques, which was easily noticeable, kept us apart. As a whole, the group became closer and during that period of walking just before dinner; the group talked of strategies of how to fight together. The plan was for Markus and Davlamin stay in the back with me and for Alluvia and Krisiana to take the front line.


         On the fifth day we were deep in Spirituality territory, so we began traveling in isolated area, at first we followed an old phica trail. The terrain was rougher and made traveling harder, plus we had to keep quiet most of the time.


         Krisiana woke me from another poor night of sleep, but instead of handing me a branch, she gave me my sword. She also carried her sword, waiting for me to get ready. Once I had finished with the usual morning routine, I asked her in a loud whisper, “Why are we using real swords! Are you trying to kill me?” I was truly worried that I was unprepared for using an actual sword.


         She responded saying in a cool voice, “I will just defend your attacks, and if you hit me then I don’t deserve to live.”


         I decided not to question her any further though I was worried, and began to test the weight of my blade. I founds it’s center and began to swing it. Awkward at first, but after a few minutes of swinging, and I got used to it. So we began.


         I charged at her with my sword and attacked her with multiple thrusts, which she dodged without any problems. Then I began to clash my sword against her's, until she finally knocked the blade from my hand with only a simple flick of the wrist. After an hour of her correcting mistakes in my stance and swing, we woke the rest up and began to go.


         The rest of the day went on in silence, but instead of awkward silence; it was for the fear of being caught. We did not travel as far as usual, though the days were longer in Spirituality.


         After dinner, I told a story of how the countries were during the Renaissance of Knowledge. The races worked together to make all people’s lives easier and how technology was shared equally with no bias or hate. All people were happy or at least content with their lives.


         That night Markus, Krisiana and Alluvia took watch, since we were in enemy territory. Sleep fell on me quickly and for once I slept without any restlessness. But only after a couple of hours of sleep Markus quickly woke me up mentally. He thought, or was it I who thought, “Get up I sense seven Physiques traveling towards us. Krisiana says there is no way to outrun them and they will find our trail if we do.”


         I awoke noticing that everyone else was up and prepared to fight. I grabbed my sword, even though I only used it once. Krisiana and Alluvia were up front and Markus was near her whispering words which I made out to be, “....Physiques are....by....have about a minute....I’ll take their leader out....here they are....” Then his voice drifted off to a low mumble.


         Rustling grasses and shrubs could be heard in the distance, then a deep curtailing scream of a man. I heard Markus laugh quietly, and then I knew it was Markus who killed the man. Six man began charging in this direction. I looked to my side to see Davlamin on his knees and his spirit began to float toward one the six of them.


         The spirit intercepted the Physique and began to attack him and any time the Physique tried to retaliate the spirit would dodge out of the way. The spirit flowed all around him, looking like a grayish blur. Anytime the Physique hit the spirit, I noticed Davlamin would flinch in pain. Soon the spirit had finished the Physique off and went to another Physique that was charging towards us.


         Alluvia and Krisiana were taking down three of them at once. They exchanged blows, but for the most part they were stuck in a stalemate. While Markus was stopping another one that was coming towards him, but out of sheer force the Physique fought against all the mental pain and hit Markus square in the chest. Though the blow was light, it still knocked Markus off his feet. The Physique recovered from all mental attacks and came toward him. I knew what I had to do. I quickly ran over there charging with my sword ready to stab, and the Physique must have lost some of his senses during his battle with Markus, because he did not even notice me. My sword went deep into his side, making him fall over. As he fell, I tripped and clumsily feel over him. Markus was on his feet again and stared straight into the target’s eyes. Finally the Physique stopped breathing. Markus mentally told me, “Thanks, now help Davlamin.”


         Without any words we split up, he was heading over towards Krisiana and Alluvia, who were still in an intense stalemate. I yanked my sword from the corpse of the Physique, and barely noticed until later all the blood on me. The Physique was getting closer to Davlamin without any care about the spirit attacking him. Then he kicked Davlamin, though it was only a glancing blow, it distracted Davlamin and the spirit disappeared. I came as fast as I could and hit the Physique with the blunt side of my blade. He gave up on Davlamin and raised his fist to me.  I dodged the first punch, then deflected the second with my sword. My sword went flying out of my hand, which felt the familiar ringing pain. He was about to throw his third punch, but a spirit stopped and made him fall down. I grabbed my sword off the ground and thrusted it towards the Physique. He was near death, but he still swiped at and Davlamin weakly.


         When I looked towards the other three they were finishing off the last Physique. Then Markus looked towards the Physique that he paralyzed all motor skills of. He went over to the Physique and scoffed in disgust at the Physique.  Then he asked, “What are you doing here?” The Physique’s eyes widen and his body began to tremble. Markus stared directly into his eyes and the man said with a grimace, “Okay, just make it stop!” The man’s voice eased and his breathing became more regular. He answered, “I was told to go towards Spirituality and scout around to find any outposts and a good rout for an invasion. Also to kill any Ghouls in my path...” He was cut off because he died from severe mental trauma.


         My knees began to quake barely holding my weary body up. I looked at in disgust all the blood covering me and my sword. Krisiana came over me with two ripped pieces of cloth from the corpses. She handed me one saying with the pride of a teacher, “Nice job on your first battle and kills. Here. Make sure you wipe your blade clean.” I followed her instructions, wiping the warm, sticky blood from my sword.


         I nearly gagged at the sight of Alluvia, Markus and even Davlamin looting the corpses off anything remotely worth of value, weapons, rations, clothing and other small trinkets. They were wiping the blood off all the items as if it were dust. We left the corpses for the scavengers and walked half the night.


         The next morning, I awoke at the same time as everyone else for Krisiana excused me of any sword training after last night’s battle. Though my sleep was even more restless than usual, my dreams were stained with blood, gore and violence. On the bright side, we had made it to the grasslands, where many animals roamed and grazed. There was all kinds of grazers, from huge flocks of birds that clouded the entire sky, to giant herds of wildy beasts grazing from the grass. The problem about the grasslands is that there is no protection from both the elements and being spotted.


         Last night’s trek threw us a few miles off course. We had to get our bearings, so we began  by heading straight southward towards the rising sun. For most of the day we found no sign of any villages or towns or even the river we were once following, until in the afternoon we ran straight into a small farm town. In order to sustain the crops, they used an interesting technique of irrigation from the nearby river, we were following yesterday, into their farms.


         Krisiana gave us a choice of whether to go around the village and keeping a far distance which would take hours, or to go through the village. The group decided to go through the village and steal any milkweed and giant tuatara. Tuatara are the riding mounts used in the grasslands for they are strong fighters and they graze grass. The olive colored, yellow-speckled tuatara reaches a length of about 10 feet or more. It is very lizard like in external form, with a crest of spines down its neck and back except for a small portion where the rider mounts on top of the tuatara. It also has a third vestigial eye used to see in the night. They are capable of traveling much faster and further than any person, even Physiques


         So that night, under the cover of darkness, we sneaked into town and Krisiana, Markus and I went to the barn and found five tuatara. We quickly brought them out silently for tuatara do not make any noises people can here. While Davlamin and Alluvia went to the farm harvesting any crops near ripeness and going into the stock of milkweed and salted phica, and stole all they could carry.


         Even though I was disgusted by the act of stealing from a small village, they reassured me that these crimes needed to be committed during war. No one seemed to have even noticed us. We had met up just outside town, but then one Spirit came towards us. We all hopped onto our mounts with the exception of Davlamin, who brought forth his gray spirit. All of us got back to a safe distance ready to either escape or intervene. The Spirit foolishly let out his white spirit, instead of getting help. It must be a kind of honorable code followed by the people of Spirituality.


         The two spirits collided into a blur of white and gray. The Spirit was young and most likely knew little about combat with spirits, while Davlamin had trained with his spirit and knew how to fight with it. Every once in a while the Spirit would flinch in pain, but Davlamin did not. After a few minutes the Spirit collapsed onto the ground and his spirit dissipated into white smoke which came into the Spirit.


         We all began to ride our tuatara southward from the village. Some of us slept on our mounts waking little because the tuatara ride was very smooth. Near the end of the night, we had made past much of the grasslands and were nearing the desert and the capital of Spirituality.


         Little did anyone know until the next day that a group from the village was in pursuit of us, and another group headed to the capital to alert the head officials of Spirituality. (Added by Ianoren three days after the original entry)