Azure: Gunner

Chapter 6-9

Fascinatingly, stamina regeneration is also impacted by your location, despite no known method of direct observation enabling the measurement of ambient ‘stamina Level’. This observation, confirmed and reconfirmed in numerous experiments, has led to the development of theories of ‘mana-stamina equivalence’ as well as ‘stamina derivation.’

In the former, mana and stamina are held to be two facets of the same coin, inextricably intertwined and of the same as-of-yet-unknown origin. According to the latter, stamina is a ‘secondary’ resource ‘derived’ from mana through some mechanism of the body and/or System.

While this author is not an expert on such research, he has observed that little or no consideration is given to the possibility that mana is derived from stamina. He posits that this may in part be due to the vast majority of Researchers utilizing mana-based Skills rather than stamina-based ones. Such an imbalance leads to obvious opportunities for bias.

- Rufus Veres, Level 29 Prolix Historian, Oddities of the System

We found Wolf standing outside, and he joined us as we filed through the door after Wilson. Inside the waiting room was Yuri’s entire Squad, their mentor Blur, and Thompson. The Head Instructor gestured for us to move to the other side, and we stared down ‘Squad Elite’ from a half-dozen feet away. I was just thinking about trying to Intimidate the lot of them when Thompson spoke up.

“Challenges have been issued,” she stated crisply, and my eyes widened slightly at the plural. Was that why we were all here? Thompson continued before my train of thought could get started, looking over at Tara. “Recruit Gleason, I’m afraid that your challenge was received after those issued by Squad Elite, so you’ll have to wait until they are eligible to fight again.”

I looked at Tara and blinked slowly in surprise. She had issued a challenge without telling anyone else on the team?

I thought everyone knew we were waiting for Yuri to challenge me… Shit, she wanted to fight him herself!

“Recruit Azure, you have been challenged by Trainee Kalmár. As challenged, you may set the first condition. What is your pick?”

“I choose to set the stakes,” I said as confidently as possible, surprise evident on the faces of my friends – and my enemies.

There were three conditions that had to be set for each duel – terms, arena, and stakes. Since Yuri was a melee fighter, everyone was expecting me to choose a medium arena – the largest one wasn’t allowed in duels. Medium would have us begin eighty feet apart in the hundred-foot pit, giving the ranged fighter a huge advantage.

“The stakes are the winner’s choice of any non-Class item used in the fight!”

I was staring right into Yuri’s eyes, and I saw them tighten with anger. The stakes were described in the rulebook as the least-important condition. Traditionally they were set at just a single eagle, but you could demand more. I’d spent hours agonizing over this decision, knowing the obvious thing was to pick the arena. I was sure Yuri was expecting that, so he would have some way to close the distance on me without getting demolished.

We’d be fighting with dueling collars. Unlike the training collars, these only protected the head. With the collar on, and Healers watching, I should be safe from any long-term consequences. Except for one key thing, the only thing I was truly scared of in this duel – Yuri’s mysterious knife.

He had it back, and I still had no idea what was in it or what it could do to me. I didn’t think Yuri would dare corrupt me in front of everyone, but I wasn’t ready to take that chance. I’d rather lose the fight then suffer from massive corruptive degeneration or whatever the fuck it was called.

If I won, I’d be able to take from Yuri any one item that he used against me, other than his Class Weapons and armor components. I was sure there was no way he’d risk using the knife if there was a chance I could legally take it from him in front of everyone.

I’d worried that picking the stakes would give away that we suspected something… But this particular option existed solely to try and level the playing field between recruits and trainees a bit. When I’d talked about it with Wolf, I couldn’t say anything about the knife. The Ranger had assumed I was just feeling confident and wanted to get something expensive off of the asshole after I won.

From the way Yuri’s face got even uglier, I could tell he was thinking the same thing. Good, let him think I’m so arrogant that I think I can win even in a small arena!

“The stakes are set. Should there be no relevant items used, the traditional terms call for a one-eagle wager. Trainee Kalmár, your turn.”

“I choose the small arena,” he replied in a disdainful tone. The small arenas were fifty feet across, and fighters started five feet from the wall. Instead of having to cover eighty feet to get to me in the medium arena, he would only have to go forty.

“Very well,” Thompson acknowledged, then looked at me. “Recruit Azure, the terms?”

“Incapacitation,” I replied coldly. The options for terms were simple – first blood, first to get three hits through their opponent’s barrier, and the most extreme option – incapacitation. I wasn’t interested in letting Yuri get off easily. No, I wanted to make him regret ever challenging me in the first place. And if it came down to losing, well, it wouldn’t hurt any more than what Trite had already done to me.

“The conditions of the duel between Recruit Azure and Trainee Kalmár are now set,” Thompson said. “Next, we have a challenge from Trainee Eleson to Recruit Zaire. Recruit Zaire, set the first condition.”

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Oh no they didn’t… My mind whirled as one by one, every member of Yuri’s Squad challenged someone on mine. They only had six people total, so they couldn’t challenge all of us. Tara was visibly fuming and cursing over the Comms when she realized they’d ignored her. Arlo was the other one left out, probably to avoid pissing off his family.

Marta challenged Raylan, who immediately set the small arena as the first condition. She tried to counter with the maximum stake of a hundred eagles, but the Head Instructor cut her off. You could only ask for 20% of your opponent’s savings. It turned out Raylan had a total of twenty eagles saved up, so Thompson set the stake to four, to the Archer’s displeasure.

Yuri’s Defender was a dwarf named Gullen Thorinson, who surprised me by challenging G’hala. If I were him, well, I would have probably gone for Tara to be honest. It wasn’t like the orcs’ strength or skills were unknown to the others. They all trained together in Melee Combat. G’hala immediately set the terms as incapacitation, and I imagined that the dwarf was wincing under his full-face helm.

Why is he even wearing the fucking helm in here, anyway? I don’t remember him being ugly or anything…

Next up was their Spearwoman, a human girl named Vera Ishara, who stood around 6’ tall with impressive muscles. I still doubted she weighed even half of what her opponent, H’ruk, did. She certainly looked unhappy when he followed his sister’s lead in setting the terms to incapacitation.

Finally, the last member of Yuri’s Squad was a Force Mage named Polina Kelley. If I was being honest, she was one of the most attractive girls in our class. She had distinctive black hair with white streaks and wore an elaborate set of midnight-blue robes over tooled leather armor, with a single leather pauldron and a small, unusually shaped piece of engraved steel which just covered her upper left chest.

I guessed it was supposed to protect her heart – apparently you could get away with just a little bit of steel on a light baselayer. She wielded a staff, and though she was on Yuri’s team she mostly stayed quiet during our classes. I wasn’t actually sure I’d ever heard her talk. I certainly hadn’t heard her join in on any of Clarice or Marta’s nastiness so far, and sometimes I wondered what she was doing with them. She was going up against Jayce, so I hoped she was ready for a brutal fight.

By the time the conditions were set for the last fight, Tara was angrily pacing back and forth and I’d had to tell her several times to stop cursing into the Comms so we could actually hear the discussion. Thompson dismissed Yuri’s team first, and as soon as they were out of the door Tara whirled on her.

“I challenged Yuri, why the fuck is he fighting Az?” she growled, but Thompson was unaffected by her anger.

“Because Instructor Blur brought her team’s challenges to me before Wolf did,” she stated calmly, and Tara shot an accusing glare at Wolf.

“I was here at 0800,” he said, and shrugged. “Blur was always an early riser. Sorry kid, but you’ll get your turn in a month.”

“A MONTH!?” Tara shouted, then moderated her volume as Thompon glared at her. “It’s only two weeks between fights!”

“Once someone fights a member of another Squad, they can’t fight anyone from that Squad for a month,” Thompson reminded her of the rules. As far as I could tell, they were apparently intended to ensure dueling was as small a part of life at the Academy without getting rid of it entirely.

I wondered if they’d ever had an entire Squad challenge another all at once, but then I remembered this place had been around for hundreds of years or something. It probably happened all the time, relatively speaking. We almost had to drag the furious Tara out of the building, but Arlo seemed much calmer about being excluded. When I asked him, he confirmed it was likely due to both of their families that they’d been left out when all of the recruits had been challenged.

I wanted to drag everyone back to my room to strategize, now that we were all wrapped up in this. I couldn’t though, since we still had to go to the rest of our classes. Sitting through Leadership was especially excruciating today. At least in PT2 we had moved on from having to jump off the Wasted Stairs and on to other new torments.

This particular afternoon we were being introduced to the distinctions between wearing Class Armor compared to non-Class armor. JJ had us gather around the Wasted Stairs while he stood a few steps up so everyone could see him.

“Listen up, MAGGOTS! We’re gonna cover some more nuances of barriers today, and then, since this is Physical Training 2, we’re gonna have some hands-on demonstrations! By now, you’ve all learned how your barrier bends before it breaks, thanks to these little training stairs behind me! Today, I’m gonna explain to you why that matters when you’re deciding what armor to wear!

“First, Class Armor – when you’re wearing it, your barrier treats it as part of your body. That means it extends past your baselayer and your armor components! Who can tell me what that means!?”

It was the dwarf Gullen who answered. “Sir! It means that your barrier is damaged before your armor, even if your armor would have stopped the blow!”

“THAT IS CORRECT! GOOD JOB, MAGGOT!” JJ bellowed happily, then continued at a slightly more reasonable volume. “This has some disadvantages, since your barrier will often be wasted stopping glancing or weak blows! Many people believe that barriers are useless for heavily-armored fighters, BUT THAT IS WRONG! LET ME DEMONSTRATE!”

JJ stepped up next to the stairs and pulled out a simple helmet and slapped it down onto the step next to him. He raised a huge fist, and brought it smashing down onto the top of the helmet with a clang! His blow crumpled the metal, leaving a huge dent in the top of the helmet.

“If this was Class Armor, my opponent’s barrier would have slowed my fist down or stopped it entirely before I made contact with their helmet! But, since a barrier can’t pass through non-Class armor, what does it do? It pulls back, right up against your body, along the inside of the armor! When the armor starts to bend, it pushes on your barrier, which also starts to bend! ARE YOU SEEING THE PROBLEM HERE, MAGGOTS?!”

All I was seeing at the moment was a Berzerker strong enough to smash metal with his fist without even looking like he was trying. Someone else was paying better attention though, and I realized it was Zaire that had spoken up.

“Instructor JJ, it would appear that there is no room for the barrier to flex if it is already tight against your body,” he said loudly but calmly.

“RIGHT AGAIN! I’m glad to see you’re all paying attention for once! Your barrier will still try to stop the blow, only it will compress INTO YOUR FUCKING SKULL in the process!”

JJ’s voice was so loud it was echoing off the cliff wall behind us, and I thought I could even hear another echo coming back from the wall on the other side of the valley.

“If you are wearing Class Armor, your opponent’s blows will start to slow down an inch away from your armor! Plus, you have the thickness of the armor itself and the padding behind it. On top of that, your skull only has to deal with whatever force gets through the barrier AND the armor AND the padding. Without Class Armor, your barrier kicks in LATE, and your SKULL GETS SQUEEZED! DOES THAT SOUND LIKE FUN, MAGGOTS?!”

We knew the drill by now. “NO, SIR!” we chorused back, and JJ nodded in satisfaction.