Bandit Wrangling - A Trial By Fire

If you can't hunt bandits, you can't solve ancient riddles and claim the prizes of lost civilizations. That was the rationale which had lead the young upstart guild mage of Silver Wolf to take up a man's offer, and become a disciple of one Mathis Lora.

Yogi Babel, the young pink-maned mage with a tactician complex, was admittedly not a very strong wizard. How could he be? He was inexperienced and had yet to pit his magic against even the simplest of beasts. Yet with proper guidance, that kind of deficit could be remedied quickly. There is nothing quite like experiencing a real battle to help a person learn what real battle magic is, after all.

It was a trial by fire! Yogi was indicated to prove his worth, by engaging on a mission to hunt some spellslinging pig bandits with him. The only goal was to get stronger and accomplish the mission's goals. They could even curry a bit of favor with the magic council if they could scoop the bandit leader alive and bring him in. Yogi made sure to bring plenty of rope, or rather, store plenty of rope in his Palace.

"So, should I call you Master Lora on this job or is Mr. Lora okay? Sensei? Shishou? Teacher?" he would somewhat pester his mission partner and Mentor in the fine art of Guild Work, who was accompanying him on the job to keep him safe or something totally noble, he was sure.

Throughout Fiore, the bandits were a big problem. Since their last hit was in Oak Town it was safe to presume that they wouldn't be terribly far away, after all, it's tough to move livestock by commercial channels and it would certainly be easier to move around without them. Where they were in particular was another story, of course. Oak Town was a big place, with no guarantee they'd be within the city walls. The first riddle was simply that, and he would ask it plainly, "Where would a Bandit looking to offload some pigs go?"

The answer to this could be any number of things, obviously, but it was best to treat pig bandits simply: There was a very obvious answer. "A fence, right? That's how bandits make money," he would answer tentatively, as if asking for Mathis's confirmation or opinion on the matter. After all, a strong and experienced guild mage like this guy probably knows his way around a goose chase and has infinite wisdom on the matter. Man, this guy was cool.

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Yogi's mentor was a very polite and professional individual though it did take some convincing for Yogi that Poppi didn't necessarily count as an individual unit in their group. Much like how a summoner counts their contracted summons among their tools, the AI companion was much like a tool in the same respect. Of course the only reason he needed this reassurance at all was because Yogi and Mathis, plus Poppi makes three, and that number is an absolute curse, a bad omen. Were there a fourth party, he wouldn't even give it a second thought, but with three being a scary number to dance around, his mindset needed to adjust.

Since Poppi spent a large amount of time being out an analyzing the surrounds, it was very much like they were a party of two. "Just Mathis then? That's cool with me, Mathis," he would reply. Not too long after he'd affirmed what he should call his Mentor, the elder Wizard would slide a mask over his face. It was an interesting, heart shaped mask. Yogi wondered if it was special in any way as he wound up staring at it.

Poppi eventually returned to their group forming what was totally not a trio, and began to report. A wave of dialogue poured from her on demand, complete with a visual aid that helped to visualize numerous suspicious locations in the area. Yogi followed along to the best of his abilities, studious as he was, and understood most of it.

After analyzing the data gathered by Poppi, Mathis made some calls quite quickly without referring to the young wizard until after the walking weapon zipped away to the caves. The question came up thereafter – a matter of opinion – why did he think that Mathis believed the enemy bandits were in the Grotto. The answer took Yogi aback. Were it merely a question of what Yogi thought, he would corroborate gladly, not like a yesman, but he had a gut feeling he was right. Now he needed to deduce a reason, not simply an answer.

"Wow, Mathis that's a great question. I guess... that'd have to be because the grotto is manmade, right? Plus soil is easier to set up a temporary pigpen in, and if it rained not too long ago, there would be mud for the pigs to occupy themselves with, I think, and who know's what kind of monsters could be waiting in a cave, letting alone the huge hole in one side that leaves them potentially in plain sight, how tough it would be to herd swine into any tunnel systems..." Yogi trailed off while he thought of good reasons that Mathis could have had, trying not to reinforce the idea that he was correct, but supporting a guess the same way a bandit might support a suggestion. His expression became highly focused, almost predatory as he concentrated on thinking. In fact, he looked like a lion gazing towards its prey, seeking an opening to pounce.

After a few more seconds of analyzing the pros of the grotto, and the cons of every other option, he would eventually return to reality, his expression popping back to that of a youthful wizard in the earliest section of his career. "Did any of that sound right?" he asked with interest, as though probing for a right answer when only an opinion was requested.

As they moved it would dawn upon him that he knew very little of Poppi, and yet she very clearly was beyond useful as a tool. Yogi would have a follow up question to sorta fill in the travel time, "So how'd you come into possession of Poppi? She's like, a super high level magic tool. Did you find her in some ancient ruins and polish her up good as new?"

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It would appear that Yogi hit the nail on the head. Perhaps a few more times than was necessary, maybe bent it a little, but the point stood that he earned his gold star for the day by paying clear attention to the information-bot — or sword, or whatever he was supposed to think of Poppi as. He was gifted with a compliment from a powerful wizard, "Heh, thanks~!" He tried not to gloat because his dad's coworkers were always going on about how smart they were, which was one of the major turn-offs from being a Scholar in the first place.

It was also mentioned that Poppi was off taking care of some unrelated cave bandits instead, which seemed like a total detour from the job at hand. Yogi tried to grasp for a moment why Mathis might bother doing work that wasn't part of the job. Unlike the original question he was asked directly Yogi had no facts to go on other than, 'that happened' and 'Mathis has invited him to combat training', so he had to presume it had something to do with that reason. Clearly having Poppi along would detract from the training. Yogi had also considered that maybe it would be best to not tempt fate by skewing the definition of 'three' anyways. Mathis had the right idea, gee, what a guy!

Of course this though lead to him asking about Poppi, and that sparked a fairly length albeit detailed explanation of her origins. Homemade, with a core purchased from a greedy merchant, a few chips plucked from ancient ruins, all 'woven' together as though she were some kind of basket, it sounded like.

"Metal-Weaving? That sounds like an interesting premise already. Do you spin the metal and weave it from wire or perhaps..." Yogi had almost trailed off once more with his curious analysis, as though trying to gain info from standing info, but since they had started trekking towards the grotto and hadn't stopped since then... The walk was over and the job was on. The young mage's voice cut off immediately and his face contorted back into his 'bloodthirsty' concentrated look.

Mathis asked him what he could see, after whispering something into some manner of communication device. Yogi would stare hard at the pigs that were just wandering about the grotto. They were pigs so it was unlikely they understood the illegal circumstances of their change of ownership. "I count around 13 pigs and 5 piglets roaming around... but I can't see any guards or caretakers, but the pigs seem to be avoiding the borders, so I guess they're behind the treeline, like us..." he would analyze slowly, making presumptions as he did so. It wasn't a perfect breakdown, but then again he didn't have any super senses or special eyes to see through any magic that might be concealing anything else.

"The job is to take out the bandits and capture the leader, so the swine are technically of no consequence, right? We can ignore them and move in deeper. Then again, I'm worried that there might be some form of misdirection in play. Can you see anything else?" he would ask quietly, not looking away as he did so. There was reports of some illusionists among the pig bandits, and as long as they were around Yogi was wary of what he could see with his eyes.

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Mathis was nothing if not an informative mentor. Yogi's suspicions regarding the use of illusory magics was affirmed, not in the pigs carrying on, but the treeline. He would slide his goggles down over his eyes, to get a better look, even though they didn't do anything. Indeed it appeared that the trees were a faux image. There were theses... difficult to explain overlaps with the natural brush and leaves of the natural forest, as though the illusionists couldn't account for the ebb and flow of the winds.

The young wizard would slide his goggles off and up into his hair once again, "Yeah, they aren't very good wizards. It would have been more effective put up a magic wall with an image projected onto it, wouldn't it?" Yogi really overestimated the idea of what would be considered 'more effective' because he didn't really have a sense of scale when it came to magic use. To him, big magic was the same as small magic. He wasn't very good at his particular form of magic, but there wasn't any real doubt that it was big.

With that round of analysis, Mathis fired an energy arrow into the illusion-clad forest and struck down a bandit in a single blast. Yogi was awed by the power of that blast, he hadn't seen genuine battle magic before, so a blast with the power to knock trained soldier out cold so casually launched was definitely a sight to behold. Especially since lasers, arrow shaped or otherwise, are cool.

The apprentice mage would tail somewhat meekly behind Mathis, as he strode into the grotto. The pigs scrambled out with their various squeals, and the enemy bandit attack force seemed to come out of the woodwork as the paltry illusionwork was dismissed. Mathis made them an off they shouldn't refuse. After all a prison sentence was a lot easier to deal with if you didn't have any broken ribs or concussions to nurse, and the Rune Knights claimed to go easier on criminals who cooperate.

Of course, what kind of bandit even would take mathis up on that offer? Certainly no dirty, no-good, pig-stealing sort, that's for sure. The bandits practically spit on his offer, claiming that they had him outnumbered, as if they didn't just watch one of their men get dropped immediately. "You miscounted, there's two people on this side," Yogi would correct, with a smile.

The young man sized up the enemy group, maybe eight or nine men total. Mathis even gave him his pick of the lot. That was certainly a problem, considering each one of them looked to be quite strong or wise in their own way. "Tch, shaddup, kid! Ya ain't worth a count!" one of the more vocal bandits would yell belligerently. A dumb one who discounted even a weak foe, would certainly make for an interesting first fight.

Maybe Yogi would prove him right, maybe the big strong bandit would get destroyed by a fourteen year old newbie. "That so? Then I pick you, old man!" the upstart wizard would challenge.

As if on cue, the shit talker revealed himself, abount 7 feet tall and some inches, fatter than a pig, and uglier and with poorer dental hygiene. His shirtless, massive pot belly with an outie belly button was betrayed by the clearly muscular tone of his arms, wearing a black pair of pants decked out with belts and satchels, even with a bandolier as a belt. Very imposing, since that weapon he was holding looked kind of like an old fashioned navel cannon.

"Yer choosin' me, are ya? How romantic, hehehe~!" the giant bandit laughed as he started coming closer. Yogi's face went a bit pale, as he saw who — or maybe what — he had challenged. He swallowed nervously and tried to collect himself. Maybe he should have opted for sparring with Mathis instead of going on a mission to hunt down a bunch of killers?

He didn't have time to really think about that as the big man would level his cannon like it was a rifle in his direction. Yogi dove out of the way just as the man triggered the cannon somehow, and an iron ball the size of Mathis's fist would be flung out the similarly sized barrel. It took but a split second to pass through where Yogi just was before he dove, and a beat later, an explosion was somewhat visible but certainly audible in the forest behind them.

The man laughed as he began reloading, the cannon slurped mana into the barrel, and appeared to be using the mana to materialize explosive iron lumps. Yogi was worried that this guy might not even be the bandit boss...

Oh well... with a snap of his fingers, a large puff of smoke erupted behind the young mage clearing to reveal a rather sizeable stone chess piece, a giant rook to be specific. So large that a person could easily live inside of it, this was Yogi's Palace, a potent magical tool just the same as a place to call home. It was, thankfully, a good deal bigger than the cannon-brandishing bandit he had opted to face off against. "Alright big man, I've seen all I'm going to look at of what you can do," Yogi declared, hiding his fear.

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Yogi was nervous. A total lack of observation prior to choice, causing him to underestimate his opponent, was the source of his current predicament. His towering foe was presumed earlier to be full of bark with minimal bite, but it seemed the big man's confidence was well-placed. After all that cannon definitely put a spin on the situation that he wasn't anticipating. Most of the bandits were either mages or melee combatants, so a magic gun of this variety was not one he saw coming by a long shot.

Nonetheless, it was his duty to perservere, and prove himself. A man who declares a challenge only to back down when the foe they challenged was twice their size and three times as muscular, was certainly no man at all. At least, that was the thing he was repeating in his head to push himself to act despite his presently crippled morale. The point of putting the palace behind himself was not just to 'bark back' as it were, but also to hold himself back from fleeing. The idea that he was outmatched was not acceptable. This was a winnable fight.

Yogi couldn't even pay attention to the spectacle of Mathis's display of magic powers. His face was falling into full concentration, looking for a weakness. The big man's legs looked a little undertrained compared to the rest of his physique, he didn't seem too smart, his aim failed him once, so it seemed like dodging the barrel would suffice. The whole time, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes sharpened, the expression of a stone cold predator. A totally incidental quirk of his, he had no real control over it, though it seemed like a totally purposeful intimidating glare.

"There!" Yogi finally announced, having observed more than enough. He lurched forward and began running directly at the man, still super concentrated. The big man was still a good distance away, so the cannon finished it's loading sequence. Fat man leveled the cannon once again, but Yogi juked deftly. After all, there wasn't a lot of time to dodge and all that it would take was a single shot to determine the outcome. "Not a very quick shot are you? If that's the case, I'll take you out before you can shoot," the young mage declared.

"Oh is ye? And 'ow's that? Ye gonna kick me shin's, small fry? Gahahah!" the big man laughed. Just then, Mathis's fight would come to an explosive finish, with some mint-colored maiden ripping several bandits apart, figuratively, while glowing brightly like a shooting star, literally. The fat man got distracted by the glowy light, and in that split second Yogi was right up in his face. As in, the young mage had jumped and was eye level with his opponent.

Yogi's hand jutted forward in a brief flash of motion just big man's head pivoted back towards him, and impacted against the man's jawline, causing his head turn back, his brain slightly rattled. The young mage gritted his teeth and landed low, before he swept at the man's calves with the front of his leg. The kick collided, though the man didn't stumble any, just let out an audible, "Yeowch!" before kicking Yogi like a soccer ball back in the direction of his Palace. The impact was audible, and even though it was a simple reflexive melee kick, the young man was sent hurtling through the air.

The apprentice mage would land directly on top of of palace, as though it were a stone-hard safety net. "Alright ye runt, I'll be blastin' you, and yer ugly clubhouse, right on outta this world, y'hear!" the bandit exclaimed ferociously, clearly pissed. He leveled the cannon in Yogi's direction, laughing madly. The young mage would look in his direction and snap his fingers, "King's Guard!"

Suddenly a cloud of smoke surrounded him and the entire palace, as well as the fat man, just as he fired his cannon. The sound of an explosion went off, but neither cloud cleared in that time frame. After the sound echoed away into the distance, the smoke cleared away. In their wake, Yogi was standing himself up, as though he just fell to the ground, and was proving that he was alright. The other cloud, on the other hand, revealed that he had teleported his Palace that way, encapsulating the big man, and if the trails of smoke coming from under the door frame, the explosion.

To clarify, Yogi used his Palace to contain the man's cannonball and explosion, causing him to blow himself up with his considerable weapon. There was silence for a moment, and Yogi would approach slowly, a little worse for wear. "Evict," he commanded. The front door of his palace opened up, and the fat man's unconscious body was flung unceremoniously outside, eyes rolled back into his head, and skin charred from the explosion at such a close range. Yogi walked past the body as it bounced once or twice and entered the Palace and began inspecting everything.

"Oh thank goodness..." the young mage would say after a few beats, "All I need to replace is the blanket, everything else made it out alright." As he exited the building he would look around at the pile of KO'd bodies which Mathis left in his wake. "Oh wow Mathis, you really are super tough. I could barely handle one of those guys..." he commented somewhat dejectedly, totally sweating.

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Yogi would shuffle over towards his mentor, and receive a bit of education. He needed to think of his foes as traps he needed to overcome, to observe and analyze them before dealing with or avoiding them. Obviously a sentient trap would be impossible to avoid, so a person would need to be dealt with just in the same way, either disarming them or destroying them. Of course, disarming a trap would require a fundamental understanding of the trap, to know where to poke and prod in order to disengage the various mechanisms. Perhaps even to cold fire it into running out of ammo.

It was good advice, Yogi considered it deeply. Mathis continued on that he wasn't a magic specialist like he was, and only really knew how to fight. "Oh there's no need to worry about helping me improve my magic, that much is quite intuitive. That one fight alone has given me many ideas on how to reinforce and expand my Palace," the apprentice would say, pretending not to be perturbed by how his teacher just one-handed an iron cannon ball and crushed it. This one was firing non-explosives, so the metal alone was the source of damage, which was arguably harder for Yogi to counter. Having said that, what was the PSI on the grip needed to crush an already compact lump of iron? Yogi couldn't even begin to fathom the logistics, the finger exercises, needed to calculate and execute that.

That said, Mathis proceeded to have him deal with the cannoneer again. What was he, an anti-cannon specialist? Yogi's Palace couldn't sustain another shot from one of these cannons, so he needed to analyze the situation again. Sure if they knocked it down, it would just reassemble itself thanks to the enchantments placed on the stonework, by and large the hardest part of building one, but it would take so long he couldn't use the Palace for the remainder of the fight if they did.

His eyes returned to a focused look, "Got it, Mathis. I'll handle him." That earned him the immediate and unconditional attention of the last cannon-brandishing bandit. An iron cannonball flung in his direction, causing him to reflexively jump. It passed underneath him, though the angle at which he jumped put him rather close to his Palace. The fat man lay nearby still unconscious. Yogi would look over the man, and see that he'd dropped his cannon.

"That's... Yeah, okay," the young mage would momentarily analyze and affirm thereafter. He had a plan. He would scoop the fat man's cannon up and get a feel for its heft. It was obviously far too heavy for a kid like him to try and brandish, so he needed to find a way to use it.

The enemy cannoneer would wave his hand, causing water to seep out of the ground extracting from the grass in the grotto, and fired like a reverse hailstorm of bullets directly towards him. Yogi interposed the fat man's cannon and managed to shrug off any stray drops that hit him, gritting his teeth. As he did so, he noticed a pair of switches one marked with an inwards arrow towards the back of the cannon, and one marked with an outwards arrow. "How intuitive..." he commented, flipping the 'in switch'. Magical energy was slurped into the barrel of the cannon just like before.

He would finally get an idea, the stonework of his palace may not have been able to sustain the business end of a cannon's shot, but the recoil should have been nothing at all to it! Now to goad the enemy's aim away from the palace... he would chuck the still-reloading cannon like a sack of potatos up to the top of the palace's rook shape, like a battlement of sorts, and began to approach the cannoneer bandit, who fired another shot he needed to juke. As he turned his body so as to let the iron lump pass, he would snap his fingers, causing the palace to disappear altogether, allowing the cannonball to pass harmlessly through the grotto and into the forest behind them.

This plan was two-pronged, either option would suffice to finish this fight off in his favor, and if both failed Yogi would probably be dispatched. A shadow loomed over the battlefield now, everyone was sure to have noticed it. The bandit looked up aghast, now too afraid to move. "Behold! The Hammer Of Law!" Yogi would announce, as his Palace descended from the sky to land firmly on top of the bandit crushing him underneath just as he could finally try to cry for help. That was the first part of the plan. Part two would have been to jump on top of the Palace to seize the now-loaded cannon and fire it at a reeling bandit had he managed to escape Yogi's truly most ultimate move, but it turned out that would not be necessary.


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Yogi, after having narrowly finished dealing with his second cannoneer of the day, would hear the metallic applause of a memorable automaton. Poppi appeared to have some degree of advice to offer, but she was quickly shot down by Mathis in favor of an analysis of the job's happenings in the form of a subjective quiz.

Yogi, though a bit worse for wear, was still eager to learn. After all, the whole reason he accepted the offer Mathis put forward was to become a great treasure hunter like he was. The way Mathis dispatched bandits without issue was nothing short of awe-inspiring, but with this experience, he already knew that he was a bound and a half closer to reaching that same level.

The questions began, and just as he would start to ponder them more would arise. Yogi would swiftly pull out a notebook and pen from his totally-always-present satchel that I totally didn't add for the convenience of having a notebook to explain away how he remembered all the questions, and began writing down all the questions as they came, in the form of fairly sloppy notes and shorthand.

After Mathis finished going through his variety pack of questions, the apprentice would look into the page of letters he wrote. His face was thoughtful as he considered all the answers. "Well..." he would say distantly, humming slightly. There were no wrong answers, but it was likely there was an intention to get a grasp on Yogi's analysis skills nonetheless. A metaphorical litmus test for how he could be taught.

"On the matter of the second cannoneer, my presumption was that you meant to solidify the tactical mindset I had acquired when dealing with the first one. He was weak, but more importantly, he was kind of like a confirmation that my first victory wasn't a fluke..." Yogi admitted, "On the matter of Poppi and the second band of bandits, I was actually pretty confused about that myself. I have a few theories but they all suppose things I can't prove... They didn't matter to us, but you still let Poppi take care of them. Was there an outstanding bounty on that other group's head? Or maybe you were worried that Poppi was too characteristically scrappy to leave my enemy alone while I was trying to fight so you sent her on a chore."

Yogi displayed no real attention to a concept like 'the right thing to do', because he was clearly too goal-oriented. Perhaps if he'd have encountered those cave bandits on accident he'd have tried to take care of it, but even then only out of self defense. And of course, if there was some extra money in it for him, it would have piqued his interest.

Then came the interesting questions, regarding why they 'needed' to steal pigs and what he would have done in their positions. "I mean, I can't really see the point in stealing pigs, but my guess is that somebody gave them a reason, a business deal; or it could have been a cover-up to hide what they were actually stealing. Bandits love money first and foremost because 'money buys freedom and booze', according to my dad, so I'd presume the former. After all, why steal something if you don't have a way to get rid of it quickly?"

Then came the real question that stumped him. What would he have done in their position. Empathy was something he largely lacked in, thusly putting himself in somebody else's shoes even for a hypothetical was like trying to imagine what an apple might look like in another universe without the benefit of mental imaging. "Were I already a bandit I'd probably consider myself a failure, and drink myself into a stupor until I was foolish enough to steal pigs while blacked out. Without being one, for a Job or something? I would probably corral them into my palace and then hide it in a forest nearby while making my escape by train to another city where my buyer would be and then move my palace there. If I locked my doors, that would present a minimal chance of failure, I think..."

Finally the matter of thoughts. Why had Mathis volunteered his time and effort to train an up and coming Treasure Hunter of the Silver Wolf guild. "Hm... You seem to have a great talent for teaching, so I think you're just spreading your wings and I happened to be under them at the time," Yogi would admit. Indeed, he could think of no real reason why Mathis would choose to take a student under his wing other than to test the waters of teaching.

"So, how'd I do?"

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Resetting WC for another job

Yogi would have a seat on the ground, and listened to his mentor's analysis of his answers. His mind was open to instruction, though he couldn't help but feel a bit of apprehension. The young mage always considered himself a tactical sort, and so finding his answers to only glance the truth at most times was strenuous. He felt half-baked: Not a good enough fighter, not a good enough thinker. Of course, this was instructional, it was okay to falter in a situation like this. Mathis wanted to put these thoughts in his mind so that he could improve. That's what Yogi was really enjoying about this veritable tutoring he found himself operating under: Mathis didn't seem afraid to only give half-credit. After all, if you only learn half the truth, you've learned nothing.

Yogi strained himself mentally to accept his faltering acumen in the subject of adventuring and psychology. His discomfort showed on his face as beads of sweat would form yet still, albeit he could have still been cooling down from two separate cannoneer encounters. Some of his answers happened to proc the attention of a certain sentient blade robot, and Poppi's chimings were characteristically huffy. "Ah, sorry Poppi, I didn't mean to imply you needed busywork in a negative context," Yogi would apologize, "Simply that cleaning up bandits in the caves was busywork for you as opposed to the sort of challenge it is for me."

Yogi's belief that Poppi was a tool was coming dangerously close to being undone, but since the job at hand was done he didn't have to worry about the cosmic repercussions of being in a group of three affecting the job itself, and by extension his very first paycheck. Mathis redirected his robot sidekick into joining the lessons, causing her to take a seat right next to Yogi. Apparently, Poppi gets like this sometimes.

Yogi also heard him mention 'humans' used specifically, but brushed it off as Mathis not caring much about livestock or animals that incidentally get killed because he ignored a native monster deep in the wilds. Much like Yogi wouldn't think about the young beasts left behind when he one day kills a behemoth. That was totally an aspiration he had, though more of a pipe dream in a pipe dream.

Then came the lessons regarding the various moral options that bandits may have taken to get into their positions. Mathis seemed to waver between what is right and what is justifiable in his explanation, but that was the sort of thing Yogi struggled with the most. The perspective of an artist or a craftsman was far more readable to him than a simple bandit. He never even considered, prior to what Mathis explained, that a bandit might have a family or loved ones they needed to care for. It always seemed to obvious that the law came before comfort, but what if starvation were on the line? Or death? Yogi meditated on this for a moment, though it wasn't lost on him that Mathis didn't seem to expect a magically-inclusive answer to the idea of how he would have kidnapped pigs for a job.

Poppi's timely chiming revealed that his mentor actually had a fairly loose grasp if any on magic. Which struck him as odd because that lightshow of warping steel and laserbeams not even 15 minutes ago sure seemed pretty magic to him. And so did Poppi for that matter. "You summon Blades? You mean like Requip? Is that what was happening with your sword?" Yogi prodded with a question.

It was then revealed to him the true reason why Mathis took him into his tutelage: Yogi reminded him of somebody he used to know. Of course when it was revealed that person was a girl, it was much like several arrows striking him directly in his masculinity with every female pronoun used to explain this friend. Yogi collapsed from the totally metaphorical damage damage to his fragile psyche, crying just a little in a comical sense. "I remind you of a girl, huh? Was she at least pretty?" he asked somewhat rhetorically in a deadpan tone.

Given a moment to recuperate from the serial earth-shattering blows to his manliness, Yogi would sit back up and finally answer his mentor's offer. "Well I mean, I find myself in a unique situation, don't I? How can I turn down your tutelage after such a great lesson paired with you making me feel so... special? (I guess?)" Yogi was earnest in his desire to learn, but he might have been the slightest bit salty about being compared to a lady so fondly. He was a man, dammit!

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Total Word Count: 10,017

As Yogi sat and listened, his mentor would begin to (sorta) explain his magic. He didn't seem very sure how to make it understandable outside its own school of thought, even trying to squeeze in some vocabulary lessons. Meanwhile the so-called 'Blade' he summoned as an example looked nothing like a sword, and in fact more closely resembled Poppi than a sword. Wait, wasn't Poppi also supposed to be a sword? Yogi rubbed his head to stave off the mounting headache.

"So the... Driver resonates with a crystal and makes scrappy, well-armed ladies called Blades?" he summarized, or at least tried to. There wasn't really much else to understand, since the prospect of summoning spells was a bit lost on him. While it didn't seem like Mathis was exactly strapped for combat experience, Yogi felt like summons would be depriving him of perfectly good practice. Then again, he could theoretically spar with a summon, right?

Then Mythra would flash golden and emerge as a wholly different individual, most notably that she was red instead of yellow as she was moments ago. That and her demeanor changed entirely to be more friendly, it seemed. Yogi would meet her regard with his own, "Ah, likewise! I'll try not to get in Mathis's way."

As it turned out Mythra and Pyra being one unit was a special case among the blades, which sort of made her a poor example in Yogi's eyes, but he wasn't about to complain. Especially since she was dismissed and Mathis popped out a wing-shaped crystal from wherever he kept them (Yogi hadn't been paying any attention to that).

With another flourish of light, yet another, angrier maiden was formed, and immediately called Yogi a pipsqueak. Yogi's face reacted to the insult in a manner that unfortunately complemented it, puffing up his cheeks childishly and furrowing his eyebrows angrily. "I'm not a pipsqueak!" he would respond, though he didn't have much of an answer to her question regarding how many monsters he's slain. Still, not looking to be defeated on this matter he would doctor up his story a bit and lie to her face, "I'll have you know I just got done beating up an ogre three times as big as Mathis! And he had a ship cannon that shot huuuuuge explosions!"

Alright technically the only lie here was that the 'ogre' in question was just an ugly man, but it was still almost stupidly difficult to believe.

All this time, Mathis had been trying to point out the crippling weak spot of all his Blades or whatever, but Yogi had somehow been distracted for each instance of it. While he was an attentive student, he wanted to act like his teacher was invincible for the time being, so ignoring such things as 'glowing weakspots' felt to be in his best interests.

Mathis then confirmed that his ladyfriend that Yogi reminded him of was indeed conventionally attractive, perhaps not catching that inflection by which Yogi didn't want an answer. His sword was interesting too, since it didn't need magic to work, it seemed. Still, the young mage would stand up and stretch a bit, "Well, maybe one question. You've got a lot of skills under your belt, from weaving artificial life out of metal, to combat skill that makes hardened veterans look like children, to this strange form of crystal-based summoning. Was this all standard-issue for your homeland? Why'd you leave and join Silver Wolf?" He realized after the fact that this was two questions, but refused to correct himself in favor of getting some answers.

Word Count: 598
Total Word Count: 11,217

Yogi appeared to have made friends with the white-haired 'aegis' fairly quickly, or perhaps she was just bullying him. It was difficult to gauge that sort of thing, because brutish folk tended to speak the same way to friends and foes. The fact that Zenobia didn't really control the strength of her head patting, and pretty much shoved Yogi to his knees, was not helping him decipher the matter. She also called him strong and challenged him to spar sometime to help her warm up, which cleared up the matter somewhat. "M-maybe another day, I'm kinda beat," he'd reply to her plainly, not wanting to engage right this instant if it could be helped.

Mathis stepped in and changed the subject, to start explaining his 'Blades' again. They were mostly female, though some exceptions existed. Further, in his homeland, there were plenty of these core crystals, they were a typical part of warfare. He mentioned that the ones he possessed were particularly powerful.

Another flash of light, this one purple, revealed a similarly-colored male Blade, tall and broad like a wall of steel. Yogi was entertained by the diversity of faces he'd been shown, though the fact that they were swapped in and out one at a time in fairly rapid succession was making it tough to remember their faces. "So 'Aegis' is like a rank designation?" he asked, sensing the overwhelming power of the man before him.

This Malos guy seemed unimpressed with Yogi as well, which, at this point was starting to feel like part of the meet and greet process here. Since the Rune Knights would be approaching soon, their group needed to begin walking, so Yogi stood up and got moving alongside his mentor. Perhaps to meet up, perhaps to sidestep them. Mathis was honestly the more experienced one here, so the young mage was gonna leave that sort of decision to him. It would be good experience to know how to handle a Rune Knight captain in conversation, but he had a pretty good guess regardless.

Mathis explained metal weaving a little bit before getting into why he left Alrest. History was more his style of understanding, so while the mystics of ages past were interesting, if hard to understand, the mentor would do well to notice him perk up at the mention of his homeland's name. It was further reinforced by him dropping a word like 'millenia', which began to raise some big questions.

Yogi's pace slowed as a realization started to dawn over him, "M-millenia? Uhh Mathis? How old are you, if you don't mind my asking?" The pink-maned mage asked his question politely, with a level tone, but it felt like a super urgent thing for him to know, despite how little a difference it made.

Whether or not he got a straight answer on that matter, there was a wholly different matter of teaching Mathis a bit about Fiore in exchange for combat lessons and such. There was certainly no better deal Yogi himself could offer, so obviously he would agree, though Malos, disassembling a bunch of undergrowth into light fractals with a wave of his hands, seemed wont to disagree with Mathis's methods, throwing more expectations on top of the pile.

"If it's just how we do things in Fiore in general, I can manage that. I don't know if you have any aptitude for our sorts of magic though, least of all anything I can do, so I can't say I could show you the ins and outs of magic-use..." Yogi would reply. Palace Magic was a strange school to use, let alone to teach. It was suitable for people who wanted to live in peace in their own homes, but Yogi hardly fit that bill in the slightest.

Word Count: 630
Total Word Count: 12,458

This Malos fellow had very little stock put into humanity. Yogi could feel his hostility with just about word he spoke regarding him, especially those ones spoken without regard to the fact that the young mage was right there. Regardless, after sifting through the parts where the purple aegis called him useless and dumb, Yogi had managed to clean that Aegises were sort of like central information gatherers and could learn from the rest of the Blades. So rather than a rank thing, it was a function thing.

When Yogi had been so brazen as to ask Mathis how old he was, Malos decided to dump some completely unrelated information. All while calling Yogi stupid, yet at the same time, failing to actually answer his question. Mathis himself was also a Blade, which was super important information to be offering to a kid, sure, but this blatant display of disregard for his driver's private matters was cause enough for Yogi to eh, 'clap back' as it were. "While that's really quite interesting, Malos, friend, it doesn't answer the question I asked. I asked how old he was – politely, mind you. I honestly don't care what Mathis is; He's a friend and a mentor first. He could be a demon from Hell for all I care; He's Mathis, you know?" Yogi explained with the slightest bit of venom lacing his righteous words, obviously directed at the blade.

After he'd expressed his lack of ability to teach Mathis magic or anything like that, his mask-loving mentor would express the comfort in that knowledge, since he doesn't have any aptitude for magic. "Customs and cultures, huh? Alright, I'll start drafting up a curriculum when we get back to the guild hall. I hope you don't mind field trips, cuz I'm pretty sure immersion is going to be my crutch for these lessons. It's hard to put culture into words that do it justice," Yogi declared rather professionally. His father was a scholar, after all, he knew how to learn and teach stuff as well, albeit a bit more casually.

By this point, he felt his energy reserves coming back, and the damage dealt to his Palace had been repaired. More importantly, he was pretty sure he detected magic signatures up ahead. "Ooh, I think the Rune Knights are coming up, I'm detecting a bunch of magic up ahead," he interrupted remaining conversation with.

Word Count: 401
Total Word Count: 13,283