Mag-log inAnd from those glimpses of possibilities he saw a use for the play of darkness and light that enveloped him like a shroud. He sent it forth as a twined shaft of coiled forces. Poe reached forth a hand as if to stop it, but helix struck Poe full in the chest knocking him backward but not off his feet. Slowly the sword came up and began to glow golden, then silver. It began to cleave shadow and light, separating them into their respective parts, as they went to either side of Poe.Hunter began to understand what it meant to shape shadow and light to a purpose, of channeling emotions as a material force. The dark force was his pain and the light was his fiery anger that he used as a weapon against Poe, but what was the cold sapping force that took from matter it’s life? What power did he tap when using that ability?Though Poe had split the force rushing at him, it was not enough. The darkness and light began to turn, separating into flowing tendrils that reached for Poe. He raised a shi
Hunter felt a strange constriction in his chest and flashes of heat and cold. It was disorienting, distracting. It was a side effect engendered by the overwhelming emotions coming at him as the group of searchers rushed to converge on them. The emotional baggage became more concentrated, the pressure building. His body, riddled with competing feelings, felt like foam being tossed from the surge of two waves crashing together. Something else he had to deal with.Slish!Clank!Clank!Clink!CLANG!Hunter scrambled to parry the slash from Master Margarete and was thrown off-balance. Footwork skewed, he could not fully avoid the riposting strike that sliced through robe to open flesh. Blood gushed to drench cloth, but none fell to the ground.From the Abyss, eyes shrouded in fire swelled, and a scream exploded from Hunter, rattling the chamber. Dust rose from the floor, and pebbles fell from the ceiling. All three flashes were blown away. When they came to rest, Margarete, revealed to be
Hunter extended his demense as far as he could, deepening his connection to all, to the heat of things, the emotions of the people within its purview. The roil of ki, with no Wardens to dam that flow, churned from the power of those emotions. His heart pounded, breath naked, a prickly sensation suffused his skin and lifted him on his toes. The hair at the knap of his neck stiffened, and it felt as if his locs were standing on end.After that first exhilarating rush, he calmed, even as the inflowing force filled him. It was as if a waterfall had become uncorked and fell to expand the bottomless depths of the lake beneath. Senses enlivened and enhanced, he was better able to track the movements of Master Poe and Master Margarete. What had at first been flashes, flitting ribbons of yellow and red light, slowed. No longer a blink between here and there, a crescendo of clashing blades, their movements became something Hunter could follow and anticipate, rather than react to. He realized
He expanded his demesne, the breadth of his keening, and what had been the brief flash of an afterimage, became a blur of emotions he tracked by their arrival and departure at a place. Not able to match their speed, the keening gave him the opportunity to anticipate where and when they would be. Readying himself, he waited for his opportunity.The clash and clang of blades was cacophonous, echoing throughout the chamber like. Their music was harsh, orchestral. In it could be heard the highs and lows of the individual steels’ tone. The retreats and advances. The bang of blade edges meeting, the scraping slash, the high ringing song of the poignard, silence between recoveries, the high tonal, clangorous flunge, was exacting and terrible to hear.How long could they endure at this grueling pace, the accelerated flow of ki. You cannot take in more than can be used was an inviable truism, and they were using internal ki quicker than they could take replenish its well. Poe had already had t
Hunter attacked. He had no time for this. His attack came not in any manner they might have considered, but with all the knowledge and power new to his command. Light and darkness, the will of earth, its creatures, it had been so long this affinity of feeling, this revelation of connectedness with earth. He was one with it, not separate.“How rude.” Margaret said. She was much better with the blade than Poe and there would be no indecisive compunctions routing her hand. She was also a virtuoso at flash-step. She could heighten everything around her: her senses; her strength; spatial awareness; time dilation. As an enforcer of the rules and strictures of the School and Academe, she was the one Hunter most feared meeting.“I shall bear the weight for you.” Before Poe could intercede, she attacked. Her love, her hate, her anger, a piercing dagger directed at him. In the flicker of an eye, she disappeared.It was the intensity of emotions and the tingling of his feet and ankles that alert
Hunter gathered sunlight from the passage’s opening, and from the corridors father back and junctures of wall, he gathered shadow, shaping them, channeling his pain and anger into a material force (The Beast laughed.), and his blade began to flicker from shadow to light, light to shadow.Hunter’s footwork was subtly changing, the stretch of arm, the looseness of wrist. The tip of his blade began to flicker in and out of the light. Riposte, lunge, parry, lunge, lunge, lunge, parry, riposte.[use fencing glossary] Shadow to light to shadow to deeper shadow then a flash of sparks along the length of clashing blades. The flash of sparks were absorbed in Hunter’s flow and returned as a blade of light. Then another, a black blade, coalesced across from the sun blade, the saber blade between them. The two strands wavered between the seen and unseen and moved in a helix around the center blade.There was no sound, only the matching force of a similar blade strike. Poe would have to expend ki
“You have soft hair,” Kim whispered at his ear, gently stroking his locs as the ends spread across th surface of the water.Not knowing how to respond, Hunter remained silent.“Come you it by way of your mother or your father’s strain?”“I do not know, though, my mother had similar.”She pulled his
Not resisting, Hunter was moved deeper into the water father away from his friends and a little to the left of hers until the water was up to his chest. From one step to the nest his head went from the surface to falling beneath the warm dark of the lake where nothing could be seen. Water filled hi
The sloppy wet strains of hunger ensued until they were sated.Hunter rose when Giesle did, plate in hand.“Leave it. The steward will see to that.”Giesle was pleased that the Masters had enough consideration to give him the responsibility of a troika. But this final addition would prove trying fo
“Hey, wake up.” He heard the words through the fog of sleep but did not want to wake up. Sleep was far more comfort than the lonely, isolated wakefulness he saw stretched before him. But he could not run or evade the truth, so, reluctantly, he rolled to his back and opened his eyes to a







