Strangest Thing [Mentor/Invite]

[Deleted]

Jacoben HP: 100% MP: 87%

"Any treasure you obtain without ever having to work for it is no treasure at all."

"So it's a tossup between avoiding the attacks completely and only doing minor damage or hitting harder and having a harder time dodging the Nepent's counter," Jacoben mused as he watched Shuwen lead the creature around the clearing to try and find something useful that they could incorporate into the fighting style it seemed that they were going to be inventing. So when fighting a Nepent Snatcher or similar monster you had to be like the tide, pulling away and pushing forward at the right times to minimise the damage you received and maximise the damage you gave it. That would require significant training to attune oneself to the patterns of the monster, but it was still a viable direction for them to consider.

The Foxtail watched a little bit longer as Shuwen moved around the creature, taking in the way it moved and its reactions to the Monk's actions. "It seems like you need to always be on the move with a Nepent, just like you need to lean out of range to avoid the vines you also need to pull back far enough to make it move after you so you can take advantage of its unrooting," he stated, mostly to himself since it would be insulting to assume that Shuwen would need to be told such a thing. It seemed they had done all the research that they needed on this matter, now it would simply require practice to master the appropriate skills in order to implement this new knowledge.

"If you want we could probably end this for now, I think we have the information we need to build up something solid to work with when fighting Nepent Snatchers in hand to hand," the Foxtail called out to the Monk, as it seemed rather pointless for them to continue poking away at the creature now, at least until they had determined a unified training regime to practice for use against such monsters. That required some discussion however, and it was hard to have a proper discourse on martial arts while one of the participants of said discussion was busy putting martial arts into practice.

Waiting patiently for Shuwen to finish the Nepent off, Jacoben would give the man time to cool down briefly before they started talking. They would likely spend a long period of time talking and going through various movements as they worked together to form a workable routine for practicing the required movements for close quarters Nepent fighting, both Wolfhair and Foxtail adding portions to the set and offering advice on the most appropriate movements that they could make for the training set. Going through it a few times together to make sure that they didn't forget it or make a mistake while they had another person around who could pick up on the issues.

"So I think we should meet up every so often to continue developing a more comprehensive fighting style against monsters," Jac remarked as he sat down to take a drink of water, the sweat from their exertions already being cleaned off his brow by the Adventurer's handy autocleaning feature. Still, nothing beat a good bath or shower for feeling clean, and he'd take whatever he could get when he got home. "Maybe once a week as long as neither of us goes out on a quest or something?"

OOC NOTES:
Word Count: 812 ([560+252, 1.25 Mentor + 0.2 Coconia Bonus])

Tags: Shuwen

Made by Sifr of GS, Synesthesia and Adoxography.

[Shuwen]

Words: 989

@eleri summarized the trade-off between offense and defense allowed as Shuwen continued to dodge.“Pretty much.” He gasped out between dodges. “I prefer outfighting, so I us-” He was briefly cut off by the need to dodge again, due to the nepant trying to hit him with one of it’s whip-like tendrils “-ually spend a good portion of a fight just dodging and maneuvering into a better position.” He dodged again, this time he ducked into a crouching position, causing the whip to go sailing over his head. It was a narrow miss, close enough for him to feel the sensation of displaced air blowing down on his scalp. Needless to say it wasn’t a very comfortable feeling.

Before long, Jacoben said that they were pretty much done, and he was free to finish off the monster. “Okay then.” At that point, he was torn between using his usual methods and taking up more time, and going in for a slugfest and finishing it off more quickly at the cost of some of his own Hit Points. He dodged another vine, then took two steps in so he was too close for the vines to work and punched it. When the plant tried to counter by biting, he attempted to dodge by circling out of the way. However, he was too close to dodge properly in time, and wasn’t fast enough to compensate, so it managed to clip his side. “Tch.” Once again, he was tempted to just turn it into a slugfest, but he remembered that Jacoben was watching, and even though he didn’t want to take up too much of the Foxtail’s time unnecessarily, he figured it might be a good opportunity to once again demonstrate why he preferred outfighting. Instead of simply retaliating, he jumped back in an attempt to get some distance between them again. After all, if he was too close, there was simply no way he’d be able to dodge.

With the distance changed once again, the Nepent went back to trying to hit him with its whip-like vine attacks. Shuwen dodged the first on in the same manner as Jacoben; simply leaning out of the way as the tendril passed. It wouldn’t have worked a moment ago, when he was in close-quarters range; it was best when one was already on the edge of the monster’s range; close enough to make it think it had a chance, but far enough away to make dodging it a simple task. He once again began to try and circle around, trying to get a better angle from which to attack, but the Nepent was having none of that, and it simply turned so it kept facing him, preventing his maneuvering from giving him any advantage. If he’d been up against another humanoid, Shuwen might have been able to sneak in through a gap between attacks, and get close enough for the attack to not do any damage before it could hit him, but the whiplike vines it used to attack were too flexible and had too much range for that to be an effective tactic. Fortunately, the Monks of Elder Tale had their own advantages. I guess there’s no shame in copying Jacoben under these circumstances. Holding his forward arm low, he lashed out with what was known in the boxing world as a flicker jab, in an attempt to maximize the range of his arm. Normally, it wouldn’t have been nearly long enough to hit the monster from his current distance, but he also used the Zoom Attack skill to extend the range of the punch by about a meter. Once that attack hit, the plant's HP was almost down to zero, and a quick follow up attack was enough to finish it off.

“That principle doesn’t just apply to Nepents, but to most mobs. I think it’s because Adventurers and monsters were originally programmed to attack at about the same rate, so if you take the time to close in and attack, there’s not really any time left to dodge as well.” He added once the Nepent had vanished.

After that they began to talk about things, monsters they’d fought, ways to deal with said monsters that utilized techniques or at least concepts taken from martial arts, differences between things they were taught, principles they thought would be useful. They made a decent amount of progress in learning about each other’s perspectives from a martial arts standpoint, but Shuwen couldn’t help but feel like they were only scratching the surface.

“That sounds like a good idea. This probably isn’t something we can do in one day. Doing it bit by bit over time sounds is probably a better idea.” He rubbed the back of his head, thinking about it a little more. “It may also be a good idea to party up every so often in addition to that, so we can learn more about how we operate and all that.” The fact that Shuwen had difficulty partying up with people had absolutely no bearing on his suggestion. No. It. Didn’t.

With the conversation apparently over, Shuwen moved on, leaving Jacoben free to continue farming, practicing his own martial arts in private, or whatever else he wished to do with his time. After all, the Monk had taken up quite enough of it as it was. And Shuwen wanted to do more farming before he got bored and moved on to something else. Even though his level was approaching the point that he wouldn't gain anything from farming in the area, he still wanted to squeeze some more experience points out of it before he moved on. I really need to get better equipment so I can move on. He thought disparingly. Even though his level was high enough that he could probably move on, his lack of leveled gear meant he’d be taking quite a risk, which he wasn’t really interested in doing.

=Exit=