B3 – Chapter 30: Showing off

Tristan headed to the field and his steps were lighter, his breath came easier, and he could feel the raw power tensing in his veins as his muscles pushed against his skin, forcing it taught. Just to test, he tried pinching his forearm and could barely grip any skin. This is insane, he thought. I need to try out my strength before I spar with The Matriarch. He reached the field and glanced back at Felicity, who had shifted to her Elfanoid form and was walking just a step behind him. “Mind getting my gear together?”

She nodded, shifted to her fairy dragon form, and zipped off to the Queen’s Wood.

The Matriarch glanced to her side, looking to some fairy dragons lounging on a branch and idly chatting. “Children, mind getting me some Adamant Wood equipment?”

“You got it!”

“Sure!”

“Hammer? Sword?”

The Matriarch smiled, “A variety, please.”

The fairy dragons flew off, and Tristan headed over to the wooden weights. He went to the middle of the row, and lifted. To his immense surprise and satisfaction, he was able to lift the object without issue. This one is a hundred pounds…with a single arm? He moved up the wooden weights, until he finally found one that caused him to struggle. Two-hundred pounds. He grinned and chuckled, looking over to the bench with a series of bars and weights on it. I need to know my full limits.

The next ten minutes were filled with tests of his might. He was able to lift all of the weights at their heaviest type in each lift – and still felt he could do more.

The Matriarch commented, “You are stronger than Zeltana, despite Winterbloom women tending to being stronger than men.”

“Must be the dragonslayer bloodline,” Tristan replied as he smiled. “I wonder what the heaviest object I could lift is.” He gestured to one of the weights, “I was able to get that up, and that’s like a full cart of trade goods.”

Felicity had already arrived with his gear and was back in her Elfanoid form, setting the gear out on a bench. “I would bet you could lift up a small boat!”

Tristan walked over and gave her a light squeeze around the shoulder. But even that light squeeze elicited a small “eep” and recoil from her. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I need to figure out the right amount to use with you.”

She smiled softly, “Well, you can test out later.” She patted the armor, “Come on, get your gear on.”

She helped Tristan into the new equipment and after he was fully armored up he moved around vigorously, and the armor felt far lighter and less imposing than before. Lifting the maul only took a single hand, and his sword felt light as a feather. “We’ll do mauls first,” he said to The Matriarch, a short distance away.

She snapped her fingers, and one of her fairy dragon children flew over with a training dummy before planting it in the ground. “Let me see what a strike from you does to this.”

Tristan walked over with the maul, gripped it in two hands, and swung a full-powered swing. With a mighty crash, the metal maul slammed into the dummy, shattering it to thousands of pieces as the remnants were sent flying to the side. His eyes went wide as he stared after the shards. “I…umm…wow.”

The Matriarch sighed, “Until you can rein in your newfound strength, Lord Tristan, sparring would be quite hazardous.”

Tristan looked over to the fairy dragons lounging on the branches nearby, “Bring over more training dummies.” A few flew off and returned a minute later with another four training dummies, and planted them in the ground before retreating to the boughs again.

The Matriarch walked to the first training target in the line. “Okay, try swinging with, say, ten percent of your maximum effort.”

Tristan nodded and brought the maul back before lazily swinging it forward, barely putting any muscle into the strike. The maul made a loud thwack noise that slightly nudged the dummy out of position, causing it to sag back. “Okay, how was that?”

The Matriarch inspected the wood where the strike impacted, “That would dent most armor and crush what was underneath.” She gestured to the next dummy, “A bit harder. Maybe half of what you think you can do.”

Tristan walked over to the next dummy, reeled back, and swung with more force trying to find a good middle point between the last strike and his maximum-force swing. The dummy cracked and splintered in two as some of the wood shards were flung off. “

“Next one, go at full force again,” she instructed.

Tristan nodded and pulled back once more, and swung with all the force he could muster. Once more, the dummy completely smashed to smithereens, the wooden shards exploding out over the field.

The Matriarch nodded, “If you can keep yourself to half of your strength, then we can spar.” She went over to the weapon rack and pulled out a large, two-handed maul. “Shall we?”

Tristan took up a ready stance and nodded. She moved, and to his perception it was like she was moving in slow motion. He moved the haft of his maul into the path of her swing, deflecting the strike down and to his left. She followed up with a haft-strike using the momentum, and he simply side-stepped the hit before shoving her backward. Despite her larger height and size, he felt like he had just shoved a child back.

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