Dark fate book 26 baba.., p.5
Dark Fate: Book 26 - Baba Yaga, page 5
“So, you use violence, and the threat of violence, to get your way?” The tone in Baba Yaga’s voice wasn’t angry, or accusing, but more like she was testing me.
“Every government in human history has used violence, or the threat of violence, to get their way, Baba Yaga. Some are just more open about it than others, and some are less restrained in their actions. And there are many kinds of violence, besides just shooting an idiot in the head. Or did you think that sanctions weren’t a form of violence? Most of the time, diplomats like to dress things up and pretend that they are not saying that the other side should do as they are told because otherwise there will be consequences, but that is the truth.
“From the start, I decided that the Kingdom of Ceres, and later the Ceresan Empire, was not going to play that game. The lies are there so diplomats and politicians can sleep at night, with comfortable falsehoods dressing up their actions as something socially acceptable. I walk a different path. I own everything I do, and make no excuses. If it is something that will give me regrets, then either I don’t do it, or I make sure that it is the only option that actually accomplishes the objectives I have for a given situation. If the only way you can stomach the actions you’re taking is to weave comfortable lies around them, then you shouldn’t be doing the thing.”
Baba Yaga smiled at that. “Ah, now I see why so many people flock to your banner. Even after what you did in the Middle East. They might dislike some of the things you’ve done, but because you are honest about things, then there is less room for misinterpretation.”
“I like to think I’m more than just a pretty face,” I grinned.
“It is a very pretty face, though, Master,” Talia grinned. “Though I believe that it was your dick which first conquered most of us.”
I chuckled at that. “True, true.” Turning back to Baba Yaga, I said, “But, either way, I’ve worked to keep things from turning into a situation where I wouldn’t be proud to recount all my actions. And what about you, Baba Yaga? How did you come upon the Mantle?”
Baba Yaga smiled, and got a look that was pure ‘grandmother telling stories’ energy. “Well, I was hunting in the woods north of Tyumen. I needed herbs for my healing concoctions. With everything going on, there were more people who were sick and hurt than we had medicines, and we had no idea when new shipments would come. But I was an alchemist. Making medicines and potions is part of what my profession was supposed to do. However, I’m sure you’ve noticed that herbs have a distinct aversion to growing wild in cities.”
I chuckled. “I have, indeed, noticed that there are no wild growths of herbs here on Ceres. Apparently, asteroids in deep space with no atmosphere are not terribly good for growing herbs. Even after we put in the colony, we didn’t get any sudden growths of herbs. Very sad.”
“Cheeky boy,” Baba Yaga laughed. “Well, I ran afoul of some Timber Wolves. Not the pre-System kind. Wood-element wolf monsters. I was in their territory, and they were hungry. I had hexes to hinder them, and a single offensive spell, [Witch Bolt]. Not enough to take down six Timber Wolves before they made a meal of me. So, I ran, and I’m not ashamed to say it.”
Harahel nodded. “Far too many young warriors and mages fall because they are too prideful, or too foolish, to run when they are truly outmatched. There is a time for courage, or for a desperate last stand, such as when you have no good means of escape, or you are buying time for another. However, if you are outmatched, it is often better to flee and live to fight another day. Or, at the very least, find a more defensible position.”
“Exactly,” Baba Yaga nodded. “At any rate, I was running, and then the ground dropped out from under me, sending me into this cave…”
Chapter 257 – Training
After dinner we went to the training hall. I had never had the Witch class, or any variant of it, but I’d fought with and against plenty of them in my different timelines. They were more of a support class than front-line fighters. Yes, they had some damage-dealing spells, but they were mostly geared around debuffs, damage-over-time effects, and other nastiness. The longer a fight against a Witch lasted, the worse off you were. And that was before you got into things like ritual magic.
However, the big weakness of the class was that they lacked offensive and defensive options, which meant they were vulnerable, especially in the early stages of a fight, before they could properly cripple their foes. Which is why you rarely saw witches on their own. Either they had a team, or they had familiars and charmed or enslaved animals and people to protect them. Sometimes both.
I tossed padded training staffs to Baba Yaga and her Yagishna, and took one up, myself. The staffs were the same size and weight as a normal staff, but were specially made and enchanted so that strikes would hurt, but they wouldn’t do any damage, not even bruising or giving a split lip. They were designed to teach, after all.
“A Mantle is only so powerful as the one who can wield it,” I told them. “Each mantle has strengths and weaknesses. In the case of the Baba Yaga, the strength and power of your hexes and curses, along with the breadth of knowledge you have in them, is likely unmatched by anyone on Earth. Especially at your Tier and level. However, it is not a Mantle for the front lines, just like the Witch class in general is not suitable for single combat. This is not disparagement, mind you, but fact, no different from saying that a Fighter is ill-equipped to deal with incorporeal threats.
“Every class has strengths and weaknesses. Things that they are good at, and things they cannot handle. A fighter is helpless against ghosts, but a witch’s spells are very effective against them. Meanwhile, a witch can be overwhelmed by a single wolf, much less a pack of them, while a fighter may be able to drive them off, or even slay them. The System uses the party system to reinforce this, and it is why witches often bind familiars and contract fierce protectors.
“That said, you can and should work on your defenses. Not just defensive magics, but being able to physically defend yourself from attacks at least long enough for your allies to come to your aid is critical, if you wish to survive. This is especially true as you go up in Tiers, and threats become more powerful, and better able to end things in a single blow, if you are unprepared. I don’t expect you to withstand the force of a Tier 3 fighter’s attack, but learning to read the attacks, and parry or dodge them? That is something anyone can do, with some training. Maybe not more than once or twice, especially if the higher-tier fighter stops underestimating you and gets serious, but a few seconds can mean all the difference in a real fight.”
Baba Yaga nodded slowly. “You’re not talking about skills through the System, but learned experience, combat experience, yes? The kind of thing you can only get by fighting and surviving many battles.”
“Yes, though you can lay the foundations in training. A Witch will not have the raw physical speed or strength to truly keep up with a warrior of their level. However, the class does tend to value a high INT and WIS. INT helps with perception, detecting details. WIS helps with pattern recognition, and reading body language. Predict the strikes, and you can avoid the worst of them.”
I took a fighting stance with the staff. “In a fight against most living creatures, and undead based on those creatures, there are three key areas you should watch, if you want to be able to defend yourself properly. The feet, the core, and the eyes. Not the hands, and not the weapon. Most flourishes and feints are designed to draw your attention to them, either getting you to make a mistake, or distracting you from the real threat. The hands lie. Do not trust them.
“The feet, core, and eyes, however, are far more honest. It takes more work for a fighter to conceal their intentions with those areas, especially for anything heavier than a weak, back-handed strike. And it is entirely due to leverage and the fact that experienced foes grew to be experienced by not falling prey to mistakes that spell the death of foolish warriors.”
I moved forward, and said, “The feet are the foundation. Everything builds off of that foundation. A fighter that knows what they are doing will show their intentions in the way they move their feet, so that they can strike without overextending, allowing them to retreat. Even wolves will show it before they commit to a full strike, rather than a quick bite in passing.”
I moved slowly through several strikes. Overhead slam, horizontal sweep, thrust like a spear. Basic movements, at a speed that was painfully slow to me. But it was enough to show them the motion, and how my body moved with each blow.
“The core is where the power comes from. You cannot put real power into a strike without engaging the core. The hips, waist, and shoulders all move in order to support and power the movements of the arms and hands. Without that support and power, a strike is like getting hit by a pillow or cardboard tube. Annoying, but not nearly as dangerous as a real blow.”
I took a breath, and said, “And then, there are the eyes. If they are seriously attacking and view you as any kind of a threat, then you will see it in their eyes, as they focus on you. They will be reading you, as you are reading them. A skilled fighter will be looking for counters, baits, traps. An unskilled fighter will be focused solely on where they intend to hit. Either way, without their eyes, the fighter has to rely on other senses. This also means that, if you get a chance to attack, whether with a weapon or spells, you should aim for the eyes.”
Irina, the human Yagishna, frowned. “That doesn’t seem very sporting, or honorable.”
I chuckled, and said, “It is not. And you aren’t the first to say such things to me. However, what use is honor to the dead, and to those who will die because you failed? Fair fights are for training, exhibitions, and tournaments. Fair fights are for when there aren’t lives on the line. Fair fights are for when you can afford to lose.”
I took a breath, and then said, “The thing you have to understand is that this world with the System is both fair and unfair at the same time. It is fair, in that everyone has the chance to gain strength and power, if they put in the work, and do what is necessary. It is unfair in that opportunities are not equal, and there is no setting keeping high-level individuals from wrecking those of lower levels, and even tiers. The only way to survive some fights is to cheat early and often, using everything you have to your advantage. Because at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is if you live or die, and the consequences of that.”
“The consequences of living?” Irina asked. Not challenging, curious. Good. Baba Yaga had chosen her daughters well, it seemed.
“You are a Battle Dancer, and the elf is an Urban Witch. If the two of you faced a foe together, then you likely would have the speed and movement skills to escape, if you fled and left your ‘sister’ to die. Or perhaps you find yourself up against a force that you cannot defeat, but there are women and children behind you, and the enemy offers to let you go if you step aside so that they can feast on the children. Or perhaps you find yourself up against wild goblins, and are faced with a choice of fighting to the death, or surrendering to them. In each of those situations, you have the option to live. But there are consequences to those choices.
“In the first situation, if you left your sister to die, what do you think the reaction of your other sisters, or your ‘mother’, would be? Do you think they would be proud, or happy that at least one of you survived? Or would they call you a coward and cast you out?
“In the second, you could save yourself from certain death, yes. But then you would have to live with the knowledge that you abandoned those who were helpless to be eaten alive. And you would always wonder if you could have bought them time to escape, or stalled long enough for help to come.
“And in the third? As a woman, death would be the kinder option. Goblins are almost entirely male, as a species, so they capture females and breed with them, repeatedly, whether they like it or not. And goblins not bound to a dungeon or other Power have what is essentially a magical STD, that transforms the women they mate with into goblins, meaning you would spend the rest of your life as a brood mare, birthing litters of goblins at a time, and no one would know it was you when they came to burn out the camp.”
I paused, looking the three women in the eyes. “Every action, or inaction, has consequences. The Mantle of the Baba Yaga will not allow you to shirk responsibility or deny the consequences, just like it will not allow those who act with or against you to do so. Which means you must fight, live, and, if needs be, die in such a way that you can accept the consequences of your deeds.”
I looked at the women again, and said, “In the first timeline, the Incux landed on Earth. One hiveship, set down near Moscow. About the only thing that the human resistance and the various alien warlords agreed on was that the Incux needed to die. Fighting across Europe stopped overnight, so resources could be sent to deal with the hive. In the end, ritual magic was used to end the threat. The Baba Yaga of that timeline died in the casting of the ritual, and Moscow was wiped from the map, but so was the hive, and the ritual scoured the hive mind, burning the stitch coordinates from their consciousness, meaning ships would have to be sent the ‘slower’ way, instead of stitching. Without that, the Earth would have been consumed in that first timeline, instead of lingering on for at least eight more years, and my being betrayed. I do not know what was left after that.”
My eyes focused squarely on Baba Yaga, now. “Out of respect for the one who bore the Mantle before you, I will give you the tools so that you can defend yourself, because, out of the five Mantles that we knew of in that timeline, yours is both the most magically potent, and the one with the weakest physical combat ability, if you discount the Fool always managing to ‘just so happen’ to avoid getting killed.”
Baba Yaga nodded. “I am no warrior, but I’m no coward, either. And I cannot do what must be done to fix Mother Russia from how badly it has been mismanaged if I am dead. I will learn what you have to teach me, Demon Lord of Ceres.”
“Good,” I nodded, and I meant it. “Now, let us begin with the simplest forms.”
Chapter 258 – Skills
The Mantle of the Black Knight was a combat-focused one. It specialized in group vs. group combat. Not quite to the point of armies vs. armies, but any vanguard with the Black Knight at its head was going to be an utter wrecking ball to enemy forces. Even if that vanguard was made of untrained civilians who had never held a weapon before.
However, the powers of the Black Knight grew with the strength and skill of the ones fighting at his side. The Mantle was that of a military commander, and, as such, part of the mantle included being able to teach others to fight. I no longer bore the Mantle, but I still had the knowledge of how to train people from nothing to basic competency.
After two hours of training, I let them stop. I was not even breathing hard, but I was two Tiers above them. Even Baba Yaga was tired, at this point. As I collected the training weapons, I looked the three women over. “The next time you gain a level, look at your General Skills. You should be able to pick up [Staff Proficiency], [Clubs], or [Polearms], depending on your other experiences. And you might even get [Defensive Fighting].”
“What is the difference between those?” Baba Yaga asked.
“Well, [Defensive Fighting] increases the amount of damage blocked or parried while you’re in a defensive posture with a weapon you are proficient with, according to the System. Basically, use one of the defensive techniques I showed you, and try to block or redirect attacks, and the skill will help you. Later on, you can upgrade it to [Spell Parry], which, despite its name, applies to both parrying and blocking incoming spells with your weapons. It only works on spells that have some kind of ray, or missile, or something like that. You can’t parry a [Fireball] or [Cone of Cold], but, if you get good enough, you should be able to parry a [Magic Missile].”
“Really?” the elven Yagishna asked. “I thought that the entire point of the [Magic Missile] spell was that it couldn’t miss, and couldn’t be blocked by anything but magical barrier or shield spells?”
“Common misconception,” I nodded, “and not an unreasonable one for those in the low to mid-levels of Tier 1. The truth is that while [Magic Missile] has homing and auto-hit capabilities, it is still a spell, at the end of the day, and subject to rules for spells under the System. Which means they can be defended against.
“Most of the martial classes will get some ability like that somewhere in the level 20 to 30 range. The nature of the skill will depend on the class’s focus, of course. A Monk or Battle Dancer will get [Spell Strike] as a class skill, allowing them to punch or kick spells to deflect and disperse them. A Swordsman will get [Spell Parry], but focused on blades. Of course, accurately hitting incoming spells with a foot or blade is up to the one trying to pull it off, which is why a Fighter with [Spell Shield] has an easier time of it, since they just have to get their shield in front of them. And I’ve seen Rangers with [Spell Sniper], which allows them to shoot spells with arrows, but that takes significant skill to pull off, even with the System assisting.”
The younger Yagishna, the Battle Dancer, nodded slowly. “So, the System gives martial classes the ability to counter magic-users, but whether we are able to do it or not depends on us. Does it do the same for magic users defending against martial classes?”
I smiled at her. “Good question, and the answer is no, and yes. No, there are not usually options to defend against martial attacks in a spellcaster’s class skills. However, they do get access to plenty of defensive magics. But the System seeks to ensure that things are balanced. Spellcasters have a wider range of options than martial classes, but unless they focus into one of the hybrid classes that sacrifice some of their spellcasting ability for martial capability, like Arcane Blade or Spellshooter, then they are unlikely to get class skills to match what a martial class might get to defend against spellwork.”
