Training Room (Open to Competitors)

[Claire]

There was a clash of metal inside the training ground of the arena. Claire lunged forward, sparring with practice swords with one of the young able-bodied men stationed there to practice with. Claire swung her short sword, lunging quickly and knocking the practice sword from the boy’s hand with a satisfying clang of metal. She smiled, pushing her dark hair away from her face and thanked the exhausted-looking young man for humoring her, sheathing her sword.

This arena was something that even Claire was impressed by. While the architecture and forest land was completely new to behold, this seemed familiar. However, it may have been because she had a sword in her hand again at last. A fighting tournament! How could she resist something like that? Even if it was for fighting for the honor of gods she did not believe in, much less respected. However, Ai offended her the least of the Pantheon. Or at least that was the justification she gave herself.

The armor she wore was slight, easy to move in. That much she was thankful for- it was difficult to move quickly in the heavier suits the knights preferred. With high boots, a molded breastplate and strips of metal and leather to form a skirt, it seemed that this country made sexual even the representatives of their mother goddesses. Claire didn’t mind so much at the moment, though. Outside of home, this was the nicest armor she had worn in years. She adjusted the crystal from her own goddess around her neck and looked back to the training room of the arena, scoping out the competition with a grin on her face. Despite not being from this country and not even believing in these gods, she felt more than confident about her odds.

[Deleted]

Ilta knew she had no chance in hell of winning. Thankfully, unlike the people in the second bracket, she didn’t have to fight Mysteria next if she made it out of the first round. And if she did win, she’d be running from strangers wanting to talk to her for a whole year. Still, she did enjoy the fantasy of perhaps winning the tournament and gaining nothing but the satisfaction that she managed it.

She had never been to a Champions Calling in her old home. She knew of the holiday, but going would require travelling, which her family didn’t do. Well, until they had to at the very least. The arena is larger than she imagined, but there were far more people in this city than she was used to.

The armor that they are willing to supply her with is nicer than her own. She bought something cheap originally to cover her skin from being bitten. However, her form of stone flesh was more protective, all things considered. She wears a thing of scale mail. She has to forgo any type of helmet. Metal greaves cover brown boots and the metal bracers come as part of a similar set. As for her weapon, she fought with Fang, her longsword resting at her side.

She spots Claire and waves, but then frowns at her armor. “Molded breastplate? I’ve seen them before, but I kind of thought they were ornamental. Don’t break your breastbone.” Shit, all it would take is someone with a hammer, a good hit, and the woman would be out of commission for awhile. She grimaces as if the thought gives her physical pain.

[Claire]

Out of the corner of her eye, Claire could spot Ilta waving to her. She grinned broadly and lifted her arm to wave back. Her hand fell back to the hilt of her sword and her eyebrows raised sharply at Ilta when she spoke.

"Good day to you too." Claire laughed, pushing her hair over her shoulder. She looked back down to the breastplate, if it could even be called that with cleavage visible. "...I have fought in less." She replied like that explained everything, shrugging. In truth, she felt rather pretty.

Claire looked up and down at Ilta, tapping her chin. "You look very... Practical?" She frowned a little, unsure if that was the correct word. She pushed on. "Who are you fighting for?"

[Deleted]

Séanait had taken one look at the armour offered to her by one of the officials and had decided that the potential destruction of her own kit was well worth the risk. Well, she could have looked at what the men were being offered but, if she was honest with herself, she was really pretty eager to try out her new mail in combat. So, just training with it, she'd found it much easier to work with, despite it's increased weight. Training, though, was no substitution for the real tubing and it would be interesting to see how it all held up in real combat. She had, however, borrowed a pair of steel greaves for the match. Those, at least, were sensible.

As she looked around the training ground, Séanait spotted Ilta and Claire and headed towards them. Ilta wore unusual, but sensible looking armour but Claire...Séanait's eyebrows rose in astonishment as she saw Claire's armour. She'd thought the dark skinned warrior woman had had more sense than that. The only thing worse than being dressed up like a whore was that costume killing you. Ilta, it seemed, was on a vaguely similar wavelength to Séanait, based on the snatches of words Séanait heard as she approached the women. Claire, though, didn't seem particularly worried.

Arriving just as Claire asked Ilta was she was fighting for, Séanait decided to reply for the horned woman for no other reason than that it seemed like a good way to enter the conversation.

"Helena, same as me. Which means I'm probably going to miss out on the fun of fighting Mysteria."

Séanait really didn't think she was going to be able to beat Ilta. Perhaps if they were merely using weapons she might stand a chance, but Ilta had magic as well as skills at arms, and that made all the difference. Of course, Séanait wasn't about to let that stop her from doing her best to win. It just meant she hadn't put any bets on herself.

[Deleted]

Ilta sighs as Claire’s response. “It’s not a problem of less… It’s a problem of exploitable flaws and a blacksmith who doesn’t care about the integrity of what he makes. Both of which bother me.” And the aftermath of broken sternum wasn’t pretty to say the least. And possibly deadly. “However, I will give you that you are braver than myself for wearing that.”

Ilta takes the practicality comment as a compliment and smiles a bit. “Practical is what I aim for. Fashion is far too fleeting. Besides, I used to be a blacksmith’s apprentice in a small village in the middle of nowhere. The ornate stuff is a bit too expensive to make for little benefit.”

She turns around and looks at Shy as she answers for her. “You seem to think I’ll beat you or Mysteria wouldn’t make it multiple rounds. I wouldn’t bet on either.” Shy was former guard or militia or something as far as she could tell. She had far more experience fighting that Ilta. Experience, strength, and ingenuity were the most important things, and she didn’t think Shy lacked for the latter two either.

Turning back to Claire, she asks, “You are fighting for Ai, correct?” An interesting choice. She was one of the more powerful goddesses of the pantheon though, and was a popular choice as the goddess of love. Honestly, she was a bit curious why everyone chose the gods that they did.

[Claire]

Claire laughed again loudly at Ilta’s clear lack of approval. She reached forward, patting her cheek gently. “Then when I win my match, you may help me find a more suitable suit of armor.”

she pulled back when Shy made her appearance, lighting up again.

“Séanait!” Claire raised her hand again, noticing the look. Really, she hadn’t wandered into Nova wearing a full suit of armor. If she wanted to look like a knight, she would dress like one. So she just tilted her head at the two women, giving them a beamused smile.

“Oh, are you fighting each other?” Claire lifted her head, suddenly looking alarmed. “But who will I cheer for?” she frowned, crossing her arms. She wasn’t exactly sure who or what Helena stood for, but she must be a fine goddess if both of them were fighting for her. Both incredibly practical women.

“Yes, Ai.” Claire nodded. She offered up no further explanation or justification. If these women were more than a little religious, her reasoning would offend them. And she didn’t want that, she planned on drinking with them later.

[Deleted]

Séanait stuck out her hand for Claire to shake and then did the same for Ilta.

" Good to see you again Claire. If I'm still capable, we'll have to go drinking when this is all done."

She winked at Ilta and then leaned on her spear, grinning at the both of them. There was something about Claire that she couldn't quite put her finger on that she liked. It could have been Claire's exotic nature, but Séanait thought it was probably the woman's bluntness and almost motherly qualities. She was good people. Ilta, well, Séanait had had surprisingly little to do with the tall mercenary woman, given that they were both part of the guard, but she'd liked Ilta from the start. Ilta had a great sense of humour and was fun while being somewhat more restrained than Séanait, which she admired.

When Ilta suggested that Séanait might have a chance, Shy just shrugged.

"Well, I can't feather your face, so I'm pretty much helpless against your magic. And even without it," Séanait reached out, squeezed Ilta's left bicep and grinned, "I don't know if I can compete with your smith's muscles."

Then it seemed Claire had a dilemma over which of them to cheer for. Séanait's grin grew even larger and she tapped the side of her nose. Or, rather, the side of her helmet's nasal guard.

"Ai doesn't choose, so why should you? Support us both, if you like."

[Deleted]

“If you win your match, sure. Even if it means helping out my possible competition. You’re fighting Captain Blade, right?” Ilta pauses for a moment as Garrett Blade’s name sinks in. “You know, saying that name aloud, it really sounds like a fake name.” Captain Garrett Blade. Either a bastard child or someone who was trying to find their past a bit. The Captain seemed decent enough though. Maybe it was the former. However, he seemed to be on good terms with Alex which added a general amount of suspiciousness to any person, herself included.

Ilta shakes her head, “You give yourself far too little credit. At the ball, that was mostly quickly thinking and the other party being too distracted.” Honestly, Ilta wasn’t quite sure how she would handle those fights. Mysteria didn’t seem so physically strong, so maybe she would try to get force a duel if she could. Roland? He brushed off a sword to the gut, so he could clearly take a hit.

She looks kind of surprised as Shy grips her arm before smiling. Mostly, she wasn’t use to people randomly grabbing her. “Yeah… all from banging steel all day and not much else,” she jokes.

Shy was right. Ai didn’t choose. “I agree. Cheer for the fight in general. It’s what most are doing after all. That and drinking Helena’s ale of choice.”

[Deleted]

The doors open and Diamond did not have a pleased look as he was forced to wear more armor then he should. Since it seemed that the event had forced armor for safety reasons. The armor made him slower due to the additional weight. He switched out his normal gauntlet and shoulder armor for the armor for the event.  Which were forearm gauntlets, a chest piece, and greves that went to his knees. Even then he had to redistribute where his katana's would go.  He had to place one katana on each side of his waist and his Muramasa blade on his back. It was not a good place for it though but he tied the blade to sheath. In order for a dumb ass not to pull it out and get accidently possessed by the blade. He was currently striking down training dummy's but. Unlike most that would stand up to a normal long sword. These were getting sliced in two due to his katana blade and its keen sharp edge.

Then the white haired male stood against five of the dummy's. He gets into a draw stance and then draws from the sheath so fast and swings. It cut all five of them down in one fell swoop of his blade. He sheaths it again"This should be faster then it is" he said to himself and a few compeditors stepped a bit back. Either in fear of his blade or the fact that this man was faster then this. At the moment though, Diamond was a bit cought up in his own training. As he did not see Séanait, Claire, or Ilta there. For the ladies more so for Claire and Ilta, they would see Diamond in action wielding his weapons.

Diamond was trying to adjust his reflexes with added armor. Since most of the time he did not wear a lot. He mostly used his agility and reflexes. To doge and counter attack his enemies. The merc was good but wanted to be in top shape for this event. As he wanted to ask Mylee the god of life, why he had this rapid healing that others did not have it. Perhaps even some kind of record of his real parents inside the Book of Life. So if he won being Mylee's champion, he could get the answers he wanted.

[Claire]

Claire squinted at Ilta a little at the mention of Garrett Blade. She had heard him referred to as Sir Garrett or Captain Blade quite frequently, but had never seen the man in the flesh herself. She nodded. “Yes. You have seen him fight? Is he skilled with a blade?” she had missed his first match, much to her disappointment.

Claire couldn’t help but laugh at the comment about choosing though and she shrugged, grinning broadly again. Any trace of concern was quickly wiped from her face. “I will take your word on that then. I will buy the loser their first drink.” she smacked both women on the arm.

She peered around them at the rest of the competition that might be present- thinking back to the roster. She couldn’t quite remember- then she saw the man.

When the white haired man cut down the dummies all at once, Claire wolf-whistled as loudly as she possibly could from across the room. She laughed quietly afterwards, looking to the two ladies with raised eyebrows. “How many men here have hair like snow? It is bizarre.”

[Deleted]

(OOC: this post came about after watching some videos of blunt longswords cutting through tatami mats, something I remembered about slack quenching, some warnings about cutting tatami mats and a sense of humour that's amused by the strangest things. I apologise in advance)

Séanait shrugged when Ilta suggested that the Captain's name was fake. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. If she'd been back home, she'd have thought Garrett had been so named by someone because he was pretty good with a blade, or else had some characteristic in common with one. Here, though, who the hell knew? There seemed to be no bynames or patronyms anywhere.

"Names around here make even less sense to me and the Black Man's. Maybe it's fake, maybe it's real, maybe it's both."

Whoops. It looked like mentioning the Black Man had summoned up some hidden reserve of bullshit and she was three drinks away from arguing that the universe didn't actually exist except for the fact that we believed it did and that it stopped existing whenever we stopped perceiving it. Not what she needed to be thinking about before a big fight like this.

Claire asked if they'd seen Garrett fight, and Séanait shrugged again.

"Can't say that I've seen him really fight. I'd say he must be bloody good though. He's a fated, just like me, except he's gotten to be Captain of the Guard already. I'd play dirty, if I were you."

Séanait winked at Claire, cupped her hands and pretended to jiggle her breasts. There were certain advantages to the kind of armour Claire was wearing if a man was stupid enough.

Ilta suggested that Séanait wasn't giving herself enough credit, which she could only answer with yet another shrug and broad grin. If Ilta wanted to downplay her skills, Séanait was fine with that, especially if Ilta believed her own press. It might give her a chance, after all.

"We'll just have to see, won't we?" She said as she slapped Claire's back in response to the big woman's arm punch. "Loser has to buy the second round."

As this was happening, a familiar figure caught Séanait's attention and, seemingly Claire's as well. It was Diamond, the white haired mercenary with the strange blades she'd met at the Crystal Springs. She seemed lost in a world of his own, practicing. Well, less "practicing" and more "killing innocent dummies". His final move, which unnerved several other competitors and seemed to impress Claire, involved the simultaneous destruction of five of the dummies. Now that was just showing off!

"It's not the colour I find strange," Séanait said as her eyes scanned the practice weapons, looking for something to knock Diamond off his perch, "It's the length. Every man in Nova seems to think he's a woman."

Séanait's eyes finally lighted on a two handed war sward with a broad blade that tapered to a fine point. It looked like an excellent weapon for cutting or thrusting.

"Here," she said, suddenly holding her spear out to Claire, "Hold this while I remind him about our sparring match."

Striding over to the training sword, Séanait checked the edge to make sure it was blunt. That was very important for her plan. After a few experimental cuts and swings, she felt confident enough to go through with her plan. She wasn't out to undermine Diamond's excellent performance, but to increase her own standing in the eyes of others.

Walking up to a couple of dummies that hadn't been destroyed, Séanait waved the sword above her head and called out to Diamond, just before she attacked the two dummies.

"Hey Diamond, watch this!"

Now, there's a right way and a wrong way to cut into a hard target. You need to get the angle right, or you risk damaging the blade. The lower quality the blade, the more chance there is of chipping, bending, or breaking it. The training sword was a very cheap weapon, made from a piece of steel that had a greatly varying carbon content, and it had been slack-quenched rather poorly.

The blade survived going through the first dummy, neatly severing it, but it twisted in Séanait's hands and went into the second dummy at the wrong angle. On most swords, this would have been okay but, unfortunately, the poor quench job had left a series of avenues where the sword could fail spectacularly. There was a crack and two feet leaped across the room and bounced off the nearest war, just missing one of the youths available to spar with.

For a moment, Séanait looked down at the broken sword in her hand, dumbstruck. She hadn't expected that to happen!

"Bloody hell!"

Then she laughed.

"You see that Diamond! It takes a special sort to destroy a dummy and a sword at the same time!"

[Deleted]

Ilta didn’t think names were an more oddly structured here than they were back home. “They don’t? Kveld is a clan name. I couldn’t tell you where it came from though. At this point, I’ve heard too many conflicting stories about the founding ancestor. At least, I can say that it is Kray in origin most likely. Anyways, Ilta is my personal name. I figured that made some sense. Clan names seem to be common around here, I think. So who is the Black Man?”

As Claire asks if she had seen Garrett fight, she shakes her head. “I haven’t either. I also assumed since he was Captain of the Guard that he could probably handle a fight well. If he goes down quickly, I’m going to regret enlisting a bit.”

Ilta doesn’t pay much attention to the white-haired male until she hears the sound of five dummies going down. Curiously, she looks at the scene. Now this one certainly seemed cocky. It was a trick certain to attract looks. His lack of armor also showed off a large amount of confidence. Things almost make sense when Shy says half of Nova confused that white-haired male for a woman. “So maybe he feels he has something to prove then.” It did seem like it would be an easy mistake. He had that delicate look about him.

She watches as Shy runs up to him and tries to match him in cutting down dummies. The first one goes down. And the second one clean snaps the sword. “I’m a bit happy that I brought my own weapon then.” She walks over to the blade tip and picks it up. “Well, if some of the fighters are working with this, we might not have to worry about some of the competition.”

She looks over to the white haired male who Shy addressed as Diamond. Two swords. One really gave up a lot of precision and strength behind each blow. “It’s actually impressive you did better than Shy with a blade like that. Folded metal hides imperfections…”

[Deleted]

Diamond raises an eyebrow when he heard someone do a wolf-whistle. As well as Shy coming up as her jovial self and said that she could do the same. He wissiled a bit as she used the blunt weapon to cut two dummies and breaking the blade. He did take notice that she had used an angle for the strike. He had assumed that she had used the shear crushing power to make the cut. "Not bad there with a blunt blade there" he said and then he twitched slightly when another woman walks up. This one though said that he did better with the weapons he had. He was going to take it as a insult but desided not to explode.  And would save his full anger when he went into the ring. And use that weapon if at all possible.

"These weapons appealed to me when I was with the mercenary company I was with. I learned how to wield them as well as various other weapons. Is there something wrong with the choice of weapons. They have been through thick and thin with me" the weapons may or may not be imperfect. But they seemed to synergize with the white haired male. "Tell me this, what bond do you have with your weapon? Is it just a tool or a extension of your own soul your will" he asked Ilta. His tone was cold showed a small tint of anger. But not enough to be raging but he did feel that he was being insulted.

[Deleted]

Séanait considered Ilta's words for a moment, before shrugging.

"Well, that makes more sense than most, but it still doesn't tell me who your father or grandfather were. It's just good practice when you can meet a sibling on the other side of a conflict who you haven't seen since they were five.

"As the for the Black Man, he was part of my Tien when I first joined the Thousands. He's a giant of a man, all scars and muscles, but he's sharper than most and speaks gods know how many languages. We call him the Black Man because pretty well no one can pronounce his name and he won't let us shorten it or mangle it. Something to do with degrees of familiarity and linguistic purity, I think. He doesn't speak much about home, though, so I don't know for sure."

---

Séanait was beginning to think that her attempt at one upmanship might have been a bad idea, because Ilta and Diamond didn't seem to be getting on together. It was those damn swords, she knew. She wasn't particularly fond of how Diamond used them, the blades were obviously made for two handed use and were too blade heavy for her tastes, but the mercenary obviously held them dear. Ilta's suggestion that they were anything but of perfect construction seemed to set Diamond off on a tangent.

Not wanting the two to argue like this before going into the arena, Séanait but an arm around Diamond's shoulder and waved her hand at Ilta to indicate her to him.

"Ah, come now, Diamond, Ilta wasn't criticising your swordsmanship, just the construction of your blades. She's a smith, you see, and boring stuff like that interests her." When Diamond wasn't looking, Séanait winked at Ilta and then continued, "Let's not fight before we get out in front of the crowds, eh? How about it?"

---

A Note on the Metallurgy of Katanas

According to the archaeometallurgist Alan Williams, welding steel doesn't necessarily always leave slag inclusions¹. It's entirely possible that the folding process can remove more slag than is added through oxidation, especially if not using a flux. The best swords are those with a homogeneous steel for the blade, but the second best is a heterogeneous steel that has been folded². These seem to be fairly rare in Europe, because the process is time consuming and good enough steel was available, but the Japanese picked it up and turned it into an art form quite different to the pattern welded, or "false Damascus" blades produced in the west³.

Whereas the European style of pattern welding, or "piling" was to form a core of different kinds of iron and steel to produce a better overall blade, the Japanese focused on a single piece of heterogeneous steel and folded it until the carbon content was diffused throughout the piece of steel, making for a nearly homogeneous blade⁴. However, the high carbon content of the steel makes it more brittle and less tough than the lower carbon steels of western blades. As a result, when the military class gained control of the country in the late 12th century, blades began to be made from more than one kind of steel to produce a tougher blade⁵.

Also unlike Western processes, the edges of most katanas are merely hardened and not slack quenched or quenched and tempered, as western blades of a similar period were⁵. Instead, they were merely quenched, which produces an edge that has a Vickers hardness of anywhere from 450 to 720⁶. However, hardening without tempering a blade does have a drawback, and this is brittleness. Japanese smiths compensated for the resulting cracks and chips that would have occurred through use by adding small strips of clay over the cutting edge to create areas of softer steel (ashi) that will stop chips and cracks⁷. This doesn't solve the problem, but merely limits it. Master smiths would apparently temper their blades, but these were exceptionally high quality swords and likely outside of this discussion.

To summarise: well made katanas are probably the equal of a well made sword from the West for a given period, but a poorly made katana is likely going to be worse than a poorly made Western sword, due to the superior steel of the West and heat treatments that focus on toughness rather than sharpness.

¹ The Knight and the Blast Furnace (Page 7), Ancient and historic steel in Japan, India and Europe, a non-invasive comparative study using thermal neutron diffraction (page 6)
² The Knight and the Blast Furnace (Page 12)
³ The Knight and the Blast Furnace (Page 7)
⁴ The Craft of the Japanese Sword (Page 32). It should be noted that metallurgy has come a long way since the book was written, and we now know that wootz steel was an hypereutectoid, high carbon steel that exhibited superplasticity due to the fine grain structure and spheroidised cementite particles (Wootz Steel: An Advanced Material of the Ancient World). As such, the comments in The Craft of the Japanese Sword regarding the making of crucible steel and the toughness of such a blade have been superseded by new data.
⁵ The Knight and the Blast Furnace (Page 12)
⁶ Katana hardness tests
⁷ The Craft of the Japanese Sword (Page 86)

[Deleted]

Ilta shakes her head at the annoyed look Diamond gives her. It always seemed humans got angered and flustered easily. However, they had a different relationship with anger. Control over strong negative emotions and letting most stuff slide was not a lesson that they needed to learn. She returns his gaze with a calm look. “If it suits you, then it suits you. It would not be mine however. Not unless I could watch the hands making it.”

She looks surprised as he asks her about her bond to her sword. Looking down at Fang, she knows that it is much more than either of the things. It was a piece of her soul. It was family. It was home. Her attachment to it was stronger than to some people she knew. It was one of the few things she carried with her from her world, and the only thing that she had of her father’s. Looking back at him, she says, “Neither.”

She sighs as Shy asks her not to fight. “I wasn’t looking to pick one.” Hell, she couldn’t even understand why Diamond seemed to be on the verge of losing it.

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OOC:
Thanks for the info and the sources. I love it when people cite their stuff.