Dungeons and Dalliances

Natalie was consciously aware of how much stronger she'd become over the past few weeks, much less the past several years, but experiencing it first-hand as she began her duel with Gareth—a normal person, rather than a peer—nonetheless came as a surprise.

Of course, she put barely any strength into her swings, fully aware of how fragile her opponent was. There was not only a level difference, but also a training one, a gear one, and a fundamental class one. Even massively limiting herself, Gareth struggled to keep up. Natalie didn't know what kind of 'training' he'd been doing, but certainly it wasn't intense spars with other men and women who'd been fighting for their entire lives, as Natalie was accustomed to even before heading for Tenet.

That said, he wasn't horrible, Natalie guessed. She caught glimpses of talent in the way he responded to her movements. The way he balanced his weight and repositioned, how he watched her hips and hands to read her intent, and the ease he swung his axe with. Clearly, this wasn't some new, idle dream of his: he'd been putting in genuine effort to become a better fighter, likely for some time. Natalie could respect that.

As the fight progressed, Natalie became suspicious of something—something she alerted to in the way Gareth moved and responded to her own movements. She started leaving more and more blatant openings in her guard to see how he would react to them. And while he did seize some, only in the politest ways possible. Aiming at her stomach, arms, and legs. And, even more incredibly, not at full strength.

Natalie disengaged. "You're pulling your punches, aren't you?" she asked incredulously. "And you're avoiding hitting my face." She'd been deliberately guarding it poorly. "What's wrong with you? You know the head is a weak point, right?"

Gareth blinked, the accusation having come unexpectedly. By the bewilderment on his face, Natalie even started to think that she might have misinterpreted things—that he really hadn't noticed the openings, and wasn't simply 'avoiding hitting a woman'.

But then his eyes turned shifty and he looked away. "Just, uh, didn't see them. My bad."

The response dispelled the last of Natalie's doubts. "Bullshit," she said. "I've been leaving myself stupidly open. So you're just that terrible?"

Gareth seemed like he wanted to defend himself, but he couldn't, not without admitting to what Natalie already knew was the situation—that he had been trying 'not to hit a woman in the face'. Or even anywhere with full strength, which was doubly outrageous, because it was Natalie who needed to be pulling her punches, not him.

She didn't know whether to be more annoyed or amused. It had been a while since she'd run into that sentiment. 'Gentlemanly' behavior had been present in plenty of spars when she was younger, but obviously was burnt out of anyone who frequented the fighting circuits of Valhaur. If not simply by using common sense and recognizing that any part of their sparring partner should be fair game, regardless of gender, then by having their asses handed to them on repeat until they let go of any such ridiculous ideas.

Whoever Gareth had been using as training partners, she suspected not many, if any, had been women.

Natalie studied the boy for a few moments longer, annoyance on her face, before she snorted. She turned and scanned the training yard, quickly finding her target.

"Hey! Liz!"

Hearing her name, the dark-haired royal faced Natalie, tilting her head in curiosity. She'd been talking to Ana.

"Come over here real quick?"

Liz jogged over. "What's up?"

"Need a healer on standby, if that's fine?"

"Oh?" Liz said. She looked worried at Gareth and then back at Natalie as if she wanted to say something.

"Not for him," Natalie said, rolling her eyes. Why did everyone think she was going to break the civilian? "He's a level one. I'm going easy on him."

"Then, um …?"

"For me," Natalie said.

She set her hammer face-down into the dirt and gestured for Gareth to approach. He did, confused.

"Punch me in the face," Natalie said.

"What?"

"Try to break my nose. Give it your best shot."

"Uh—?" Gareth asked, pointing at himself, suddenly alarmed. "You want me to do what?"

Natalie faced Liz. "He's scared to hit girls," she explained. "He's been going easy on me. Me. He thinks we're delicate flowers."

"I do not!" Gareth protested.

Natalie and Liz both raised their eyebrows at him.

"Not that you aren't, um, flowers," he hastily assured them. "Just—not delicate?" He said it questioningly, as if not sure whether he was making his position better or worse.

Liz covered her mouth, stifling a laugh.

"Punch me," Natalie repeated. "We literally have a healer on standby. Even if you tried, you can't hurt me more than she can fix." Especially when Natalie's HP was full.

"Uh," Gareth said. "It's just that …" He shifted uncomfortably in place, looking for an excuse. But failed to find one. "Are you sure?"

"Stop wasting my time," Natalie said, annoyance starting to overtake her amusement. "If you're scared of punching a girl, what the fuck are you doing, going into the dungeon? Gonna have bigger dilemmas down there than this one, I promise."

Gareth took a breath. He hooked his axe into his belt, his right hand gripping into a fist. He stood there awkwardly for a second, Natalie impatiently watching him with crossed arms.

"Stop being such a pussy," Natalie said. "Just fucking—"

Gareth punched her in the face.

Normally, a level one would never be able to move fast enough to catch her off guard. But Natalie had thought it would take significantly more goading before she would get him to act—he clearly was uncomfortable with the idea of hitting a woman, much less square in the face, much less without Natalie even raising her hands to defend herself.

But it'd been an easier problem to rectify than she'd expected.

Huh. Good for him.

Natalie also learned something else. The beefy [Lumberjack] boy knew how to throw a punch.

She staggered backward, nose crunching, tears springing forward to immediately sting at her eyes. She held her nose as blood started flowing freely between her fingers. She might have the level advantage and be in Tenacity-improving gear, and have HP alongside both those things, but Gareth was a big dude trained with a life of manual labor, knew how to put his body into a punch, and he'd targeted a soft spot. And hadn't gone easy on her: he'd given it his all. Natalie was hardly immune to getting hurt in that kind of scenario. HP, gear, and stats were only mitigators, not some kind of force field. At least, not at level three.

Pulling her hand away to see a stain of red on her palm, Natalie looked up at Gareth, shocked—to see that boy was equally astounded at what he'd done.

Natalie grinned. Gareth only grew more horrified.

"Good shot," she said, laughing, voice coming out funny with how her nose was crooked and clogged with blood.

Liz's healing spell washed through her, and the burning pain disappeared all at once. Natalie noted how much more potent it felt than usual. Undoubtedly thanks to [Divine Invigoration]. If her heal was that much stronger, she was interested in seeing what Liz's buffing spells were like, now.

Natalie scrunched her nose around as it straightened out on its own. She pulled out the vial of cleansing liquid and cleaned away the blood. Shortly, she was as good as new.

Gareth stood there, gingerly shaking his hand from side to side. "Architect," he said, looking down and gently clenching and unclenching his fist. "I think I hurt myself more than I did you. What the hell is your face made out of? I broke something for sure."

"Oh," Liz said. "Sorry, I can help you with that." She pointed her wand at him and patched the [Lumberjack] up next, just as she had Natalie. [Healers]. Convenient friends to have.

Gareth blinked as—maybe for the first time—magic coursed through his body and corrected his injury. He bunched and un-bunched his hand with increasingly less hesitance.

"Oh," he said. "Wow. Yeah, all good. Thanks."

"No problem," Liz replied cheerfully. "Good shot, by the way."

"You pass," Natalie told Gareth. "The being-a-pansy test, at least. Now that that's taken care of, we can get back to sparring." She narrowed her eyes at him. "And you better not ignore any more obvious openings, or we're done. I'm not here to waste my time." She grabbed her hammer and lifted it. "Thanks, Liz."

"I'll be here if you need me," Liz said, walking away, amusement obvious in her voice.