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Post by Noa on Jul 15, 2020 21:53:35 GMT -6
Aster repeated this a couple more times, until Nightshade was consistently rolling onto his side when Aster prompted him to roll over. That was a good start. The real challenge was how to get him to roll onto his back and then around again. He was certainly too big to be pushed. Aster wondered if he could get Nightshade to follow the treat all the way around. It was worth a try.
“Nightshade,” Aster said. “Lay down. Roll over…” Nightshade rolled onto his side, and from there Aster moved the treat along further. Nightshade’s eyes followed it, and then, more gradually, his body. He shifted onto his back slowly, though he didn’t stay there for long; Wiurns were not made to lie on their backs, and he flopped over almost immediately to the other side. “Good boy!” Aster said, feeding him the treat, and patting him with marked enthusiasm.
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Post by Noa on Jul 15, 2020 21:54:02 GMT -6
That was it, basically. That was the trick. Nightshade had rolled over. The only thing to do now was to get him to do it consistently, and get him used to doing it. To that end, Aster applied himself to getting Nightshade to repeat the trick. For the first few such repetitions, Aster guided him with a treat. But when he seemed to be getting the hang of it, reflected in the fact that he was performing the roll more quickly, Aster stopped doing this. From there, they were just working with the verbal command.
They practiced it more intensively for the first couple of sessions following the first, but then Aster relegated it to the trick rotation with the rest of the things that Nightshade had learned. Before too long, Aster was content to call ‘roll over’ done too, and with less pain or fuss than he had anticipated. Apparently you could teach a Wiurn to roll over.
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Post by Noa on Jun 16, 2021 21:08:21 GMT -6
The last two fights had gone pretty well for Noa and the two creatures he was currently raising. Ironically now that Avander had reached a certain stage in his training, he was more or less off the hook. Noa knew that Avander knew what he was doing now, and Noa had gotten almost as much of Avander's repertoire trained to him as it was possible to do now. It was time to focus his attention on other creatures who needed the effort more, and who didn't know as much as Avander did.
To that end, he had been working with Azalea and Nightshade. They were both quite promising in their own ways, and their skillsets helped to complement what Avander could do, making up for gaps in Avander's capabilities. They would be formidable once Noa put in the time to bring them to their full potential. Already they were performing well enough, able now to take on the bosses that the fighting pit had established recently, but those fights had also highlighted gaps where improvements could - and should - be made.
Normally Noa would take them on a fishing trip to do this kind of thing, but on this occasion he felt it would be a little better to do things in the comfort of their own back yard. Which was to say that they had come out to the stretch of wilderness that existed on the estate grounds of Gracehaven, where no one might disturb them, and where they might disturb no one else either.
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Post by Noa on Jun 16, 2021 21:08:55 GMT -6
Rhys rounded out their little group, on hand for anything that might need a telekinetic touch... or some healing ability, come to that, to rectify.
It was long past time, Noa thought, for Azalea and Nightshade to learn how to anticipate attacks. Azalea had had the ability once, before her transformation, but part of the adjustment to no longer having her hearing in this new shape was that she no longer had that sense for impending danger either. But it could be relearned with a little work, Noa was sure. It was just a matter of putting in that work.
Normally he would have done a similar set up to the one that he had used to teach his Sarane the same skill, tossing soft foam balls at them until they wised up, and then penning them in so he could do so from cover. But since Nightshade and Azalea both had to learn this, and since Noa expected to have to work more extensively with them anyway, he decided to bring back an older tactic of his, and play the two of them against one another.
For that to work, however, he needed a way to be able to relay more detailed instructions to Nightshade. And so, it was time for the Wiurn to receive a ribbon of telepathy.
There were probably other ways to do it, but Noa didn't particularly feel like figuring out what they were, and in the meantime he had been meaning to do this eventually anyway.
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Post by Noa on Jun 16, 2021 21:09:30 GMT -6
He had a few ribbons to spare, and now he tied one around the Wiurn's head crest, through one of the gaps in the webbing. Nightshade, thinking he was going in for some scratches, let him close in willingly, only to be left a little confused when Noa tied the ribbon and then stepped away.
"There," Noa said. "Testing, testing. Can you hear me?"
At once, the Wiurn's head came up. {Oh, is he hearing you like this for the first time?} Azalea said. She had caught sight of the ribbon, and understood its significance somewhat. Now she watched Nightshade's reaction with evident interest.
Nightshade looked around for the source of the… Well, actually, Noa didn’t know if he perceived the telepathic relay as a sound or not. Noa always thought of it as being closest to hearing, but maybe that was just because he usually used words to communicate. It was funny - the Wiurn’s gaze turned to Rhys for a long moment, but the Faeron denied it. {It wasn’t me! It was him.} Rhys gestured with his tail, and Noa raised his hand, wiggling the fingers in a little wave.
{You? Speak? How?} said Nightshade. Apparently he wasn’t wholly unfamiliar with telepathic messages, but up until now, they had all come from Rhys… which made sense, Noa supposed, since Rhys did have to communicate with everyone this way.
“This ribbon here,” Noa said, tugging on the ribbon in question. “Now we can understand each other better. Isn’t that nice?”
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Post by Noa on Jun 16, 2021 21:10:35 GMT -6
To his mild surprise, however, Nightshade did seem genuinely pleased at the development. {You must like me a lot then, to give me this. Hey, do you like me better than that other Wiurn now?} He butted his head directly into Noa’s chest, violet eyes looking up at Noa expectantly as he posed the question.
“Hmm. Well, maybe if you work a little harder,” Noa replied, taking this in stride. He indulged Nightshade with a bit of scratching under his jaw, but he wasn’t here to have just a fun day out. If Nightshade was fine with the telepathy arrangement, then it was time for them all to get to work.
“We’re going to play a game,” Noa said. “When I say ‘stalk’, one of you will hide, then attack the other without them noticing. If you’re not hiding, then you’ll try to keep track of where your opponent is, and not get hit. Simple enough, right?” Noa accompanied the ‘stalk’ command with a hand signal for Azalea’s benefit, since she wouldn’t be able to hear a vocal command, and he wanted her to know this even without the ribbon. He looked from one creature to the other, trying to gage whether they had understood what he wanted from them or not.
{If you do that, I hide…?} Azalea said.
“I’ll call out the name of the one who’s hiding,” Noa explained. “Just like when we fight the big monsters in the Pit.”
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Post by Noa on Jun 16, 2021 21:10:46 GMT -6
Neither Azalea nor Nightshade raised any more questions after that, and Noa figured that it was probably easier for them to learn by doing than just listening to him talk. “Okay then, Nightshade, stalk. Azalea, try not to let him hit you.”
With the commands handed out, Azalea and Nightshade… looked at each other, and then at him.
{Hide how?} said Nightshade.
Almost at the same time, Azalea asked, {Should I close my eyes?}
Noa sighed. Well, okay, maybe he ought to have explained a little more. “I’ve taken you out to a nice wooded area,” he pointed out, gesturing to the trees and such around him. This was part of why he had chosen to get them out here, rather than by the river or in a public park or anything like that. Nightshade was pretty big, and Azalea was bigger still. They had environments in which their respective hide colors would have worked well as camouflage, but outside of those contexts, they probably needed the help of cover to accomplish the task. At least here, they had equal opportunity. “Hide behind some bushes and trees. Azalea’s deaf, you know. If she can’t see you, that’s pretty much it.”
Nightshade did as he was told, and hid behind some trees. “Can you still see him?” Aster asked Azalea.
{Sort of… I think.} Azalea peered into the foliage, and Nightshade had the sense to stay still while he could see - or sense - that he was being scrutinized.
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Post by Noa on Jun 16, 2021 21:11:00 GMT -6
She had watched him hide, of course, so that had something to do with it, but Noa also didn’t expect Nightshade to be good at his hiding right away either.
{Maybe you really should look away for a bit,} Rhys said. Azalea obediently closed her eyes, and Nightshade moved around a bit, picking a different hiding spot. Noa gave Azalea the signal that she could look now, and she peered around, trying to find Nightshade again.
To Nightshade’s credit, he seemed to have some natural knack for it. Of course, Azalea not being able to hear probably did also help. She had a harder time tracking him down.
Narrowing his telepathic focus to only one of the ribbons, Noa said, {You can try and attack her if you don’t think she sees you.} After all, part of the game was to teach them how to dodge an ambush, which wouldn’t happen if there were no attacks to speak of. They could work on staying hidden for extended periods of time once they had the basic idea down a little better.
Nightshade decided to take that as a command to strike, jumping out and attempting to bite Azalea.
Azalea didn’t manage to dodge it. Maybe it was the deafness, or maybe some lingering lack of agility from having to adjust to moving in a larger body. Maybe Nightshade had just been very well hidden. Whatever it was, Nightshade’s teeth sank home, and Azalea let out a hiss of pain.
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Post by Noa on Jun 16, 2021 21:11:15 GMT -6
“Ah,” Noa said. “Hmm. Rhys, can you do anything about that?” He had brought along the Faeron to act as first aid, among other things. Rhys’s healing capabilities were considerable, and they worked on creatures as well as Noa himself.
{I think so, though I’ve never healed anything this big before…} Rhys fluttered over and inspected the wound. Already, Nightshade had backed off, turning to Noa with a slightly guilty look. He understood that having done so much damage to Azalea, who had been his ally in several fights, wasn’t the desired outcome… But Noa didn’t admonish him for it, not on this occasion. After all, he was the one that had asked them to do this, and he had taken precautions against just this sort of thing.
But before Rhys could attend to the wound in any way, Azalea hissed again, coils flexing… And the strange seaweed undulating around her closed around her body. Beneath it, Noa could see the faint motion of muscles tensing and releasing as she shifted around.
“Hey,” Noa said. He didn’t know what he meant to say next, but he didn’t have to. The seaweed unraveled again, and the wound was gone, as if it had never been there.
Noa blinked. Rhys fluttered along her length, trying to find any sign of where the wound might have disappeared to. Even Nightshade seemed confused by the turn of events.
{It doesn’t hurt anymore,} Azalea announced, apparently just as surprised as the rest of them.
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Post by Noa on Jun 16, 2021 21:11:59 GMT -6
“Come to think of it, I do remember something about regenerative capabilities on your file… I guess this was what they meant,” Noa murmured, tapping a finger against his cheek as he mulled over the matter. He had always assumed it was just referring to the… what? The symbiotic relationship she had with the seaweed? But if her body could regenerate from bigger wounds like this one… Well, that was certainly something, wasn’t it?
He was half tempted to get her to do it again, but she looked pretty tired. He suspected it was the kind of thing she couldn’t do in succession, or even very often at all. “Let’s take a break first,” Noa said. Azalea wouldn’t be in any shape to do any stalking of her own if recovering from the wound had exhausted her to this extent, but hopefully a little break would let her get her energy back.
She did seem to be doing better after a break, so Noa decided to have them get back to it, this time with Azalea being the one to hide. “Azalea, stalk. Nightshade… Close your eyes for a bit, and do your best, I guess.” He showed Azalea the hand signal for ‘stalk’ too, just for good measure.
Nightshade closed his eyes - thought Noa caught him attempting to peak, which he headed off with an, “Ah-ah!” Nightshade closed both his eyes properly after that, and Azalea slithered into the bushes in an attempt to hide.
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Post by Noa on Jun 16, 2021 21:12:12 GMT -6
There were two problems that were immediately apparent. One was that, being unable to hear the noise she herself was making, Azalea couldn’t tell when a sound was tipping Nightshade off. The other was that Azalea was just… long, and hard to hide because of it. After several tries, and a little coaching from Noa, she finally found a way to distribute herself so that she was hidden by the foliage. By that point, Nightshade had long since abandoned any pretense of closing his eyes, and was starting to grow bored.
So far it hadn’t been a very productive session… But Noa had faith that eventually this would pay off. Now that Azalea had a little better idea as to how to hide, he gave her the command once more, and had Nightshade close his eyes again. This time, Azalea managed to hide… if not perfectly, at least better. And when she struck, Nightshade managed to get out of the way in time, but he did look as if he was moving off in the wrong direction at first, so she had managed to stump him a little.
From there, it was time to swap off and have another go. “Nightshade, stalk.” Azalea closed her eyes, and Nightshade slipped off deeper into the foliage. When Azalea opened her eyes, she looked around for him, and the game was on. Noa could still spot Nightshade, especially when he moved, but the Wiurn had a good grasp of the idea of keeping to Azalea’s blind spot when he could.
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Post by Noa on Jun 16, 2021 21:12:27 GMT -6
This time too, when he lunged, Azalea didn’t manage to dodge in time.
But this time the teeth only grazed her; she had felt the ghost of the sensation and tried to dodge, turning a true blow into something that was only glancing. Her reaction time was no joke, and if only she had a little more practice, Noa was sure that she really could do it.
For now though, Rhys was on hand to heal her.
A little light magic did the trick, and Noa had them swap again, with Azalea being the one to hide this time. It was harder for her, but Noa could see her taking all the pointers to heart, and trying her best to remember them. She managed to strike a glancing blow against Nightshade this time too, which was some sign of progress.
The two creatures swapped back and forth between who was hiding and who was on the defensive. The constant switching of roles made progress a little more slow, but steadily progress was being made. Azalea was beginning to figure out how best to use her length to her advantage; she couldn’t always hide herself in her entirety, but it was possible to feint by revealing one part of herself, then striking from a different direction. She had also started to use the seaweed as a sort of detection buffer, not unlike how some animals used their whiskers, and so not as many of Nightshade’s attacks found actual purchase anymore.
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Post by Noa on Jun 16, 2021 21:12:43 GMT -6
For Nightshade’s part, he improved his ability to hide to the extent where Noa was having trouble keeping track of him too, which said something, since he was pretty big. Stalking his prey seemed to come more naturally to him, possibly because of an inborn affinity with shadows, or the fact that Wiurn were generally ambush predators by nature, even if they usually attacked from the air.
As the session wore on, Nightshade and Azalea both accumulated some small injuries, and at some point Rhys seemed to tire of healing them individually over and over again. He closed his eyes and concentrated, and then a burst of light energy emanated from him all at once, healing them both.
“Huh. I haven’t seen that one before,” Noa said. “Could you always do that?”
Rhys was breathing a little harder now. {I haven’t had to try it before,} he said. {Usually I’m just healing you - or someone else, one at a time. But with things being like this, I thought it might be faster if I got them both in one go.}
“Can you do it again?” Noa asked, his curiosity immediately caught by the prospect of this new ability - not to say toy - of Rhys’s to play with.
{Probably not… I feel more tired than I expected.} Rhys came back down to rest on Noa’s shoulder, still catching his breath. Noa was a little disappointed, but not surprised; such a wide field of light energy probably took a lot of effort to project.
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Post by Noa on Jun 16, 2021 21:13:15 GMT -6
Still, knowing it was possible was interesting, and definitely bore further examination. Fortunately, they were still quite a ways away from being done with this training venture, even if the session had wound down for the day.
The next day saw them back at a similar spot - not quite the same one, to prevent Azalea or Nightshade from simply memorizing the choicest hiding spots that had worked for them the day before.
The first few attempts were not the sharpest on either side, but Nightshade found his footing faster than Azalea did - which meant that, after a couple of rounds, he landed another nasty bite. Noa had the sense to instruct him specifically not to use his fire, since that would have done much heavier, more lasting damage.
Even so, Nightshade didn’t pull his blows, and a chunk of the flesh was nearly torn free of the body this time around.
“The thing you did last time,” Noa said. “Where you healed yourself. Do you think you can do it again? Regrow this.” He laid a gentle hand next to the wound. “If you can’t, Rhys will do it for you.” As he recalled, she didn’t really understand it herself as to what had happened the last time she did it, and he wasn’t going to torment her by leaving her in pain until she managed to replicate the effect. But if he could get her to be able to do it on command, that would be best.
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Post by Noa on Jun 16, 2021 21:13:47 GMT -6
He felt they ought to try, at least, before declaring it a bust, if they had to. She would likely come to worse harm one day in a less controlled environment, without healers on hand, or with Rhys spent beyond any further capacity to heal. Then it would be useful for her to be able to do this with confidence, even if it was only once.
{I’ll try,} was Azalea’s reply. Her eyes closed in a grimace of pain, and the seaweed began to wrap around her again, almost like a reflex. But it wasn’t the seaweed doing the healing; Noa could see the wound starting to close even before the seaweed covered it up. When the green stuff finally peeled back, however, the entire wound was gone again, just like last time.
Azalea’s coils went slack in obvious relief. “Does it hurt when you do that?” Noa asked.
She thought about it for a moment. {It hurts before,} she said. {But then it… itches a lot, and after that I’m tired.} But evidently it wasn’t the process itself that was painful, which was somewhat reassuring to hear. He didn’t know exactly what mechanisms allowed her body to do it, but there was magic enough among the creatures of this place that he would have believed almost any explanation, really.
After a short rest, they resumed practicing. Being someplace new hampered them a little bit in the beginning, but the improvement was more marked in this session.
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