Graves (the beginning)

Because of his low birth, Graves was not given an option of knights to teach him. Only one knight would take him, and even he did so begrudgingly. Sir Keiswell, Thymus’ older brother, offers to take Lindenshield on as his squire and ward.

On the first morning Graves’ door was knocked upon by a boy of maybe eight years, dressed in the red, grey, and yellow of the Hadley house. “Good morrow,” the page says. “You are being sent to lessons this morning, I will take you there when you are ready.”

Graves rose well before dawn from his bed. "My bed, my bed. It has a nice ring to it." he whispers to himself. He never imagined he would ever live in such finery. He thought being able to fall asleep under a beat up old cart was great. Then laughing a bit he wonders how that cart is doing. His mind wonders back three years. He had been saving all the money he stole to buy a room at a local inn. Then when he went to the front desk of the place he was going to buy the room at. Having more money than is wise to have on the streets he lived in. They did nothing but laugh and said "That would maybe buy you that beat up cart in the back." He said he would take it, because having something overhead and to come back to was better than nothing. So he moved the cart to the back of a road end and turned it over. He had slept in it just the night before now he has a room.

Still in shock he looks at the clothes which are again fantastic compared to the rags he use to wore. He put on the new clothes and lavished in the feel of them.

This led him to being entirely ready when the servant told him to leave. He replayed simply "Good morrow?" not sure if this is the proper response or not. "Please take me there."

"Very well," the servant responded. "Follow me."

The boy lead him down a long corridor, past many doors and tapestries; up and down lengths of stairs. They took a few turns along the way, down more stone walled corridors until eventually they came to a large room with books lining the walls and two tables at the center.

A frail old man stood within, smiling pleasantly.

The boy servant gestured to the room and left Graves there.

"Hello," the old man said. "My name is Phineas Gavalhis, I will be instructing you on the written language. You will meet me here each morning and we will work on your letters and reading skills for three hours. Now that you are on your way to becoming a knight, you will find that many lords and ladies pass on their instructions to you on parchment. It will be important that you are able to understand it and respond if necessary."

"Please, sit down."

Graves knowing this is his big dream figures he should act as knightly as possible. Bowing to the old man he says the new greeting he learned from the serving boy and a word for respect he learned from the old women "Good morrow, Master Gavalhis".

Then he takes his seat focusing for the lesson knowing this to is necessary to survive as a knight. All the while hoping he picks this up as quickly as he did pick pocketing.

The old man has him look at drawings of close to thirty symbols. "One day you will know all of these letters," Phineas says to him. "Today we will work on just a few." He shows his student six symbols over and over again. He says their names each time he shows them to him and then he has Graves trace the symbols.

The letters are, in order; G- R- A- V- E- S. As he traces them over and over again with the awkward stick of slate, he has no idea what he is writing. He is, however, commited to the task and he works hard at it.

After an hour Master Gavalhis asks him to stop. "Draw what you can from memory and tell me what numbers you have drawn."




*after describing your character's experience in all of this, please roll a 12 sided die. To do this, type in [roll="twelve"][/roll]
This will determine something that I will explain on the next update.

As the old man shows him the letters Graves gets a distance flash of the old women sewing them into a shit. Then when he is sits to do the six letters over and over again while not getting the purpose he focuses on his task. The first 20 minutes mostly consisted of him getting used to the stick of slate but after that he focused on his actual tasked. This is much more difficult then pick pocketing he thinks to himself as he continues his lettering.

When the old man tells him to do it off of memory he panics briefly before calming his mind and thinking.......

cool74 carried out 1 launched of one twelve :

10

[OOC: Oh man Cool, you just made me laugh so hard. Hahahahahahahahaahahahahaha.
Please don't ever change that, it was possibly the best series of typos ever; and also can serve as an excellent reminder of why you should run spell check.
Sews them into a shit indeed. Hahahahahaha.]

[OOC2: for posterity, you originally rolled a ten.]



Graves was able to draw all six symbols from memory, they were ugly drawings but he was able to do it.

"Very good," the Master said. "And what are their names?"

"R - A - V - S," Graves replied. He couldn't remember the other two.

"Well done," the old man says, "I shall meet you again on the morrow at the same time. Now, head to the practice yard where sir Keiswell awaits you."

As Graves got up to leave he paused. Then turned to Master Gavalhis and asked "Sir, Where is the practice yard?" Blushing a bit because he is so unsure of where to go.

Master Gavalhis points to one of the doors leading out of the library. "Follow that hall until it ends. To your right will be another hall. To your left will be a short hall that ends in a door. That door will lead you directly into the practice yard."

He lowers his hand and smiles, the grin raising his thin cheeks and giving his grey beard a comical look. "Good morrow."

Repeating the directions to himself quietly to lock them in his memory. A trick he learned early on in the streets to help him remember where he was going when he worked short stunts as a messenger, mostly it would be somebody picking him out and telling him to deliver a note or letter. Not really a job but more of a quick divergence from his pick pocketing ways. He quickly thanks Master Gavalhis and set off through the door and down the hall as described.

The way there is easy enough and made his way out into the practice yard where dozens of men practiced hitting one another with dulled weapons and blocking with wooden sheilds. Along the southern wall a trio of hay bails were set up with targets on them and one young man was firing arrows at them.

Looking around, Graves see's a handsome young man with short bruenette hair, a stubble of beard, and a scowl on his face. "I've been waiting for you," he says. "Have you learned your letters?"

Looking at the man's face graves saw how angry he was. Knowing he was the cause of the anger and also he could guess why as well. He looked him dead in the eye as he answered his question "I learned as much as one can expect with one morning of teaching." Then smiling politely, he asked "Would you like a demonstration of what I learned." (I am assuming that he still remembers what the dice roll allowed.)

(OOC: Yeah, you'll remember what you've learned)

"Bah," Sir Keiswell says; "If I wanted to see a boy do letters I'd be a scholar. What I want to see is how you handle a blade." He takes a blunted sword and tosses it to his squire.

"Unless there's some other weapon you're fond of. Being a mongrel pup from the streets as you are though, I'd imagine you'd rather a stick or a rock?"

Graves sees the sword thrown at him and doges it completely think to himself "Don't want to be impaled on the first day."

Bending down and picking it up as the knight makes his next comment, graves chuckles and says "How original, must of taken that one right off of the "Ways to insult street kids" book. I would prefer hand to hand but this should be fine." Experimentally swinging the sword around to get a feel for the weapon. This is so big and clumsy.

Since he had never wielded a sword before he got into a stance similar to one you would punch in. Holding the sword hilt with two hands. "If were done with the low class to high class insulting can we get to the part where you beat me up with a blunted sword?"

If there was one fact he knew about himself it was that he was tough. Living on the streets had given him a couple unique capabilities. 2 of them being pain doesn't effect him as much as most people when your beaten up consistently for most of your life you learn how to block out some of the pain. The second being that it takes a lot to put him down and out. That's why he can take on 2v5 odds and come on top. He just won't stay down even if he is beaten and bleeding.

When the young man dodges rather than attempts to catch Keiswell laughed. "Great instincts, boy. The blade is dulled."

Graves prepares himself for battle, holding the sword with two hands, the blade upright in front of his face. [OOC: This is my assumption of what was meant by "holds it like he's in a punching stance." Please be more clear in your descriptions so that I don't make incorrect assumptions. Hope this was what you meant.] It's an easy stance to bypass and the knight has no toruble smacking the boy in the side with his blade, leaving a stinging pain in its wake.

"That's not how you hold a sword," Sir Keiswell said. "You need to hold it so that you can move it in time to block more than just straightforward attacks."

He walks towards his new squire. "Hold the blade like this," he says; adjusting Graves' grip. "You want the tip of the blade to point at your opponent, this will keep him at a distance from you."

The knight walks back to where he was standing and says; "Perhaps we should have gone with sticks. Now, come at me."

[OOC: describe whatever you want up to here, at this point tell me what area of the knight you're targeting and roll a 20 sided die.]

In the new stance Graves, attempts to over head strike the knights shoulder.

cool74 carried out 1 launched of one twenty :

10

[OOC: Wow. You really have a way with words.]

The overhead strike is easily deflected.

"Again," the knight says and Graves attacks again. "Again."

They go on like this until Graves' arms and shoulders are sore, his wrists wringing with echoes of the impacts. He is sweating heavily and breathing hard, his throat parched beyond any thirst he's had before.

At last Sir Keilswell calls a halt to their sparring. "That will be all for today, boy. Go get yourself some food in the mess hall and do whatever you'd like. We'll do this again on the morrow."

[OOC: by the way, do you remember the last name of your knight? I can't remember what family I assigned you. If not I'll just make a new one up.]

(Lanogeise the central important family)

Graves, nodding his head exits the way he came. Hoping to bump into the mess hall or a servant who can direct him there.

The squire walks along the corridor, making a turn on a set of stairs and following that hall until a young woman baring a wooden pitcher of water comes walking down the hall from the other direction. She smiles slightly as she starts to pass him.

As she starts to walk by him Graves says "Excuse me." As she stops to look at him he bows and says, "I would be very appreciative if you could direct me to the mess hall."

She smiles and points down the hall, giving him simple enough instructions.

Graves smiles brightly at the young women and says "Thank you kindly, my lady" giving a small bow. He walks in the indicated directions.

The serving girl giggles slightly as Graves walks off. He follows her instructions and enters the common dining hall.

Of all the rooms in the castle, this is among the largest. A great vaulted ceiling stretches high above, beneath it two long tables sit side by side stretching from one end of the room to the other. The kitchens are just beyond the dining hall. The tables are empty, a serving girl is collecting the last few dirty plates from one of the two long tables.

Breakfast is greasy sausage and spiced potatoes. They're cold and not at all apetising, but growing up on the streets taught Graves to take what's offered.

He takes the food with a smile and a pleasant, "Thank you."

While the meal did look unappetizing. He has eaten worse before, and its better then slightly chewed on meat, cooked rat or some unidentifiable fruit.

Going back to the dinning room he walks near the area that is still dirty, so that the serving girl doesn't have to back track. He sits down and starts to eat.

The food is bland but adequate.

As Graves eats a young boy in common attire comes to him.

"Sir Keiswell requires your presence," he says in a small voice. "It is urgent."