Time To Knuckle Down

"It's not much farther," Vertina called behind her as she darted up the side of one of the many many sand dunes of the Westeland deserts. "Adlet showed me places were certain uncommon monsters spawn when he heard I was training to improve me ki useage," she continues to explain even as she reachs the peak of the dune and stops.

Before and below them stretchs more of the desert. Off to one side is an unusually eerie oasis, that still has warnings out to avoid at night even though the monster that spawned there during one of the Waves of Calamity was defeated. Though it may still be a reason why monsters of unusually tough undead types still spawn in the area. But there's a formation of rocks in the other direction that Vertina points towards. "There. I geoformed a few markers before I left. Com'n!" Vertina hopped past the edge and slid down the sandy slope to reach the bottom.

"That was smart thinking." Syx says, as he follows along behind Vertina, "I'd be totally lost if you hadn't told me what we're supposed to be looking for." He hops over a rock and then jogs for a second to catch up to her, "So these things aren't too different from your own gauntlets, right?"

He'd gotten a call from her over the friends list comms, and had joined up with her once he was able to. All she'd told him is that she had a rough prototype of the gauntlets she'd been helping him put together.

"Same general idea, yeah," Vertina replies. Glances up a moment. "The sun will set soon. Perfect timing." She reachs into her inventory and pulls her pair of clawed cestus, and smirking to Syx.

Other than being larger to fit his larger hands of course, the main difference is they've got bands of metal across back of the hand and wrist. Like having a bracer and a pair of heavy brass knuckles built into the gauntlet. "You mainly want punching power, and something that your fire won't combust. So instead of the dire claws I just reinforced the gloves. With the final version I'll make the metal out of that chain you gave me, but I want to test the concept design first. So get them on and get ready."

She takes out her own Direclaw Cestus and equips them, then steps into a ready stance. "It's almost time..."

"Oh shit, already? Okay." Syx grabs the gauntlets out of the bag that he'd been carrying them in, and quickly straps them on. He takes a second to adjust them a bit, "Definitely going to need them a little bit tighter, but they feel pretty good so far." He says, as he finishes prepping them, and then turns to face where Vertina is looking, getting into his own combat stance, "So what's about to jump us?"

"Noted," Vertina replies when he notes the fit not being as tight as it should be. "This is exactly why we test weapons before finalizing them. It took three tries to get mine just how I wanted them, and there's still room for improvement."

As twilight sets over the desert it almost immeadiately starts to cool off some. Darkness falls, and in it's palor the sands around them start to shift. Then roll and tumble away, cascading down in streams of grit off the forms rising from beneath it. With the location nearby it's no surprise it's the Undead... but these aren't your typical rotting corpse Zombies. Their pale skin is bleached and cracked instead, gaunt around atrophied flesh and bone as all the water had been dried from their bodies.

"Desiccated." The first shambles forth, only for Vertina to clench her fist in a glowing charge and punch it directly in the face and cracking it apart. "Adlet says they're the remains of people that died of heat and dehydration in the desert. Now forced to roam near oasis but never able to go near the water to sinch their unholy thirst."

Undead are notoriously weak to Light and Fire elements though, so this is the perfect kind of training for what they're trying to do.

"Ugh, gross." Syx says, as the first of the undead shambles out of the sands and rises up to its feet, "Why are there always so many undead? I swear it's like they ran out of ideas.." Still, when Vertina goes in on the first one, Syx shifts his attention to one of the others.

Focus the fire through his fist, rather than let it get out of control like he usually does when unleashing Ragnarok's Wisdom. He's been trying to train on keeping the fire focused, so it'll do more damage.

He drives forward, pushing off his back foot and slamming forward, smashing the undead square in the center of the torso with a flaming punch.

"I know right?" Vertina takes a step back as several more rise, though it's more to brace herself than any sort of withdrawl. "At least they're something different from the shambling brain munching ones. These just want to suck all the moisture out of you."

She does those odd hand gestures she sometimes like to use, ending with both her hands together at the wrists and spread palms forward. She thrusts her arms forward, unleashing a much stronger pulse of ki energy with enough force and speed to slam through several of the dessicated zombies. Really their main advantage is that they appear in such large numbers, threatening to surround anyone unprepared.

Though only two in numbers, these Adventurers are far from unprepared.

"Sounds like they're more like vampires than normal undead." Syx replies, as he wheels around and kicks one of them, and once the kick spins it around, delivers another flaming punch to the back of the head, a wild haymaker that shatters it into sparkles, "Probably a really shitty way to go!"

The two of them are quite the force to be reckoned with, even when they're by themselves. With the two of them working together they should easily be able to take out anything that comes from this spawn of undead.

"Just water instead of blood. Dying of thirst though, is slow and anguishing I bet.. Probably a good thing Ninetails doesn't have much for deserts." Vertina wheels around on one heel while raising the other leg into the air, and then bringing it down into a powerful axe kick that slams one zombie into dust and sends several more reeling backwards from the shockwave. Just enough for her to plant that foot into the ground and throw herself into a pivot. Rather than expected she keeps her other leg tucked in towards her body, and instead the move whips her dragonic tail into several of the undead.

"These spawn at night, on a sort of timed interval. We," she pauses to inhale and catch her breath, "just need to hold out until the spawn event reaches it's timeout."

One of the zombies manages to charge in while she's recalibrating and bites, but they don't actually have teeth like vampires and can't punch through the cloth of her gi. Giving her just long enough to wince, and grab its forehead to jerk it free of her shoulder.. and then explode it by discharging a ki pulse directly through what remained of it's skull.

Syx isn't about to let his usual training go to waste even as they bring down multiple undead. He grabs one around the waist and gives hit his signature snap german suplex, before kipping back up to his feet. He evades one of the undead, but grabs its arm and pulls it back towards him, driving a knee into it and taking it down to the ground with that.

"These feel pretty good, it's a bit eaiser to focus the firepower into them!" He calls out to Vertina, as he decides to demonstrate by delivering a massive flaming uppercut to a third undead, sending it flying on fire through the air.

Vertina tilts her head to watch the undead launched into the air via flaming upper before it finally bursts into pixels. "That means that aspect of the design is working!"

Vertina does a backflip to avoid another zombie trying to bite her. As she lands on her hands she spins around, whipping her legs and tail in a horizontal pinwheel motion to clear out the space close to her before flipping again to get back onto her feet. "Snugging the fit on the real pair shouldn't be hard." Pause as she kicks the head off one zombie, and then kicks the head like a ball into another before it completely breaks down. "The heavier materials will help with that."

Syx manages to watch the combo from one zombie into the other, and he's not one to allow himself to be outclassed like that. He grabs hold of one of the zombies, wheels it around by the leg, and then starts to use it as a club on several of the other zombies.

Sometimes it's really fun to just cut loose on enemies that aren't giant sized boss monsters.

It finally reachs the point the dessicated zombies stop respawning, allowing the pair to finish off the last of them with flourish. Vertina whips up one of her flaming balls of rock, and with one well placed striker kick sends it ricochetting amongst several of the remaining undead.

Then once they're gone she slumps back, huffing and puffing a few times to catch her breath. A few scrapes and bruises but nothing too serious, and this time she managed to avoid getting hit enough times to cause any Dehyrdation status effects. "Now that's a workout!" The dried out husks of enemies are not extremely strong but the sheer numbers that spawn is what makes it a good training location it seems.

Syx finishes off the last of them with his signature finishing move from back in the real world, and then once the fight is cleared, he dusts himself off, "This was a great idea, Vertina. I'll have to keep this place in mind, though eventually we'll level up to the point where we'll need to find new places to do this.." He muses for a moment, "That is something I should keep an eye out for."

Vertina takes out a rag and wipes off her brow. "I'll pass that gratitude along to Adlet Mayer when I see him again, he's the one that showed me places like this. Said they're not extremely strong but the large numbers that spawn are good for practicing techniques." The rag is tossed back into her inventory as she strides over. "How's the gloves? Anything other than the fit to be concerned about?"

"Uh, well." Syx takes the gauntlets off, and turns them over a bit, "I know you haven't attached the main metal on them, but what I was thinking.." He motions to the fingers, "If we put the metal over the top parts of the knuckles, but not the whole finger on each, we could save weight and still keep where I make contact covered." He pulls a small charcoal pencil out of his inventory and does a quick sketch onto the gloves where he means.

Vertina nods. "That would keep the surfaces you'll strike with reinforced, while leaving dexterity in your fingers for grabs and holds. Good idea." She looks at her own cestus. "I didn't think of that so much with these since other than the occasional Judo throw I don't grapple as much. Certainly not like some of the moves I've seen you throw monsters around with." She takes the Direclaws off and tucks them back into her inventory. "I'll start working on the finished version in the morning; give it about a week or so and I will have it done." She gives the other Salamander a slap on the shoulder as she steps around him. "Let's head back to the capital, I brought some brews from home to cool off with after training."

"That's great thinking." Syx sreplies, "I mean, you know, getting some brews. I worked up a hell of a thirst." He glances back at where the monsters had been spawning from, "Not as much as those guys though, know what I mean?" He says, with a laugh, as he slaps Vertina on the back, and motions for her to lead the way back home.