I lost my next bout pretty quickly. My opponent rushed me the moment the fight started. He predicted my dodge and basically bull rushed me out of the circle. It was a disappointing way to go, but it was a valid, if not cheap tactic.

  “It's pointless to win that way. The Weapon Master will just send him back to the circles if he isn’t good enough in the observed spar.” The swordsman commented to me as I rejoined him and Diane on their side of the ring. The sailor pointed at two players, and they both stepped in, nodded at each other and squared off.

  “Begin.” The sailor commanded.

  Most matches ended quickly; in fairness, most of us weren’t really all that good at it. Fortunately, the injuries people received didn’t seem any worse than a bruise and tended to heal quite quickly the moment they stepped out of the circle. Diane’s turn came up a couple of fights later; she drew her weapons from storage as she entered the ring. Her opponent, who had just won his second bout, let out a sigh as she spun the two wooden curved daggers in her hands, dropped to a low stance and waited with a grin on her face for the fight to begin.

  When he swung his blade, she seemed to dance out of the way and then darted in. Her blades slashed rapidly before darting out of his range. She was a beautiful example of grace in motion. Never standing still, she flowed around him. The fight ended when she slipped under his guard, kicked up at his chin, as he went over, she jumped on top of his chest, knocking the wind out of him, her knees on his arms, and her daggers at his throat.

  “Third victory!” she exclaimed after the sailor confirmed her win. “Time to go see if that old goat will give me my token or not.

  “As I said, Short, Scary, Menace,” the Swordsman commented to me as we watched her walk away, flipping one of her daggers before turning back to the circle as his name was called.

  The Swordsman won his next two fights, and I wished him luck when he headed off to the centre. Neither he nor Diane came back, so I assumed they both passed.

  My second victory felt cheap. My opponent was new to the circle and tried to show off his skills. He started the fight by doing spins and back flips while holding two hand axes. I waited until he started one of his spinny round somersaults, and hit him with the full spin attack while he was mid air…I’d pretty much telegraphed what I was going to do as well; he was just more interested in showing off than watching me. He stumbled out of the circle.

  My next fight saw me up against someone who had seen my second fight. It was kind of underwhelming. He tried the same tactic that I lost to. Only, he was taller, clumsier, and easier for me to dodge. He ran himself out. Still, a win is a win, and I headed for the Weapon Master.

  The old man was right where I had first met him, overwatching a pair of circles. Two players would have a short fight in the circle. After the fight, he would give them some feedback. Then, depending upon how solid their foundations were, he would give them a silver token. From the conversations of those waiting their turn, trying to be too flashy and break away from his teachings usually resulted in failure. Genuine skill, though almost always a pass. To my eye, it seemed kind of arbitrary. In one fight, I saw the winner was sent back to the circles to spar again, and the loser was given his token. Weapon match-ups were pure chance, based solely on the order you arrive in.

  My opponent also happened to be wielding a quarterstaff.

  We stepped into the circle, nodded to each other and then took our stances, waiting for the command to begin.

  I let him take the first strike. He thrust towards my face, I parried it and tried to swing the end around to hit him, and he stepped back out of my reach. I tried to follow it with a thrust of my own, and just managed to duck below his swing. What followed was a couple of minutes of hastily swung attacks, the loud cracks of our staffs colliding, and not one solid, actual hit. We were actually pretty evenly matched, all things considered. I was slightly faster, he slightly more reach.

  When the fight was called to an end, we were both looking disgruntled and disappointed with our showings. We turned to face the Weapon Master as he approached, and I think we were both surprised when he flicked a token towards each of us.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Good enough. You both need practice, but neither of you will embarrass my teachings. You both successfully fought without taking a blow, and yet never stopped trying to land one yourself. Neither were you reckless. All good traits in a wielder of a Quarterstaff. Feel free to return to sparring with others. If you wish more training, though, I will be offering training in Landing for those who want it.”

  My opponent and I shook hands and thanked each other for the fight, elated, now we knew our draw was a success and not a loss. We briefly discussed our experience with the weapon, the training and the sparring as we crossed over towards the post success circles and the staircase up to the ship's other decks. We parted ways, him wanting to spend more time working on his skills and me ready to see what else the Wayfarer had to offer.

  Asking the sailors what other training I could get got me directed to the officers' dining room, directly below the ship's wheel. The large table situated in the middle of the room was presently covered by several nautical maps. Each map was accompanied by a midshipman who would proudly explain how to read it.

  The first one I saw had a detailed map of part of the coastline of the western continent, supposedly of the port we had left from several weeks earlier. The midshipman explained the symbols which showed water depth, the ones which warned of hull-piercing rocks at low tide. The ones for currents and how to read them.

  The next one talked about how you can use the maps to navigate, and demonstrated how you could plot the distance you had travelled, how to judge which direction you should aim for to account for the different currents.

  The last midshipman talked about how to record navigation data for the logs. Demonstrating that if they were travelling at this rate in this direction, then it was recorded using this annotation.

  One of the officers was hovering nearby, and I clocked on. This was a training exercise for the midshipman; the explanations for us were them demonstrating their understanding themselves. I smiled at the lieutenant and then asked a few pointed questions, getting the Midshipman to explain in more depth. I dug out a bit more information about some of the log shorthand, like a squiggle, which I just thought was just a squiggle, actually meant more like estimated.

  The final stage of this activity was to enter the Captain's cabin, which I realised as I did so was an instanced room. Large windows sat along the back of the room, lighting up the room like none of the others I had seen inside the ship. His cot was strung up on one side of the room. A large chest took up space opposite. Despite the open window, the room was dominated by the smell of pipe smoke.

  “Welcome, Ms Ravenscroft. Thank you for helping to deliver those much-needed supplies.” The bearded man, sitting behind the room's large desk, said as I entered the room. “I trust you completed our Weapon Master’s requirements?”

  “It was my pleasure. He gave me this token, if that is what you mean?” I responded by showing him the silver token.

  “It is indeed. I have a bit of a navigation challenge for you, which, if you listened to my midshipman, should pose no difficulty for you.”

  I approached the desk to find it covered in a much more detailed chart than the ones outside, but looking considerably older. It was a chart of an archipelago. I could see detailed notations for currents and tides; about a third of the isles had pencil-written names on them, as if someone had added them later as an afterthought. A few of the larger ones also had strange symbols on them.

  “The HMS Sandyval departed from here at high tide. This is her navigational log for the journey. On the fifth day, they discovered an island with rare resources that are needed for the war effort. It then took them eight days to get back to their base island. Four days longer than was estimated based on where they thought they were. You may assume the logs were correctly recorded. Can you determine which island is the correct one?”

  I read through the log once and then started plotting the route I thought they took. Following it got me to an island, which seemed like the clear winner, but I followed the return journey back, and it wouldn’t take eight days. I looked at the log again, and this time looked at the smudge I had dismissed. I plotted again and assumed it might have been an estimated squiggle, looking at the map, that estimation squiggle could have put the ship further over and into a different current. That would have moved them left of this isle, not right of it, which would instead put them into this other current… and Ah ha! This Isle. From here, this isle could be mistaken for that one, and if I follow this correctly. Yes, these isles match up with the log… that would be 8 days travel… something niggled at me.

  They would have gotten to this sandbar, at low tide…at high tide, they would have sailed over it, which is how I originally plotted it…there was no indication they went around it in the log, so they couldn’t have done that…what had the first midshipman said about the currents at different times of the day? I went back to one of the earlier points in the route. If they hit this one at low tide, this sandbar over here would have been interfering with this current. They would have sailed into this channel, not been pushed into that one…that changes things…I replotted and chuckled. It would have put them two islands over where I had been thinking. I checked the return journey, 8 days, because of the currents taking them the wrong way.

  I put my finger on the unnamed island and looked up at the Captain. He sat back in his chair, fingers steepled, a contemplative smirk upon his face.