Erkolian: Of Trainings and Retrainings

A tale of Resistencia city

    The Gate of the Chariots is the rendezvous point where a diverse and colourful group meets every morning. It's been over a year now that Akira Red started with his unorthodox training, which although not as famed or structured as those taking place in the Academy of Light, arouse curiosity of resistencians and foreigners alike. The payment? A few silver pieces per day, a meal, a weapon, or a coat to spare. There, and once they get the approval of the gate chief, they lead to the Forest of the Drunken Seed. The rules are few, but there are: On a horn, pick up your stuff and go back. On two horns, start a quick retreat leaving your stuff behind. On the rare case of three horns, the most skilled will protect the others and return hastily to the city while Akira Red tries to stop the attack of the wyrms, the most bestial of dragonkind. So far, only once did this happen and luckily there were no victims to mourn.

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    Erkolian joins this group to instruct himself in the art of hunting dragons. Many of his partners look at him with a mixture of devotion and surprise. “A veteran of the Great War among them!” thought those who know him, while newly arrived foreigners, were astonished by being able to take a close look at a fire giant. The Red was clear with Erkolian since day one: he is more than welcome to his classes, but magic is forbidden during training. Something very difficult for the recent addiction he is suffering after visiting the Astral Plane, but not impossible. The classes are chaotic, subjects leap from one place to another, but chromatic dragons are studied in depth, many of those captured by the city watch. And they are fought. They are fought a lot. Every day there's fighting and every day there’s bleeding. And there are always wounded but never victims. Akira Red knows a lot about the hunting and may not be the best teacher, but he can show, and by watching and experiencing you learn to do. After a couple of weeks in which Erkolian was able to single handedly defeat many kinds of dragons, he decided to conclude his lessons. His plan was not to become an expert hunter, but to learn the most basic skills. And a huge scar in his left eyebrow by a deranged Sternian Dragon was enough of a trace of the training.

    To find an expert in combining the arcane and combat arts was something that Erkolian knew would be quite impossible. He had read about Knights that flew over Gazar or the Inner Planes in magic carpets, wielding curved swords in one hand and spell charges in another. He had read about elf warriors for whom sword and sorcery were a same extension of their body. He had read about gnome knifers that protected the ancient caravans of Sitacia with grace and style. All far away lands and nobody to help him at the time. But if something had Mermalesen’s school left in him was a capacity for curiousness and self-teaching. So, for the following months he dedicated himself to reading, training, and look for a clearing where he could try his discoveries before the amazed Featheray. That was how Erkolian became the first Eldrith Knight in the region. 

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