Tag Archives: Motion Energy Skill

Sons of Sword: Tales of Glory – Lost and Found #038

Truly thankful that the toilet room was clean, Insula sat and quickly pulled up the holographic map on her handheld to see her student’s progress.  Metcalf was moving fast, really fast, but randomly through the business district. There seemed to be a general purpose to her progress. She was meandering towards a housing area nearby.  Insula thought back to the large equipment moving with the bot patrol.

So, that’s where they were going.

Metcalf’s blip kept moving, speeding through the streets and alleys.  She occasionally seemed to fly over buildings as she backtracked and moved in large circles.  Apparently, she was eluding captors. The Commoner peasants Insula has employed as speeder controllers have been the best for years.  Metcalf would have to be better than most to escape them.

Insula’s eyes glued to the image.  Her student’s progress was on the line.  So far, she had little to worry about. Metcalf wasn’t slowing even after sprinting for so long.

Then the blip stopped moving.

Insula held her breath as it stayed in the middle of an intersection.  Metcalf apparently was caught for a few seconds and then sped quickly on a direct route towards the convenience store.  

According to the map, Metcalf was still a ways away.  Had she been sprinting for the last few minutes? If so, it was a few minutes more than she had run in training, but tests were tests for a reason.  Metcalf’s increased stamina was a positive result.

Guesstimating Metcalf’s arrival time, Insula got up truly in a hurry.  

#1 – Lost and Found #37 

 

Sons of Sword: Tales of Glory – Lost and Found #036

So much for that idea.

The high pitched motor to the rear was unmistakable.  Metcalf was just a few turns ahead of a speeder and had a pretty good idea what the driver intended.  She went into a sprint to gain ground on her pursuer.  It was working but the walls and turns came up that much faster.

Uhh… Left turn

Speed training in armor didn’t seem a useful lesson during classes, but now her half hearted participation was greatly rewarded.  She had learned to use her motion energy skills to push herself faster while running.  She moved quite well before in her armor.  Her current suit was cloth-like; made for stealth.  She managed wondrous speeds, but there was a slight problem.  With the maze of alleyways and vacant streets, she had next to no time between seeing a wall and turning to avoid running into it.  And, as realistic as her current test was, there was most likely a stiff punishment if she failed even once.

Right juke, Forward

She didn’t know exactly how fast she was going.  She did know she was running out of time.  There was no audible alarm but the bots were most likely on high alert.  This meant there would be a trap waiting somewhere.  Hopefully, it was in the wrong place.

Left wall run, Right turn

There was so little time to chose a turning direction as the walls approached.  It was too important that she keep moving and not back track.

Right turn.  WALL!!  Right turn

But, it was also quite important that she make it to the rally point on time.  The map on her visor was always there.  As always, it directed correctly but she was primarily concerned with the ever present walls appearing out of nowhere.  When she had time to choose a direction, she went the way that made the most sense to be the correct.  However, she often saw the location beacon behind her.  

Great!  Wrong way again.  

Hopefully, her wrong turns confused her pursuers as well.  It would be the worst to run headlong into blaster fire.

The state of the art cloaking suit was keeping up with the street patterns.  It was changing colors so quickly, that it appeared a lightening shade of grey to her.

Daylight was starting to become a real problem.  With more light, there were more colors.  With more colors, there was more work for the suit.  It was already getting warm again.  It was only a matter of time before it got hot.  She could not continue like this.  Metcalf needed an idea; hopefully one that works.

Left tur… HARD Left

She hit an impressively hard turn and watched the map on her visor spin.  After the corrective turn, an idea was fully formed.  Finding the perfect four point intersection ahead, she leapt into the air and hovered for the briefest of moments.  Her sleeves were already slightly opened.  She duplicated the wind transfer from before but pointed her right sleeve to the sky and her left sleeve to the ground and intensified it into a blast .  

The blast caused her to spin unexpectedly fast and lifted her into the air.  Dust and debris kicked up from the ground in a large cloud that spread as an explosion from her intersection.  The action caught her off guard but did not overwhelm her thanks to her Crisho wings.  Landing slightly dizzied she blew the dust off of her feet with her motion skills.  Her disorientation training came into play as she began running in what her visor stated was the correct direction.  

 

“Dusk!  Eyes Up!!”

“Wha?”

WHOOOSSH

Mahari’s warning came too late.  Dusk’s tunnel-visioned pursuit turned his bot’s speeder directly into the dust explosion.  Knocked off kilter as random bits of debris flew into the speeder’s air intake Dusk was unable to correct the speeder’s orientation from the controls in the factory.  Dusk was too familiar with this sight as his remote station shut off and then reset his controls to another bot flying in a far off patrol.

Mahari saw the explosion from the roofs and went to investigate.  Tuning into all the scans available, he searched the epicenter of the blast.  It was illogical for someone to stay there after such an event.  However, this one was clever.  She may be counting on that assumption.

After a thorough search of the area, he realized that he had guessed wrong and lost several precious seconds in the process.  Angrily, he continued in the general direction she seemed to be going since they left the factory.

#1 – Lost and Found #35 –  Lost and Found #37

Sons of Sword: Tales of Glory – Lost and Found #032

The suit was getting hot; really, REALLY hot.  It became painful for Metcalf to move as movement forced more contact with the scalding suit.  It took a great deal of concentration for Metcalf not to cry out or turn the suit off right then and there.  She still needed its protection to stay relatively invisible and safe from the training-bots.

Enduring the searing pains, Metcalf managed to get into the alley’s shadow.  She immediately disabled the suit’s light bending technology.  Though she was no longer invisible, she was still hidden enough.  The neutral colors of the suit blended well enough to hide her from the flying patrols.  Crouched near a dumpster, she was safe enough from the wandering patrols.

Though the suit’s visual protection was deactivated, the thermal guard was still active.  The heat from the mechanism was still trapped in the suit, it would not cool by itself.  Metcalf was still cooking and the discomfort pressured her steady mind.  She had to do something, anything immediately before she could rest comfortably.   

After a few frantic seconds, an idea came to mind.  Though Metcalf was not a Thermal Master, she could use her Motion Mastery to cool her suit almost immediately and be on her way again.  The bots may get a clue of where she is, but hopefully, she’d be gone by the time they’d solve the puzzle.

The dumpster had a disgusting rusted hole in the bottom corner.  Gross, but it would have to do.  Metcalf barely opened her sleeves exposing just a little heat to the air.  Sticking one hand into the hole, she reached out with the other hand and prepared for the chill.  

With the next gust of wind, Metcalf pushed the air out of her suit replacing it with the air from the outside wind.  The hot air went into the dumpster while the cool air filled her suit.  Of course, her body needed time to stop sweating and the chilled air and what sweat she had suddenly felt the chill.

Now she was freezing again.

——

As Master Fu drove across town in the van, she took in the scenery.  The sight of this simple city in the morning was a welcome contrast to the life she knew in the capital.  Closed stores and large gaps between building gave testament to the lower population and the simple income of the locals.  

Insula also thought of her student’s progress.  Metcalf was doing quite well up until now.  There were a few rookie mistakes here and there, but that was expected on her first test mission.  Metcalf had shown vast improvements in just a few months, evidence that she was taking the training very seriously.  

There was a good chance that Metcalf could have already been a wonderful agent under different circumstances.  Unfortunately, she had found herself stuck and this particular goal was still far from achievable.  Metcalf had been at Sword Mint Academy for so long that the grading curve placed on her would be nearly impossible to overcome.  She would have to become better, train harder.  

Insula had been keeping close tabs on the test everything in this test especially the training-bots used for the mission.  Some of them were controlled by the peasant Commoners to give an added element of realism.  According to what she had noted, none of the bots or the guards had noticed any kind of disturbance.  Her student was hiding well so far.  However, Metcalf still needed to get to the van in time for a smooth extraction.

In the road ahead, the robotic guards had made a road block.  Insula didn’t know if her automated bots did this or the bots that were controlled.  Either way, Insula couldn’t help but smile to herself.  

This is going to be fun.

#1 – Lost and Found #31