Teresa of the Faint Smile, Adventures of a Stringy Bosmer Options

[ureniashtram]

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Oh, I'm sorry. I was cleaning my keyboard (don't ask what it is I'm cleaning) because SOME INTERACTIONS above this post made me lose my midnight snacks.

So much for ordering that beef-encrusted cheesecake specifically for my needs...

Anyway, the fight scene was simply astounding. Good thinking for Teresa to lure the bandit into the waters to drown. And then, the bandit got pierced by a lance

Hmm, lance and piercing.

Y'know, my subconsious tells me that there's a hidden meaning behind those words and that I should be disgusted with myse- . . . Never mind.

This post has been edited by ureniashtram: Nov 19 2010, 08:59 PM

[Linara]

I'm innocent! I didn't know what I was saying. Very long papers with MLA formatting do that to you.

[haute ecole rider]

I'm not! Innocent, that is.

*Puts hand on curvaceous hip and - *ba-bump*

(in sultry voice) Innocence is overrated.

*Ba-bump*

[mALX]

I'm not! Innocent, that is.

*Puts hand on curvaceous hip and - *ba-bump*

(in sultry voice) Innocence is overrated.

*Ba-bump*

And now we see how Haute Ecole Rider became...Naughty Haute !!!

[mALX]

Next chapter...the unveiling and screenie of the "cavalryman?" WOO HOO! I think I may still have a copy of this "person" on my PM's at the BGSF.

Awesome action, I loved this the first time around too!

This post has been edited by mALX: Nov 19 2010, 10:22 PM

[Destri Melarg]

Here's one

"When I get angry, Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset, and when Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset . . . people DIE!"

mALX: From here on out half of Teresa's dialogue will have to be bleeped, due to Tony Montoya playing her role.

Wrong Tony I believe. Mel Novak played a character named Tony Montoya in the Chuck Norris film, An Eye for an Eye. Al Pacino played Tony Montana in the movie Scarface.

It wasn’t until I was exhausted from running with Teresa that I finally remembered this chapter. The opening is completely different (or maybe that is just my imagination). Following Teresa’s thought process as she adopts and discards various battle tactics is just as harrowing as I remember. This time the foe that she faces seems more terrifying. I was thankful for the appearance of the legionary and his lance (Oops! I think I just joined Linara in the ‘what possessed me to say THAT?’ section of this forum!).

Just one thing I would like to clarify: just how close was Teresa to the bandit when that lance hit him? I can see this being very dangerous for her, since the impact of the lance with the momentum of a galloping horse behind it would send him flying. If she's close enough, she would have been hit by his body, or knocked into the path of the horse. On first read, that is the impression I have.

I believe that the legionary rode between Teresa and the marauder:

Then the rider was galloping between the Teresa and the marauder, drawing the lance tip out behind him as he broke away.

When the lance struck home the marauder was forced away from Teresa, not toward her (at least, that is how I understood it).

LINARA HAS A DOUBLE BARRELLED D....K????




:jawdrop:

Yes, as well as a black and white Khajiit

SPEW!!! Hello Carrot Top !!!! Where's Destri? Now that's taking androgyny to a whole new level !!!

[SubRosa]

I believe that the legionary rode between Teresa and the marauder:

Then the rider was galloping between the Teresa and the marauder, drawing the lance tip out behind him as he broke away.

When the lance struck home the marauder was forced away from Teresa, not toward her (at least, that is how I understood it).

The original version was kind of vague. I went back and tweaked that part after Haute's post, to make the positions more clear. I am glad it came out how I wanted it this time.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Nov 20 2010, 01:04 AM

[haute ecole rider]

Just re-read the part I was questioning earlier. Much, much better, especially this:

Teresa moved as well, stepping closer to the marauder, but not so close that she would get in the path of the oncoming horse.

Yes, that is exactly what I was wondering on the first read-through. The rewrite does well to clarify Teresa's position relative not only to the marauder but also the horse.

[Acadian]

Heartpoundingly excellent! Great pace and build up to a crunchingly satisfying conclusion!

I congratulate Teresa for a couple things:
1. Her decision to run for the water. I believe that might have been able to save her had the Legion not arrived in time.
2. Her quick thinking to help the Legion rider while staying out of the way. The purpose and timing of her flare spell was excellent.

Teresa, you really need to get Morcant to start your conjuration training. I'm worried about you out there without the ability to summon some help. I know you may have to start with rats, but before you know it, you will be able to call forth a wolf to help. Perhaps with enough practice even a lion, or - dare I say it - a brown bear?

[Linara]

(Oops! I think I just joined Linara in the ‘what possessed me to say THAT?’ section of this forum

Thank goodness I'm not the only one!

[D.Foxy]

And now, having made my joke,
I do withdraw my juevenile stroke
For Rosa, far wiser than silly old me
Has by PM made me well and truly see -

What's fun for the Hippo may be death for the ant
AND may spoil the harmony here by tears or rant
And thus, by way of the magical feature 'edit'
I now try to regain some forum merit -

By replacing Sheogorath's ventings with rhyme
perhaps more suited to this forum's clime
So, Linara! Fear NOT to read - THIS time
The original has been replaced by something more sublime!!!


*but privately I'll still chuckle inside
whenever I find you've missed the meaning wide...*

All in fun, Foxy

This post has been edited by D.Foxy: Nov 21 2010, 02:29 AM

[D.Foxy]

The reason for the above edit, Lin, is Sage Rosa, who has taken your brief without any lawyer's fee (you might want to consider sending a pair of goggles for her laser cat, though) and made your case to me - like SO - through PM.








Here's the reply I sent to Rosa - I think it bears repeating...

A point well made, thou both 'man' and maid
And who but thee, who has thru troubles a -wade
would know what thoughts swirl through minds young
would know what might in jest have well stung?

And since I have vented Sheo's mad prompting
And like Bull through China Shop been stomping
Now shall I revert back to the Fox o' silver hair
And declare "Just Joking, Lin! There, there!!!"




Foxy

This post has been edited by D.Foxy: Nov 21 2010, 02:33 AM

[Linara]

While there is something to be said for the edit button, it can make things very confusing. But...Thanks Foxy?

This post has been edited by Linara: Nov 21 2010, 09:42 PM

[SubRosa]

Don't pay any attention to him Linara. I for one appreciate you reading this topic and making thoughtful posts on it.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Nov 21 2010, 03:08 AM

[Verlox]

Ah, a heroic and manly rescue! I am most entertained!

[treydog]

Yet Teresa's arms did not tremble as she raised her bow, nor did she hasten as she smoothly pulled it to half tension, expelled half the air in her lungs, and took aim.

Outside the context of all we know of Teresa, this seems unremarkable. But when we remember how she started, this sentence speaks volumes about the changes she has experienced.

The seconds seemed to crawl by like hours as the scene unfolded in front of Teresa's eyes. She could see clods of loose dirt and blades of grass being kicked up behind the horse's hooves, while droplets of spittle flew from its mouth. The steel point of the legionary's spear flashed silver in the light of the sun, while the long, jagged sword of the outlaw glinted red. The marauder was moving now, stepping slightly to one side and raising his longsword. The rider's lance moved with him, its point ever facing the bandit's heart.

Every now and then, there is a passage that is just so perfect, you have to hold it up and admire its beauty.

The excellent tactical use of the Flare reminds me of J.B. Books in The Shootist talking about how he survived so many gun battles- "I found most men aren't willing, they bat an eye, or draw a breath before they shoot. I won't."

In this case, Teresa creates the perfect distraction- the hesitation that seals the marauder's fate.

Nit:

She realized that was never going to stop him in a fight.

I think a pronoun went missing in action here- “She realized that she was…”

[SubRosa]

haute ecole rider: Well it's not a knight actually, just legion cavalry. The knight was back at the Wawnet Inn.


Linara: Where that bandit got his suit of Daedric armor will addressed in the following two segments.


D.Foxy: The dagger I was thinking for Teresa was a main-gauche, that she can parry with. Something like this or this in design. I have been toying with the idea of an Anelace too, although at a foot and half long, it is more than I originally had in mind.


ureniashtram: Water is indeed Teresa's friend. Writing the TF has shown me just how useful water-breathing can actually be.


mALX: Indeed, the cavalryman is next.


Destri Melarg: Oh noes! Not Mr. Bigglesworth upset!

Tony Montana it is. I think I was actually confusing his last name with Inigo Montoya from Princess Bride.

The opening of this chapter is indeed completely different. Teresa got laid in Weye by two people this time around! Likewise, even Teresa's encounter with the bandits a bit different. I worked in Raven at the beginning, and changed the gear of the bandits. The biggest thing being the boss has Daedric armor now. Not to mention Teresa now has mithril arrows.


Acadian: Water does more than make wood elves clothes fall off! It also can be lifesaving.

As much as Teresa would like to be summoning critters, she has other things on her plate in the near future, such as a cardio-exercise program to improve her endurance. This encounter and the one with the conjurers at Belda has shown her that she needs to toughen up physically. She also is starting to see that she needs some way to deal with people who get up close to her, such as the Khajiit did here, and the ghost did at Castle Magia. Once she gets to Bravil, there will be even more work for her to do (and magic to learn). So conjuring will have to wait.

Plus, her teacher is off in Anvil. As we will see sometime in the future. Rest assured though, she will indeed learn to call up the animals of the forest one day. Imagine being able to summon a horse? Now that would be a handy trick. Of course Teresa would have to learn how to ride first (but that is on her plate for Bravil as well, thanks to the some equestrian friends she has yet to meet).


Verlox: Perhaps not as manly a rescue as you might think...


treydog: She has indeed come quite a long way from the girl who squeaked "eeep!" and fell on her boat when faced with Baurus in the prison tunnels!

Your mention of the Shootist reminds me of the rl Doc Holliday. He was just an ordinary dentist before he became terminally ill with tuberculosis. He became a gunfighter, and a very dangerous one, afterward because he literally had no fear of death. Being killed by a bullet would be blessing compared to what was in store for him. So the same way, he never flinched, or hesitated, or had to work up liquid courage before a fight.


Next: Teresa has survived her encounter with the bandits. Now she learns that her savior is not quite what she thought, nor was her enemy.


Chapter 23.5 – The Rider

Teresa bent forward with her hands on her knees and gulped for air. Her blood was pounding in her temples, and she felt the familiar post-combat tremble already beginning to set into her limbs. The wood elf's shaky fingers drew forth a Restore Fatigue potion and she gulped it down between breaths. She had to spend more time running! She had thought she was in good shape until meeting that armored bandit. Now she could see that she still had a long way to go. If it had not been for the nearby lake, Teresa thought, or the legionary, things would have gone much worse.

The rider had passed by her after stabbing the marauder. Now he slowed his horse and came back in a wide turn. Like all the other legion horses she had seen, his gelding had a powerful neck, broad shoulders and chest, and a back that was both wide and short. Graceful and quick-footed, he seemed to glide over the grass with a long, easy stride.

Teresa looked at the rider with a faint smile as he dismounted beside her. He wore the same dark-tinted plate armor that all Imperial Legionaries did, and his head was encased by a full helmet crowned with a red horsehair crest. That is when Teresa noticed the way his armor gently curved outward at his wide hips, inward at his midsection, and then out again at his chest to form a familiar hourglass. The face that stared back at her through the Y-shaped slit in his helm was somewhat softer than she was used to seeing on a soldier as well.

Screenshot

"You're a girl!" Teresa gasped with wide eyes.

"Your grasp of the obvious does not fail you citizen," the legionary said dryly as she drew her arming sword. "Stand back, this one might not be finished yet."

Teresa stepped aside as the legionary cautiously approached the fallen bandit. Stepping on his wrist with one foot, she knocked the longsword from his hand with the point of her blade. He made no sound when she followed with a boot to the midsection, nor when she planted one foot on his back and pulled the helm from his head with her free hand. Drawing back his head by the hair, she revealed a face with dark Nibenean features, eyes open and glassy in death.

Teresa marveled at the caution the legionary took with an enemy who was so plainly dead, and took mental notes to emulate her. Being careful never hurt, the wood elf thought, especially if someone might only be pretending to be dead…

"That was clever work with your spell citizen," the legionary said as she rose and sheathed her sword. Teresa thought she detected a Nordic accent to her voice, and noticed that her eyes flashed blue through the slit of her visor. "You made him an easy mark for me."

"I'm Teresa," the wood elf said, feeling her breath returning to her. "Thank you for your help. I thought I was going into the lake for a moment there!"

"That's what we're here for citizen." It was the response that Teresa had come to expect from any soldier. She wondered if they were all taught to say that?

"I did not know there were women in the Imperial Legion?" the wood elf asked as the legionary knelt beside the dead bandit and began stripping the armor from his corpse.

"There are more of us than most people think," the other woman replied. She drew off her helmet with a cascade of straw-colored hair. Her features were angular, with high cheekbones and a strong chin. Not pretty, but attractive in a certain, rugged fashion. "I'm Valfreya by the way."

"How come you are alone?" Teresa said. "I mean, don't you soldiers patrol in groups?"

"Not anymore," Valfreya answered as she pulled the back plate of the bandit's Daedric cuirass off and threw it aside. "After the fighting at Kvatch, Bruma, and the Imperial City there aren't enough of us to go around. We only work in groups now when there's something big."

"Oh," Teresa breathed. Vols had told her that the Fifth was low on people. It was why he had been assigned to train new ones. Yet she had never imagined it was so bad. Still, that did explain why she had been seeing only one guard at each side of the district gates within the city rather than the usual two. She wondered if the group of soldiers she had seen at the Wawnet Inn weeks before had been on some special mission?

"Listen, what's your name…Teresa? give me a hand with this fetcher," the legionary motioned the willowy Bosmer down beside her. "I have to confiscate his weapons and armor so other outlaws don't come along and take them. We've been seeing more and more of this Daedric dreck showing up on bandits since Bruma. They were supposed to have collected it all after the battle, but a lot of it seems to have walked off on its own."

"Sure." Teresa knelt down in the grass across the body from the other woman and began unbuckling the greaves from his legs. At one time she would have felt squeamish about stripping a corpse, but she had gained enough practice in the last few months that it was almost second nature to her now. She had been hoping that the legionary would leave the armor. That way she could have sold it herself.

"What are you doing out here by yourself anyway?" Valfreya asked as she pulled off his gauntlets and threw them into the dish of his face-down backplate. "Ever since the Crisis there's been a rise in bandit attacks. You are asking for trouble traveling alone."

"I just came down from Weye, on my way to Bravil," Teresa explained. "I normally don't have any trouble with bandits because I stay off the roads. But there was some good summer bolete growing by the roadside down there and I stopped to harvest it."

"Oh, mage eh?" the legionary chuckled. "I should have guessed from that spell. You don't look like a magician though."

"I'm not really," Teresa bit her lip. "I only know a few spells is all, and I can mix some potions. I'm mostly an archer. This fetcher's armor was too much for my arrows is all. Even my new mithril ones. Someone's enchanted it with a Shield, that may be why. He must have killed a legionary to get the helmet I suppose."

"That's what I thought at first too, but I know that move he used to try to ward off my lance. I was taught it as a recruit." Valfreya stripped away the last of the mail from his arms and cut away the padded tunic beneath it. Holding up his arm by the wrist, she revealed a red tattoo of a dragon against his olive skin.

"He's Imperial Legion," Valfreya spat, "a deserter!"

"Damn…" Teresa whispered. It seemed hard to imagine a legionary deserting and turning to banditry. Yet there was the proof before her eyes. What would Vols say if he could see such a thing?

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Nov 22 2010, 02:59 AM

[Verlox]

"You're a girl!" Teresa gasped with wide eyes.

Ahh! The natural order of things has been torn apart!!!

I had a feeling that might happen

[haute ecole rider]

I think this was better the second time around. I can't quite recall the original, but this one felt more - well, complete than the original.

Loved meeting Valfreya again! Julian would approve of her caution with the bandit - make sure they're dead before you let your guard down!

[D.Foxy]

I wonder if now Teresa (slightly) regrets the anger she had built up earlier, when she thought the bandit might have killed a Legionary to get that helmet!!!

Regarding those daggers - good for unarmoured or lightly armoured opponents, but against steel or even worse, Daedric Armour, they'll be about as effective as toothpicks, unless of course you can find that tiny joint between the plates.

You might want to think about that all-steel short spear I have written about in "Of Blades, fights, and Assassins". Combine that spear with the kneel down and thrust from below plus the trip, and the armoured giant will fall directly on top of you just as you thrust up from below. The combination of your upthrusting strength plus his own falling weight and momentum will enable the steel point of that spear to defeat the armour! This tactic has the further advantage of stepping inside the 'killing zone' of his longsword, which becomes an almost useless weapon at short range.

Or if you'e opting to flee, you might want to think about the bolo balls on a string flung at the ankles of a charging enemy (also mentioned in my treatise) . The only way to defeat that throw (if it's accurate) is to jump over it... and jumping is another thing that a heavily armoured enemy does NOT do well.

This post has been edited by D.Foxy: Nov 22 2010, 06:43 AM