Helga’s Take

Since I started training young Toby, I've realized that fighting is a skill you have to work at. Not everyone can be lucky enough to grow up on a farm with lots of brothers and scythes to practice with. Some people are slaves, and have to do household chores all day, and others have to go to school, and do book learning. But, none of those books can help you fight better. Unless they are magic books that can turn into a sword, but I've never found one of those. So, I've decided to share my knowledge with other aspiring young fighters.

Helga Slaughter's Fighting Tips, Recorded by Toby —

#1) DON'T USE A BOW

Bows are great for hunting. I kill groundhogs with bows. If you try to charge a groundhog, it will just run down into its hole. But, if you want to be a respectable fighter, it's no good if you just hide at the back and shoot arrows at people. It makes you weak and cowardly. Also, it is way more fun to kill people up close - you get to see the look of terror in their eyes, and feel the rush of adrenaline as you bury your scythe in their skull.

If someone shoots you with a bow, there are 2 things you can do

1) Pretend to be dead - give a big death yell if you are good at that kind of thing, and then pretend to die behind a rock or wall. If you can jump or tumble it can help you to “die” in a safe place. Don't worry if they don't fall for it. It doesn't matter. They still have to come closer to do anything to you, and you will be ready to strike. (And if they try to get around the side, just keep moving around the rock - I'm not going to waste time explaining that kind of stuff. If you can't figure it out, just give up now - go to Bard school).

2)Run directly towards them - arrows don't do that much damage. If you are wearing light armour, you can run pretty fast, and it is harder to hit a moving target. Also, learn the skill trick called Extreme Leap (diagram attached) Try laughing merrily or have a strange expression on your face, it makes it harder for them to focus. When you get to them, maybe they'll draw a melee weapon. Doesn't matter. They have wasted all that time practising with a bow. You are going to win for sure.

#2) FIND YOUR OWN STYLE

Slicing your enemy up with a scythe while Kord gives you great powers is pretty terrific. But, it is not for everyone. Some people like to use a heavy sword, and wear full plate (I tried that, but it wasn't for me. I felt like a turtle.) Some people run around with a couple of daggers really fast. If everyone fought the same way, I would get really bored. I think I would stop adventuring and open a bar. I would put lots of weapons around the room, so when people got drunk they would pick them up and fight with them.

#3) HOW TO FIND FIGHTS

Imagine you have gone and got yourself a sword or whatever, and practiced with it until you are pretty good at hitting stuff. What is the first thing you think of doing? Probably heading to the nearest bar, throwing your drink into the face of the biggest guy there, and showing off how great you are, right? Well, that is a lot of fun, and a great way to spend a Saturday night. But, there is no point in using a sword then, you don't want to kill the guy just for being big and enjoying a drink, right?

So, you need to find something that it is OK to use that sword on. Don't worry, there are lots of ways. One way is to walk up and down a road known for bandits and hope that they try to rob you. There are a lot of problems with this:

1) Unless you are good at disguise, they probably aren't going to choose you. They will wait for some fancy pants noble with nice clothes and a rapier.

2) There might be like a bajillion bandits in one place, and then how cool will you look when you are dead and covered with arrows?

3) Walking all day is super boring.

So, here are some better ways.

1) Get hired by that noble to guard his carriage. Make sure he hires more than 1 guard, otherwise it is just the dead, covered in arrows problem all over again. But, it is still boring, and you only get like 5 sp a day.

2) Join an adventuring party. I found mine trapped in a slaver wagon, but the easiest way to find one is to go to a bar. Where else are they going to hang out? They would look pretty dumb just standing in a town square or a wheat field waiting for someone to come along and give them an adventure. Although that is what happened to me and my brothers, but I was a farmer then, so it doesn't count.

When you are in a party, you don't need to walk up and down roads. People come up and give you lots of money to fight bad guys. Which you can spend on weapons and armor which you can use to fight more bad guys. It is just like Valhalla everyday.

#4) HOW NOT TO DIE PART 1

So, if you know anything about Kord, you know how he fights. He runs right up there, challenges the most bad-ass warrior on the field, and then has an epic fight, and totally creams that guy. If he has some friends with him, they just stand around and applaud him or deal with some little guys.

That is the best way to fight. But, in non-mythical life, there can be some problems with fighting Kord Style.

1)Sometimes, there are two giant warriors or monsters instead of one.

2) Sometimes, there are lots of little guys that don't die the first time you hit them.

Now, if you get into a knock down drag out one-on-one with a giant monster, you might die. That is still OK. You died in an awesome way and will probably go straight to Valhalla. But, if you get swarmed by a bunch of little guys or let your friends die, that is not so great.

There are a lot of ways to not die, so I will probably do some ore speeches about this later. This first part is about how not to get hit.

How Not to Get Hit

1) Stand in some kind of formation

Yeah, I know, this is the kind of loser thing that guys who worship Heronious or Hextor do. But, sometimes they have a point. If you are beside your party members, the bad guys have trouble getting behind you. You can also all hit the same bad guy at once more, probably, which is a bonus. The bad part is, you can't get behind them either this way.

Here are some formations you can stand in:

Θ- good guys ◊ - squishy good guys X - bad guys

A Line:(The Squishiest party members stand behind the line, or to the side far away)

           ◊
                    ◊
         ΘΘΘΘΘΘ          
          XXXX

A Circle (Squishy members go in the middle). This means you are surrounded so try not to do this one.

       XX
       ΘΘ
     XΘ◊◊ΘX
       ΘΘX
       XX
  
  

A Wedge. This is kind of between the two, and looks the coolest. Warning: make sure the first person is the toughest, because they will get hit a lot.

◊ 
     Θ ◊ Θ
     XΘ ΘX
      XΘX
      XXX

2) Fight Defensively

I won't go into details about the techniques, you really have to learn them by practice - stuff like dodging, parrying, ducking, you know.

Sure, it is sometimes better to just keep hitting a guy till he falls down, but sometimes you have to move around, take stuff off your belt, stuff like that. If you aren't going to attack anyway, why let the guy get a free hit in?

This is also good to do if you are a really new fighter in a pretty tough battle and you think you might get killed. Don't worry, even if you don't hit a lot you are still helping by keeping some guys busy, and the longer you stay alive, the tougher you will get.

3) Keep some sort of healer around

Clerics, Druids, and Dragon Shamans are pretty good for this because they can fight, too, but I guess Bards or whatever Tobers is works OK too. They can also cast some other spells that make you not die as easily, like barkskin or stuff. Wizards can't heal you, so don't believe them if they say they can. Also you can drink potions or use other magic, but that takes away from fighting, so having back-up support is better.

#5) HOW TO FIGHT WIZARDS

Usually, fighting is pretty exciting. You can fight monsters, demons, bandits, and lots of other things, and have a good time.

Fighting wizards sucks.

When you fight usual things, here is what happens:

1) You try to hit them 2) They try to hit you

And you just repeat that until someone is dead. Simple and fun, right? Well, wizards come along and screw that all up. Here is what happens when you fight a wizard:

1) You hit them and they die. It is kind of like killing a puppy. Or:

2) They cast a spell, and you run away(1). From a guy that is about as threatening as a bowl of porridge. They don't even have a bow. You know the guys you used to pick on when you were a kid because they sucked so bad at fighting? That is wizards.

So, the best thing to do is to get the battle over as soon as possible, and move on to something else. I am not really an expert on fighting wizards yet, but here are some things I have figured out.

1) Concentrate really hard. Not on fighting, I mean. You don't need to because they suck. Concentrate on remembering that the guy you are fighting is not scary. He(2) probably weighs like 90 pounds and is wearing a robe, so he can't move fast. If you think about that a lot, you have a better chance to not run away when he casts his spell.

2) Yell stuff at him or throw stuff at him (like rocks or porridge). He might mess up his spell if he is angry or surprised. This is not as good as hitting him with a scythe, but if he is flying or climbs a wall, it is something you can do.

3) Learn how to fight with your eyes closed(3). I am not very good at this, but I think it might be helpful. Wizards often go invisible, or make copies of themselves, or smoke, stuff like that. If you can target them by hearing, you might have a better chance to hit them.

4) Block up your ears with wax (4) If you can't hear the guy saying magic words, maybe you won't run away. The downside is you have to know you are fighting a wizard beforehand, which is depressing.

Anyway, I will be looking for other good ways to fight wizards. If anyone else has any, maybe we can put them together into some sort of wizard-fighting book, and keep it at that place in Sigil with all the books.

(1)- Sometimes, they cast a spell and make a monster come for you to fight. That is not so bad, but really, why not have just the monster there in the first place? Or sometimes they make giant fireballs appear out of nowhere. Then, maybe you should run away.

(2)- Of course, wizards can be girls too, but most of the ones I have met are guys for some reason. And there is no good way to say both at the same time in Common. So, if you are fighting a girl wizard, just pretend I am saying “she”

(3) and (4) - Try not to do both of these at the same time

#6) Fighting in Hell

So, for the last few weeks I have been in Carceri, which is one of the Hells. When they called this place Hell, they were right on the target, because it is not a fun place to be. Anyway, I have noticed that there are certain differences between adventuring here and other places, so here is some advice.

1) Never Trust Anyone

Now, you may think this is true back home too, but here you honestly can't trust anyone. So far I have not been able to trust:

-a mostly naked guy whose friend was being eaten by a monster

-a different mostly naked guy who was running away from slavers

-the rest of the slaves

-a mostly naked women who led us to a monster

-an old man covered in wounds who was really a wizard

-a frog

Now, I realize that you could get a different lesson from this list, like only trust people wearing clothes. But, nobody wears clothes in Hell. So, don't trust anyone.

Exceptions:

i) Dragons

ii) People in buildings wearing clothes. For example:

-The Bastion of Last Hope

-The Red Pit

-The Palace of the Titans

I don't mean you can trust them more than usual, just more than the naked swamp people.

2) Always Help Everyone

Sure, they will betray you almost every time, but you should always help everyone Why?

i) You are a hero. Why are you here if you are not going to help people? What if you don't help someone, and they are actually telling the truth, and they die because you didn't believe them? That's right, you would suck.

ii) You get to fight monsters.

iii) You get lots of stuff that other, crappier heroes left behind.

3) Always bring Fairy Magic

I thought getting Fairy Magic on my scythe was a nice bonus after we helped the Fairies, so I used it up pretty quick. But, let me tell you, if I could teleport back to that fairy pond right now, not only would I dip my scythe in it, I would roll around in it for a good hour or so, to make sure I had as much as possible. Things in Hell hate Fairy Magic.

Bonus Wizard Tip: I have noticed that most wizards I have fought do not wear armour, and if they carry weapons, they are usually pretty wimpy ones like knives or sticks. So, if you meet someone not wearing any armor or carrying weapons, be on your guard. They could be a wizard.

Helga's Reading Tips (Recorded by Toby)

Just in case you are wondering, these tips aren't for people who are learning to read. Because writing that down would be dumb. This is for whoever invented reading. If I knew who you were, I would hunt you down, but until then, all I can do is say this stuff and hope you have enough brains to understand it. Which I doubt.

So, since I've started studying reading with Toby, I have come across some problems with it:

1) More than one shape for each sound.

So far I have learned 'O' and 'n'. That was all fine, until I learned that 'n' can also be written like this:

I mean, what the fuck? Just pick one shape for each sound and stick with it. Which brings me to my second problem;

2) More than one sound for each shape.

So, I am OK with 'n'. Everytime you see it, it means you need to touch your tongue to the top of your mouth and make a sound like a baby cow. 'O' is where the problems start. You can read 'O' in like 4 different ways. Toby says it can be:

ah - like in polymorph

oh - like in Orcus

wuh - like in once

eu - like in foot

u - like in moon

uh - like in dragon

And how do you know which sound to use when you read 'O'? You don't! You just have to fucking guess. So here is my tip:

                            
                                ** __One Sound, One Shape__**

There, was that so hard? No. No, it wasn't.

Here are some ideas Toby and I came up with to get you started:

pΨlymorph

Orcus

♦nce

f∅t

m∗n

dragζn

Just remember, I am looking for you, so you had better start fixing reading now.