{Castle Carmelya} Practice makes perfect, as always.

Zim Rage · January 10, 2008, 02:50 PM

Timestamp: first month of summer, era XiV

Zim left his forge and went out into the courtyard of the castle just outside of the forge. He layed his hammer on the ground and stepped off a few paces and layed down the metal spikes to mark thier spots. After setting three of these spikes into thier area's Zim retreaved his hammer and sunk the spikes into the ground a few inches, just enough to have them stay upright, securly.

As he did this he looked around the mid-day courtyard, there was almost no activity which was usual. Occasional travelers came to the gates looking for refuge and every now and again Zim would do a weapon or armor repair. The gate detail that watched over the gate was a motly group, equiped with axe, sword, and shield. The captian of the detail, a middle aged man stood leaning on his weapon of choice, a long hammer. His hat pulled low, he was just enjoying the summers mid-day sun.

Zim needed practice swinging the hammer and hitting the target. So squared himself off to a post an hammer and swung his hammer. A thud could be heard as his hammer fell to the left of the spike and sunk into the ground. Zim took note of this and shook his head as he mounted up to do so again. Zim this time tried to aim further to the right of the spike, in hopes of centering his strike. This time he fell right of the spike. Takeing into account Zim wound up his hammer one more time to make another swing. Just as he was about to swing her heard the guard captian hollar his name. Looking up Zim mounted the hammer on his shoulder.

"Yes sir?" Zim asked. He expected the guard captian to need some sort of smithing work done, Zim did services for the guards for free, as they were a volunter group.

"Your flexing your right arm to much when you take aim, makeing it pull to far to that side. thats why you keep missing. Both arms need to be even in thier power. Now try it again. This time, start by putting your hammer on the spike then drawing it back, Don't set your hammer on the head though, just hold it above it, that way your arms learn that track it needs to fallow in order to hit that spot."

"Alright," Zim said as he pulled back his hammer to swing, he went forward slowly and had the hammer hover just above the spike, then he drew it back and brought the hammer down onto the spike. with a loud ping the spike dropped a few inched into the tough rooted ground.

Llanwyn Siannodel · January 12, 2008, 10:40 AM

(Llanwyn as peer mod)

"Good," said the captain, Xavier.

He took a step to the side and looked at the spike now further in the ground. "Really good. It's easy to tell you're used to hitting metal, smithy." He grinned. "Alright, now I'll let you handle the rest. See if you can hit that spike on the head a couple more times."

Xavier stood back to watch Zim hit the spikes again. If he could get that right, he'd give him a bit more advice. The smith was talented at banging out kinks in armor and building swords and what not, so Xavier had no doubt he'd figure out swinging that war hammer too.

Zim Rage · January 14, 2008, 04:21 PM

"Thanks," Zim said with a nod to Xavier.

He set up his hammer again, first by hovering the head above the spike and then drawing it back slowly. Once he had it back he let a rip and brought the hammer down, keeping his eyes on the spike the entire time.

As Zim set up he had a thought, this is much like useing an Axe, which I've used before, back in tyrsfal on the treee ranch. "It's been a long while," Zim thought to himself, "But I think I can bring that back."

Llanwyn Siannodel · January 16, 2008, 12:18 PM

"Not too different, at least not in that motion," Xavier said with a grin. "But when you're pummeling some rat in the rib cage with a hammer, trust me, it's nothing like swinging an axe."

As he said this, he motioned with his own warhammer towards Zim's chest, acting out what he meant by "pummeling some rat in the rib cage." Needless to say, it looked painful.

"I'd say you need to learn to swing that warhammer like a long sword a bit. No swordsman can hold his sword against a hammer strike. It takes some practice though. Got something to put atop a podium or stump? Then you can swing at it."

Zim Rage · January 21, 2008, 12:40 PM

"Sure," Zim said, "I've got lots of sacks of coal and wood in the back, let me run back and get some." Zim sat down the ordinary war hammer and ran into the forge only to carry out two large burlap sacks of coal. He then went inside and rolled out one of his mobile anvils. Lighter weight, and on a pedistal with wheels, it made it's self usefull for repair jobs. Setting a bag up on top of the pedistal and anvil, it made it a little bit short for a regular person, but Zim is just practicing the swing so it didn't much matter.

Zim looked to the guard for some approval on the set up and drew the warhammer up to his shoulder. He thought about how it looked when Xavier did a slight example swing. He hands were spaced apart, one of them consideribly closer to the hammer head, the other more towards the end. He swong from his side, not from his shoulder. So Zim took the hammer down from his shoulder and held the hammer like he had seen Xavier, he then drew his hammer back and brought it forward swinging from his side, as he swong it, he let his hand in front slide back towards his hand in back to help the hammer swing more on it's own naturaly.

Zim Rage · January 31, 2008, 09:56 AM

(OOC: Llanwyn asked me to make this self-mod for a few posts until things slow down for him)

IC: Zim swung the hammer hard and hit the sacks of coal, as he did so they billowed a black puff of dust into the air. Zim's swing continued through and hit the ground hard.
"I'm gonna have to get used to that," Zim said as he let go of the handle of the hammer, "I'll set it up for another on, what do you think about that?"

"That was a good swing, but you'll get more power and control out of it, if you drop your shoulder down a little bit. That way you get more of a horizontal swing, then a swing at an angle. That will let you keep the hammer in the air better then if you were to swing at an angle and plant it in the ground everytime."

Zim Rage · February 3, 2008, 12:59 AM

"Alright," Zim said as he set up the second bag of coal. He stepped back and squated down slightly with the hammer over his shoulder. He slowly swung his hammer a few times to get his arms undercontrol for the desired angel. He then swung the hammer back and brought it forward, doing as he did before with his hands.

The hammer flung fast and hit the bag hard, Zim spun around on his feet as he tried to maintain his balance with the weight and momentum of the hammer carrying him. A billow of black smoke erupted into the air as the coal splintered and disintigrated inside the bag.

"Good, good," Zim heard as he gained his balance, "This is the first stance, and the first two types of strike. Practice these, and you'll learn alot about how to do these things. Now I need to get back to watching the gates, who knows what those punks have gotten into over there. Stop by when you think you're ready for some more."