Failing the tutorial

"Hmm?" Fatso was looking at something in front of him, and it wasn't me.

I could guess what, and I wasn't necessarily happy about it. Maybe I could take it back?
Just as I thought that.

[Duel accepted]

[10]

oh shit

[9]

How did this even happen!

[8]

He left Malina behind and stepped ahead of her so he was facing me, with a smile on his face.

[7]

Realizing I probably didn't have much of a choice I got up out of the dirt and faced him.

[6]

God dammit, how where do I even punch him?

[5]

He was just standing there... menacingly....

[4]

Okay, I need to find a way to do damage. Then it hit me.

[3]

I can't use the bow yet because i'm missing arrows, but...

[2]

I reach into my satchel.

[1]

I hold my tool of choice as I notice both his change in facial expression and the health bar to the right of mine.

[Begin Duel]

And like that we were starting, that being said neither of us moved. It would make sense since I literally pulled out a knife.

a few moments passed of my posturing and debating on getting closer before it looked like he snapped out of a daze and reached behind his waist and pulled out what was essentially a short club.

The cause of this whole incident mumbles something quietly "Well this escalated fast..." seeming not all that bothered by the development. I could also swear she was enjoying this.

regardless I was in the shit now, so I tried to think how I should approach this, I start taking in any info I can.
1st, it seems my HP is 130, his is 165.
Mine hasn't dropped yet, but now that there's a duel the next will probably drop it, I don't know by how much yet, so I should try not to get hit as odds are he's gonna do more damage then me.

Other then that I didn't get to read the other stats... Let's see, there was...

As I was about to start recounting what I did know, I figured out he was gradually closing the distance pointing his club forward like he was measuring the distance.

Shit shit shit.

Alright, win condition 1. Don't get hit more then I hit him.

He had pretty much closed the distance before I decided early bird gets the worm and I don't have a degree in avoiding clubs.

As I go to close the distance he wound his right arm back and smiled before swinging it down in a rightwards arc.

Thanking god he choregraphed his attack I bent my knees and push myself as far to the left as I can without tumbling or falling over, not worrying much about control focusing instead on dodging the first attack.

Success, win condition 1 in progress!

Then the club came up from below in a upwards left leaning backhanded arc, seemingly aiming to connect with my chin.

dammit, I took too long to follow up and I'm too off-balance to dodge this one!

Instinctually scared of hard & fast wood meeting my face, but knowing of it's inevitability I try to push my legs to jump in any direction to increase the distance between me and the point of impact. As I see the club obscure my vision I try and turn my head away to avoid as much damage as possible.

I was sent flying of course.

I didn't know where in space I was but my feet left the floor and I was flying.

Right up until my shoulder caught the corner of one of the houses causing me to tumble and fall on my side. 

I wasn't in pain, but I was definetly reeling from the shock & some text showed up beside my HP bar.

[42% parry -48hp]

and my HP bar lost more then a 3rd of it's green.

"Looking good there, like that's where you belong." His greasy cheeks barley obscured by his facial hair looks down at me with a shit eating grin as if it was the natural order of things.

"Tsk" I heard the 'prize' click her tongue at seeing me sent flying.
I don't HAVE to do this for you, y'know? I thought to myself.

I definitely made some mistakes starting at some point, I think it might've been when I agreed to help her, or maybe when I was born on the same earth as her. God my adrenaline was pumping at full right now, being sent that far would do that to anyone though I bet, pain or not.

"Okay" I slap my cheek with my hands and realize from the lack of self stabbing I lost my knife, My eyes shot around and I noticed it by where I clipped my shoulder with the house.

"Dammit..."

Somehow his grin got more disgusting when he tracked where my eyes led.

Well now i'm living down shits creek with no paddle.

Alright. Win-con 1: Assume you can't get hit again, at most you can live 2 good hits but don't take 1.

WIn-con 2:Get my hunting knife back without violating win-con 1.

Win-con 3:Close the gap as much as possible to mitigate the clubs effectiveness.

Win-con 4: Don't stop moving once you complete win-con 3 

"Alright." I knew what I had to do now, my fault for half-assing it first.

I start lightly shuffling between the balls of my feet as I loosened up my body, I shook my neck loose, let my shoulders go slack and close my eyes to focus.

"oooh, he's getting serious now, Malina! Look look!" The fatso pointed teasingly, already assured of his victory.

I try and orient myself with every piece of my body, it's been a long time since I tried to be so in touch with anything other then my fingers, but it still felt natural, except there were definitely some oddities.

It felt like I had more control in a way, but way less in another. specifically I could make quite a few more conscious movements, I could choose to shake my arms in opposite directions repeatedly, I could tuck my foot behind my foot, jump over it and all barely without touching. This is all stuff I could probably do if I tried enough, but I could do it all on the first try without messing up even once.

Something else I noticed when I got wacked by the club was there was a much thinner orange bar that stretched a tiny bit further then the HP. whenever I did an action, it would go down the tiniest bit before going back up to full.

I swat my hand to the side aggressively and see the bar go down in a slightly bigger portion, I also felt the force I could roughly produce. Not even half what he hit me with.

Obviously lardo hadn't been patiently waiting while I was psyching myself up. He now had his foot on my knife and was pointing his big club at me.

"Gonna be done stalling for hp regen anytime soon, poser?"

I decided to ignore him for the most part, but my hp had recovered  by about 10 points so I was back up to roughly 90hp, judging by that 'parry' text and the part about strength determining blocking I did get to read out of the book, there's probably ways to mitigate damage but it's best not to count on something I don't understand yet.

"Okay, first..." I started running, I began in an arc to run parallel to the house wall, as I got closer to him I tried to hug it as close as possible without losing speed and dropped my center of gravity as I approached him.

he stopped smiling and tried to swing and me from the left with a backhand swing of his club, like what got me before except more downward this time. 

normally hugging a wall is a bad idea, but sometimes it has it's uses, like in traditional fighting games or darksouls.

Because I had the wall to my left, he couldn't swing with his best motion, so it swung a little slower even if the swing started faster.

I make a bound forward and to the right, the club barely wizzing past my ear as I take my second step and use it with my right leg to push some of my forward momentum to the left so i'm wrapping around him into his blind-spot as much as possible.

because of the wall, I thankfully don't need to worry as much about a follow-up swing, as he'll be in an akward spot from having to stop his club before hitting the wall, or dealing with the recoil of hitting the wall, or at least I hoped having my back turned to him in that moment and all.

I turn 270 degrees clockwise on my left leg so I could see him to make my next move when I saw the club swinging at my head.

I immediately ducked my head down out of the way, and with my head out of the clouds and back on the ground, I see his feet aren't on it very well after that last swing.

I take my chance to jump as hard as my legs let me and drop kick him in his stomach with all my momentum, thankfully knocking him over.

I notice [-12] pop up where I kicked him but don't dwell, the real goal is completing the second win-condition.

I shuffle my legs behind me as I roll over to my stomach in one motion and leap towards where my knife was under his foot.

Thankfully it was there and I now once again had a means of damage.

I felt a pressure forcing my body into the dirt from my upper right shoulder to my lower left waist and noticed another piece of text [-31hp].

I instinctively tried to roll out, to my pleasure it worked.

As I got back to my feet and looked over at where I laid it was obvious I tunnel visioned and jumped right beside him and he slammed him club downwards right on top of me, but for some reason it didn't do nearly as much damage, and I didn't even get any parry text this time.

He was getting up off the floor too, slower then me obviously but doing his best I was sure.

I smirked at this thought and I think he saw me because he piped up right away.

"Gah! Huff huff  You think huff  YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO ME! Gasp huff huff." and he began a heated dash towards me, completely giving up on any sense of strategy or appearances letting all his fat jiggle with gravity as he gasped for air on every step.

I had sorta failed the first win condition at this point but that just meant I had to follow it from now on. 60hp didn't feel like a ton in front of that DPS, and I haven't even seen mine other then that miniscule drop-kick damage.

Ugh, I really don't wanna lose now.

"You can do it!" Rung the now exclusively bothersome interruption, not specifying who she was even rooting for, Thankfully I didn't care at this point.

with him still running at me I decided it was time to make a move, I was done just waiting for his swing anymore, it was too risky.

I held my knife up with the blade pointed downwards and got into a sort of lunge posture and started it up.

He reflexively raised his club up and tried to stop his run and I used this opportunity to completely change motions, which was only really possible due to the differences in how I could move my body, canceling motions was extremely easy and fluid.

I brought my knife back down to my stomach chest level as I was leaned in on the approach and cut under his club around his stomach back to his blind spot, I saw at the top of my vision his bar went down by 34hp, still a lot to go.

Instead of turning around I took both hands to my dagger and drove the tip into his back by thrusting it right beside my waist. I managed to do this 2 more times.

[-25]

[-25]

[-25]

now those were some juicy numbers. However as I was pulling out from the third jab I felt a tugging and immediately had an inkling as to what was happening.

I tried to turn my head to see where I needed to go to avoid this but I was in an awkward position.

I saw a blink of brown.

Ahhh, I took one too many stabs...

and like in traditional fighting games or darksouls, I was left with nothing to blame but my own greed.