Evading attacks in heavy armour

"Ah, yes." Professor Phoebe says, after leaning over to peer at the list item you're pointing to. "Heavier armour will generally protect you if you're hit, but all the same, it's well worth learning the proper footwork and movement so that you don't have to rely on its protection at all times. After all, nothing's unbreakable, but nothing breaks that isn't touched."

Professor Phoebe takes you over to a little pop-up desk she's got against one of the walls, and motions for you to lay down your {if Weapon == 1}batons{elseif@ Weapon == 2}Sledgeaxe{elseif Weapon == 3}pistol and shield{endif} on top of it. As you do so, she takes a coiled up blue rope from the desk in her hands and lifts it from the table's surface. It's very thick, and decently long, but from the way it looks and squishes in her hands, it seems pretty soft and cushy.

"Of course, moving around while equipped with wargear can be somewhat different, and it is something you will need to get used to eventually, but for now we can simply start with the basics."

You step back from the desk, unarmed, and Professor Phoebe begins swinging the rope above her head like a lasso. It's a bit scary, but you're strong and brave, so you get over it pretty quickly.

What follows is several minutes of Professor Phoebe swinging at you with the plush rope, giving you pointers and tips on how to get out of its way faster. A couple of times, moreso towards the start, you try ducking but mess it up and get hit in the face. Even though she's swinging the rope pretty fast, though, it doesn't hurt you one bit.

It's much easier to get out of the way when she swings the rope horizontally at you -- then it basically comes down to backing up, ducking, or jumping. What's harder at first is when she swings downwards, like at the top of your head. The first few times you try back up out of the way, but it's way too fast and sudden of an attack, so you get gently papped on the top of your head each time. With some help and guidance from Professor Phoebe though, a few attempts later you've got a pretty good sidestep lunge manoeuvre absolutely down. When it's done you have to take a second to rebalance, because of the heavy armour, but it's very quick and you can start it surprisingly easily -- plus, it gets you a nice good distance, out of the way!

When she starts coiling up the rope and flicking its tip towards your face, sort of like how a punch or a spear might attack you, you run into another temporary roadblock. After a few tries, you can almost reliably avoid the first flicking attack, but any time she follows it up with another one then you're doomed.

"Don't focus on moving your head with your neck." Professor Phoebe advises. "Instead, roll your shoulder down towards the opposite knee -- not all the way, just enough to barely avoid the attack. You need to leave yourself with more room to move, in case another one comes from the same side."

Okay... you take a little bit to get down the motion, which is tricky, but then it's easy enough to chain them together dodging left-right left-right. When she starts going from the same side multiple times in a row, you get stuck with the techniques again for a little while, but are eventually able to get it so you're not using up all your movement range in one. You've still not got it so you're perfectly missing attacks by a hair, but you've got it good enough to work with, and Professor Phoebe says you don't really need to worry about getting it much better than that anyway.

"High!" She calls out, swinging the rope towards the side of your head. You duck, and it sails over the top of you! "Left!"

You roll your left shoulder down towards your right knee, evading the flicking tip of the rope, and narrowly doing so with the follow-up attack from the same direction too. Phew!

"Low!"

The rope sweeps out towards your legs, and you jump up in the way she taught you -- so that you don't get tired, hurt, or off balance from your heavy armour, it's not really jumping at all. Instead, it's lifting one leg into the air and then the other, so that the rope travels through you harmlessly but you've always got a sturdy foot set on the ground. It's like a crab walk!

"Right! Left!"

You move your head out of the way of both attacks, jumping back to finish with an evasion of the mid-section swing she tries. Professor Phoebe grins at you proudly.

"Well done, Debbie! That was some very fast learning." She congratulates you. You smile back and let her continue, since you're feeling pretty dang good about yourself too. "Remember that most of this isn't just defensive -- it can also be used offensively, if you ever need to get closer to a target, or want to land a strike amidst a flurry of blows."

Oh yeah, twofold benefits. Just the sort of fold you like your benefits to be.

{if@ Learning Time! > 0}Professor Phoebe fluffs up your ego a bit more with congratulations and kind words, also giving you advice for how to continue to improve from here, then leaves you to go work with Delilah for a bit. She advises you to practice the movements again in her absence, this time with your {if Weapon == 1}batons{elseif@ Weapon == 2}Sledgeaxe{elseif Weapon == 3}pistol and shield{endif} in hand, and you totally do so. Like she said, it's not that tricky now that you know the basics! But it definitely would've been hard if you'd had them from the start.

By the time she comes around for your next practice task, you're feeling uber-super confident in your latest abilities added to your toolset. Awesome!{else}The schoolbell rings just then, signalling the end of class. Before anybody starts leaving though, Professor Phoebe turns and calls everybody into the centre of the Gymnasium for a final discussion. You walk there with her, watching all of your classmates converge from each of their various corners of the space, and smirking quietly at the knowledge that none of those fools could even hope to touch you now unless you wanted them to. For sure!{endif}

EffectiveSPD + 6!