I did manage to attend Assessments this weekend. Special thanks to Lady Sorcha for driving and Lady Susanna for keeping me company. Managed to not smoke (yeah).

This event was a blast. I feel real bad for those individuals that took injuries this weekend but honestly, I'm also kind of glad they passed me by this time. It appears that the cortisone shot did it's job. While my shoulder is a little soar this time around as well, I can tell it's in the muscles, not an inflammation. I went to practice last night and it still seems good to go.

I didn't get me helmet back before the event so I had to pull the old one off the shelve. I forgot how hard to breath that think is. Not only is it closed faced, it also provides a completely different sight picture. The first couple of battles was an exercise of turning back on my melee awareness.

By the time we got to the bridge battles, I was feeling a lot more in it. Unfortunately, as Bryce mentioned, we ended up with far too many spears and not enough shieldmen to have several quality lines. To borrow from football, it was a bit like using you 1st string on first down, your second string on second and third, and only one or two guys when your needing to go for it on fourth down. Everybody had hard but they were unsure, hot, broken, scared, intimidated or just plain poorly commanded...the last of which is my fault as his Highness gave me the shields. I only wish I could have calmed my white belted brothers from throwing my shieldmen across the gap every time I finally had a reasonable rotation going. I would have been just as happy practicing countercharges and letting Bryce's rookie spearmen grab all the glory. We just didn't have the numbers or depth to retain any ground gained by a charge.

BTW, thank you Tristian for being "Johnny on the spot" with the armor repair kit. I keep joking that the first person I bring into my house will be at least a part-time armorer. Hint to us all, speed rivets aren't the best choice to hold the straps on your legs. Fall to your knees and get dog piled in a bridge battle and you just might stand up with broken leg armor.

We then moved to a series trident drills with unbelts forming teams of 3 to chase down knights. I felt bad for the first two guys to stand against the hungry unbelt teams but all of us yet to come did attempt to learn from there mistakes. Course, I got killed by Roland's spear when it was my turn but at least one or two knights actually held the field. Cuan then called 3 archers to stand against the 3 unbelt teams in an effort to teach us all what "touch kill" really means. Not sure the archers were ever able to get off more than one shot before they were "dead" but at least they got to try. To make it a little more sporting, Cuan gave the archers a knight as a blocking tackle. Really, smart unbelt teams knew that the objective wasn't to kill the knight but to get to the archers. So just run around. While these were short as well they were fun as it had a bit of a football feel to it.

Have I mentioned I like football? I like the hitting and the blocking. I like the idea that a guy my size can, with proper form, pancake a 300 pound 6'6" guy. I hold out hope that my sons will love the game and plan on playing. If they have my build, they will only really have a hope of playing Fullback. Imagine, Darryl Johnson, Michael Alstott, and my boys.

After that drill we kind of took a break that pretty much turned into the end of organized melees. After that we moved into clinics where spear, glaive, and sword and shield was taught by the experts while I helped out will some late day authorizations. The day was almost finished up by a short Chiv meeting (read as about 30 minutes) which likely would have gone a lot longer if there had been food and more hay bales for comfort. But alas, they day could not be over for me yet, no, no.

You see, Sir Dagonet was there and in armor and so was I. We hadn't fought since the Ymir he beat me in 3 years ago (or was it 2?). Anyway, as dusk was starting to settle in, I walked back to the field and started putting fighting gear back on. Dagonet saw what I was doing and walked over to put his helmet on as well. No need to talk or chat. We both knew what the other wanted. Yeah, a little end of the day "test." I wanted to see his speed and I sure he wanted to see some the weird stuff I do. Sir Thomas walked up and wanted to bear pit which was fine for another moment but as I explained to Thomas, "What you have here is two young bucks wanting to test the other's metal. Give us a couple dozen passes to get this resolved."

Long story short, Dagonet was faster (that day) and held a narrow edge over me in victories. I have no alibis save that next time I'll use the lighter, longer sword that is my mainstay. He doesn't need the "bad boy" sword I've been practicing/playing with these last few months. In fact, I hit him a little too hard with a shot that rattled his noodle. In the end though it was fair as both my shoulder are purple from his shots (thank God he hit me high on the left should avoiding the injured area). What can I say, I like the guy and I like his story...

Which brings me to Nikulai's 5 questions...later today.

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