We stayed the night far from the Iona Chasm.

It didn't take us long to run a paltry few miles from the edge of that yawning abscess in the flesh of the world, and all of us would rather sleep somewhere we knew we were unlikely to be attacked by skeletons in the night. Not to mention the wind. I was ready to put the cursed place behind me entirely, but Jorge decided we should stay for one last day, and who was I to argue?

We returned to the chasm in the morning, and Nathlan set about harvesting experience from the magically stitched together marionettes of bone under Vera's careful supervision. He was still low-levelled, and now that he had lost his old class entirely, he no longer had the magical protection and versatility he once did. It was important he grow stronger, and quickly.

I had a different task ahead of me. I still lacked a weapons Skill, and it showed. My movements were 'uncoordinated and stiff' and 'more like a drunkard's wild swings than a warrior's precise strikes', according to Jorge. I'd argued that it was because of these bullshit katas that he was having me use, but he had no sympathy for that argument. The fact that he could use those same movements himself in a way that seemed natural and intuitive when fighting did go a long way to showing the problem was me, and not the style itself… but that didn't mean it was easy to accept.

I reeled away from the tips of sharpened bone claws lunging at my face, and tried to pivot as Jorge had shown me, but slipped. I managed to avoid injury with only the aid of Cloven-Hooved keeping me on my feet and Check-Step giving me time to recover and spin away, but I'd dealt no damage to the creature.

"Come on, lad!" Jorge's voice called over the scuffle. "You can do better than that!"

I reset myself, slapping the haft of my spear against my shield and bending my knees slightly to settle into the first stance of the kata Jorge had drilled with me. It still felt off. Unnaturally stiff. I knew the theory behind it; each possible avenue of attack had a potential counter to it that all started from this stance. But I'd never fought like that.

The skeleton lunged forwards, baleful eyes of blue light leering from behind its raking claws. I followed the patterns I'd been taught, interposing my shield perfectly and stepping forwards into a lunge, but the skeleton was unnaturally thin – lacking any skin, organs and muscle tissue as it did. My pin-point lunge, which would have skewered a human opponent through the stomach and ended the fight immediately, ended up simply slipping beneath ribcage and only glancing off the spine, doing little to slow the creature as it scrabbled for my neck.

"Fuck!" I cursed, as a cruelly barbed claw scraped along my collarbone. I let out a small growl of frustration, dropping the spear to grab the arm, and slammed my shield into the skeleton's chest. Bone caved beneath the rim of the iron-banded shield on the third strike, and icy blue light soon fled, leaving nothing but an odd collection of mismatched bones.

Silence followed for a handful of breaths as I kicked the skull on the ground – some kind of badger or other ground-based forager, if I had to guess – and then Jorge spoke up.

"You alright, lad?"

A bitter laugh bubbled up from inside me. It near enough scalded my tongue with its venom as it leapt free of my mouth. "Yeah, sure, I'm fine," I lied, before sighing. "The cut's no problem. I just… I can fight, Jorge, I know I can. These techniques are just..."

He raised an eyebrow. I knew it wouldn't be true to say useless, though that's what I wanted to say.

"They aren't suited to me, I guess." That was the most neutral way I could put it, at least.

Jorge only watched me for a few moments as I reached down to pick up the spear and shook out my arms. Then he beckoned me over.

"Look," he began. "I won't treat you like a child, though you're pouting like one right now, and no denying." That brought a small smile to my face, and he chuckled in response, before continuing. "You know I know what I'm talking about, and I know you're trying your best, too. So let's dispense with the student-teacher thing for a moment, shall we?

He pinned me with his soft brown eyes. "Why don't you believe this will work?"

I wanted to simply gesture at the small graveyard I'd left in the dust over the last half an hour and scream; 'just fucking look at it!', as if my failure was evidence enough on its own, but I knew that was childish. A way to give up, to be done with the difficulty and move on. Instead, I took a few breaths and thought about it. Why the movements seemed unnatural, why I couldn't trust them.

I'd been training with Jorge for less than two weeks, and with these specific movements and drills for only maybe a few days, but I was a quick learner and had picked up the basics already. I should be able to be more effective than I currently was. I knew what I should do in reaction to an attack, but it was like my body was screaming at me to do the opposite.

"There's a conflict between styles," I started, feeling out the idea as I talked. "My instincts are contradicting your teachings. I know, I know," I hurried on before he could interrupt. "I know that they might be more efficient in the long run, and I trust that whatever style of spear-fighting you're teaching me has been honed over generations and is gonna be way more effective than whatever I'm trying. I know that."

He didn't interrupt, thankfully, just let me talk. I was staring off into the stone forest, gaze fixed somewhere between two pillars. Not really seeing, just letting my mind churn without the need to focus on the vision before me.

"But I can't help it, Jorge. I spent weeks alone near the Unclaimed Peaks. Weeks. I nearly died so many times. I tried duelling a deer at one point – thought I'd treat it like a test and practice some actual fighting with the horn I was using rather than my normal uncoordinated stabbing – and the fucking thing bit me with these hidden fangs it had. Like a gods damned vampire!

"I just learned to trust my instincts. If I didn't fight viciously then I'd die. If I tried anything fancy, or new, or just untested, I'd get hurt. I know that this can work in the long term," I said, holding up the spear in my hand, "but when a mace is coming at my face, I don't know how to just trust in whatever I've been taught because my entire being is screaming at me to throw the fucking thing to the ground and bite and claw and tear at my enemy until it stops moving."

By the time I finished, my chest was heaving, and Jorge had pulled me into a hug. I hadn't realised he'd moved until he was there, strong arms enveloping me, and I had the sudden urge to cry. I felt like a small boy again, though I couldn't remember who that boy would have been. Had I ever been held by parents after an injury, or was I left to fend for myself? Was there somebody out there on my old world missing their son? The thoughts threatened to overwhelm me, and I blasted Heart Of The Hills to bring me some measure of peace for a moment.

"I'm sorry, lad," Jorge murmured. "I should have had this conversation with you sooner, but you seemed to be handling it so well, and I didn't think bringing it up would help while you were still settling in… but those couple of months really fucked you up, aye?"

I choked. Half a laugh, half a sob. "Yeah, I guess so."

We spent nearly an hour just talking after that. Jorge gently steered me into a walk, and we strolled through the desolate ruins of whatever ancient battle had cut through the stone spires and created the dreadful harmony that arose whenever the wind picked up. Jorge dispatched any roving skeletons with ease, though he seemed to have a canny preternatural sense of where they were, and avoided most of them before they could waylay us.

It was good to talk about it. To just ramble about the horror and fear and tedium of it all. The hours of hiking with an injured leg, in agony every step. The clawing of hunger, and the battle between thirst and fear when I had been driven from the river by fat toads that hid beneath the water like crocodiles, waiting to pounce.

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Jorge simply listened. He provided the odd comment every now and then to let me know that he was with me, but mostly I just unloaded weeks of trauma onto his shoulders, and he bore it without complaint. After a while, I began to dwell on the good times, too. The excitement. The thrill of the hunt, the beauty of nature, and the anticipation of where I could go and what I could do now that magic was within grasp and power was mine to snatch from the creatures of the world.

"So this contradiction you spoke of…" Jorge probed, as we walked past a tower of stone. "Tell me more about it."

"Not much to tell, honestly. I always thought I was fairly calm. As a person, I mean. 'Go with the flow' kind of deal, right? But after all of this? I don't know. Sometimes I get this fire. It's not anger, but it's all consuming. Like I've got to do the thing right now. No hesitation, no time to think. I get this feeling inside me and I just act. It's as if a switch gets flipped and everything I know about the world, and all my higher order thinking just gets completely overruled by a decision I don't even have time to think about."

"Sounds like panic to me, lad," Jorge said quietly. "Those are the instincts that fight against you when you're wielding your weapons, I assume?"

"Yeah," I confirmed. "I know I shouldn't listen but–"

"Oh, no Lamb, you should always listen to that feeling when you're fighting," Jorge interrupted. I looked up, startled by his words, and he grinned. "Aye, when you've not got a weapon in hand, you should probably put a leash on that savage side of yours, but when you're in the thick of it? Listen or die."

I mulled his words over. "So how do I stop giving into those instincts when I'm not fighting? And how does listening to them when I am fighting fit with the fancy moves you're showing me?"

Jorge smiled kindly. "That first question is not quite so easy, I'm afraid. Speak to Vera – she's got plenty of experience dealing with overwhelming feelings, I'll tell you that much for free. But we can fix the second of your questions right now, I suspect."

Well, at least that was good news. One out of two. My mood must definitely have been improving, because my optimistic side had reared its smiling head and decided to paint everything a nice rosy pink.

"Here's the thing, Lamb," Jorge said, turning to pierce me with his gaze. "I think maybe I've been training you wrong."

He took out a brand-new spear and shield from his storage device, the weapons instantly appearing in his hands. I wondered briefly how many of them he had hidden away, and he quirked an eyebrow at me, as if he could read my mind. Then he threw the weapons to the ground.

"I've been trying to get you to resonate with the spear and shield as weapons, as concepts. It worked for Nathlan, but then he'd been training with a blade since he was just a bairn. No matter what, you still need to connect spiritually with your weapons in order to achieve a weapons Skill, but I think perhaps we can do it differently."

He gestured me to follow as he jogged off, leaving the weapons where they lay. I shrugged away my confusion and followed, and was amazed to see another set of spear and shield appear in his hands a moment later.

"I've not been teaching you just any old spear-dance, I must admit. But I've been trying to emphasize the wrong thing to you, I reckon. Have you heard of the Hasta?" he asked.

I was taken aback by his question, and I blinked in confusion for a moment. "No. But then, I've not heard much of anything, to be honest, Jorge."

"Aye, true enough," he agreed. We wove around a few spires before he threw the weapons to either side, letting them clatter to the ground seemingly at random. "Well, the forms you've been learning belong to them. Not much to learn about the Hasta themselves though, you'll be pleased to know."

"So who were they?" I asked as I followed in his footsteps, rather like a faithful puppy following its master; unsure where we were going or what we were doing, but happy to be along for the ride, all the same.

"Nobody knows," he said, anticlimactically. "Hasta means 'the first people' in Ashkanian. We have no records of the Hasta or their civilisation directly, but during the 2nd era – after the 1st cleansing – the Ashkanian Empire rose to prominence. The scholar-kings of Ashkania took great interest in the fallen civilisations that came before them, and it's from their words that we know of the Hasta."

I nodded along, not knowing where this was going, but fascinated, nonetheless.

"The Hasta are known to some as The Forgotten People. Conventional wisdom has them as the ones that stood against the 1st cleansing, and protected Tsanderos from the horrors that crawl forth during such times of strife. I'm not too certain myself of how true that is, but safe to say that theirs is – or should be – a heroic tale. Problem is, nobody knows hide nor hair about them. No real evidence, no enduring records. Nothing. If it wasn't for the reputation of Ashkania as a haven for reliable knowledge-gathering, we'd probably think of them as a myth."

He came to a stop after we'd run perhaps a mile from our original position, two more sets of weapons pulled from storage and then thrown haphazardly to the ground. I suppose the answer to my earlier question of how many weapon sets he had became 'at least five'.

"How did you learn their weapon-art then?" I asked.

"Finally; a good question! Unfortunately, I can't say."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Can't," came his cheery reply. "In my younger years, I travelled to a ruin deep beneath the earth, and there I learned all I know of the Hasta's spear-dance. When I returned to the surface, I had no memory of the trip, though I knew what I had learned. It was only once I'd gained a fair bit of power – and a sprinkle of wisdom, too – that I returned and broke the curse that stole my memories. The price was the inability to speak of them. So now here I am, able to pass down my knowledge to you, but unable to tell you what you wish to know."

Had Nathlan been present, he would no doubt have focused on some of the vagaries in that short story. How had Jorge learned of the ruin in the first place? How was his silence enforced? But I had ears for only one thing.

"You regained your memories?" I asked. My voice was tight, hope squeezing the power from my words and leaving them deflated, barely able to cross the distance between Jorge and I.

He heard though. "Oh, Lamb."

His compassion was once again painful, because I knew what it meant even before he spoke the words aloud. "No, this is not something you can do. Nothing is impossible in this world, as far as I know. But your memories have been stolen by one of the gods themselves. All the power of the Hasta could not compare to the divine, and while I cannot confidently say you will never regain your memories, I do know that you won't this century."

At my shocked look he explained. "Power can be yours in this world, but it takes time. Fly through your 1st tier, cruise through the 2nd. Even the 3rd tier can be climbed in a handful of years, but to challenge the working of a god, you would need to be at the peak of the 4th tier, and that is not somewhere you will reach in a mere few decades."

I felt... relieved. His tone was that of warning, but I felt a goal start to emerge. I now had a reason to reach beyond my–

"Lamb!" Jorge said, his hand on my shoulder shaking my thoughts loose and demanding my attention. "Don't reach for it."

I looked up at him, eyes searching, but he was as intense as I'd ever seen him. "Don't create a purpose that requires power alone. I know Nathlan might have spoken to you of his own journey, but I promise you, lad, with all the weight of long experience; let that life you once had go. Find a reason to live that goes beyond power alone."

"It's easy for you to say," I replied bitterly. "You know what you lost. I don't. There's a difference there."

"Aye, true's true," he conceded. "But consider this; you spend a hundred years searching for the power to regain your memories. Hells, maybe you slay a fucking god to reclaim them. Do you think you'll still be the same person you once were? What good is the knowledge that you've lost all you ever held dear?"

His tone softened then. "I'm not asking you not to grieve, lad. I'm not saying you can't wish for things to be different. I'm just saying don't waste your second chance on regret. That's a long and lonely path, my friend, and it's shrouded in shadow all the way."

We stood in silence for a few minutes as he let the words sink in.

Eventually though, he moved on. "Anyhow, we've gotten off-topic again. You're turning this into a habit, I'm afraid," he said with a wink. "The point was that I think you and the Hasta's spear-dance have a lot in common."

He pointed from the spear in my hand to the centre of my chest. "You're both lost to history. Nobody knows how you came to be, but you're both here now, nonetheless."

"Poetic," I muttered, trying to mask how the words hit me.

"Anyway, the other issue was that I trying to get you to fight like the man you used to be. Holding your position, defensive and careful, letting things unfurl as they may and reacting to your foes. And you're a little like that still, I'll grant…"

He then grinned. "But that's not the only part of you, now is it, Lamb? You're a vicious son of a bitch sometimes, and you want to go running through the world in pursuit of your enemies, not waiting for them to catch you. I'd misjudged you, I think, all those days ago. If you want to learn a Skill, you need to be moving."

So saying, he flared his aura. That ever-present calmness that I was so used to blanketing the surroundings when he was present suddenly rolled over me in a wave, and I felt not the comfort of a wise old relative, but the weight of time itself. Age was replaced by antiquity, wisdom by the unfeeling march of years uncounted. My legs buckled, but I could tell I wasn't the target as the feeling fled as soon as it had arrived.

The weight of his aura moved through me and spread further beyond. I watched the trees shake at the base of the stone spires as the spiritual power breezed through them and further out. It was silent, and I didn't know how far it spread, but within only a few moments, howls echoed from all around.

Jorge had woken the creatures of the chasm, and now he turned to me. "There are half a hundred skeletons coming for you now. Plenty to practice some spear forms on, wouldn't you say?"

His grin was wide, and his brown eyes pranced with energy. Rather than looking enfeebled by his monstrous display of aura, he appeared enlivened by it, the lines of his face seeming suddenly less important than the light in his eyes.

"Oh, and don't worry if you lose your weapon again, lad. I made sure to leave a few lying around for you. Now, best get to it, aye?"

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