that knows how to punch." A tired smile springs across his ratty face; there was something satisfying about the spar but he can't place what Talia wants Fyrin to learn. Was it to never underestimate someone? That one who fights with fury is different from one who uses skill?

What he learned, however, is that he must expand his own knowledge of unarmed combat. Fighting with claw and teeth is not enough, and he can combine fist and fury together.

"I could sure use some training," he eventually responds, stretching his body back straight and taking in the fresh air. He gives a wide-brimmed smile to Talia and Fyrin. "It'd be nice to move and swing like you do. What'd you two call your style anyway?"

He and Malkala need to explore the Greenbelt, but he can afford some time to train.

"I use the Crane style, a more defensive minded style." Talia holds her arms out like the wings of a crane as a demonstration, "Fyrin does not really follow a style, instead mixing her natural kineticist skills with unarmed fighting." She puts her arms down and nods to Zrak, "Feel free to come train with us at any time. While I won't be able to give you everything in just a few days, but I will do what I can to get you started."

Malkala bows, "Thank you for the invitation. We will leave you to your training." She turns to Zrak, "We need to see what the trading post has to offer."

They passing days are long and tiring for Zrak. There is no enemies to fight nor disasters to stop; his time at the trading post is instead spent preparing for the next time bandits arrive. Much of it is checking his surroundings: looking at the post, its fortifications, and determining places for a trap or ambushes. Unfortunately for him, the post is a rather idyllic place, at least by his standards. It's a decent place to settle down in but he doesn't feel like it's eell-defended.

Besides that, Zrak interacts with the folk around the trading post. He isn't one for small talk, so instead he gathers any info and gossip he can about the bandits and what they've done. He really can't afford to make any assumptions when he there's no way to track his foes. So anything he can learn may be valuable.

When he isn't gathering intel, he trains with Talia and Fyrin. At first, it is an extremely bizarre experience. His rage got in the way, going from swift, smooth movements to wild strikes. Eventually, however, things begin to click. He is no crane, nor a fiery fighter, but he learns how to combine a raging focus with his wolf-like movements, creating a basic, but effective style that doesn't rely on his incisors. In fact, his sharp teeth dull over the days and lack the same sharpness it once had.

Yet he doesn't need it. In fact, he looks forward to something more bone-crunching instead of tearing.

Zrak's exploration of the trading post over the next few days does not give much. He finds very quickly that the trading post is a small operation, with its main business being trade in furs and meat from the occasional hunter that comes by. Yet, when talking with Oleg and Svetlana, it seems as if they are comfortable with the low business, with Svetlana saying something that hints that they are purposefully trying to keep away from civilization. The only thing that he finds that could be of any help during the bandit ambush is a half-full barrel of lantern oil and three common lamps in the storeroom. All of the other items are more for trade or work around the post, including candles, cookware, rope, a tent, and stored food.

Whenever a hunter, traveling merchant, or adventurer stops by, Zrak talks with them, trying to find out any information he can about the bandits. Yet, he quickly runs into a wall of caution. Especially with the merchants, everyone wants nothing to do with the bandits. It seems like the bandits are powerful in the Greenbelt, taking no mercy, and taking all possesions they can. If there is any sign of bandits around, people work as hard as they can to avoid them. Which does not do well for gaining any information.

During all of this, Malkala is rarely around. During the pair's stay in the post they are allowed to stay in the guesthouse, the southernmost building of the post. Except for eating and occasionally joining in training, she stays in the guesthouse working on some kind of project. Walking by the building, people can hear the sounds of cutting, hammering, and a small fire from her toolkit. When asked, she keeps as silent as possible, only mentioning that it "will help with using my vials."

But, on the day before the bandits are supposed to arrive, she leaves the guesthouse with something in her hands. She approaches Zrak after his last training session with Talia and Fyrin and hands the item to him. He finds a small leather bracer. Around the bracer is a series of four metallic loops that seem small enough to hold one vial each. Poking out from the wrist end of the bracer is a wire tied to a ring.

"This should help with using my healing vials." She says, "Here, put it on."

She helps with strapping the bracer onto Zrak's wrist. Once it is tight, she takes the ring with the wire and slides it onto his middle finger. When on his finger, the wire is pulled mostly taut. If he twitched his finger up as far as he could, it would pull completely taut. As he is looking at it, Malkala takes one of her vials and sets it into the metallic loop right under his palm.

"When you want to take a vial, just pull on your middle finger. It will send a vial directly into your palm." She grins, "Just make sure to grab it before it falls to the ground. Try it!"

Pulling the wire taut seems to catch something within the bracer. With a quick motion, the vial shoots upward into Zrak's palm, allowing him to catch it.

"A lot quicker than pulling it out of your pack, huh?"

While not incredibly unfamiliar with tinkered items and equipment, Zrak still flashes a confused eye at the bracer. It fit nicely around his small-but-muscular arm, with a dark brown color matching his leather armor. But the bracer felt hefty, slightly dragging his right arm down compared to his left.

It's utility, however, cannot be understated. The vial slings and snaps with a satisfying sound as he curls his middle finger down, and by reflex his hand catches the vial that snaps upward. The implications are obvious, for he'd have no problems drinking something in the heat of battle.

"Now that's crafty," he responds with a sly, toothy grin across his ratty snout. He looks up and gives a nod to Malkala. "We could use a couple more of these for the others. It's sure gonna keep us from resting all the time."

As if to show off to Malkala, Zrak takes a new, yet familiar stance. His right legs kicks back, right arm out to his side and left out in front. His wolfish stance no longer takes him low to the ground, and neither does he snarl and ravenously twitch with every movement. There's an odd sense of focus, not unlike Talia's own motions in her spars.

Zrak tightens his right hand into a fist... then hears the TING of the wire, launching air where there'd be a vial.

The sound distracts him from his stance, looking down at the bracer and quietly reminding himself not to send his valuable healing flying away.

"I don't have a lot to go on," he says as an unfortunate warning. "Most people don't know a lot about the bandits, and most need to avoid them anyway. There's some lantern oil, rope, and a tent if we ever need any of that." He speaks unpassionately, as if the items aren't of particular interest for their usual means. Perhaps Malkala may have a better idea for them. "Afraid I don't have much of a plan to ambush them, besides hiding and showing up behind once they enter the post. Do you have a better idea?"

Malkala thinks for a moment before shrugging, "Not really. We have a few options for hiding. We could hide in the stables. That has a door that looks right out into the yard. Just hide behind the doors with them cracked open and jump out. The other option would be to hide around the backside of the guesthouse and stables, so we can flank them. It would be harder to hide that way, though, but the benefit of being able to flank is obvious."

With a mild agitation, Zrak shakes his head and thinks over Malkala's words. "Flanking them would help," he notes, considering the benefits of flanks and his natural affinity for stealth. "Even if one of us gets caught, the other can surprise 'em." He has a small and plain smile, looking more forward to the fight than the tactics.

He turns around to look back at Talia and Fyrin. "We're gonna have a pretty busy day tomorrow, so today might be the last we see each other for a bit. Appreciate all the training! I sure learned a lot since."

The next step is putting his training into practice, and learning further from there. He certainly is looking forward to that.

Talia smiles, "Of course. I hope you take the lessons to heart, and maybe we will meet again."

Malkala nods, "We will definitely be around for a long while. So it there is a good chance of meeting again." She then turns to Zrak, "Sounds like you want to try the risker flank maneuver. Works for me, but we need to be prepared for it to fail spectacularly." Her eyes narrow in thought, "Maybe we can convince Oleg and Svetlana to help distract them, make sure the bandits' attention is on them rather than us."

Taking a seat on a wooden crate, Zrak leans back and kicks his legs up and down. "It'd be damn nice if those two can distract 'em. But I doubt they'd want to last another second talking to bandits." He shrugs, considering that he also wouldn't be happy being a distraction in that scenario.

He thinks to what he found around the trading post, recalling what he found around the trading post. "Maybe we can start a fire instead?"

The directness of his words is just a momentary cause for alarm.

"They've got that rope, tent cloth and lantern oil. We could set that cloth on fire somewhere, make the bandits think someone ignited something and give them something to look at or panic. That'll give us the time we need to ambush them!"

He looks quite confident, giving a smug grin across his ratty snout. Despite this, he hasn't thought of how to actually douse the flame afterward. Surely there's stuff to smother an oiled fiery cloth, right? It can't be that hard for the trading post to do that while him and Malkala ambush the bandits.

"I thought about it when you mentioned the oil. And I can light it up easily with my alchemical fire. But my worry was that it would not last long, or it would spread too far. If we can get an easy way to extinguish it, that would work." She pauses for a moment, "And Oleg and Svetlana would not really want to talk with the bandits, but if we are to make the ambush work then they need to. If the bandits walk into an empty post, or if things seem different, they may back out. Their cockiness can only be pushed so far."

Zrak takes a moment to think, then shakes his head. "Bah, you're right. The tent cloth is strong enough that it'd be better for smothering the fire than to start it. So we'd just need something to start it instead, and keep it away from the grass." His bone-thin feet sweep through the loose green leaves sticking out of the ground.

With a hefty, sigh, he hops off the crate and looks over toward where Olga and Svetlana live. "We ought to ask them the plan, see what they think. There ain't much we can do about this plan if they won't cooperate. Maybe they can offer something about the fire too."

"I agree." Malkala nods, "Let's go see what they have to say."

The pair walk off, heading into the main building of the post, where the owner couple lived and stored their wares. It was not hard to find them. Both Oleg and Svetlana sat in the small dining room around a round table that took up most of the room's space. Three chairs sat around it, with the couple sitting close together. Oleg was sweating from his work repairing some of the logs the post used as a defense. Svetlana had flour and globs of dough on her clothes from her baking. When Malkala and Zrak enter the room, the pair look up from their meal with Svetlana giving them a smile, "How can we help you?"

Malkala gives them a bow, "Sorry for interrupting your meal, but we have a plan for tomorrow, and we thought you should hear it as it involves your participation."

Oleg's eyebrow raises, but both he and Svetlana nod, "Go on."

"We are thinking of an ambush." Malkala starts, "We hide behind the guesthouse and the stables, out of sight. When they arrive, you greet them as you normally do. Heighten it up a bit to distract them, keep their attention off of us. Once they are in the market yard, we attack from flanking positions, cut off their escape with a controlled wall of fire using your lantern oil and my alchemical fire, then attack. At that point, you flee and we finish them off."

The pair seem to take that in, thinking about it. They look at each other, obviously trying to read each other's reactions.

"It could work." Oleg says, "I just don't want you in harms way."

Svetlana shakes her head, "If I am not there, then they immediately become suspicious. We must both be there or else they will just walk away."

While trying not to hide his doubt, Zrak can't help but frown at Oleg and Svetlana's concern over their safety. From what he's heard, the bandits probably won't hesitate to gut someone for standing up to them, or being a part of an ambush. He has no way of guaranteeing their safety either, a fact which Malkala no doubt considers as well.

The ysoki sits on one of the spare chairs by the wall, primarily letting Malkala speak with the two. But as Oleg and Svetlana begin to argue, the ratman feels inclined to speak up. "You two are gonna be fine," he insists, prompting confidence over logistics.