"Don't think you're sniping. Felt t'me like remindin' me of plans we'd already made and helping me rein in the manic distractions. Those're fun, but I try to be a little more deliberate than that?"

She gives Lenora a sheepish grin. "So how 'bout we go find us a park?"

Thanks, Bys. Send me when you're done with the spar and I'll toss you the location?

"I think I saw one up on the right. With a nearby hot spring of course. I'm gonna need to go swimming sooner or later."

"Ooh, awesome. Lead the way, Lenora!"

She bounces and wags and follows.

"Well that was cute," Kay says, watching the pair of Mimis walk off.

"Now let's head to the arena and see what you're made of, newbie."

"Just keep in mind the only thing I've fought is a bear."

"Then it's a learning experience!"

And she zips along arenaward on her broom.

She sighs and jogs after Kay and Bys.

The arena is interesting. It's more like a boxing rink than some big gladiatorial thing that she was imagining. But it's a very big boxing rink, and the other one in use has a series of shallow pools and a few thin trees. There's also a small set of bleachers and, like, some mystical-looking objects that are probably magic.

"Cool. How does this place work? Digicasting?"

"Yep! Uses Digicasting to mock a bunch of the arena and the damage to the fighters, keeps everybody safe!"

Kay's friend catches up, panting. "If you're going to bait the newbie, at least don't confuse her too."

She catches her breath for a moment. "It's an arena-wide enchantment, capable of converting anything up to rank three into a simulation, which can then be automatically dismissed at the boundary of the arena, and can have simulated effects on linked fighters. Essentially the result is that no one has to pull their metaphorical punches, but the fighters still get to feel the full effect of casting and being hit."

"Mighty convenient. I was wondering if I'd have to wear boxing gloves or something. It's gonna be a... Real, serious fight, then. What about artifacts? Patron gave me some."

"It works based on the power and complexity of the produced effect. Any magical effect, whether generated from an artifact or a spell, with a power greater than a third rank casting, cannot be safely mocked. Defensive artifacts are safe, as is purely physical damage up to twenty million Newtons of force, or temperatures up to 500°F. There is a testing area for rating attacks."

She points to a gated area behind the bleachers.

Okay, so. The orb that is apparently her Rod is fine. It's pretty defensive. The hammer... Who knows. She heads for the gate.

"Any ground rules? Anything else to talk about? Im probably going to get my butt kicked but at least it's letting loose."

She turns to Kay.

"Go as hard as you can. I can take it, and I wanna see what you've got to work with."

The gate opens as Bys approaches, revealing several target markers clustered at one end of the area (at different angles to allow different directions of strike to be tested), and two silver plates on one fence toward the side. One bears a raised sigil that looks like an eye with a line through it, while the other bears a clear crystal.

"Hit the sigil to hide the testing area from view if you wanna keep your surprises, and then the crystal will light up green or red for accepted or rejected attacks."

"Got it down to a neat system, huh. Okay, let's see."

She walks in and hits the eye sigil. She doesn't really have any surprises, hasn't even figured out her familiar yet, but... Actually, maybe she does.

She practices drawing out her hammer and releasing it several times. Does the target marker accept it when she gives a solid whack? How fast can she summon and dismiss? The hammer is weightless in her hand, but impacts knock her back hard. She plays around with this a bit. Trying to figure out some sort of style.

Same thing with her dragonbeast transformation. Is it fast or slow? Can she transform quickly enough to use it for mobility? Can she transform into a different position to dodge or is it more like Animorphs?  

She doesn't have any potions and can't think of clever uses for hexes. Doesn't know how to do them. Doesn't have her familiar, yet. Isn't going to summon a demon to help with a spar, or maybe ever. She can... Identify? It's intuitive enough.

"Identify," she tries on one of the target markers.

A heavy strike from her hammer gets a green light on the indicator crystal. She can get summoning the hammer down to maybe half a second, maybe most of a second for the transformation, and can't use the transformation to dodge.

She proceeds through to the arena with her computation orb visible, but not the hammer. No broom, she can run faster than it. Yes garment, a long flows robe that will recover in time if when it gets shredded here. No hat.

She finds Kay wrapped in gleaming metal armor, looking like gold-tinted steel, and bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Ready to play, Bys?"

"Mmmyep. To yield or inability to yield?" She clenches her hands and fidgets slightly. She's getting fired up...