Testing the Slopes

Posts : 75

Spoiler:

Lorenzo found himself in dire need of money, as he was determined to get himself a headquarters for his little merry band of Hyne worshipping adventurers. He had found a prospective location in the form of the busted up, out of service, and nearly completely destroyed husk of the Fisherman’s Horizon train station. The city on the sea had no need for trains now, what with Esthar’s borders completely shut down and Galbadia being as unfriendly as ever. Indeed, there wasn’t even a track that led to either of the two countries anymore. All that the station connected to now was just a long bridge that the track used to run along. So, this abandoned building near the center of town, yet at the same time, far far away from the city hall, would be an excellent place to hole up. Assuming of course, Lorenzo couldn’t find anything more grand or church like. Still, this was his initial perspective office of operation, and he had intended on purchasing it then and there, when he saw it was for sale, but decided against it. Partially because purchasing the very first property you see is usually bad business sense, but primarily because it was far too expensive for his pocket change to cover.

So, that explained why it was that he needed the gil, but it didn’t rightly explain how it was that he ended up here, standing atop a mountain in near Icicle Inn; a small town in the Cetra continent to the far north, that was more or less entirely owned by the Shin Ra Electric Power Corporation. Well, as was not entirely uncommon with Shin Ra, they were attempting, once again, to better their image with the world. The power company used Mako energy as a form of electricity, meaning they pulled electricity directly from the life of the planet. Needless to say, this was controversial. If you believed in such things as the Life Stream, anyway. Lorenzo acknowledged that the planet itself was teeming with power, and that Shin Ra drawing upon this power was not necessarily the best for the environment, but he didn’t feel as though it mattered too much. His god Hyne had created the planet and all life on it, with a mere thought. Surely, once he had defeated all of the Sorceresses and revived his god, he’d be able to restore the planet to its former glory without too much trouble. And even if Hyne didn’t restore the planet upon being revived, Shin Ra couldn’t possibly drain all the energy in the world, there was just too much of it. Even if Shin Ra provided power to every single building on the planet (which they didn’t, despite what they would like the people of the world believe), it would still be several millennia before the planet ran out completely.

But, Lorenzo’s personal opinion of Shin Ra aside, many people still saw them as an evil and money grubbing organization. And so, their ingenious marketing team had decided they should invest in a few resort locations. It helped to support their public image. But, every so often, they had to take it a little bit further. In this case, they were hosting a snowboarding tournament at their northern resort; the Icicle Inn. The Icicle Inn, despite the name, was actually a fully developed village, albeit a gimmicky tourist resort village. And the prize for this tournament was a decent sum of cash. And so, here Lorenzo was, ready to do some snowboarding.

Now, he wasn’t all that experienced with extreme sports, but he had a good sense of balance, and strong legs, which for some reason or another seemed to go hand and hand with wielding a spear as his primary weapon. Speaking of his weapon, he had insisted on carrying it with him during his run. There was a lot of controversy around it, but after some sweet talking the referees, the officials had no choice but to concede that there was no actual rule against it. And so, spear in hand, Lorenzo found himself running down the slopes. It was a rather exhilarating experience, really. It reminded him of battle. Not the combat aspects of battle, but the pacing, the speed.

He thought back to when he was running after the group of people during the all out charge against the Solomon’s Key monster. How he had been hanging by his fingertips on the edge of Amalthea’s disc of light and how eventually his fingers gave out and he ended up having to do all sorts of crazy flips and acrobatics just to be able to survive the fall. Or, perhaps more fitting in this situation, how he had ran away from the exploding Mako Reactor in Midgar, stabbing his spear into the ground and using it as a focal point that he could swing himself around on, so that he could make some really sharp turns without having to slow down any. Or how just a few moments after that, he had used his spear to pole vault to the roof of another building, or how he found himself swinging between buildings on a rope, casting magic out in certain directions in order to help propel him better.

Perhaps he was selling himself short. Perhaps he had plenty of acrobatic experience, and could handle this sport just fine. He certainly wasn’t nearly as green as he thought he was. Plus he was a few inches shorter than the average man, meaning a lower center of gravity, and with a hollow arm, no less, meaning less weight to throw around. And, as he had managed to go more than 50 feet without collapsing, he was actually starting to feel a little confident. Sure, he could do this. Taking the spear off his back, and using it like a skier’s poles, he pushed himself forward. Of course, unlike a skier’s poles, he only had one spear, not two, and naturally, pushing with only one caused him to turn quite a bit, and spin. But, he was prepared for this, and shifted his weight to match, pushing into the turn, so that he went full circle, and actually came out of the turn moving faster than he was before he had started spinning. He twirled the spear a bit around in his fingers. Hell yeah, he could do this.

That was just the beginning of the tricks he pulled. Using the spear, he hooked it on tree branches, allowing him to do spins and board grabs. In a few places, he pressed the spear into the ground and shoved off of it, giving himself extra height on a few of his jumps, during which he performed a few flips, and, again, was sure to show off his spear skills as well, hoping it’d earn him a few extra points with the judges. Although, adding the extra spin as he crossed the finish line, spraying snow all over the judge’s table, was probably not the best idea. Lorenzo figured that that may well have been the reason why, immediately after the award ceremony, the second he had his prize money in hand, he was more or less tossed out of the Inn. Still, he got his face on tv and more importantly, his prize money, so he didn’t rightly care about the cold heartedness of the tournament’s corporate sponsors.

Spoiler:

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