How do we actually defend against attacks
Automatic. When one player attacks, the other one rolls to defend and possibly counter-attack (if the defense was good enough).
By the way, a turn of combat represents not just a single attack as in most RTDs, but rather all combat that happens in a certain amount of time. It's hard to explain, but basically in addition to the the techniques and spells, you also constantly move around the battlefield and keep exchanging blows. It will make more sense when you see it in action.
Do we just state :Search surroundings or so as an example?
Pretty much, though you can also go to specific spots once you find them, or just state "search the forest", "search the town", "retreat to base" and so on.
only this much?
Yeah. It's partially a counter-turtling balance thing, but it seems everyone just wants to train, even the powerful ones. Killing someone is a much faster way to become strong.
How does travel and information finding work?
Travel is pretty much all about searching and randomly finding an opponent, unless you find someones base as well. Of course, there are also things like following your opponent or using magic to find out their position, in which case you will travel to where your opponent is.
Information finding is pretty much just observation. Once you actually meet someone, I will add the information you have on them in a spoiler. As in, if you see someone use attack X, you will know that he is able to use that attack and so on. After that, you may practice to counter those specific attacks, which is why, as I've said, you shouldn't reveal all your attacks as soon as you can. In addition to regular observation, there are skills and traits that help you find out about your opponent in different ways.
Sadly, the character creation rolls were bad in general, so I couldn't give anyone some horribly OP powers that I really wanted people to have. :<