First Drill: Orientation

[Nayt]

They were told to stand in rank and file, but none of them had such a rank, and few even knew what "file" even meant, but they were expected to learn, and they were expected to learn fast.

---

Each of these people, individuals supposedly hand-picked for their abilities and potential, were all rudely awakened to the reality of the draft. Of course they'd heard about Darokin. Every one of them, new and old recruits alike, knew about Darokin and the Liberation of Dachinst. Eventually, they were all made aware of the draft, too. A lot of people like them were lost at Dachinst, and scarce few of their forces were at all trained in the ways of war. Some were capable of holding their own in a fight, some could even topple giants, but few had the discipline and trained ability of a soldier, and it was that which their organization needed more than anything else.

There was no choice. The failed first wave into Darokin, paired with the calamity of the End, left their membership far too scattered and disjointed. Tens of thousands dropped to seven thousand in less than five months. And yet, the reality of the draft was still a surprise.

So many thought to themselves at night, "They'll never use this." "They'll never summon me." "I'm way too useless to go to war."

In some cases, small cases, there was even offense at the summoning. But this was what their life was for. The second these men, women, and children accepted the temptation of a second chance at life, they signed their souls away to Death in the same breath.

---

A man stood at the back of the courtyard. Every one of the draftees, numbering over a hundred strong, stood before him in perfect file. They all wore their black uniforms and red armbands, straps about their right arm-- or left, provided the soldier lacked a right arm --that so eloquently depicted their emblem: a skull and sickle. They were all an assortment, mixed races, mixed genders, mixed ages, and even mixed species, and they were equal all the same. They were soldiers, now. Soldiers of Death.

Soldiers of a god that abandoned them.

"Questions," the old man began, "You all have questions."

He was a tough old man. He walked with a cane, yet his shoulders were still so broad, his back so straight, and his legs like tree trunks. He was immovable. Unlike the officers at every end of the filed out "cadets," he wore a red barrette atop his head. His gray beard was trimmed and seemed to hug the contours of his chin, and his brow was harsh and narrowed.

"Why am I here?"

"What's the point?"

"Am I going to die?"

"You have not been summoned without reason. Whether you know it or not, you were born for this task." He walked forward. His left leg dragged behind and he set his cane down harshly against the ground as it caught up. "Each one of you was born with a gift."

"You were born as soldiers." He turned at a ninety degree angle and walked down before the front line of recruits. "And someday, be it in this land or another, you will die as soldiers."







Offtopic: Everyone feel free to introduce your characters in narrative at this point. Simply have them standing in file, listening to the old man's speech. You are also fully invited to explore how they were drafted in your introduction! Once a sufficient number of introduction posts have been made, I'll conclude the orientation with the rest of the old general's speech.

[littlebean]

Shifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshif

They were all soldiers, whether they liked it or not. Death was an inevitability. All of them had experienced it, many have even caused it. This was a line up of elites, they were born to be soldiers. Those who weren't well versed in combat would be recieving the training and cold discipline they'd need to survive.


"You have not been summoned without reason. Whether you know it or not, you were born for this task." He walked forward. His left leg dragged behind and he set his cane down harshly against the ground as it caught up. "Each one of you was born with a gift."

Shifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshif

Front row, to the right, the shuffling. It was quick and constant, rhythmic even, like the speeded ticking of a clock. The line was so tense and rigid, that parts of it were beginning to buckle under the pressure. He kept a stern posture, upright like the rest, standing still as a statue, but inside the statue the motor was running at full speed.

"You were born as soldiers." He turned at a ninety degree angle and walked down before the front line of recruits. "And someday, be it in this land or another, you will die as soldiers."

Shifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshifshif

And the motor was over heating, perspiring and trembling. The right leg quivered under his attempts at perfect stillness with a shiff shiff shiffing noise of his pantleg.



.........

Shifshifshif

[Paroxysm]

'Dead center, towards the left
'You see him?
'Yeah!
'He looks scary, doesn't he?
'Yeah, wild.
'I heard he got in a fight almost as soon as he arrived!
'Really? Why?
I don't know, but I hear he didn't get in trouble for it, either.
Weird, ...'

Quietly, two new recruits talked amongst themselves even as the old man addressed the large crowd of cadets; for the most part, they were hushed, they kept amongst themselves, didn't bother anyone, but that did not mean they weren't heard; indeed, their topic of discussion heard them quite well, though he paid it only the most basic of attention and, instead, kept himself sternly poised and focused on the old man's speech.

He was a fierce faced young man of twenty-one and had grown a full six feet in height, he wasn't the largest man, but nobody would have called him short, either; his uniform was worn neatly and traditionally, every button, including the collar, had been fastened, and his shoulders were straight, chest raised; there was only one additional article of aesthetic taste on his person and that was a crossed pendant--attached to a chain--around his neck and over the cross, a sickle and a skull were overlaid; and it was easy to tell at first glance that this man, as young and inexperienced as he was, had been through a lot, his life a ruin, and had given himself completely--body and soul--to the Dirige.

His was a tragic tale, in the end: where many had been given second chances at life and even offered the resurrection of loved ones, this man, this Fillip Bashkin, had received no such deals, even his second life wasn’t so much a life as it was servitude; indeed, his career in the Dirige was one of penance and dedication.

He had committed a sin in life that could not go unpunished and it was by sheer luck, luck that he did not normally possess, in fact, that the Dirige even bothered to recruit him rather than rid the world of a potential Voleur d’ame and menace.

However odd it may seem, though, Fillip did not view this as a bad turn in his life, his family was gone and he had died; honestly, what more was there for him in life? The Dirige was stability and purpose ... While others were upset and angered by their recruitment, Fillip was content and almost ecstatic, though it did not show quite so.

Perhaps the Dirige would grow to consider him a fine recruit, he smiled to himself.

‘H-he smiled,’ the woman’s voice betrayed surprise.
’Do--did he hear us?
’I, I don’t think so, but let‘s just listen to orientation....'

[Syntaphar]

Midway down the line, looking directly forward, stood Aldric Montegue, fallen noble of a fallen nation in this fallen world. Having never been a soldier, he would replace the "attention" pose with fencing's "basic position", a similar pose except for the feet forming a right angle fulminating at the heels and pointing outward. He would carry himself with a good deal of poise and posture, attempting with all his might and focus to prove a good example of his family and the Vontais people. In lapses of focus, his eyes would dart along the line, taking mental notes on this eclectic bunch as one of which he now counted.

Tired eyes looking forward, he would briefly recall what brought him here. Wasn't all that complicated of a story. He grew up a brat; the End came; he was forced to become responsible; he was stabbed; he came back; Now, through a direct result of coming back he was drafted. Pretty cut and dry, but he wasn't by any stretch of the imagination required to like it. He looked again, this time with near contempt, at the rest of the line. They probably had never heard of Vontier, though "Voleur d'Ame" was itself a Vontais phrase! He stopped himself there, however. Of all of his traits, haughtiness was the one he was trying to rid himself of most.

So, his thoughts exhausted, he would continue to look tiredly forward, and listen to the man's speech. Aldric figured that if a man like this were up there, taking the time to say something, then he had something damned important to say. He gave his full attention, save for a bit of distraction from a few gossips and a persistant and inscrutable shiffing noise.

[Nayt]

Almost as far back as possible and sharply to the right side of the rows stood a girl on shaky knees. Few individuals standing in this organized crowd were quite as afraid as she.

She was going to die. She was never going to see her family again. Her baby sister was going to grow up and she was never going to see her get through primary school. She was going to be sent out in this war, and scared out of her wits, the girl's whole life was going to be undone in less than a second.

These thoughts did not comfort Areva Misotalles. She was new by Reaper standards and almost too young to be recruit-able. She was barely fourteen, and unlike other kids her age that just so happened to find themselves greeted by Reapers for spiritual business, she didn't feel at all useful. People like Etsu Hikane and Eldridge Tsukimono-- they were useful. They did good things. They saved lives. Areva, though? She couldn't name a time when she'd done anything worthwhile. At best, she passed souls and knew how to navigate tribal areas very well, but she was no survivalist and she was no fighter. The whole notion of a soldier's life confounded her to no end.

Areva was born and raised on the island of Igorath, a member of a group of islands still poorly explored by the "civilized world." She was dark skinned, short, scrawny, and considered herself frail as a baby bird. She was scared to death of pain and she was even more frightened by the man that paced before them all.

The girl kept her eyes on the old man. She felt too scared to let her gaze deviate from him. He was a hardened warrior, and she was half-afraid that he might know the instant she looked away, that he might have it out for her from that point on and that he'd make damn sure she died in this war.

[Lemon]

Somewhere in the line, though it was likely nobody but the old man could pinpoint exactly where, Sedit stood slouched and weak-kneed. It wasn't that he was being purposely defiant by maintaining a poor posture right in front of his superiors, or even that he thought he could get away with it because, lets face it, nobody even knew he was there. It was because he was stressed to the point of hysterics.

He didn't mind the talk of death. He'd died before, after all, and it wasn't so bad. He hadn't actually entertained any of the questions the old man spoke of. He simply hadn't been around this many people in years. All those eyes, if they could see him they'd judge him. How plain he was, how unintelligent he was, how timid, how boring, how worthless. He slouched a little lower, his soul becoming a singularity and nearly consuming itself.

He was there because after searching the tiny town he was assigned to for the entire two day preparation period Sedit was supposed to have received, the Reaper messenger who was to inform Sedit of the draft instead, upon finally finding him, yelled at the boy from the top of his lungs and personally dragged him all the way to Darokin for all the trouble Sedit has caused him.

[Nayt]

"The people you will fight in this land-- they have no love for you," the general began, "And they never will. They will fight you until their very last breaths. They will eat you alive if you let them."

The way he said that-- "they'll eat you alive," it was as if there was no exaggeration. It was as if he were telling the whole truth. Total and complete honesty. It was as if he sincerely meant that their enemies in this nation were more interested in devouring these invaders from the Drunalan Empire than they were pushing them out.

"For you see . . . your enemies are not human. Not even a spark of humanity resides in them any further. They're nothing more than monsters. If allowed to have their way . . . they'll devour this city and its people without restraint. And they'd like no more than to move beyond its borders and infest the world at large . . ."

Though his speech was certainly dramatic, the old general seemed to care little for dramatic flare. He was gruff and methodical, and every word he spoke was a new truth.

"Your purpose," he paused, but not for dramatic effect. The old general squinted his eyes and peered past the cadets lined up before him. "Your lives -- are to save these people. Your purpose is to save the world. And to do this . . . you will experience a hell like no man before you. This academy exists to prepare you for that hell."

The general pushed his cane aside and opened his arms wide.

"Welcome," he said at long last, "Welcome to Darokin."

---

In the dining hall, a banquet was set out for these new "cadets." The dining hall itself was a large room populated by six long lines of interconnected tables and chairs. Before and after today, it was bare and devoid of decorations. For tonight only, it was lavish and luxurious. Torches lit the room on every wall and every table had a candle set upon its median, all amounting to and creating a relaxed and casual atmosphere, though as every cadet wore their dress uniform, it almost bordered on formal.

They were all greeted with a near limitless supply of food. Each row of tables was populated with an assortment of courses, one meticulously arranged to be exactly the same as every other row of tables, populated with the same courses, the same amount of courses, and the same arrangement of courses, all to the very inch.

Turkey and ham, all smoked to perfect, made up the bulk of the meat courses, while mashed potatoes, stew, and assorted steamed vegetables surrounded them. There was melted cheese, a thick tomato past of sorts, and various sauces from all over the world set near medians to be used at the cadets' leisure. Place-mats were distinctly set at every table and easily discerned by the plates already set upon them. There was no particular order in which cadets how to sit, however.

It was something of a "last meal." A last hurrah. A night devoted to them and their luxuries, as there existed no promise nor guarantee that every cadet was going to live, nor was there a promise that they could even win this war. For some, this night might be their final evening of luxury.




Offtopic: This thread is now open and lacks much of a tentative posting order, so just feel free to just have your characters mingle at will. Any stragglers/"late arrivals," please assume your character(s) was/were in file with the previously introduced cadets prior to this.

[Lemon]

Sedit never thought of those he was sent to kill as human to begin with. Weren't all Voleur d'Ame monsters? Humans can't see souls. Humans can't manipulate souls... not normal humans. They had to be monsters if they were manipulating someone's soul! If they weren't... then he had been killing...

Hah! Thinking too hard. Much too hard. Be invisible, do as told, don't question things. Thinking too much was bothersome work. His parents thought too much and look what it got them. Dead, that's what. Yep, be invisible and don't cause trouble or else you'll be in trouble. Or dead. Again.

Sedit removed himself from introversion and was quite shocked to discover he had moved with the crowd and was seated at a table full of the most delicious looking meats and sauces he'd ever seen. He wasn't much of a carnivore... in fact he couldn't remember the last time he'd had any type of cooked meat, but the sheer amount and presentation of the meal left him floored. Then he saw beyond the meat and silverware and candle light. He saw the hundreds of eyes around him, and realized he was in a sea of people.

No! This is how it is now. Nobody can see you, nobody cares. Just eat something and wait to be told what to do.

[Syntaphar]

Aldric really wasn't too much of a stranger to this sort of formal/semi-formal dinner. He had been to many in his childhood, usually clad in uncomfortable and bafflingly ruffly suits. This one was not so bad, however! It was refreshing to have a warm meal without it being ruined by the cold attitudes between the Montegues and their guest family. That, and the suits were a good deal less ludicrous. Vontier was a bit backwards, he thought, but he loved it still. The food impressed him greatly, especially the quality of the the Vontais sauces. It was as though he had never left.

Before beginning the meal, he would introduce himself with his full name to whoever it was that sat next to him, if anyone. holding to table manners, he would assemble the silverware in a certain way his family taught him to, and place his napkin before him, sitting with impeccable posture. He was brought to fight, but the gentleman's gambit is really where young Montegue excelled. Once the meal was over, he would mill about as regally as possible, introducing himself to all who would listen. For now, though, he was content to enjoy the last luxurious meal before the great battle came.

[Nayt]

Whether Sedit intended it or not, he had seated himself by a girl who was easily the most petrified person in this room.

Areva Misotalles hadn't been more scared in her life. All the grandeur of a banquet lay before her, but she couldn't even think about it. Her stomach was pained by the rough trip from her island; she hadn't eaten a thing since she left the island, in fact. It'd be two days. But the girl simply couldn't put her mind to it. Sleeping, eating, drinking-- all those necessary life activities ceased taking priority. All that mattered was one simple fact:

She was going to die here.

The general did not quell her fears. When they lined up in file before him, Areva had thought that maybe he'd come out and talk about how the war wasn't quite as bad as they were all giving it credit for . . . but no. That was not the case at all. In reality, he did the exact opposite. He confirmed her fears that this was a hellish place and that those unskilled in the art of war were probably going to be eaten alive.

Sitting directly by Sedit's right, this girl-- Areva Misotalles --was already crying.

[Paroxysm]

Fillip Bashkin had taken to sitting diagonally away from Areva and Sedit's table and, while he was formerly alone, he would shortly find himself in Aldric's company, who, for the most part, seemed oblivious to the circumstance at hand: there was a reason Fillip was sitting alone.

“Fillip Bashkin,” instinct and habit required him to introduce himself in reply to Aldric’s, but he grunted immediately afterward. Really, if Aldric was expecting dinner-side conversation then he was most definitely at the wrong table. At first glance, Fillip already knew what kind of man Aldric was, not on a personal level, of course, but with the painstaking detail that went into how he arranged his silverware? He was upper-class, noble, maybe, and most likely just as annoying as those from Ulster and Sythinia; in other words, he was everything that the low-born Fillip Bashkin had been told to hate with an almost unreasonable passion.

If not for the aptly timed sound of crying, Fillip may have said something uncouth or disagreeable to Aldric, but his attention was drawn, as he turned to face the other table: he frowned and narrowed his eyes in thought. For the most part, it looked like he had something on his mind, something to say (and it was bound to be unpleasant from the looks of things), and if Areva caught sight of him, looking at her the way he was, she would no doubt have her fear intensified.

[littlebean]

Now that he wasn't standing uncomfortably, the aggitation had subsided. Since his legs were preoccupied with walking they didn't need to shiff and twitch to keep themselves busy. Had the motion quelled his anxiety? Hardly. The captain's speach easily undid any good feelings he may have experienced. Following the crowd, he ended up in what seemed to be a banquet hall. A hearty meal would be the perfect pick up.

A young brunette would sit himself across from Areva, his formal uniform slapped together casually as if he was going to be late for something. His slight olive complexion had paled, leaving sickening shades of green around his brown eyes and mouth. It was obvious that he wasn't well, but he couldn't have been any worse off than say, the girl crying right in front of him.

"H-Hey! Ch-cheer up buttercup!"

Yeah, cheer up. It wasn't so bad right? Loman couldn't even convince himself that things weren't terrible, but somehow he had to try to convince her, he just wished he knew how. For all the years of studying his father tried to cram down his throat, none of his classes ever taught him how to talk to girls, especially not cute sad ones.

" Eat, you'll feel better?" He motioned towards the food. When he spoke it seemed as if he wasn't so sure, but he didn't hesitate in taking his own advice. Turkey was piled onto his plate with lots of greens all covered in tomatoe sauce, because even though he was dead, he'd be damned if he didn't eat his veggies like his Grandma told him to.
Offtopic: They dead? Dunno.

[Lemon]

A mashed potato, steamed pea, ham, stew, and corn conflagration sat in the middle of Sedit's plate like a guilty affront to the God of Death himself, but it was tasty. He didn't eat much of it--he didn't eat much of anything anymore--but it provided an excellent distraction from the people around him. Like the crying girl.

He reckoned she'd been crying since before he even sat down, and she must have had a very good reason to be crying so hard in a crowded room like that. Maybe it was how some young girls introduce themselves to people; after all, it worked on the fellow diagonal to his right. It was certainly an odd way to go about it, but he reasoned it was probably effective. He'd never try it himself, of course, because crying is the opposite of being invisible, which he was perfectly happy to remain. He was even a little relieved when the hesitant boy across from her tried to make her feel better. He was taking command of the situation! Sedit wasn't even fit to take command of a toy army, let alone this extremely awkward social situation.

He did peer over at her a few times, though, to make sure she wouldn't hurt herself. He liked talking to the souls before he sent them on their way during his field years, and many of them in his small territory had committed suicide. They cried a lot, even as souls, and he thought it would be awful unfortunate if something bad happened to such a young, noticeable girl like her.

[Zach Kaiser]

A gift they called it. Yeah, some gift--the gift of being whisked away from the one place she considered a home, with hardly a chance to say goodbye. The gift of being sent to the front of a war that was being described as "hell" in no uncertain terms. The gift of being able to save lives, even save the world.

All through the speech, Alicia could only think one thing: What about my life? At fifteen, she'd spent most of her years in an orphanage that was little more than an abandoned church where a bunch of kids gathered, occasionally looked after by a couple of vagabonds whenever they deigned to stop by. She'd longed for the day when she could leave on her own adventures, trained for it, but now it was all for naught. Now she was just fodder for undead.

It made a lot of the stories Kaiser told seem a lot less implausible, now that she thought about it.

There was a girl not much younger than her who seemed completely scared out of her wits. This was the kind of recruitment they did? Force terrified little girls into battle? In her mind the people in charge here were only marginally better than the people she was told they'd be fighting, and given they were supposed to be monstrosities that was saying something.

When it came time for dinner (complete with formal uniforms that were far too stuffy for her tastes), she ended up two sets down from the scared little girl. Incidentally, next to a young man who was trying his best to remain unnoticed. Oblivious to the intention, Alicia turned toward Seedit. "Can you believe all this?" she asked, figuring she couldn't be the only one who thought this entire situation was absurd.

[Lemon]

It wasn't just an intention, Sedit's near-withdrawal from reality was an ability. His only ability, in fact, but the kind of thing that's really great in a battle and terribly unreliable in a crowd. That's why he hated crowds. Alicia couldn't have been talking to him, specifically, she was likely talking to the thing that occupied the chair beside her with food in front of it, be it Sedit or the suddenly reanimated corpse of a Darokinian chef with a love of kebabs. It was that kind of lack of intent, care, and thought that completely unraveled Sedit's unique form of sensory camouflage.

He had been peering intently at the girl, waiting to see what happened next and if she did in fact start to eat or if she started to cry harder at being noticed. He heard the words forming to his left. He felt the person shift in their chair to address someone, but it couldn't possibly have been him. Not at a time like this.

"Can you believe..."

Oh god. Oh dear god she couldn't be talking to him. He turned as if in slow motion as the first few words left her lips. Please be talking to the crying girl, he wished. Please tell me I've remained unnoticed.

"...all this?"

Sedit screamed like a little girl. His mashed potato monstrosity flying free from the expensive plate as if ascending to godhood, littering those across from him with gifts in the form of decorative vegetables and stew as he jumped out of his seat. Except that the boy didn't quite make it; in his haste to abscond one foot landed squarely on the floor while the other's heel connected instead with the underbar of his chair, lifting him up about three inches and sending him crashing backward about three feet.