02 - A silver warrior

I take a golden coin, I raise a silver blade, I accept an ancient duty.

I swear by the broken moon, I swear by the fallen heroes, I swear by our lost home.

I shall battle the dark power, I shall stop those who tear the veil, I shall stand against the horrors beyond.

Until my strength shall fail, or until the war is won, and the sky is mended.

* Oath of service for the Thaumologial Control Agency

The transport’s doors slide open with a hiss, and cold seeps in, so sharp and sudden it’s like plunging into ice water.

Lord of Skies, I didn’t know it could get this cold, it must be some kind of joke. I wrap my arms around my body, and my teeth start clattering - I thought that was an idiom, not something teeth actually did. The coldest it ever got in Zelenia was when my breath would mist before my face in the early mornings.

I stop at the door and take in the dismal view. Not that there’s much to see - snow is falling, which isn’t anywhere as cute as they make it look in movies. It’s past midnight, and despite the floodlights, visibility is almost nil.

I can barely make out an open snow-covered courtyard, a squat concrete building which must be the saddest ThauCon base in the world, and the dim outlines of watch towers. Bare and isolated, it looks more like a prison than a military base.

“I assume this is my stop,” I say, trying hard to sound professional and unconcerned. I even say it in Fallish, but it sounds awkward and provincial, even to my ears.

The sergeant who rode with me nods. He has the decency to look sorry. “It’s your new post, Agent Cerical. It’s… not a great assignment. Are you sure you don’t want to return your badge? Honorable discharge and all. We’ll take you back to Landfall.”

I grit my teeth. He sounds sympathetic, but I’m sure he’s been told to ask. They still hope I’ll leave ThauCon by myself.

“This is my assignment,” I say, “I’ll d-do my duty.”

It would sound more solemn and dramatic if I could stop my stupid teeth from clattering. But if I’m going to freeze for the next oh-gods-how-many-years I might as well try and take it with dignity.

“Your funeral, lass,” the sergeant says. “Now go, please. I’m freezing my ass off.”

I sling my bag over my shoulder, check the sword at my side, take a deep breath and step out. There’s a small roof keeping the stairs dry, but once I get to ground level, I have to walk through the snow.

Fuck, it’s slippery. I scramble to stand, but my bag and sword unbalance me, and after a moment of wheeling my arms, I fall on my ass. Snow, which I’m learning to hate with a passion, fills my boots, sleeves and pants. It takes me half a minute of cursing to get back on my feet and obtain a measure of presentability.

“I fucking hate this place,” I mutter, trying to get snow out of my sleeves - turns out the fucking thing melts into freezing water in half a second.

“I’ve no idea what that means!” someone says from behind me, in Fallish, incongruously cheerful. It takes all of my training not to jump away, which would lead to falling on my ass again.

“But I guess you were cursing the place!” they add. “Don’t worry, we all hate it!”

I turn to the newcomer. I was so busy thrashing in the snow, I didn’t see him coming - so sloppy of me.

He’s a young man in a rather disheveled black-and-silver ThauCon uniform - a noticeably thicker uniform than mine, with gloves. I must get one for myself before I freeze to death.

He’s tall and broad, and gives me a wide smile. He looks like the kind of person who smiles way too much. Curly hair with a fashionable side cut, dimples, smooth brown skin - Lady of Light, he couldn’t look more like a Landfaller if he tried. He has a ton of those stupid tattoos they love, starting on his cheeks and going down his neck. They’re metallic-looking, bright pink and blue - I thought people had those only in teen movies. I’ve no idea what they mean. One more thing I’ll have to learn.

I decide I dislike him. However, he’s got a corporal’s silver lapel, so he’s my superior.

Our eyes lock, I blink to authorize a Stemlink handshake, and xir public data pops into my vision.

----------------------------------------

NAME: Kaelich Anur

AGE: 20

GENDER: Agender

OCCUPATION: Thaumological Control Agent - corporal rank

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single, looking for casual partners

LOOKING FOR: Anyone free for the night

INTEREST: Sims, skating, partying, shooting

FANDOMS: Ocean Woman, Black Sky Corsairs, Xenowatch IV

BIO: Just a kid from Landfall who shoots well and looks good in uniform

----------------------------------------

Lost Stars, I already want to strangle him.

No, not him. Them? Wait, no, it’s different in Fallish. Xem. Fortunately, I’ve seen so many movies and sims from Landfall, I think I can get their stupid culture right.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Private Cerical Villerani reporting for duty, ser!” I say, saluting. Not my crispest salute, but at least I manage to keep my balance. “I’m honored to join your base.”

“Chill, private - no pun intended” xe says, and actually winks. The General must have assigned me to his team just to grate my nerves. Xe speaks rapid-fire Fallish, but xe has the exact accent they use in movies, so it’s easier to follow than I expected. The only problem is that it makes xem look even more like a character from a silly teen action sim.

“You’re on my team!” Xe adds, beaming. “Can you believe I’m a corporal? They just promoted me. And, like, I’m half-convinced that was a mistake, but I got the lapels and all. Anyway, welcome to Rakavdon base! If you’re here, you fucked up. Don’t worry, I won’t ask you the details. Now come in, we have hot tea.”

***

I sigh with relief as we pass through the gate and into the outer complex, the part of the base open to visitors and civilians. It isn’t exactly warm inside - I’d call it chilly, by any reasonable standard - but it’s wonderful compared to the freezing wind outside.

A bored admin clerk checks my papers and biometrics, while shamelessly playing a game on his tablet, and manages to do it all without looking at me even once. Finally, he says everything’s in order, I get a slew of green Neuralink notifications, and the base recognizes me as one of its soldiers. I try to look happy about it.

The corporal - who made some annoying attempt at chit-chat - takes me past the heavy silver-banded doors and into the Inner Complex, the base proper.

It’s a squalid concrete building, exactly as it looked from the outside, all bare walls and white LED strips. It looks like a half-finished building, or an abandoned one. And it’s even colder than the admin office.

“Sorry, the heating isn’t very good,” the corporal says. “They built it by a standard template, one that probably assumes we all live happily in the south. But the core rooms are much better - we did some refitting, and we have a nuclear generator, after all. The dorm room is always warm, and we have a proper hot pool in the bathroom!”

I sigh inwardly. Karesians love their communal baths, and usually can’t understand why everyone else in the world isn’t enthusiastic about spending half an hour in a small tub, naked, with strangers.

“It will be fine, ser,” I say, trying to stop my stupid teeth from chattering. “I’m not afraid of a bit of cold.”

Xe raises xir eyebrows, and I can tell xe’s fighting not to laugh. “As you say, private. You come from South Zelenia, right?”

“Yes. I’d never seen snow before, to tell the truth,” I add.

“Well, there’s no snow in Landfall, either, but I got used to it” xe says. “It’s not that bad once you stop slipping. It’s even beautiful, when it’s not falling! And ice-skating over the canals is the best.”

Yeah, snow looked beautiful in pictures, but it turns out I hate the real thing. And I’m already worn out by the horrendously friendly, unprofessional corporal.

But I must work with xem, so I should try to be nice. Maybe I’ll manage to establish some proper boundaries, with time.

“I’m sorry, ser, but it has been a long day,” I say. “Could you show me the way to my bunk?”

“Of course!” Xe says, “I’ll give you the tour tomorrow. We’ll go through the mess hall, though, can I get you something warm to drink?”

“A tea would be nice,” I say, because it feels like I have snow melting in every nook of my uniform.

We walk through a hallway where two buckets are collecting meltwater- this base is basically crumbling. How can the situation be so bad? It’s not just an inconvenience, it’s a security issue.

But of course, as Corporal Kaelich said, we’re here because we fucked up. If we have a terrible accident, it’s a win, as far as command is concerned.

Before I can get properly outraged, the corporal opens a door, and finally we get to a room which doesn’t look derelict - there are properly working lights, six long tables, and a kitchen. Most importantly, it’s wonderfully warm.

There are some of the items I expect from a lived-in military base: shift tables, posters with REGULATIONS written on top and way too much text, faded propaganda prints with square-jawed ThauCon soldiers in heroic poses. We are the Watchers against the Dark Power is written on the wall in silver letters, except the D and P are missing and have been replaced with stencils. There’s a faint smell of… burnt bugs?

“Sorry for the stink,” the corporal says, grimacing. “The guys in Team Yellow are from here. And fucking Vorokan people just love eating fried insects.”

“Isn’t this place just lovely,” I say, deadpan. I take some comfort, however, in realizing xe’s as much a foreigner here as I am. Even if Landfallers, of course, are always the right kind of foreigners.

“It’s not that bad. The place, I mean. The food is exactly as bad as you think. Now, pick your poison,” xe says, leading me to the boiler. The base might be crumbling, but it has a great selection of infusions.

I pick a ginger tea, and we sit together at a table - it’s well past midnight, and we’re the only ones in the room.

“So,” xe says, sounding a little awkward, “welcome to Team Blue. We’re a new team, the old one retired last month, and they reshuffled us a bit. I’m team leader and marksman. You’ll meet Sorivel, the drone specialist. He’s, uh. He’s nice. Just as a word of caution, he’s really religious. Hope that doesn’t bother you.”

Great, I get the greenest corporal in existence, and a religious nut, and the only thing we have in common is that we fucked up enough to be sent here.

“That won’t cause any issue on my side,” I say. “Do we have a Supporting Council Agent yet?”

“A… oh, the team mage,” xe says, and I repress a cringe - Supporting Agents are not team members. “We should get ours soon. It’s good they didn’t assign us any of the mages already in this base because, honestly, they suck.”

“Excellent, ser,” I say, “are we already on active duty?”

“Please drop the ser when we’re not working, come on,” xe says, rolling xir eyes. I like xem a little more for that - at least xe shows some character.

“Anyway,” xe continues, “yes, we’re officially on duty, starting on Medday. But we aren’t supposed to do much until we have a full team - we’ll do patrols, incident reports, some guard duty.”

Usually, I’d try to learn as much as possible about a new environment - who does which chores, who has a temper, what weird traditions they have. But I just can’t be bothered here, and it feels too much - everything seems wrong and foreign, and what would be the point of fitting in anyway? So I sip my ginger tea in silence.

“Do we see much action here?” I finally ask.

Xe laughs. Then, xir smile fades.

“Oh, you were serious. Uh, sorry,” xe says, “point is, this base is famous for, well, not seeing much action. We’ve jurisdiction over the whole Rakavdon province - it’s some two-hundred-thousand people and a ridiculously vast area, but demons don’t fall this far north, and there’s no real syndicate presence to date. Even criminal mages think this is the ass-end of nowhere, apparently,” xe adds with a tentative smile.

I’m in no mood for jokes and I don’t like chatty people. But xe made me a wonderfully warm ginger cup, and xe’s my immediate superior, so I force out a little smile.

“So, what do we do all day, if I may be candid?” I ask.

“Well, there’s still some work,” xe says, with a shrug, “mostly finding new mages before they hurt themselves or others. Sometimes we guard university events - there’s a Precursor ruin here, the Black Door. They excavate the site for artifacts. That kind of thing attracts the Syndicates, and sometimes the artifacts are dangerous in themselves.”

Well, that almost sounds interesting. Except it means we work as nannies and glorified security contractors. So much for battling the dark power.

“I see,” I say, trying to keep my voice neutral.

“But that also means we have quite a bit of free time,” xe says, talking even faster, in a tone that sounds suspiciously like a rehearsed pitch. “Now, I know this… wasn’t probably the assignment you wanted. I didn’t pick it, either. But I was thinking, we could put our time here to good use. We have decent training facilities, and if you’re up for it, we could put in some serious training hours. We could try to make... well... a good team?”