"Hello Trent. Odd seeing you all the way out here. Come to grab some apples?" Felix asked him.
Trent looked a bit grim. He composed himself for a moment, sighed, and began to speak. "I wish I was here for apples Felix. I'm actually here to pass on Lord Wiseman's orders to you." he said, obviously unhappy.
Felix was startled. The Baron had personal orders for him? He wasn't unknown in the village, but he wasn't even 18 yet and had no particular talents besides growing apples and being a diligent night watchman. He was surprised the Baron knew him as anything more than a name on a roster he had somewhere in his manor. Still, now wasn't the time to be worried about that, it was time to be worried about his orders.
"All right, I'll do whatever it is the Lord wants. But what can a lowly farm-boy like myself do for the Baron?" Felix asked.
Trent sighed again. "You have a choice. The runner who came last night, as I'm sure you're aware, is a light mage primarily. The reason they sent him to Gurnkey, is because the dark mages in the empire apparently teamed up to blockade the capital, collaborating with the demon lord in order to hit us from within and without. So only a high-grade light mage could break through in the short term to request reinforcements from Fort Cumin. The capital isn't in any danger of course, it's well defended, but they can't coordinate with Fort Cumin or Fort Basil in the short term because of the dark mage's blockade. It will be easily taken care of once reinforcements from Fort Cumin arrive, but the problem is, one of the messages the light mage gave us is that there was a massive military defeat outside of Fort Basil. The fort will still hold for some time, but the kingdom needs to do a recruitment drive to replenish the lost men and they need to reposition troops from Fort Cumin to Fort Basil, and the sooner the better."
Felix was stunned. This was huge news. But more than that...
"So what does any of this have to do with me?" he asked, wondering why the Baron would seek out a small fry like himself over such a huge matter.
Trent grimaced again. "Like I said, you have a choice. You can join the recruit group and be dispatched to Fort Basil for training and be stationed there for a few years, or you can join the group that will leave with the reinforcements from Fort Cumin towards the capital, who will likely show up in a week or so, and you will be exempted from direct military services following the battle. You'll get a sword and some leather armor provided if you choose to head to the capital, but not much else." he said.
Felix was stunned. "But, my father is already in the military. Our household has already met our service quota. And also, that isn't even a choice! Going to march to the capital, I will definitely just be used as a cheap fodder to test out the dark mage's defenses before they send out a trained veteran who they invested in! Going to the capital is the same as slitting my own throat!" he protested.
Trent sighed again. He looked Felix in the eyes and said "Your father is definitely dead. We don't have his body or anything, but the defeat at Fort Basil made it so that expecting him to be alive is basically the same as expecting it to rain porkchops tomorrow. So, Lord Wiseman considers it that your household has no active servicemen. He knows that you're the last of your line, and that this is a cruel thing to do, but, he has a quota to fill, Gurnkey has to do it's part, and although we all like you... Honestly, you're kind of a loner who isn't super attached to anyone, and your orchard isn't critical to Gurnkey or anything. But either way, this is the Lord's direct order." he said firmly.
"But, I'm not even of age! I'm only 17!" Felix continued, even though he knew it was pointless.
"Come on Felix, we both know your birthday is in like 6 days, you'll be 18 by the time you reach Fort Basil anyway." Trent stated bluntly.
Felix felt truly unjustly targeted. In the strictest sense, this was illegal, people under 18 couldn't be conscripted. But he already knew that he couldn't protest this to anyone. Who would he protest to? The people of Gurnkey? Who would stick up for him, he was indeed a loner, and if they did, the Baron might conscript them or their family member in his place! Baron Wiseman served under Duke Florent, the ruler of the south and east portions of the empire - but so what? Was he going to walk all the way to the capital, break through the dark mage's blockade himself, and personally find an audience with the Duke? Even if he did, due to how long it would take, he would be 18 by the time he reached the capital anyway, so Baron Wiseman would just say something shameless like "Oh, you're right, my apologies, your original conscription was indeed invalid, I am rescinding your original order. However, now that you're 18, I'm conscripting you!" and then he would be in the same exact scenario but also having had to make a trip to the capital, risking his life breaking through the blockade, and also now he would have made Baron Wiseman angry.
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Rely on Duke Florent to protect him? Laughable! Why would the grand Duke Florent damage his relationship with Baron Wiseman for a poor orchard boy who was Baron Wiseman's property in the first place? Expecting that to happen was even more impossible than expecting porkchops to rain tomorrow!
"So, your decision?" Trent asked him.
Felix sighed. He knew he only had one real option. Protesting his conscription wouldn't work. Running away wasn't viable since he hadn't awoken his magic yet, and didn't know if the elements he got would make being a brigand viable, and that's besides the fact that he was unlikely to survive long being a total newbie mage versus the experienced bounty hunters in the kingdom. And going to the capital would be about a 95% chance of dying since the military wouldn't place any value on him at all and would use him as a cheap piece of fodder to test the dark mages.
"I choose to join the recruit group and head to Fort Basil." Felix said unhappily.
Trent nodded. He handed him a token with Baron Wiseman's symbol (a scryer's goblet) on one side, and a shield and Basil plant on the other side.
"This is your identification token. The recruit group is to meet up at the north gate tomorrow morning at 8. You'll be going by carriage. Food and drink will be provided. Don't bring anything strange, you'll be searched." Trent stated very straightforwardly, clearly expecting Felix to make this decision.
"Ah, what about the night watch for tonight?" Felix asked.
"In light of recent events, and the fact that you were leaving either way, the garrison captain has had some of his men take on watch duties in your place. You are relieved of your watch position effective immediately." Trent stated, clearly also expecting this question.
Felix was downcast. The Baron truly thought of everything, didn't he?
Trent walked up to him and patted him on the shoulder. "It's not all bad. Your father was a good mage, so you're pretty likely to be a good mage too. Who knows, maybe you'll become a light mage or something else only useful in the backline and you can just serve out your 5 years of service in comfort while everyone else has to protect you. Then when you come back, you'll be a distinguished veteran, hero of the town, inheritor of your father's orchard as property, and rolling in your sweet military pension." he said, trying to cheer him up.
Felix gave him a weak smile and sent him off. It was still only about mid-afternoon and he had a lot of things to take care of since he was apparently leaving tomorrow morning. Luckily it was the end of the season and he already sold almost all of his apples. He grabbed his coin pouch and counted it all. 7 gold coins, 3 silver, 7 copper. It was actually a pretty substantial amount, because it was expected to pay for taxes, clothing, food, maintenance, and everything else for the household for most of the year, and it had been saved up over the last 3 years combining both his income from the orchard and his watchman pay, with him being a rather frugal person. Naturally, the Baron wouldn't continue to tax his household while everyone in it was forced into military service, he wasn't that unreasonable. And the military would be required to pay for his room and board as long as he was with them. So he could really treat these coins as freely spendable.
He grabbed a backpack he had lying around that he usually used to help with harvesting apples. It was clay-colored and smelled like apples. He filled it with his three other sets of clothing, and then realized he didn't have anything else he wanted to put inside of it. His family didn't have anything extravagant like a magical artifact to take with him. His father's spear had a lesser fire enchantment on it, but he obviously had it with him for service, and the cost of that lesser enchantment was already 5 gold coins, which was quite an amount considering most peasants only made about 2 or 3 gold coins a year. He wasn't particularly attached to his family either, so he didn't really feel like taking any personal knickknacks with him. He never knew his mother since she died when he was 2 year old, and he already explained how he only really had 2 years of interaction with his father. As far as he was aware, there was another branch of the family somewhere in the north of the kingdom, but he had never met anyone from that line. So, all in all, he didn't care much for his family.
Still though, he had one more thing to do before he left. He grabbed one of the bottles of home-made cider they kept in the house, his father's coat, and a piece of wood he had lying around. He left the house and walked to a particular tree near the house, which was by itself. In front of the tree was a gravestone - it read Emma, who was his mother.
He dug a hole into the ground next to her grave, and placed the piece of wood inside of it, and carved his father's name, Maxwell, into it. He hung his father's coat on top of the piece of wood, and placed a couple of cups between them. He opened the bottle of cider, and poured it into the cups, and placed the still-open bottle down next to them.
Supposedly his father took over this orchard because his mother loved apples. When he was drunk, he also said she loved cider, and he cried, sometimes, rarely. But he didn't want to dwell on that thought too much.
Felix thought about it, and placed 2 apples next to the cider glasses too. He took one last look, bowed, and walked back into his house. He made sure everything was put up, double checked he didn't leave anything behind, and finally it was already late evening when he was done making sure everything was ready for him to leave in the morning.
He laid in bed thinking about his future in the military. He wasn't very optimistic, even if he was lucky and transcended his odds of being a low-grade mage cannon fodder and ended up as a mid-grade mage, he could still pretty easily get killed fighting the demons, especially depending on what elements he got. If he got an element that was only useful on the front lines such as fire, like his father, he was even more likely to get killed.
Felix laid in bed staring at the back of his eyelids pretending he would get any sleep that night, since he was usually awake at night due to his watchman's job. After a couple of hours, he got lucky and finally dozed off.