“Ladies, Ladies. Settle down. I know you don’t have new uniforms today and I know why.” Their tent instructor, Rocha, the woman who usually set their clean clothes on the bench at the feet of their cots, clapped for attention.
“It’s your portal day, ladies. I have your uniform of the day here. Carla Abba?”
Carla pushed forward from the back of the group. She accepted a pile of clothing off the taller grey stack of uniforms. Grey was the color of the main army.
“Don’t lose or crinkle the papers on top.”
Like well more than half of group P45, Carla had a pretty, youthful face. She had started out slightly plump, but after a month of intense physical training she was fit and toned. She took her clothes back to her bench.
“Wendy Baker.” Rocha picked up a rust red uniform off the colorful pile. Like Genia, Wendy was still wrinkle faced and her hair had grown back grey. Her musculature grew back swifter and harder than the youthful army girls.
Rocha called all the names in the tent. Genia’s new uniform was sky blue, the color for air mages. There was underwear, which was new, a pair of shorts that clung to her legs and a short, tight shirt which flattened her newly rounded breasts. Over that she had pants and a shirt, in masculine styling but feminine fitting.
Rocha gave them some time to finish dressing.
“Now. The portals will be set up on the quad. My infantry girls, pick a buddy and line up two by two. Classed, single file on the other side.”
There was a brief loud moment while the girls in grey jostled around.
“Classed, when you go through hand your papers to the person at the desk. Be patient and wait in the line. Don’t wander off. Army, I’ll be with you until you’re assigned a unit.”
There were two portals set up on the workout field. The distribution of army to classed Conclave fighters was very apparent when they were all lined up waiting for the portal. The Conclave portal went active a few moments after the P group arrived. The colorful uniformed queue strode forward, disappearing proudly one by one.
The opposite side of the portal was set up with stone queue lines that led to a single man sitting at a desk. There was a door on either side of him. One of the S group was already at the table. The man looked at her papers and checked them against a hand scanner. He looked over his shoulder at one of the rooms. “Harvey Blake.”
After a while man left that room and led the woman to the other door.
One by one each woman was led away by a single person, as many men as women, but always in the same color uniform as the recruit.
Genia presented her orders and put her hand on the scanner.
The man at the table made a small displeased face, but he yelled over his shoulder anyway. “Yosef Conrad.” When the sky blue uniformed man approached, the man at the table scowled at him.
Yosef grinned at the man and ushered Genia out with a hand on her back. “Captain Trent does not like me today.” He confided as they exited the ornate room filled with mirrors and windows.
“What did you do?”
Yosef laughed. “Maybe I’ll tell you sometime. So. What’s your class? Air Mage? Wind Walker?”
“Wind Dancer.”
He stopped short and looked at her. They were halfway down a ridiculous outdoor stairway that spanned the entire wing of the… she looked up… palace where she had arrived.
He clicked his tongue several times. “Do you have experience dancing?”
“Quite a lot, yes.”
He smirked. “And your skills and or spells?”
“Glaive Mastery 2.6 and Wind Blade 1.0 they didn’t let me practice at all. I haven’t even tried to use it.”
“No. That’s what they tell all of us. That’s fine. Wind Blade. Huh. Wind Blade as a first spell. That’s different. So. This way. This is the Conclave Campus. I’ve been out on the front lines until about two days ago. Just long enough to get on the captain’s bad side. We’ll do a week of training your spell, a dungeon crawl and then we’re back on the front line. You’ll be assigned a team by then. I won’t be on your combat team, our spells would be redundant. Mentors are just for spell training and practice and so forth. Your room will be right next to mine and we’ll spend most of the time together, mostly on your spells, we’ll have all the mana potions you’ll need to strain your system. So. Did they feed you?”
“No, actually.”
“Good, good. Mess hall is just opening for breakfast. Let’s fill up and go to our assigned tower room.”
They didn’t change directions, they kept strolling through the outrageously beautiful gardens until they got to another huge, lavish palace wing. They went inside. It was like a tavern and a ballroom had merged and kept growing. The tables were post four tops with white tablecloths. The eaters got plates of food from a pass through line and seated themselves. Genia saw most of her group 45 in the large room, seated with their mentors. Yosef headed for the line.
The food was… presented. That was the only word Genia had for it. Once she’d eaten at restaurants who served their food this way, with garnishes and swirls of different sauces.
She picked a few plates. Most people were taking two or three. She had a decent feel for how much fuel she currently needed. Yosef paused in front of the sweets.
“Grab several desserts. Sugar helps you replenish mana. The Conclave issues hard candies when we’re in the field, but there’s nothing like the pastry chefs here out in the camps.”
Genia hesitated, but took two of the confectionery delights.
They settled at a table.
“So, where are you from?”
“Cauldira.” She said, holding her hand over the food she’d just stuffed in her mouth.
He grinned easily. “Husband? Children? You were a draftee, yes?”
“I am, yes, my husband was Hubert. He died about thirty years ago. We had four children. The youngest was already grown when he passed. We owned a tavern. My youngest keeps it now. But brawls and taverns go together, Hubert took too many blows to the head. The last one didn’t even bleed except a little out of his mouth.”
“So tavern dancer?”
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She smiled stiffly. “I started on the large stage. I was an actor and when the plays were musical a dancer as well. Never really a singer.” She sighed. “Then the company lost the lease on the stage and decided to go on tour…” she pursed her lips. “I stayed behind and looked around. Hubert was hiring and he even built me a little stage to dance on. I was popular in my youth, pretty.”
“I can see it.” He grinned. “Anyone tell you that you’ll de-age?”
“I… to about thirty?”
He shrugged. “Nobody waits. Longevity Serums are only ten to twelve gold and you’ll make that your first dungeon.”
She squinted at him.
“Yeah. A year ago I was a doddering old geezer. The draft is going town to town, region to region. The empire is at war on two fronts, plus the goblins. This goblin war isn’t the kind of war you read about in the histories. It’s… we don’t line up and bash our armies against each other. The army is stationed at forts in control of all the passes and fords, bridges and terrain choke points. The Conclave sends out bands to search out and destroy the enemy where they’re camped. Every few months a band of a few hundred goblins shatters themselves against one of the forts. If they get past a fort they burn farms, torture the poor villagers, destroy everything they can get their hands on. Then someone tracks them down and kills them, hopefully before they do too much damage.”
“So…” Genia frowned.
“Yeah. At least every day in the field is a battle day.” He held up his hand, 268 days. “I’ll probably stay with the corps when my geas is gone. My friends are here, it’s decent experience and every worthwhile dungeon in the empire is an Imperial Dungeon reserved for the corps. That’s what we call ourselves, by the way. It’s easier to say than conclave this and conclave that. You’ll be in a band of six to thirty, give or take. They’ll be decent enough people. Listen, do what the veterans say. Then your group will split up and form into new groups. Like… you’ll have a core of companions that move around together, getting more and more seasoned until you’re the veterans shepherding the newbies.”
Yosef kept chatting, giving her common sense advice, until their food was gone. He showed her where to return the trays to the kitchen. Then he led the way, chattering the whole time, to the towers. A hundred or more towers grew from a cobbled area near the kitchen, looking like a mad stone giant’s idea of a forest.
Genia could not see any wayfinding signs or even any symbols to differentiate the tower entrances, but Yosef led her unerringly to a certain door and up a ridiculously short set of stairs. The tower room was too large to fit inside the tower as seen from outside.
“Spatial magic?”
“Uh… I think so. The towers were here before the empire. Before any of the other buildings. I read somewhere they might have been a dungeon that popped?”
“Huh.” That did happen occasionally, a dungeon dying and leaving its insides on the landscape where it had been.
“So. Let’s get you slinging Wind Blades. Go ahead and try. Do whatever feels natural. Probably say the words. Aim that way.” He gestured vaguely.
She frowned at him, but held up her hands. “Wind Blade.” She ordered, slicing her hands in the direction he indicated. Something actually happened, a gust of pale blue fog left her fingers and dissolved in the direction she’d indicated.
“Oh. Very well done. Actually got a manifestation the first try. Ok. Did you feel the mana leave?”
She looked at him incredulously. “What?”
“Yeah, that’s fine. Just keep trying until you can’t or until you can feel the mana leaving your hands. I’m going… huh. I’m going to order a book from the library.” He moved to an odd box on the wall. “Just keep going. Oh. Count the number of tries until you get a headache or until you just know you can’t go again.”
She glared at him, but did the thing. She felt ridiculous saying the words over and over to very little result. The air magic wasn’t at all a blade. It did respond twelve times.
Then she cast a few more times to no response at all.
“You can stop. You’re out of mana. Wait a minute.”
He was reading. He kept his hand up a while. “Right. Any change in your status?”
She frowned and looked. “No. No change.”
“How many times did the spell produce a visible effect?”
“Twelve.”
“Hmm… and is your wisdom six or seven?”
“Seven.”
He snapped his fingers. “Hah. Great. Any headache?”
“None.”
“Perfect. That means your magic is preserving your mana buffer. That’s good. Eventually you’ll be able to use that last three units of mana, but for now don’t try.” He chuckled quietly. “So. What skill did you say?”
“Glaive Mastery.”
“That’s what I thought you said. You’re not getting a blade because your particular Wind Blade is not an independent mage spell, it’s a glaive spell. To use it effectively you have to be wielding your weapon.”
“I don’t have a glaive yet.”
“No. So we’re going down to the quartermaster early. Beat the rush so to speak. I’ll just send this back.” He set the book on the windowsill and it disappeared. “You can always request books from the library when you’re in town, even at the forts, just be careful to return them before you leave the place where you ordered them or you’ll get a fine. I’ll show you how at the fort. You’ll be using fort library interfaces more often than town ones.”
As always he chattered as they went. The quartermaster office was in the same wing as the cafeteria, just past the kitchen with a separate entrance.
“You’re early, Conrad.” The captain who had greeted the new recruits was standing on the customer side of the long counter.
“My trainee’s only spell is weapon reliant. Without a glaive she is going to pick up some seriously bad habits.”
The captain sighed. “Wilcox, might as well give her the whole outfit. Save time during the rush. I’m watching you.” He pointed at Yosef, then he left.
The man behind the counter whistled low. “He is not going to forget about it anytime soon.”
“Shh. This is Peerless, my trainee. Wind Dancer.”
“Oh.” Wilcox froze. “Thats different. Hey. Put your hand on the pad. I’ll see if they specified any unusual equipment.”
She reached out her hand to the now familiar sensor.
“Someone, somewhere understands the intricacies of every class. So… ah. There is a note to issue her stuff early. I was working through that message list. You’re only early because I am slow. So… huh. Uniform is a little different, it’s like a blue acrobat uniform. So… in stock already, in your size. They did have a month to prepare. Oh. Interesting. They’re issuing a bag of holding instead of a campaign backpack. Someone is expecting her to get a lot of field work in immediately. Usually they march the newbies around the forts and farms a few times before they switch to a bag of holding. I see the list. Let me pull it. If you’d waited a little longer I would already have it all in the bag of holding.” He walked away from the desk, whistling. He went into a back room which was obscured by a curtain, but Genia caught a brief glimpse of row after row of armor and supplies on neat shelves.
He came back with a cart full of supplies and a suit of armor on an armor stand. “The stand usually comes after the bag of holding, but… bag of holding. You have to see everything to sign for everything. Always check what you get against the list, otherwise you’ll end up paying for something someone shorted you. So…”
He handed Genia a list. She looked at Yosef.
“Don’t look at me. This is your gear, your issued weapon, armor and supplies. Pay attention to what you have.”
She nodded. She made a small mark next to each item as it was handed to her and as she stuffed it into her new bag of holding. When everything was issued she signed the page and handed it back. Wilcox made a production of checking for her signature and adding his own under hers.
“All set. Don’t forget to take her past the kitchen window for rations. Bag of holding means home cooking for longer.”
Yosef didn’t say anything as they left the office, ducked into a hallway and took a few turns. He knocked on the closed shutters of a window in the center of a hallway.
A harried, angry looking woman in a chef’s hat opened the window. “Yosef.” She went from scowling to grinning in a moment. “You are either brilliant or a complete idiot.” She laughed. “What’s brought you here?”
“New recruit, my trainee, had a scheduled early quartermaster visit and we stopped by to see if she could get rations early. She’s got her own BoH.”
Genia held up the bag of holding.
“And you’re hoping to fill the corners of your own bag with sweets. I see you stuffing your bag at meals. You’re supposed to return the travel plates, not refill them.”
He grinned. “How can I resist your cooking Marla?”
She laughed. “Let me see what I can come up with. We only just got the standard orders for catering the trainee rations in a week.” The window closed.
“What exactly did you do?”
He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Undermines my dignity as your mentor.”
They waited long enough that Genia was surprised nobody wandered past and told them off for loitering. Finally Marla returned with two bakery carts full of trays. One was nothing but desserts on little wooden slabs. The other had wooden boxes. Dozens of them.
“Let the girl have half of the sweets.” Marla ordered. “We have orders to provide six meals each to the new trainees, but we can do more if they have a BoH. These boxes are imperial property so turn them in at a fort when they’re empty.”
Genia took possession of the boxes of rations and half of the sweets. Her bag wasn’t even half full when she was done.
“Great. Back to the towers. Time to see the difference between popping that spell with and without the weapon as a base.”
Genia was startled by the short number of stairs again, especially when she immediately went to look out the window. The window did not show any of the other towers or the gardens. Instead there was a large empty landscape of rolling fields. The window was a lot higher in the tower than the stairs allowed.