The door at the end of the hall led straight into a barracks filled with single beds in rows, all with a metal chest at the end of them. It was exactly what Ted thought of when he thought of army billets, down to the green-brown blankets and metal framed beds. Every chest had a name on it, and it appeared that there were a dozen other men in front of him that had already found theirs. There were also three entities that were distinctly not men, but some sort of weird animal human monster hybrid, that had also found beds and were calmly sitting on them. Ted found himself staring, as was every other human in the room.
The three not-men were small, child sized by human standards, with thick, purple scales that covered most of their body. Their heads weren’t separated from their bodies by a neck, as much as their neck just became their head in the way of a snake or fish. From the base of their spine sprouted a tail, but not one long or thick enough to be useful for balance or acrobatics, just a foot long. Their face was flat, with slits for a nose, eyes that matched, and a mouth that was barely visible when closed. Their limbs were similar to humans’, though lacking in joints, seeming much more fluid, and their hands were just continued extensions with three long digits at the end. They were wearing the same pyjama style clothing as everyone else in the room.
Lizardmen, Ted called them, in his head.
They seemed to be aware of the stir they were causing, as they’d grouped together and were speaking in low tones. The other humans stood or sat in pairs or by themselves near their beds, and most eyes and heads were pointed in that direction.
It made Ted realise that even the humans were odd; there were maybe one or two ‘real humans’, but the rest were all odd variants, like the seminar presenter and Kai, with just enough differences to show them apart. But the Lizard-aliens were enough to unite them all in their intrigue.
Ted found his own bed and sat down on it, as one of the more vocal members of the humans called out towards the Lizardmen.
‘What kind of beasts are you?’ the question rang across the near silent room.
Ted winced at that. He’d spent the last couple of years trying to keep a low profile, and being in groups that called trouble to themselves was something he’d avoided. And now he was in a group of zealots, most likely the angrier ones, used to calling out whatever they viewed as a crime against the Lord, whether that meant eating the wrong food, or being a Lizardman.
‘What kind of beastss are you?’ one of the Lizardmen responded, a hiss to the esses that may have been in Ted’s head. ‘No scales, monstrously tall, no tails. How could you possibly be one of the Lord’s chosen?’
‘We were made in the Lord’s image, beast. You, clearly, were not.’ the same human retorted. Ted had spotted him now, and was sad to say that it appeared to be one of the humans from his world. He’d already got a gathering though, as three others had moved to stand by him.
Brilliant, we’ve got religious gangs already. Ted thought. And we were already a religious gang to start off with.
‘It seemsss unlikely that the Lord is a hairlesss gangly monkey, heretic. I assssume that you’re here to tesssst the true faithful.’ he heard the lead Lizardman say.
Well, he wasn’t going to get involved. The only atheist in a gang of zealots, no point in drawing attention to himself. He looked for something to distract himself with, finding nothing on the bed or around him. There was the chest at the end of his bed however. He leant over and pulled the lid open, noting that it was half full; a pile of what looked like blankets, clothes, and a document pack sat neatly in the box. Ignoring the clothes, though they did look better than the pyjamas he was wearing, he picked up the document pack, rifling through it. It reminded him of a holiday brochure; it even started off with a welcome page, but it also included a map of the camp, a schedule, some literature on the world and the fight for good and evil, and a piece on ‘Your Role in the Fight between Good and Evil; The Central Processing System’ which looked to be more like a primer on how to use the game like interface that ran this place. He stood up and tucked them under his arms, and checked the map on the second page. It had occurred to him that he had no idea of the time of day, or what they were supposed to be doing next; while the presenter had given them an overarching schedule, there’d been no timeframes on what to do now. Was it time for bed? He didn’t feel sleepy.
It was time to explore a little.
The map showed that the barracks had two exits, one that led out to a hallway filled with doors to canteens and classrooms; the other led outside to physical training and combat areas. The door to the seminar room was not on the map, but Ted tried to ignore it.
The tension in the room had turned up, as the three short Lizardmen had now stood up and were facing off against the taller humans. Ted noted that the door he needed was on the far side of the room, requiring him to walk through the conflict. That was fine. Confidence was key.
He strode through the room, not overly fast, and in a direction that made it clear that he was walking through the conflict but not engaging. Several eyes followed him as he did, including the main combatants as he murmured bright little ‘excuse mes’ as he went. No one questioned or challenged him as he did so, and he quickly found himself on the other side of the room, double doors behind a large doormat calling to him. He pushed them open, and walked into the outdoors.
The sun was up, bright enough that he had to cover his eyes as they adjusted to the new light. When he was able to see, he was surprised to find himself looking out onto a pretty standard PT area. The barracks sat on one edge of a large paved square, with two buildings either side of it; one was just an extension of the barracks, with the classrooms and cafeteria, the other, according to the map, a Quartermaster’s storage. That perked Ted’s curiosity, but he decided that avoiding people was probably the best move for now. A new recruit in his pyjamas wandering into the weapons stores was likely to draw attention and get in trouble.
Ted crossed the square, still in just his socks, remarkably un-muddied from the walk through the forest and by the travel so far. The training area was separated from the square by a wooden fence, painted white and well maintained, that went out far to either side, running along the path that split out and led to the rest of the camp. The gate wasn’t obviously locked, but Ted didn’t go through it straight away, instead resting his arms on the fence and leaning over.
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The outside of the ground was a roughly hewn but well trodden track, for running and sprint training, Ted assumed. Inside the track was an obstacle course, very similar to those from home, with things like walls to climb over, nets to climb, ropes to shimmy up, and hurdles to jump over. Though some of those hurdles looked surprisingly high. And were those boulders supposed to be carried? It seemed a bit more extreme than the army assault courses back home.
Ted caught himself there. ‘Back home’ he’d thought. He knew he’d done it earlier, looking at the people around him and thinking to himself that they were ‘humans from his world’. He was starting to accept this as reality. Was that a good thing? He’d still not come to a decision on the best way to escape if this was a coma dream, and if this somehow was real, then the best thing to do would be to accept it.
To a certain extent, that is, because this whole thing seemed absolutely insane so far. A war for Good, fighting for a God who ran things like a pyramid scheme sales promo using a selection process that seemed holier than swiss cheese? That was crazy! None of it made sense. Look how fast a fight had almost broken out. Ted wouldn’t have been surprised to see the double doors to the barracks smash open and a little Lizardman tossed out on this arse. Or his tail. He looked back, just in case. Nothing there.
He shrugged internally, and looked back at the training course. No one could run an army like this, surely. Surely not a God, or at least not an omnipotent or omniscient one. Either he was missing something, or he’d been thrust into a world run by incompetent middle managers.
Or the coma dream.
Either way.
He looked back at the training course, seeing something that interested him. Inside the assault course ring, the grounds were separated into a dozen different sections that seemed to focus on different skills and combat. One seemed to be a replication of a gym, with weight benches and squat racks, medicine balls, which didn’t really pique his curiosity. But the one next to it seemed to be filled with wooden swords, spears, and shields, with a ring in the centre clearly designed for sparring. Next to that was a shooting range, but the bows seemed to have been taken away. The next seemed to be for hand to hand combat, with standing punch bags, an actual boxing ring, and… was that a wooden training dummy for Wing Chun?
That was enough to get Ted opening the gate and crossing the running and assault course lanes to check out the centre more closely. Ted wasn’t a huge martial arts buff, but there had been a few films that had almost made him sign up to martial arts classes on the assumption that he’d become the ultimate badass. Many of those films had had a wooden dummy with spokes sticking out at angles, where the protagonist spent hours honing his technique with swift moving fists against and around it, mostly in montages. Ted had never seen one in real life, but knew that it was almost certainly the key to becoming a black belt wing chun master with a few days of work.
Each sector was contained in its own wooden fence and gate; Ted headed straight for the one with the hand to hand combat gear, finding the gate latched but not locked. Which made sense, he figured; of all the things army recruits were likely to get in trouble for, extra training was not one of them. Especially not zealous priest recruits, Ted thought to himself. Instantly he was questioning again.
Out of all the people in the world to fight for your side, why would you pick people like that? It had taken them thirty seconds alone to start arguing about who was better than the others. Frankly he doubted they were even top of the priesthoods they came from. Surely the most devout and devoted were less arseholeish than the guy who took one look at the frankly miraculous talking Lizardman next to him and called him a beast? It was a Lizardman! They don’t even exist, be amazed!
It was mindblowing. Ted was just glad that he’d left the situation, if only temporarily.
He reached the wooden dummy with the spokes, and tried to recall what he’d seen in the films. From memory, it seemed to mostly be almost slap-hitting each one, and the central post, with different parts of your hand or arms, but fast and in complicated patterns.
He tried it, throwing his arms around with occasional cuffs to the central post, and it took a whole forty five seconds before the combination of pain from smacking his knuckles against wood and the feeling of looking absolutely ridiculous overwhelmed him. He stopped.
‘Maybe they’ll give us proper training with that later.’ he muttered to himself. He took a step towards the punching bags, looking around to see if there were any boxing gloves lying around. There were not. He threw a few punches at it anyway, hoping it would relieve some of the stress and frustration that had built up so far. It did very little.
Disappointed, he left the hand combat zone, looking at some of the others that he hadn’t been able to see from outside of the area. Many of them didn’t seem to have an obvious purpose, some with deep trenches or thick walls, some hardly more than just bare ground.
The next area was the shooting range, and while there were piles of unstrung bows there, no arrows or strings had been left in the area. He wandered past it, and found himself by the melee weapon training area. He shrugged to himself. Why not?
He unlatched the gate and wandered in, walking over to a shelter that was open on one side. There were stacks of wooden weapons in boxes and barrels; spears, shields, daggers, and most other items you’d expect from any basic ‘weapons for medieval warriors’ selection. There were even some more outlandish items like scythes and what looked like a double sided sword, where a long blade came out of one end of the handle, and a shorter one out of the other. Putting down the brochures he was still carrying, Ted picked that one up, once again repeating a move that he’d seen in films, turning it in a figure of eight to make it spin, as he walked across the yard towards one of several training dummies. Before he’d made it halfway there he’d stabbed himself in his side with the upper ‘blade’. He tried again, but misjudging the length of the shorter lower sword ended up dragging it across his side with enough force to tear through the material of his weird pyjamas. He swore and dropped the weapon, taking some deep breaths. The pain was more intense than he’d expected, considering he’d been hit by a car earlier today, and had been in many scrapes throughout his tumultuous life. Though not that many as a Lollipop man, it had to be said. He breathed through the pain for a short while longer, before picking up the liability that was the double sword and chucking it back in its box.
Looking for something slightly less dangerous to himself, but something he might actually be able to use without looking like a muppet, he spotted the spears, and grabbed one.
It was long and heavy, and the shaft was rough and poorly sanded. There had been an attempt to balance it correctly, as the metal head of the spear should make it the heavier part; however these were wood, and the spear head was just a slightly chunkier, wider piece of wood. Nevertheless, it felt like something Ted could actually use.
He walked up to the dummy again, holding the spear in both hands. As he prepared to attack, he settled into a comfortable stance, strong and stable, but flexible to allow him to move if he had to. With a single move, he fired the spear into the dummy repeatedly, peppering it with piercing jabs as if it was being hit by a machine gun.
Something in his mind clicked into place, and without conscious thought he found himself moving through steps as if he’d been trained for years; a side step, a block, a blow to the knee with the bottom haft of the spear, followed by a blow to the head. Before he knew it, Ted had done a full 360 degree loop of the dummy, attacking it relentlessly from all sides whilst blocking from likely angles of attack. It came naturally, almost forcefully, as if Ted wouldn’t be able to stop even if he wanted to. The movements ended with an overhead strike onto the head of the dimmy.
‘Holy shit.’ Ted said, letting out a breath. That went better than expected. It was what he’d hoped from the Wing Chun dummy. Was he a spearman savant?
Suddenly there was a small flash of light in the top left of his vision. Ted looked up and span around to try and see what it was, but it remained there, in the top corner of his view. It had resolved into two lines, five words and a number, all outlined in red.
New Skill Learned
New Message: (1)