I was revelling in the fact I could lay in bed today, it was my rest day, my day off, and gods I thought I deserved a lie in. No matter that I was awake still at five in the morning, living with five men who all got up at the same time meant there was never any chance of me sleeping through them getting up - which for a group of high levelled knights seemed to still involve an unexpected amount of losing things, swearing and falling over furniture. I was surprised though how quickly I had become used to it. Not that it was always five knights in the squad room every morning. Sir Micah and Sir Yale were both married and as such had leave to spend their evenings with their families on the nights when they were not on duty the next morning (about half of them - it was just us apprentices who were on duty six days a week).
Sir Yale was married to a human woman, unusual for a beastkin and had a staggering six children ranging from one grown up son, who owned a bakery, to a two year old girl, who he had brought into meet me the previous morning; a precocious child with her father’s ears but otherwise completely indistinguishable from a human. Still the idea of mixed marriages was so alien to me I hadn’t even realised different species of sapient could breed with each other. When I eventually worked up the courage, and the words to not sound like a bigot, to ask Sir Yale about it he explained that no one really knew why it was possible but the best theory was that once we were all one species and that magic had been used to produce our differences so that physiologically we were still rather more similar than our outward appearances led us to believe. Whether that original species was one of the seven known sentient species or a now vanished one was anyone’s guess. To someone who thought I’d had a pretty good education I was now realising how limited my knowledge really was compared to even someone with a fairly standard Malinese education - at least in some areas like the natural sciences.
I was lost in thought, luxuriating in getting to remain in the warmth of my blankets; even though it came at the expense of missing breakfast I figured that was worth it after the week I had. Let’s just say stamina training featured heavily, our performance was expected to improve each week, or else, you guessed it, more stamina training. Having said that, I thought it probably would, the training although exhausting seemed like it had been designed to just edge you up to what you thought were your limits and then forcing you to just take one extra step. In that way we improved without ever pushing too far and actually breaking. I could tell all this because it was already showing on my character sheet, training didn’t give you any additional XP but it did seem to help level up skills and improve attributes directly, as my sheet currently looked like this:
Name:
Age:
Gender:
Race
Class:
Neesh
14
Ambiguous
(the enquirer will see what they expect)
Human
Scout
Title:
Attributes:
Condition:
Character:
Alignments:
n/a
160cm
55kg
Shoe Size 5
Blood: Type O
[Perfect Health] + boosts apply
Dominant traits:
Fair minded
Stubborn
Survivor
Ethics: 63/100
Order: 35/100
Selflessness: 55/100
Level:
HP:
Mana:
Stamina:
Regen Rates
12
(3500 XP to LvUP)
135/135
21/21
72/72
HP: 1pt/hour
Mana: 1pt/hour
Stamina: 2.25pt/min
Strength:
Dexterity:
Intelligence:
Wisdom:
Luck:
16
16
16
16
17
A new road lies before you. Time to see where it might lead
Skills (9 max)
Skill LV
Rarity
Description
Requirements
Literacy
10
Uncommon
You can read and write, that’s not as common as we’d like
Reading checks: +10
Intelligence >10
Numeracy
15
Rare
You have been taught actual mathematics rather than adding plus you’re a bit of a whizz at it
Mathematics Checks: + 15
Intelligence >10
Archery
8
Common
You can shoot straight, on a calm day
Equip: Short Bows, Composite Bows, Small Crossbows, Quiver
Accuracy Checks: +3
Damage: + 3
Strength > 5
Stamina 1/shot
Must have weapon and ammunition in inventory
Linguist
12
Rare
You can argue with even more people you meet
Language Checks: + 12
Intelligence > 9
Luck > 10
Melee Weapons [Basic]
2
Common
You know which end is the pointy end.
Equip: Knives, Short Swords, Clubs, Bastard Swords
Damage: +1
Strength > 10
Must have weapon in inventory
Wayfinding
1
Rare
You know where you are and where you’re going
Orientation Checks: + 4
Wisdom > 10
Intelligence >12
Hunting
1
Common
It’s eat or be eaten sometimes and you’re determined not to be lunch.
Damage: x2 damage vs animals
Stealth Checks: +2 vs animals
Ranged Weapon must be equipped.
Dexterity > 10
Sneak
1
Rare
You can move silently, like a shadow. Just try not to sneeze.
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Stealth Checks: +3
Dexterity > 10
Tracking
1
Rare
You know how to follow your nose. Just try not to sniff out trouble.
Find Checks: +4
Intelligence > 12
Wisdom >10
Acrobatics
3
Common
You can jump and twirl with the grace of a cat.
Dodge Checks: + 2
Falls Damage: - 3
Dexterity > 11
My stamina had increased by seven points and my stamina’s regen rate had improved by a quarter point. I had also levelled up my melee weapons and acrobatics skills - I was disappointed not have raised my archery skill level but I was already a lot higher levelled in that skill and I guessed that training probably had diminishing returns and this was possibly the golden time for levelling up skills and attributes through it. Besides, I was smart enough to know that the primary purpose of sword and archery training wasn’t to improve skill levels but for us to start to get experience of using the weapons in combat situations in a safe way - it was giving us the grounding so that we would be able to make decisions in battle rather than flail around in a panic and that was what would do more to save our lives than extra skill level.
That being said, I was pleased with myself. I was also pleased with my skills as matchmaker - I had extended my lunch invitation to Fig as well, and after the initial awkwardness, Alex, Fig, Dene and I actually found we did in fact all like each other and had carried on eating lunch together the rest of the week. Still I was surprised when Alex suggested we meet up on our rest day so they could show me the sights of Malin, which was the plan for later today. I was excited about it - I had wanted to be able to explore the city, and although I was now part of it in many ways, I had seen very little of it. Still we weren’t meeting until midday, I thought, as the noises outside my bunk faded away, and I fell back into a light snooze.
----------------------------------------------------
Several hours later I was washed, well rinsed as I didn’t actually own any soap (hopefully that could be something I fixed today), and dressed. Dressed in my shirt, which hung so loosely off my thin frame that I had no need to worry about my secret being revealed, and breeches as I owned no other clothes, that was also something I’d have to fix today, I had eight marks stuffed deep in my pocket and I was back outside the City Hall - the meeting point agreed on as it was the only landmark the others thought I’d be able to find given my complete lack of knowledge of Malin.
Fig was the first to arrive, he was dressed in some style of baggy light blue trousers I’d never seen before and a loose pale red shirt cut so his wings fell naturally out of it. He waved hello and then, knowing it was something I was intensely curious about, and also off limits during training, he opened his wings and flew the remaining distance to me a few metres off the ground. His wings moved so fast they became a blur and gave off a soft buzzing sound.
“Don’t ask me to do that again or you’ll be carrying me the rest of the day,” he said.
“That was amazing, you looked awesome,” I said, grinning.
“Thanks, I just wish it wasn’t so tiring, it is kind of fun but on a practical level it’s for emergencies only.”
“Yeah, can see that, still if I could fly it would have really helped me when,” I stopped myself, suddenly remembering I was about to blab about one of the things I could never talk about.
“When what?”
“Oh you know all those times I’ve fallen from high spaces,” I said trying to make it seem like I was cracking a (bad) joke.
“Yeah, I can imagine you having had a few of those,” phew he had bought it, “tell you what though, I remember once falling out a tree and you know it never even occurred to me until I was rubbing my bruised arse having landed on the ground that I could have flown.”
“Yeah I guess nothing beats stupid,” I said.
“Speaking of which,” Fig said, pointing at a grinning Dene who was just emerging out of the crowd. Since I’d met him Dene had revealed himself to be as daft as a brush. Not that he wasn’t clever and skilled, he was and our first conversation had shown me he was no idiot; but his head was so full of thoughts, most of them about swordsmanship, that he didn’t seem to be able to organise them properly. Over just the first week I’d found him wandering the halls aimlessly, having forgotten he was meant to be going to a class, twice! Fig said he'd been chatting to him and then he’d just completely spaced out during a conversation, ignoring Fig for about two minutes, before rejoining the world only to start asking Fig about some swordsmanship technique that must have been what distracted him.
Anyway, Dene I saw was dressed in what I’d come to think of already as archetypal Malinese dress, sand coloured breeches, soft brown ankle boots, a white shirt and an open but colourful waistcoat on top - in this case a bright green.
“Morning lads,” Dene said cheerily, “Neesh, why are you in your uniform?”
“I don’t actually own any other clothes,” I admitted, “I was hoping you could help me out with that actually?”
“Neesh, I’m sorry, I’ve not got any spare clothes on me,” Dene said.
“No!” I said hurriedly, thinking Dene might actually be an idiot, “I meant help with buying some.”
“Well look no further, your saviour has arrived,” a booming cheerful voice proclaimed behind me.
“Hi Alex,” I said without turning around.
“Yep we definitely need to do something about your clothing situation Neesh, you can’t be wandering around off duty dressed in Militia uniform, you’ll never have any fun like that,” he continued, stepping properly into our little circle.
Alex, in everything, was as over the top as you could possibly be, his personality, his turn of phrase, his exceptional abilities, and to no one’s surprise also his dress sense. He was wearing a long robe of white and blue silk woven in patterns that resembled the foaming energy of a wild mountain stream, secured by a dark blue belt, subtly decorated with a repeating flower pattern. It was both the dress of a noble, a wealthy noble, and of a wild extrovert.
I kind of understood, from what I’d gathered from our lunchtime conversation over the last week, he had spent his entire childhood living up to his family’s expectations that he needed to grow up in the model of his uncle. Now he had finally joined the Militia and had been accepted into the first company, demonstrating he was on the path to achieving that, some of the pressure on him had lifted and joining a company had gotten him out of the family home and able to be independent for the first time in his life. I recognised all this from my old life - he had many more choices than I had been given - but he had led a restricted and controlled life. In many ways, Fig, who came from a prosperous merchant family, had grown up with the most freedom to define his own path; at some point I’d have to find out why the shy boy had wanted to become a knight.
“Well what do you suggest?” I asked, returning to the conversation.
“Don’t ask him,” Fig interrupted, “look at him - where he shops you’re not going to be able to afford on an apprentice’s wage. I know a few decent places though.”
Alex shrugged as if to say fair enough and it was decided that was our mission for the afternoon - to buy me some clothes. Fig led us out of the city centre and into the south of the city. As we travelled Dene and Fig pointed out the bridges that crossed the rivers that divided the city: the Bridge of Souls, the Fallen Bridge, Faithful Jen and the Old Man. We crossed the Bridge of Souls onto the large river island which formed Temples Rest ward, and was where all the chief temples to the gods worshipped in the city were to be found, we then crossed Faithful Jen and entered Traitor’s Hill ward, a much more pleasant part of the city than its name suggested, where streets of houses and small shops were interspersed by parks and fountain squares.
It was to one of those shops that Fig led us, a tailor’s and cloth merchant’s, the owner was a stunningly beautiful pix lady, she had violet hair, which tumbled down in soft waves over a full figure and alabaster white skin, the boys, apart from Fig who clearly knew her, were struck dumb and even I found myself a bit tongue tied as I explained what I needed and what my budget was. She was good at her job, within half an hour I had been relieved of six marks, and was carrying a neatly wrapped parcel containing some of the baggy trousers Fig seemed to like, in green and mauve, two more white loose white shirts, in a much more casual style than my uniform shirts, a pair of sand coloured suede soft boots, and blue and red waistcoats. I was also wearing a light jacket, a dusty pink in shade, similar in cut to my uniform jacket. They were all stock items so none of them were precisely tailored to me, but as I found with my uniforms, the Malinese system of approximate sizes worked a lot better than the Triestian ones of well fitting clothes for the nobility and whatever you could get for everyone else.
As far as the boy’s were concerned that concluded the business part of the day, and back under Alex’s direction we headed back towards the centre of the city.
“If there’s one place you need to become acquainted with as a young man in Malin,” Alex said as we walked, “it’s the Leaping Hare.”To my mild surprise both Fig and Dene immediately agreed.
“Ok, what is the Leaping Hare?” I asked.
“A bar,” Dene said, of course it was.
Inwardly sighing at the priorities of boys, but also content, I simply said, “well lead on.”
I was actually doing them an injustice though. Yes the Leaping Hare was a bar, nestled in the central square of Crane Heights ward, but it was only a bar in the sense that somewhere in the square was a physical building with the sign of a leaping hare, because what it was in reality was the whole square. Tables from the bar had colonised the whole square so it was a chaotic and raucous mess of Malinese eating, drinking, fighting and courting, in a space barely a hundred metres square. It was the city at its finest and its worst and I loved it at first sight.
“Let’s grab that table,” Alex shouted above the noise, having spied one somehow and led us swiftly over to claim it. We relaxed into our seats, each of our tables had a piece of wood like flagpole in the centre, Fig leant over and fixed a scrap of cloth he had been carrying in his pocket to a piece of rope attached to the pole and it became clear that a flagpole, of sorts, was actually what it was. In the crowded square the only way the bar’s staff could see who wanted serving was by raising a flag above the throng. I glanced round and saw various rags, items of clothing, even jewellery being used as flags.
After a couple of minutes a waiter managed to shove his way through, all the staff were distinguished by the bright red waistcoats they all wore, and we ordered a pitcher of beer and skewers of cumin lamb and bowls of rice to soak up the beer. Whilst we were waiting we talked.
“Right, it’s been a week, we’ve all gotten to know each other and all that,” Alex began, “and I think it’s time we were all honest with each other, right Neesh.”
“Um,” I said, suddenly shrinking back in fear.
“It’s time to recognise something that’s been staring us all in the face and none of us have said anything,” he said, his voice rising, “but no longer!”
Oh gods I thought, somehow he knows I’m a girl doesn’t he.
“Neesh, it’s quite possible, you are the shortest knight apprentice ever accepted into the Militia,” he announced bombastically, and the two others burst out laughing.
It took me a few moments to realise he was taking the piss out of me. “Hey,” I said indignantly, “there are loads of dwarves smaller than me.”
“Dwarfs don’t count,” Alex declared, “no one is expecting a dwarf to grow more than a hundred and sixty centimetres. What are you Neesh one hundred and fifty, fifty five at push?”
“A hundred and sixty,” I admitted.
“So you’re the size of a tall dwarf, not a man - case closed,” Alex laughed.
“I’m still growing, and what about you, mister fancy-not-wearing-any-pants,” I retorted. The beer had arrived and I’d taken a big gulp when I thought I was about to be outed.
“He’s got you there,” Fig laughed, “what are you wearing? Your bathrobe?”
“This,” Alex said, feigning haughtiness, “is the very height of fashion don’t you know.”
“Well thank god I’m not fashionable,” Dene said.
“That much is obvious,” Alex said, “besides I like to get some air flow down there.”
“Dressed like that, it’s the only airing they’re going to get,” Fig said, it took me a few moments to realise that like many of my conversations with the boys that they had once again turned to talking about their genitalia. Still as the conversation descended further into the gutter there was an easy camaraderie between us that was comforting in a way I’d never experienced before. They were despite the mockery, kind souls, all three of them, and in our way we were all outcasts. Dene as one of the city’s (admittedly better off) working poor amongst knights, me the overlooked princess masquerading as a poor country boy, Fig a pix in a predominantly human city and Alex a gregarious force of nature made to play the part of a polite young lordling until now.
“Ok, serious questions now,” said Fig, “I mean I think I trust you all well enough and if we’re getting to know each other I guess these are fairly important things for us to know about each other so we can properly have each other’s backs.”
“Way to kill the mood,” Dene said, but he was joking.
“I think I know what you’re getting at, fine by me if it is,” Alex said. Well good for him as I didn’t.
“Alright, here they are, don’t answer them if you really don’t want to. What’s your class and level and why did you want to join the militia.”
I hadn’t realised that the topic of classes and levels hadn’t come up already but I didn’t see any harm in sharing, the taboo was on using identify to find out the information not on discussing things like classes and levels themselves; and here was Fig about to answer the question I had wanted to know about.
“I’ll go first,” Fig said, “ I’m a level eighteen Fey Knight, it means I’ve got a handful of magecraft abilities to use in battle, which you know given I’m a pixie makes sense right?”
“Yep,” Alex said, suddenly more serious than his usual self, “and any sort of magecraft is a huge advantage in battle. So why did you want to join the militia.”
“Well, to be honest it just seemed like what else was I going to do with a class like Fey Knight than join the militia or the auxiliaries and if that was my choice, why not try to become a knight at least. I mean I’ll be honest, Fey Knight was not a class I really wanted - I guess I ended up having to defend myself in too many fights growing up and I had wanted to study to become a mage and had learnt a few simple spells. I just guess my system took all that in and went and gave me Fighter as a class set but with a few unusual magic class options. So here I am.”
I felt sorry for Fig, the system put you into a class set on your tenth birthday, and that was that (usually, as I said I’d never heard about anyone else being given the opportunity to change class set before). He was hardly the first person I’d heard of unhappy with what they’d been assigned. Yes, personality and your own interests were taken into account but they didn’t trump the most important factor which was the experience of your life so far. Hence, however as much as nine year old Neesha had wanted to be a falconer I was never going to have been offered the beastmaster class set.
“Makes a lot of sense,” Dene agreed, “As for me, well I’m a level seventeen sword dancer, also a fighting class, specialises in using agility and dexterity over power.”
“Yeah I got that,” Alex grinned.
“Thanks,” Dene grinned back, “and I guess I always wanted to be a Knight, since I was a kid, and I did everything I could to train to be one since I was about six years old.”
“I’m glad your hard work paid off,” I said, honestly it was just what I was expecting Dene to say, his obsession with swordsmanship and knighthood were evident from anyone who spent more than a few minutes in his company and despite his tendency for obliviousness he was also clearly a very determined and driven soul.
“Well, I’m a level nineteen paladin,” Alex said, to no one’s surprise, “and really I didn’t have a choice, I was always going to join the militia and it took me until I was thirteen to realise that although that was annoying the militia was actually the best chance I had of living the life I actually want.”
I was amazed my reading of Alex has been as accurate as it was, here he was almost confirming my every thought. I guess we recognised our own. Now, however, it was my turn to speak and I couldn’t exactly tell them the truth. Not yet, one day I hoped, but not yet. It felt like a betrayal, here the three boys were laying out their hearts and I couldn’t bring myself to do the same, but really I had only known these boys a few days and whilst that was enough that I trusted them to be decent, kind people, it didn’t mean I could trust them with my secrets.
“I’m a level twelve scout, Alex already knew that but knowing him he’s probably forgotten,” I said, as Alex tipped his mug at me with a sly wink that left me none the wiser if he was admitting he had forgotten or indicating he hadn’t, oh well not worth dwelling on I thought as I continued, “and well I was heading here thinking I could find some work when I was attacked by bandits, somehow I survived that and I stumbled into the city starving and overwhelmed. One of the auxiliaries guarding the gate assumed I was here for the trials and gave me a flyer about it and not really knowing anything about it I just thought it seemed like fate.” That was all true without actually being the truth, it was the best I could do.
“Gods Neesh,” Fig said, breaking the silence that had just descended on our table, “you must have Felix’s own luck to think you, barely of a qualifying level, waltzed into the city not knowing what the militia trials were, on trials day, and then somehow went and passed the trials - seriously!”
“He’s right,” Dene said, “you must have used up all the luck the gods are going to give you for your whole life in a day right there.” If only he knew all the luck I’d gotten since I stuck my head out of that little partition window in my carriage!
“I think you’re right Dene,” Alex agreed, “I mean look who you’ve ended up with for friends.”
Yeah they were right, I was pretty damn lucky.
“Well on that note, my friends, “ I said, raising my recently refilled mug, “a toast, to good friends and good fortune.”
“Good friends and good fortune!” the three shouted back.