“There is no valor in death. There is no honor in a defeat. History is written by the victors. Failure to recognize this is a weakness, and all weakness is punished.”
—The Necessity, Valtoris Blackstar
Unlike the unfriendly send-off that they’d received on the ship, there were people waiting to greet them once they stepped out of the circle and got over the initial shock.
Again, Sylvas had been fully expecting Ardent in their shining white armor, but it seemed like that was reserved for the people out on the frontlines, fighting Eidolons. There were two older people, a female human and a male fiend dressed in simple robes that might originally have been grey but were now thoroughly stained with red from the sand or dust or whatever they were walking through. The air tasted of iron, now that Sylvas was actually breathing, that might have explained the red tint to everything.
“Recruits, fall in.” The woman took a step forward while the fiend hung back, marking something off on his slate. “This will be your home until you graduate into one of the branches of the Ardent. It takes some getting used to, but you will get used to it. Eventually.”
She spun on her heel and started walking down an indent in the dunes that might have been a path, the fiend fell into step behind her, and after a quick glance to one another Sylvas and Kaya took off at a trot to keep up with them.
“This is Administrator Mengrammon, I am Instructor Aurea. For the duration of your stay here, you will be in my charge. If you have a problem, you bring it to your instructor. If you have a problem with an instructor, you bring it to me.” Aurea didn’t even glance back to make sure they were keeping up. “Administrator Mengrammon deals with the running of facilities here, do not disturb him unless you want to know just how badly the person that controls your ration, duty and bunk can ruin your life.”
As they emerged from between those first dunes, the vastness of the Ardent base on Strife made itself known. Between them and the dense thicket of fallen buildings was a chasm deep enough and wide enough to swallow Telas Norn whole without it touching the sides. It stretched off towards the distant horizon where the sun burned red through the clouds, whether it was rising or setting, Sylvas had no idea. But to their left rose a vast wall of stone, not a fallen building like the rest, but raw rock jutting up out of the choking rust colored dust. At first it was just a ridge that had been hidden from sight beyond the heaped dunes, but soon the dust fell away and the incredible height of it became known. The height of it was almost enough to give Sylvas vertigo, and he’d lived and worked in the tallest tower on Croesia for most of his life. Those fallen distant buildings that Sylvas had thought so huge just a moment ago would have been dwarfed by this natural cliff. Not that it was easy to tell, given how much of everything was submerged in the dust.
Aurea had paused long enough for them to get over their initial awe, then pressed on. “I don’t know where you came from, and unless it’ll somehow impact your duties, I do not want to know. I just need you to obey the simple rules that I lay out for you so that you can survive until graduation.”
As they carried on in the lee of the cliff, Sylvas began to recognize that what he’d taken for pits and faults in the wall were intentional carvings. Swirling patterns completely unfamiliar to him scratched into the face of the stone, punctuated by perfect square indentations that he realized with a start were open windows or entryways. The stone itself was grey and dead, but the red dust had imbedded itself in the surface, wedging into the cracks and crevasses and giving the cliff its distinctive decoration. He wouldn’t have even turned to notice the buildings coming into sight along the cliff’s base if it hadn’t had been for the sudden shiver that ran through him as they crossed the invisible ward-line around the claimed territory.
“There are no restrictions to your movements, you are free to travel the planet as you see fit. You will notice, however, that the majority of students remain on campus, behind the wards. This is not a coincidence.” She paused in her steady stroll, looking their way once more. “There are dangers on any Relic World, and Strife is no exception. You are free to make bad decisions, we only hope that you learn from them.”
At a glance, Sylvas would have guessed that the whole world was dead. It wasn’t as if anything could grow in the choked earth, which meant that anything that did survive out there would have been bereft of nutrition. When she spoke about dangers, he had to assume that they were discussing something more esoteric than the predators that had haunted the wild places of Croesia. He knew that this world had been destroyed by an Eidolon, but it wasn’t as though it was still stomping around. He’d have to find some other student and pump them for information about whatever threats were meant to be out there.
The buildings that the Ardent had claimed for their training camp could not have been more different from the distant toppled towers of steel and stone. There was a degree of care and effort put into the construction that would have made the artisans of home ashamed. Complex crenellations and frescoes covered every exposed wall of the buildings. Once they might have been things of true beauty that people came from all over to see, now they were ruins. Whatever beauty they might have once possessed destroyed by the violence that had sundered some of them into pieces and knocked others askew. Slowly but surely, Sylvas was seeing through the optical illusion of Strife. It looked as smooth and even as the surface of any planet he’d ever walked – an admittedly short list of worlds – but that was only because of the levelling effect of the dust laying on top of everything. The stone below the earth where these buildings had been anchored had been smashed and shattered, knocked off kilter by tectonic forces that he couldn’t even conceive of.
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“Your lessons will be conducted primarily in the central temple complex,” Aurea pointed to the largest of the intact buildings. It was still missing a whole wing on the side facing away from the cliff, and it was set at an off camber, just slightly tilted from being upright. It rose like a spire to almost a quarter of the cliff’s height, and here and there amongst the caked on red dust that clogged its intricately carved outer surfaces there were glints of white polished marble not yet sanded away to nothing.
Sylvas eyes turned to follow where Aurea’s hand pointed, but his mind was buzzing with everything that they’d seen so far. She gestured vaguely away from the buildings to the dunes towards the ravine. “Live training will take place in the field beyond the wards, your safety is not guaranteed in any scenario.”
It should have felt dangerous, to be doing their training out next to such a sudden drop-off, but there was so much space all around them, completely devoid of people, devoid of anything really, that Sylvas didn’t think they’d ever feel constrained.
“Affinity testing is conducted in outbuilding four, outbuildings one through three are storage and supplies, speak to Quartermaster Chul if you need anything and she’ll be happy to direct you. Anything on Strife is yours for the taking if it helps your training, but the Quartermaster prefers to keep her stock-lists up to date.”
The outbuildings were all vast edifices of carved stone that would have made a fine and stately home for any of the high lords of Croesia, were it not for their terrible state of disrepair. They were slung lower than the temple, but Sylvas struggled to think of anything that wouldn’t have looked squat next to that spire. Around their sides red dust had heaped up, sometimes almost as high as the second story. Here and there, glints of metal showed through the cracked walls and tumbledown roofs where the new arrivals had thrown up some hasty patches and shoring to keep them upright. “Outbuildings five and up are mixed purpose, some of your lessons might take you there, but not all of them have been fully reclaimed, your safety is not guaranteed if you choose to explore them.”
Even within the wards that the Ardent had laid down, it sounded like there were still dangers. Admittedly, they were more likely to be problems of crumbling architecture rather than rampaging Eidolons, but it did put things into perspective. Perhaps the danger out in the dunes wasn’t any creature, but simply the instability of what was hidden underneath them. If those great towers out beyond the chasm were the norm for this world, it would be easy enough to step above a window somewhere out there and be sucked down into a ruin when the dust gave way.
Finally Aurea came to a halt just as they reached the outer edges of the buildings, gesturing towards the cliff-face itself. “You’ll be billeted underground in the necropolis, it doesn’t sound very friendly, but once you’ve seen the dust-storms sweeping through you won’t mind the company of the dead so much.”
Kaya had been blessedly quiet throughout the hike down, but now she piped up. “What’s that other building over there?”
It was another tower, similar to the primary temple but shorter and slung further out between the cliff and the rest of the campus. The lower floors were blocky and looked like they’d been reinforced with some modern construction that made it stand out from the rest of the ruins. “As you’re both Infantry recruits don’t need to worry about that building, its primary use is for those who have already been transferred to the naval service as well as those selected for officer cadet training. They both have a much more intensive academic workload and as such need a different environment for study. Perhaps if either of you distinguish yourselves during your training, you’ll find yourselves transferred there, but until then, I’d suggest steering clear unless you’re invited.”
“I see, thank you instructor,” Kaya replied afterwards, her expression taking a bit of a thoughtful look as she continued to stare in the direction of the building.
The next notable moment after that was when Mengrammon abruptly turned to look at them as they were walking and snapped out a quick spell, almost prompting Sylvas to instinctively cast a shield. Fortunately though he was able to stop his hands from rising at the last second when he realized it was just a simple scrying spell. One that unlike the other Kaya had taught him he was able to see as well.
Name: Kayagrah Ormbjorn Runemaul
Species: Meteoric Dwarf
Health: 100%
Mana: 88%
First Circle Embodiment: Steelflesh
First Circle Paradigm: Clockmind
Affinity: Undiscovered
Strength: E1
Resilience: E7
Speed: F5
Potency: F9
Focus: E0
Regeneration: F9
Name: Sylvas Vail
Species: Human
Health: 94%
Mana: 281%
First Circle Embodiment: Arterium Arcanum
First Circle Paradigm: Clearmind
Affinity: Undiscovered
Strength: F1
Resilience: F2
Speed: F1
Potency: E2
Focus: E9
Regeneration: E9
“Everything looks good,” the administrator declared simply before picking up speed away from them without any further acknowledgement, very clearly heading off to attend to whatever duties was next on his schedule.
Then it was Aurea’s turn to give the two of them another glance over before motioning on ahead. “Your first task is to report to Quartermaster Chul for uniforms, then to head straight to the temple to catch up to your classes for the day, when you have time check your slates for dormitory assignments. You can get settled in after the day’s done.”
“Er, what time should we start?” Sylvas asked, almost leaving the question there before suddenly remembering himself. “Ma’am.”
“Now, recruit.” Aurea replied as she fixed Sylvas with a stare. “And I’d run if I were you. Sunset is in eighteen minutes; that’s when your first class starts.”
Kaya had her slate out and was frantically flicking through the text on the screen trying to locate the quartermaster, so she missed the slightest hint of a sly smile on Aurea’s face as she sent them off.
“Welcome to Strife.”