Edorai RP

[rspeer]

Resper the Trainee - part 2

As my platoon works day in and day out on building the city, I can actually see it taking shape around me and starting to look like something. Several families from Arete arrived last month, hoping to score some land, with dreams of getting rich off of the mining prospects of the southwest hills.

A huge wagonload of cured pork came into the city from the southwest, to feed its growing population, even though the road isn't finished yet. I hear that the pig farm was taken over and greatly expanded, to supply our city and our city alone. I fear for my family, lifelong workers on the farm, who may have been displaced as mere landless peasants.

We take our orders from our warlord -- a self-important and angry man who must have drawn the short straw to become warlord of the new recruits -- but also from a pretentious artist who just got here from Arete, when we're recruited to work on the monument. He tells us what to chisel and where, so the monument isn't just a pile of rocks anymore. He has some grand vision of what it's supposed to look like, and it's apparently not just a giant phallus. My friend Kai, a fellow trainee, was unfortunate enough to say words to the effect of "giant phallus" within earshot of the artist, and found himself with double rock-hauling duty for a week.

We're not just building the city all the time, of course. The warlords train us well in all kinds of fighting techniques, with all the more time to do so because there doesn't seem to be anyone around to fight. Our battle tactics in the end will depend on what form the barbarian threat takes. And this includes those barbarians to the west who call themselves "Hispania", who build cities in imitation of ours and practice strange rituals. We never know when we'll have to stick arrows into them to stop them from encroaching on our glorious culture. So we practice martial arts, firing arrows and swinging axes (well, shovels that we pretend are axes, because our backward city doesn't yet have anything to make axes out of), and we dream of riding majestically into battle on swift horses.

I'm apparently particularly good with the shovels. I hope they get us our axes soon, because the name I hope to make for myself isn't "Resper, Shovel-Fu Master".

 

[rspeer]

OOC: Looks like the timescale has passed my character by. Time to fast forward.

As the city flourished, the workers and tradesmen came in. The glorious monument rose even higher, and I call it "glorious" now that it's not us working on it. What followed for us recruits was what I had signed up for in the first place: years upon years of intense battle training.

There were no more shovels and basic training exercises; we trained with axes and horses, sometimes even both at the same time. (That was fun.) After ten years, I could fell a charging buck at fifty yards with an arrow. I could slice an axe through a log in one stroke. I could parry any blow directed at me and use the opportunity to hit my attacker back harder. Which was all good, because after the tenth year of training, we were deemed prepared for what was only known (in whispered tones) as The Ordeal.

Provolution himself came to tell us to prepare for The Ordeal. He said nothing of what it was; he told us only of the outcomes. Either you succeed and become a full-fledged warrior, or you die. He gave the idea that that last part wasn't even too difficult to enforce.

In the middle of the night, there was a short-lived commotion in the recruits' quarters. Each recruit was awoken to find themselves restrained by several men and blindfolded. We were then marched far away, over hills and through mud, until we were thoroughly separated and thoroughly lost. They removed my blindfold and freed my arms. I was in a treeless clearing in a valley. I could see Edorai in the distance to the east. The dim light of pre-dawn shimmered over the hills. One man handed me an unstrung bow and three arrows, said "You will know what to do", and marched off swiftly into the distance. I could see that they, unlike me, were armed to the teeth.

Without saying a word, they smeared my body with pork grease.

After five minutes, I certainly knew what to do, because I spotted two bears in the distance, walking intently toward me, intrigued by the scent. I quickly strung the bow as my training had taught me, nocked an arrow, squinted into the dim light to see the silhouette of one of the bears, and fired.

A distant roar, and a few seconds later, a thump. The distant silhouette had an arrow sticking out of its throat. The second bear regarded this with alarm, and then began to charge. I fired another arrow and felled it as well. My sense of pride nearly distracted me from noticing the third and fourth bears, converging from two different directions.

Three arrows. Four bears. Great. I had a feeling they planned it that way.

I fired the remaining arrow, now sweating profusely. This shot was sloppier; the bear staggered for about ten more yards before dropping, but meanwhile the fourth was nearly upon me. I was defenseless and naked. Almost by instinct, I parried the bear's swipe with its claws as if it were a martial arts exercise and used the moment of tempo to slam my fist into its head. A deafening roar. It reared up to lunge at me. I swung my leg around just as it lunged, and my foot connected with its face. Now the bear was disoriented, and I slammed all of its vital points as hard as I could and broke two of its legs for good measure. Now it was all over but the struggling. I finally crushed the bear's windpipe, and in a minute it was dead.

It was clear what the next step was. I retrieved a rock, sharpened its edge on another rock for a while, and severed the bear's head. I held the head aloft as I climbed the hills back toward Edorai. The animals wisely left me unmolested as I returned, blood-soaked and triumphant, into the rising sun.

It was Provolution himself who stood there to greet the returning recruits, which were about half the number I had remembered. I felt a momentary pang of loss for the ones who did not return.

"Greetings, men", he said. "I must inform you now that you are not to be warriors in the service of Edorai."

A stifled gasp from all of us. No one dared question such a high-ranking warlord, but we were alarmed. Were we being returned to a life of menial labor? Had we failed outright and been condemned to death?

"An Edorai warrior must be an Edorai warrior from birth," he continued. "You, the first generation, the successful, the strong, you are to raise the warriors who will fight in the service of Edorai." And with that, his servants ushered us to the volcano, where a line of Yassan women awaited us.

We became the trainers of the next generation. We raised our sons to be strong and fearless. We raised our daughters to be wise enough to marry an Aretian philosopher and get out of the city.

My son, Resper II, I present these writings to you as you come of age. You shall write as I have taught you, to record the history of our line, and you shall also perform heroic deeds for the Aretian nation that are worth writing about.

And before you go back to the training ground, bring your father some more ale, would you?

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

/ooc Very well written

 

[w00ter]

rspeer, you are a great writer! You made my eyes happy!

 

[Diamondeye]

Some time after the coronation of the second king of the Arkadian line, Dutchfire, Diamondeye, the head of faith visits Edorai to seek architectural inspiration to the city of New Giruvegan. He is deeply insulted by the city monuments rather vulgar shaping, but he studies the training facilities with great eager. He decides to stay for while and freshen his fighting skills up after the busy times since Aelbeorhts sickness struck. He walks around the city in his simple white robe, looking for one of the warlords to ask for help in this matter...