A soldier's life: Avoris Salway

[[sage]]

Name: Avoris Salway
Age: 20
Sex: Male
Nation: Turril
Rank: Recruit
TP: 0

Stats:
HP: 45/45
FP: 35/35
WP: 20/20

Str: 30
Agi: 25
End: 25
Mnd: 20

Skills:
Lance (1)
Longsword (2)
Dual Wield (2)
Dodge (1)
Light Armor (2)
Light Mount (2)

Equipment
-Clothes
-Brown Cloak
-Longsword (Dmg: 5-10)
-Lance (Dmg: 2-8 X2 on charge)
-Riding Horse
----
You set out from your home on horseback, sword and lance prepared to defend your fellow brothers and sisters of turril. Whistling a cheerful song, you ride to where you know a gathering of your fellows is going to occur to help fend off the Velazian empire.

After riding for around 30 minutes, you find the place where you were told to meet. There's almost 50 others, about 35 men about your age, 10 women your age and a couple boys of 15 or so. An older man, whom you recognize as a veteran soldier called Bruce stands up in front of all of you. He is most known for defeating almost 25 Velazian soldiers to allow some townsfolk from a neigboring village escape, before making it away himself. He begins to speak.

"Welcome fellow kinsman of Turril. We meet here today in order to defend our nation from the threat of Velazia. Our brothers and sisters watch the borders in forts all along the borders, harrassing the soldiers who attempt to enter our lands. As of now, we have not had many concentrated attacks against us, due to Ronae and Zudan taking up more of Velazia's time than we do.

However, we have to be vigilant, and watch the borders. Since the Empire is so much larger than us, we have to fight to win, in anyway we can. We can use our knowledge of the area to our advantage, and fight from the shadows, hit and run style. Several of our border forts have been suffering in lack of men lately, and you have your choice of where to go. All of them need men, so all training you get will be on the battlefield, for the first time.

There are four forts in need at the moment.

Donnus: One of the Forts defending the grassland farms, not enough men and gets fairly regular attacks on it.

Wolur: The smallest of the four, it has very few people defending it, but is currently not well known to Velazia.

Gray: It's in the worst position of all, having not enough men, but getting a lot of attacks.

Oakheart: Not lacking in men, but simply in a place where it gets the most concentration of enemy attacks."

Which one do you want to go to?

[Prince Toad]

Gray. Help where help's needed.

[[sage]]

"Now, those who want to go Oakheart, stand over there." He points. "Gray, over there" He points to a small clearing." And points to two other places for the other two forts.

"I will be leading those who wish to go to Gray back there. I will provide instructions for you all to get to the other three forts. Those going with me, wait for a few minutes and talk among yourelves. I'm going to give them instructions."

You look at the others going with you. 20 others, 15 men and 5 of the women. All of them seem to be about your age, give or take a couple years.

They sort of split into groups, apparently preexisting from what you can tell. Two people besides yourself seem to not have anyone they know, a young man and a young woman. They start to talk to one another, and then notice you're alone and come over towards you.

The young man is a tall skinny guy. He has short dark hair, and is cleanshaven. He has a spear on his back, but other than that isn't carrying anything.

The young man speaks. "Hey. Can't believe all of this is happening. Never thought I'd be here, but its getting so bad recently.

The girl replies "Ya. My brother joined the military a couple months ago, and i missed him, so I decided to join to be with him again."

The young man asks "Why did you come?"

[Prince Toad]

Avoris: I can ride and fight, and my country needs me. What better reason is there?

[[sage]]

(Forgot to describe the girl. She's on the short side, pretty in a modest kind of way, long black hair, blue eyes. She carries a bow on her back.

The young man nods in agreement. "Good answer. I'm Sam Degan."

The girl says "I'm Katie Pyrin. Nice to meet both of you."

Sam "And you are?"

[Prince Toad]

Avoris: Avoris Salway, pleased to meet you. My horse here's called Proud Bolt. Pride in our nation, and Bolt... well, you'll see when we fight. Anything we're supposed to be doing now?

[[sage]]

Sam shakes his head. "We're just waiting for Bruce to be done instructing the others. I suppose he wanted us to make friends among ourselves.

Katie says "He's coming back."

Bruce clears his throat and speaks up "Let us leave for Fort Gray. It's a two day journey on foot. I see a few of you have horses. Well that's good. You'll take turns riding point, and rear and sideguard."

The other groups begin to leave in different directions.

Katie asks "Could I ride double with you? You can teach me to ride and in return I'll teach you to use a bow. My father was an expert marksman and I've learned well from him."

[Prince Toad]

Avoris: Certainly. Maybe once we've taught each other, we can even try to learn to shoot from horseback. I'd be grateful for the company and the new skill. Sam, if you'd like to learn, I can try to teach both of you, though with one horse it'll be tough. We'll practice on the way-- maybe they'll let us practice at the fort, though I doubt there'll be extra horses. Come on.

I'll help her up, then hop up myself.

[[sage]]

Sam "Sure. Sounds good."

The two days pass by without anything going wrong. You learn to shoot a bow with decent accuracy, and she learns pretty quickly to ride a horse. Sam learns both, and teaches you both about using a spear. You become pretty good friends over the two days.

The party arrives at Fort Gray around midafternoon. It's located in about a square mile of forested area. Wooden walls with stakes on the outeredges. Buildings on the forest floor as well as walkways with buildings carved into the trees. Rope ladders and pulley operated platforms abound. A guard calls out to the party to halt and identify themselves.

Bruce shouts "It's me, Bruce. I've returned with 20 brand new recruits. All young abled body men and women, all armed, 6 with horses.

The guard replies "Excellent! I'll let you in at once.

The party enters the fort. An older man in chainmail walks up, greeting bruce.

"Nice to see you old friend." he says, offering his hand to Bruce.

Bruce shakes his hand. "Nice to see you too Donovan.

Bruce explains to all of you. "This is Donovan, leader of Fort Gray. You are to obey his orders.

Donovan nods. "Thanks for the introduction Bruce. Anyway, to all of you new recruits, I thank you. We were founded with a barrack of almost a thousand strong, and now stand at 200 strong, counting you twenty. We see attacks constantly. We are located about 10 miles away from the forest's edge. There are 5 villages in the surrounding 20 miles, all of which we try and protect, which is why we suffer. However, they are our countrymen and we shall not stop.

Your duties here will be shifted between Village patrol, forest patrol, guard patrol and patrolling the outer edges of the forest. We send 10 out to each village, where you will complete a patrol route explained before the mission. You return after your shift is complete, get rest and then are assigned to another duty. You are expected to work two 6 hour shifts of random duty per day, and get the rest of the day off. You will each be assigned to squads of 10 men. Duty is assigned to squads. Those with horses will occassionally be assigned special duties including messanger duty and going to villages to trade. You'll be paid after each mission. In your off time, you can train or just relax. We have plenty of rooms so you can stay wherever you wish. You have today to get yourself accquainted to the fort and surrounding area. We have no extra supplies at the moment, so you'll have to earn money to buy equipment from the neighboring villages.

[Prince Toad]

I'll walk around the fort with Katie and Sam, and check stuff out. See what there is and all. Get my horse stabled, too.

[[sage]]

You walk around getting accquainted.

There's a messhall, and a few common areas, several warehouses, plenty of barracks, some training yards for various weapons, and even a good sized fenced in clearing for riding horses and a jousting field. There's actually a lot of disarmed and marked boobytraps all around the area, which can be easily hidden and armed. The stables have around a total of 40 horses, only a fifth of the total amount of people here. There's 10 watch towers in the fort, which go even higher than the walkways, to the tops of the trees, each with a bell equipped to sound an alarm. It's a fairly well protected fort despite its low garrison.

You walk around, getting pretty familiar with the lay of the land.

Katie says "Why not explore the forest two. Donovan said we could."

Sam says "Sure. Want to Avoris?"

[Prince Toad]

Avoris: Yeah, good idea. Let's.

[[sage]]

Sam "Should we take Proud Bolt or go on foot?"

[Prince Toad]

Avoris: Why don't we take him, just in case we find trouble.

[[sage]]

The three of you get proud bolt out of the stable, and head out from the city, following a path in the woods for awhile. It's a fairly long path, which eventually splits off to the left and to the right. You notice a sign.

<: Berjack Village
>: Turril Plains.

[Prince Toad]

Let's go to the village.

[[sage]]

The three of you travel on, for about an hour, before arriving at the village. It's a pretty small village, a couple dozen houses, a couple of shops, a church and a lumber mill. Like the fort, there's a walkway in the trees overhead, you can see a couple of people armed with bows up on the walkways. One of them shouts to you.

"Greetings! What village do you three come from?"

[Prince Toad]

Avoris: Hi, we're new recruits into Fort Gray. No duty yet, we have a day to get settled in. Who are you?

[[sage]]

"Excellent! I'd heard the Fort was lacking in men, it's nice to see new recruits there. I'd help out, by my family and friends are here, so I help guard the village. Well, good luck and good fighting!"

Any place you want to head to here?

[Prince Toad]

Eh, not really. I'll ask them if they have anything they want to do in particular.