Survival

This is just a quickie that randomly sprouted in my mind. I can't really recall what was I thinking here, but anyway, I was trying to write things a bit shorter. I have to practice to get to Ravana's level of meaning, the guy can do wonders in eight kb.



Marcel licked his thumb, running the pages in his booklet. It was an easy job, maybe too easy. Just drill this into their heads while waiting for his next mission. Finally he found the pages for that day. He placed his pencilbox on the corner of the booklet, as a bookmark, leaving it on the desk. Then he took a white piece of chalk from under the desk.

He was a large man, around six feet two, with a muscular build. Nothing special, many people in Felarya were tall and muscular, a constitution that served them well enough. Dressed in standard fare, his red shirt with four funny magical letters emblazoned in his chest, a pair of black pants, and two shoes, he looked like a bouncer for a fetish nightclub. No one would have guessed he was teaching.

Raising his gaze to the wooden auditorium, where thirty-six members (three platoons) of men and women in casual clothes were returning the gaze. Except for a few who weren't paying attention.

-Rand, Solomon, please pay attention.- Marcel said, puffing his cheeks for a moment.- Get this right and it'll save your life, thus freeing you to have more moments like the one you're trying to share r...

-Got it.- Solo replied.- Got it.

Marcel pursed his lips. It was up to someone else to decide if he had their respect or not. He wasn't going to get it by nagging, anyway.

-Very well, let's start. Today, I'm going to teach you how to avoid dryads. Now I know...- he turned around, looking at the blackboard- that most of you think dryads are impossible to find. That kind of attitude gets you eaten. Unless we can do it right, we don't bother. That's what we're like in F.O.O.D.- he completed.

He heard a few snickers. He ignored them, drawing a tree on the blackboard.

-Good to know you're not asleep. It'd be a real shame.- Marcel sighed.- Now, what is this on the blackboard?- he asked, pointing at the picture of a tree.

-It's a dryad.- Solomon replied.

Marcel nodded.

-How do you know?- Marcel answered.

Solomon hesitated for a moment.

-I... I don't know, I just have to be on guard.- he finally replied.

Marcel looked at the rest of the class.

-Does everyone agree with his answer?

There were some muffled replies, but nothing unanimous.

-I see. Well, his answer is wrong. Distrust the trees, but trees will be trees and dryads will be dryads. Here's how you tell dryads from trees. It's not THAT difficult, so please pay attention.- he licked his lips.- Here, you all should've studied your booklets. What's the smallest dangerous size for a dryad?

-Thirty feet.- Rand said, from the back left corner.

-Good. What's the largest confirmed size for a dryad?

-A hundred and seventy-five feet.- Rand said, too.

-Good to know you're doing more than just talking in class, Rand. Because in the jungle, you shouldn't.- Marcel said. There was some muffled laughter from the other corner, where there were at least five girls. He glared at them for a moment and then returned his eyes to the blackboard.

-Now someone else, I already know Rand knows. What's the average size of a tree in the Forest of Whispers?

-Between two and three hundred feet, four times the stature of an average giant naga.- Lara said, from the other corner. Marcel's eyes relaxed for a moment and he let out a smile.

-Very good. Dryads are generally smaller than other trees, so distrust only the small trees, between 30 and 150 feet tall. Past 150 feet tall, it's unlikely it's a dryad.

-But FOOD doesn't work in the Forest of Whispers.- Nicolás complained, from the front.

-Chidokai, Tolmeshal and Dridder Forest have trees around the same size.- Marcel said.- It's a rule of thumb, it'll work most of the time.

-And dryads can use illusions.- Nicolás pointed.

-I know, I was getting to that.- Marcel groaned.- Now piercing the illusion is the difficult part, Nicolás, so don't interrupt me.

Nicolás hummed.

-Dryads...- Marcel began.- can use illusions, yes. However, all lies are short-lived. To divine the presence of a dryad, you either pierce illusions with some sort of spell or device, we can't really help you there, or basing yourself in the context, you decide what to believe and what not to believe.

Marcel looked at Nicolás. This time, the guy wasn't playing the straight man. Then he went to the blackboard, and started drawing circles.

-This is very difficult. For starters, you need to know something about trees, the way they grow. A dryad can mask her presence, but a forest is usually overrun with trees that have the soil hogged. Whenever you see a tree of the right size that's grown too close to other trees, be suspicious. It could be a dryad that's uprooted itself and found a new place to stay.

He took the red chalk and drew a red circle too close to other circles. Then he painted one of the largest circles red all inside.

-But there's exceptions. The dryads that are best at camouflage are the ones that never uproot themselves, thus having the perfect disguise: they might as well just be trees. Those, if fed well enough, can grow to sizes well beyond 175 feet. Rarely do they eat predators, however, preferring to keep to prey our size, out of force of habit: they spend far too much time growing to that size by eating us, making too many friends while they are at it, preferring nameless noms that don't scare their beloved friends, as they'd rather live on photosynthesis alone than eat their own friends...- he hissed, bitter. Then he sighed.- Don't mind me, just listen and save your lives. Our only defense against dryads that size is pinpointing them. If they try to uproot too late in their lives, they become too obvious, too easy to find, even with their illusions.

-What if they create an illusion that they're actually a larger tree?- Rand asked.

Marcel hummed for a moment.

-If they've rooted themselves in a different spot, they'll be blowing their disguise that way: larger trees don't just appear right next to other trees. If they have never uprooted, that means their disguise just can't go wrong in the first place.

-So how do we tell them from trees if they've never uprooted?

-By the size of the tree. If it looks the right size to eat you, avoid it. If there's something too small that's taking up too much space, it's suspicious and you should avoid it. If it's large enough for you to wonder if it's really a dryad, then there are some telltale signs you could take advantage of.- Marcel crossed his arms, and took a deep breath. Blowing out through his mouth, he blinked a couple times.- Give me a moment to recall the details, please...

Marcel frowned, glaring away into the distance.

-Oh, I remember now. First, as you all should know, dryads are carnivorous plants. That means they add nitrogen to the soil around...

-What's nitrogen?- Lasch asked. Marcel sighed, remembering not everyone was schooled.

-Sorry, I... trailed off. The first sign of dryad presence is the composition of the soil, it's a lot more fertile, and it has a special taste to it. The second noteworthy effect of a dryad's presence is the lack of animals around your size, despite the area seems safe enough. While most animals will hide from a human or fifteen, a dryad's presence means that you'll hear no medium-size animals, such as wolves.- Marcel answered.

-Ah.- Lasch said. He looked like he was about to make a snide remark now, but Marcel cut him there.

-I know it's rare to hear wolves, but nevertheless, you'll be able to hear the LACK of wolves, because of the many signs of life from animals that you won't be able to eat, if you come within her capture range, you'll be eaten first. Unless the dryad feels like humoring you...- he sighed.- those animals have much to eat as well, thanks to that carnivore's effect on the fertility of the local soil. So basically, you can taste a dryad from the soil around it, if you've got a trained enough tongue, or you can tell by context that there's one. There's one last tool to test for illusions, though.- he said, picking up something from under the desk, getting a snicker from almost everyone as he showed it.

-Here, pass it around.- he said, handing the Y-shaped device to Lara on the front. They passed it around, he heard several snickers.

-I trust everyone's just laughing their smugness about how we can find dryads.- he smiled. That never failed.

-With a slingshot?- Lara asked, smiling.

-Lasch, you're from Chidokai, right?

-Right.- Lasch replied with a smile, his triangular ears twitching.

-Well, Lasch, why don't you tell everyone about slingshots.

-Slingshots, well, those are the only tech thing we all learn how to use.- Lasch smiled.- They're even better than bows, very quiet, very easy to use, there's ammo everywhere, from peebles to acorns, and if you hit just once, then you've got your lunch served.

-Tech thing?- Rand asked, grinning.

-Slingshots, Rand, are a telltale sign of very high technology.- Marcel answered with a smile.- Not many people take notice of this, but they aren't easy to make. The string isn't just horse tendons or cat guts. Most civilizations invent slingshots around the same time as they invent nuclear energy. They're not to be underestimated. In this case, to tell if a tree is illusory or not, if you're not sure enough that it isn't a dryad, you can take a small peeble, smear it with flour, and shoot it with a slingshot. Illusions, as a general rule, don't get flour stains on them.

-But wouldn't that make a flour trail?

-That's why you shouldn't check every tree in the way. Someone may hear you. Besides, dryads have the ability to... link themselves to other beings.- Marcel looked away for a moment.- If a dryad finds you, even from afar, do expect her to either lure you to her, or call a hungry predator to eat you, or send a message to other dryads, who can tell another hungry predator where to get some meat. It's virtually impossible that no dryad in the zone has either a hungry linked predator, or a hungry predator nearby, or a hungry predator talking to a linked being. As a matter of fact, some predators are known to ask dryads for tips on where to hunt.

-Then, all in all?- Nicolás asked.

-You should move quickly when in a forest, that way you'll discourage the dryad from giving away your position to a predator too far away; it might decide you're too quick and too far away to be worth the trouble. It probably won't, however. In a worst case scenario, you'll stumble into a dryad, and it'll call more than one being for the platoon. If that's the case, don't be a hero. Look for a safe place, and when your charges are there, get in there too. Keep your eyes open for any tree that could eat you, avoid it, and if there's a tree too big too close to another big tree, check both of them with slingshots. If you've got a keen eye, you can even skip the flour and track the sling stone's movement as it bounces off, this method is recommended but it's not for everyone.

Marcel went up to the class, and took the slingshot back from his students. Then he went back behind his desk.

-And that's it for today. I want you all to write five pages on dryads, the flaws in our methods, and possible improvements you could make upon them. That's how we work.

Lasch grinned. That neko hardly wrote a line, but he looked like he was going to get a huge ego boost over beating these cityfolk on this one. As they stood up, Marcel felt the need to add something.

-Also, you all have completed your first month of training with us!- Marcel beamed.- So in two months, you'll be rocking with us. I'm looking forward to that, don't disappoint me.- he said, picking up his stuff. As the thirty-six trainees left, Marcel sighed to himself.

Lara was so fine, and she knew it. Tall, buxom, flawless, golden skin, blue eyes and brown hair, like a delicious, well-baked, thick-crusted and fairly-filled blueberry pie with cinammon and whipped cream, making his mouth water... Marcel stopped himself there, scratching his head. Where had that came from? He pushed the thought aside, continuing with his original train of thought. What exactly made those people come to F.O.O.D. for training? What did she need training for? What did they need outside Negav? Why were they planning on becoming mercenaries? The first day they were explained exactly what they were getting into, and told that if their hearts weren't on it, then the sooner they figured it out, the better things would be for everyone.

Marcel hadn't given a reason, no one had. No one wanted the others to know why were they flirting with Death. No one would talk about it, they all would just rather go and die while it was still secret, despite Locust himself encouraged them to talk about it (he said they wouldn't get better without talking about it, which might've helped...).

But it was no use thinking about it. Marcel's stomach groaned, and a feeling on the back of his mouth was recognized as a craving for blueberry pie with cinammon and whipped cream. He decided to go to the bakery... he probably could spare the money for that craving. The purpose of life was to be lived, after all. Sooner or later he'd get eaten. Sooner or later, all those people would get eaten.

Armed only with that confidence, he checked his purse for a moment before leaving the auditorium.

That's a great one !
It's nicely written and, again, you pose very interesting questions and find original way to get around a problem.
There is many ideas I simply never ever even began to imagine there. this give me some food for thoughts ^^
Nice job

Great to see more of them!

I haven't forgotten about F.O.O.D.. I've got a story idea involving them. I put it up in my poll regarding what stories I should be writing, and it didn't get enough votes to be done right away, but I'll get round to it.

Well, thank you, crazy voraphile frenchmen. I'm kinda surprised the only people who like seeing people find ways to stay alive are the ones that like seeing them get eaten the most. I think, no offense meant.

Some people here were right about survivability being an overlooked possibility in Felarya. That's what FOOD became to me after realizing that I'd exhausted its pun potential.

I'll see if I can keep this vein up.

Another quickie on survival


The afternoon air flowed around the trees, carrying with itself the scents of the jungle. In the distance, a towering metal wall covered the horizon. An unwary looker could think the wall was keeping the forest away, but actually, most people in that world would think that the wall was there to keep the city inside. And an arrow's flight away from the wall, the trees began, huge as they were. Two and a half city blocks inside the treeline, Marcel leaned his back against a tree.

Luckily, the group before him was still whole. Not that it would've been a tragedy, the part where they got eaten hadn't come yet- but in general, there was a significant number of dropouts. This group, however, looked like they had the right stuff- or thought they had.

In front of him, over thirty people looked around with expectant eyes.

"We're still close enough to the eye if that's what you're worried about, thank the Ps'Isol magiocrats for that." Marcel began, cleaving through the ice. "Today's lecture is on the subject of Jean-Paul Sartre, that's why we're outdoors surrounded by trees... I mean the Tolmeshal forest. Matter of fact, we're inside it now."

Several murmurs. Marcel smiled to himself.

"We're not reading Jean-Paul Sartre, so don't get too relaxed either. Nothing at this distance from the Isolon eye can swallow you whole and get away with it, but we're all armed for a reason: there's still plenty of dangerous things. Nothing like deeper into the forest, but if you can't take the heat, right now is a good time to get out of the kitchen."

Silence. Good.

"F.O.O.D. operates in Tolmeshal Forest, the Dridder Forest, Ascarlin Mountains, Chidokai, the Great Marshes, and the Great Rocky Fields. Anything farther than that, we don't, not regularly at least. There's just no possibility of mounting the right logistics, and even if there was, there's just too much danger. I used to work back in the old days, twenty-odd years ago, when we used to go all the way to the Fairy Kingdom..." Marcel grinned. "But not anymore."

Nicolás raised his hand.

"Why don't we go to the Fairy Kingdom anymore?"

"Because Mad, or Demeter, is dead... she was a sorceress, a mercenary as well, on good standing with us, she always had a price cut down for Fat L and pals... she could use this spell, and we could all stroll around armed to the teeth, but looking like tiny, bare fairies. Nothing that attacked us would get it right, we'd look small, feel small, and if anything attacked, we still were our real size; if a great predator saw us, it would just see small fairies, nothing worth bothering with. We were invisible, except for a puppet in our hands, which turned into a perfect copy of a fairy. That spell was flawless, Demeter could even foil predator sense: as far as anyone could tell except ourselves, we were fairies. But she died, and since then, it's just FAR too dangerous. I'm serious, everyone thinks fairies are rail-thin skinny things that suffer and break easily, but they are... more than that." Marcel grimaced. "Fairies are much tougher than we give them credit for, they're smarter than they seem and every bit as crazy as we are."

"Can't anyone else use that magic?"

Marcel let out a hoarse chuckle.

"No, they can't. And they tried. A lot, I heard they're still trying. It's said maybe Demeter was half-genie, or somesuch. We don't know why, but she was something else. There won't be another like her for a long, long time, her spell was flawless, she was powerful in the extreme and a natural at illusions, and even then, everyone else with a flawless spell, being powerful in the extreme and a natural at illusions has failed to duplicate her magic... or even figure out what they're doing wrong. Had she left a corpse, they'd pay some serious ascarlins just to get a piece of it, I heard her hairbrush sold for half a million skevols... So, no. We don't go to the Fairy Kingdom anymore, we can't survive there reliably enough to risk it. But we can survive in Tolmeshal. And I'm teaching you how."

Cracking his neck, Marcel sighed, rattling his attic for a way to start.

"I had already explained you how to avoid dryads, hadn't I?" he began. "Most of what you'll need to do to survive is find appropriate meals and drinks, while avoiding predators both on the long and short run. You're going to comprise a pretty big group, and the weapons you get issued are going to depend solely on our contractor. If we don't get paid much, we don't get to fire up the flamethrowers. So our weaponry varies actually a lot, despite our reputation for being cheap. Still, knowledge is free, that's something Fat L and I know, and we'll always make sure you have all of it."

"Cheapskates." Lara muttered under her breath. Marcel chuckled to himself.

"Yeah, aren't we. We wish we could be pickier, but if we don't have a competing price, we'll have to charge for training. Everyone else gets to use flashy stuff with higher price tags, but they don't make the difference as often as knowledge does. There's... have you ever heard of Gideon?"

"No."

No one else said anything.

"Well, it's a world much like Felarya, only infinitely worse: bad weather, no rejuvenation, no healing... thousands of things all trying to kill you, even if they aren't sure they can eat you. Or so I heard, I'm not sure it's possible. Anyway, those people have to rely entirely on stealth to survive, and yet the humans there took on and won against a species of 200 foot tall dridders. The best of the best there are the redback commandos... or was it Red Back Commandos? What I'm trying to say is, they did it without magic, they did it without access to technology, and they won! Being just human! And if they could thrive and win, so can we!" Marcel beamed. "That's the great thing about being human, if one can do it, all of us can. We just don't know it yet."

"That's a load of bull." Lender spat. "Humans can't do that, if you could..."

"Why do you say that?" Serafín answered. "You haven't seen some of the firepower we can get, we're practically pulling our punches here. If the preds weren't so sexy, they'd be all dead already."

"And if they rely completely on stealth why the fuck would they fight all dridders when nothing else does?" Lender groaned. "And how comes it that there are RedBack commandos with such fancy names if they ALL need to know how to survive before getting a fancy name?"

"Maybe we got an exaggerated version, but my point stands, I think it's possible." Marcel cut. "This doesn't have to be an endless fight that we know we'll lose. Maybe we can win. I want to believe it's that way, specially since we have nekos, like you, Lender, on our side." Marcel grinned. "I've seen firsthand what your kind can do."

"I'm seeing firsthand what YOUR kin can do right now." Lender spat. "Had too much wishful thinking with your breakfast this morning?"

Marcel shrugged.

"Let's begin. The first thing you should learn is to NEVER run unless you're alone. Running fast enough and paying attention at the same time is a trick we can't teach here. Maybe you can learn it in the Jungle Bowl or with some tribe in the wild, but we... I frankly can't do that myself, it has to be gotten right with practice."

"I can." Lender shrugged.

"That's why I said you should only run if you're alone."

Their instructor looked away, tapping on his kneecaps.

"If you see anything that looks like it can eat you, chances are it's close to a dozen times faster than you. Don't run, and if you do, never do it in a straight line. First, put something between you and it. Period. This is specially true for slug girls and echydin, who don't even need to be faster than you are. Unless you put something between you and it, you're done for the moment it sees you. If you put a corner between the two of you, it'll have about the same time to react as you have. When it peeks over, and it WILL..." Marcel sucked air in between his teeth. "Trouble it. We'll teach you how later."

Standing up, Marcel put a hand on the tree he was sitting against.

"Now, as for specific strategies. The first things that will trouble you in Tolmeshal are bears, boars, and some predatory cats. Those are the only animals stupid enough to attack a big group... don't underestimate them, though. Creatures all throughout Felarya can grow a lot, and that includes those mundane threats. I once saw a bear reach seventeen feet tall on its hind legs..." Marcel rubbed his chin. "I still killed the bastard. Wolves can reach ten feet long (actually wolves aren't a problem, they're quite friendly if you approach them right), boars are pretty nasty, and some kinds of cats... does any of you know what a liger is?"

"It's a cross between a tiger and a lion..." Lara cut in. "Why?"

"Ligers are the largest mundane cats. Except in Felarya, where the size of a large liger, reaching close to half a ton when supplied steadily with steroids and a bit obese, is the size for the average panther, while large panthers can reach easily one ton. So be worried about those things. I think the word to describe animals this size is 'dire'." Marcel added. "Not to mention crocs and hippos..." he shuddered. "now those will be, almost certainly, the first thing you'll have to fight. That part wouldn't be a problem, that's what elephant guns were invented for. Now, there's a catch..."

"Blood attracts nagas." Lender interrupted.

"Precisely! That's one of the first mistakes people do, kill something messily and you'll have something on your trail. Blood has a smell, the smell of something trying to eat something too big to gulp down. You'll attract all those nice girls who would love nothing more than to give you a hand, and then kiss you for dinner. So you have to finish it without blood, or avoid the fight entirely; this simple mistake, this SO simple mistake, has cost enough lives already. Unless you're on the gulping diet, or you know the area really well, DON'T hunt for meat in the wild and DON'T cook anything, or you won't be there long enough to eat it. My personal pick is avoiding the fight, but if there's too many people and the thing's really hungry, you'll have to do it really quickly and then hope there's enough scavengers for the predator to stuff itself before it can try to follow your trail. The weapons you'll need are a net caster, two really, really big stun guns (enough for a saltwater crocodile, at least), and a ranged weapon to finish the job by sinking its skull. The trick is always to start by making sure it's not moving much, and then finishing it."

So he took a weapon from his back.

"This, a net caster. Basically it uses a large spring to propel several iron balls, and a net with them, towards your target. It's got enough net for a 20-foot croc, which is too much net for a man to throw. You have to take the rope from the other side..." he grabbed a rope from the other side of the net, It had a hook on the end. "And then you clamp this hook to whatever you can. Preferably a root, that'll let you put distance between you and it. While it's still moving, have two people with stunners flank it. Hit it from the side. You can then pull the net and electrodes out, but do it quickly, because the stunning won't last forever. If it's still moving after that and you don't want to risk removing the net, then send most of the group forward, and have someone stay behind with a gun to kill it. That person can then pull out the tasers and go back to the previous checkpoint, while the rest of the group can proceed towards the next checkpoint without smelling of blood. ALWAYS make the finishing blow to the forehead, it bleeds the least for its killing power, it's second only to the medula oblongata. And NEVER reuse the net if you've killed something in it, if smelling like human won't kill you, smelling like blood will. Don't burn the carcass, ever, preds don't believe in spontaneous combustion."

"And how do we deal with our own smell?" Lara asked.

Their instructor grinned.

"Now THAT is a good question. Nothing I know of really helps with that, so you'll just have to ripen in your clothes."

"What?"

"Ripen in your clothes, that's what it's called. Your clothes take your smell over time. If you wear them enough, your clothes smell more like you than you do at any given time, or take smells of their own which you smell like a weaker version of. So you need to make sure you have ripe clothes, the kind that you can drop on a stream or explode and spread throughout the forest: that way, your own scent will be impossible to discern. You can't remove the needle, so just make more haystacks. Now, anyone see the problem with the fighting strategy I just mentioned?"

Serafín took the lead.

"That's all good and stuff, but that assumes we're outnumbering them three to one at least, and that each group of three has a manned net caster and two manned tasers, plus the net caster can't miss. I don't think we'll have eight tasers and four net casters in each group, weren't we going to use many different kinds of weapons?"

"That's right. If you meet a hazard in numbers up to a quarter of yours, surround them and pick them off. If you meet more than that, then you can think about flanking them. If you are in danger, though, throw all caution to the wind and do it quick and messy! Hopefully you'll be able to perform all your kills with ranged weapons, and make sure only they get blood on them, so that they smell more like blood than you do, thus they'll be the ones targetted by predators next. Except with nekos, who can get lucky or unlucky, escape halfway through, get one of the talking and thinking predators hot on their trail, and tell them about you. Nekos are really dangerous, being very strong, tremendously quick, and WILL get the drop on you, which WILL kill some people. Ideally you'd want them all to surrender early, but if that can't be, it's best to kill them all, no offense meant."

"None taken, it's true." Lender shrugged.

"Good, we have an entire class on nekos. As I was saying, most of your foes are going to be huge carnivores. But there are carnivore plants, too. For those, what you have to do is stay close to the trees, walk on hard roots whenever possible. That will leave you exposed to the Podmaw Plant alone, the Coulorme, which you should be able to identify, and the Gravedigger, which... could be a problem but can't be helped. So if you're walking under a large fruit, keep looking at it. This walking on roots is also important to avoid another predator, harpies. The idea is to keep some canopy between you and the sky at all times, that should keep you from their eyes. If possible, try to always stay between a trunk and another plant. The trees in Tolmeshal can be huge; at ground level, the distance between them makes the place less thick than we'd like. Canopy walking is a skill exclusive to nekos and parkours."

"What are parkours?"

"Parkour is a sport devoted to moving as freely as possible in any environment, usually, an urban environment, by developing the required agility and challenging the mental blocks us lesser mortals call 'caution'. In a nutshell, it's the sport of jumping and running in high places."

"You call it a sport?" Lender spat.

"That's, that's enough neko superiority for a day, Lender." Marcel said, raising his voice a bit too much. "Sorry."

"Nah, I get it, you wish you were a neko." Lender grinned.

Marcel's jaw twitched. It looked like Lender had too many teeth in too small a mouth. A well-intentioned punch would fix everything.

"My personal opinion on nekos..." Marcel hissed, anger welling up within him. How dared that little monster accuse him of... no, not a monster. Just an animal, not his' to discipline, not a person to understand. There was no need to say anything. "My personal opinion on nekos aside... I guess yeah, why not. I'd be sexier with bigger ears and a tail." he let out a sigh through his teeth. "Now, you'll want to cover ground as fast as possible... so, as a few rules of thumb, the best ways to avoid predators are..."

Marcel stopped for a moment, and closed his eyes, rattling his brain a little and grimacing. Those things were ingrained in his neck and hips, within his muscle memory, not in his brain. Translating them now was going to be rough.

He was stopped hearing a low mumble coming from the group, followed by some feminine giggles, with a pitch he recognized as that coming from a neko's throat.

Marcel opened his eyes and turned to them.

"What's that fuss about?" he asked, grinning. "Say it out loud, let's all laugh." he said, already knowing it wouldn't be funny to him.

"Nah, just..." Libra giggled. "Mirna and I were just saying... with tail and ears, you'd look a lot nicer as a neera."

Now the crowd was all giggling. Except Marcel, who just let some air out between his teeth, pretending to have found the comment funny.

"That kinda sounds good." Marcel chuckled, albeit it wasn't for the reasons the girls were thinking. A neera wouldn't have to work with them. "I can't teach you how to walk in the canopy, because I can't do that myself..."

"Aww, then you aren't really a neera." Mirna sighed. Lender laughed. Marcel rolled his eyes.

"I can't teach you how to walk in the canopy... but I can sure tell you how to cover the most ground. The more ground you cover, the sooner you'll be out of danger. If you're escorting a target on a vehicle, don't fret about noise, go as fast as you have to. On wheels, stealth is a lost cause. The worst that could happen is that something gets ahead of you, so the best you can do is to go backwards."

"What?"

"Go backwards, Lender. Find a fresh trail from a predator, find the direction in which it went, and go the other way if it's convenient. A predator's territory is very big, it's unlikely it goes back on its steps! You're safe on its trail." he chuckled.

"Okay, that's new..." Lender shrugged.

"But if you're escorting charges on foot, hustle alongside the trunk of a tree. Stay on the shaded side, if you can right next to a bush, the side opposite you will be a lot more visible, and your side will have the solar glare advantage. And keep a gun ready to help the first on line. Of course, a gun is useless against any kind of great predator... except fairies, and then again it's often useless anyway. Does any of you know what a canopy fairy is?"

Rodrigo, on the back, took the lead.

"Canopy fairies are a variety of fairies that, instead of illusions, have dimensional magic powers." he began, smiling. "Or was it additional to illusions? I'm not sure. Anyway, they can all create a trap that will warp you straight into their stomach, or phase in and out of existence to completely avoid detection and most attacks."

"Wait, they can do that?" Lender exclaimed, visibly startled.

"Damn right." Marcel grinned.

"Well, what does that have to do with anything!?"

"You'll see next class, Lender. For now, you'll need to know, and it's life or death here, how to undo a trail you've made. This doesn't work on the long run, so don't do this while on wheels. If you see leaves on the ground, pick up a big bundle of them. Then you can throw them around if you've left a track, assuming you're not leaving more of them than would be expected for the forest's density. Anyone can leave no stone unturned, but this'll force them to flip over every withered leaf in the ground. Alternatively, you can use this." the instructor produced a small bag from his pocket. It looked like... a baked sunflower seeds snack pack?

"What's that?"

"Bait." Marcel chuckled. "Drop some snacks on the ground, and something else, hopefully something little, will come along and use your trail for a table. Hopefully, it'll be big enough for whatever could trail you to eat. Make it only a little food, enough for something around your size to nibble or gobble! That way, something will eat it, make a mess of your trail, and leave. Of course, if you get the smell of the snack on your fingers, you've got double trouble! And don't abuse this, or you'll make a trail of happy animals! Speaking of animals..."

Marcel grinned for a moment at his own jokes.

"Now we'll do an exercise. Everyone stay quiet and as still as possible for a couple minutes."

Marcel lowered his head. The group all stayed quiet, closing their eyes a little. Some of them crossed their arms slowly, but mostly they didn't make a sound...

...slowly, a short chirp came from around them. First, from the left, Negav. Second, from the right, the rest of Tolmeshal. Third, around them, many directions. The air slowly filled with the chirping of birds, and the whirring of insects, as the group's silence hung longer and longer. Marcel whispered something.

"If roundflowers are the eyes of dryads, songbirds and insects are our eyes. If you can hear them chirping close to you, it means you're safe and nearly impossible to find. If you can hear them chirping from rather far away, it means you're safe, but they know you're there. If you can't hear any chirping at all in the vicinity, either you're failing at stealth completely or something else was expecting you. They usually can't pinpoint their own natural predators, as that'd kinda defeat the point, but they can find anything that won't or can't hide from them. Such as what's already hiding from you."

Marcel stood up.

"And that concludes our lesson on Tolmeshal. Oh, right." he took something from his pocket, showing them an apple. "Don't pick up drakewillow apples from the ground. I think that's all."

The group before him stood up. They had taken the class very quickly, and very clearly. It made him a little proud, though he'd sooner have had them ask more questions. Not so for the nekos, some of them already knew what he was going on about. All of it, like Lender.

"Eh, wait." Lender said. "All that's good and stuff, but do we really have to be so paranoid? I know people who break those all the time, and have done so since forever."

Marcel nodded.

"Where I'm from, Lender, unless we're certain there's less than one foreseen chance in ten thousands that someone dies, we don't even remotely consider doing something. And that assumes we're being criminally greedy. Yes, most of what we're doing is just in case something else fails, and most of the time, it'll all fail anyway. But it won't be our fault."

Lender shrugged.

"Ah, right! This might be kinda useless, but there IS a way to orient yourself by the night sky." Marcel suddenly boomed.

Lender opened his mouth a little.

"A... actually I don't think you should..."

"Yes I should."

Lender held his breath, seemingly searching for the right words to say. Marcel and him exchanged knowing gazes, and in the end, it seemed like Marcel's won. He raised his gaze towards the sun, setting between the spires of the city in the distance.

"The sky isn't the same every night, but there IS a constant. It always spins 360 degrees every roughly 24 hours. That's 15 degrees per hour. This is another exercise you can do at night. Look up at the sky, and watch in which direction the stars drift. It's towards the west, where the sun sets."

Marcel looked back at his team, the afternoon sun now shimmering in his eyes. Slowly, one by one, all of them turned towards the afternoon sun, and so did he, again.

"The sun sets..." he smiled. "That's something that never changes. From my native Earth, or from whatever world you come from, the sun always sets under the western horizon. And whatever stars may be in the sky, you can be sure they have something in common with yours."

Marcel's smile disappeared, as he gazed deeper into the sun. His mouth opened unseen, struggling to find the right words. He closed his mouth, grimacing for an instant.

They should've sent a poet, he thought, before looking at their faces. They didn't need a poet. They already understood. Some of them, at least. Lara amongst them. Others, like Rodrigo, couldn't yet understand, but wanted to. And others, like Lender, couldn't understand at all, as their smiles showed, yet they realized how powerful it was.

A moment like this could last forever.

"You just went public with the best of corny neko secrets. What am I gonna tell girls in bars now?" he said, with mock annoyance.

"Sorry about that, knowledge is for everyone! That's it for today's class. Ah, right! We'll have a field test in a week, so make sure you practice!" he chuckled. "We have to be sure you're up for it, you know, can't just send people blindly to their doom!"

Some of them chuckled in response. Marcel wondered whether it was funny because it was true, or funny because they thought he was being sarcastic.

Anyway, it was time to leave. The spires of Negav peeking from the treetops, the blinding afternoon sun behind them, guided his steps. He advanced slowly and quietly, the group following behind him, keeping to the side of the trees and always with some canopy above.

I'm really enjoying those stories a lot
You are always exploring very interesting posibilities and using different elements of the world to you advantage. It's very inspiring and give much food for thought ! ^_^

Karbo wrote:

I'm really enjoying those stories a lot
You are always exploring very interesting posibilities and using different elements of the world to you advantage. It's very inspiring and give much food for thought ! ^_^

...
Thank you.
I'll see if I can keep it up.

Lesson 3-> Saturday Morning

[I apologize in advance for the overly long lesson.
Disposable cameras are sci-fi to my knowledge. Just felt it needed saying.
For realistic information on surviving in the wild, please refer to the FM 21-76 US ARMY SURVIVAL MANUAL- abridged.
Credits to Haar for the black skin-diver.]



Once more, Marcel looked at the forest around him, knowing full well that he would only see trees at this point. Usually, the more you knew, the more powerful you felt. In Felarya, it was the other way around- the more he knew, the more powerless he felt. The young trees around him all seemed like potential threats, and the silence hung heavily upon his group of intruders; at worst, he'd die, but he wasn't going to be the one in danger this time around, and that made things a lot worse.

It was kind of inappropriate for someone in his position, but he was starting to get worried. For the first time since he had met them, those thirty-odd people were about to get in real danger. There was a very real possibility that some died in this exercise. There was another, more attractive and real, tangible possibility that many of them quit after this exercise.

So he clicked his tongue and turned around to face at the diverse group of men and women before him. They were already armed and armored.

"As you all should know, this is our first REAL exercise. There won't be a pro accompanying you this time. This Saturday, you all are going into light forest. The official objective is simple: find a statue, eight miles into the treeline. The unofficial objectives are practicing your pathfinding, teamwork, stealth, ability to conserve energy, maybe your aim in a real fight, if it comes to that."

Some mumbling.

"We're protected by the Nekomura eye this time, I don't have to tell you it's weaker. Great predators can get a lot closer here, matter of fact, they do. A lot. Hopefully, you won't stray too far either; there's no risk of sudden great predator abundance. The eye was recharged just yesterday." Marcel's eyes narrowed. "As long as you don't stray too far, you should be able to fight anything that comes your way. We're close to the river, be worried about bears, jaguars, panthers, and, God forbid, raiders. If you happen to get close enough to see the river..." Marcel's mouth twitched for a moment. "...hippopotami and crocodiles are the least of your concerns, go south immediately."

Nicolás raised his hand.

"Hm?"

"How are we going to get evaluated? Should we kill something, or..."

"Glad you asked. Your evaluation will consist on three things."

A pause.

"First things first, you should survive and help survive. THAT is your main priority, and shouldn't be secondary to completing this exercise. Losing even a single member will disqualify you for further training." the instructor frowned. "Second, I'll give a disposable camera to each group, to go along with your weapons. You have to find a statue in the forest."

"What kind of statue?"

"The statues you're looking for are signed 'Locust'. They also are pointing towards Nekomura. Take a picture of yourselves with the statue, and you'll pass this test. If you wish for extra credit, you can take a picture of up to three things in the forest. If you can explain how you came across that, and how would you consider it important, we'll be satisfied. Okay, now for the obvious question. Raise your hands if you can use the camera."

Counting their hands, he frowned, bemused. The strangest people seemed able or unable to use a camera... Nicolás and Swaren couldn't, for example. The four creepy pseudo-aztecs on the back also claimed to be able to use a camera. That was weird! And only one of the city nekos was capable of using a camera: Libra. The one that thought he'd make a nice neera.

"Now I'll separate you all into nine groups of four." he said, taking a few lists he had made beforehand.

"Wait, one last thing... I thought this was a pass/fail thing, what do we get for a good grade?"

"I'll make copies of the pictures and let you keep them. Group one, Solomon, Talcum, Lara, Keynes." Lara's small form took her place next to a statuesque dark-skinned man. They were quickly followed by a swarthy, lean man with curly brown hair, and a short, round-ish man with glasses and a rather serious expression.

"Group two, Libra, Serafín, Jocon, Vowen." Libra and Vowen were the first two to come together. The women were followed by Serafín's sure-footed stride in all his lean glory; Marcel spied Serafín's ports on the back of his head. Then, Jocon's statuesque self came up to them.

"Group three, Rand, Swaren, Mirna, Tychi."

-Finally- Rand thought, walking up to Marcel, scratching a little his rough, coarse, dull brown outfit. A blonde man quickly came up to him; he had a regal profile, and the kind of certainty you only see in a man who is there to be obeyed. His pale complexion was the only thing marring (or, to some, framing) his beautiful face, with eyes as cold and gray as his clothes.

The two of them were joined quickly by a petite something with bizarrely cyan pigtails way too long for her body, and nearly buglike eyes. No, scratch nearly... small, and huge-eyed as she was, Rand was left to wonder as to how human, or whatever, she was.

"Strange, I'd never seen a potato person before." the man smiled, looking at him.

"You're Tychi, right?"

"I'm Swaren. And you?"

"Why are you calling her a potato person?" he asked, turning to Mirna.

The small woman pursed her lips.

"Group four, Nicolás, Branuves, Lasch, Llod." Nicolás' emaciated, twitchy, scruffy frame seemed to hide behind the berserker's gold-skinned, gigantic frame. A neko with a freckled complexion and huge, serious eyes under a black mane of hair came up to the berserker, apparently unable to find the words. And then came Llod's masked visage, covered from head to toe in clothes, leaving only a shoulder tattoo.

"Um... he was talking about you." she screeched.

"Me? Why?" Rand asked, oblivious to his own thick lips, round, large frame and small, beady eyes on a round face.

"Forget it." Swaren chuckled, grinning as the last person joined the group. A tan-colored neko with black hair and eyes, wearing brown. She was rather skinny, but her cheeks and chin managed to be quite round.

"So you're Rand, Swaren, and Tychi?"

"Yeah, Rand."

"Tychi."

"And I am Swaren." he smiled. "You must be Mirna."

"Oh, I thought she was Mirna." Rand pointed at Tychi.

======

Half an hour later, the nine groups were all spread one mile apart, and one mile into the treeline. Each individual had a submachinegun and a machete to go with their clothes.

"So the statues are all about eight miles away from the treeline?" Tychi screeched.

"Yes, didn't you hear our instructor?" Swaren sighed.

"I was just checking!" Tychi pouted. Rand frowned at him.

"And how do we find them?" Rand asked, hoping he was as sure as he seemed.

"We have to remember our training." Swaren smiled. "As long as we don't wander too far into the forest, we'll be fine."

"We weren't trained to find statues." Rand pointed.

"That's right..." Swaren chuckled. "Follow me, I won't let you down." Swaren grinned, tapping the sword on his belt. Tychi shrugged, looking at Rand.

"Okay." Rand answered, interested.

Swaren flipped the palm of his hand at Mirna, and gave her a slow nod. Then he proceeded on through the forest. The tall grass would be over waist-high if it weren't curving under its own weight, concealing underneath itself all those species that weren't going to be that important. Plus some that would, such as snakes. The soft, warm wind in the forest often rocked the grass gently, to the chagrin of many groups there.

At some point, he found their progress blocked by a long swath of particularly tall grass, around chest-high. From where they were standing, the grass was at least 50 feet across. He stopped and took a look around. But he took too long for Mirna.

"Why are you stopping?"

Swaren glared for a moment at her; for some reason, he twitched, obviously taking that comment very poorly.

"Rand, here." he hissed.

Rand looked at him, with an interested smile.

"Check if it's safe to walk through that, please." Swaren said, with some intensity in his gaze, pointing at the extremely tall grass.

"Okay!" he replied, with a smile, then he scratched his head a little. Looking around, he licked his lips, searching intently for something... then he took a quick stride on the balls of his feet towards a branch that lay on the ground. Pulling it up, he went towards the grass, testing the ground before him with the stick.

Mirna shook her head. When Rand turned around, and nodded, she took a moment to talk to Swaren.

"Why'd you do that?"

"This is an exercise in teamwork." he said, blankly. "Trust is an important part of teamwork."

She didn't answer.

"Is anything wrong, Mirna?" Tychi asked.

"It's nothing." she said, looking at him like he were a picture in the newspaper. The same way he was looking at her.

"I'd say it's safe to cross. I'll go first, cover me." he replied, crossing through the swath of very tall grass.

Though Mirna had something to say, she kept it to herself. It wasn't the best of places to argue. So she followed behind him, just like Tychi, in a tortured silence which was up to Tychi to break.

"Swaren seems very brave, eh?"

======

Not long later, another obstacle made itself present before Swaren's group, which he was unoficially leading. A bramble of thorny, brown vines, once more, spreading wide in the middle of their path. The group stopped behind Swaren, who kept walking until he was far too close for comfort. He turned around.

"So another obstacle comes..." he smirked.

"You have a plan?" Mirna asked, crossing her arms, and resting her shoulders on a tree.

Swaren blinked, putting on a smug smirk.

"Yes. First, get away from that tree, before it eats you."

Mirna looked up.

"It's not a dryad, they already torched all of them here."

Swaren scoffed once more.

"Okay, suit yourself. Rest against the tree."

"I'll do that." she smirked again.

"Meanwhile, we'll be hacking through this brush." he pulled out a broad machete, and hacked away. "Rand?"

Rand walked up to Swaren, and took a machete of his own, starting to hack away as well.

"That's stupid."

"It'll get us there, unlike resting against the tree."

"You're doing it wrong. Both of you are just wasting your energy."

Rand looked around, doubtful.

"Just ignore her. We're making progress, see?" Swaren said, pointing forward into a clearing inside the bramble.

"But..."

"That doesn't mean we..."

"You can't hack through brush all the time, Swaren!" he boomed, sheepishly. "It's like back at home, you have to find a way around it or you'll tire!"

"See? Even Potato Person knows it." Mirna pointed.

"Back at home, you say?" Swaren raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"I'm from a jungle too... but did you hear what I say?"

"We're almost through, Rand... besides, you could use some exercise." he smirked.

"What do you mean?" the roly-poly guy blinked. "Why do you think I could use some exercise?"

"Well, your girth isn't easily ignored." he said, sweating.

Rand's jaw fell slack. He scratched the back of his head, blushing.

"Um, a-are you coming on to... me?" Rand stammered.

Swaren scoffed again.

"What?"

"You're very nice, but I like girls..."

"Let's just keep hacking!"

"Okay!" The blood in his cheeks going back to whence it came from.

"Er, roly-poly, even you know he's wrong, so why don't you just tell him so?" Mirna frowned.

"I... I told him, but he's still..."

"Well, we'll just leave him! Stop hacking that brush with him, and..."

"But he's part of the team!"

"See? He's got some team spirit." he grinned.

"Uh... thank you, now..."

"We've just made it through." Swaren said, looking back with a smile. "How's that? There's a clearing inside the briars, too. Follow me!" he completed, walking into the briar circle.

Rand shrugged, and went in behind him. Tychi walked in, too. Only Mirna was left, and she finally let out a sigh, walking in.

The clearing inside the brush had the ground choked for minerals, intersparsed between large roots, and some of the brown briar, with almost no green. In the middle, there was a large, brick-red chest with bronze fittings, covered in briars. Swaren quickly hacked the plants clinging around the chest, opened it, and pulled out...

...a note.

-BEGINNER'S TIPS #32-

-You shouldn't hack through briars.-
-Besides leaving a trail, you needlessly tire yourself.-
-You don't want to spend too long in one place either.-
-The thorns may be poisonous, unlike this time.-
-If you see a treasure chest, it's almost certainly a trap.-
-It's almost always best to go around thorns.-

-Locust.-

-P.S. If you are in Marcel's survival exercise,
a picture of this chest will be rewarded.-

-P.P.S: Do not mistake this for a statue!
A picture of this chest won't pass the exercise!-

======

Swaren's face was a mask of rage as he read this. Mirna, behind him, could barely hold her laughter as she took a picture of the chest, with Swaren, Rand, and Tychi on it. When she pushed the button, Swaren was turning around with the paper on his hands, Rand was looking at the it, and Tychi had been holding up two fingers and winking.

"You should ask before taking my picture." he growled.

"It's not YOUR picture, Swaren." she answered firmly, once more hiding the camera. Then she left, through the path they had hacked. Rand followed her, together with Tychi. She stood near the path's entrance for a moment, and then looked at Swaren's grim self.

"We've gotta go!" she yelled. "Come on!"

He glared at her. She looked blankly, back at him. Then he nodded.

"Of course."

The group gathered back outside the thorny barrier, and without a word, Swaren walked away.

"Hey, where are you going?"

"I'm going around it. Follow me."

Mirna rolled her eyes, letting out a long sigh. By the time she was done, Tychi and Rand were already following the stuck-up idiot. Was he even taking this with the seriousness it deserved? At this rate he was going to get everyone killed in the real thing!

Some minutes later, avoiding some berry bushes and going around a few trees of truly colossal proportions, he stopped again.

"What is it this time?" Mirna asked.

"Well, I'm taking my time to take a look around."

"I think... I've seen this orchid before." Tychi said, looking at a small flower growing on the side of a tree. Mirna wouldn't have been surprised if it wasn't a common species...

"Swaren, you've got no idea where we're going, are you?" she frowned.

"Yes, I do." he answered, coldly.

"Look. Quit this stupid attitude of yours!" she growled. "It's enough of you pretending you know squat about this..."

"All due respect, I've been to the same classes you have."

"Well, you..."

"Follow me, everything'll be alright."

"Swaren!" Tychi spat, suddenly.

"Hm?" Swaren mumbled, looking down at her.

"Stop it, you dunce! You've gotten us lost already! All because you NEED us to follow you!"

-Let's see him talk his way out of THIS one!- Mirna thought to herself.

"No, YOU need to follow ME. You two just blame me, but I didn't see anyone have a better idea. Not even you... though you are... how shall we put it... that much closer to nature?" he scoffed, grinning at the neko.

"I grew up in a city like everyone else!" she protested. "If you can't find the way, you shouldn't have called dibs on the leader position!"

"You followed me. So yeah." he chuckled.

"Rand, can you lead us out?" Tychi asked.

"Umm... I could, but..."

"WHAT!? Why didn't you tell us before?" Mirna asked, frowning.

"Ehm..." he blushed. "I thought you two would get mad at me."

"Then do your deed, Rand." Swaren shrugged. Then he glared at her, their silence thickening the air for a while. Stuck in the jungle with an idiot she didn't like and an idiot she wanted to like...

"Okay, follow me..."

=====

After finding again the spot where they'd hacked through the briar to find a sign on a boulder, Rand went the other way around. Once there, he found a spot where the briar was thinnest. He started hacking.

"I thought you weren't supposed to hack through briars." Swaren spat, hacking through the brush like the rest of the group.

"It's thinnest here."

"Ah." he rolled his eyes.

It wasn't long until the group had punched through the brush, and came out on the other side of the thorny barrier.

"Alright, I think I can take it from here." Swaren grinned, moving through the brush, and looking into the distance. There was enough horizon to make the walk easy for some time. He moved on forward, looking back at them. Rand only noticed what was about to happen when it was too late, and as he looked upward, seeing the webbing, he only had time to yell one thing.

"Swaren, no!"

He stopped, but it was too late. A giant monster fell on top of him, a spider the size of a small car. He barely could point his gun, when it got pinned to the ground; holding the trigger finger down, he was shooting at his own companions' feet for nearly two seconds. The three of them quickly leapt out of the way, hiding behind a tree; Rand then took aim from over the trunk, and fired at the spider's head. It took the shots seemingly without much harm done.

Swaren yelped in pain, releasing the gun, and focusing on uselessly pushing the spider's face up. Rand grimaced, and hopped forward, trying to put the gun to its face. Mirna followed in, and between the two of them, they swept fire at the creature's front. As they did, it ducked, then backed off a little, and then it raised Swaren to bite into, also shielding itself.

"I can't believe it!" Mirna grimaced. She'd never expected this kind of trick, not from a spider, at least. Not from just a giant spider... as the creature pulled the regal-looking man's belly to its jaws, a few jerkish movements told them something BAD had just happened. Something REALLY bad.

At that point, Tychi appeared running along on the side of the spider. Impressively, she fired strafe a precise volley of fire, making the spider lean heavily to its side. Then another, and then another, and then another. The spider scuttled behind a tree, taking cover; that's when Rand ran towards it, and from point-blank range, he shot off one of its front legs with rapid fire. The thing fell over, and he took the chance to shoot its neck off.

======

Swaren stood up, straight, still a little groggy, clenching his gut. That thing had poisoned him; thankfully, it hadn't been able to poison him to death.

"So this is how we'd do in a real fight?" Mirna grimaced. "Doesn't bode well..."

"You okay?" Tychi asked.

"I'm alive." he grunted, frustrated, staggering towards them. "Does anyone have an antivenom?"

Mirna pulled out something from her pocket. A small autoinjector unit. She pursed her lips at Swaren, and he glared at her.

"Want this?" she asked, twiddling the autoinjector in her fingers.

Swaren let out a grunt, his pride starting to hurt.

"Don't ask stupid questions."

"I just asked... I don't know, you might want to tough it out."

He let out another grunt, his eyes widening for an instant as he burst into coughing, bending all the way to his knees. Mirna grinned, walking towards him, licking her lips a little.

"You better behave from now on." she laughed, rolling the autoinjector in her fingers.

"Just use it already, damn you!"

"You forgot the magic words."

Swaren gulped, glaring at her with all his strength... for just a moment, until his eyes faltered. Mirna beamed for an instant, preparing herself to apply the antivenom...

"Umm, wait." Rand cut in. "I think we don't need it."

"It's there to be used." Mirna chirped. "Now stand still..."

"No, don't. Listen to Rand." Swaren replied.

"Oh, come on. Maybe we can..."

"Here, use this." Rand said, offering Swaren a few beetles. He looked at them suspiciously.

"Am I supposed to eat them?"

"No, just hold them to your skin and wait..."

"What? Those don't look healthy... just let me apply the antivenom already." Mirna scoffed. Swaren brushed her off, to her surprise, and grabbed the beetles. To his amazement, they seemed to sink into his skin, their bodies crawling beneath his dermis, over his flesh.

"That's all." Rand smiled.

Swaren shivered, waiting for a few moments...

"I'm not feeling any better..."

"You need to give it some time..." Rand said.

"Why don't you just let me use the autoinjector?" Mirna asked, with a last snarl.

Swaren gasped for an instant. Then shivered again.

"No, I'm okay." he grinned. "I'll be following from now on... I'm in no condition to..."

"Look, shut up." Mirna sighed.

"Hmph!" he chuckled.

"I'll help you..." Tychi said, getting under his arm...

"I'm FINE!" Swaren growled. "That's enough. Don't worry about me."

"This is a teamwork exercise." Mirna said, putting one hand on her waist. "If you can't accept help..."

"You've done enough."

"It's going to get worse before it gets better."

"I can take it!"

Mirna let out a chuckle.

"We just told you... ah, well, some people don't EVER realize what they're up against..." she sounded pretty annoyed.

"Yourself, you mean." he chuckled back.

Mirna pursed her lips. Her eyes flared for an instant, then she shook her head.

"Crawl as much as you want, idiot." she spat, in a voice as poisonous as the spider. "Let's go. He's still alive."

======

Just like it had been said, it got a lot worse before it got a lot better. They needed to stop and guard while Swaren coughed the venom all the way from his intestines, a thick, black fluid mixed with yellow-green bile. He was a wreck; his eyes had turned yellow, his lips were blue, his face even paler than usual. What once had been an aura of regal confidence had degenerated into a vampiric complexion. Cold, strange-tasting sweat covered his dry, pale, cracked skin, soaking the armpits, loins and chest of his white attire. Now more than ever he seemed to descend from a royal bloodline; blue blood was visible under his skin, and probably a little more poison would have preserved his body for posterity.

But as soon as he was done throwing up, he stood up straight and smiled. Looking into their worried eyes, he had them think for a moment he was about to ask "Why so serious?"

"Well, that wasn't too bad..." he chuckled. Even if he was still a little weak, still shivering and sweating from the poison, now he didn't feel it. "I'm feeling better now. So! Before we move on, there's something I'd like to do..."

"Hm?" Mirna asked, looking at him.

"I think we should all take a restroom break now." Swaren grinned.

"That's not a bad idea, actually. I should go, too." Mirna shrugged. "Tychi?"

"I'll be there."

Swaren nodded.

"We'll be over there." he said, pointing at another tree. "Rand?"

"Ehm, I can hold..."

"Don't be silly, come with me." Swaren's reanimated corpse winked.

"Um... okay." Rand shrugged.

Once on the other side of the tree, Rand realized Swaren didn't mean to pee. As he dug in his pockets, Rand was left to wonder what was it with him.

"Well, Rand, the events today have made me realize a few things." Swaren chuckled. "I shouldn't be the one on the lead, Rand. It should be you. I'm putting my faith in you... you'll be the first on the line from here on, okay?"

"O... okay." Rand said, surprised. Swaren seemed about as willing to relinquish the possibility of being first as he was to jump into a giantess' mouth.

"So I wanted to give you this." he said, pulling out a metal pin, with a colorful flag on it. And there was a lion in the flag... Rand's eyes lit up.

"Is that... for me?"

"Indeed." he grinned. "You saved me from the spider, you saved me from the poison... I owe you this. This... is the mark from my house. It proves that you are a friend. Not to me, Rand, but to my house. You've done a lot for me."

Rand's eyes sparkled.

"Thank you." he smiled. "It's... wonderful."

"Of course." he chuckled. "Let me just put it there..." he added, clipping the badge to Rand's chest pocket. "There. Now you are a friend of the house."

"Wow..." he grinned.

"Besides, Rand, I'm going to need a friend."

"Can Mirna and Tychi be friends too?"

He shook his head, putting on an imitation of a sad smile.

"They can't, Rand." he grinned. "We've got something in common, you and I, and they... they can never have that in common with us. We can't be friends, because we don't have anything in common."

He suddenly realized not everything was fun and games. Something was about to happen, probably...

"Wh... what's that?" he asked, starting to feel scared.

"Well, Rand, we are men. But we are human, more importantly. They are not like us."

"What do you mean?"

"You know that Mirna is a predator. We haven't seen her, but we know she's one."

"Is that why you are so mean to her?"

"You can't be mean to an animal, Rand. She's not a person."

"You could hurt her feelings..."

"Maybe. I don't care."

"But... Tychi is human too!" he protested.

"Do you really believe that? She's not human either, Rand. You saw her fighting the spider. She's not."

"What... what do you mean?" Rand asked, confused in his innocence.

"I know what she is." he sighed. "I'm sorry, she's not human. She's a thing, it's made from human stock, but she's not a person. I know it's sad... but she's not. No one at her age could fight like she did, unless they had been designed for that purpose. She's no more human than a jar of blood, a tooth, or... a liver!" he poked Rand's belly, with a grin, and Rand looked back into his eyes, blankly.

"You're wrong."

He shook his head.

"I'm not wrong, Rand. Tychi was made, not born. I know her batch, only now do I recognize her."

"You know, but no, you're not wrong, yes you're wrong!" he mumbled, with some difficulty. "They are people."

Swaren scoffed.

"You're so innocent... but trust me, they're not people. I know that. You trust me, don't you?"

"Ehm..." he gulped.

"Look, Rand, we're going to need friends here. Someone to watch out for each other. Can you trust me?"

He grimaced. Swaren's smile was only making him more uncomfortable than he already was. He hadn't become a mercenary for difficult situations. He had hoped for something more straightforward... something he COULD manage. Something that didn't mean being good with words.

"I... don't." he mumbled. "Sorry I don't trust you. I don't like it when you say people aren't people!" he exclaimed. "It's very mean! And if you're going to say people aren't people, then you aren't people either!"

Swaren lifted his eyebrows.

"Are you sure of this?" he asked, still grinning. He looked so friendly. It was so difficult... but Rand knew what was the right thing to do.

"No, Swaren, I'm right. I'm sure of it. And if you're going to say that, we're not friends."

Swaren's gaze hardened, as he stepped back and looked away. Now he was even scarier: Rand didn't know what he was thinking under that ghastly visage.

"I know it's mean." Swaren replied, his gaze turning somber.

"S-Swaren..."

"I know I'm alone." he continued. For some reason, Rand thought he wasn't talking to him... maybe the way he averted those eyes...

"Ehm... do you want your pin back?"

"Keep it."

Rand found this even harsher than taking it away... now if they weren't friends and he still had the pin, it had never meant anything. "Girls! You done?" Swaren asked, walking away.

Rand rolled his eyes. This had been awkward. But he knew Swaren knew he was wrong, though. That's why he was leaving without looking disappointed, harsh or angry. But now, he had a new pin...

If only it meant something.

======

Swaren kept his trap shut the rest of the way, looking very peaceful, to everyone's surprise. That was, until Mirna found something.

"There's something moving." she whispered, pointing behind some bushes. The rest of the group quickly hid behind a tree, peeking slowly. That's when they heard something weird. Rustling the bushes, a few voices sounded.

"There was something here..." the first voice said. It sounded like that of a man, at least the size of a bear and twice as big.

"And you think it's food?" another voice asked. This one was thinner, but still manly. Well, teenagerly.

"In training?" This third voice was also a man, but this one was a lot manlier than either of them, despite his throat wasn't the size of a bear's throat.

"Look, there's an easy way to do things..." the final voice said. "Err, excuse us? Guys? Erm... a dryad ate our camera. Can we take the picture together with you?" this last voice was unambiguously masculine, but ambiguously humanoid. It sounded a lot like a parrot.

Mirna and Rand came out from behind the tree.

"Come out, hands where I can see them."

From behind the tree, Nicolás came out. He was easy to recognize, with his black, wild messy hair, and striped sweater, over which he wore a plastic coat. He had a SMG on his belt.

"Easy, easy. Lasch? Llod?" he asked. He was the guy who sounded like a parrot.

From behind Nicolás, Lasch came out, also holding his hands upward. This young neko had spotted skin on his shoulders and face, including a very large black spot around the bridge of his nose and some of his forehead. He wore a light cloth vest, and pants of the same material.

Llod, came out too. He was easily recognizable, as the only trainee with a mask. But what his face didn't identify, the tatoo in his left shoulder, a large dragon, did.

Standing up as he moved out, but with his hands low, a giant of a man unfolded in front of Mirna, next to the others. He had a hairy face, with hairy blonde eyebrows, hairy blonde hair, and hairy blonde sideburns. Other than that, he had some stubble everywhere else. And he had a SMG, but it was on his back, as he had preferred to wield a small hatchet that allowed him to put 500 pounds of muscle to good use. He was alive, so obviously he hadn't found anything to prove him wrong.

"Put that down." Branuves growled, showing he wasn't a bear. "You know it's us."

Mirna lowered her gun. Looking around, she saw group 4.

"So a dryad ate your camera?"

"Yes! She was around a hundred feet tall!" Nicolás exclaimed. "And she would've eaten the rest of us, but I killed it with my bare hands."

"She only ate your camera and you killed it with your bear hands, then?" Mirna chuckled.

"We... lost our camera, that's all that matters." he blushed.

"How did that happen? Now you made me curious."

"Hippo." Lasch blushed too.

"What? This far away from the river?"

"It was lost." Nicolás explained.

"Really? I think you were." Mirna grinned.

"Let's... compromise and say we both were in the wrong place at the wrong moment."

"Fair enough. So, you need to borrow our camera for a picture?"

"Yes... we even found one of the statues." Llod said. "If you'd like..."

"Good, it was about time to get this over with." Swaren's reanimated corpse said. "So, where's this statue?"



They found the statue only a few minutes later, guided by this other group. It was right near the roots of a very large tree, one casting a shadow all around itself, its canopy far from reach, keeping other trees at bay. The statue looked like a knight in full armor. On its shield, it read...

-DO NOT READ THIS MESSAGE OUT LOUD UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!-
-You are in Felarya now.-
-If you don't know what that is, keep reading.-

-You are not where you used to be.-
-The sooner you accept that, the better.-
-Anything large enough to swallow you whole WILL do so.-
-Specially if it looks like a person from the waist up.-
-The tiny, smooth things with insect wings will, too.-
-Those will swallow you whole even if they're smaller than you.-
-They are fairies, if that helps you identify them.-
-Being swallowed whole and alive WILL kill you, make no mistake.-
-DO NOT TALK TO ANYTHING UNLESS YOU HAVE NO ALTERNATIVE!-
-They'll all be very nice, until they're not.-
-Do not run either! HIDE IF YOU CAN! This is vital!-

-The nearest safe place is Negav (unless you are smaller than this font).-
-It's where the blade is pointing, left of where the sun sets (South)-
-They have answers there (ask about the O.A.D.D). Don't get caught.-

-Best of luck in this brave new world-
-(Make your own if you can)-
-Because it's up to you now whether you like it or not.-
-Locust-

-P.S. If you have come here for the exercise,-
-then you look back upon your experience.-
-YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FACE THIS ALONE.-

Lesson 4 - Laundry Day

Credits to Excelsior-Emeritus AKA Anime-Junkie for his edition and feedback.

If you got a group of people as heterogeneous as possible, you'd soon discover casual clothes is a very subjective term, as Marcel had soon learned. Every time he had to give a class, he had to pretend they were all in underwear. Not because he was shy: because most of them weren't.

Back again at the small amphitheatre, this time he still had three platoons to train. Three dozen people; no one had quit after last week's exercise. All of them were in casual clothes now.

He had found a way around the distraction it meant for each other. Sit the shirted guys in front, followed by the shirtless guys, then the shirtless girls, and finally the girls with shirts. This didn't always work. As it turned out, the girls were as likely to gawk as the guys. And some of the guys didn't mind turning around in class.

"So that's why we were required to wear uniforms at school." he wound up thinking, sometimes. If this kept up, he'd have to get them all school uniforms. But what style? Serafukus were the cheapest, there was a shipment every month in Negav. He didn't know why would anyone need that many sailor suits.

However, sailor suits, come to think of it, wouldn't be a solution for some of the class. And for the rest of the class, he thought, looking at Branuves, it definitely wasn't a solution.

"So!" he said. "This class is pretty... pretty." he smiled. "Today, we're going to study fairies, and what to do about them. In short, we're going to see many ways to run away. Fairies, you all might've heard, are the single most dangerous species in this world. That's true. You might've heard they're vulnerable, weak things. That's not just wrong, it's DEAD WRONG. Fairies are awfully difficult. They have their wings, but they know it: I know they do. In my twenty-five years of work, I've never even managed to hurt one. Our only weapons are early detection, and fear."

Looking at Branuves, Marcel saw he had turned around. Right now, he was looking at Libra. Laundry day, she said. Sure, laundry day. Living the moment could get distracting, specially for those around them. Marcel knew Libra was attractive, but he hoped she knew it well enough not to need to go around naked.

"Branuves." he said, firmly. This guy could scare him, but Marcel knew what the right thing was.

No response. He heard a whirr/purr/hum coming from the two of them. He didn't know who was making what noise, but he could tell its meaning.

"Libra, Branuves!"

Still no response. Discipline was a lost cause, wasn't it.

He took several strides forward, and tapped on Branuves' shoulder.

"What, can't you see I'm busy?" Branuves asked, turning around, and looking at him.

Marcel glared at the gold-skinned giant.

"Yes, you're busy. We're in a class!"

"Go on, I'll ask another guy to tell me about it later."

Marcel turned to Libra, getting a glare back from Branuves.

"Libra, what are our two main weapons against fairies?"

"Ah, we should... identify ourselves, and be scared."

Marcel shook his head.

"Next time it's laundry day, ask me, I've got many shirts."

"I've got a bear skin. I killed it with my bare hands, it's better than his shirt." Branuves gloated. "The thing was huge, twice my height..."

"I killed a bear three times your size." Marcel answered, angrily.

Libra let out a low hum, putting dovey eyes at Marcel. Branuves inhaled angrily.

"Do you have its skin?"

"Of course not, I had to esc..."

"HA! You're all words..." he boomed.

"We can see if I'm all words later, Branuves." Marcel cut him off. "But right now, I need you to stop looking at Libra..."

"She's mine! You can't have her."

Libra seemed pretty amused. Marcel rolled his eyes.

"Okay, she's yours. All yours." he sighed. "I'm not going to dispute that. Follow me, Branuves, it'll be just a moment."

Branuves stood up, and followed Marcel back to his desk.

"Now, as you see, physical strength is something we always need more of." he raised his eyebrows. "Take Branuves for example, he seems invincible, being large and strong, able to defeat the mightiest of beasts with his bare hands as he just said. Frankly, he scares me. I think he would scare anyone, and no one would want to get on his bad side. Now let's see if anyone studied. If I were a fairy, what would I want with him?"

Branuves looked down at him, mildly amused. One of the students at the far back raised his hand. It was Rodrigo, again.

"Tickles." Rodrigo answered.

"Tickles?" Branuves' mouth was agape.

"Yes, Branuves, tickles." Marcel said. "And why is that?"

"Because they're crazy." one of the four dark-skinned hunks in the front said. He was the one on the left, the middle shortest... Marcel rolled back his sleeve.

"More or less... Jocon." Marcel said, hoping he'd gotten his name right. "They're more or less crazy. But yes, they'd want to tickle you, Branuves." he turned, and looked at him.

Branuves looked down at him.

"That's... stupid."

"I know. And it's our only advantage, fairies are in general rather playful. They take too long, they don't really need to eat us. They do it just because they like it..." Marcel grit his teeth for a moment. "...and they know it, so they don't always really give their best. Most people think they're just mindless eaters. They are anything but that. Fairies aren't really looking for a full belly -not all of them, anyway-, they're just looking for fun. This makes fairies, statistically, the most dangerous species, as they are the most likely to actively hunt for sentient beings. They're whimsical in the extreme, and we'd hope it made them merciful, but let's be honest... leaving people alone is ONLY SO MUCH FUN." he glared at Libra.

"That's true." Libra admitted, sheepishly.

"Fairies often take too long. They'll scare you, just to see your face, until they get bored, or maybe do something else than scare you. And when it's not fun anymore, they'll eat you." Marcel bared his teeth. "Now, as for the ways to deal with them."

He cracked his neck.

"You can go back to your seat now, Branuves."

"Wait, weren't we going to do something?"

"I forgot what it was."

Branuves returned to his seat. Marcel suddenly snapped his fingers.

"I remember! I got distracted... let's get THIS out of the way, and then continue." he looked at his desk, where he had a small metal box with a bizarre anoptic device from somewhere else. With a smug grin, he flicked the right switches and buttons for it to work. A ghastly shape appeared above Marcel, roughly looking like a woman, around six metres tall, laying on her back, the details fuzzy.

"There, fairy." Marcel smiled, pointing up.

"Wh... what's that!?" one of the black-skinned guys on the front row exclaimed, his fists clenching.

"Ah, that's a projection." Marcel laughed. "Three-dimensional image. Anything can be represented. There you have the image of a bona fide fairy. You should now know how they look, like bugs if you ask elves, and like elves if you ask bugs." he crossed his arms, smug. "It was a bitch to work the projector..."

"Erm, instructor." Tychi spoke up, with a sheepish smile.

"Hm?"

"You're supposed to turn off the lights." she pointed. "If you don't, the image goes all blurry and transparent."

"Oh, isn't that right." he chuckled nervously, turning behind himself, and turning off the lights. There. Now everyone could be just as naked as the fairy, and they wouldn't notice.

In the darkness, the projection was the only source of light. It represented an alluring, fey sight, a woman of delicate features and wide sky-blue eyes with an oxymoronic gaze, at the same time ancient and innocent, kindly and uncaring, playful and peaceful. So entrancing and meaningful was the gaze captured by the camera that her naked breasts weren't getting the attention they deserved for a six metres macrography. She also had antennae and wings, but no one was looking at them either.

"And that's what they looked like if you were curious. To deal with them, the first tool is early detection. There's no reliable way to detect fairies, other than by smell, which for obvious reasons we can't help you with. Magic, they can detect back: fairy detectors are generally a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can only hope they made a mistake. Which they'll make while trailing you: fairies have an extremely developed predator sense. You remember predator sense? We told you about it in our first class, it's impossible to hide from anything with it, you have to run or never cross it in the first place."

"Can't we learn predator sense too? You said it was better for magical things, so it should help with them..." Libra asked.

"Do I look like a naga? I can't teach that to you."

"But it's possible, right?"

"In theory. If you ever pull it off, more power to you." Marcel shrugged. "What I can teach you is how to make a fairy make a mistake, and expose itself. And then, how to keep it from pursuing you. A fairy that's tailing you and doesn't eat you straight away is waiting for you to show fear, or weakness. They're like sharks..." Marcel spat. "Cute winged sharks. In general, you should not show any fear, or weakness. They make you tastier. Sooner or later, the fairy'll need to know just how courageous you really are, and will straight-out come at you. But the longer you show no fear, the longer you have for the fairy to lose its patience and make a mistake. Even an instant's noise is an advantage: fairies come in large, large groups, four or more, and despite they're cunning, vicious hunters, they're stupid, really stupid where it comes to..."

Marcel sucked air in between his teeth.

"Where it comes to friends." he hissed. "Cooperation is only as good as the weakest link. All it takes is one moron to make their hunt a costly one, and they'd do anything... for a friend. Even bring them along in a hunt when it's not a good idea. So fairies are more dangerous the less of them. Else, they end up distracting each other. This, however, is a rule of thumb. Like all individuals, fairies show a great deal of variation, and in the end you can't even expect all of them to have the same abilities."

Branuves opened his mouth. Victory. He'd gotten his interest.

"So we shouldn't show fear."

"Shouldn't show fear, and shouldn't show you've found them either. You need to get the drop on them if you want them to leave you alone. If one of you finds them, whisper it softly to the rest. Don't announce it. And that... is where FEAR comes in."

Their instructor flashed a bloodthirsty grin.

"The first weapon you need is a shotgun. Use birdshot shells, but replace the shell for a rock salt crystal. It shatters in a thousand pieces with the explosion, and then spreads in a wide area. A single crystal is enough to stop a fairy, and stopping a fairy is all you need. Hopefully, she'll stay awake and scream until her throat is sore. That way, the rest will know it will hurt... that'll give them pause for thought."

"But that's so cruel!" Nicolás complained.

"Precisely." Marcel said. "That's the idea. A salt shard embedded in your body will stop you, and everyone who loves you while they pull off the shard, rinse the wound and tell you everything will be alright. Fairies are immune to many things, but pain is not one of them. And if you aren't cruel, Nicolás, they'll eat you. You can pick... are you cruel and unpleasant, or are you docile and delicious?"

Nicolás looked down.

"That said, don't expect it to always hit." Marcel spat. "Rodrigo, you know what a canopy fairy is. Do you know how to tell them apart from other fairies?"

"Well, no."

"That, you see, is proof that Mother Nature is a callous bitch. There's no way to tell a canopy fairy from another fairy until it turns invisible, and everything you throw at it passes through." he let out, in a hoarse voice. "Our main defense against canopy fairies' belly warp is flavor, actually... a side utility of our flavored shirts." he rolled his eyes.

"Wha'!?" Serafín asked, with a frown.

"Ironically enough, flavoring ourselves up actually makes us less likely to get eaten." he answered, with a small smile. "Announcing we have an interesting flavor we can make sure the fairy stops to taste us with her mouth, rather than just put us in their belly, except for extreme cases. Offensively, now, there's only one thing that works against canopy fairies... well, two." he said, stopping for a moment.

"Canopy fairies become nigh-invisible while passing through things, but they can still see and hear. So a flashbang still works... and once you got it, that's what the other one is for. They're magical, so we aren't likely to give you many, they're very expensive. Aether Devastator arrows. Good for canopy fairies and ghosts." he pursed his lips. "It's an overhyped name, though, don't expect it to devastate the aether. It seeks targets out of phase, or incorporeal, and then pierces them anyway, for triple damage. Here, though, is where things get funny... for the fairy. Fairies can detect magic, so those arrows are more of a deterrent and not a good one at that." he shrugged. "I once shot a fairy with one of those arrows. Do you know what she did? She shrank the arrow in midflight. And one arrow costs..."

"WHAT!?"

He followed the voice to Swaren's face.

"What the hell!? You're making that up!" he barked.

"I wish I were." he grimaced. "I'm not making this up."

"You can't do anything to an arrow in midflight!"

"A fairy can."

"But that's impossible."

"Who's teaching here?"

"That's...!"

"No, it's not." Marcel barked. "If that's all, be quiet."

Swaren blinked, and then leaned back into his seat.

"I'm with you all the way, bro. That's so over the top." Nicolás whispered, from next to Swaren. He cracked a smile, but only for an instant.

"As I was saying, each of those arrows costs a lot. I wish they made a technological solution already."

"How many shots is it good for?" Serafín asked, from the back. That guy was wearing a black skintight jumpsuit this time, with a bar code on the chest. Compared to his usual attire, with shirt, pants, the usual, and a longcoat over it all, he kind of looked like a different person.

"Serafín, was it laundry day too?" Marcel asked, looking bemused as laughter rose from half the class.

"Uhm... yeah, let's go with that." Serafín smiled sheepishly. "How many shots is every arrow good for?"

"One."

"Oh." He looked away.

"The thing that works the best, aside from pain, is fire: put fire between you and them, quickly, with a flamer shell, or even better, a flamethrower or incendiary. Fire will work against most kinds of fairies, except the Crimson Maidens, a breed that's thankfully amongst the absolute rarest: we know the whereabouts of just about all of the ones outside their home zone. It's common for them to know how to use fire, or shield spells that render your salt shells useless."

Nicolás had to ask the obvious, so he raised his hand. But Serafín took the lead. This time, Marcel preferred to hear Serafín out first.

"You've named shotguns, arrows, grenades. Plus you named nets in an earlier class. That's turning out to be a lot of weapons, and we're already supposed to carry SMGs, stunners, shields, survival gear... it's quickly turning out to be plenty of weight, don't you think?"

"That's right. The weapons you wield will vary with the mission." Marcel answered, calmly. "We'll give you the ones you need."

"And how do you know what we'll need?"

"According to the zone. Now you, Nicolás?"

"What do we do with fairies who have shield spells against both fire and guns?"

Marcel let out a sigh, smiling.

"You lose." he shrugged.

"What?"

"I'm kidding, use a flashbang." he laughed. "While your charges escape, of course."

"And how do we know if it's not immune to everything just because it's an illusion?"

"Well, that's something we taught you in the class about dryads; Slingshots." Marcel raised his eyebrows. "That's how you deal with normal fairies, canopy fairies, and crimson maidens... with flashbangs, flamers, rock salt, and of course, the surprise factor if you can have it. Now, there are several other kinds of fairies you could have a biff with. And they're all just as vicious as those three species."

He stopped to let his mouth moisten again.

"Mist fairies are the next kind. They're masters of illusion, even more so than other fairies, and there's a point by which their illusions are illusions in name only. You can deal with most illusions using slingshots to test for tangibility. By the point their illusions are tangible, however, your only hope is to hit their wings before they eat you. Don't try to deplete their strength by killing clones. Fairies have nigh-limitless ability to keep up their magic, but you don't have infinite ammo. There is only one way to hit the real one reliably. Can anyone tell me what it is?"

"Tactical nuclear weapon?" Serafín asked, smiling.

A heavy silence permeated the classroom.

"Flashbang. The real one is ALWAYS watching." he looked around. "Flashbangs are our trump card. One flashbang, and strong and big as it may be, it'll be fumbling for three seconds to get its bearings. Do you know what three seconds are?"

Marcel looked at Branuves.

"Do you?"

"It, uh, sounds like a lot of time." Branuves mumbled.

"In a battle, it is." Marcel answered. "Three seconds are what it takes for someone to count to three."

"One..." Branuves began. "Um, t- two..." he mumbled. "Er, five..." he started turning red. "I guess it's a lot of time."

"You did it wrong. Three is like this." Marcel lifted three fingers. "One. Two. Three." he lowered his fingers one by one. "If you had me staggering, blind and deaf, it'd be very easy to behead me in what it took me to count to three, right?"

"You'd have absolutely no chance." Branuves gloated. "I wouldn't cut off your head, though."

"No?"

"It'd be too easy. With three seconds, I'd hack off your hands, and drag you off by your legs after the battle, let the ladies hear your screams as a testament to my prowess, it would be up to the children to torture and then kill what was left of you. Then I'd let them drink warm honeymead from your skull... properly cleaned, of course." Branuves said. "Wouldn't want them to drink of your weakness."

"We did that back home too." one of the dark-skinned guys next to Branuves said.

Marcel thought again. Maybe, just maybe, some people did deserve what was coming to them. Maybe he was the one who had been wrong all along about the value of human life...

"Well, at least no one joked about eating me this time." Marcel sighed. "As I was saying, flashbangs..."

"Where's the glory in depriving your enemy of a fighting chance, anyway?" Branuves boomed.

Marcel was about to answer with a long, long speech, but after glaring at the berserker for an instant, he thought of a better answer.

"In the lives you've protected by denying your foe a fighting chance."

Branuves didn't answer. What a pity. Marcel was ready to argue it wasn't like corruption. It'd have been long, though. It was a good thing the berserker wasn't the arguing type.

"But don't hack off his hands, let the fairy shrink him, if he's going to die I want to eat him." Libra said. Marcel shook for a moment.

"Funny that." he mumbled. "Now, as I was saying..."

"What's that about shrinking?" Branuves asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Hmm, I should've gotten to that. Branuves, the main method by which fairies eat their prey is by shrinking it until they can comfortably gulp it down whole and alive."

"Shrinking?" Branuves asked, looking a little bewildered. "What's that?"

"Shrinking is making something smaller. Yes, it makes them weaker." Marcel said, between his teeth, almost reading Branuves' thoughts. "A fairy can be tiny, Branuves, but after an instant you'll be even tinier. And they..."

"They can shrink people?" Branuves asked. Marcel could now see the berserker was completely out of his depth. "Honestly?"

"Yes. Or change its own size. Fairies can go from being the size of your thumb, to the size of a... erm, what's around that size?" Marcel stopped for a moment. "A whale or tree. Large enough to swallow you whole and alive, Branuves, without much effort."

"Is there no way to... keep it from shrinking us?" Branuves asked, scratching his chin.

Marcel nodded.

"There is, but it's not recommended to use it."

"Why not?" Branuves asked. "It'd help us."

"Well..." he shrugged. "As long as it's shrinking you, the fairy will be around your size or smaller, and thus vulnerable to weapons on the scale of your partners. If it can't shrink you, and it still decides to eat you, it'll become bigger than you- and all of your partners at the same time. If it does this, it'll be impossible to hurt her."

"But we're sticking to flashbangs, right?" Nicolás asked. "Big or small, a flashbang's a flashbang..."

"Except it can cover the grenade with a hand, or move its head thirty-odd feet away just by standing up straight." Marcel grimaced.

"Do they do that?"

"Impunely."

"Uh, do you have any advice on what to do if we're shrunken?" Mirna asked, blinking.

"Avoid Libra." Marcel grunted.

Libra hiccoughed under Marcel's glare. Then she turned red and looked away, her face a mask of embarassment, trying to find some spot where no faces were looking at her.

Awkward silence followed. Mercifully, their instructor broke it.

"There's another variety that requires special attention, dusk nymphs. Their powers of darkness allow them to meld with shadows, allowing them to haunt you with impunity . Ironically, their particular coloration, which would in theory allow you to identify them, is offset by their ability to lose all corporeal shape. Despite which, darkness is part of their nature, and thus makes for their only weakness." he smiled. "You deal with them using..."

"Flashbangs." Serafín interrupted.

"Y... yeah. "There's a variety that's radically different, water sprites. They don't have wings to hurt, as their entire bodies are made of water, and they draw their magic from the water. You can't stop them without killing them, and when they're their maximum size, they're nearly impossible to..."

"Flashbangs." Nicolás interrupted.

Marcel glared at Nicolás. He always made a lot of questions, sometimes, stupid questions. But he'd never actually interrupted.

"Well if you're so smart, what do we do about frost sprites?"

"Flashbangs." Branuves said.

Marcel stopped for a moment.

"Good, keep studying hard." Marcel sighed. "Well, how do we protect ourselves against flashbangs?"

This time, it was another one of those inca-like guys. Mabar, as he checked.

"To protect yourself from a flashbang, earplugs, eye protection, and anticipation might mitigate the effect." he said. "However, that usually is insufficient. It's best to take cover whenever possible."

The instructor looked at him, surprised. It didn't look like he had that kind of background.

"That guy over there taught me how to read." Mabar smirked, pointing at one neko behind him.

"Oh. Good, Mabar. You too, Lasch." Marcel nodded, bemused. "Now you know what you need to know. Don't show fear. You have to make them fear, but you can't scare them. So you must hurt them right away, a lot, use fire, fire they can't scare and they can't ignore. Some fairies you simply won't be able to hurt with the weapons you have; use a flashbang and get away. And don't abandon your charges, the fairies could be leading you into a trap." Thus he condensed 22 kilobytes of narration into four sentences. "Now you all can leave."

Two great chapters

I really loved that seeking test, and how you developped the relations between the members of the group, like Swaren trying to use and manipulate Rand. And the second one was another great insight at tactics against fairies ! Flashbangs do indeed seem to be a solid defense agasint them. We should really compile all these tactics into a guide or something XP

Well, glad you enjoyed those four (Pun), I hope they're food for thoughts too.

But, making a guide? I could, but that'd mean fairies would make their own, and that'd be catastrophic...

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Replaced the message so as to not bump my post count or doublepost.

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Lesson Five- The Terrain Advantage



A shrill cry in the distance concealed a frustrated insult. Marcel's brow was furrowed slightly, his face a mask of concentration as he looked over his surroundings. This place was dangerous, and for the first time, they were so close to the danger they might even talk to it, if it wanted to.

Just over the edge of the rocky plateau, Marcel could see a nearly endless swath of forest framed with mountains and rivers. Looking down from the edge, Negav was less than fifteen miles away from the base of the mountain. From a thousand and five hundred feet high above sea level, the city looked even more beautiful than meeting it in person would ever allow.

Right next to Marcel, a large cylindrical brass instrument stood on a tripod. The telescope was currently focused on a tree, a tree that they were looking at horizontally, even from that height. To their left, there was a tree they'd have to look up at, even at this distance.

Feeling the wind in this high place buffet his face, Marcel decided to start. He turned around to look at his trainees, a group of around thirty who'd already instinctively squatted by some tall rocks by the shade of some small trees. He smiled. The first step was always the easiest. They were worried, and that was good. Though the Eye was keeping the predators away, even at that distance, the fact stood that if they had a change of priorities, they could now look upon one. There was a spyglass there after all.

"This lesson is a continuation of our survival lesson." Marcel started. "As you might have noticed, we didn't go over shelter and food procuration. Of course, this is because a platoon has twelve members, and the maximum safe number is around nine..."

"Relatively safe number." Lasch corrected.

Marcel nodded.

"Relatively safe, of course. Counting caravan members, stealth is all but a lost cause. Consider vehicles too, and you'll see that there's absolutely no point in trying to find cover. You can't hide that much, and if you're making tracks, you're effectively dooming yourself. Is there a solution?"

He waited for the negative. Serafín, however, coughed a little, to call attention to himself.

"Of course there's a solution. Camp away from the tracks, and set up an ambush near them..." his voice faded off near the end, swept by the winds of doubt. Someone picked up where he left, though.

"It doesn't work like that." Lasch, a neko, cut him off. "If you stop after making tracks, they'll find you anyway, they don't need tracks to smell you."

"I'd assumed that for the most perceptive predators." Serafín nodded. "But that doesn't mean we can't fight them."

"If you stop and fairies find you, everyone dies." Lasch frowned. "Whether you can fight them or not."


Marcel smiled. They grew up so fast. They were already arguing about what was the best tactic... though Serafín was at a disadvantage, Lasch knew his stuff much better.


"You can always expect some deaths."

"But you can't tell which ones. We wouldn't go counting on getting eaten if it weren't for a damn good reason." Lasch spat. "If it's fairies you could lose charges, they're not going to ask you which ones you'd mind. They have enough predator sense to sneak up on an entire platoon, and they have enough stomach for everyone and their mother."

Serafín shrugged.

"So what do we do, then, neko?"

Lasch wet his lips.

"I know of one way to get over that..." he mumbled. "but it requires setting up things in advance. Do we prepare safe spots?"

Marcel smirked.

"Sometimes. We do help people prepare safe spots, but not always. There's two ways to deal with R&R&R."

"I know what the first two Rs mean, but what about the third?" Nicolás asked.

"Recovery. Because it can happen overnight sometimes. There's two ways- the first one is using a prepared safe spot. The second one is using a natural safe spot."

"How do we prepare safe spots?"

"You leave it to the professionals." Marcel grinned. "Not us. We might help set them up, but seldom are we the ones who actually set them up."

"What are those safe spots, anyway?" Branuves asked.

Marcel hummed to himself.

"Manmade shelters where nothing too big can go in, Branuves. Like the shell of a dead noghdongh."

"What? How do you kill such a thing?" the berserker frowned.

"I've heard some people mix boralites in their food until their intestines freeze and shatter." Marcel smiled. "Sounds like an unpleasant way to die, doesn't it."

"Yes." Nicolás answered, his eyes widening for an instant. "I wonder why I didn’t think of that myself."

"And why don't we kill predators with that?" Serafín frowned.

"I don't know. I guess noghdonghs' metabolism is supposed to involve gastrolites, so they don't digest rock." Marcel shrugged. "While the stranger ones are supposed to digest bone, metal, wood, stone and their owners too."

"Gastrolites?" Lasch asked. "You mean... like bezoars?"

"No, it's something else... some animals actively swallow small stones so as to continue shredding their load with them in their stomach."

"Oh god, that sounds unpleasant..." Nicolás grimaced.

"Most if not all are herbivores." Marcel shrugged. "No known carnivore has gastrolites. I don't know of any, at least... so let's get on with the lesson. This one's pretty short, too. Just like we told you in the class about dryads, you have a lot to know about trees. But we didn't elaborate just how much you have to know about trees. You know that most of Felarya, and our operating zone, is composed of rainforests. Chidokai, Tolmeshal, and the Grove are all rainforests. There's a trick to keeping away the big stuff from you in a rainforest. The strange thing is... I learned this stuff in biology, 6th grade, but I never ever believed it'd come in handy... not THIS way, at least!" Marcel chuckled lightly. "But you already know this one, don't you, Lasch?"

"Hm?"

"Tree strata." Marcel grinned. "Alright, get out of the shade and come closer. All of you. Don't worry about the harpies, we're STILL close enough."

A first group of trainees strode out of the shade and walked up to Marcel, standing on the exposed part of the plateau. Then another group, and so on, until all three dozens of them were there with him. They looked out from the edge of the plateau, in all directions, for a moment. Marcel let them do so- it was worth it to know what they were risking life and limb for. It was worth it to know that Felarya was worth fighting for.

"Good. The trees of a rainforest are grouped by strata. There used to be up to six strata back in Earth... in Felarya, however, the strata might be eight or nine."

"Counting the Giant Tree?" Nicolás asked, pointing at the Great Tree, to the left of the plateau.

"No, with the Giant Tree, it's like 255 strata." Marcel shrugged. "A specific description of each of those strata is beyond the scope of this course. Thus, we'll be covering only the ones that matter. The eighth strata is composed of trees specific to Felarya and maybe other worlds, species so large that other trees grow on them. However, those species do not support entire ecosystems, except for the exceptional case of the Giant Tree, or manmade supports. You can recognize those trees, because when you're close to them, you could feel their trunks are actually straight. Some of those trees can sport over 100 feet... wide trunks." Marcel rolled his eyes. "And they can be over 3000 feet tall, too. Those species are more likely to be found in Deeper Felarya. I know there's this species, the Brobdingnian Redwood, which can be up to... what was it? Oh, right. 1440 metres, that's like... 4800 feet."

"Is the Great Tree a Brobdingnian Redwood?"

"No, the Giant Tree is the Giant Tree." Marcel raised his eyebrows. "I just focused this spyglass on a tree of that stratum- does anyone want to take a look?"

Marcel pointed at someone, Rand. Then he guided him to look into the spyglass. One by one, all of the students looked at the tree, one that was over 1500 feet tall, sticking out of the canopy.

"Either way, this stratum is of no importance to you, unless you can get on top of it. If you can- I should remind you that those trees go SO far above the canopy that you'll stick out like a sore thumb if you try to climb them up. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, though- those trees are excellent at surveying the airspace, and if you get on top of one of those trees, you're pretty much king of the hill. With a little vigilance, those trees make appropriately safe spots."

He stopped for a moment.

"However, unless very specific circumstances come into play, I recommend you don't try to climb this stratum at all. The seventh stratum, on the other hand, is made up of trees whose heights are just less than 1000 feet tall. They're similar to the previous layer, that is, they stand out to gain more sunlight, but unlike the last layer, they've got trunks and branches too thin to support any vegetation worth noting. The difference from our point of view, however, is that those trees aren't approximately straight when standing close to their trunks, and they don't hog the soil as much. Even Felarya's fertility has a limit; the brobdingnian trees from before are quite rare, and generally stand out in the middle of their own shaded clearings."

"Do we have to climb them?" Mirna asked.

"No, you have to avoid them like the plague." their instructor grinned. "Where there's room, someone will occupy it. This layer can be found closer to other trees- and that's where the fun part starts. You don't need a spyglass to see them- you can see the fifth strata from here."

Marcel raised a finger, turning back to his trainees.

"You see, trees are the closest thing to buildings in a forest. And the first order of business in armored warfare..."

"...is to limit your enemy's mobility." Serafín grinned. "Most of this is just common sense, isn't it?"

"You wouldn't believe how many lives could've been saved by it. After those outstanding trees, come the sane-sized outstanding trees, which rarely exceed 200 feet. Then comes the layer where the dryads start being the problem: that thick canopy that prevents too much sunlight from getting to the ground." he smacked his lips. "Normally, the trees beneath those layers are sparse... but this is not the case in Felarya. The soil nurtures even those trees that don't get much sunlight, creating the layer that I call 'the friend layer'." Marcel smirked. "As long as you don't meet a small dryad there, there are some groves with densely packed, tall trees. And by densely-packed, I mean less than 30 feet from each other, while they've got 80 or so feet tall trunks." Marcel beamed. "Those trees make it a losing proposition for almost any predator to try to sneak on you, no matter what your smell. Place some trip wires to get some head warning anyway- and to warn it that you mean business. Tauric predators will be in some trouble if they try to chase you into this layer, and even the rare two-legged one will be a little easier to surround."

"Speaking of two-legged ones, what happens with fairies?" Mirna asked. "They can still find us; they haven't got more of an obstacle in the terrain than we do... what about them? And if they know plant magic, it would get even worse. Besides, if anyone found us, if they knew a fairy or a dryad who knew a fairy..."

The instructor grimaced and nodded.

"Yes, it'd be bad, wouldn't it." he looked away. "You remember that to face a fairy, you've got to be aware of it before it's aware of you. And if things go the way you describe, that is, more or less, impossible, unless you can lure it into a false sense of safety. And just setting everything on fire might not be the best of ideas if you were trying to sleep or avoid giving your position. Getting caught while sleeping is a delicate situation, but not an impassable one. There's a trick I've got to warn myself of fairies, in case they shrink the person keeping watch. If used correctly, it can even save the person keeping watch. That said, don't count on it..." the instructor said, taking something from his pocket. A... roll of string.

"The things you can do with a little imagination and a little string are incredible." he moved up to a nearby branch. "This one works if you're yanked away or shrunken." Cutting off a segment of string as tall as himself, and putting it in his lips, he continued... "Now y'shee, take a revolver..." he mumbled, taking a revolver. "Mak'shwre it'sh loaded, like here, with a blank- they're noisier." He took the string, and started tying the revolver to a branch. Then he pulled some more string, tying a knot around the trigger. "Then you tie the other end to your thigh, and tie your other thigh to a nearby feature. Maybe a tree, or something that won't get shrunken. Make sure the revolver's not too visible. I'm not going to do it here, of course... safety's first." he shrugged. "Now, if you're sitting cross-legged on the ground, and you get shrunken, with or without your clothes, then you'll pull the trigger with your knees. It's not pointed at them, but THEY don't know it, do they? By the time they realize they're still whole, the warning's been sounded." he smirked. "If you're worried that might fail, there's plan B."

"What's plan B?" Nicolás asked.

"This." he said, taking a rock from the ground, and tying some string around it. Then he threw the rock over a branch. "Hold the other end around your wrist. If you get shrunken, the rock will pull you up through the pulley effect; that's bound to turn some heads. If you've got a brass instrument, all the better... put it where the rock's going to fall. They aren't like us, they don't like the good ol' loud CASH."

No answer. Damn, he was sure that last one was funny... but they didn't laugh.

"Now comes the tougher part. In a nearly worst case scenario..." Marcel sighed. "you might have to give up on your vehicles, and return on foot in a group, with relatively safe numbers. By which I mean nine or less." he looked at Lasch. "At that point, you might not have the manpower to camp in tight spots and fight off predators with the terrain advantage, or stay on top of fairies if you can avert the impunity of a surprise attack. So... you'll want to use an older recipe to camp. Finding caves, or something like that. At that point, there's something you should know. Tents are good. Even the red ones, I've slept in them quite a few times myself."

"WHAT!?" Lasch growled.

"Red tents are good, Lasch!" Marcel grinned.

"This isn't the moment for stupid jokes!"

"No, seriously. The problem's that everyone uses them wrong." Marcel shrugged. "Red tents are as good as any other tent; in the dead of the night, red looks like black. Just like green, blue, and yellow, white. That about red tents being more dangerous is just a myth." he added. "Of course, once daylight even begins arriving, the myth is real... unless you use it right."

Lasch sighed.

"I'll bite, how do we use them right?"

"But that's my line..." Nicolás mumbled.

"Upside-down." Marcel chirped. "And you cover them with leaves."

Lasch's mouth opened for a moment.

"Upside-down?"

"Dig a little on an earthen barrier, preferably some time after a rain, or relatively close to a stream; install the tent upside-down. Don't make it camouflage with the environs- hide it BEHIND the environs. This'll also help with the windchill. Put your tent against an earthen barrier, cover the tent with earth, zip up the entrance, make sure it points towards a dead end- somewhere nobody's going to stick their heads in, even by chance; this'll work for a tent of any color. Of course, I'd rather you used a dirt brown tent than a red tent- no need to go through any silly shenanigans. Sure, in stories, all the drama and fun might sound good, but you don't need that kind of drama when your life and that of others is at stake. You can all laugh together when you're safe again."

"And the smell?" Nicolás asked.

"Ah, I almost forgot... the scent is always a problem." he grimaced for an instant. "In case you install your tent on an earthen barrier, you should hope it's rained shortly ago and the smell of loose dirt isn't anything new to the place. But if you can't, I recommend smoke."

"Smoke?"

"Yes. The scent of smoke can wipe out the scent of humanity. Convenient, isn't it?" he chuckled. "Anything you smear with embers smells like embers, not like you. Week-old ashes are, thus, good survival equipment. The issue is that they don't work everywhere- and they don't work together with red tents. If you're going to avoid a scent tracker, you need an area that's been through a forest fire. You can recognize them by the burn marks in the bark. There, mix the ashes with anything you remove. While animals are scared of fire, the smell of old burnt wood is common after a forest fire and it doesn't specially attract their attention. Now..."

He pursed his lips for a moment and let out a TCH.

"Look for traces of forest fires, dense areas, or earthen barriers while you have daylight. Try not to loosen much dirt in the forest fire case, as you're trying to mask yourself with the smell of smoke, not loose dirt; if you do loosen dirt, mix ashes in it as a last resort: it will help avoid the scent trackers. Use the tent's cloth to cover the ground you're working on if you're not stepping on roots, it'll help avoid the visual trackers. If you're using an earthen barrier to hide in, make sure it's a humid place where the scent of loose dirt and mud wouldn't be new. We've already described dense areas and how to camp in them. Stay in silence, for the love of boobs. And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how a red tent is supposed to be used. You don't make it stand anywhere. You don't make it blend in. You hide it as you'd hide yourself, if you were a thirteen-foot-long prism!"

Still no laughter. Well, if they were taking it seriously... all the better.

"Of course, you should use weathered old cloth tents rather than red tents. Don't forget that." he shook his head. "I'm sure all of you will think up tricks of your own in your own time. You'll have to, if you want to survive. This is only a couple I've figured out myself- but there are plenty of tricks, some of which I've never even heard about. You're going to learn tricks I haven't learned, you'll figure out things I'll never even imagine. But now, you just need to know one thing. From our class on dryads, we learned which trees we can trust. Then we learned how to deal with fairies. Now, we know which trees to use in order to reduce our pred problems to just fairies."

"JUST fairies?" Mirna groaned.

"Fairies, and anything insane enough to try and fight us. But fairies cross the forest at random dowsing for prey, and we aren't much more likely to meet them there than we are to meet them anywhere else."

"However, you told us that fairies were something you never managed to even injure." Nicolás pointed.

"That's true. Not I, not even a single time. Neither could they ever touch me, because I wasn't alone, and since I wasn't alone, I couldn't manage to injure them- but my partners did. Then they complained they were babysitting me." he chuckled. "I'll have the fondest memories with them, for as long as I live."

Marcel raised his gaze, smiling.

"I believe this about wraps up this class. This little trick with the strata is short to learn- but now that you know it, I want you to think back to your exercise and ask yourselves if it could've been of use. Or what would've happened if you had tried that. What did we learn about these smaller trees?" he smiled, looking at Swaren. "What lurks in those canopies?"

He took a final glance at the horizon, where trees sprawled almost as far as the eye could see. But to whoever looked far enough, they could make out a mountain range in the distance, one so tall that even halfway towards the peak, the mountains were white. And to his left, there was a tree so large it seemed to dwarf even those mountains. If he dared look just over the edge, a city revealed itself a fair distance from the base of the mountain.

"You've went into the forest once. When you go back in, for our final exercise, I promise you'll see everything in a different light." he turned back towards his trainees. "We only have two classes left before this final exercise... well, three, but the last one's not really a class. If anyone wants to stay, use the spyglass, you're welcome to it. But our reservation only lasts for fifteen minutes, so I'd appreciate it if we weren't that many."

Lesson Six- War

(Whew! It's hard not to make everything flamethrowers, or everything flashbangs, but I think I managed...
Credits to Jasconius for the idea of a tonorion to be the petrified creature.
Credits to CauldronBorn24 for helping me be less of an alarmist about the Great Rocky Fields.)

"The greatest weakness of the creature that hides in shadows and sees all is that it cannot make itself invisible."
Ancient scroll, from Eye of the Beholder (Copyright 1990, Strategic Simulations Incorporated, Westwood Studios, TSR. No credits given for the line itself)

"[...] The territory of my strategy is infinite, and I may fatigue, baffle and disarm my adversary, force him to cross unmeasurable distances, fight without food, without drink, without breath, an entire life, and when the land is over, ride in the air; over winged steeds if we are to pursue into the lands of imagination and reverie."
Joaquín V. González, "Optimism Lesson" (In Spanish, fragment); translation and adaptation by yours truly.

"START WITH A FRAGMENT OF THE ENEMY. A DROP OF BLOOD. A CRYSTALLIZED THOUGHT. ONE OF ITS HOPES. ALL OF THESE THINGS TELL THE WAY IT CAN DIE."
Coaxmetal, from Planescape: Torment. Original dialogue by Chris Avellone and Colin McComb.

« Monsieur, je ne vous cherche pas noise, mais je vous préviens d'avance et en toute clarté que si vous m'envahissez, je répondrai au seul niveau crédible à mon échelle, donc au niveau nucléaire. Quelle que soit votre défense, vous n'empêcherez pas quelques uns au moins de mes missiles d'arriver chez vous et d'y exercer les ravages que vous connaissez. Alors, renoncez à votre entreprise et restons bons amis »
French Admiral de Joybert, La Paix Nucleare (in French) (1975)

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Saturday morning again, and with it, the special training session. Unlike the rest of the week's sesssions, this one didn't involve running for an hour, doing a thousand squats, crawling a mile on the mud, working on their aim, sparring, or improving reflexes. Rather than hone their abilities, those special classes were supposed to...

...well, no one really knew the purpose of those classes. Frankly, it was hard to feel any readier to take on the world after 30 minutes of that man talking. Sometimes, it was replaced by a real exercise- like three weeks ago, when they had left on a small trip to find a statue while still under the influence of the Nekomura eye.

Nonetheless, it was usually a pleasure to be there when Marcel was lecturing. His classes always were in different places, and last time, they'd been to the Ascarlin Mountains and used a telescope to look at the Great Tree. This time around, they were in the Adventurers' Guild- one interesting building in Negav, more exactly, in a section devoted to hallways and rooms full of gigantic, very lifelike statues.

"You mean it's really been petrified?" he heard someone comment. "Yes, no doubt about it..." "But it's a tonorion, my father told me they're nearly immune to magic! How could they?"

Also he made it sound like everything was possible- though he was adamant on some things not being meant to be tried. Some of his students, however, had their doubts as to Marcel's actual purpose. Was he there to numb their skulls into being courageous, or was all that hardly connected stuff which he always talked about but never gave them a chance to practice supposed to have a real purpose in helping them live?

Lender, a tall neko in a simple gi (he always made a note to self to buy other clothes, but never actually went through with it) had those doubts, for instance. And now that Marcel was 15 minutes late, according to Vole and company right next to him, those girls never stopped talking unless Marcel was there... according to one of them, that was the tolerance for a professor in university. Any longer than that and they could leave.

"Geez, I thought this was going to be over already..." he heard Mirna say, right next to him. "Or at least start!"

"Tell me about it, I didn't even have breakfast. I'm so hungry I could eat Marcel." Libra answered her friend. Libra, Lender had to admit, had several positive qualities that she wasn't shy about, most of them covered quite tastefully, but still...

Poor Libra. She had such a timing problem, she'd said it just when everyone else had lowered their voices. So all of a sudden, she'd spoken blasphemy in the wrong place at the wrong time. So many humans unable to take jokes around them...

...he cleared his voice, quickly.

"Well, what's with...?"

"Sorry, sorry, I'm late, I know." an unfamiliar voice chirped in front of them, as its owner slowly sidled towards them. "But as you're all here, it doesn't matter, now, does it." the voice continued.

Lender turned his eyes to the outsider. That wasn't Marcel!

Definitely, that wasn't Marcel. Marcel was taller, buffer, with reddish brown hair, not blonde, and he definitely was no woman! Not a fair-skinned, skinny woman with a topknot and a shy posture in direct contrast to her defiant eyes.

"Greetings..." he started, moving forward, he'd speak for the group. "Let me ask the obvious question, first."

"Why Marcel isn't here? I'll be your instructor the next two classes." she replied. "I am Lorelei; I'll teach you about combat, and about magic."

Lender took a moment to inspect the newcomer. She was wearing a... well, a loose pale blue robe. Very loose, come to think of it, it was a wonder it hadn't fell off; probably, the girdle at the middle had something to do with the thing staying a robe and not a folded curtain.

"You'll be teaching us magic?"

"Of course not!" she smiled. "Just about it, next class, amongst other things."

"And Marcel can't do it?"

"He's got the wrong attitude." Lorelei replied, grinning. "Maybe for all the relaxed topics it was appropriate, but here I'll want your full attention and nothing else. This isn't school. This is where your life comes in the balance, and you don't have the time to think back to Marcel's lengthy, inspiring..." she snorted "...explanation. Now pay attention, this is what you'll be practicing during the whole next week. And I really hope you'll get it right by then, because if you don't..." she shrugged. "your life's on it, not mine. Let's begin."

Lorelei withdrew a few steps and took a deep breath.

"As you might know... getting in a battle can be a really intense experience, and one that must be avoided at all costs. This is true- of fair battles. Here's one principle you need to know- NEVER, EVER walk into a fair fight. If I see any of you in a fair fight, or I'll kill you myself." she grinned. Hell, she sounded serious. "Either it's unfair against you and you had no choice but to fight, or it's unfair in your favor and that's why you're fighting. NOTHING ELSE will do."

She cleared her throat a little.

"Now, you see... the thing about fighting is that there's a rule number one. You WILL get hurt." she clicked her tongue. "And if you don't enforce this rule on your combatants, you're going to get the worst part. FOOD is mainly about disuassion- most things you'll fight are fighting for a warm meal. The whole point of our policy is to show it won't be worth it. We use disuasion de faible au fort" which everyone understood as 'weak-to-strong deterrence'. "Sir, I have no quarry with you, but if you attack me, I shall answer in the only level credible to me, which is the nuclear level. Whatever your defenses, you shan't prevent at least some of my missiles from reaching your home and cause the devastation that you know. So renounce your endeavor and let us stay good friends." she continued. "Problem is, predators wouldn't believe it. We have to make them figure it out by themselves. Figure WHAT out, you numbskulls may ask?" she let out a giggle. Then her mouth twisted in disgust. "That no matter how hungry they are, we can cause more damage than a whole platoon would represent to them. In other words- I know you're all going to spice yourselves up. So do your best to stay tempting, and do your best to STILL NOT BE WORTH IT. The cheapest way to do this?" Lorelei sighed.

"Three words. Got. 'To be'. Ready." she added, much to everyone's surprise. "We'll start by the most immediate threats. The ambush predators, as it were. You best be honed to detect the ambush and not get surprised, or else, you'll give them a free lunch just by virtue of waiting for you. As I hope you figured out, silence is an admission of guilt! If it's too quiet, there's an ambush or there was one not long ago! So keep your ears out for that deafening silence, do you understand!? Even Marcel knows this one."

Lender nodded.

"Silence is an admission of guilt!" their new instructor grinned. "Do you understand!?"

"Yes." she was answered, in a choir that seemed to think of it as a chore.

"SILENCE IS AN ADMISSION OF GUILT!" she grinned wider. "I CANNOT HEAR YOU!" she yelled.

"YES!" she got yelled back at. She shrugged.

Much to Lender's surprise, he found himself liking this woman more than Marcel. Birds in the head and kindness were a lot less useful than being direct and preposterous, where fighting was concerned.

"Okay, now, let's go over what you do in an ambush. Most animals can only go after one of you at a time, so while that one protects himself, the rest of you KILL IT. Even a three-person team can deal with it! If I want to kill you, you duck!" she pointed at Mirna. "And the two of you kill me!" she pointed at the two people next to her, Vole and Libra. "It's that simple! A gun's not always good to protect your life, but it's always good to protect someone else's! As long as that person knows to STOP, DROP AND ROLL! If you're the one closest to the target, you GET OUT OF THE WAY SO YOUR PALS CAN KILL IT!" she cried. "SO YOUR PALS CAN KILL IT DEAD!"

For added surprise, she was smirking as she said this.

"Now, of all predators, the worst are the ones who don't need to be close to kill you. They're rare, thankfully! So far, we only know slug girls, echydins, azure frogs, and some varieties of stormseeker. The first thing you do with them is look only as far as their range goes. Slug girls have a maximum range of over 250 feet, after all!" she grinned. "Echydins don't, but they don't camouflage as well. The first thing you do when you see one..."

"You take cover." Libra interrupted. "Marcel already..."

"SILENCE, YOU MAGGOT!" Lorelei barked. "I'm talking. Make no mistake- I'm not Marcel, there WILL be consequences. You take cover if you see a creature capable of eating you at that distance. And if you were on a vehicle, you raise your weapons, because it saw you too! If you're not, you make a sign to the people following you, and point where the thing is. Then you sneak around it- radially, behind the trees! Always move straight away from it, with a tree between the two of you, so it can't see you. Walk behind another obstacle when you can- it's like a puzzle, just do it fast! Now, do you understand!? If I were an echydin, you'd have to hide behind the nearest tree, and walk away keeping a tree between the two of us! DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?"

"YES!"

"Heh, well, this is also the response for glouteux. There's no need to waste bullets on them; out of sight, out of mind." she shrugged. "Now! In the case of an echydin or a frog of some sort, you'll have to fight it if it sees you! In the case of the frog, it might be convenient to shoot it, but echydins are magical! If you have magical arrows, good, if you don't, a flamethrower will suffice- if you can get close enough, that is! Echydins might requre ambush tactics to set on fire, but most frogs won't. Some mermaids have long tongues, too. Very long tongues. If you have a problem with one of them, GET AWAY FROM THE RIVERS. Or carry a spiked, loose shield, keep your eyes trained on the water, and keep your profile small. This means DUCK!" she cried. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

"YES!"

-This is ridiculous.- Lender thought to himself.

"Of course, shields don't help you against everything- if you know you're facing a frog or mermaid, that works, but if you're not sure what you'll face, a shield is more harm than good. Imagine trying to use a shield against a slug girl! You'll just get yourself pinned harder! So don't trust shields unless you're completely sure you'll need them. A cheese grater would help you more than any shield, in those cases. When you face a slug girl, it's more important to turn around than to evade. You're not sure to evade, but you're sure to choke if you don't turn around! So whatever you do, turn around too! The uniform right now includes long sleeves- if you can keep the slime away from your face, you can always just wriggle out from the uniform yourself."

Lorelei stopped for a moment.

"Now! Nagas are another problem. Since even Marcel can teach you how to deal with fairies, I guess it's up to me to deal with the nagas. You see, nagas are ambush predators too. So if it's too quiet, look for them. And if you find them, they'll probably lunge for you. They might seem really quick at first- but they're not! The initial lunge is when they're the fastest- afterwards, they're so slow that YOU people could outrun them."

"They're not slow." Lender interrupted.

"Hm? What did you say?" she asked, frowning.

"I said they're not slow!" he repeated. "I've ran from a few. They're not slow."

"No, they're just as slow as you." Lorelei chirped. "Don't interrupt me, you pointy-eared shifty bastard. We'll talk punishment later." she added, calmly.

He grimaced... she said it so calmly, it was a little annoying. Marcel at least had blood in his veins.

"So when the naga keeps up the pursuit, split into two groups as soon as you near a tree. If it chases one, the other one SHOOTS its tail as close to the body as possible. It's strong, sure, but if it tries to swing it, it'll get off balance and the other group can go for the kill- not to mention it'll open wide any wounds you made. Going instantly for the face is a good idea- if it's asleep; if you really want to kill a naga, you have to go for the tail first, that way it can't run, and it can't really fight either. If you disable at least part of the tail, they lose. Keep that in mind."

Cool, the part Lender had been waiting for. Of course, such a thing would only work with FOOD. Nobody else would split into two groups knowing one of them would act as a decoy, as decided by the naga. And if the naga saw it coming...

"What if she sees it coming?" Lender cut in.

"How could she see it coming?" Lorelei asked, sugar-coatedly.

"Marcel's always warned us that our foes are intelligent, and that in his career they've always been prepared." Lender continued.

"And yet here he is! I can think of one reason why they saw it coming and he's still alive." Lorelei answered, calmly.

-What...?- Lender grimaced. -I never thought of that...-

"If you trust him, don't tell me anything: that's your problem." she shrugged. "And now for what's really important! Most other threats are rarely armored, but those that are, they are a mess to deal with. Don't bother trying to crunch spine beetles open, and it's the same for tonorions. Spine beetles only attack in swarms when provoked, so don't provoke them! If you only have a problem with one of those, you can always just run- if you have a vehicle. Matter of fact, you should, they're pretty quick: get a ride and point from the back of the vehicle. Now, if it's a tonorion, set its front side and legs on fire. The front side is the easiest- then you just tilt a little the pointer and that's that, but as you'll need to get it right with practice, I'll leave it to you. Without eyes, nose, or vibrations, it can't find you anymore. Matter of fact, I don't think it'll live long past that!" she grinned. "If it's a spine beetle, try not to open fire; take cover, use some metal. If it's a swarm of them, things can't get worse, so spew fire at the whole swarm. Keep in mind, though, you can't have so much fuel on yourself- so hope they get away from you. They're not fairies- they don't stop to deal with the wounded."

Lorelei paused for a moment.

"The big birds shouldn't be a problem for healthy young people like yourselves... the one-shield two-attack strategy from before works: have two partners and don't get in their way. Most things are helpless towards that combination. The ones that aren't, either by sheer bulk or by being armored, might require other kinds of attention. For example, boom bees. You don't bother them. You walk away the same way you walked close, and hope you didn't make them angry. Now, the rest, that's the fun part!"

-Awesome, she thinks it's fun...- Lender thought to himself.

"For giant pack hunters, you have to expect the worst." she pointed at her temple. "If there's only one, and it's chasing you, once more, rear-mounted flamethrower if you're on a vehicle, take cover and shoot if you're on foot. But running doesn't always work- only do it for as long as it takes for you to find an opening. Most pack hunters are cunning enough to lead you into a trap, and that usually takes three seconds. You just need to hurt one, the rest of the pack will either cut its losses or come out of ambush. If it does the second thing, you keep firing until they give up. If they don't... you can be sure you took them with you." she grinned.

Lorelei paused for a moment to recall something.

"Now, by giant pack hunters, I mean kensha beasts to the north, terror hyenas to the south. The one-guard, two-attack delta won't do them in; three people aren't enough to put them down. The next thing in the menu is... the predators in the Great Rocky Fields. You should be wary of the storm manticores and the stormseekers. The great ones. They fly, and they'll find you. Best you can do is shoot them first; keep your eyes on the sky, and stop when you see them. If they come after you, you zip away immediately and shoot them as much as you can. Now, since both of these creatures have electric powers, you shouldn't stay on the car. If you're in the Great Rocky Fields, you'll be in a car!" she grinned. "You should jump towards the ground, and stay on it, as far from the car as possible, while hiding. Bullets don't move upwards too well, so don't try to shoot straight up too far, you'll miss. Also, common weapons aren't very useful against those electromagnetically disturbed beings. You'll want to use the really big guns."

Then she raised her gaze.

"But these two aren't the only dangers. Remember, the one-guard two-attack formation for anything that lurks in the grass, except the fairies, which are Marcel's problem, not mine. Then comes the neat part- the characteristical Felaryan predators. There's sphinxes, centaurs and harpies in the Great Rocky Fields too. Harpies aren't much of a problem, but wind magic can distort the trajectory of a projectile, so remember to always shoot in strafing volleys when aiming at a harpy, just in case. Sphinxes are another problem... the ones we're going to be concerned about are so massive most guns won't have much effect. You'll need to either get them close and set them alight, or barring that, use your backup heavy weapon. No need to tell you- harpies are easily avoided if you stay under the canopy! Same for sphinxes. Now, centaurs..."

Lorelei stepped back.

"Centaurs are the largest species there is, far as I know or care. So ideally you'd want not to mess with them. The easiest way not to mess with them is to keep on the lookout, and hopefully from a high spot. Now, since the trees are loaded with fairies, you'd ideally want to have... a guardian angel."

And then for the first time in some time, she actually moved- taking something from under her robes. A small console, with a screen and some buttons- which someone might recognize as a handheld television.

"Lifting you into the air would be too much, so we'll make do with just a camera- it's easy to place them somewhere high. The camera will be watching your surroundings- if something wanders too close, you'll know it before it knows. And that'll help you kill it."

Taking a deep breath, Lorelei let out a derisive snort.

"One-guard-two-attack works for almost anything. Plants aren't good at anticipating responses or expecting reinforcements. Then again, identification works even better; don't get close to giant fruit-bearing vine, don't get close to giant flower-bearing vine, don't get close to giant spine-bearing vine. Also, avoid the purple glowing flowers, and the flowers that spew mist at you... ah, if you see a giant carnivorous plant, you should stay away, too, and the holes on the trees? Test them with a stick first. Avoid any pink plants, too, specially if they don't have anything to photosynthesize with. There's some giant lilypads -the round giant leaves- that live on land, don't step on them. A little more difficult to deal with is the earth mouth, a plant that..." she sighed. "I don't know why do they call it a plant, anyway. As long as you have a whistle and a friend some distance away carrying rope, just hang in there and you'll be fine. On the other hand, there's a couple species that should worry you- the gravedigger and the coulorme."

Lorelei once more put the console under her robes.

"While the gravedigger can be countered easily enough- you just need another flamethrower, or a jar of acid, hit the base and it'll shrivel up, the coulorme is made of wood; you can't burn it so easily, not without killing your companions..." she rolled her eyes. "So you'll just have to aim better. Point at the base of its roots, as far from your companions as possible; it can't move where it's been burnt. Hopefully, this'll disorient it enough for you to burn the rest of the roots, and then tear free your companion from its tendrils. A last species that might worry you is the nerthensia... but it's easy, actually. Hold your ground against it; it's floating, but you are not. When it tries to pull you, you have to pull back and grab on to something. That'll get it closer, so that someone else can cut its tendrils. Or set it on fire- my personal favourite. However, it's not as easy; nerthensias are like giant lilypads, and they float."

Their instructor yawned a little.

"Well, we're almost done now. There's a couple more species in the Grove- a kind of scorpion. Pretty territorial and fast, but also pretty noisy. It can spew toxic smoke, and it's got a carapace. As always, the answer for anything with a carapace is to set it on fire; scorpions are particularly vulnerable to that. You know what happens when you put a scorpion inside a ring of fire?" she grinned. "Try it sometime, you'll be surprised. The last species is a giant lizard, which is invisible... but it takes a lot of space, too. So just look out for giant empty spaces, try to catch a glimpse of its characteristical blur."

"Blur?"

"Blur, yes. There's a blur, a faint shimmering, around its outline. If you can catch it, warn the others." she said. "Ah, well. Now, when you have finally seen it, I don't need to tell you what to do if it attacks, do I?" she grinned. "Kill it or force it to retreat. That's that. Now, in the places where we work, there's three more kinds of creatures that might need a special kind of attention..." she put her finger to her lips. "Giant mermaids, giants, deerataurs... ah, I was forgetting the dridders!" she beamed. "Well, there's no special trick to the last three. Mermaids, on the other hand... since even flamethrowers can't work underwater, and more exotic forms of punishment rarely do much... I'd say mermaids are one of our biggest problems."

Lender raised his eyebrows. Mermaids? He'd never seen one.

"Mermaids, you heard right. A lot of the fastest travel is done right by the jewel river; it saves a lot of time, so a lot of people take their chances and go down that road. Well, mermaids rarely bother ships... not. Setting them on fire doesn't work, and they can keep causing damage while underwater. Luckily, ships have decks- and you can mount whatever you want on them, so I'll expect you to keep them. Harpies might bother you too, but as long as there's nobody doing stupid things, like being on deck, it shouldn't be a problem."

And so, Lorelei stretched her arms.

"Well, that's all. One-guard-two-attack, if you can't kill it set it on fire, always put an obstacle between you two, keep your guard, hurt it not where it hurts but where it needs to kill you... if everything else fails carry a rocket launcher. What else?" she rubbed her chin. "Ah, yes. Avoid weird plants. And... we'll be practicing this the whole week, so you'll want to keep all that in mind. Any questions?"

No one raised questions.

"Well, that's it then! Wasn't that great?" she shrugged, grinning. "See you again next week."

And just like that, Lorelei turned around and left, leaving a group behind her, confused and befuddled.

======

But before Lender's bemused eyes, she stopped...

"Oh, right!" she chuckled. "If any of you can read the plaques, you can find many of the creatures mentioned somewhere in those halls. Show yourself to them, please."

And then she resumed her previous trajectory.

Once she was out of earshot, it was Lender who spoke first.

"What the hell..." he mumbled.

"That was too brief. Far too brief..." Serafín commented.

"But ah..." Nicolás, as always his skinny, stubbly self in blue jeans, a black shirt and a vest, mumbled, walking up to Serafín. "you know, maybe the core essence is just that at the end."

"That might have been helpful, but it can't be all." Mirna frowned. "Did anyone keep notes?"

"I recorded it." Serafín replied, tapping his temple. "But it still was far too brief, I don't feel any more prepared."

"She said we'd be practicing this all week, didn't she?" Libra began, from close to Mirna as always. "This isn't the real challenge, we always have those silly short classes on Saturdays and then do the real work all week round."

"Hey!" Nicolás suddenly gasped. "This is the Adventurers' Guild after all... maybe we could go around, check a little?"

Libra sighed.

"Nah, thank you. I've got things to do, now. Mirna, you coming?"

The other female neko shook her head.

"I think I'll be working on my chances, instead."

"I'll join you." Serafín said. "She's mentioned several species, we'll see if we can find any pictures. Just to know what we're looking at."

"Yeah. This one here's a tonorion." a woman grinned. "It's really darn impressive, right? Imagine what it was like in the flesh, they're really hard to affect with magic, too. I wonder how they did it."

"Well, I've got things to do." Libra sighed. "Update me later, Mirna?"

"Okay." Mirna replied. "Nicolás?"

Nicolás shrugged.

"I'll get up to date with you guys on Monday... I..." he sighed. "Bye."

Mirna shook her head, and turned back to the woman who'd pointed at the tonorion.

"Well, Vole, let's go. Anyone else wants to come with us?"

Haha Lorelei looks such an odd one
I really enjoyed those chapters ^_^ I just can't get enough of those clever tricsk you are imagining agasint various situations

And wow a quote by Coaxmetal ? Planescape torment is my favorite game of all time ! Ihave probably played it 6 or 7 times XD

Karbo wrote:

Haha Lorelei looks such an odd one
I really enjoyed those chapters ^_^ I just can't get enough of those clever tricsk you are imagining agasint various situations

And wow a quote by Coaxmetal ? Planescape torment is my favorite game of all time ! Ihave probably played it 6 or 7 times XD

Well, thanks for the comments, though it's sometimes a lot of responsibility for me to reply to them without putting my foot in the keyboard.

I know you like Torment, saw it in your influence map. I liked it, too- except in my case I read up on a ton of spoilers first, so I never really got to enjoy the game. In my defense, I thought I'd never get a proper computer... thought I wouldn't really do myself any harm by reading the spoilers. Don't get me wrong, I loved the game anyway, but I wonder if it'd have been different...

You can't get enough? Drat. I'm nearly wrapping up already... but fear not, I promise the whole thing will be a satisfying read in the end.

Lesson Seven- The Art

Once more, everyone was waiting in the spot. This was their third time in this classroom- their seventh Saturday lesson. And for the second time, Lorelei was running late.

Rapping his knuckles on the long table, Serafín wondered what was it going to be this time. She had promised them magic for this week, after a week of going through absolute hell during tactics practice. Lorelei had only given them a brief flash of what tactics were like: they had to practice them afterwards during eight hours a day, for five days. Not everyone had gotten them right in the end, either. He had, a'course- no wonder about it, after all, half of him had been designed for combat and the other half for perfect sinergy.

But that was just him. What about the rest? None of them -except Tychi- was that synthetic. He wondered if it was in their image that he -that everyone in his life- had been created. In their image... he wondered often how it came to be all those people were lining up to live or die by the sword. Given his upbringing, he would've expected them all to be examples of courage and dedication, with a healthy lust for blood as well. He had been encouraged to think that, he'd thought that way when he was sent to Felarya.

He wondered why wouldn't this woman just arrive already. Being around those creeps was creeping him out, Swaren in particular- from what he'd gathered from Rand, the feeling was not mutual, but only because Swaren wouldn't believe Serafín could feel at all. And Rand... the less said about that young man, the scarier, and Rand didn't have much to say at all. No one said why they were here. Oh, if only. The lack of information on the issue left imagination to come up with ever more disturbing ideas.

The trapezoidal room contained around three dozen people sitting at three long tables, each in front of and a foot lower than the last, a desk at the front, a blackboard just behind it. The green and beige paint on the walls didn't help things at all, the small windows on top of the walls were letting too much noon sunlight in. Who had designed this room? It was good for napping, that's what it was, specially when you're sweating bullets...

"Well, I'm here." Lorelei chirped, walking in through a door right next to the topmost table. Nicolás, next to her, turned to face her for a moment, she just generally ignored him and strode towards the desk. "I'm late, look at it on the bright side. It'll take you a few more minutes to get to the jungle and get eaten."

Several people winced. That wasn't funny.

"Either way, before we start, I want to tell you this is the last class. Next isn't mandatory, but we're required to give it anyway." she shrugged. "Don't see much point, but it's from above."

Nicolás had already raised his hand. She ignored him.

"Just giving you a heads up, you can skip the next class. On the bright side, you get to see the yummiest of our instructors, Marcel, again: we're giving the class together. Oh, by the way, he said that if any of you had any questions you forgot to ask, you should come, he'll answer everything after the class. Matter of fact, he said you should start thinking up questions and jotting them down, so that you don't forget them." she opened her eyes very wide for some reason, as Nicolás lowered his hand, next to Serafín.

She smiled widely.

"Any questions?" she asked. A soft murmur rose- she cut it off. "Well, jot them down for Marcel." she giggled. "Now, like I said, this class is about magic. Obviously I'm not going to teach you magic, I don't have the time or patience."

-I agree.- Vole thought to herself. -You missed the part where you don't know anything we don't, either.-

"But I can tell you the following, there's one or two things you should know about magic if you're going to be out in the wild. Just a few things to watch out for, that's all." she tilted her head.

"The first rule is to always WARN the wizard- don't trust them, warn them. There's plenty of wizards in Felarya, and only they know what they can do. You don't know what they can do, so if they say there's something they can do, you must warn them first about the risks- and you warn them BEFORE the situation comes up!" she stressed. "If you don't give them a warning in advance, you're asking for them to hesitate afterwards- and hesitation is the first cause of death here. If and when they volunteer to assist with their talents, make sure you got their back. Magic can be fickle and unpredictable- you can't. Chances are if the wizard doesn't blow up, two guys would be handy to make sure they survive. Most wizards act all mysterious and won't tell you anything about what they can do, so they need to learn from their own mistakes how to work together with you- give them the chance! It's useful in the long run."

Lorelei hummed to herself for a moment.

"And how do we deal with enemy mages? How do we identify them?" Serafín cut in.

"Glad you asked!" she grinned. "That's what you do with your own wizards. Next, you need to watch out for enemy magic. Take a good look at your foes if you can. If you see one of them who's doing something that doesn't fit, get that one first. Foes should either be running or fighting. If they're instead taking a flask, shoot them first! You probably don't want to know what happens if they drink it. Seriously, some of the potions out there can be complete nightmares. Imagine what happens if an invisible guy runs around a formation and then cuts someone up with a knife. You try spraying the area with bullets and you'll end up with a lot of people killed by friendly fire, or hesitating enough for a pincer with the invisible guy and your visible attackers. One spell can fuck up your life, invisibilty being one of the worst offenders. Not impossible to solve, though."

She took another deep breath.

"Personally, my trick with invisible people is having an attack dog or two loose behind. They'll keep away from the firefight, but if someone sneaks up on the squad, the dog'll know it if you can't see them. It marks the spot with its teeth, then you shoot them DEAD for good measure. If someone has the temerity to try and sneak up on you, you can't be seriously concerned with the sanctity of their lives, not when there's any likelihood that letting them live will get your head rolling. Don't try to be a superhero, take prisoners only if you're sure you can."

Pursing her lips for a moment, she let out a hum. She seemed unsure as to how to go on.

"That said, we still have no idea how to identify a wizard BEFORE they become a problem." Mirna frowned.

"Okay, well, then, I don't know, try bringing a naga or something." Lorelei chirped. "Failing that, try... asking your own wizard to see if there's anything they can tell you."

"That's it?" Mirna grimaced.

"That's the only way, girl. Or maybe check for staves and robes? Just throwing ideas out there!" she grinned. "Thought you were smarter than that, thought you'd have wised up... mages aren't the only problem with magic. I'm telling you the truth here, someone with an artifact could royally bone things for you too. There's no need to be a wizard to use magic."

"So... we can do magic too?" Rand, from the back, asked. His darker complexion and roly-poly figure did little to conceal the fact he was young and healthy.

"I don't know... can you?" Lorelei grinned.

"Uhm..."

Rolling her eyes, she decided not to wait for his answer.

"Let's go on, it's not like invisible people are the only problem out there. There's two, no, three more problems. I can't go over everything that can possibly ever happen, so I'll be broad and brief about it. You do the rest, okay?" Lorelei shrugged. "The first other problem you can have is that all of a sudden the world changes around you. Magic's pretty good at turning the situation upside-down all of a sudden, you know?" she chuckled. "Most of the time, it does this with plants. If all of a sudden there's vines, grass and small twigs out to get you, you can assume it's magic. If mist rises all of a sudden from the ground and you can't see farther than your hand, much less hit anything farther than that without killing a friend, you can assume it's magic. If all of a sudden the ground turns too slippery to stand on, you can assume it's magic. If all three things happen..." she looked around "that's me."

"By this point, I have to say I'm a little confused..." Llod cut in, from the center row- strange sight, he was. Masked and hooded, the only notable feature he had was a dragon tattooed on his shoulder. "...what IS magic, anyway?"

"Ah, good question." Lorelei giggled. "Well, everyone's agreeing and disagreeing on that one- so we'll be cynical here, and say magic is any result of someone waving their hands on the air and reciting magic words. How's that?" she grinned.

"I... guess it'll do?" Llod shrugged.

"Cool. There's a last two things magic can do: there's also directly offensive magic, and directly defensive magic. I'm not going to go in depth over how does each work, because sometimes the lines are kinda blurred, it's good for your defense to have the best defense and all that." she shrugged. "Either way, if the magic is going to do something nasty to you directly involving your physical integrity, we'll call it offensive magic. Now, offensive magic is the least of your problems, ironically. Most of the time, you just need to get cover, like you'd do for bullets." she smirked. "But plenty of times that's not enough: there's offensive magic that ignores your cover, like the spell that makes you go to sleep, or some kinds of explosions. In those cases, spread quickly the moment you realize the situation, make sure they can't get you all in one swoop."

Lorelei cracked her neck.

"Defensive magic is actually a lot trickier than the offensive type, because the offensive magic often comes and goes. But the defensive type often stays until you deal with it, and by the time you even have the time to realize it's there, it's probably because you just noticed that what you were doing had been a waste of time all along. Hilarious as that might be, early detection is the best countermeasure, which only makes it harder." she smirked.

"Well, try to vary your offense. If bullets don't work, use fire. If fire doesn't work, use a flashbang, throw a net, and then move in if you know hand to hand combat: there's no spell we know of for protection against nets. Cuff them, and that's that. Of course, this assumes a human spellcaster, or something close enough." She looked away for a moment, blinking.

"If that's not the case, if you're going up against a giant predator, the only thing you can rightfully do to have any hope of getting past them is negating the magic. If you can't, then you'll have to use a flashbang and run away- if they don't know a spell for protection against flashbangs. If they do, well, if flashbangs don't work, if nothing you can do will hurt them, we're back to square one- run away or try to negotiate..." she sighed. "Those times are tough."

Their instructor paused for a moment, tapping her fingers on her desk.

"Where was I... well, that, take away your ability to win, reshape the battlefield against you, was the worst so far, right? But it can do worse than this- the single worst thing it can do is simply taking away your chances. There's magic that can straight-out stop you on your tracks, sleep magic for instance. By the time you get over it, you'll probably have been eaten- or are at someone's mercy either way for that matter: it's a fair bet to assume you're going to be fed to something and that's why you're still alive. If you get put to sleep, you better HOPE whoever did that will be merciful- that, or that you'll get rescued. Now, how do you get rescued when someone used something that screws you up THIS quick?"

"A will of iron and a true heart." Vole cut in, finding herself promptly ignored.

"A spread formation!" she chirped. "With a spread formation, that's how you counter this. If you're all huddling together, you can all get caught in a fell swoop. Keep some distance between yourselves, move in groups of three or four. That way, if one gets down for the count, the others can save themselves. Who knows, maybe they'll even be able to save the group to get attacked."

"And if all groups get attacked simultaneously?" Nicolás asked.

"Synchronized panicking might help. If it doesn't..." she rolled the silence.

"...?" he continued listening intently, almost at the edge of his seat.

"..."

"...?"

"..."

"...if it doesn't?" he broke the silence.

"Flashbang." she chirped. "Create an opening, cause some confusion and try to reverse the situation. Or don't, depends. If it's someone you know might be merciful, or someone you know you can't win against, don't give them ideas. Surrender peacefully and behave properly. They might be impressionable enough to let your charges go." she nodded. "You, of course, are almost always screwed either way. So try not to ever let all your groups be struck simultaneously- or in sequences. Sometimes, striking one group is the best distraction to have one of the others lower their guard. So... be on your guard for sequential ambushes?"

"That's turning out to be too many things to be on our guard for." Mirna complained, from the front row.

"Turning out?" Lorelei chirped. "No, Mirna. That's all you have to be on your guard for. Practice those things, and if you ever perfect your technique, you'll survive for a long time." she smiled. "Ah, right, Marcel's got a trick here. He says, if you ever need to signal to another team, but your mouth just won't do, clap your hands." she added.

"Clap?" Swaren frowned.

"Yeah, clap. Like a beat. Clap your hands- most of the time, if someone tries to disable you, they'll cover your mouth first of all, but nobody's expecting a struggling individual to employ their energies clapping." Lorelei grinned. "It's not always sleep magic, sometimes, you'll just quietly be robbed of your senses. If that happens don't make a mess, just clap if you can. It's an unexpected signal, but it works."

"Won't that attract undue attention?" he asked next.

"Weren't you paying attention in the third exercise?" Lorelei grinned. "Do not do this alone. You want to play hero, go ahead. Get yourself a sword, a wizard sidekick... but here we do things differently. If you are in trouble, you call for help. Nothing's worse than being caught unprepared- if a giant naga decides to see what's the fuss all about, we'll deal with her later, when there's nothing that straight-out trumps everything."

Staring down Swaren's gaze, Lorelei tilted her head, as if trying to get one last nugget from her noggin.

"There's a last thing you should keep in mind. The magic you'll have access to, aside from the Aether Devastator Arrows, you'll probably have a healing potion each. Take a shot for a disabling injury, or a mortal one- it'll save the team medic the pressure of having to make miracles, they work much more efficiently. Also, one of every three will have an antidote- it's good for those deadly poisons. If you can hang on for long enough, so that a partner can apply the antidote, you'll live to tell the tale. I think that's all I need to tell you about magic..." Lorelei chirped. "...and everything you need to know."

She took a deep breath, again, and exhaled slowly, a satisfied smile on her face.

"That's all, folks." she began. "Marcel and I will be giving the final class together, but I remind you it's not mandatory to go. It's not going to be like the other classes- though if you want, we'll answer any questions you still have."

"One sunny day, a light-hearted fool strolled along a hilly path whistling a merry tune. A long wooden pole was slung over his shoulder and attached to it, a cloth bundle which carried his life's possessions.
"What a marvelous afternoon!" he exclaimed to no one in particular, pausing to appreciate the lovely countryside.
Soon the trees parted and the path led to a small clearing, ending abruptly at the edge of a treacherous cliff. But the fool was undaunted and kept at his swift pace, steadily approaching the sheer drop.
"Your folly is most curious." a voice boomed. "Have you no fear of death?"
Just as one leg dangled over the edge of the cliff, the fool hesitated.
"Who dares interrupt my errand?" he impatiently demanded."
-Cliff Johnson, "The Fool's Errand", 1989.

"The foolish would proudly give their lives for a cause, while the wise would humbly live theirs for it."
-Adage (found in "The Catcher in the Rye", by J. D. Salinger). Transcribed from memory of a Spanish version- unintentional edition is possible.

"Discovery is dangerous… but so is life. A man unwilling to take risk is doomed never to learn, never to grow, never to live."
Pardot Kynes, from the second of the "House" Dune prequels.

"I don't want to die. That's what separates us from them- after all, they do want to die. But if my life is what it takes to make flight safe again, then my life is what I'll give."
-Preview for comic "AIR", by G. Willow Wilson and M. K. Perker, as spoken by Adam (Undercover flight safety officer).

"No change of faith can dull the colours and magic of spring, or dampen the native exuberance of perfect health; and the consolations of taste and intellect are infinite. It is easy to remove the mind from harping on the lost illusion of immortality... personally, I should not care for immortality in the least. Nothing better than oblivion exists, since in oblivion there is no wish unfulfilled. We had it before we were born, yet did not complain. Shall we then whine because we know it will return? Is Elyseum good enough for me..."
-H.P. Lovecraft, "In Defence of Dagon"

"The living who abandon their chance to survive accomplish nothing. Such an act would be the greatest tragedy."
-FM 11-26: US Army Survival Manual. Author not listed.

"We choose death, if the alternative is even more bitter."
Spoken by Khaled (Ali Suliman), "Paradise Now"

"WHEN A THING SEALS ITSELF AGAINST ITS OWN DESTRUCTION IT MERELY DIES A DIFFERENT DEATH."
"What makes that death worse than any other?"
"ALL THINGS HAVE COMMON GROUND IN DECAY. WAR IS NECESSARY. DEATH IS NECESSARY. DESTRUCTION IS NECESSARY."
Coaxmetal (in all capitals) and The Nameless One (Voiced by Michael T. Weiss), from Planescape: Torment. Original dialogue by Chris Avellone and Colin McComb.

"Death opens unknown doors. It is most grand to die."
-John Masefield

"No, no, no! That's my problem with people like you. You're- you're always taking the easy way out. Dying... dying, dying is easy. It's living that's hard!"
Dr. Wilson (Leonard Sean), "Dr. House". Transcribed from memory- reworded. Here's to hoping no one minds.



======

Thanks for following us this far. Now it's time for the final lesson.

-Stabs (Cruel, Devastar, Stach)

Thanks to Zion Atriedes for his help with the quotes, his support and patience.
Thanks to Jaette_Troll and PrinnyDoodAbides for the questions. They were really helpful.

======

Final Lesson- Vigilance



Staring out into the sunset, his fists clenched, all he could feel was the thumping of his heart. He never wanted to admit this, but at times like this he was always tense. They depended so much on him. This task was too important to simply approach it calmly- no matter how much he tried to focus on the present, there was always the little temptation to leave it to someone else.

But who else would do this? Lorelei? And where was that woman, anyway!? She was running late, like every single froggin' time.

The river was bathed in red light around the pier; the sunset was slowly fading into the darkness that had already claimed the horizon the other way around- and now she was late, while well over a couple dozen pairs of eyes were stuck on the back of his neck. And he owed them an explanation, after they'd decided to come.

Turning around, he faced the trainees. He wondered for a moment whether he'd entrust his life to them- whether he'd entrust their own lives to themselves. His class had no tests- it was the other instructors that did those things. The ones that had them drag themselves across the mud for an hour, struggle up and down a wire net, and so on. He took a deep breath, thinking about the other instructors. Yes, he'd entrust his life to their criteria. If they all said it was okay, they'd move on to the next step.

"We're wasting a perfectly good atmosphere." Marcel frowned. "We can't start without her..."

"Instructor, doesn't she have a cellphone?" Serafín asked.

The instructor shook his head.

"We can only wait," he replied.

"But what if she doesn't come?"

Marcel grimaced.

"Then I'd have to do it alone."

"It's been fifteen minutes," Swaren sighed. "If she's not here yet..."

"I'm not giving that lazy bum any excuses," Marcel barked. "A little longer, it's not the latest she's been- when she arrives to find the class started, she just walks away."

"But she might not come at all."

"I know the bitch, she's..."

"Are we really so close you can call me like that?" someone said, striding into the pier from the green grass beyond. She was frowning. "Badmouthing me behind my back, Amundsen?"

"Moment of weakness, Jio," he groaned.

"Why does she call you Amundsen?" Tychi suddenly blurted.

"Because that's what he's called."

"Family name," he explained. "Well, NOW we can start..."

"Start without me next time. You know what, do it all without me," she sighed, annoyed.

Marcel shook his head for a moment.

"She has a good point, actually," Swaren cut in. "Why won't you do it without her?"

Lorelei winced.

"I don't give all the lessons myself because I want you all to see a different perspective."

"You really spoil your students, you know?" she complained. "They interrupt, they show no respect..."

Much to their surprise, he nodded.

"See what I mean?" he explained. "I'm the one giving the special lessons mainly because I'm good at speeches."

"Because he's a manipulative hypocrite."

"Unlike the other lessons, in mine you have to ask questions, so I have to be informal. You're a diverse group, what passes for formal might vary- and I need you to ask questions, so I'm always nice enough- it should encourage most to talk, and those who think it's weakness..." he shot a glare to his companion "...would cross-examine me to make sure everyone else knew I only knew so much."

"Well, then..."

"Hold it, Miss Jio. I know what you're going to ask- and I had already answered. Whatever you thought of me doesn't matter, you were meant to learn, nothing else. I never asked for your respect- only for your curiosity. When you're out there in the wild, however, comes the most important part. Have you noticed how everything I taught you required you all to function as a team? Teams aren't made of you and me. Teams are made of ALL of you. They include people like Miss Jio," Marcel hissed. "And they require the same thing of everyone. So unless you were capable of functioning together with Miss Jio, then something is missing. Something that is vital. This final class is about two last things, the most vital things of all."

Marcel unclenched his fists.

"Cooperation is the first, vigilance is the second. Without those things, you're helpless. You're a load, you're worse than useless. It doesn't matter how strong, smart or skilled you are, or how prepared you came. If you don't have the valor to make those things count in the face of danger, the vigilance to do them right all the time, you don't stand a chance. You can have any weapon, but it won't matter: without the bravery, you won't be able to aim. Maybe you won't even be able to pull the trigger, or even better, you won't even be able to move your legs and run away. On the other side, you could break down under pressure, and just start screaming when confronted by a predator. Doesn't sound likely?"

He smirked.

"Think again- right now, I think all of you could deal, more or less, with it. Most of you handled the field exercise rather well, but that was one morning. Four hours. Imagine extending that exercise six times over, have to set up watches to sleep. That'd be a day. Now extend it again, thirty-fold. Now you have about one-quarter of what it's like in the wild: people will die during that time, you'll be attacked by predators, and there'll be the charges too, often the helpless kind. If you don't have the willpower to endure that kind of pressure while still giving your best, then you simply have nothing to do there."

"Are you saying you can teach us how to do that?" Nicolás asked.

Marcel's smirk vanished.

"Yes, and we'll do it right this time around," the instructor interrupted. "I was in an army back home too, but I had been there for years- and even then I crumbled when I got here."

"Then you were weak," Swaren replied.

"I... that's true!" Marcel grinned. "I think you're not."

Swaren just crossed his arms.

"Bringing us to the next point- even if you're strong, Swaren, can you cooperate? From what I've understood, you are a real joy to work with. Talking behind your mates' backs, trying to manipulate others..."

The man's face became a mask of tension.

"For you, it was sufficient that Mirna was a neko and Tychi a clone to label them as nonpeople." Marcel frowned. "By itself it wouldn't be THAT bad- I've had to work with worse, and so will they. But you let that affect you, that's the problem."

"Explain yourself, please?" the regal-looking man spat.

"During the whole exercise, Swaren, you acted like you had a chip on your shoulder. It doesn't matter who you think a person and who you don't, but insisting in taking the lead when you weren't sure of what to do made you the team's liability. Which is strange- from what I've read, you had consistently accomplished great, simply excellent results in the rest of your training. Then you found a way to turn yourself into a weak spot. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry."

The man he'd been talking to was now trying to kill him with his gaze, apparently. Marcel returned his gaze, blinking, not deigning himself into a staring contest.

"But everything in due time. We'll first deal with vigilance. The first thing you need to do your best when under pressure is to take away all the distractions. When you're in danger, and your mind wanders away to all those things you think you won't see again, it'll come back the fastest when you're done with them. Done. So I want to know... right now, is there any question you have to ask about the moment of truth? You can't let yourself wonder. You need an answer." He tilted his head. "And if you can't ask, then you need to quit. I recommend you do so before next Saturday, when it'll be easiest. If you quit after Saturday, but before next month, you'll piss off a lot of people. And if you try to quit after a month... you might get shot."

"That actually raises a question," Llod sighed. "I've been wondering, we're known because we're going to die. But I assume we have hierarchies like everybody else."

"Correct." Marcel nodded.

"So I had been wondering, if something happens to us as a result of following orders- will we be blamed for it?"

"Well..." Marcel took a deep breath. "That's a very broad question. Before I answer, I'd like to know if anyone thinks anything about it."

"Yes," Lorelei cut in. "Why are you talking about whose fault it is if something happens to you? You were the one who signed up!" she pointed out with a sneer.

"Precisely," the masked Llod replied. "I was wondering if that's what voluntary enrollment entails."

"Of course it does," Swaren grumbled.

"We're here to DO something, not to worry about ourselves," Lender added.

Marcel raised his gaze.

"That is sick!" Lasch, quiet until now, barked, suddenly tensing his arms. "How can you think of doing that to anyone!?"

"Those are some interesting perspectives, Miss Jio," he let out a long breath. "And you too, Swaren. Lender was a little more compassive, and Lasch... you might want to avoid barking. But as you three put it, what you're describing is a con." Marcel frowned. "The fact you say yes doesn't make it any less of a con. You're here willingly, but that doesn't give us the right to do just about anything to and with you. Whatever happens to you, happens to you- you can be sure of that. But your squad leader is supposed to weigh the dangers- we wouldn't put just anyone who'll give your death a purpose. Straight-out sacrificing people is only a final resource for us, if that's what you were wondering, and the rule is that the squad leaders always go first if that happens. If they get too clever, using people as bait and distractions to keep the predators away, then they'll last only until we discover that practice."

Studying Lender's face, Marcel was surprised to find such an horrified, angry grimace- shame there wasn't any real time to inquire about why. Swaren's face on the other hand was simply one of annoyance. He would see to it they had a hard time getting to lead anything.

"Does that answer your question, Llod? Yes, it'll be your problem, undeniably: it'd be physically impossible for anything that happened to you not to be your problem. If it happens to anyone else in your platoon, though, we'll soon determine if your leader made a mistake, or is a mistake. But don't bother judging your leader yourself. Without trust, no one can cooperate. Trust this- we won't send a man who knows what sacrifices are necessary and sufficient. We'll send a man who knows how not to sacrifice."

"What!?" Lender growled.

"That said, those are the key words here," Lorelei cut in. "If something happens to you, it happens to you, period; doesn't matter who's to blame. What were you going to say, Lender?"

"Don't we have a purpose!?" Lender insisted.

Marcel frowned.

"That's a matter of personal perspective." He raised his gaze. "Some people will tell you you're there to die for a cause." He crossed his arms. "It might be easy to forget this, but F.O.O.D. is a privately run organization," he added with a deep breath. "We don't own your consciences. This is not a nation, and we are not an army. We are here to protect those who have business with the wild- to give them our strength. Do you want a purpose, Lender?" Marcel's eyes narrowed. "You'll be protecting people who paid for it- if their quest is noble, you'll have the satisfaction of serving a just purpose. If it's not, you won't."

Lender looked like he already knew this, like he were struggling with a different question...

"And before you ask," Marcel's eyes widened, "it's best not to die either way. Whether you're serving a purpose or just working, if you die, you won't be putting yourself in danger- you'll be putting OTHER people in danger. If you have a death wish, you should stop being F.O.O.D. Ironic, don't you think? If you want to die, just walk out the gates. If you're here, you better be here to protect people."

"That's right. Don't just die on your mates." Lorelei grinned. "It might be convenient, but it makes the whole thing a lot harder in the long run."

Of course that didn't answer his question either. Nobody would ever ask if they weren't just here to die, or admit that's what they'd thought. Maybe they'd need a little coaxing on that matter?

"But by the way..." Marcel began, "To some, preserving life for its own sake is pointless, and sacrifice is not to be avoided where it offers a reasonable chance of gain. Now where'd I hear that?" frowning for a moment, he rubbed his chin. "Maybe somewhere to the north of here, I don't know. But without you, there's nothing standing between your charges and danger: at worst, you're valuable resources, VERY valuable resources at that. No one can afford to waste F.O.O.D. in the wild. Even if they believe that's all they are, true warriors don't belittle their value as resources. I want all of you to be the first to put your trust in your own worth- and I want you to be the last, too."

"Thought you'd never say it." Swaren grinned, while he caught Lender nodding. For some reason, Tychi and Serafín were smiling.

Their instructor pursed his lips.

"It's just a way of looking at things. I'd agree if we were in an army, but I told you, this is a private organization. There's no state, no enemies, no opressors, no duty. We're fighters, not soldiers."

"And what's the difference?" Lorelei cut in. "I've never seen a soldier, anyway."

"The difference? The difference is that the world NEEDS soldiers. But us?" Marcel cracked his neck. "We didn't take up this fight because someone had to. We took up this fight only because of ourselves. The world can do without F.O.O.D., but it needs soldiers."

"I always thought it was the other way around..." Nicolás grinned. Marcel clicked his tongue, looking away, hearing a few muted giggles.

"Then again, there's very few soldiers in Felarya." Marcel smiled. "It's hard to be a part of a cause that is truly necessary, because it's hard to find one. Maybe... we are all there is."

"Marcel, you ARE a soldier. Of fortune." Lorelei pointed.

He let out a snort. Muddying the waters with a pun- if he hadn't brought her here for exactly that purpose, she'd need to find herself a new face. Looking back at his trainees, he hoped they'd have been given something to think about. However, if they'd been given something to think about, they probably weren't going to say it. Questions were hard to word, he knew it, and that was assuming they knew what they wanted to ask about. That ominous silence, those faces, explained to him what the situation was. They probably weren't sure of what to say- he could give them time, but if their mind wandered, the rest of the class was wasted.



He wished it hadn't come to this, but he couldn't leave them well alone with that as a closing quote either. A soldier of fortune, indeed.

"So, Branuves," he grinned, making a long pause. The titanic man looked at him intently- and so did everyone else. Little trick- address the big guy in the group all out of the blue, and everyone'd suddenly find themselves drawn to pay attention.

"If you ever find yourself about to die..." he stressed every word more than he had to, so as to make sure he had everyone's attention. "what would you think about?"

Branuves just blankly shrugged, much to his satisfaction.

"Nothing," he replied, calmly.

"Nothing at all?" Marcel asked, challengingly, smirking.

The titanic berserker frowned.

"What do you want!?" he growled.

Marcel cracked his neck.

"Nobody wants to help him?" he grinned. "Fair enough. What do you think a mind could wander to if you ever are about to die?" he raised his head. "Or instead... what would you tell a predator that you have to live for, if they ever catch you?"

"Nothing," Branuves growled. "I'm here to fight, nothing more."

"Yeah, I don't get it either." Tychi's face was blank there.

Mirna winced for a moment. Swaren's blue eyes caught her wince- and he smirked.

"What... about your families?" the neko blurted. Then she grimaced for an instant- realizing Marcel had mentioned something to the effect of Tychi being a clone. "What about your family, Branuves?"

Branuves and Tychi both turned their gazes to Mirna. The man's gaze was intent- the girl's was curious.

"Where I'm from, we don't cry for those who die. We cry for those left behind," Branuves grumbled. "I'm not there anymore; I've left it all behind. I'm alone now; I can die in peace."

The neko gulped, and shook her head, as if dismissing the conversation. However, Marcel had other plans.

"What about your family, Mirna?" Marcel asked next, wiping the smirk off his face.

"That's a personal matter, Amundsen," Lorelei spat. "I thought you were trying not to pry."

"Family's important to her," the instructor replied. "Will your family get in your way, Mirna? Do they even know you're there?"

She returned her gaze to him, her face stiff.

"Yes, they know," she answered.

Marcel looked at Libra. He knew she was always close to Mirna. Maybe they couldn't both put on a poker face... his gaze crossed her dark eyes, her tan face, her delicate, feminine features framed in smooth black hair running just under ther shoulders. He had no sympathy for her- and her face said the feeling was more or less mutual. But Libra didn't seem to think Mirna was lying.

Well, either way.

"Any further thoughts on this issue?" Marcel added. "Questions, opinions about what you're getting into?"

"Can I go now?" Lorelei sighed, seeing no one answered.

"Actually, yes," Mirna grumbled, turning to Branuves again. "Why are you here?"

"Because I want to," he replied, camly.

Mirna looked at him intently for a moment, and then shrugged, looking away.

"What about you, Mirna?" Serafín asked, breaking his silence up to this point. "Why are you here?"

She turned to look at him.

"Hm?"

"Why are you here?" he asked again, oblivious to her balled fists.

Oblivious, that was the word. Marcel realized his jaw was slightly slack, his eyes slightly puzzled, the tip of his upper incisives showing. He looked clueless, and at the same time concerned and bemused. That was completely unlike him- unlike the Serafín he knew, fearless and unhesitating.

Now it was on the table. He had asked. Would she answer?

Mirna took a deep breath.

"Because I want..." she trailed off.

"A challenge?" the cyborg tried impatiently.

She turned her gaze away, relaxing a little.

"Sorta," she sighed.

He waited patiently on her follow-up words. Silently, she returned his gaze- he gestured at her with his head, and much to his chagrin she looked away. She wasn't going to elaborate.

"Can we go now?" Lorelei asked again.

He let out an annoyed sigh- probably it was about time to end this, frankly, it was getting a little long already. He wiggled his fingers, when a sudden noise cut him off.

"Ah..." Lasch jumped in. "About why I'm here... I'm from Chidokai, you know?"

Mirna looked at him, interested all of a sudden.

"It's nice here in town, all pretty quiet and comfortable; really nice if you want to take a short break, but that's about it..." he began. "I wouldn't fit here, I'd go crazy; I'm surprised how hard everyone can work, doing all those things I'd never even think of. I'm not like that; I take a nap anytime I can. I really can't follow the rhythm here, but I do like the people in town. I know they wouldn't make it out there, so I want to be there to help them if they ever need it. I know not everyone is nice." He stopped himself for a moment.

"Good, I mean. I know not everyone is good. But I want to be here for the good people." He smiled.

The interesting thing, to Marcel, however, was that many smiled with him.

"Sounds like you had it all thought up already," Lorelei sneered.

"Well, I did." Lasch grinned.

"Kind of like Amundsen here."

"And is that supposed to be a bad thing?" Marcel shrugged, turning to her with a paternal gesture for an instant. She brushed him off with a wince. "Which brings us to the next point," he continued. "FOOD, as you know, is an acronym for Fuck Off Or Die. However, the matter is, that acronym actually goes both ways. Anything that tries to get a piece of you, we'll drive off or slay. But it goes for you too- if you join us, sooner or later, you're going to die. You're running out of chances to fuck off," he pointed.

"How's that different from any other death?" Mabar cut in, with a smug grin. His three siblings, all of them angular, large; with those dark brown skins, were listening intently.

"That you're the ones who chose this. You've had a choice not to take any risks, and you are going to take them anyway." Marcel grinned back. "However, do you know what's the difference between dying for something, and dying for nothing? You're fighters now. I want you to know that the strengths we've taught you, the skills we've had you develop, are now yours. Until the moment you die, no one can take them away. Now, how you choose to use this strength is entirely up to you. Anyone who says you're just meaningless doesn't know what they're talking about anymore." Marcel's eyes narrowed, his voice turning solemn.

"None of you is meaningless." he continued. "We don't have to change the world. You have your strength- spend it wisely. Whether you intend to use it to protect others, to help them succeed in their tasks, or to buy them the time they need to save their lives, you can do something. There's always something you can do. Be ever vigilant. Be brave in danger. Hold comradery close to your heart. If you live by these precepts, I assure you, you'll make the difference."

Looking around, he cracked his neck.

"Well, I think that's about it."

And then, the spell broke, much to everyone's chagrin.

======

"Wow, it's really gotten late." Lorelei pointed.

The sunset had since faded, and yet they'd stayed with Marcel all the way up to now. Only now could they notice the stars blinking from the sky, tinkling as if they were giggling at them, the moon's reflection over the water. The shadow of the Giant Tree in the distance cut off a few stars. If they squinted, and if they were patient, they'd soon be able to know where the east lay.

"Weren't you going to get back to me?" Swaren challenged. "That's it for vigilance, now you're missing cooperation. Didn't you say it was just as important?"

Marcel smiled.

Swaren suddenly realized he couldn't see his face as clearly as before. Marcel had become a shadow against the water on the background, seemingly filling his field of vision. He held back a shiver- this man was too lax to hurt him.

"He's got a point, you know." Marcel's partner grinned.

He looked up for a moment. The regal-looking man's features tensed invisibly at the sight.

"I already taught you all you need for cooperation, actually." the instructor grinned. "You all have the strength each other needs, you know of each other's strength- but more importantly, you know of your companions' vigilance. In knowing that, there's nothing that can truly get between you where it matters." His eyes turned towards Swaren. "All of you should mark my words. Sooner or later, you'll see how right I am. Some sooner than others, some of you will have to wait until the trial by fire. When you'll either see the truth of my words..." he made a pause. "...or be found wanting."

Swaren blinked, trying not to kill anyone. Then he shrugged a little.

"Is that all?" he asked.

"Yes," Marcel replied. "That is all. The rest is up to you."

The two instructors stood up, and stretched their arms almost simultaneously. Marcel opened his mouth- but Lorelei was faster.

"Well, it's been a joy. See you all, and congrats on joining FOOD- it was nice knowing you."

"But it should be your pleasure entirely to know each other," her partner cut in "because that's where your strength will lie."

Pursing his lips, he watched his partner walk away, almost bounce away. She seemed to be in a real haste to get out of this situation.

Not that he could blame her. Anyone with blood in their veins could tell instruction, if one was truly devoted and the trainees were devoted in return, was an intense, gratifying experience- but at the same time, an undeniable responsibility. Even he could doubt, hesitate at times, not that he wanted them to know- he wanted to know how well he had taught them, he wanted to know how much had they learned, he wanted to be sure of all those things. Who wouldn't? If these things failed, their blood might be in his hands.

It made sense for that woman not to want any part of this. He knew how responsible she was, how much she enjoyed (or rather, disliked) caring for other people. There had been a little sadistic glee in calling a favor to have her teach the class, when he could've gotten any jerk for money instead- well, it was over now. Only that... the students were all still there.

"Is anything wrong?"

"Ah, yes." this other student began. "I had a few questions left."

"Sure, anything..." he squinted. "You were...?"

"Kurtis..." he began. "I wanted to know about crossing rivers... is it best to row slowly, or use a motorboat?"

"Usually you won't have a choice- rowboats can only carry so much weight. Unless your equipment is waiting for you on the other side, you'll always have to pick the biggest possible boat. Spyhoppers also make it a bad idea to try to cross the river sneakily. If you know there's anything on the river, I'd recommend staying away from it, or crossing by air."

"By air?" Kurtis half-smirked, bemused.

"Look around to be sure there's nothing in the air. I recommend crossing by glider, if you can- trying to cross by boat leaves you just WAY too vulnerable from below. In any case, if you need to cross by boat, I recommend sails. They're even quieter than rowing, and going downwind they can reach speeds that make them a sensible compromise."

"Aha. I had another question..." Kurtis pursed his lips for a moment. "What do we do if we're grabbed by a predator and... we're out of both friends and weapons?"

Marcel raised his eyebrows.

"Do you realize everything we've practiced was precisely to avoid that point?" the instructor frowned, "Either way, if you just fought it, you're out of luck, most likely. It probably won't want anything to do with you, might as well take it with some dignity." he shrugged. "Then again, there's a little thing you can do. If you know where to get a weapon, you can try to offer it some other food- it doesn't have to be humans, think outside the box. Of course this won't always work- there's not one exact universal way to get spared. Past that, I don't know. I generally don't expect any mercy." shrugging, he saw Kurtis nodding before him, almost too eager for something. "Anything else?"

"Yeah. Actually, if you had a weapon of your choice, would you sooner fight a tonorion, or a kensha?"

Marcel's jaw slacked a little for a moment.

"That's one strange question..." he sighed. "But if I had a flamethrower, I'd pick the kensha. They're smarter, they stay away when you flame them." he threw his hands up a little. "Anyone else?"

Kurtis turned to another man- he didn't recognize this one either.

"Frost, you had a question?" Kurtis asked.

"Yes, it's about predator sense, and mages. I know that mages are easily detected by predator sense, but they might be necessary, so I wanted to know just what's the best mage-to-nonmage ratio. Also, what mages are the best to take along." Frost smiled.

"About..." Marcel frowned. "...one to eight, I'd say. Predator sense is a bad thing for mages, but so is it for large groups. Past a couple dozens, mages seldom really make things any worse." he shrugged. "Then again, if you have to break up into squads, you'll want not to have wizards in every squad, so as to distribute the signature intensity, make it harder to give all of them the same attention. It's also difficult to count the number of people around a really powerful wizard until you've gotten a good look at them- as for the second part, I've got no idea." he shook his head. "You'd have to ask a wizard, and I doubt they'd agree anyway."

"Ah, I see." Frost said, looking a little disappointed.

Marcel looked around.

"Well, anyone else?"

A small chorus of weak "No"s followed.

For the last time, he looked up. The stars had moved, a little. The East was just where it belonged. Turning his face for a moment, he looked to the North.

"That closes it, then..." he declared. "Let's go back, then. It's getting late."

He turned away from the river, and walked back into the land. Behind him, somewhere around thirty people followed in a staggered formation. Nekomura was just a road away. From there... who knew?

But at this point, it was unlikely they still had the wrong idea about what awaited them. Danger, first of all. Death, eventually, if they didn't quit at one point or another. But this was the life they had chosen. They had chosen to weather the danger and they knew it. He wouldn't hope their path was fulfilling- it was best to leave it to them to hope for such things, or not.

His part was done. Now it was time for them to do better than their best.

After all, their lives were on it.

FIN

Really a great story !
I like the explanation you gave to what it means to be FOOD and the spirit behind it. And I like Lorelei, she made quite an impression XP you feel she is quite crazy but in the same time would do well in survival ^^