Their eyes adjusted and they saw in front of them a young man sitting with a bright smile, perfectly coiffed brown hair, and soft gray eyes. He was sitting in a chair behind a crude wooden table, but sat up and offered his hand.
“I’m Lance, I’ll be in charge of you for the exercise.”
Michael, in the lead, grasped it firmly and shook it, his old office life training kicking in easily.
“Michael,” he said as Lance released his grip. His handshake was perfect, firm, but not too firm.
He went down the line to the rest and shook their hands too, getting each of their names. Once he was done he motioned for them to sit with him around the small table.
“Huh, I expected a map,” said Ollie.
Davi shook his head. “No need for one. The area is relatively small and empty and its edges are marked by guards.”
“Exactly,” said Lance as he leaned back. “We also already know that each group is in one corner of the woods, so as long as we mark something in our own corner we have a general idea of where to go. By the end of the two weeks, we’ll know every creek, thornbush, and tree. That said, I already have scouts and patrols starting to sweep over everything for landmarks, water sources, and any other groups they encounter.”
“The exercise isn’t meant to begin until the horn sounds,” said Davi.
“The exercise started when we got our fucking orders,” replied Marcus. It was the first thing he’d said in some time.
Lance pointed at him. “Exactly. Do you know what our orders are as black group?” he asked.
They shook their heads.
“Our goal is attrition. We want to have the most people remaining and the most kills by the end of the two weeks.”
“Simple, at least,” said Pyotr.
“It is, but it’s also difficult and high risk.”
“I’m guessing we weren’t told the other group’s orders?”
Lance smiled. “We weren’t told them, but I already know,” he held up a blue piece of fabric. “Blue is meant to guard a large amount of cargo that is in their camp,” he placed it down, picking up a red piece. “Red is meant to destroy as many supplies as they can. That includes our food, any fortifications we make, tents, flags, any of that,” he picked up a green piece of fabric. “Green’s objective is to take as many flags, supplies, and hostages as possible.”
Michael raised an eyebrow. “Seems like all of the objectives really fuck with everyone else. Some seem particularly unfair.”
Lance shrugged. “The judgement of success is weighted. The groups with harder goals aren’t expected to achieve them as well as the groups with easier ones.”
“So. What’ll you have us do?” asked Ollie. “I mean, you want us to patrol, knock some heads, mess up people’s plans? That kind of thing?”
Lance smiled. “You’re smart, that’s exactly what I want you to do.”
“Don’t give him too much credit,” said Michael. “You’re giving us free reign?”
“That’s right. I’m going to be giving everyone else precise orders, and jobs, but you five I just want out their mucking everything up for everyone else. Causing chaos, making it so that everyone else has a bad time. Does that sound like something you all can do?”
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Michael and the others exchanged a glance and looked back at him. “Yes, I do think that’s something we can do.”
Lance nodded. “Good! I’ll want reports once a day starting tomorrow. Until then I’d recommend a meal and rest. The horn will likely be sounded soon.”
They nodded and started walking out. Michael, curious, looked at Lance for a few extra moments. He seemed relaxed, but he had a tremendous amount of pressure on his shoulders. He would be spending the next two works making decisions that would effect not only his career and life in Stent, but those who followed his orders as well. No one would die, but the jobs they received and the experience they gained could be life or death for them in the future.
Lance’s Titles and Deeds became visible to him.
Victor of the Festival of Blades Joust
Michael memorized what he saw quickly and stepped the rest of the way out of the tent. That was a very impressive set of Titles and Deeds. His deeds were less impressive than those of the instructors, but they were more impressive than the majority of working soldiers and guards at the academy that tended to have only one or none. The Heir titles were interesting to him. Meera had said that titles can be granted by those who have powerful titles themselves and Kings were often the most powerful individuals in any country due to the strength of the titles they inherited. He wished his divination was a bit more advanced so that he could directly see what benefits all of those titles and deeds granted Lance, but so far he was only able to divine himself at that level. In any case, he was glad Lance was on their side.
Michael and the other found some clear space and set up their tents together before sitting down on some hard ground and chatting for a while.
“So, any ideas?” asked Michael.
“Muitas,” said Davi. “You?”
“I’m cooking a few things up. I think for now we should wait until the scouts and patrols start reporting back, then we can take that information and build on it.”
“Good sense,” said Pyotr.
Michael opened his pack and grabbed the sack of rations, opening it to examine it. There was some fresh fruit and bread inside, as well as some dried meat, but most of it looked to be hard tack that was meant to be softened in water, and rice. He took a piece of bread, and some of the fruit and started to eat it.
He looked around as he chewed. “Where’s Marcus?”
“I think he’s still in his tent.”
Michael forced his food down and started to respond when suddenly a horn sounded. The sound of it seemed to be the perfect volume to be heard all across the forest evenly, which led him to believe it was magical in nature.
“Guess things have gotten started. I’ll make sure he didn’t sleep through that,” Michael pulled the flap of Marcus’s tent open and saw that it was empty. He pulled his head out, feeling a pit in his stomach. “Did any of you see him leave?” he asked.
There was concern and the shaking of heads.
“Maybe he went to take a piss,” suggested Ollie.
“With his weapons, rations, and everything else that should’ve been in his tent?” asked Michael.
“A really long piss maybe?’
Michael ran a hand across his face.
“We should tell one of the soldier’s monitoring things,” said Davi.
“No. We do nothing,” said Pyotr.
Michael turned to look at him. “Nothing?”
“If we say something, we risk bringing him trouble. If he is making an attempt to do something foolish we should give him the space to do so and hope for best. Perhaps he is simply going to hide for a while. His woman troubles seem to be having a very bad effect on him. I once took a trip to Siberia when a woman broke my heart. Even the cold of that place was not enough to numb the pain.”
“Poetic,” said Michael dryly.
“So we have to toil and cover for him?” asked Davi.
Pyotr shrugged. “You can do as you will. My choice is to do nothing. This,” he gestured vaguely at the camp. “Is not important. We may have gotten swept up in it, but it is a game. If he wishes to sit it out, I see no problem with that. I myself… I like games, and look forward to showing a few of these youths how to move properly.”
“What if he gets into some shit?” asked Ollie. “He could drag us into it.”
Davi shook his head. “He’s not the type of guy to drag others into his problems. He just makes them bigger for himself instead. I don’t think he’d fuck us like that.”
Michael thought about it. Pytor wasn’t wrong. These games weren’t important in the grand scheme of things, they’d all just gotten swept up in them, in training, and in the academy because it was all they’d had since they’d woken up in this world. Perhaps that was the intention. There was a war waiting for them, and potentially a full life after it. This was just the start of things, and Marcus was not a child, even though he looked it.
Michael sighed, and sat back down. He took another piece of bread out, and popped what looked like a grape into his mouth. Hopefully Marcus would get all his teenage angst out doing… whatever it was he was doing. Michael found himself thinking of the exercise more from Pyotr’s perspective. It was a game, and he found that he really wanted to win it, pointless or not.