Stag Squad

Sitting in his room, Joshua busily draws up different mock plans for campsites. One has their tents all bundled around a fire with rock walls built up around them. One requires them to dig a moat and route water from the living part of the mountain and the last one is simply a perimeter reinforced with stone and wood around the summit of the mountain. Runes are included in all the designs.

“Personally I like the moat idea myself since we would have three days to prepare it. Also I know that the beasts around here don’t like the water very much. What’s your input Draxis?” Joshua pauses as his draconic mentor thinks for a moment.

“Kid are you actually stupid!" Joshua looks inwardly confused.

"How the hell are supposed to build a damn moat! you have no gear, barely enough manpower... Do you want to die out there, because I don't!"

Joshua freezes up, all of Draxis's points making him feel like a dumb-ass. "I’d mount the base at the summit, like that dark elf said. It's be safer and you can overlook the entire mountain as well as this campsite. You’re also already used to climbing and descending the mountain anyway so it wouldn’t be too difficult to manage.”

Joshua raises a finger in objection only to lower it.

“Honestly that thought never even crossed my mind...” Joshua quickly rolls up the parchment trashing the useless ideas as he heads out to the training field filling in his brothers in on the plan. After collecting the twins, he walks around for a little bit with them they looks for Susanna, but they have no luck.

“She must have gone off with Layrn somewhere. I guess we’ll just have to head out without her, Come on guys.” Joshua mutters in a relatively chill tone.

“Yes, Vice-Captain,” The twins call out in unison as they exaggeratingly salute him; following him up the mountain for the second time today. As the sun bears down on the three, Joshua takes a momentary break by one of the rivers flowing through the living side of the mountain so the three can hydrate and fill their canteens up as they’ll be working outside all afternoon.

Sometime later, having rested; the three of them make their way to the summit as Joshua places his camp’s design on a mound of nearby rocks. Quickly he talk the two of them through his plans and what each of them need to collect. In agreement the twins nod their heads and head out to collect the necessary supplies.

Armed with an axe Wilhelm heads out alongside his brother. Joshua on the other hand heads out in the opposite direction of the twins to see if he can find a makeshift quarry. If not, he’ll just have to smash through rocks with his rough utilization of aura and his blade. "Thankfully this sword is made out of such a high quality metal, Reinforcing it with aura should make it capable of cutting through stone." Eyeing his blade, he smirks.

Eventually a few hours pass as Wilhelm finishes chopping a tree into manageable pieces while Vilhelm and Joshua find the right kind of stones, squarish in shape as well as some spare firewood. After getting back to the center of what would become their campsite the three look around at everything they've gathered. With the shake of his head, Joshua places his hand on his brow knowing that they’re going to need a lot more to finish building. With a sigh he looks up; the sunset peers into his eyes as the sky starts to dim. The three boys take a seat around their supplies exhausted as the air around the them finally starts to cool off.

“Hey Joshua, you sure this is a good idea?” Vilhelm questions propping himself up against the pile of stone they gathered.

“???” Joshua looks at him puzzled as sweat drips down from his chin.

Seeing the look on his face Vilhelm rephrases his question. “I meant do you think it was a good idea to set up our base up here, we are so much closer to the sun and we don’t exactly have much shade up here aside from the scattered trees.”

“To be honest with you two I also didn’t quite realize how hot it would get up here, but Layrn recommended it saying it's much safer that anywhere else. I'd honestly agree, we haven't had any issues so far today. As for the head, I’ve got a plan to fix that once the base is complete. I’ll show you all once we reach that point.”

Wilhelm and Vilhelm nod their heads in understanding as they both let out aching sighs just like the first day climbed Shiraia. Joshua takes a deep breath and eventually sits up straight letting the two of them know that it’s time to head back down.

“Thank god…” Wilhelm mutters under his breath.

With a renewed vigor the two jump up from their sitting positions and immediately start heading down, running away from the summit in literal seconds. Watching the two book it down the mountain Joshua smiles to himself. “I’m glad that they seem to have so much energy, because I’m completely worn out.”

“Think I have enough time to relax up here and meditate Draxis?” Joshua questions to the master inside his head.

“The air is so much cleaner and fresh up here; I’m genuinely surprised kid. I can feel it from inside you. Oh and yeah, I think you’ll be fine. I think you still have an hour or two at least before the moon rises.”

Still being off put by the fact that Draxis can feel the same sensations, Joshua simply sits down in a meditative stance closing his eyes as he focuses in on his aura stream.

As Joshua begins to meditate, off in the distance a small furry creature bounds around the summit, looking around for something before it leaves just as quickly as it appears. "I wonder what that was."

The twins make their way back to camp safely and head to the bathhouse before checking in for the night. On the other hand like clockwork, Joshua remembers that he still has to tell Susanna the plan. Sweat dropping, Joshua opens his eyes and rubs the back of his neck. “I guess it’ll just have to wait for now. She’ll probably swing by the drill hall in the morning, so I’ll just tell her then.”

Standing up, Joshua stretches out his back before starting to make his way back down the mountain. The main thing on his mind was a warm bath. As he make his way down, he fails to notice two different pairs of eyes watching him from below, one from within blackwood and another pair of piercing red eyes far off in the distance. "GRRrrr."

From his watch tower, the Commandant mumbles to himself. “Interesting choice Joshua, I can’t wait to see what the coming weeks have in store for you. Don’t let me down you son of Roderic.” A smile spreads across his face as he turns around, the light of the moon illuminating his outfit. The refracting of his medals shining out.

After a bit of time, the commandant comes down from his watchtower and runs into his vice lieutenant near the entrance of the stair well. Greeting him with pleasant enthusiasm, he smiles. “How goes your project my friend?”

Replying with a pleasurable tone Andric replies. “Very well thanks to wolf squad's assistance, hopefully I’ll be finished by the time of the black sun. If not, I know you’ll assist me any way you can.”

“My friend, I’m glad to hear Roderic’s children are providing you with as much entertainment as to myself. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must be off. I have a very busy day tomorrow.” The commandant tips his hat as he passes by Andric heading off to his own quarters.

With malice Andric replies to the cold still air. “Not a problem at Gail. Get some rest, what else are friends for.” His ghastly green eyes begin to glow as a wicked smile crosses his lips. Eventually he himself heads back down to his own office opening the door and locking it promptly behind himself as he makes his way down to his ‘basement.’ As he does this, a strange clicking sound echoes from its depth.

As the next day dawns, Joshua awakens earlier to a subtle tapping on his door. “Who’s there?” Joshua calls out as he shakes his head. “It’s me!” a familiar yet quiet voice whispers.

“Orthon?” Joshua confusedly asks aloud.

“Yeah, it’s me, please open your door.” Orthon whispers, anxiety interwoven into his voice.

“Give me a second.” Joshua finishes shaking his face awake as he sits up. “I wonder what he wants, he sounds downright distraught.” Thinking to himself, he walks over to the door and opens it as Orthon cautiously looks behind himself as he enters.

Letting out a sigh of relief Orthon gets in Joshua’s face while grabbing his shoulders in a panicked tone. “You’ve got to help me man! I don’t understand what I did wrong, all I did was submit a squad change request after the commandant announced that if anyone wanted to join stag squad that they were more than welcome to.”

Joshua looks down for a moment, before brushing his friends hands off his shoulders and motions with his left hand for Orthon to calm down. “Okay, first things first, when did he announce that?”

“Were you not in the camp yesterday?” Orthon gives Joshua a puzzled look.

“Not exactly, the commandant has selected our squad for a special training exercise where we’re going to have to camp outside the gates at night, so me Wil, and Vilhelm were starting to get the supplies needed to build a camp on the summit of mount Shiraia.”

Dumbfounded, Joshua’s friend’s mouth is left agape as he screams. “WHAT.” Joshua quickly covers his mouth with his right hand, and signals with his left telling him to hush.

“It’s still late at night Orthon, let’s not wake anyone else up unless you want to alert her to your whereabouts.” Joshua replies in a serious tone.

Orthon shakes in fear of Gytha as Joshua continues his previous comment. “Now that we have that covered, who did you turn the request form into?” Orthon lifts his hand to his chin in thought as he tries to remember.

A few minutes later the brown-haired boy opens his mouth. “I think it was that black-haired guy with spectacles.”

“ANDRIC.” Draxis and Joshua growl in unison. “He probably turned the form in to the commandant as per protocol; however, he likes to sow discord between the cadets so I bet he told Gytha even though something like that is supposed to remain confidential.”

“Drats.” Orthon balls up his fist waving it in front of himself as he looks Joshua in the eyes. “So, what do you think I should do?”

“Well, I can always escort you to Gyles myself since I’m a vice-captain myself and you’re no longer bound to boar squad.” Joshua replies as he runs his right hand through his hair.

“Would you really do that for me?” Orthon looks at Joshua with a wistful gaze. “I hate to abandon Elet, but I just can’t take it anymore.” At that, all Joshua can do is shake his head as he places his left hand on Orthon’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I’ll help you, but we’re going to have to make this quick. My squad will wake up soon and we all planned on heading out today to continue setting things up.”

Orthon quickly nods his head in understanding. Walking over to his drawer, pulling and throws a spare dark cloak over himself. As the two make their way out of Joshua’s room, the two boys creep out under the continuing cover of night. Turning around to face his ally, Joshua hushes himself. “Follow my lead Orthon and don’t speak.”

The two of them quickly make their way out from under the awning of wolf squad’s home base as Joshua looks around, checking for any signs of spontaneous movement.

As the coast clears, they rush over into the nearby foliage and duck into it. Closing his eyes Joshua listens around for sound of footsteps and shortly. After he hears footsteps pass by them and quickly vanish into the distance. In a quiet voice he turns to Orthon. “That must have been her, Gytha always patrols at this time of night.”

After motioning with his eyes, Joshua grasps Orthon’s hand as they resurface. Joshua quickly scans their surroundings before they continue down the trail. A few minutes later, out of the corner of his eye he sees shadowy movement. Acting solely on instinct, he shoves Orthon into holds it in seeing the vaguely feeling of a familiar long-haired female nearby.

Shortly after, Gytha approaches the sound wanting to see what the hell it was, but as she moves in closer, she realizes that nobody was there. “That’s odd, I could have sword I heard something.” Gytha grits her teeth as the moonlight and shadows hide her form.

“No matter.” Grumbling, she leaves as soon as she arrives. Orthon feeling that the presence had vanished, climbs out of the trash bin grateful that it had recently been emptied. Turning around to his side, he gets ready to speak only for a hand to cover his mouth from behind. Turning around quickly, he gazes into Joshua’s overtly serious eyes. He motions for them to hurry down the path eventually reaching a large willow tree marking the end of their journey.

Orthon finally let out a sigh of relief as he hobbles over to the tree, nearly falling over. Turning around to face Joshua he catches his breath. “How did you manage to avoid Gytha?” Joshua waves his finger and snarkily replies "That's a trade secret my friend.”

“Fine….” Orthon looks towards him butt-hurt, but gets over it quickly pulling Joshua into a tight hug. Joshua lets a smile spread across his face before slowly breaking free and motioning his head towards the lone cabin in the distance.

“Come on Orthon, let me introduce you to stag squad.” The two of them approach the lonely cabin quietly as Joshua knocks once, twice, pauses, then kicks the door at its bottom right hinge.

“Why are you doing that?” Orthon questions. “Wait for it!” Joshua replies. Shortly after the door creaks open with an older man welcoming them inside.

“So, what do I owe the pleasure of your visit vice-captain of wolf squad?” Joshua bows, “I was asked by my compatriot here to escort him to you after turning in a squad change form.

The man’s eyes light up with the revelation he just received. “Really, well then” Turning his face to meet Orthon’s gaze he offers out a hand. “My name is Gyles and I’m the captain of stag squad nice to meet you young man.”“My name is Orthon.” The young boy promptly takes it as the two shake hands.

“Welcome to the team young one. The two asleep over there are Wina and Audreyn, they will be your new squad mates. Please take good care of them, they’ve been traumatized by that albino wolf killing their squad mates Mesym and Reyny.”

A melancholic looks spreads across Gyles face as Orthon replies cheerfully. “I look forward to training them then.” Orthon bows his head towards his new squad captain as they quietly walk over to a nearby room to go through all the transfer procedures.

Joshua understanding that he was no longer needed, bids them farewell and quickly leaves the room hoping to make it back before his squad mates wake up. All in all, it took around thirty minutes to finish this stealth operation and around thirty to get back to his room.

“Could have been faster kid.” Draxis nags playfully.

“If he understood the runic language sure, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only person fluent with them now. Also, I if I hadn’t used that stealth rune I would have been screwed.” He begins eyeing the slash across his hand, fresh blood still dripping down.

“Do all runes work like that?” Draxis questions concerned about the usefulness and functionality of such a technique.

“No. Normally runes utilize the natural mana in the air, but due to my body possessing aura it wasn’t possible. Instead I had to go against the rules of nature to bypass the mana requirement. I mean hell, the process it took for me to even be able to use runic magic was blood curdling.”

“Who figured out how to do that? I don’t remember that being possible back when Durand was around.” Draxis continues his questioning.

Joshua shakes his head and sighs. “It didn’t exist back then. The process was figured out by a mysterious figure about 150 years ago passed down the knowledge to the previous mercenary king who eventually taught it to Roxanne as way to combat the Zephyr clan, demonic forces, and whatever other mystical forces stood in their way. She never quite told me anything beyond that.”

“We’ll then... Why can’t she use them normally? I’m also getting this feeling that you shouldn’t even be able to use such a technique.” Draxis replies in a cold tone.

Walking over to his medical bag he pulls out some gauze and some blue looking antiseptic liquid and pours it over the cut slightly clenching his jaw.

“Honestly, I don’t know. She doesn’t have aura so learning runic magic should be possible, but she never told me…

Gripping his wrist, steadying its movements he eventually lets it relax, wrapping it up tightly before throwing on a pair of black gloves. “That should hide the damage long enough to heal itself. I kind of freaked out and dug a bit deeper into my palm than necessary.”

“I could tell, what exactly about her is so terrifying though? I know she looks batshit crazy, but that shouldn’t warrant the look you had on your face. “

“That ‘psycho’ is broken! Apparently, since she’s distantly related to the Zephyr clan, she would normally get a good position, but she got exiled for some reason. On top of that, she also knows the particular skillet of something called Shadow Walking. Joshua yawns as he wiggles his fingers in the glove.

“As for the Blackwood related issues, she’s been under investigation for a few years for the disappearance of multiple cadets. However, because of some deal she made with the commandant, no one’s been able to do anything about it.”

“I see… Did you also say Shadow Walking? That sounds vaguely familiar to me. Back in my heyday only mythical creatures could use such a technique.”

“Beyond her being able to use it, I have no idea.” Joshua replies quickly as Draxis moves on his questioning to the commandant.

“He’s the Bloody Fang of Terra, so his influence surpasses that of the overseers. If memory serves me right there should be six Fangs total. And he’s the third strongest, it gives him much leeway with father.” Finishing his explanation, he plops down onto his bed.

“Well then... I guess my intuition was right, I knew she was capable of utilizing metal. As for the clan not investigating her seriously, that also sounds accurate. Durand never bothered dealing with the small things either.” Lightly chuckling, Draxis thinks about his old prick of an ally.

A little while later, taking a look at his nearby clock, Joshua notices that he still has a few hours before anyone else wakes up. Propping himself up he lets out a yawn. “I didn’t realize how early he woke me up, sheesh.” The young red-haired boy sighs as he crosses his legs and closes his eyes.

“I guess since I have nothing better to do right now, Draxis can you re-explain the whole aura node and network thing again, I want to start working on restoring it now.”

“With pleasure.” Draxis goes then on an hour-long tangent about the intricacies of aura.

“Slow down Draxis, explain that in layman’s terms. I know you enjoy talking.” Joshua smiles as Draxis sarcastically growls.

“Basically, everyone born with bodies blessed by aura have these things called aura nodes/cores. That’s where the aura accumulates and stores the energy passively over time. The thing connecting the aura nodes is called the aura stream, and the whole thing together is known as an aura network.”

“Most people blessed with aura can naturally activate one or two nodes whereas the rest of them they have to train for. The average number of nodes is five, where as you have nine, I don’t know how or why, but they’re sealed off by that curse. Anyhow, your aura stream on the other hand is so damaged and disjointed, that it would normally take you multiple lifetimes to reach your potential.”

Joshua interrupts, “But that’s not the case since I have you teaching me, right?”

“Correct. Due to the knowledge that I gathered from Durand, I can somewhat remedy the situation. As for your potential, that’s because of your parents and your connection to Durand himself.

Joshua hearing this, continues breathing in an out slowly rebuilding the connection to his third node with Draxis’s help. Currently its only one tenth of the way repaired. As he finishes working on himself, he mind starts to wander. “If I can only access two, I wonder how many nodes father has and what he had at my age?”

Joshua’s mind zooms out to an image of his father standing tall under a scarlet sky, lifting up a humongous black and red blade that looks like a dragon's fang, decorated with scales and a pommel that glows a mysteriously ethereal red.

The patriarchs jet black mane and beard rests upon his head. His shoulders stretch across his colossal frame, as only a thin black cloak covers the top of them. The giant man’s body is covered in battle scars and adorned in a gray and red battle attire as if he were plated in black steel. The calluses on his hands show the world what he’s been through and how he’s reached the peak of swordsmanship. His chest bulging out from underneath his armor.

Every single muscle is perfectly honed and ready for battle. Alongside a gaze that looked as if one was staring into the eyes of an apex predator. Joshua gives off a slight smile alongside a shudder thinking about his father and how he represented the potential of an aura master. "I can only hope to reach that label father."

Time passes and now it’s time for him to get ready. As such he throws his boots on and straightens up his black and red uniform and sheathes his blade to his side as he heads out the door awaiting his squad mates at the gate.