Channelknight Fadran

"I guess I'm your neighbor now. I'm Krĵen."

Krĵen decided to bunk next to this guy. He seemed nice enough. "Hiya."

"We've got two dorm rooms," said Sergeant Domuy, an oddly short fellow, pointing between a pair of large, stone passageways, each leading into massive caverns of their own. "Girls on the left, boys on the right. Biological, of course. If you have a complaint about that, take it up with Kestřn. They'll take the time to listen to you rant before kicking you out for good." Sergeant Kestřn simply grunted. They stood between both caverns, arms crossed, staring at each cadet as if daring them to act up. "Assuming you brought your things as ordered, just find a spot and drop them there. If not, we've got a few extra bedrolls and toiletries in reserve. Don't try mooching off us too much though: I doubt there's anything hiding in those closets without moths anymore."

"Anyways, we have a job to do. Kinda seems like it'll be more complicated that he made it sound though."

She waved. "I'm Cherry. Don't worry, I don't bite."

"Presumably, yes."

"This regimen will consist of x phases!" Krĵen looked up attentively. Finally: something other than scare tactics to listen to. Not that he thought the Captain was wrong by any stretch, but he really doubted that just words were gonna cut it. "First up, we're gonna whip you lot into shape! If a single one of you so much as touches a Cytosphere Module before you can run thirty kilometers and give a hundred push-ups in the same day, I'll have your hide on a stake for the world to see! I don't care how hard you think a mechanical arm can let you punch, because right now you lot can't handle it!" Sounded awful: and he could do over half that on a good day already. Krĵen swallowed, trying to properly imagine what kind of work just getting there would take... not to mention something was telling him that that would be the easy part. "As soon as I'm satisfied the whole lot of you - or whoever's left of ya, anyways - could hold their own against a pack of wolves with nothing but a torch and a pocketknife, we'll get you started on the basics! I'm sure the lot of you came here just 'cause of that: hell, I can see half of you are already practically wetting yourselves with excitement." The Captain strode over to stare at them through one eye. "But forget it! If you thought good running legs and arms set with muscles are gonna do you through, forget it! If you thought the hell was over as soon as you get past my first phase, forget it! No module ever created works for the warrior; it's up to you to work for them! You'd best believe you'll be straining your weakest muscles to their absolute limit day by day just to stay atop of these things!" Despite just how prepared she felt right now, Mângô tried to emulate the feeling of getting up every day to the same agony. It didn't work. The thought slid off her like old shoes on ice. Gah... it didn't help not to be prepared! "I'll have you training on every single one of the modules we've got here on our beginners' list. I don't care that every soldier to make it past orientation only ever sticks to one set for his entire life, 'cause a soldier's no good if they can only fire a single weapon! By the end of this you're going to be a whole arsenal in and of yourselves: that's what makes you a Cytocorps warrior, fit for fighting the most powerful monsters this world has ever seen!" Power. Unlimited, by the sound of it. To become like them, able to hold their own against a horde of unkillable creatures: that was it. That was the goal. Mângô stiffened, hardening her stance. It was as if her very soul had set ablaze to light this future, opening it to her mind's eye. "After that, we'll have the all of everyone unfit for my regimen gone. That means you! That means the one next to you! I look at every single one of you misfits and see failure! I can't tell where the unlucky lot of hellspawn to make it to graduation are among all of you, because not a single one of you now are anywhere near what we'll have in half a year from now!" She was looking inspired again. What a hero. Ugh. Melun withheld a sigh and did her best to keep her eyes off Mângô. All this talk about months of training and hell and dying was really... nasty. And there Mângô was, eyes glittering like a girl from a cartoon, staring out at the Captain and into grand visions of her future. What were all the people here seeing in this? "Who knows if the next full corps of warriors will be three or three dozen. Doesn't matter now, it doesn't! But I'll tell you what we do once we rat out the losers. From there I'm going to take whatever tiny, unknown weakness you've got left hiding in you and rip it out! You are going to become swords! You are going to become armies! You are going to become warriors!" Secretely, Melun wished they'd never get that far. Maybe after a few weeks Mângô would finally give up and set out to do something reasonable with her life. Even just getting through that first phase would just about set them up for any kind of life working the walls or fixing houses or whatever. Maybe if they were lucky, they could get certified in some other Cytocorps career and even get to work with modules every once in awhile, like reparing the shields or bussing supplies. But knowing her sister, they probably wouldn't settle for that. "From there, it's off to the battle." The Captain turned back to face them. He set his hands down on the stone in front of him. "And I pray to the gods that all the work I put into you dingbats doesn't amount to nothing, that you don't wind up torn to shreds or bleeding out or robbed of your very soul... but the gods know I pray in vain. Know now that the vast majority of you will never make it through this regimen, and even then, all the hell you endure will - by all rights - amount to nothing as you are completely destroyed in the battlefield!" How many of them all had died so far? Of his own troops? Hundreds, for sure. Perhaps over a thousand. It would be more, had there been more to begin with. Gah... what a foolish war they were fighting. What purpose had those monsters in coming here in the first place? For what reason did they so relentlessly tear away at the last of humanity? "But that's a long way off," he concluded, "and if you're listening to me right now, chances are you'll never even make it that far." If only there were some other way to destroy those devils without sending out bodies clad in armor every day. "That is all," the Captain finished. "Sergeants Domuy and Kestřn will direct you to your quarters and throughout the rest of orientation. Dismissed!" @The Unknown Novel @Goob @Shining Silhouette @Enter a username @EmulatonStromenkiin @The Bookwyrm

Take: Episode 2 was good??? Like, I thoroughly enjoyed it??? Sure it had its rough patches but I was actually grinning at the dwarves being thoroughly invested in the cliffhangers??? Also Celembrimbor. I didn't know before that I needed him to be a full-on fleshed-out character, but now I'd never take it back. It just makes me happy. And shoutouts to the water worms (I like Dune)

"Probably just to make sure they keep you until you're grown up enough to actually be of use to them."

"If I had taken you outside and someone bumped into you, that I can forgive. But you brought me out here on your own volition and then immediately became sidetracked. That lack of initiative won't get you anywhere in the field."

Cricket, however, was already leaving.

Captain Vinstosr let the recruits wait for a minute. Orientation (much too relaxed a word for it, he thought) was set at 0700 sharp. Anyone late would be given latrine duty without question. He could even see the lot of them from his room - it was once a storage room for the ancients, now repurposed for the commandement's quarters - all shifting and glancing about uncomfortably. Some even looked scared. They could be there as early as they liked, he thought, but every one of them would get to wait in the dull silence. Good for building character. There were maybe four hundred of them this time around. His aides had already shoved them into ranks, sprawling out towards the back and filling maybe an entire third of the primary training chamber. Each one had been drilled into proper salutation stance weeks before training had even officially begun, and he even took in the tiniest flake of pride at seeing them execute it masterfully. Maybe the lot of them thought themselves the better for it. Whatever. Saluting was the easiest part of this regiment. Five minutes passed. Some of them had shifted about a bit. He didn't care one way or another as to what they did when the commander wasn't watching: not this early, anyways. Whether they were hardy and perseverant no matter the circumstances, or let themselves hiss off a bit of steam now and again to keep themselves balanced. Either one was fine. So as long as none of them caused a nuisance out there, what happened was none of his business. But now seemed like a good time to start whipping the lot of them into shape. The Captain finally emerged, clad in full uniform, a jacket emblazoned with the Cytocorps Emblem and his myriad of honors buttoned right up the middle. His quarters hung high above the cadets: enough so for him to look out among them all like a king over his subjects. They all kicked themselves back into formation, saluting in full at his appearance. Some were a bit slower than others. Whatever. "There are, as of today, three hundred and seventy-seven cadets in this cavern!" He started. "If I had my way, every single one of you would be faiemen-fighting material by the end of this regimen, and we'd have an army unlike anything the Cytocorps has ever seen!" The most members the Cytocorps had ever had at a time, he recalled, was maybe two hundred fighters: but that was decades ago. Now, barely half that still had the strength and will to fight. "I won't beat around this, you understand. This is no place for mincing words! I fully expect all but perhaps a hundred of you to leave these caverns in terror or shame! If this regimen is destroying your body day by day, then leave this place and never return! You'd be no match for a faiemen. "And even then you won't have survived anywhere near the worst of it! By our estimates and calculations, if you survived this training, then you will die! Over two-thirds of all full Cytocorps soldiers are destroyed in their first battle! It's not until you truly understand the power they possess, the fear they invoke, the sheer perseverance of those creatures, until you have seen them tear your friends and family limb from limb, while even the power of the greatest structure mankind has ever created in your more-than-capable hands can do nothing to stop them! "But I'm getting ahead of myself." The Captain pulled himself back into poise. "We will begin here. We will begin now. The future is always forever away, and looking toward it is pointless without any focus on the now. I am going to send you through hell and back a million times over. You are going to grit your teeth, clench your fists, and carry on! Anyone that can't is dead meat! I wish I could even say you understand what I mean, yet you don't! Everyone is so impervious to pain until they actually feel it. "We are going to push your bodies to a million times the limit they possess here and now. We are going to sharpen your minds to something like a god's! And we are going to hone your soul like a blade of glass. You are all fine. Even. Smooth, pointless, and weak!" His eyes had swept over the lot of them already, locking eyes with each and every one for just a fraction of a second. In those moments, he could see the intimidation. The way their bodies seized up despite their best efforts. "Understand, young weaklings," he concluded. "We are going to shatter you. And then you are going to shatter them."

Cricket fell into the most deadpan, disappointed expression a stoic demon could have. "Nevermind," She said, turning around. "I was wrong about you."

"Where are we going? You're the one who wanted to take us outside to talk."

The surface and most populated areas have incredibly advanced weaponry, like cannons and tanks and stuff. However, large-scale equipment like that can't just be summoned right off. In this case, the Cytosphere works more like a 3D printer than Iron Man's satellite. Artillery and vehicles are still manufactured by regular machines and such; and plenty are even straight-up salvaged from the ruins and repurposed.

In the main power supply module, Cytocrystals are half-embedded into the metal itself, surrounded by a transparent case so it still looks badchull. I haven't actually decided exactly how platonic solids in the form of crystals provide energy, so rn it's just some "arc reactor or summat" crap so far.