Chapter 01: No Zealot Like A Convert! Scene 01

In one of the passenger seats of the ATV, there's a legion newbie outfitted with an extensive kit for surviving out in the field, though a bit underdressed for the occasion, supposedly prefering to rely on psionic defences when it comes to field hazards. That's Goizeder Fort, the recent recruit who graduated from Xanatoa mere months ago. So far, Fort was known to be very serious and thorough when it comes to getting a job done, but also easily impressed by the outside world, and almost irresistibly pulled towards the nearest rowdy party during R&R.

Cal Tan looked up, his drawn eyes carrying the weight of lack of sleep. He blinked and looked around at the group he had been assigned to. As he took them in, he looked down at himself taking stock. When was the last time he had cleaned his uniform? Thursday... no... Wait, was it Tuesday of last week? Cal tried, unsuccessfully, to covertly sniff his armpit, wincing after doing so. Tuesday or before. He shook his head slightly. I WILL do that tonight. This group looked too polished and Cal didn't fit in. The man ran a hand through his black hair trying to tame the mess he knew it must be in. He moved to wipe his forehead, but stopped abruptly as he saw the state of his hands. Caked grime and ash lived in the creases of his palm like they were traced with a pen. How had his hands gotten so dirty? Pulling his lips into a tight line, he wiped his hands on his uniform. He WOULD clean it tonight afterall. He then wiped his forehead still managing to leave a smudge of dirt and ash on his brow.

His disheveled uniform was covered in soot and road grime, fraying slightly at the edges. A smell of smokiness seemed to emanate from the man, overpowering to those that got close. The interlocking plates of his armor showed signs of battle he had never bothered to polish out. It covered a lean body that despite his age, seemed ready for a fight. A soldier is always ready. Liko had said, and Cal, despite all the weariness that had followed him since Tolkeen, was ready. The fight was all he had left.

Sighing, Cal turned to talk to the dragon man, opened his mouth, then closed it awkwardly. He turned to the only other human. What's your take on this... Fort, isn't it? Doesn't it seem a little mundane for... well... Cal gestured to the whole group without further explanation.

A dark and compact figure (about 5 1/2 feet tall) , Glyfix or more accurately his Blackbird mech/power armor, is in the drivers seat of the ATV. The Blackbird systems are sufficient to handle most of the driving as Glyfix keeps tabs on the perimeter drones he has at a distance around the ATV. Glyphix would rather be outside the vehicle as it is too large and noisy a target but the rest of the team is not quite a mobile as he is in the Blackbird . Though the team all knows the Blackbird is more than just armor Glyfix does not like to let on to the general public of his true race and simply introduces himself as a smaller humanoid D-bee when others get curious about the unusually small "Power Armor".

With his attention on his drones and assisting the Blackbird autopilot his attentions is focused outside the vehicle via the numerous sensors. Still it has been uneventful so far, and that is the way he likes it. If there has to be trouble then he would rather be the one to create it than to have to deal with it. Which is often the case when back at Castle Refuge he is much more relaxed and carefree and even though they are not that far out it still puts him on edge, knowing the Coalition States claimed borders are not that far off from the area.

"Yep, Fort."

A casual, relaxed tone. Sign that whatever is going on right now does not yet quite count as performing a job.

"At first teachers tried to rename me to Carved Stone, but somehow it never stuck."

Catching that last bit and finding it odd Glyfix asks "Why "Carved Stone"? Were you slow in your training or very fast? I have noticed human nicknames are either apt or humerus but still have failed to be able to discern which just from the name."

"I was patient, precise, persistent, potentially and in the end actually powerful, but I was not particularly witty or dextrous at the time. I did get better at the latter, and I found ways to compensate for the former. I suppose I would describe my learning as 'gathering steam' - initially slow and with little acceleration, but with much better jerk, snap, crackle, and pop. And ultimately a better plateau than my cohort."

The Mountaineer was not a subtle vehicle. It's big engine roared, vibrations running through the floor and rattling bones. The broken old trail only barely accommodated it, and where it rolled over rocks or fallen trees you'd be thrown from your seat well enough to bang your head on the ceiling when all of that weight came down again. The radio mostly played multiple varieties of static while it cycled through various frequencies, hunting for a signal in the relative wilderness. Every so often, you might a signal from some whackjob with a pirate radio station reaching out to whatever audience they could reach in about sixteen miles, but on a long trip like this mostly you had your fellows to fill the quiet -- and, of course, you had to be heard over the Mountaineer.

Ylza sat up front, next to Glyfix, her hood thrown back over her shoulders but her helmet looking impassively out into the wilderness, a pearl white visor hiding her face in that cerulean helmet. Over the back of her headrest, a sword was hung, jostling and swinging - a thing of plain iron, it resisted enchantments and was not sturdy enough to mount a vibroblade motor. It was nearly useless as a weapon, but it had saved her life on several occasions anyway, so she carried it all the same. Her real sword, or rather, the hilt of it, hung from a grenade belt filled with leering big-nosed faces. In her right hand, she gripped a smooth black pistol that looked like someone had put a pistol grip on a particularly malicious television remote - a Wilks 227 Pulse Pistol, her gloved fingers resting on the trigger guard as though she thought she might need it.

"Mundane?" she scoffed a bit at Cal, though with good nature, "You didn't seem like the sort who was too good to get dirt under their nails." she said, her eyes still scanning the treeline. A red reticle moved here and there as she practiced acquiring first one target, then another from the moving vehicle. Then she pivoted over to thermals and did it again. Then to IR to do it a third time. Rock. Tree. Bird. Rock. Tree. Shrub.

"The First Chief's just giving us a chance to feel each other out with a low stakes operation." she shrugged a bit, "Stability and Support Ops are pretty big part of what the Tomorrow Legion is about anyway; probably good to start getting used to it early."

Cal turned to regard the back of Yiza’s head. He absently chewed his lip. At length he decided to respond to the headhunter. Your first fault… was thinking I would ever let my nails go long enough to get dirt under them... He turned to look out the window at the passing foliage and said in a softer tone. …your second… is thinking the Coalition won’t take notice of us when we get too big. We both know how that will end… there will be no more Stability and Support Ops when that happens. It’ll be… Cal closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply. …so no one else finds it odd that a prodigy, a headhunter, a… what are you again, Glyfix? And a dragon man four armed imposing sort of person are being sent to order some lumber? I know the Legion is about making everyone feel seen and respected. But doesn’t that seem a little like using a blow torch to light a candle?

" Techno-Wizard.
It is odd that we're were given little details about the actual problem. My guess is HQ does not know, but someone has suspicions. Otherwise we are overkill and a waste of resources.

It could be a clerk trying to help with team development but the is are low that an other like that would result in this. Still possible I suppose."

"It's called 'flying the flag.'" Adatahl chimed in, apparently from another universe. Or at least, his parents were. He was tucked uncomfortably into the machine, comically mismatched with his erstwhile companions. Despite the cavernous size of the huge off-roader, he seemed to crowd the passenger compartment. He politely tried to keep his wings tucked in close as not to jostle anyone, but his head stooped to avoid bumping the ceiling as they lumbered over the rough terrain.

His equipment, what of it there was, seemed archaic in comparison to the war-worn arms and armor elsewhere in the room. His shining golden scales only dimmed in comparison to his silver-chrome breastplate, a sturdy but largely ceremonial piece of harness. He was otherwise completely unarmed, if one didn't count his aquiline beak or hooked talons.

"If people don't know you, don't know who you are, can they trust you? And we have plenty of trust to earn." One scaly brow crested slightly, "Surely such a chore isn't beneath you?" His tone wasn't accusatory, his grasp of American masterful enough to lend him the lilt of conspiratorial kvetching and layered sarcasm.

"I assure you, I am very aware of that second point." Ylza responded to Cal, turning towards him, even if the reflection of his own face is mostly what he'd see in that visor.

"You humans have an old saying: The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago, the second-best time is today." she nodded slightly, apparently liking the sound of that old axiom, "Should not a Tomorrow Legion be forward-thinking? If I wanted to be a part of a military organization, there are petty warlords without number who'd be willing to line my pockets."

"...Well...I suppose the fact that the Legion is willing to pay my salary primarily in gemstones also contributes." she added with a shrug, looking back towards the window. "At any rate, I've never known someone to lament being too prepared when trouble showed up."

Fort turned to face Ylza, face puzzled. "You get paid . . . in gems?

Anyway, this is a patrol and delivery task. We seem to have a few edges on your average war tug crew when it comes both to patrol-and-detection, and to ensuring the security of the payload. If there's no higher-priority task for us at the moment, seems to make sense for us to be given this one."

"Sure, I've always accepted alternate forms of payment." she said, bobbing her head from side to side, "You kind of have to when you're roaming between independent settlements, many of them are basically operating on the barter system. That said, since I went into business for myself, I've always given preferential rates for those with gems to trade."

"Most civilizations recognize them as valuable, so they're good tender. Techno-wizards always need them, so I usually get a good rate when commissioning from them. Also, just as a consideration, we cede the CS far too much legitimacy by using their banks." she turned fully around in her seat to look at Goizeder, "The Federation of Magic uses Universal Credits. Do you have any notion how crazy that is?"

"Universal Credits are tied up in something like three quarters of all trade on the continent, including the illegal trade." she shook her head, "That means everyone has a vested interest in keeping the Coalition around, even their enemies. Dragons don't hoard credits, and I think there's wisdom in that."

"That does make me wonder: when you assess it as a very crazy notion, what's you benchmark of comparison is? A different world where world-reserve hegemonies' currencies aren't used widely across the world? I haven't really explored the universe beyond here and Xanatoa, and the apprentices didn't really have time nor need to deal with money during our stay there, so I don't have much experience comparing worlds on that front. But hopefully that will be fixed in the foreseeable future."

Cal continued to stare out the window. "In my experience the Universe is actually quite small. Everywhere you go there are people. People ultimately strive for connection, love, a sense of purpose. Some chase wealth, power, things… but those are hollow next to true connection."

Cal turned to regard the others. A look of sincerity plain on his face. I heard a story of a merchant. The merchant was strolling through a bazaar and came across a stand of a man who sat with his hat covering his eyes. The stall held beautiful carvings made of the black stone from the Nether rift. Impressed with the craftsmanship, the merchant asked the man "How long does it take you to make these carvings?" The artisan replied, "Oh, just a short while." "Then why aren’t you working now? To carve even more?" The artisan was bemused. "This is enough to feed my whole family," the artisan said. The merchant then asked, "So, what do you do for the rest of the day?" The artisan replied, "Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to carve a few statues, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink we play music together, sing and dance throughout the night."

The merchant offered a suggestion to the artisan. "I am a very successful merchant. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at carving to make as many pieces as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger stall and sell even more carvings. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more stalls, set up your own company, your own production plant for replication of your arts and a distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Lazlo, where you can set up a headquarters to manage your other branches."

The artisan continued, "And after that?" The merchant laughed heartily, "After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can sell your business, and you will be rich." The artisan asked, "And after that?" The merchant said, "After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the Nether rift, wake up early in the morning, carve a few statues for fun, then return home to play with your kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play music, sing and dance throughout the night!" The artisan was puzzled, "Isn’t that what I am doing now?"

"Chasing wealth is often a long road to true appreciation of the time the ancients gave us in this existence."

Cal turned to look back out the window at the passing forest.

"I had to take a few lectures on currency before my Knighting. The weavers had to dig deep in the histories to find anything about it." He leaned back, trying to get a glance at the sky through one of the windows. "A sculptor, to the Lyn-Srial, anyways - would be like..." he struggled to find a parallel, "A shaman? A priest? Their duty is... holy."

"To put that person's value on a card, to say they can't eat or drink or have a home if they don't put numbers into the card... it was, I suppose, a little baffling."

He shrugged. "But you don't know a Weaver from a Downcast. And I can't blame you. And then there is culture. We can walk over one hill and be heroes, and walk over the next and be demons. What is our worth to those who don't trust us?" Adatalhl splayed one hand magnanimously. "I need for little, but an exchange of credits can put many minds at ease in a way that haggling over the value of a particularly cloudy but well-cut sapphire may not."

His arms folded again. "We may not be native speakers, and we may curl our tongues at the its vulgarities, but it is the, as I think it is said, lingua franca. And it avails us little to demand others learn our tongue when we tiptoe through their lands."

"Lovely story," speaks Fort in a deadpan tone. "Makes me really appreciate and miss the simple and leisurly life my parents and everyone else in the home village enjoyed before they suddenly realised that their material security is so poor that it's worth their while to give away their own kid to a well-off stranger in exchange for a moderate hand-out.

Of course, the allegedly successful merchant is also a fraud, since the demand for artisinal carvings wouldn't grow to match the increased supply until the rest of the surrounding society got much better-off while retaining the same interests. But the artisan also doesn't seem to appreciate things like quality of life and the safety cushion generated by a higher income. So maybe, just maybe, whoever told that story to you made it up to sound wise and enlightened, but actually doesn't have the range of experiences required to understand the perspectives of people in the story's situations."

The tone softens a bit. "Don't get me wrong, even under some of the worst conditions, life is still a precious and wondrous thing - that's why most people cling to it no matter how hard it gets - but the desire to make one's life better should not be dismissed like that."

Cal continued staring out the window. "I doubt the story is true. Rarely are parables accurate accounts of real life. But the wisdom of the story is not diminished, provided you see the wisdom it is intended to impart.

I’m sorry for what happened to you, Fort. I just find myself questioning what is better? What is quality of life? What do you do when you realize it is not the people that perceive you as a hero or villain, but yourself that begins to reflect on your own actions and you see that swing?

Forgive my dour attitude. I just… find it hard to…" Cal let the words hang.

Fort frowned for a second. Sorry for what happened. Oh well, the same misunderstanding reaction all over again. I should stop ever mentioning this incident. Nobody will ever understand anyway. Or maybe, just maybe, one day . . .

"I'm not all sunshine and flowers either, so not like it's your fault for the turn towards the grim topics. But the story that comes off as if it's written in an ivory tower, and portrays life of plenty as being no different than life of modest means, I think it downplays the experiences of people who work hard every day for the smallest step from the latter to the former. Metaphors, parables, allegories - they are all only good so long as the thing meant to serve as inspiration is mostly true.

You ask a direct question and I'll take it at face value.

To live every day without worrying that tomorrow there might not be enough to eat due to an unpredictable shift in weather or buyers. To have a place of one's own to stay in comfort, not contingent on someone's whims. To be able to work at one's calling, enjoy the fruits of said work, and offer them to others in the community with confident expectation of a fair, proportional reciprocity whether by coin, by goods, or by deeds. To talk to other people without needing to fear their words are lies or threats. To enjoy comforts both material like a warm bed or delicious meal or beautiful garden or passionate tryst, and non-material like an interesting friendship or philosophical discussion or entertaining story or worthy rivalry in weiqi.

There are many aspects to quality of life, and different people in different moments of their lives will prioritise different ones, though there are enough common trends. Relatively few people pursue wealth for the sake of the big numbers themselves, though they do exist. Most pursue it as a means of achieving or at least facilitating the qualities of life they cherish, and avoiding or mitigating the hazards they would rather not experience."