Open Imperial Army Mysterious Sathern Continent In the Army Now

[Colonel Harvon M. Jere]

OOC: Open to anyone with a character in the Imperial Army.

BIC:

Their meeting had not been for naught; Minister Grosvenor had delivered, as promised.
Two hundred fresh recruits to bolster Colonel Jere's forces at Pricklee Point, transported specially across the Sea of Calamities by the hulking gargantuan prize of the Imperial Navy, the massive Tarquin Supership.
That lad from Miklar, Aran, was amongst them.
The Colonel was yet unsure how to feel on that subject. On one paw, he felt kinship with the young fellow. An alienated foreigner seeking meaning and a new home, he'd been there himself not so long ago. On the other paw... Jere felt vile. Les Maules, the Miklarians had called them, and a Maule he still very much was even with a career change. A false friend, an angel of death, leading a naive youth from a once enemy country to a potential early demise; one more sacrifice for the altar of the Bella Vulpinsula, that beautiful and treacherous she fox whose hunger knew no bounds.
He stood before those troops now, as green in experience as they were in their crisp uniforms, a tall fox of black, white and crimson, clasping a cane and dressed smartly in a handsome bicorne and a jacket coated in medals.
The waves boomed and gulls keened, and the long shadow of the Tarquin Supership towered above them from where the extravagent monstrosity sat anchored at their backs.
They were all so brave looking, these wetears, even those with uncertainty marking their faces and shining in their eyes. They looked as if they could take on the world.
Colonel Harvon Marcellus Jere, commander of the XVIII Battalion and all Imperial forces at Pricklee Point, stood atop a crate before them, flanked by his personal entourage od guardsmen and officers.
The old fox cleared his throat, and brought a megaphone to his salt and pepper muzzle. "Allow me as your new commander to grant you, my warriors, a warm and grateful welcome to Pricklee Point. We are a bastion of Vulpinsulan civility in an otherwise largely savage realm, that place you've no doubt heard many tales of... the Mahsterious Sahthern Cahntinent. Here at Pricklee Point, your duty is to protect Imperial interests, that being the fortress and citizenry here and our grain production and shipments, vital to Vulpinsulan food stores and commerce. Some of you may already be acquainted with me... I am Colonel Harvon Marcellus Jere. Obey me, obey your officers, serve us, the Imperium, and the Empress well, and you will know great reward besides that which already comes with being faithful Vulpinsulans."
The Colonel suddenly snapped a smart, rigid salute, the glass of his monocle shining. "Thank you for your service, and thank you for coming. There is great danger brewing here amongst the natives, and we can use all the help we can get ensuring a long and prosperous time here."

Among the recruits were a skinny, honey-colored vixen named Skeered of Nothing Tomas, who bore a man o' war tattooed on the side of her head; a pretty, crimson-furred vixen named Thalia Brigton; a big, surly-looking ferret named Aginpole; a shifty-looking ferret named Fisher; a twitching, stone-faced stoat named Sternard 'the Stabber' Quarenti; a rat mild in manner and appearance named Sulfer F. Todkin; and two corporals, a sable named Stuzi Firlocco and a one-eyed stoat named Merin Colfax.
They'd long traded out their howling drill instructor for a far more cooler-tempered weasel named Captain Sean Various Cromwell McKlin, who stood stiffly to attention at the far left end of the ranks of troopers fresh from basic training, wearing an orange gladiolus flower on his lapel, freshly-groomed fur and a thick cologne that smelled of pine resin, campfire smoke, and beeswax that wafted endlessly into the nostrils of anyone nearby.
Beyond the beach, the stone fortress that oversaw the Imperial territory of Pricklee Point loomed.

 

[Aran Mateu Jan Vidal]

Aran Mateu Jan Vidal listened, stone-faced, to the Colonel's welcome to Pricklee Point. The fresh-faced, naive recruit who had entered the Bully Harbor Training Grounds was gone; Aran Mateu had beaten out that side of himself with a brick wrapped in a sock. That display had done the trick; he'd been left alone by the other recruits since then, allowed to spend his nights in peace. All it had cost was his ability to sleep.

He'd gotten to see his parents one last time before boarding the Superbus and heading for the MSC, as the beasts aboard casually abbreviated the massive, enigmatic landmass. Aran Mateu had slipped off to his parents' shop on their single night of leave post-training, both for a final family dinner, and to quietly return the lunch pail that had carried gifts of goodwill for his fellow recruits. His stomach had curdled as he recalled handing off one ques lhans to Ames Gladdenberry, only to beat in her face that night. He'd been unable to finish the fine meal that his mother had cooked up as a farewell dinner for him; the sweet, rich notes of berry and oats had turned to ash and blood in his mouth. His parents had hardly known what to talk about; they'd asked about his training, of course, and he'd obligingly lied to them, telling them how everyone was getting along great, they were practically like brothers and sisters to each other now, they were so excited to take their first trip into the field. In the end, when the moments of silence outlasted the snippets of speech, Aran Mateu had excused himself with the line that he needed to get back and sleep before an early departure. He'd hugged his parents at the door, feeling like an impostor in his own skin as they told him how they loved him.

Now on Pricklee Point, Aran Mateu stood at attention through the Colonel's speech. He had to admit, the Colonel was good. He knew how to set the stakes without instilling either undue terror or hope. It was the sort of realism that Aran Mateu wished he had heeded before he'd so idealistically enlisted. As the speech wrapped up abruptly, the Colonel's penchant for succinctness showing itself, Aran Mateu glanced to Skeered and Thalia. "It's an imperial şity, right?" He murmured, keeping his lip movements minimal. "It can't be that dangerous."

 

[Minerva]

When Minerva was ordered to join the expedition further south she obeyed, despite not liking it a bit. It was far too warm for here already in Bully's Harbour. Anywhere further south her thick coat would melt her. On top of that, she disliked travelling by the ship. Not because she wasn't managing it, she just hated how boring it was. Even the snow and ice covered hills of her home were more interesting because of the prey and predators that lived between them.

But she was not a type to just give up or say no. She served in the army now and she was going to treat it the same way as she was doing with the hunting. It was a way of survival and living. And so she now stood here, at the land unknown and all too new to her. Panting as the heat was getting to her all while standing on the mustering grounds, listening to the fox with a title of Colonel, one that was her superior here. She looked around at the other recruits, seeing as they take in the words as if they were a blessed truth.

But she, a daughter of the frost itself, knew those were just empty words to ease those unsure. Most recruits were in a way both like her and unlike her. She could see as they all were mismatched, it brought to her that indeed, this was a profession for those with a talent for hunt yet unable to do so in this weird world of theirs. Unlike her however, most didn't seem to ever before be proper hunters, pose said a lot, they were way too comfortable here.

And the words of a young beast... one Minerva couldn't yet name, no matter how hard she tried, further entrenched her in this idea. She thus decided to interject herself to answer him. "There are no safe places. Always stay alert or we will become prey."

 

[Rhana Redd]

The passing out parade had been a somber event for Rhana. She barely remembered it. There hadn't been any friends or family of hers watching from the sidelines, no one to see her off as they embarked for the MSC. The trip by sea had been uneventful, even her awe for the sheer size of the Tarquin Supership muted by the harrying doubts she felt for the mission to come.

Arrival had come with a sort of almost relief. The locale was different than what she'd ever known, but it was just a place - a dock and a town and a stone fortress to boot. A place, with beasts as in the Imperium proper. What lay beyond the limits of the town - out in the woods and dark jungle and whatever else - was another day's problem.

She hardly paid attention to the Colonel's speech. Civility. Rhana almost scoffed at the notion. Wearily, she turned an eye to Aginpole, to see how he might be taking the speech. By the end, murmurs had already started up in the crowd of recruits - occupying that brief, awkward period between the Colonel's speech and orders to come. One of so many periods of waiting the military seemed to enjoy inflicting upon its members.

Some of the murmurs came about safety, from a cluster of beasts not far from her. She recognized a voice as Aran's - the odd, foreign marten from before. Another she didn't recognize. Without much thinking - feeling suddenly want for one of the lousy hand-rolled cigarettes Aginpole and Army life had given her favor for - she spoke her mind, as she seemed so often liable to do.

"It's the Army, dears - beasts are supposed t'die, or it've been an awful waste of the taxpayer's gilders."

Patting down her uniform, she grew frustrated with having forgotten to stash the paper for writing and rolling and otherwise that she'd wanted to bring with her from the ship. So much for that.

"Hope the base's got a library. Near fresh out of pages from those Imperial Navy Handbooks on the ship."

 

[Perila Z. Mogul]

The Colonel had since turned to some of his entourage to speak privately, leaving some space for the troopers to try and quietly chatter. And chatter they did, as much as they could before an officer would inevitably hush them.
Skeered of Nothing Tomas scratched her chin, sweatspots clear under her pits and about the front of her jacket that seemed to always manage to look slightly more worn and ill-fitting than anyone else's.
She opened her mouth to speak when the arctic fox spoke first. The skinny vixen nodded to her. "Aye, what she says. Imperial city it be, but 'tis teemin' with woodlanders, an' th' rest o' tha Cahntinent... hah, Hell, that's even worse. An' they ain't like tha ones livin' in Bully, neither, that's just where all tha softies an' ninnies went what couldn't handle th' savagery o' their own kind here. I heard there was a badger here what ate a guard's face just fer swingin' a stick at him! All-too-happy makin' prey of our sort here."
"Aye, aye, I heard 'twuz just fer lookin' at 'im!" a rat standing next to Thalia piped excitedly. "They're all cannibals an' murderers! Why else yer think Colonel Jere needs so many o' us 'ere? So's th' 'ole town don't get overrun an' massacred like Seans on a Sean Day!"
"Good heavens!" muttered Thalia, grasping Tomas' paw momentarily and squeezing it.

Aginpole, standing to the left of his new ally Rhana, sniffed and shifted slightly, a weary look in his eyes as he stood watching the fox Colonel and his aides with a characteristic frown that wasn't helped by Rhana's comment about tax dollars, but his lips did twitch slightly at her next comment.
He snorted and leaned down to shoulder her, smirking slightly. "Can't be possible. There's prob'ly a room on that ship solely dedicated ta Navy textbooks. Remember th' china room?"
Aginpole and Rhana had been off-duty and bored one night, and had taken to roaming around the Supership'a impossibly vast, treacherously labyrinthine rooms and corridors. They'd found one room that had just been rows upon rows of shelves with poorly-secured china cups, plates, bowls and saucers, most of it immitation Hanshiman and nearly all of it totally destroyed and in a giant pile on the floor.
It was Aginpole's reckoning after some investigating that the china had likely gotten launched into the air and obliterated the moment the ship left port and the first wave rocked it.
They'd also passed by a door that said "Officer's Tea Room", next to another door marked "Officer's Tea Room- Casual", so clearly the vessel had too much space.

 

[Aran Mateu Jan Vidal]

Aran Mateu listened to the conflicting views from his fellow recruits, their warnings shifting his perspective sharply. He'd heard stories about how the Alkamarians had maintained discipline in Miklarian cities after the pleuchãonhs, the first invasion of the homeland. They'd coopted the Thanes, requiring them to maintain peace, and then sending in their own troops to deal with unruly areas. It had only taken a few deposed thanes before the rest had learned to keep the peace themselves. We are the invaders this time, he realized. And, if we aren't stern, then they'll do to us what my ancestors did at Rião.

"How do we şurvive then?" he asked quietly, glancing between the vixen pair and the wildcat warrior who had joined their unit. "By being more brutal than them?"

 

[Minerva]

An interjection from yet another beast hit Minerva a bit harder than she expected it. Hearing that beasts here were supposed to die was preposterous. What need there is of a hunter who expects to die? "Cunning, patience, alertness. That is how you successfully hunt. No need for brutality. Bloodthirst makes you easy to read." Minerva answered slowly, making sure to use short sentences to not seem too foreign. Still, she panted just a bit under the scorching temperature. Definitely she wasn't in her element, but thinning her fur would be sacrilegious though.

"Best way to live is to accept dying. With no such fear, you will hunt efficiently, with less mistakes." She added while taking a good look at the one suggesting it was an expectation to die here. Minerva could see a huntress, but the words suggested a killer. She noted to be extra careful if assigned to work with her.

 

[Rhana Redd]

"Wasteful lot, those navy sorts. Wonder if they ever found the beast that got lost in the lower decks."

Rhana didn't have much to add to the disjointed conversation, to Aran or the white-furred fox she could just make out through the crowd.

She wasn't afraid of some woodlander - at least not yet. There were plenty of beasts in the battalion, slower ones, in one way or the other, and so she figured they'd have to thin out for danger to get to her. And perhaps that might even sour some of them against their officers, against the regime that'd put them all here - the one her father had spent so long fighting.

Looking to Aginpole, she forced herself to smile, holding the expression even as her own thoughts turned darkly towards home.

"Bet you the officers have got their own tea rooms here, too. Maybe a cigar lounge - might be some better than rollies lying around, waitin' to be 'appropriated' for military use."

 

[Perila Z. Mogul]

Aginpole gave Rhana a side-eye and a grin. Over the many weeks at sea, the big ferret had greatly warmed up to the stoat and her schemes. Once, theft from the military would've seemed foreign at best and at worst, a betrayal to himself and his father. Now, it meant a well-earned break with a friend from the drudgery and discomfort of soldiery.
"I could use a cigar."

Colonel Jere turned back to the ranks before him, a weariness on the old fox's hard, gray-flecked face, in his watchful green eyes. He lifted the megaphone to his muzzle again.
"Serve the Imperium well, and you will be justly rewarded. Though Bully Harbor is a jewel in this world, it is also a small place full of a great many beasts; it is terribly easy to slip through the cracks, to be lost in the crowd. Not so here. Here, where the land stretches on well beyond the horizon, every moment of heroism is remembered, and every beast here has their chance to make their lasting mark upon the world. Do your duty, and you will leave a greater beast than you came. Dismissed."
"Royte, lads, yeh heard thah good Colonel!" Captain Sean McKlin barked, raising his own megaphone to his maw. "Preesent arms!"
Two hundred troops placed their footpaws together, backs straight, and held their polearms out before them in a salute to the fox commander. McKlin drew his sabre and saluted also.
Colonel Jere drew his own sabre, and returned the salute to these new ranks, hoping most would live to see Bully again. The wind blew, raising and shifting his long gray cloak behind him like a wraith. He then turned, and followed by his aides, began walking along the stone path back to the walled town and the fortress hulking above and around it. The stone walls that guarded the town connected to the fort's keep and towers. Vulpinsulan banners snapped and blew.
"Shoulder arms!" McKlin barked.
Polearms were tucked against the shoulder.
The weasel strode before the soldiers.
"Yeh will be divided into four companies and given different duties. Yeh will perform these duties properly, honorably, and without question. Each company will have its own company officer, but all of yah will still answer tah me! Lieutenant Ringnose, yeh will have Ash Company! Lieutenant Bastille-Cribbage, yeh will run Ballista Company! Lieutenant Tinderblast, yeh will run Cutler Company! And Lieutenant Skrew, yeh will have Drustan Company."
The two hundred were swiftly broken up without much care of who went where. Aran, Minerva, Rhana, Aginpole, Tomas, Thalia, and Sterny the Stabber all found themselves in Drustan Company, under a stern-faced rat named Skrew. She stood before them, studying the troops assigned to her critically whilst smoking a cigarette. Corporal Colfax, a stoat with an eyepatch, stood next to her, looking decidedly unhappy to have been assigned there.
As the other companies were separated and marched off to different areas, Captain McKlin finally came to Drustan Company.
Backs straightened, and Skrew grudgingly put out her cigarette.
"Yeh will have a special assignment." The weasel captain said, gripping a bone baton carved with fanciful images of foxes in flowing robes and mighty crowns. He ran the baton over and over in his paws, looking somewhat deflated, ashamed even.
"It is no coincidence that D Company shares its name with Drustan Wood. It is a woodlander town to the north of here. Small, humble, and vital fah Imperial lumber production. The woodlanders there have been getting... troublesome. They say they don't want to work anymore unless we pay them better, treat them better. Give them a bigger slice of thah pie."
The weasel slipped a flowery kerchief from a coat pocket of his crisp uniform and blew his nose into it. He made a face, wiped his paw on the kerchief, folded it into a square, and returned it to the pocket. His beady eyes shimmered wickedly as he looked up at them. "Yeh know what we do with troublesome woodlanders, especially ones threatening the wellbeing of thee Imperial heckonomy. Yah'll be sent tah deal with them. Arrest thah troublemakers, keep thah rest in line. Thah Colonel's had a small stockade and a jail built there to house yeh and any prisoners. Stay outta thah thick of thah woods much as yeh can, and stick together."
McKlin's eyes darted about the troops' faces. "Now I don't normally allow questions, but given thah danger of this assignment and the newness of the lot of yeh, I can allow a few."

 

[Aran Mateu Jan Vidal]

Aran Mateu kept his face straight, even as his stomach lurched at the description of their duties. His mind went to stories of the occupation, when Vulpinsulan forces would go into towns in the middle of the night and haul away supposed insurgents and troublemakers. The way her parents told it, none of those taken were ever heard from again. Is that who we are now? he wondered. Are we the ones whose names will be cursed for generations to come?

He found his paw raising before he could stop himself. "Şir," he inquired, "how will we know which ones are the troublemakers? Will we give an order to disburse and arrest those who do not comply?" It almost seemed laughably naive to hope that conflict could be avoided. If the army was being called in, they were past that point.

 

[Minerva]

Minerva carefully listened through the speech and stood for the parade. Not because she particularly cared for all the novelties about those. More because she wished to comprehend her tasks. And after getting put with her group and it was explain, she wasn't exactly a fan of it. Hunting was made out of necessity, not out of wish to bring harm.

So she found herself agreeing with the fellow who liked to ask questions it seems. She too raised her paw and too chimed into the question. "And is method of keeping them in line left in our paws?" She asked with a inquisitive stare, slowly accenting her words, making her question sound more like a statement.

 

[Rhana Redd]

Rhana watched the colonel go, wondering what sort of mind sent beasts to kill and die in such numbers as he had, as he did. It occurred to her that her father had been in a similar position for much of his life, albeit fighting against the Imperium rather than for it.

The stoat didn't have much time to think before they were moving again, split into their various companies and instructed by their commanding officers. Captain McKlin's speech, if it could be called such, was even less inspiring, and obviously less inspired. Rhana tried to gauge the response of the other beasts in the company, to see how they felt about this task they'd been assigned, waiting before she asked any questions of her own.