Penitent-Chapter 8: Q&A

Dinner was uneventful, but when they arrived back at their bunks, there were large packs on each bed as well as storage trunks at the foot of each bunk. They were told that they’d be wearing uniforms from this point on and they would be expected to take care of them. Each one was the same gray color as the other recruit’s uniforms and Michael could tell that they were well used, and probably too big for all of them. His assumption was that they were recycled for each new group of takers and once they grew out of them they were taken back for repairs and made ready for the next one. The packs were adult sized and each of them contained a change of uniform, a waterskin, a small knife, a metal bowl, and a canvas of some kind, also gray, that felt as if it had been weatherproofed. Michael had not been impressed with the aesthetic of Stent, but he hadn’t had his brains bashed in with a rock the second he was born, so he supposed that was a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things. He moved the spare outfit into the trunk at the base of his bunk and put the rest of the pack into it with everything else inside.

He was excited to wear pants again. He hadn’t worn them since he was admitted to the hospital. He imagined his body was wearing them back home, along with a suit. He wondered which one his wife had picked for him to wear into the grave. His favorite had been the light gray with the peak lapels, but she’d always favored him in the black one. She said she liked how severe it made him look, like a fire and brimstone preacher. She had an odd sense of aesthetics, and he missed it very much.

His funeral should’ve been held by now. Though that assumed that time passed the same between the worlds, which he had no idea of knowing. His coffin could just now be going into the ground, or it could be long since rotted away, or his body could still be a hospital bed with Sara holding its hand. Well, if he had had his funeral, he hoped that Sara had picked whichever suit she wanted him to be wearing and that his kids were helping her. She was strong, but he didn’t want her to have to be. He sighed as he thumbed the fabric of the uniform on his bed before he transferred it to sit on top of his trunk.

Ollie looked at him sympathetically. “Makes you feel like you're fighting to keep slaves, eh?”

Michael chuckled. “Confederate uniforms were a lighter shade, and these actually have a more modern cut to them. Modern for our world, I mean. Despite the fact that they’re training with swords, riding horses, and don’t have electricity.”

Ollie shrugged. “I blame a wizard.”

“Oh?” asked Michael.

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“I could spend all damn day and night wondering why something is one way or another, or… a wizard did it, and I can get some sleep.” He did a little hop-climb to get onto his bunk as if to emphasize his point.

“I suppose a wizard could’ve been responsible for a number of these changes, but I think I’ll just have the fun of trying to figure out what actually happened. It’s not like I have any TV to watch, or any books to read.”

“Oh fuck!” said Ollie, sitting up suddenly.

“What?”

“I’m gonna miss the end of Survivor.”

That prompted a laugh from all of the little English speaking clique, with even Davi who’d apparently been feigning sleep.

The lights were shut off, likely by a ‘wizard’ shortly after. Michael had little difficulty falling asleep with how busy the day had been and how harsh it had been on his currently small body. On top of that, the growing pains that night were far worse than any he’d experienced up until this point. With his shins in particular burning all throughout the night. He was used to sleeping through bad pain, but he was awoken a few times to the whimpering or soft sobs of the others in the barracks.

The next day started differently from the last. When the lights went on, they all took the time to bathe and put on their uniforms. Kline walked the rows in front of each of them. Making small corrections to how the uniforms were meant to be worn, or even how they stood to present it. He had them hold out their hands, and he gave them a quick whack across them with the thin stick he carried. When he reached Michael he looked him up and down.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“You missed the bottom button.”

Michael nodded, and held out his hand. Kline gave it a quick smack that made him grimace, and moved on. When he reached the taker that had been crying, who Michael had heard was named Xiu, he hit him once for a uniform infraction, and a second time for crying.

After the inspection, the injection from Crim, and breakfast everyone was shuffled into the mage teachers room before he arrived.

Kline stood in the other teacher’s place leaned relaxed against the blackboard.

“As promised, I will now answer any questions you have about this world, this country, this military, or anything else you’re curious about. Raise hands, and I’ll call upon each of you as they come up, but don’t get greedy and cut anyone else off or I’ll shut this down.”

Several hands bolted up immediately, including Michael's.

Kline pointed at a boy in the far corner.

“Go ahead.”

“What’s the mortality rate for takers in your army?”

He smirked. “A practical sort, we usually don’t get to that question until much later. First off, it’s our army. You and the others here will be penitents, also called irregulars, meaning you will do work different from the average frontline soldier. Behind the lines scouting, supply raids, hostage taking, Titled beast hunts, the work you do is dangerous, but you're much better off then penitent criminals that didn’t come to this academy, or even the average footsoldier. During wartime I’d say half of you will survive. Outside of wartime, closer to sixty five percent.”

He pointed again.

“Magic’s real here, but is there anything else like it? Monsters? Other races?”

Michael already knew a bit of the answer, his encounter with the griffin fresh in his mind.

“Keeping in mind that monsters to you might be normal to me, we’ve had this question before. There are dragons here, that always seems to be the one people are most interested in knowing, as well as a number of creatures that spawn from the rifts or normal animals that have gained titles and become something closer to monsters. In terms of other races there are dwarves, aelves, the winged. I’ve heard tales of others in distant lands, but here in the Humelands it’s mostly other humans.”

He pointed at Davi.

“If we are considered criminals, why are we still at the academy? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just grow us as fast as possible and shove us onto the front lines?

“There are not many alchemists with the skills to monitor you growing safely to your full strength, nor are the regular recruit training facilities able to meet your special needs. There is also the fact that takers tend to be more likely to be mages or have other unique abilities or conditions that make specialized training a necessity.”

He pointed at another man.

“What kind of life can we expect if we do survive ten years in y-... our army?”

“You will be given a purse of fifty gold, and we will provide you with a work program in one of our larger cities or towns. You will be interviewed about what you did in your previous life and we’ll attempt to match you to an equivalent apprenticeship, or if we cannot, we will provide you a number of options as an official citizen of Stent. We treat our veterans well here.”

He pointed at Pyotr, who was sitting next to Michael.

“Do you have religion here? Do you follow a god?”

“We had many gods once, but all of their names have been lost. We now have only the divine as a whole. The divine is a tool, a source of energy similar to magic, but with fewer practitioners and less general uses. There are those who have been touched by it, and granted powers by its grace. It is the divine which imbues on our souls Titles and Deeds.”

“Is there a priesthood?”

Kline frowned at him. “That’s two questions, but I’ll allow it since it’s basically the same one. Diviners are those touched by the divine and given the ability to work certain blessings. They are a valuable resource. Some nations still actively worship the divine as a kind of god and even have priests without an explicit connection to it. We are more particular here.”

He pointed, finally, at Michael.

“What happens to takers that are women?”

“Ah, that’s a good one. They are aged up as you are, but instead of serving the military, they serve the crown. We have found that they are more likely to have skills that aid serving the bureaucracy than the men of your world. If they have no talent in that area then they are made to do manual labor, cook, and clean. Some with a talent for combat and discipline are recruited to local militias or guards. Those who are discovered to have magical talent are sometimes trained in combat, as are our own women if they have such a gift, but taker women are almost never sent to the front unless they show exceptional talent as battlemages specifically, or by special request.”

That answer told him a lot. There was a crown, a bureaucracy, it told him more about their attitudes towards women, and their priorities as a society. All of that was important, but he knew the real reason he’d asked. If he could wind up there, then so could Sara or his children, and he needed to know where all they would wind up. It was a foolish thought, he knew, but he chose to have it anyway. He lived one life a little foolishly, he’d made no promises to stop in the second.