New Actium:3
From Create Your Own Story
You keep a completely straight face, staring directly ahead, as you answer Captain Jalisco’s question. “I’m Judas of Makai, Hero of the Chief God and paramour to the Demon Lord, Sir!” you announce, loudly. The soldier on your right makes a strangled noise in the back of her throat; on the left, the sound of air being audibly sucked in suggests that your compatriots don’t think this was the smartest time to joke around.
Jalisco just stares at you. The entire courtyard is holding its collective breath...
...
And still holding...
...
“Ehh... sorry, Captain,” you blurt, unable to withstand the weight of attention. “That was just a little j-“
The mailed fist hits you in the gut with more force than you thought an ogre would ever be able to muster, much less the short human woman who actually delivered it. You crumple, like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut. One moment, you’re staring into the commander’s unwavering grey eyes, and the next you’re blinking mud and tears out of your own, as your body curls up on itself, laid out on the muddy courtyard floor. Jalisco’s engraved metallic boots are the only part of her you can make out, through a haze of pain and swimming, double vision. You can hardly... breathe...!
“Anyone else think they’re funny?” the officer yells to the rest of the line. “Anyone else think their name matters?”
A few scattered ‘No Sir’s sound off from the other troops. Although most are just staring in shock at the Captain, as she stands completely unfazed above your groaning form in the mud.
“I SAID, does anyone think their name MATTERS?” Jalisco bellows.
“Sir, no, Sir!” comes the unanimous reply, the evident threat in the Captain’s voice quite sufficient to galvanise a synchronised response.
“Correct!” she cries. “If the mamono get over these walls, it doesn’t matter one bit who you are, or what your name is. If you falter here, they’ll fell you, they’ll rape you, and they’ll cart you back to Makai like branded cattle. And then they’ll do the same to the whole Prairie, taking every man, woman, and child, from Milliam to Izmiri! So remember! Whatever names you had before, they mean nothing! You’re Bladesmen and women. You’ll fight as Red Blades, and you might die as Red Blades, but by the Chief God, either way, before you leave this town you will send a shitload of mamono to hell as Red Blades! Do I make myself clear!”
“Sir yes Sir!”
“Good! Bladesmen, diiiiiiiismissed!”
Cheering noisily, the troops around you turn and march off in formation... those behind you in the line taking special care to skirt round your collapsed, wheezing form. While her freshly galvanized troops fall out, Jalisco bends over you, her taut voice a harsh growl in your ear. “Next time it’s the testicles, ”Judas”,” she tells you. And with that, she’s gone, joining her band of mercenaries as they file off back into the bustle of the main camp.
Luckily, once the commander departs, a pair of troopers take pity on you, helping you to get up and stagger out of the muster yard. You’ll certainly have one hell of a bruise in the morning, but it doesn’t... quite...? feel like anything’s ruptured. You are, however, entirely confident you don’t want to test your commanding officer again. The idea of taking a punch like that in the nethers is not an attractive one.
[You have lost one point of Endurance on account of getting bruisingly smacked in the gut.]
Where to next?
Seek medical attention – better safe than sorry
Return to the mercenary camp
Go up on the palisade
