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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Carnifex" data-source="post: 186908" data-attributes="member: 227">Cavern Company: 'Tale of a Soldier'The company seems to have come to a decision to head northwards together. Melisande knows her future lies in Naseria - as a renegade Manipulator there's no place for her at home. Ebri seems to have bound herself to the young aasimar, eager to get to the bottom of the girls shadowy mysteries, while Meg'anna is bound to her too - but by friendship and a desire to travel. Sandslipper too knows her path lies northwards, to deliver her mysterious package to the Naserian sorcerer Ecurius Tarravus, and Melisande has decided to accompany the earth genasi on her journey, having little idea of where to go herself. Finally Sebastion follwos the band, clearly feeling out of place and unsettled, but with one thing drawing him on above all others...The mimir.They settle down for the night, the day after escaping the kobold warrens, for rest and food, and the welcome return of Meg'anna's animal companion Micah who somehow found his mistress again after losing her during the dreadspawn battle. As they do so, Sebastion ventures his question."Does anyone want to stake a claim for the Me-Me? While we're here? I'm not going to fight you for it, or anything, I'm just interested, and wondered... Here's the coin, we can at least share that out. Even split?"Discussion breaks out over how to distribute what they have recovered from the caves. Melisande keeps hold of the Fire Serpent rod, wanting to get to the bottom of its mysteries, while the various alchemical items are distributed amongst the others. Ebri proposes that she continue to carry the mimir, holding it in a communal trust for the party, while Melisande - tinged slightly by her own desire for the mimir, asks after Sebastions reasons for wanting it, reprimanding him for his mispronunciation of the constructs name as she does so.Sebastion gives an answer she didn't expect from him, perhaps that none of them expected, as he tells them something he's never even told his father.He wants to be known, to be famous, as a great soldier and tactician. From books at home he has learned much of warfare - but he can never amount to much in a national army. Why? Because he is not of noble birth, nor wealthy, so he is forced to ply his trade as a mercenary."The art of war, is the art of learning from the mistakes of predecessors. Books are cumbersome things to carry to a battlefield, and not always easily accessible, but this Mimir" - he stressed the proper pronunciation this time - "could carry that wealth of information with it, and useful commentary as well. A combined history and campaign journal."Mel stares at him, a forced reevaluation going on in her mind. He's better spoken than she thought, clearly more intelligent than she had considered, and possesed of a drive and ambition she'd never even suspected. a picture forms in her mind of what Seb might become - the image of a plate-clad warlord atop a mountain of bloodied bodies.All she can manage to form as an actual answer is "Oh."She's relieved though to know that he isn't a Carthagian regular soldier, but a mercenary - it means her status as a rogue Manipulator wont matter to him. She asks him what sort of war he plans on making.Once again Seb provides a carefully thought out answer. "Soldiers are seen as somehow dirty people. Undesirables. People who don't have a skill or a trade to make an 'honest' living... that's wrong. Soldiers are skilled professionals, even if their profession is an unfortunate one. It seems to a large extent that the nature of men is to take, and you have to have the means to defend yourself.""Even within the standing forces, the common soldiers are viewed as a necessary evil. With no prospect of promotion beyond being leader of a handful of men, and facing the possibility of having to charge to their death at the whim of a simpering, in-bred idiot, it is understandable that only the least desirable join the ranks.I want to forge a force that will stand where the armies stand: in fact, where all too often the armies should but don't, because it isn't some noble's family, or livestock, or homes that are on the line.I want to make Warfare a valid field of study, so that people will start to think better of the men and women who put their lives on the line for their countries, their people, their faith, whatever..."He trails off, feeling suddenly a little foolish, and manages a slightly abashed grin."Maybe I just want to flatten the mountains, and dry up the seas, too."</blockquote>

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