Heroes and Men #2

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Here is the key for the map above.

Red = Commonwealth
Light Blue = Sylvia
Purple = Faerlyn
Blue = Anuria
Yellow = Kingdom of Vrobia
Orange = The Vevarian Principalities
Gray = The Sloyes Empire

Pic related is a more detailed map of Sylvia. The red portions of this represent enemy held space and correspond the the purple and dark blue parts of the map above.

For the sake of any new players, I'm reopening voting on the previous update.

--

>[x] Identify yourself and get to business

While you would love to mess around and spook the man who just fired off a warning shot, there was a war to fight and you needed to get down to business as soon as possible.

"Captain James Gardner, the man stuck commanding your sorry asses!" you shout back "And your Lieutenant as well!"

The man leans forward to get a better view of you and Flemming. Realizing his mistake, he quickly clambered down from the barn roof and ran to the fence to unlock it for you.

Now that he was closer, you could see more of the rather tall man's features. He was darker skinned and rather tall but on the thin side if you were honest. He had a 5-o'clock shadow and his face and hands were dirty, as if he had been doing some physical labor recently.

He quickly got the fence opened and stepped aside to allow you and Flemming to enter. You considered breaking his balls a little for shooting first (at his superior no less) and asking questions later but decided not to. You were at war here and there were more important things to do.

The sharp intake of breath you heard coming from Flemming's direction indicated that he thought otherwise. Before he could open his mouth, you held your hand out.

"There are more important things to do than yelling at an over vigilant watchman Lieutenant," you said.

Surprisingly, Flemming headed your words. Perhaps he was simply too tired from the march to bother arguing with you.

"Now who might you be?" you ask the soldier.

"Rifleman Miles Lee, sir!" the soldier says.

Well now you have a name to a face.

"Well Rifleman Lee, I could have you punished for your reckless action earlier, but I realize we are fighting a war right now, all our sensors are down and we don't know if the enemy has landed forces on this planet from right under our noses," you say trying to calm him down, seeing how nervous he was "so I'll let this slide this one time. Please be less reckless next time."

"Yes sir, thank you!" Lee says saluting.

"Oh come on now, none of that," you say "I'm a common man, same as you."

Once again, Lee seems embarrassed by his mess up.

"Gardner, while you are a commoner, a certain decorum is expected from an officer, do not become so familiar with the ranks," Flemming pipes up.

You sigh. It seems Flemming has found his voice once again.

"I'll keep it in mind," you say "Now let's meet the rest of this sorry excuse for a company. Could you take us there?"

"Yes sir," Lee says "Follow me."

Lee walks off and you and Flemming follow. Lee leads you to the farmhouse. As you approach it, you hear some yelling from within.

"Anything we should be concerned about?" you ask.

"Ah it's probably nothing," Lee says with resignation.

It mustn't be the first time this has happened. You reach the door and Lee opens it for you. What greets you is a strange sight.

>>1552341
"That rabbit is mine, fair and square little girl!" a burly man who is more hair than person bellows.

"Finders keepers!" a younger voice says.

You look around for the source but have no luck finding it. You lower your line of sight, being clued in by the man mentioning a little girl. Right near your feet is what you assume is the little girl. Dressed in overalls and a flannel shirt, the only hint that the child is female are the girlish pig tails. In her hands, a rabbit leg. Judging from her sticky face and a rabbit leg you see already thrown away, you assume she already ate the other leg.

To the side, you see the other two people in your "company" cheering them on and judging from the money they were holding, likely betting on the outcome of this showdown. One was freckled with short hair, likely even younger than Flemming. The other was the striking image of what you thought of when you pictured an absentminded professor.

"The only thing you'll be finding is a long and unpleasant time out young lady!" the bearlike man said before diving at the girl.

She jumped away with unnatural grace. Now that you look at her longer, you notice that her face is off from a normal human's. The eyes a bit too big, the ears longer, the features longer and more angular. Is she perhaps one of the Sylvians you were here to fight for?

Well you could ponder that later because at the moment, you have a massive man currently heading straight towards you with no way to stop himself with the momentum he had built up.

He bowls right into you and both of you end up outside outside on the dusty ground. The wind is knocked out of your lungs by the large man.

"Oh, what's this then?" the large man says noticing you under him.

He quickly gets up and helps you to your feet, futilely dusting off your uniform.

"Ah well, it would have gotten dirty in the field anyway," he said after seeing that his massive hands were doing a better job knocking the wind out of you than cleaning your uniform.

"Now who might ye be?" he asks.

Flemming stares horrified at this lack of professionalism and the audacity of these mere rank and file soldiers to be so familiar with their commanding officer.

>[ ] Write in

Previous write ins.
>reprimand
>actual punishment delayed until someone can tell us what's going on
>Lieutenant, do you want to deal with the girl? No? Fine, as long as she stays quiet while we get a full explanation.

>"I am your commanding officer, Captain Gardner, so if you would stop hitting me and let me breath I can get a better idea of this unit's capabilities and if you don't stop...I'LL HAVE YOU USED AS THE FRIGGIN TARGET PRACTICE FOR THE NEW RIFLES. Now that that's done all of you get in line, weapons at the ready"

>That is SIR to you Corporal, and it is Captain Gardner! This is Lt. Flemming!
>*Gesture to him formally.*
>Now, I demand a clear explanation ONE AT A TIME, what is going on here!
>*Point to the girl*
>You! Jessica Rabbit, start talking.

>>1552349
>>Now, I demand a clear explanation ONE AT A TIME, what is going on here!

>>1552349
>>actual punishment delayed until someone can tell us what's going on
>Now, I demand a clear explanation ONE AT A TIME, what is going on here!

>>1552349
>[ ] Write in
De-crease our uniform, tilt our hat in a drill sergeant fashion. Mosey on inside. Spread feet. Start yelling.
"ALRIGHT YOU ANIMALS, LISTEN UP. MY GOD DAMN NAME IS CAPTAIN GARDNER AND IM HERE TO STAY UNTIL I DIE OR YOU FUCKERS LEARN TO PLAY LIKE GOOD LITTLE MONKEYS. THATS RIGHT, THIS ISNT THE SCHOOL PLAYGROUND, ITS NOT A BARN ON SOME BUMFUCK PLANET. THIS IS A ZOO. AND IMMA TURN IT INTO A BUTCHERY. STARTING WITH ALL OF YOU."

*start tossing shit everywhere*

"GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER, LINE UP, LINE UP."

*start smashing pots together*

>>1552349
>>1552470
>>1552479
This is great, let's go with this instead.

>>1552349

>Now, I demand a clear explanation ONE AT A TIME, what is going on here!

Let's not start tossing shit quite yet, boys.

Gonna need a tie breaker.

>>1552585
>>1552487
>>1552540
Switch to this, if they continue to be rowdy, then >>1552479.

>>1552588
Alrighty then, writing the update.

don't let your memes be dreams

>[x] Now, I demand a clear explanation ONE AT A TIME, what is going on here!

"That is SIR to you Corporal, and it is Captain James Gardner!" you say to the huge hairy man before gesturing to Flemming "and this is Lieutenant Gordon Flemming!"

The three soldiers trade uncomfortable glances at each other. Even the small girl is nervous.

"Now, I demand a clear explanation of what is going on here," you say, and before you get swarmed by different responses you add "One at a time."

After glancing at each other some more, the youngest soldier steps up.

"Well sir-" he began before being interrupted by Flemming.

"Name and rank," he says none to kindly.

"Private Phillip Jenkins," the now identified Private Jenkins says.

"Continue," you say, motioning for him to keep going.

"Well sir, after landing on this hunk of rock and pushing off the enemy invasion force, the four of us were taken out of our regiments and placed into this experimental company. Well so called at least. We're one sorry excuse I've got to say."

You sigh.

"That'd be my fault," you say "I'm a commoner and not too many people are happy that I'm an officer. The people over at Cardinium have been dragging their feet in giving me any men so it'll just be us for now."

From their expressions, you could hear the sighs they would have let out had they not been so tense at the moment.

"Until then, we have been attached to one of the companies in the 60th Praetorian Regiment of Foot," you continue "Now keep going."

"Uh well, then we got assigned to keep watch on this abandoned farm here, in case any enemy forces had stayed hidden on the planet and were going to attack the base," Jenkins continued "With so much Zephyr particles being emitted by all the warships in orbit, every sensor around here is useless so we have to check everything ourselves."

You nod. That was in line with what the Brigadier had said.

"That still doesn't explain the unauthorized presence personnel here!" Flemming exclaimed.

Jenkins recoiled slightly.

"I'll explain that," the large hairy man said "Corporal O'Sullivan at yer service, sir."

You nod at him to continue.

"Well when we got here, we assumed the farm was abandoned like the intel had said. There was evidence that the enemy forces had attempted to burn it down before our forces forced them to retreat," he said "We found three corpses, obviously the family that had lived here. Mother, father and older sister. I won't go further into detail on what the enemy had done to them out of respect. We buried 'em and got set up here and by chance, Private Miles found that this little one was hidden out in the barn. Seeing as this her home, her family were dead and we're just uninvited guests here, we kind of just kept her around."

You nodded once more. What do you do with this information.

>[ ] Be understanding.

>[ ] Be by the book.

>[ ] Write in

>>1553745
Forgot trip. Sorry about taking so long with this one. 4chan ate what I wrote and I lost my motivation for a bit.

>>1553745
>>[ ] Be understanding.
Well this is FUBAR. Also glad to see this quest back. Any bets how soon we'll need to slap some shit into Flemming?

>>1553745
>[ ] Be understanding.
>Ask the kid

>If you want to stay in your family's home, we can delay the standard procedures. But we can't be your parents, kid. When you decide to live for yourself, come talk to me.

>>1553775
Forgot my shitty name.

>>1553745
>>1553775
>>1553781
Support.

>>1553766
Do you write in a word processor before pasting it into 4chan?

>>1553794
On bus transits I write on a word processor but most of the time I just type in the reply box. I already know it's stupid thing to do but I for some I tend to type more when it's here rather than on a word processor.

>>1553800
Personally I alternate between the two. Copy formatting from 4chan, type a good chunk of it in 4chan until it looks substantial, paste it into the word processor, then check before pasting it into 4chan and doing any further edits between the two.

Made a twitter for anyone who is interested in that sort of stuff.
https://twitter.com/DarjeelingQM

Going to sleep now. See you all in the morning.

>>1553881
Later. Thanks for running.

>>1553745
be understanding, but make it known that procedure will be followed. after we are done here she will go to the orphanage/ wherever we are supposed to send her

Bumping cause why not.

Alright lads, I'm back. Writing the update.

>[x] Be understanding

"I guess we can keep her around," you say to the delight of your men "but we can't ignore procedures forever. We are fighting a war and can't be her parents."

You walk towards the girl and kneel to get down on her level.

"I can't say that I know what it's like to lose a loving family, but it can't be easy," you tell her "You'll have to move on soon though, sorry to say. Tell me when you're ready, okay?"

You could hear Flemming sputtering indignantly in the background. Surely you were going to get a talking to about not following protocol later.

The girl slowly nods her head. You smile at her before getting back up and resuming your usual expression.

"Now that still doesn't explain the commotion I walked into just now," you say to the gathered men.

O'Sullivan rubs the back of his head.

"Well Captain, if you don't mind me saying, the rations we're given are dog shite. As a former enlisted man yourself, I'm sure you'd understand," he says "and we haven't run into any enemies in any of our patrols. We occasionally hunt some rabbits and other animals for food and well, I made the mistake of leaving some rabbit legs I just cooked on the table unguarded. You saw what happened next."

You could hear the little Sylvian girl giggle smugly. O'Sullivan's eyes narrowed slightly at the provocation but he didn't do anything otherwise.

"Hmmm, so you throw away our generous king's rations and use his ammunition to hunt some wild game which I'll remind you were imported here from his personal hunting reserve," you say looking as if you were about to chew them out.

No doubt Flemming was quite happy at you following protocol.

"Well honestly I can't blame you," you say after a pause "The rations truly are quite shit."

You hear some more spluttering from Flemming's direction.

Your men have a small, nervous laugh.

With everything cleared up, it's time to get to business.

>[ ] Get better acquainted with your men.

>[ ] Get a demonstration of the rifles.

>[ ] Do some PT. The men have had it easy for too long.

>[ ] Get yourself and Flemming into your new gear and collect your new equipment.

>[ ] Write in

>>1558130
Forgot to add. You only have time for two of these options.

>>1558130
>>[ ] Get better acquainted with your men.

Then.

>[ ] Do some PT. The men have had it easy for too long.

>>1558130
get into equipment, then get a demonstration of rifles

>>1558130
>[ ] Get a demonstration of the rifles.
>>[ ] Do some PT. The men have had it easy for too long. Cap it off with hunting some game, WITHOUT ammunition. Knives and rope only. Wilderness survival without reporting your position to the enemy with noise/lasers is a skill, too.

>>1558183
supporting this instead

>>1558183
This. And lets join them at it too

>>1558130

>[ ] Get a demonstration of the rifles.
>[ ] Do some PT. The men have had it easy for too long.

Alright, update on the way. Last update for now because I have a new job that I'm starting tomorrow.

>>1558402
It's getting pretty late so I'm going to have to go to sleep, regrettably. If I have enough time when I wake up, I'll try to complete the update and post it before heading off to work.

>>1558130
>>1558183
>>1558253
Support.

>>1558259
this

>>1558183
hear ye