Swamped

As you look over the selection on the rack, you're surprised to find a large, thick pair of gloves. Not that you don't recognize it - you just wouldn't have expected the Bogknights to have them at all.

You put the gloves on and they feel comfortingly familiar. These are Jonathan Flame's Throwing Gloves. The famed inventor equipped them with various mechanisms you don't fully understand which improve your grip on small objects and allowing you to throw with much more control than with just your own hands - and, if you so desire, power.

You mostly used them to simplify the process of carrying small objects across the farm. Still, you developed reasonably good throwing technique as you did, and it might serve you well here. At the least, you can demonstrate some sort of skill.

Of course, you're going to need something to throw with it. But it seems they thought of that, too; there's a wooden skyslicer right next to it. If you're going to specialize in thrown weapons, it's probably best to have one that comes back to you.

Having picked out your gear, you walk back into the middle of the room and take a few moments to judge the best angle of attack. Then you fling the skyslicer at the dummy. It strikes your foe in the chest and knocks it over, before flying right back into your hand.

"A decent start," the sergeant says. "Your technique is good, but you took a bit too long in planning your attack. If that had been a real opponent, they could have used that time to strike you or a teammate, or move to an inconvenient spot."

You nod. She has a point. You've generally been able to take your time planning trajectories and the like, especially with the skyslicer where you need to account for its return. But if you get into real combat, you'll need to think faster.

Still, you feel you handled that reasonably well. Although, you're curious about something.

"Why do you have a pair of these gloves? I heard the military didn't consider them adequate."

"Well, first point, we take what we can get here. Flame donated us a few of his tools, gloves included. We didn't have much use for them, but we put them in storage anyways. Second point, which military exactly are you talking about?"

You're reminded that you don't know much about the political situation behind this war.

"I'm from Graeland, sir. I meant theirs."

"Right. Well, we don't take orders from Graeland, or from anyone else. Rather, we get volunteers and supplies from every kingdom. So anything their military's decided doesn't affect us."

Now that she mentions it, you realize you haven't seen any national flags around here.

But if they're not working for any kingdom, that suggests they're not trying to hold or claim the territory for one. What's the fighting all about, then?

You don't really have time to think about it, though, as the sergeant is already reminding you that your training for the day is hardly finished yet.

"We can't do much more with offensive training today, since we need to plan a course based around your preferred weapon and current skill level. So instead, we'll be moving on to..."

What's the next step in your training?

underwater breath holding class

how much armor can you carry?

> Dramatic posing

Getting this dang swamp muck out of clothes.

~ Chimney

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Before finishing her sentence, Sergeant Greenwoods walks over to a side door and thrusts it open to reveal a small pond filled with swamp muck.

"Swimming," she declares, gesturing at the pond. "There are times when you're going to have to make an escape through the muck, and that might mean fending off an alligator. Or worse. Your weapon choice isn't all that suited for fighting under those conditions, as you can't exactly throw things well underwater, but we'll cover combat later. For now, we just want you getting used to swimming in full gear."

She then fits herself with the small mask around her neck. You hadn't given much thought to those before now, though you found yours a little uncomfortable to carry around.

"It also helps you get used to the smell. The breather masks don't do much to filter it."

You follow her into the next room. She steps into the pond and demonstrates a few simple strokes. When you think you're ready, you follow her in.

It's not long before you discover that, thankfully, the training pond isn't that deep. The sergeant picks you up and chuckles a bit as you pull off your mask so you can let out a groan.

"Now, as you've seen here, swimming in full gear is difficult. It's not just because of the added weight - swamp water is denser than the regular kind. That means things float better on it, but it also makes it harder to move through. In some ways, it's harder if you already know how to swim - the techniques are completely different, and you have to forget what you know. Now, take a breather for a moment, and let me know when you're ready to try again."

The next attempt goes somewhat better. You follow the sergeant's movements as best you can, and manage to hold position for nearly a minute before your arms give out and you have to be pulled out again.

"Seems that's enough swimming practice for today. We'll make more thorough attempts tomorrow. For now, we'll teach you probably the most important skill of the swamp: laundry. The suits don't keep all the muck out, as I'm sure you've realized by now. So let's get you to the showers to get cleaned up and changed, and then I'll take you to the laundry room."

The shower feels good. The water is too cold, and you're not allowed to use much of it because clean water is very valuable, but it's the closest you've come to forgetting you're in the swamp.

After cleaning yourself up, you follow the sergeant to the laundry room.

"As you already know, water is at a premium. So we don't use any - usually the clothes are already soaked, after all. It's just that it's got a load of other, smellier things in it." She pulls out a small bag of powder from a cupboard and pours some on your clothes. "So we use this cleansing powder. It mixes with the swamp water and gets rid of most of it, except the water. You usually need to roll the clothes around a bit. Then you hang them up over there to dry." She points at a large basin. "We even get a little bit of water out of it. Not much, but every little bit counts. That's why we like to get the laundry done as soon as we can."

You follow her lead and pour some more powder on your clothes, then start rolling them around to spread the powder. They already seem cleaner, aside from the fact that they're soaking wet. So you hang them up.

"That about covers your first day's training," the sergeant says when you're done. "More about giving you an idea what you're in for right now. As for what to expect tomorrow, most of the focus will probably be on swimming for the next week. By then, we should have a basic combat course ready for you. Other than that, probably a little about swamp survival tactics for times when you can't get back to base, and maybe some time on the barge if we get a chance. It's seeing a lot of use this week, though, so I can't make any promises."

She glances at a clipboard.

"I think that covers everything. You're free to go, Marshall. Enjoy yourself as best you can, training's going to be longer tomorrow."

It's only about lunchtime now. You get yourself another bland meal and then think about what to do with the rest of your day.

What are you going to do?

everyone else's laundry. you've got off to a bad start so it'd be best to get everyone on your side

yeah! offer to do everyone else's laundry!!!

yeah! offer to do everyone else's laundry!!!

no, don't ask, just take charge and DO

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yeah, you fuck-up

You decide that you might as well make yourself useful. About all you know how to do is laundry, though, so you settle for taking care of that.

A quick investigation reveals that dirty laundry doesn't stay around for long. Because drying your clothes means extra water, everyone is expected to do theirs immediately after showering.

You realize you can save them a little trouble by waiting at the shower and taking their clothes to the laundry room. You get a few recruits taking you up on the offer, but it seems not that many people are coming back from the swamp drenched. Or they prefer to handle their own laundry, because that's what they've always done.

Still, you do get some more practice with the process, cleaning five sets of clothes over the next hour. You're starting to feel confident about one thing you can do, though.

At least until you start rolling the sixth shirt and it suddenly turns to a drab dark-brown color. As it turns out, this is right when Sergeant Greenwoods rushes into the laundry room with a panicked look on her face.

She sees the shirt and promptly puts on her mask, grabbing it from you and tossing it into a small metal box in the corner. She closes the box quickly and then grabs you and drags you through the halls.

The next thing you know, you're in the infirmary with the medic pulling a needle from your arm. You feel more than a little confused.

"No toxin," the medic says after a while.

"Thank the gods, I'd never forgive myself otherwise," Sergeant Greenwood says, pulling off her mask. "I rushed in as soon as I heard you were helping with the laundry. I should have told you about the eggs."

"Eggs?"

"Fly eggs. They nest in the swamp muck. The powder tears the eggs apart, and gets their blood all over everything. Their highly toxic blood, I might add."

You feel a little uneasy at hearing that.

"Didn't think it was important, because you hadn't been out in the swamp proper where they breed. We keep the training pool very clean. Hadn't thought you might try to help out the other knights. Hells, that was too close. Look, I appreciate that you tried to help out, but next time you try to do something, talk to me first. The swamp has a lot of dangers, hidden ones as well as the more obvious, and you can't assume anything from it is safe."

"We'll need to keep you in here overnight just in case the blood test missed something," the medic interjects. "I doubt there will be any problems, but we can't be too careful with fly toxin."

Well, there goes the rest of your free time today. And you can probably look forward to learning to spot fly eggs tomorrow, assuming you didn't get poisoned.

The medic leads you to a side room with a bed and a bookshelf next to it.

"I'd advise you to pass the time with some reading," he says. "Assuming you know how. If not, this might be a good chance to learn."

Well, you can't see much else to do.

Do you already know how to read?
If so, what sort of book will you look at?

you know how to read!!! just, not the language all these books are written in...

reading is about the only thing you're good at, 'cause you're a wimp nerd begat from wimp nerds. but beginning right now, pretend like you're illiterate so they underestimate you and you have a lower bar to clear. (you really need it, frankly.) plus you get to have a secret, like later you can be all "i'm not left-handed" except with books and signs instead of cool shit like swords.

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all of the above

The truth is, you were quite the reader back at home. Your father had amassed a significant number of books before he went missing, and you had little else to do when your chores were finished.

But you're hardly feeling confident right now. You decide to act ignorant. If nothing else, you can pass yourself off as a quick study, and get some kind of good reputation.

You tell the medic you don't know how to read, and he hands you a picture book. Much to your relief, it isn't swamp-themed.

However, you have a moment of shock as you realize that you actually can't understand the title. The medic smiles as he sees you struggle with it.

"This is A Simple Guide to the Alphabet. We find this is good for beginners. It's pictures of things that begin with each letter, you see. Helps you to recognize them and connect them to a sound. See, here. A is for apple... B is for burnwood... C is for coalcrab... Let me know if you need any further help."

As he reads through the book, you start to grasp what happened. Your father's books must have been from his homeland, and in his native language. But when he read them to you, he spoke his new language. You learned to recognize most of the symbols by the words he used, and so you never learned to properly read in your own tongue.

But on the plus side, you'll be an excellent translator if any books from Kroska pop up here. Not that you expect that to come up, but you need to take optimism where you can find it.

You pore over the alphabet book again a few times, then glance at a simple reader. You're starting to grasp the basics, at least.

---

You are a Marshguard. You've been captured by the Bogknights.

It shouldn't have happened. Six on three should have been an easy win. But you were out of practice after a month indoors during the damned rain. Now you're stuck in this stupid cell, with even worse food than the recruits get.

But then, you're used to hardship. You wouldn't have come to this swamp at all if you'd had a real choice in the matter. Most Marshguards are exiles, criminals, or runaways, living in the blasted swamp because they've got nowhere else to go. You're no exception.

What unfortunate event ruined your old life and forced you to flee here?

you learned to read

you became a busker that could only juggle fresh corpses. The police caught on pretty quick, since you were doing it in public. The murdering, that is. No one cared about your broadcasted juggling skills.

You lost your nerve.

You became obsessed with this great treasure that was supposedly hidden in this swamp, but after a bizarre and foul-smelling experiment in your laboratory, the swamp beast you summoned captured you and took you all the way to the swamp. And of course there isn't even any treasure here. All your neighbors back home probably joke that you ELOPED with that swamp beast. As if you'd leave your husband and kid behind! Oh... that was so many years ago. You don't even know what your kid must look like now, but it's not as if you'll ever see them again.

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You, too, were looking for your father

Your life went to ruin years ago.

You were a courier, delivering messages between a number of merchants. They had a whole network of couriers like you, youths who had never learned to read.

It had apparently never occurred to them that one of you might pick up the skill on the job. You couldn't quite understand the full context of the messages, but the overall pattern to them was disturbingly clear.

Not that you did anything, not at first. You were smart enough to realize what they'd do to you if they found out, so you kept your mouth shut and kept working.

But you couldn't keep that up over time. Each message was a reminder of what you were involved in, what you couldn't stand to be involved in any more. Yet, you had no way to fight it.

No way, except to run away from it all. And the only place beyond the merchants' reach was this stupid swamp.

The worst of it is, you're the first prisoner taken since the last rain. The other cells are empty, leaving you no one to talk to except your captors. And you've got no inclination to strike up a conversation with them, not least because they're trying to get information out of you.

As if you know anything in the first place. The only thing you know that they don't is that you had orders to take the new recruit prisoner. You've got no idea why this rookie soldier is of any importance to the Marshguards, or even how your commanding officer knew there was an incoming recruit at all.

You don't especially care about the reasons, either. Inquisitive types don't generally last long in the Marshguards, seeing as nearly everyone there has secrets they don't want dug up.

This is probably why they've barely bothered to question you. They know it won't do them any good, so why waste time? You'll just rot in here until after the next rain.

You tried yelling for a while, just to make a general nuisance of yourself. But you soon found that just made your throat tired; they didn't give you any more attention for it, not even to try to shut you up.

So what are you going to do with yourself while you wait for another cursory interrogation where you don't tell them anything?