“We made it!”

“Good job, take a seat and take a break, transport will be here within the next four hours.”

“Four hours? You had us sprint across town rushing to get ready when movement isn’t happening for four entire hours?”

“Sorry, it’s the ol’ Army maxim boyo… hurry up and wait.”

—Conversation between two Adventurers, Streets of Lenoria AC 1392.

“GOOD MORNING PRIVATES!!”

The lights slam on and I’m jolted to attention. Without even thinking, I’m rolling out of bed, my mind scrambling to gain purchase. Everyone quickly follows suit as I idly note that this is even earlier than normal.

These past few weeks I’ve gotten on a pretty good schedule but it seems like the Drill Sergeant decided to start even earlier. As we line up for inspection, Sergeant Lee waves a claw.

“Huddle around Privates and I’ll give you the brief.”

I’m a little confused and tired, this isn’t how we’ve done things in the past. And one of the few things I’ve figured out here is that new things are scary. We circle around as Sergeant Lee waves another claw.

Mana springs from the movement and lights up in gently tracing lines in the air. They quickly resolve into a topographical map and I examine the scene with interest.

I note the varying depths and areas, valleys and hills and depressions annotated on the image in front of me. I’m unable to readily identify the location it’s in, but there is one thing that sticks out to me.

A clearly artificial curve circles one end of the map and is simply labeled, “Incursion Barrier.” I pull my attention away from examining it as Sergeant Lee begins speaking.

“Alright Privates. Your mission is to provide early warnings and sightings in front of a convoy moving from THIS location,” He points at a southern portion of the map before continuing, “to this position,” he points right next to the Incursion barrier.

He waves a claw and the map shifts. Another line appears showing a connecting route between those two points.

“This will be an all day mission. It will take roughly 18 hours to progress this distance by swimming. I’ve already activated the communication function in your armor so that you can speak to each other remotely. You’ll also be able to speak to the supported unit behind you as well. Just direct your communication skill to your regular armor and you’ll be able to talk without revealing your position.”

I hear a light *scritching* noise and I turn to look at the source. One of the Billy brothers is rapidly carving on a small tablet of stone in front of him. At a cursory glance he seems to be transcribing the map to a personal copy. I’m impressed by the rendition so far and make a note to ask for one later. Drill Sergeant Lee continues speaking,

“Private Mina, as current squad leader you…”

“Uh… Drill Sergeant?”

Everything stops.

I can feel the tension rising at the sudden interruption from Mina’s nervous question. As I stand frozen the lobster turns his entire body, glacially slow, and I can almost feel the death knell about to rise. With a voice, utterly devoid of feeling, Sergeant Lee says,

“Yes, Private Mina?”

Mina bobs nervously in the water and I swear I can almost sense her courage beginning to fall. Inside, I’m almost cheering for her, hoping that she’ll power through to say whatever it was she needed to say. It must have been important, otherwise I doubt she would have risked interupting him.

“Uhm, Drill Sergeant. I would like to resign as uhm… Squad Leader. Private Crabby has been an excellent leader so far, and going into this final exercise, I’d like to nominate him for the spot once more. I feel this change would increase the odds of mission success.”

…

……

………

Drill Sergeant Lee pans his vision over the others. He softly asks,

“Does anyone else agree?”

He only receives grim nods in return. He then turns to me and his gaze falls upon my claws. “And do you Private Crabby, accept this responsibility?”

I can see everyone’s expectant faces. I’m not going to let them down. A surge of pride wells inside me as I yell,

“YES DRILL SERGEANT!”

“ALRIGHT THEN! You have 30 minutes to prepare for movement, at which time you will be directly teleported to the arrival area. You’ll be on your own then.”

He waves a claw and walks out the door, leaving us alone.

I turn to the others and begin to say, “thank you guys for…”

Luna cuts me off, “There’s no time! What’s the plan?”

I look at the map and note the terrain features of the route we need to scout. We don’t want to move directly on the road itself because then we’d be sitting ducks. I wave my claw to point out an idea I have.

“If we move adjacent to the obvious route, we can use these rocky depths and overhangs as cover and concealment. It’d probably help hide us from visual sight?”

“Yeah!” Mina says, “I can also hum a low song I know, it actually muffles any sound coming from around it.”

Wilhelm intones, “I’ll guard the rear.”

Luna chimes in, “I’ll be point, I’m pretty stealthy. Let’s do this!”

Positions secured, we don our armor and nervously wait until the time expires. I feel a slight tingling in my shell right before a blinding light descends from the ceiling.

As dots fade from my vision, I see that we’re out of position. I direct my will to my armor to communicate,

“Fall in!”

Wilhelm forms up behind me with Luna in front and the two Billy brothers to either side of me. As they move, I’m rapidly scanning the area looking for any corrupted monsters.

The surrounding area is lightly lit. Glancing up, far above I can see a glimmer of light, while down on the sea floor, there are various bioluminescent plants waving gently in the water.

The light shines on the environs, in pulsing shades of blue and green. It seems we’ve arrived right next to a kelp forest and I look down at the map that I got from Bill.

This forest wasn’t on the map at all. Looking left and right the line of kelp extends beyond my sight. Maybe it’s a new addition to the area? As I stand there trying to figure it out the tension grows. One of the first things I learned was that standing still will kill you. I take a deep breath of water. It looks like we’re going to have to go through the forest then.

I silently wave my pincers in the claw and arm signal to move forward. At the head of the formation, Luna begins to slowly crawl towards the forest. We wait for her to get some distance ahead before we begin to follow her inside.

As we enter, the dim light from above completely disappears. Disappearing beyond my sight lies glowing blue and green kelp. It shimmers in the water and the motion constantly draws my attention.

I just hope we’re going the right way.

Meanwhile in the Training Operation Center:

“What do you mean the teleport malfunctioned?”

“I… I’m sorry Sergeant Lee, I ran the routine as I normally do. There was an unexpected surge of mana and it disrupted the transportation circuits.”

“Hmph… put in a work order for the techs to fix that.”

“Yes Sergeant.”

“Activate the transponders in their armor. Tell me where they are.”

“The transponders currently seem unresponsive.”

“Specialist.”

“Yes Sergeant?”

“FIND THEM RIGHT NOW!!”