Dread it. Run from it. Destiny still arrives.

Pre-Fall quote.

Johanna had been trying to find excuses to laze in her bedroom, but having Tom up and around made it less fun. They’d been late arriving yesterday, and they would head to Grievar sometime later. No traces of manalight this time, but the commercial district where they’d found the sword the last time was full of opportunities they had explored further, including what seemed to have been a tool store at the end of the street. Not everything in there was salvageable or potentially useful, but it would almost certainly bring some good money to split among themselves.

For now, it was morning, and she was looking forward to shopping a bit and improving their house – notably the kitchen because using her hand as a stove was becoming tiresome – before getting more money. Oh, and go pick some of the furniture that was finished, according to the note left at their home by that wood merchant.

So, when the knock came, she didn’t think much about it. She reached the entrance just as Tom opened it, almost at the same time as Peter. She peered out, but rather than one of their neighbors, she was greeted by a surprising view.

A man in heavy leathers, and a dozen or so others behind him.

Armed. With spears.

“Am I at the Milton and Donnall household?”

“Uh, yes. Is there some kind of probl…”

“No. But first…”

The man reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling it out. She almost stumbled and tried to pull back, but the man kept her locked in an iron grip. He made a head gesture at one of the others and that soldier brought out a small lighter, ignited it… and proceeded to put it under her hand.

She looked at it incredulously before blurting, “What are you doing?”

Tom advanced, and two of the men brought spears in front of him. The leader didn’t answer and kept watching her hand. Belatedly, she realized she should have shown signs of hurting or something, but she’d become used too quickly to the fire and heat immunity. If it didn’t hurt her, she had no reflexes against the presence of fire.

“Looks like the council didn’t lie,” the soldier’s leader commented, before releasing her.

She stepped back, shaking her hand. The fire might not have burned, but the grip itself had been slightly painful.

“What was that for?” she said, feeling aggravated.

“Checking you. It does look like you are actually immune to fire. At least that can be confirmed… and given the nasty look the other lady is giving me, it looks like she’s also genuine. Although I don’t know much about saints, even less than sorcerers.”

Johanna turned and spotted Laura, who was frowning… and almost certainly applying her threatening gaze, or whatever that caused hesitation among beasts or men.

The man obviously steeled himself and simply said, “Also, I would pretty much appreciate it if you stopped doing that.”

Laura’s voice was full of ice, “And why, if you are assaulting us in our own home?”

“Ah. I am Sergeant Mord, and I have to inform you that all of you four have been selected for the draft.”

“Draft? Like what… draft beer?” Peter asked.

The man actually rolled his eyes at the question.

“The draft is a time-honored practice in times of war, which is the case for the Montana right now. It means we are calling upon people to fight for their country against foreign enemies.”

“And that’s us?” Johanna asked, incredulous.

“That’s you. And more, but in this particular case, yes, that’s you.”

He pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Johanna, who started to read it. Although she had no way to confirm anything, it looked official. By the authority of the Warden of the Montana – that distant figure in the east that was supposed to rule over the entire Marches – et cetera, et cetera, Valetta had to provide…

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She boggled. Two. Hundred. Troops.

She raised her head from the note and threw a look at the sergeant, who harbored a placid expression.

“I suggest also packing some clothing for a long trip. You’ll be on the road for about two weeks.”

She looked at the other three, who harbored equally incredulous expressions.

“My men will escort you, while you pack your belongings.”

Her head snapped back.

“Just in case.”

The building was the hall in which they’d done the wedding feast, three weeks ago, she realized as they reached it. Sergeant Mord and his men escorted the four of them inside, where she found it packed with people. It had felt roomy when it was a banquet and dance hall, but now…

The soldier steered them toward a side room, knocking. Another man, in light travel clothes, came out.

“They were there today, Adjutant,” Sergeant Mord announced.

“And…”

“Did what you asked. She, at least,” he said, pointing back toward Johanna, “is genuine. The other one looks like, too.”

“Which, I assume, means that the third one checks out as well. Now… which one of you is this…”

He eyed Tom from foot to head.

“I’d assume you, but sometimes appearances can be tricky…”

“Want me to cave your skull to show you?” Tom growled.

“My, my. So, you are…” he said, turning towards Peter.

“Peter Donnall. And I’m…” he stopped, seeing Johanna’s furtive look, “her husband,” he finished, squeezing Laura’s shoulder.

“Well, you’d be drafted along with them anyway,” the man said, dismissively.

“But why?” Johanna asked.

“The Marches of the Montana are at war, miss. And we need to give it our best, lest we’d be overrun by savages. In this case, that means Valetta’s strength… including especially yours.”

“Ours?”

“I was skeptical of the council’s claims, but they delivered. A sorcerer, a saint, a hero… I took a gamble and said yes. Levies we will get from all over the Montana. But you…”

Someone had talked, Johanna realized. News from Anasta. She shouldn’t be surprised; the rumors sometimes ran faster than a riding postman. Although how hearsay had reached the council, and why they’d taken it seriously was a mystery.

The man turned toward the sergeant.

“Put them temporarily among the rest. All we have to do is to get the rest of the levy groups back, now that I know we don’t need the last fifty, and then we’ll set out immediately.”

The soldier saluted and the man went back into his room, leaving Johanna to yell, “You didn’t even tell us who you are?”

Sergeant Mord smirked.

“It was on your papers? Didn’t pay attention? That’s Adjutant Agnello, the right hand of the Warden himself. Now, get some rest. My guess is that we’ve got an hour or two, so relax, because the day’s going to be hard.”

The soldier took off, along with the escort, joining the other soldiers guarding around the enclosed party hall. The four watched Mord leave, then gathered.

“Okay. So, what we do?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know.”

“We could… fight our way out?”

Peter shook his head in doubt.

“They had papers. Official ones. And given the number of people they have gathered already… either Valetta is terrified of those soldiers, or they’re in it voluntarily.”

“Then even if we start to use our… talents, where do we go?” Laura opined.

“Not home,” Tom acknowledged, looking dejected.

“Yea. We might… Franz???” Johanna said.

The man sitting next to them turned to look at her and stood up immediately.

“You too?” their neighbor said, greeting them.

“I was going to say the same,” she replied.

“There’s that.”

“Where’s Sarah?” she asked.

“Still home. Apparently, I’m non-essential, or so they say, but since she’s the mother of little Willi, she gets a pass. Mothers of a child under 12 don’t qualify for their ‘draft’, apparently. For me… that’s what I get from being a basic worker at the smithy.”

He considered the four, adding.

“Well. I shouldn’t be surprised that they consider you non-essential as well. Salvaging isn’t going to be a very high-priority job for Valetta. A few others of the alley got drafted as well.”

“How is Sarah going to go on without you?” Johanna asked.

“Dunno. With her part-time home job, you mean? Apparently, we’re supposed to get a small stipend for this draft thing duration and can send most of it back home if we want. At least they’re suspending all debts and stuff while we’re away.”

“As if that was important. Any idea what they want with us?”

“Some war thing. They have problems in the east and want soldiers. To fight.”

“And… that’s us?”

Franz Nader gestured toward the crowd.

“All of them. All of us.”

The grizzled veteran soldier had been a level 10, the first one Moore had ever seen. And a Duelist. That was a weird specialization that he’d spotted when raising Tom to level 4, before ignoring it. The 17 AGI/16STR/16EMP and level 4 specialization seemed to have only multipliers for skills that involved skill or stat checks. If he had to guess, it looked like what one would expect of a kind of PvP specialization, if any such existed. Despite the specialization, when he’d grabbed Johanna, he’d noticed that the man – a Jones Armani Mord – had no skills at all and the usual hodgepodge of allocated stats. And barely any experience left in his pool too, for once.

The draft notice was a reminder that, regardless of the low-tech state of the world, bureaucracy still reigned supreme, and it held at least some semblance of a rule of law, given that it referred to statutes and stuff that had at least a veneer of legality. And the very interesting mention of a “Union of States”, which looked suspiciously like some mutated or truncated version of the USA, given the mention of Montana associated with it.

What interested Moore, however, was that the man had immediately checked Johanna’s passives.

Someone, somewhere, knows a lot about the System.

END OF ACT 1