Chapter 1494 (1/2)
“It will only take up a few hours of your day to be a Drill Sergeant,” Edraine continued to speak as Randidly pondered the suggestion. “It will leave you plenty of time for your own training. Especially if you have subordinates you can reliably use to oversee the base level training of the recruits. Most importantly… this is an emergency mission with the reward of one Tier 1 Nexus Citizenship coin for completion. That enough makes it an attractive offer… but also talks between the military council, the Xyrt Brigade, and the NLC have stalled out. Everyone wants their own representative in this position and not someone who professes loyalty to one of the others. At this point, the entire program will need to be delayed if they don’t select someone by the end of the week. Which gives us an opportunity.”
“What is the NLC?” Randidly wondered out loud, picturing the vicious punch the uniform worker had slammed into the over-muscled humanoid. The casual use of violence did not earn the organization any points in Randidly’s book. “Also… even if they need to pick someone, why would they pick me?”
“The Nexus Labor Collective,” Octavius interjected. “They are a technically unofficial body, but since the Nexus Council never bothered to make a legitimate civil service for its many pieces of infrastructure, it was able to take over that role. In the past, the teleporter system and Aether valves were basically left unguarded… the NLC rose to ensure that the powerful couldn’t so easily abuse the System. Or at least, the powerful without any shred of legitimacy.”
Edraine cleared her throat. “As to your other question… In this case, what is important is that Octavius here is a former member of the NLC. They plan to select a hundred and one drill sergeants, with most being given control over ten thousand recruits after they cull the chaff applicants that are flooding in. So when you come with his recommendation, as well as with a successful track record of repelling the Nether attack on the frontlines, you should get the support of two factions and slide into one of those spots. You are a compromise candidate with enough experience to be credibly competent. So, are you interested?”
Randidly flexed his fingers. Almost idly, he took in the surrounding room. There was no furniture but the wooden table in the center of the room, but the walls were covered with maps and graphs. The immense Nexus was shown in cross-section, with lines to the important places within the supercity. There was notations about the Nexus’ Aether expenditures compared to the amount of energy it generated. There was even an entire wall dedicated to the different factions and how many powerful individuals each definitely had and was suspected to have.
This was clearly the home base of a group that had plans for the Nexus. From sensing the images of the surrounding two individuals, it was clear that they shared his goal, too. Randidly just had to decide what his role would be in the whole machine.
His mind continued to whirr, even as Revelation energy crept into his right eye. Purple-black energy danced across his cornea. He saw the branching lines he might take stretching out before him. Truthfully, a part of him just dearly wished to hole up down here in the Undercity and train for a while. The Grim Chimera was just a little bit away from a qualitative transformation. The Stillborn Phoenix would undoubtedly begin to grow if he could go deeper and absorb more of those ambient emotions, perhaps using Yggdrasil’s natural filtration to keep out the unwanted energy.
Congratulations! Your Skill Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold (T) has grown to Level 329!
But he didn’t forget the disappointment he felt upon initially arriving at the Nexus. Everyone he saw during his brief, meandering walk had been weak. It was only when Octavius was able to guide him through the maze-like Nexus to a very specific location that he was able to encounter Edraine.
The powerful were present here, but the Nexus was so large that it was very easy to miss. What Randidly needed was a way to connect with and encounter these powerful people. At first blush, becoming a drill sergeant definitely seemed to be an excellent opportunity to do so. But before he agreed, Randidly asked the other large question that hovered in his mind. “But… why does the Nexus need so many drill sergeants right now? Don’t they usually just throw people into the fire and train those that survived?”
Edraine and Octavius shared a glance. It was Octavius that eventually spoke, leaning against the table in the center of the room. “You’ve heard about Nether’s attack on the Fifth Cohort, correct? From the reports sent back by the initial Xyrt Brigade deployment, the Nether taint has spread much farther than we had expected. Some suspect that almost half of the Fifth Cohort has been compromised. Although they are elite, the Xyrt Brigade cannot be everywhere, and all the frontline deployments have seen an increase in Nether Raids. No serious attacks, but enough of a mobilization of Nether forces to make the military council unwilling to redeploy a serious amount of troops to a Cohort. So the Nexus is doing something… rather unprecedented. A draft, pulling from all the old Cohorts.”
“That’s why the teleporter relays were acting at max capacity when you arrived,” Edraine added. She pressed her fingers down against the table, looking at her nails with the detached and idle curiosity of a child. “These worlds might have been surviving, but they already endured the Calamities; their Aether stream is currently rather minimal. And most planets have established hierarchies where those at the top maintain their strength with what little Aether the planet receives. There was always the opportunity to become a Village Spirit, Champion, or Nemesis for new Cohorts, but those numbers were a pittance compared to the population of all the Cohorts. For the first time in a long time, a planet’s youth broadly has the chance to leave their home and seize their own power.”
“...but they were so weak,” Randidly couldn’t help but blurt out. There hadn’t been a single eye-catching individual amongst the thousands of bodies that had churned around him. Huang Li would be a wolf among sheep if he was similarly drafted. Of course, that was a minuscule sample, and perhaps some had been rather capable at concealing their capabilities from Randidly’s casual examination, but even so…
Edraine shrugged. “What do you expect? These people had basically no opportunity to absorb energy and strengthen themselves. Why would the dominant forces raise Aether sucking individuals? Plus, most threats to their world have been dealt with. There was no real pressure on any of them to improve. But… there is an even more thorny difficulty, which is the real reason that a drill sergeant selections is such a mess. Octavius?”
Octavius straightened and grimaced. “Because these recruits are from planets that have passed three Calamities in the past, most have a very powerful and influential benefactor that currently resides in the Nexus: this is the individual whose images allowed them to originally pass the Calamities. Largely, these individuals have left their planets to develop without their interference in the past, but now that their descendants are coming into the Nexus… they want only the best for them.
“To the point that they’ve created an ‘elite’ brigade of two hundred that will be personally instructed by Head Drill Sergeant. However…” Octavius displayed a sour expression. “The selection criteria for these is ENTIRELY based upon who you know. It is the farthest thing from elite as possible. Just two hundred old monsters of the Nexus pointlessly meddling where they don’t belong.”
Edraine waved a hand. “Such is the truth of our world. Nepotism will never disappear. But we need to move quickly if we want to seize this opportunity. Again, let me ask you: are you interested in instructing these weaklings? Teaching can sometimes be its very own sort of training.”
“...I’m interested.” Randidly finally said. Ten thousand people… that would be a lot, but both Heiffal’s unit and Helen had been unknowingly practicing for a challenge just like this as they had boosted the image capability of those on Earth. And it seemed like this would perfectly serve as a way for Randidly to come in contact with the powerful individuals in the Nexus. “I’ll be able to manage those numbers.”
Plus, Randidly hadn’t forgotten that Vualla’s deployment date had been pushed up due to this very same Nether invasion of the Fifth Cohort. If he could provide some assistance to her by training up these individuals...
“Oh, perhaps I was unclear,” Edraine said. She smiled and for a split second, the image behind her stirred. Randidly felt the eerie sensation of his body resonating with that shift. The porcelain and pewter fingers of her image tightened on air. The table beneath her fingers began to hiss, seared by the ambient power she so casually released.
Frowning, Edraine pulled her hand back from the charred handprint she had left on the table. Then she shrugged and spoke to Randidly. “You’ll be going for the hundred and first position available: the Head Drill Instructor. Personally, you’ll only have to assist with the riff-raff elites. But it will mean you will have all the elite benefactor meddling in your affairs. Will really add some tension to your time here in the Nexus, eh?”
*****
Lady Iellaya folded her arms and crossed her legs as she sat in the large amphitheater. She had arrived early here just so she could avoid a situation like this, but her tormenter was a wily fox. A slow burn of irritation smoldered in her heart. At moments like this, she missed Abiodun more than she could express with words. His stoic presence would have deftly turned aside conversations like this before they even began. Even senior officers had found her closest supporter off-putting.