Apollyon slept in no palace. When he awoke, it was not to trumpets, but to the biting orders of his instructors. The frost on his face had long ago numbed him to the cold. He felt frigid to his bones. A deep abiding chill that made every movement seem slow and onerous.

A crack - small arms fire! Another! Muzzle flare! What in the Lord's most sacred name was happening? Apollyon dropped to a knee and tried to identify the shooter through the mist. He didn't fire yet. Not unless those bullets seemed to be coming towards him. Then, all bets would be off.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:28, Thu 14 Feb 2013.

The burping sound of machine gun fire filled the night air, a near solid line of tracers zipping out into the night. It was clearer now, the muzzle flashes and sounds marking the lines of combat. Shots were coming from outside the perimeter and one of the ANGELOS machine gun crews had opened up at something beyond the camp.

A round whizzed past your head, maybe a meter or two away.

A small group of rifle-armed unknowns were attacking the camp!

The recruit hit the snow - falling to a prone position, as shots came precariously close.

Crack! Crack, crack, crack! Apollyon's rifle cried, each scream punctuated by a dull thud to his shoulder. It was almost surprising how quickly, how deftly, his tired and numb fingers found their way to his weapon's trigger. Even if he couldn't feel his fingertips he knew they were there. Almost instinctively now. He fired a series of four rounds into the opposing muzzle flashes. Even if he couldn't see their opposition - he could see the flare given off by their barrels.

Apollyon looked to Strov then motioned with his hands that the two of them ought to bound forward. He wanted to try to flank this oncoming force.

The first machine gun is joined by a second chattering weapons team, two long arcs of tracer fire spreading out into the darkness and vanishing into the mist.

The rifle fire becomes more intense on both sides and you can see dark shapes sillhouted against the night as Strov fires for effect.

You both advance, being of the same mind and raw instinct now, pressing the advantage. You have no way of knowing if your shots are finding their targets or no, but you keep it up until the clip runs empty and flies into the darkness with a dull 'pling'

Jamming a new clip of rounds in you keep firing as does Strov until you feel something hot and wet on your hands and face and Strov stops shooting.

They are retreating now, a third weapons team is in place and the volume of fire is too much for the attackers and they fall back into the darkness and you hear the whistle of the instructor commanding you all to rally on him.

Apollyon fired ruthlessly as the enemy turned to flee. He didn't care that they'd already been routed, didn't care that they had retired in defeat. He cared that his partner was silent. He cared that there was warm blood splattered against his face. That it wasn't his. Apollyon spent his second clip in its entirety, rifle spewing hot metal death in the direction of their previous position.

Then - clank, the last round sailed downrange.

Click... click, his rifle sputtered hollowly. Apollyon pulled the trigger a half a dozen more times before he finally went still. He watched for movement. For more firing. There was none, he was all alone with Strov. All alone with death.

Though he prayed his comrade had not perished, Apollyon knew the bitter truth. There were no corpsmen here. No hospitals. What could be done for him, even if he was still among the living. The recruit slung his weapon over his shoulder and pushed himself to his feet. Slowly, with the crunching of crisp snow highlighting each footstep, he made his way to Strov's last position.

Elias and Apollyon - neither had known Strov's story. Maybe he had been from Kpyo too. Apollyon had not asked. He could not... But he had known Strov. He had shared a shelter with him, cooked his meals on the same fire, and watched his back on the march to the highlands. Strov was his brother. Even if he knew not from whence he came or why.

Apollyon felt for a pulse with fingers that could barely even register tactile sense. Then, alive or dead, he did the only thing an ANGELOS recruit could... He grabbed hold of the other man and hoisted him up and onto his right shoulder in a fireman's carry. Then he made his slow and burdened walk back to the patrol base - leaving a trail of red droplets in the tundra behind him.

The night passed slowly for all of you, no sleep, too wary of another attack. But none came. Strov did not die immediately, but he likely would not survive the night. The instructor came silently up to you as you sat vigil over his feverish body, moaning quietly and sensely and offered you a long straight bladed knife, something none of the recuits had.

He said no words but put it in your hands and walked away.

Apollyon held the knife in his open palm. Felt the heavy weight of its oaken handle, polished and scratched with age. He watched the moon's light glimmer along its edge as he turned it slowly. There - at its tip, the bright orange roar of fire. The ARKANGELOS instructors had instructed some of the recruits to stack firewood to build a pyre. The dead were to be burned. Before the patrol moved on in the morning... Before their attackers could return to do worse to their bodies and graves.

Why had he been given the knife? Had the ARKANGELOS intended for him to slit Strov's throat and end his suffering? He thought on it for a moment. Strov's chest wound was deep. Apollyon hadn't examined it in great detail - but he knew, from the bubbling blood formed up at its surface that it was likely a sucking chestwound. The casing around the lung had probably been pierced.

It made for a dire prognosis, but Apollyon heard a voice whisper weakly. He thought it had come from within his own mind. But he realized, to his surprise, it had not.

"You have not broken my spirit." Came the words, weakly, from Strov's feverish lips.

Then Apollyon knew: it was not over. It could not be over.

He took his canteen, stuffed a strip of cloth ripped from his undershirt into it, then placed it in the pyre's glowing ashes - letting it come to a boil as he started to strip off Strov's outer uniform. Apollyon took hold of the knife he'd been given, tip poised downward. He cut the other man's shirt near the wound and peeled it back off Strov's skin where it had clung with partially clotted blood.

"This will hurt." Apollyon cautioned with a whisper, too quiet to be heard by the instructors, even though he knew his words fell on deaf ears.

Apollyon retrieved his canteen and poured out the boiling water onto his knife to sterilize it. Carefully, he retrieved the hot saturated cloth within and balled it up. The recruit's surprisingly capable hands wiped down the area near the wound. Cleaning it. Once free of dried gore he got his first good opportunity to examine the wound itself.

The wound looked deep. There - protruding from Strov's chest, shrapnel. It must have caught him from the back while he was laying prone. Luckily for an exit wound, it didn't look craterous.

By the moon's pale glow Apollyon painstakingly pulled out the shrapnel from Strov's chest, using the tip of his combat knife like a surgeon's scalpel. He acted with care; it was his intention to leave nothing, especially not bits of clothes or other debris, in the wound where they could fester.

Then came the final act. Apollyon brought his instructor's knife to the fire and held it there, hands afire with radiated heat, til its steel edge glowed a dull orange. He moved with urgency towards Strov's motionless form, lest the knife lose its scalding bite. He placed his wadded "washcloth" inbetween his compatriot's teeth to prevent him from biting his tongue. Then he held Strov down with one arm to prevent the other man from flailing.

Apollyon leveled the searing hot steel of his knife parallel to Strov's chest wound and then pressed down - he heard the flesh sizzle as skin cauterized and the wound sealed. Strov barely moved. Apollyon flipped his partner over, onto his belly, and reheated his knife.

Then he repeated the procedure. Son of God, did that smell. Worse than anything he'd smelled before. A sample of what was to come from the pyre, he knew.

Apollyon wrapped his friend up as best he could with thin military issue blankets, then resumed his vigil over the incapacitated recruit. He did not know if he had saved him. At the least, though, he had given Strov a chance to fight this battle.

20:42, Today: Apollyon rolled 14 using 2d6+2. Tech/Medical.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:23, Fri 15 Feb 2013.

The other boys used the sign for 'miracle' for that's the only thing they could believe it was. Strov lived through the night, though feverish and in pain, he lived and though some gave praise to the Yehovah many of the boys knew it was Elias who had saved him and they thanked him silently, smuggling him their rations and extra blankets, both for himself and for Strov.

If the instructors knew this was happening they gave no sign of it.

The next morning, the ARKANGELOS instructor came down to your trench and gave you two things. The first was a clean white badge with a red cross embroderered on it and the second was four words. "The Knife, keep it."

Later that morning you understood the night before. Deserters had attacked the camp, boys who had run away from previous training camps and had grown into savage and ruthless monsters. None of them were burned on a pyre, but when you saw them you could not help but pity their scrawny dirt covered bodies. They looked much like you did, perhaps hungrier and more ragged, and a little older.

Four of the boys from your training camp were dead. Three had been hit by rifle fire from the raiders and one had been beaten to death by the instructors during breakfast for stealing.

Your friend had survived though, and though the worst was not over, you had the respect of your peers now and they started to look up to you and come to you when they were injured or sick. You learned a lot about how to heal a man in that time.

Moon cycles passed and you came down from the mountains at the crown of the world, back into the trackless deserts the world was known for and you traveled by trucks to a new facility in the desert, one that was a whole city built for the purpose of simulating war. Strov came with you, your most ardent friend and a small band of others who saw you as their leader.

Still you did not speak, but you did not need words now. You had developed a complex sign language which was just as good and would not give away your position in battle. You could read body language and sense intentions without sound and even the instructors did not speak much, except to make announcements and guide daily prayer-meditation to the Yehovah

Apollyon cared for Strov til the other man was out of the woods. He was grateful for the rations and blankets the other boys brought. Without them, all his ministrations might have been useless. An injured man did not live long in the cold... sheltered only by pine needles and a dusting of snow. He suspected the ARKANGELOS noticed. He also suspected that they did not disapprove. Which was, to Apollyon, surprising. It was a blessed glimmer of humanity that he had not expected - though he warned himself that it was an isolated circumstance.

So: he was shocked when the instructor came back, told him to keep the knife, and gave him something more. A corpsman's badge. A combat medic. Apollyon nodded wordlessly to thank the instructor - but through his mask of stoicism, his heart soared all the way to heaven to stand before Jehovah's throne! This was more than he had hoped for. An honor greater than most Kyps would ever dream of achieving during their short lives. When Apollyon found a spare moment and a bit of needle and thread he wasted no time in attaching it to his uniform's left shoulder.

In the coming days Apollyon cared for his fellows as best he could. He knew some from helping to care for men broken in the mines on Kpyo. What he did not know, he learned, because he had to. Necessity, as they say, is the mother of all invention.

They came down from the mountains soon after. Finally he understood: all these hells they had been dragged through, it was for a purpose. They had never said it but Apollyon saw the truth of things. Each one was meant to prepare these ANGELOS recruits for the most bitter and harsh of conditions. Because that was where they were headed. ANGELOS did not sit in a garrision and collect medals.

They fought, they died, they conquered. You did not go into the ANGELOS if you desired to be a career soldier. It would be, by the odds alone, a short career.

The city they came to was purpose built for warfighting. Even from a distance, Apollyon could see the scars artillery shells and fire had left on it. They had come to the plain of Megiddo, where Armageddon would be fought and the world would end. War here was eternal. How many trainees had come through all that came before this point only to die here? Apollyon did not know. Many, he supposed.

Apollyon had come to feel protective of those who'd come to rest beneath his wing.

Particularly, he knew, of Strov. Apollyon had thought he knew what it meant to call another man your brother before. Now, he realized, he truly understood. Strov would die for him. Apollyon would die for Strov. In the midst of all this chaos it was reassuring to know there was another who cared whether you lived or died.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:33, Wed 20 Feb 2013.

City 04.

A massive mock up of a city that spread across the desert sands. It held streets, bridges, tunnels, towers hundreds of meters tall and very little else. The air was constantly filled with the sound of heavy machine gun fire, the crack of sniper rifles and the dull distant thudding of mortar rounds detonating.

The only materials in the city were that which we brought in by combatants and those who died were left to rot. The city was full of vultures and feral dog packs who were less concerned whether or not you were dead than if you were alone and edible.

Upon entering the city, you had only your rifles, sparse ammunition and whatever gear you'd made or scavaged in the mountains and jungles. You were issued a few new items for this trial however. Everyone got a pack containing a red headband, a small sealed white package, a new canteen full of water, a fresh pack of rations (Several days worth) and a five foot long steel-tipped wooden spear, the traditional holy weapon of the prophets.

The bandana you recieved had "APOLLYON" printed on it in stenciled text and the one Strov received declared "BELIAL"

No objectives or directions were given but once you were all out of the trucks and at the edge of the city with your supplies, the trucks simply drove off and left you there, countless miles out into the desert.

The trucks had split up earlier, and you group numbered about 200 ANGELOS trainees and you concluded there would be 5 or 6 groups of a similar size elsewhere from your class, if they had divided you evenly.

Apollyon held his scarlet bandana, one end gripped in each hand, and read it again. Apollyon. That was him. He was Apollyon. Why the red though? He brought the headwrap to his forehead and pulled it tight, tying it off at the back of his skull. Others did the same - as Apollyon watched them don their latest piece of issued gear, it dawned on him. They were red because there was a need to distinguish between groups. There were groups because they had begun a competitive live-fire exercise. It was competitive because the loser died.

This must be the final test, he thought, there would be too few left for the ARKANGELOS to kill for anything else to remain.

He looked to the city beyond and listened to the cackling of cruel machine gun fire. Every so often that staccato symphony was punctuated by the roar of artillery fire, dimmed by distance. That was where they were going.

Apollyon secured his spear from point to point with a length of rope and slung it over his shoulder for safekeeping. His rifle he held onto, butt pressed firmly into the meat of his right pectoral in a ready position. Then he looked to Belial and the others... And motioned for them to begin movement with him. The city looked deadly - but staying out here, in the open, that was a guaranteed death.

They followed your lead into a large complex a few blocks inside the city, an enormous series of oonnected buildings with rusty smokestacks and pipes rising up like dead reddish trees in the yellowish desert sky of Bynzanthine, the Holy World. Sacred resting place of Ivan the Final Prophet, who dwells Above in Heaven with the Yehovah Triparte watching and judging all true believes and heathens alike.

The building proved to be as abandoned on the inside as it had appeared outside. There were signs that people had been here before, the occasional dull glitter of spent brass casings, old human spoor, a few dusty firepits and a scattering of sandbags and the rare dried bloodstains. A wild dog fled as soon as you caught sight of it.

The building was big enough to encamp your entire group and the other ANGELOS recruits were looking to you for leadership.

Apollyon designated subordinate leaders. One could not lead two hundred men directly - it was an impossible task. He selected five recruits he trusted and knew to be competent. Perhaps more importantly, he knew the other trainees trusted them as well.

Belial, ofcourse, was his second in command. His XO, as it were. There was noone Apollyon trusted more.

These men were then directed to begin constructing a hasty defense. To stack sandbags against the walls, to dig hasty and shallow fighting positions - with their hands if they must. Listening posts were to be established too, four, one for each side of their fortified position. All this Apollyon ordered without speaking a single word. His hands and arms danced through a deliberate language that only he and his comrades understood. Without a single word spoken, the recruits sprung into action, silent as two hundred ghosts.

Then Apollyon made his way as high as he could up the building's stairways (if they were passable). Once there, he edged his way to the side of a blasted out window and peered through broken glass out onto the shattered city beyond. He tried to appraise their situation, watch for potential hostiles, and he also attempted to guess at their implied objective.

"This is the final test, no?"

Belial spoke now, but with the voice of Strov. It had been so long since you had heard it, or heard any voices but that of the Instructor.

His bandana was firmly tied around the dark stubble of his regularly shaven scalp.

"It must be, brother." Elias ventured. His own voice sounded foreign to him - almost childlike. "But I am thinking it will be bloody. Jehovah willing, we will be strong enough to outlast this final test." He kept his voice quiet. Above a whisper, so as to be heard over the cacophony of war beyond their walls, but not by much.

Apollyon sat against a wall, one leg propped up and the other laid out flat. He rested his rifle against its shoulder, fingers clasped around its handguard.

Belial had his rifle slung over his shoulder while he tested the heft and balance of his new spear, twirling it around like a baton and practicing thrusts into the empty air.

"By now you are thinking it: we are fighting our brothers who live beside us these past years. The ones who survive. We kill them or them kill we, eh?"

"Yes. I am thinking: I will find a boy. I will know I mended his broken arm, then I will kill him." Apollyon admitted. "But I cannot hesitate, or he will break my arm. Then, he will kill me." For the first time he felt hate well up in him. Red hot burning passion, meant for their instructors. Apollyon could not see the point to this.

When the ARKANGELOS had let them die, he understood: the weak would die, the strong could grow stronger... But they were predators now. To prey on their own, purging the weak links from their own chain, it was bitterly cruel.

Apollyon did not want to die though. He knew now, even through his self-righteous disgust, that he would kill those he'd trained beside. Because he had to. Because there was no other choice offered to him.

Then, amidst the still silence. "Brother, from where did you come?" He had wondered earlier. Apollyon realized now that he still didn't know.

Belial gives you a wide smile, his teeth are white and healthy, like a predator's smile.

"O Brother, you brought me here. Before that, come from the stars!" He laughs and gestures with a swift stab into the sky. "An before that, come from a green world and mother's arms."

"We all come from here now, brother. All of we."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:45, Wed 20 Feb 2013.

Belial was right, Apollyon realized. Wherever they had come from before did not matter now. Whatever they had been before, they were not that now. This place had changed them. Still...

"The stars," Apollyon reflected "Me too. A mine, on a world of rock."

He glanced out the window, eyes peeled for movement in the streets below.

"Ehy, what you guess those pale packs are?" He still struggled with the language, but his voice had a kind of unbound mirth to it that was difficult to keep from contracting when he spoke and laughed.

You had been about the same size on that day when you saved him, but now he was bigger than you, taller and thick with muscle.

Belial pulled out the sealed white package from the backpack they'd been given and looked at you curiously.

"I do not know." Apollyon admitted. He had let it slip to the back of his mind - other things had seemed more pressing. Perhaps it held some clue as to what this final test entailed. At the least, it could not make it any more chaotic or confused.

So Apollyon took out his sealed envelope and opened it. Calm, against the backdrop of war. As if mortars and fire were second nature.

It contained nothing more than a functional compass. Something you had never had before in your journeys, until now.

Belial opened his and inside it was a roll of detcord, maybe 20 meters worth, tightly wound. He looked at it with a questioning expression on his face and then up at you with a raised eyebrow.

"They intend for you to blow something up, brother." Apollyon stated with a thin smile. "Maybe this compass is for finding that thing. If our two parcels are different though: those of our comrades downstairs likely are too."

"We should see what else has been drawn from the envelopes. Maybe someone else holds a better clue to our purpose here." Apollyon pushed himself off from the building's shattered and cracking concrete wall. Then, with one last look to the surrounding city, he made his way downstairs to find out what else the ARKANGELOS had made available to him and his brothers.

You have your unit open all 198 other white packages and organize everything by general function. It becomes clear this is the x-factor of the trial as there are dozens and dozens of different things and few of the packages have the same contents. Some objects seem very useful such as medical equipment, while others might simply be components that are utterly pointless on their own, like a processor chip that isn't attached to anything at all.

You inspect the pile of mystery gear and between all of you, you can identify the purpose of almost everything.

Weaponry
-The components to assemble a complete Starshell Mortar launcher and a handful of shells.
-Several rifle scopes of various magnifications and sizes.
-A few varied demolition kits
-Dozens of grenades
-Smoke cannisters
-Collapsable rifle stocks
-About twenty autopistols and revolvers

Medical gear
-A working Musculoscalpel
-A broken Cartilage Macroinducer (Contains a small amount of Hexarium-B)
-Sanitizer
-10 pounds of various strength painkillers

Tools
-Pair of Autochisels
-Flux Awl
-Four Magnovises
-Industrial Aerogrinder (with stablizer)
-Small Flux Arc Welder

Misc
-A dozen collapsible spades
-Half a dozen comm units
-10 Type A powercells
-4 Type B powercells
-4 pounds of chemfire powder
-10 pounds of autobolts
-50 yards of rope (total)
-20 years of steel cable

A few devices which seemed to have no purpose at all
-A handful of unattached microprocessors
-A book written in a langauge none of you read
-A round metal torus with no lights, seams or discernible function
-The front-lights from a groundcar
-A drive chain from sort of vehicle
-A child's stuffed toy
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:02, Fri 22 Feb 2013.

Apollyon takes his share of the medical equipment, being one of the few medically competent recruits of their two hundred. The rest he divides amongst the previously designated platoon leaders and their platoons. Scopes go to designated marksmen. The mortar goes to the pair of most capable trainees capable of handling it. So on with the rest.

The comm units are split among the platoons, the mortar team, and Apollyon's HQ section (himself and Belial). Platoon leaders are instructed to designate "medics" and "engineers", to use the role specific equipment they've been provided.

Anyone not gearing up or task organizing, Apollyon instructs to continue establishing a perimiter and maintain 360 degree security.

Belial, being Apollyon's second, has the authority to affect any other changes he sees fit. Elias trusts him, absolutely.

When he feels their unit is prepared Apollyon intends to push further into the city. Their objective remains unclear, but remaining stationary and stagnant does them no good.