Introductiontobaton

The man in the iron mask handed your parents a bag of money and took you in trade.

The reasoning behind the masks was this:  Any twice-born was an immensely valuable resource to Batoné Military Academy. If their identities were widely known, their families could be kidnapped, threatened, to siphon gold from the deep pockets of Magister Batoné. So all the students were ordered to wear iron masks when they were in town.

Perhaps the recruiters didn't consider how that affected the Academy's image. But then, maybe they did.

You're given a mask, and he waits until you put it on.

The man in the iron mask leads you through the rich quarter, past the hanging flowers and brass night lamps. The streets here are paved so smooth that a coach will hardly rattle as it travels across the cobblestones. The people, dressed in finery and carrying themselves as if they're terribly important, watch you with ambiguous expressions, but acknowledge you politely, all of them.

The big gates of Batoné Academy open before you.

It has huge lawns, studded throughout with buildings. The buildings are grand, old, the sort of unusual effect that happens when architecture communicates prestige. Your minder leads you forward, into the biggest of the buildings, and once inside, he takes off his mask.

“I'm Hunter, hey.” he says, with a quick upward jerk of the chin. His hair is shaggy and his eyes are a sharp yellow. “Fall in with the rest of the newbies.”

Twenty-odd youth, teenagers like yourself, are standing awkwardly in this auditorium. Already they're grouping into cliques by social class, by gender and race and place of origin.

“Pfeh,” scoffs a boy with lace on his collar, glancing disdainfully at a girl in barbarian furs. “I knew Batoné was mad for his supposed war, but I didn't know he was desperate.”

The girl bares her teeth and fingers a bone-handled knife at her belt.

Hunter casually unslings a massive arbalest from his shoulders.

“Fighting between students isn't, like, forbidden,” he says, casually, not pointing his weapon at anyone in particular, “but we prefer you wait until you're trained enough you won't kill each other by accident. Healing magic, uh, it can only do so much, and if a twice-born is killed, they resurrect as a mundane. Which means Batoné won't pay to res you at all, get it?”

“What's a mundane?” asks a weird kid, standing alone in the corner.

“Someone who isn't a twice-born and can't bond with spirits.” says Hunter. “Duh.”

He blinks, looking around, and realizes that everyone is watching him.

He strokes his thumb along the arbalest. “This,” he says, “is Predator. She's my partner. We bonded in my fourth year. Say hello, Predator.”

hello, morsels

“The war is real.” he says, quietly. “I've lost friends. You will too. I'll shoot whatever fucker says Batoné is making up the war. It'll save you time if you believe it now, but if you have to wait until you see your first Fester, then...fine. Don't get any of mine killed with your learning experience.”

He shifts uncomfortably, bracing Predator across his shoulders.

“Right, so, like, you can relax! In a couple minutes, some of the Chancellors will be here to do some aptitude testing on you. We're super flexible about what you want to do for your, like, vocation, so long as it's something that's at least sort of useful on the battlefield, and contributing to saving the world.”

He smiles at you. “The next three years are gonna hurt. You're gonna be training like motherfuckers, under the absolute best tutors on the continent. But we eat gourmet, we play hard, and at the end of your training, you're gonna be some of the most dangerous motherfuckers around. And that's before you even get sorted into combat groups, or bond with your first spirits.” He grins, shaking his head once. “Good times.”

He looks all of you over, appraisingly, and the doors at the end of the hall open. The aforementioned best tutors on the continent stream in, an overwhelming variety of them, people in robes or heavy armor or nothing but leopard spots, dwarves and elves and someone who's a snake from the waist down.

They're carrying bows and swords and armor and lockpicks, books of spells and wizard hats and assassin's blades slick with poison. Someone is leading a pack of wolves, someone else is turning into a wolf, and the message is clear: Anything you want. Become anyone. You are valued, here.

“Well.” grins Hunter. “I'd better leave you to it. Looks like you've got some choices to make.”