101 Ways To Survive In The Field, Tuesday

[suitably_heroic]

"Hey, class," Atton said.

He was sitting at the front of a perfectly ordinary classroom, though his butt was decidedly on his desk, and not his chair. "Welcome to the second day of Blow-Off Week, or as radio likes to call it, Introductions Season. I'm Atton Rand. I've served in two armies, been around for three wars, and nowadays I'm a Jedi knight, which is a fancy word for 'member of a group of monks with fancy powers who are also special operatives'." He shrugged. "Yeah, I don't really get it either, and I am one. I do know you never ask a Jedi about their teachings, though, unless you want to get a wall of cryptic mumbo-jumbo thrown at you."

Somewhere, Mical was getting a headache.

"So I've been around the block a few times," he said. "You don't make it through three wars purely by running on fumes and luck: there are things you can learn to keep yourself going while you're in a threatening situation - combat, infiltration, whatever - and it looks like things might go downhill. Now, there's no substitute for sheer, bull-headed stubbornness, and if you've already got that one, then you'll probably figure out half of what we're going to be talking about yourself if you haven't already. At the same time, having a hard head isn't going to stop your leg from bleeding out if you get hit. You need basic medic skills. You need to know how to keep your adrenaline pumping so you can keep functioning until you're out of there. You need to know how to get out of a locked room. And so on. I know all of that stuff because I've lived it."

He shrugged. "Now I know that at this school, the chances are high most of you know at least some of this already. Maybe even more than me, though I doubt it. So let's kick this off with name and year, and then you can tell me what 'in the field' means to you and what skills you already have that are useful in it."

Comments

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[not_every_mage]

"Hi, I'm Anders, and I'm a junior," Anders offered. "Until about five minutes ago, I would have had the same definition as Isabela. I thought 'in the field' just meant outside your home base. And I'm a mage, which means I'm decent with healing and elemental magic. I can fight if I need to but I'm not a trained soldier or anything like that."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[suitably_heroic]

Atton tilted his head. "So what's this elemental magic stuff, exactly?" he said. "I figure the healing is basically you being a walking kolto dispenser."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[not_every_mage]

"Fire, ice, electricity -- things like that," Anders explained. If it was a bit vaguely, he was trying not to freak out the newer students. "I don't know what kolto is, but if it fixes people up fast you're on the right track."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[suitably_heroic]

"Pretty much," Atton agreed. "So you can't snap your finger and unlock a door, or something?" Beat. "Just checking on the range here."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[not_every_mage]

"I can't, though that would be fantastic," Anders said wistfully. "I could possibly flick my wrist and burn the door down?"

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[suitably_heroic]

"Well, that's slightly more conspicuous," Atton mused.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[not_every_mage]

"That would be the problem," Anders admitted. "'swhy you usually get someone like Isabela to take care of the lock instead."

Or a warrior to bash the wall down. Whatever.