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fluffiest_archadianThe Akademy is the largest military training school in all of Ivalice, a fortress built upon a purvama covered with glossair rings to allow it to move about Archadia. Sherral’s never seen it before, but he recognises it as soon as it comes into sight from the deck of the airship: There are four islands in total, one near as large as Nalbina Fortress itself, and three smaller, connected to the first by great metal bars. From them rise spires in the familiar terracotta coloured architecture of Archades.
After processing, it becomes obvious that this is the largest intake of initiates for the Order of Judges seen since Vayne had slain his brothers and purged the Order of treacherous elements, years back. A hundred and twenty students, all decorated soldiers, stand in the hall of the smallest island, reserved for the training of Judges, and listen as the next year of their lives is explained.
By the close of the four months of the first term, it is expected that there will be only sixty left, and by the end of the second term, merely thirty. The training is harsh and unforgiving, and even in these trying times, when the Judges have been devastated by recent events, there is no intention of letting standards drop.
The first challenge has made itself obvious by the time they have headed to their dormitories - this island is not like the others of the Akademy, and is reserved for the training of Judges for a very clear reason: The Mist here, floating up from the cracked and broken magicite that makes up this island’s foundation, is suffocatingly thick. Nobody sleeps well that night, barely able to breathe, beset with nausea.
Training starts properly the day after. In the morning, uniform and dormitory inspections, brutal physical training and combat drills; in the afternoons, each day alternates between lectures on Archadian law, magickal drills, and further combat drills.
By the time evening comes each day, they are too ill from Mist and too tired from training to do much of anything. They eat, and then they sleep as best they can, save for whoever has guard duty that evening. Plenty of times they found themselves yelled awake in the middle of the night to do another round of physical training - but Sherral expected that.
No shortage of people leave due to illness, and enough do poorly on the final examinations of the term that, sure enough, by the time the term has finished, there are only a little under sixty of them left.
The week’s holiday is spent in Archades, but nobody much enjoys it. There are accommodations set aside for them, and they collectively spend the first two days resting. There are revelries for a few days afterwards, and then preparations to return to the Akademy.
---
The second term starts with thick bracelets of metal being clamped onto their wrist, and most of them recognise them as admittedly crude devices to increase how much Mist their bodies draw in. Nevertheless, all of the students seem able to cope better now, and they are all more powerful in magic because of it.
The course is more varied now, though, more unpredictable, and it isn’t long until the stress of it, combined with the endless onslaught of Mist, start to wear people down. Three months into the second term, they are informed that they may (and indeed, must) now take hunts posted on the bulletin board, in and around the systems of caves and abandoned underground palaces that surround Archades.
The caves are damp and dark, thick with insects and disease, heavy with undead and worse monsters besides, and the suffusion of Mist back at the Akademy means that every wound heals with a reddening rash, insufferably scratchy and unpleasant. They are allowed to work together, but that is quickly revealed as another test on the part of the Judges: With only one student able to claim credit for each hunt, the glory hounds and poor team players quickly reveal themselves. The instructors do nothing, instead simply watching as the enmity of those students’ fellows and the necessity of teamwork force them to either change their ways or drop out of the course.
By the end of the second term, they are down to almost exactly thirty.
---
The week’s holiday between the second and third terms is not really a holiday.
In the early part of the week, they perform for the crowds of Archades, facing off against gladiators (glittery clad showboats with what little clothing they had plastered with sponsors) in the Imperial Arena, an apparently traditional endeavour as much to do with the bright ideas of said gladiators’ Public Relations people as it is with reminding people of the Ministry of Law’s constant presence.
The matches all end, conveniently, with draws, as the nobleman hosting the event stops each bout before it can turn too heavily in any combatants’ favour.
Most of the rest of the week is spent in parades, or at parties, or on outreach programs, dressed in uniforms that mark them out as Judges-in-training. They are all interminably dull, although some students seem to have more talent for it than others.
Even when those stop, the last two days are spent shadowing local magistrates and constables, which Sherral finds the most valuable experience of the week. Then it’s back to the Akademy, now drifting towards the Sybilane Rift and Oakstone.
---
The third term starts with a challenge. The remaining thirty students are divided into five groups of six, and each told to retrieve three precious red stones, along with an Alhoon eye each, and return to the Shrine of Miriam located on the peak immediately above the rift. Dropped from the Akademy, each group an hour apart, they must first find each other.
Some problems were expected: The Sybilane Rift, heavy with Mist, confuses and beguiles the senses, making it difficult to know where you’re going at any time, and it takes everything they have not to get lost. The monsters, adapted for purpose, know how to mimic people and play on people’s insecurities. Every hunt for an Alhoon has to be planned carefully, to lure it away from a group or whatever beasts it has enthralled, and take it down with teamwork.
Some problems aren’t: Firstly, it becomes apparently on the fourth day in that, some day or so after they were dropped, soldiers, equipped to handle the Mist better than their own suits of armour could, had been dropped in with orders to find and capture them as part of the training exercise. As the days go on, it becomes a game of attempting to evade their would-be captors, while hunting Alhoons and finding their way towards the Shrine, a little closer each day. It also becomes clear that while each group must take back three red stones, there aren’t fifteen on the mountain, and each group is in competition with each other.
Sherral’s group is the second to make it back to the Shrine. One group is captured, and another returns with only two red stones, before the last group reaches the shrine, with three stones and all the eyes in hand. The captured group is removed immediately. The group that returned with only two is allowed to stay, but they plummet to the bottom of the rankings, with their two weakest members removed.
The rest of the term is made of similar challenges, broken by periods of training in combat, enduring interrogation, and applying the law, as the Akademy travels to another part of Ivalice each time. They pass through to Landis first, for a challenge in the Gagazet Lakelands, and then to the Ashwood for a challenge there. Sherral excels when they reach the fourth challenge, in the Winterlands, separated from his homeland only by Ben Taibhreamh. The final challenge sees them dropped on one of the islands near Insel Ignisia.
And then, altogether abruptly, it’s done. There are only fourteen of them left at the end of it all, as the Akademy refuels briefly at Schlachtschiff Island before heading onwards to Insel Gartenia.
---
Sherral takes his oaths in the Royal Chapel at the Imperial Winter Palace on Insel Gartenia, granted the rank of Judge-Captain, and later swears his oaths to Lord Larsa, due to be coronated as emperor before the next few months are done, in the palace’s expansive throne room. Judge Magister Gabranth and Judge Magister Zargabaath stand in attendance, along with a bevy of nobles, military personnel, ministers of law, and ambassadors.
After processing, it becomes obvious that this is the largest intake of initiates for the Order of Judges seen since Vayne had slain his brothers and purged the Order of treacherous elements, years back. A hundred and twenty students, all decorated soldiers, stand in the hall of the smallest island, reserved for the training of Judges, and listen as the next year of their lives is explained.
By the close of the four months of the first term, it is expected that there will be only sixty left, and by the end of the second term, merely thirty. The training is harsh and unforgiving, and even in these trying times, when the Judges have been devastated by recent events, there is no intention of letting standards drop.
The first challenge has made itself obvious by the time they have headed to their dormitories - this island is not like the others of the Akademy, and is reserved for the training of Judges for a very clear reason: The Mist here, floating up from the cracked and broken magicite that makes up this island’s foundation, is suffocatingly thick. Nobody sleeps well that night, barely able to breathe, beset with nausea.
Training starts properly the day after. In the morning, uniform and dormitory inspections, brutal physical training and combat drills; in the afternoons, each day alternates between lectures on Archadian law, magickal drills, and further combat drills.
By the time evening comes each day, they are too ill from Mist and too tired from training to do much of anything. They eat, and then they sleep as best they can, save for whoever has guard duty that evening. Plenty of times they found themselves yelled awake in the middle of the night to do another round of physical training - but Sherral expected that.
No shortage of people leave due to illness, and enough do poorly on the final examinations of the term that, sure enough, by the time the term has finished, there are only a little under sixty of them left.
The week’s holiday is spent in Archades, but nobody much enjoys it. There are accommodations set aside for them, and they collectively spend the first two days resting. There are revelries for a few days afterwards, and then preparations to return to the Akademy.
The second term starts with thick bracelets of metal being clamped onto their wrist, and most of them recognise them as admittedly crude devices to increase how much Mist their bodies draw in. Nevertheless, all of the students seem able to cope better now, and they are all more powerful in magic because of it.
The course is more varied now, though, more unpredictable, and it isn’t long until the stress of it, combined with the endless onslaught of Mist, start to wear people down. Three months into the second term, they are informed that they may (and indeed, must) now take hunts posted on the bulletin board, in and around the systems of caves and abandoned underground palaces that surround Archades.
The caves are damp and dark, thick with insects and disease, heavy with undead and worse monsters besides, and the suffusion of Mist back at the Akademy means that every wound heals with a reddening rash, insufferably scratchy and unpleasant. They are allowed to work together, but that is quickly revealed as another test on the part of the Judges: With only one student able to claim credit for each hunt, the glory hounds and poor team players quickly reveal themselves. The instructors do nothing, instead simply watching as the enmity of those students’ fellows and the necessity of teamwork force them to either change their ways or drop out of the course.
By the end of the second term, they are down to almost exactly thirty.
The week’s holiday between the second and third terms is not really a holiday.
In the early part of the week, they perform for the crowds of Archades, facing off against gladiators (glittery clad showboats with what little clothing they had plastered with sponsors) in the Imperial Arena, an apparently traditional endeavour as much to do with the bright ideas of said gladiators’ Public Relations people as it is with reminding people of the Ministry of Law’s constant presence.
The matches all end, conveniently, with draws, as the nobleman hosting the event stops each bout before it can turn too heavily in any combatants’ favour.
Most of the rest of the week is spent in parades, or at parties, or on outreach programs, dressed in uniforms that mark them out as Judges-in-training. They are all interminably dull, although some students seem to have more talent for it than others.
Even when those stop, the last two days are spent shadowing local magistrates and constables, which Sherral finds the most valuable experience of the week. Then it’s back to the Akademy, now drifting towards the Sybilane Rift and Oakstone.
The third term starts with a challenge. The remaining thirty students are divided into five groups of six, and each told to retrieve three precious red stones, along with an Alhoon eye each, and return to the Shrine of Miriam located on the peak immediately above the rift. Dropped from the Akademy, each group an hour apart, they must first find each other.
Some problems were expected: The Sybilane Rift, heavy with Mist, confuses and beguiles the senses, making it difficult to know where you’re going at any time, and it takes everything they have not to get lost. The monsters, adapted for purpose, know how to mimic people and play on people’s insecurities. Every hunt for an Alhoon has to be planned carefully, to lure it away from a group or whatever beasts it has enthralled, and take it down with teamwork.
Some problems aren’t: Firstly, it becomes apparently on the fourth day in that, some day or so after they were dropped, soldiers, equipped to handle the Mist better than their own suits of armour could, had been dropped in with orders to find and capture them as part of the training exercise. As the days go on, it becomes a game of attempting to evade their would-be captors, while hunting Alhoons and finding their way towards the Shrine, a little closer each day. It also becomes clear that while each group must take back three red stones, there aren’t fifteen on the mountain, and each group is in competition with each other.
Sherral’s group is the second to make it back to the Shrine. One group is captured, and another returns with only two red stones, before the last group reaches the shrine, with three stones and all the eyes in hand. The captured group is removed immediately. The group that returned with only two is allowed to stay, but they plummet to the bottom of the rankings, with their two weakest members removed.
The rest of the term is made of similar challenges, broken by periods of training in combat, enduring interrogation, and applying the law, as the Akademy travels to another part of Ivalice each time. They pass through to Landis first, for a challenge in the Gagazet Lakelands, and then to the Ashwood for a challenge there. Sherral excels when they reach the fourth challenge, in the Winterlands, separated from his homeland only by Ben Taibhreamh. The final challenge sees them dropped on one of the islands near Insel Ignisia.
And then, altogether abruptly, it’s done. There are only fourteen of them left at the end of it all, as the Akademy refuels briefly at Schlachtschiff Island before heading onwards to Insel Gartenia.
Sherral takes his oaths in the Royal Chapel at the Imperial Winter Palace on Insel Gartenia, granted the rank of Judge-Captain, and later swears his oaths to Lord Larsa, due to be coronated as emperor before the next few months are done, in the palace’s expansive throne room. Judge Magister Gabranth and Judge Magister Zargabaath stand in attendance, along with a bevy of nobles, military personnel, ministers of law, and ambassadors.
