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After cleaning the boards, Roudantaimi is able to successfully cross!
Gridger's second attempt, after cleaning and having Roudantaimi cure his fatigue, is better, but in the first five feet of the trial, he falters and slips, falling into the pit.
Prizm and Arxus again fall into the pit.
The captain is looking frustrated at the failures, and continues to bark insults at you. "Hurry up, we haven't got all day! There are still more obstacles for you all to fail at!"
The next obstacle is the Bear Crawl, where you must wriggle under a tangle of metal wire scattered with glass, sharp rocks, and broken bricks. A crawlspace 2 feet in height is the only passage through the detritus.
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Prizm pulls himself out of the mud - hurt and sad. He climbs out only to see Lucky take on the next stage of the angry commanders un-fun test.
With a look of forced confidence he gives it a go as well. Meanwhile Bert closes his eyes and looks away in discomfort.
As his master gets tangled up in wire.
"Oh FUZZ!" chirps the little gnome.
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Gridger grumbles under his breath at his fallings, "How does this even make a warrior?" He follows the group in the back, allowing time for reflection.
He sweats even more profusely at the next challenge, wondering how to fit his bulky self through the tiny gaps. Here goes nothing. "Right behind you Prizm!"
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While Roudantaimi and Lucky both make it through, to no accolades from the captain, Prizm decides to take a nap under the tangle. Gridger almost makes it, but gets himself tangled up immediately. Arxus does nearly as poor a job as Prizm.
"You little PUKES! Cannot even wriggle like the parasitic worms that you are! Get your sorry asses out of there, and TRY AGAIN!!" screams Captain Othis. "And you'd better not damage my wire! It is worth more than the lot of you combined!"
Lucky spots a climbing wall a short distance away, that is apparently the team's next challenge.
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As they start trying again, Gridger gets no further than he did before, prompting the Captain to scream out, "Even an insignificant WORM could do better than that! You call yourself an oread? I have seen ROCKS that move better than you!"
Then Prizm makes his attempt, barely able to move his little hands and feet. As he attempts to go underneath the wire, he looks around for Bert, forgetting that the Dodo is fast asleep in the barracks. He hopes that his familiar is ok, and not dealing with this sort of nonsense. It is at this time that he manages to get himself entangled in the wires, prompting a single word out of the Captain, "Gnomes..."
Arxus also tries again. He almost makes it, but his armor gets tangled up in the obstacle.
The Captain yells at you all to get up, and on to the next obstacle, which is a climbing wall. There is a staging area at the base of this 30' high stone wall, which has few handholds. It looks to be a difficult climb.
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"Oh, I don't do climbing. That's what I keep Tahmatassu around for." Then, remembering that his pet is at the barracks (and guessing that the captain would consider using pets as cheating as well), Roudantaimi has no option but try and climb the wall himself.
"I don't understand why he calls a rope cheating. I'd call it just smart move..." he whispers to the others, before starting the climb.
But even with Lucky's help, Roudantaimi is not able to scale the wall.
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The team keeps flailing at the wall, until the third attempt, when Lucky (aided by Arxus and Gridger) finally manages to scramble to the top. Roudi is not able to muster the strength to get up, nor is anyone else.
The Captain finally berates you into moving on, at which time you see an abandoned quarry filled with muddy water that is 15 feet deep.
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Gridger manages to get his head above water, and pulls Prizm out as well.
Once everyone is out of the water, Captain Othis orders you all to get in line and stand at attention. "Listen up, roaches. You need more than strength and agility to succeed in battle. You need to know what you're up against and how to fight it. Let's see how stupid and unprepared you really are."
"Recruit Lucky, since you were so effective in the physical trials, you go first. Tell me three effective ways to handle being set on fire!"
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"Captain Sir! First of all I would call upon my God to bath me in water, Sir. I realize that is not what you mean nor desire of an answer, but it is the truth sir! I would also call upon Cayden to grant me the ability to resist the fire - so that it would not burn."
"Sir, to answer your question in a more pleasing way..."
"I would call upon my past experiences and the Pathfinder chronicles and teachings i have been given. For when our company assailed an asteroid of Earth, Water and Fire, we learned much in the ways of combating these elements on their native planes. I had the privileged sir of joining the expedition of the Earth caverns, while my comrades explored the Fire and Water. Sir"
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Prizm thanks Gridger for his help saving him from the muddy water. ”You sir have ensured that my little Dodo will not be without a master – for that I thank you.. Brandywine will be yours when this is all done. From the finest berries in the meadow!”
The exhausted gnomes ears perk at the mention of academics.
”On fire? Oh you can roll around on the floor to smother the thermal acceleration! ! You can also emplore the use of hydro-technology as well! If you have some gears, springs and scrap I could fashion you a fabulous waterwheel! “
Prizm moves over to Roudantaimi and excitedly chirps on and on about ways to use gnomish technology to solve this conundrum… then his eyes twinkle…
"Well if you were on the elemental planes – some ways would be to gate in foreign materials! You could leverage the aid of a djinn as well!" With that the little fey illusionist pulls out his newly purchased tome on the planes of earth and fire and begins his lecture.
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It is clear from her reaction that Captain Othis did not receive the answer that she wanted from Lucky. She grins before she continues.
Maybe you need a more simple question, " barks the captain, "One that you don't need to ask for help on. Which plane do fire elemetals come from? The elemental plane of earth or fire?"
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To Arxus, she asks, "What is the typical fighting style of salamanders, and what is the best way to counter it?" When it becomes apparent that he doesn't know what salamanders are, she sighs, and asks, "Ok, try this, demon-spawn. Upon which plane do you currently stand?"
To Gridger, she asks, "What are the primary magical attacks that a effreefreetiet will use in battle, and how do you counter them?" Again, she waits, as Gridger tries to remember what a efreeti is. "So, another recruit without the training to fight effectively! Your second question is, Which elemental plane do earth elementals come from: the Plane of Earth or the Plane of Fire?"
Finally, after he answers, she turns to Prizm, who is about to explode from anticipation. "Recruit Prizm, other than the salamanders and efreeti, what sort of troops would you expect the armies of the plane of fire to muster?"
Prizm starts to pull out his book on the planes, but is stopped by the Captain immediately. He is still able to come up with the answers she is looking for, describing the mephits and elementals, and magmins that inhabit the plane of fire.
"Very well, answer this. Who is the demigoddess known as the "Fertile Flame", what is her citadel, and what are the creatures that adore her?"
He cannot come up with the answer.
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"Umm..."
The talkative gnome falls silent for a moment, as his mind races to find the answer for the captain's question. He thinks it was mentioned in the briefing, but the briefings usually take a very long time, so Roudantaimi's mind starts to wander off - and as a result he rarely remember any details. And the situation is the same also this time.
It was a play on words, wasn't it. Something to do with earth... Muddy boys? No... Earthlings? Pebble-bouncers? Groundpounders?
"Hey, that's it! Ground-something!" the gnome shouts, enlightened. "Ground,ground ground... Not ground. Unground! Ungrounded, that's it, isn't it!?"
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Gridger, foreign to studies of anything other than swordsmanship, finds himself struggling to provide an answer regarding Ifrit's. I don't think I've met an Ifrit before. But when it comes to his own heritage, he is quite confident about it, and speaks it proudly.
"I am an descendent of the earth, clearly earth elementals come from the plane of earth." He smiles at the end, as if pleased with himself.
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After the training is over, it is almost 18:00 hours, and you are able to report to dinner. Dinner consists of roasted meats and vegetables, bread, and a cup of ale. There is time to interact with the other recruits and mercenaries at this time.
At 21:30, the Captain shows up in the barracks, and begins to recount all of the mistakes that the team made during the day. When Bert starts moving towards her, looking to peck at her feat, she gives him a look that causes him to lose something on the floor, and he scurries away to hide. The Captain shakes her head, and barks, "RECRUIT PRIZM!! CLEAN UP YOUR MESS!"
She then turns to the rest of you. "I need push-ups until that mess is cleaned up off of MY barrack's floor! NOW!!!"
Once things are cleaned up, she stomps out of the room, and you all collapse into your beds, exhausted, without even realizing that your bedding has been returned.
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Gridger continues to train hard without questions. He toils himself and pushes himself to his bodies limit to prove his is as good a soldier as he is a swordsman. His determination is never dying although the limits of his body would say otherwise. That's the price he pays for only training himself in one way.
Although, during dinner he will ask around his table "Why is training so difficult? When do we show our fighting skills?"
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An oread soldier that Gridger sort of remembers from the night before comes up behind Gridger, and slaps him on the back... hard.
"Recruit, soldiering ain't about fighting! It is about avoiding fighting. If that means you build a wall that you think don't make no sense, then you build it, 'cause your officer tells you to. You ain't paid to think.
"And before you get any ideas about bein' a hero, remember that a hero is someone who dies for his country. If it were up to me, I'd rather make a whole bunch of sonsabiches, heroes, than me bein' one, if you catch my drift!
"Don't you worry none, though... you'll get plenty of time to fight."
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Arxus will keep as low a profile as he can, he's always stuck out and would like to avoid that. Especially since sticking out seems to draw negative attention.
During dinner, however, he will try to quietly ask for advice for the best ways to appease the Captain and get through training successfully.
And before bed, he does his regular devotionals, and armor polish, and Whetstone on his Bastard Sword.
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Lucky will sit with his food in quiet meditation until he finishes eating, and then quickly departs to perform his daily venerations that are 10+ hours overdue.
Upon returning an hour later, completely refreshed and ale in hand, he mingles with the company asking questions about the captain and the company, while pouring drinks for the men he mingles with.
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The captain's words leave Roudantaimi a bit puzzled. What he said was nice enough, but how he said it... Almost as if he didn't mean it. Later, in the barracks, the gnome turns to his fellow Pathfinders. "What do you make of the captain? I have to say I... don't quite like her. I'm sure that's part of the training play as well, she acting tough on us. But there's something about her... My gnome-sense pops and whizzles around her."
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On the coming days Roudantaimi does his chores, trying to resist the temptation for pranks. On the evenings he releases the accumulated restlessness by teaching the finer points of gnomish gunsmithing and gunnery to Prizm.
He joins Lucky in mingling with the other soldiers, also very curious about the captain.
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Talking about the captain gets the responses one would expect in a military training facility. The other recruits seem to think she is tough, but are under the impression that this is to make them better soldiers.
Arxus's queries get a response of "do what she wants, do it quickly, and do it right".
When you talk to Dell Darkblade, the oread recuit that you met when you first got here, he seems like he is holding something back... something he is actually afraid to tell you.