Mantisbane Pact with GM Zek

Game Master Zektolna

Madelyn’s eyes fluttered open, as she sluggishly got out of her cot. As one of many trying to get into paladin training, her days consisted of very much the same thing. Morning prayer, exercise, breakfast, stables, politics and diplomacy, service – sometimes in the medic’s hut, others in the refugee camps, meditation and prayer, lunch, monarchs and nobility, languages – mostly common, with articulation, grammar, spelling etc, combat and endurance training, free time, religious studies, dinner, prayer and meditation, free time, lights out.

It was a lot, nothing compared to the higher-level paladins, but a lot more than when she was just an acolyte. However, one of the things that was constantly enforced was patience. With patience, persistence, tenacity, and faith, everything she sought would eventually be hers.

All those trying to become paladins were tasked with cleaning the stables, caring for the horses, making sure they were healthy and exercised daily, let out to pasture, ready for whenever they were needed. These weren’t war horses though. Paladins took care of their personal mounts with as much dedication as everything else, more so if that mount represented their bond with Iomedae. These were horses for transport and work typically. Their care was as much to help the refugees and wounded as it was to normalise the trainees to handling them, as every paladin, personal mount or not, was expected to know how to calm and tame any horse, and ride it.

As initiation was only 12 months, everything was intense. Combat training was combined with endurance training, 4 months in light armor, then medium, then heavy. Proficiency with any weapon that was likely to be available on the battlefield, namely simple and martial weapons, was emphasised, as was being able to use a variety of shields. If you had strength, use it. If you were agile, take the advantage. No one was too slow or too weak, so long as you knew what you were good at, and honed your abilities.

The class was small, around 15 people in total. There were other classes, this one was just made up of those who had been an acolyte of Iomedae before applying. 9 humans, 2 half-elves, 2 halflings, a gnome, and an Aasimar. The Aasimar’s name was Wren, and he was gorgeous, so Madelyn avoided him. She couldn’t afford to be distracted. Despite her efforts though, due to how tight-knit the group was, they became friends. Thanks to everyone’s devout nature, she found that her fears were baseless. They had all decided on their goals when they applied for training, and helped each other towards them.

Diplomacy varied on who was teaching. Sister Constance would dictate different ways of wording things, the importance of compromise (so long as it didn’t involve any of the faith’s core beliefs), how to approach and interact with different races and cultures. All very academic. Professor Lincoln, however, would spend much of the class yelling or arguing with them, trying to goad them into reacting. He called it ‘mental endurance training’, that there were going to be cases where the people involved were so arrogant, or insulting, or disrespectful, or irrational, that it would test their diplomatic stance. He did have a point, that he would rather you try and punch him in the face and get extra homework than to do so during a hostile or tense situation and get someone killed. Professor Lincoln would also give case studies, and pair them up for role plays, brought in various guest speakers to be interviewed and have them test the initiates approaches and trains of thought.

Monarchs and nobles was about as interesting as the instructor made it. The church seemed to realise this, as every 4th lesson was taught by an Elven bard by the name of Casamire the Chivalrous. No one knew if he was knighted or not, but his retellings of the history of the great houses, and royal lines, was engaging, dramatic, and always included what the previous 3 lessons had covered. It bought all the dates and names and events to life in a marvelous 2-hour performance. What made it even better was that he had known, or at least claimed to have known, many of the characters, being over 200 years old. He added atmosphere, and it made all the lessons that much easier to remember and to appreciate.

Languages was just a fancy way of saying scribe. The class was silent much of the time. Those who excelled could choose another language to learn, which was taught at the same time but in another room. Madelyn opted for Draconic, as it was rumoured to be the oldest language, which she found fascinating. Silvester, the gnome, also opted for Draconic, and they helped each other by talking to each other and passing notes in the reptilian language.

Service was humbling. Where they learnt to heal, comfort, and give hope. It was the part of the day where they were all reminded what it meant to be one of the ranks of Iomedae’s faithful. It made them step back from the glory, and battles with demons and devils, the epic and eternal fight between good and evil, law and chaos, and cemented them firmly in the lives that they those battles affected. The wounded and dying soldiers, the homeless and displaced peoples, the orphaned children, the starving, the hopeless, helpless, and nameless masses that were the victims of the Worldwound and the Crusades. There, their faith was truly tested. To give aid, and hope, comfort, to dress wounds, or hold a hand as they drifted away. It was there that they had to face, question, and conquer the reality of the world, and make the choice of if their faith was stronger than their doubt. It was the hardest lesson, often leading to numbness, or silent weeping in the dark after lights out. It either solidified your faith, or shattered it. Madelyn spent many prayer sessions asking for Iomedae’s strength and guidance, for the ability to give hope and aid to those she could, and to help her make peace about those she couldn’t. After weeks of prayer and reflection, she came out the other side with a serenity and peace that gave her the stability and strength of faith to give hope, true hope, the kind she really believed in.

Religious studies focused on the origin, history, alliances and events of the Gods, particularly those relating to Iomedae. About the Last Azlanti, Aroden, of whom Iomedae was a herald to before his death. Of when the Starstone fell from space and cast the world into a thousand years of darkness. Of the First, Ihys’ discovery of speech, and Asmodeus, the creator of meaning and who penned the contract of creation. Whenever she had the chance, Madelyn would shift the lessons towards Achaekek, and the Red Mantis. Father Tyberius often bought them back on track fairly quickly, as that lesson was for more specialised study. He did teach them that no one can agree on who created Achaekek, and that the Mantis God is evil, as are his followers, and that he dwells in the first circle of Hell, Avernus.

Prayer and meditation were consistent, compulsory, and taken very seriously. While older paladins could find their preferred method of communing with the divine, everyone needed to learn how to do it the traditional way first. Solitary, confined rooms were provided for meditation, while prayer was a more communal event held in the chapel. One of her favourite instructors, a halfling cleric everyone called Mother Marie, who held morning prayer, taught her one of her most profound lessons; that worship wasn’t serious in itself. That it was meant to be joyous and empowering. It was just a word that was used to best describe how to centre the beginners, and have them focus. When faith comes from the heart and resonates within the soul, then meditation and prayer along with the connection to Iomedae and all the power she bestows upon her paladins, become intuitive. Serious just ensures that people try harder than they normally would.

Madelyn would meditate on this more often than she would tell her instructors. She had memorised the affirmations of Iomedae, and was meant to be meditating on those, and she did. Her allotted time was spent reflecting and understanding Iomedae and her teachings, but at least one of her free time slots was always spent reflecting on her faith, on understanding her own heart and connecting with what resonated in her soul.

She thanked this for her first true touch of divinity. During her 6th month of initiation, she and two others, a half-elf named Kyro and another human called Jill. They had been the first in their class to show up when detect good was cast on the group. This was the first manifestation of the blessings of Iomedae, and confirmation that they were on their way to becoming paladins.

After that, one by one, everyone attained an Aura of Good. The next step was to be able to detect evil themselves. They would be tasked with identifying which of a group of objects was evil. At first, they were given 1 minute to study each object, then needed to list them in most to least evil. It became a little bit of an inside joke for the initiates, who would grab cutlery or personal possessions and dramatically declare them evil. The instructors for the most part allowed this as a way for the young trainees to cope with what they were experiencing; a real evil aura. As the 8th month came to an end, they were expected to be able to just look at something and could tell if it was evil or not.

The last two months were grueling. Almost everything was done in heavy armor, from cleaning the stables to scribing, morning exercise to meditation. Focus shifted from academic learning to practical, with the initiates going out and sparring with new recruits in the army, getting more involved with handling the disturbances within the refugee camps and keeping the peace, and meeting with minor aristocrats and representatives of other faiths.

The greatest challenge, and what would ultimately decide if they became an entry level paladin or not, was the final month where they were sent beyond the Wardstones and to the rear-gaurd of an active, but less threatened, battlefield. Here was where they would get a crash course in the final power Iomedae needed to grant them for them to be recognised as true paladins, the ability to smite evil. It could only really be tested when battling against an evil creature. They had 30 days, one chance a day. Although, since none of them knew how to use it, they had to fight at any opportunity. They were constantly under the watchful eye of their instructor, other soldiers, and a group of experienced paladins. This was the future of Iomedae’s crusade against the demons of the Worldwound after all, they couldn’t afford for anyone to die in training.

It was still a battlefield though, and each day people were sent back behind the Wardstones to be tended to, perhaps by newer initiates. Madelyn fought against as many enemies as she was allowed, swinging in hopes of feeling something different, something divine. She and all the others fought until they were sent back to base, deemed too exhausted to continue. Often, exhaustion was determined with how close you go to being killed by a demon. Countless tries, countless demons, until a paladin stepped in right before the enemy could deal a finishing blow. Jill lost an eye to a stray arrow, but refused to be sent back. Malcom and Craig, two other humans who had been best friends since childhood, got food poisoning. Everyone had scraps and bandages over arms, legs and torsos, head wounds were common as well. Still, 15 students came to the field and none were leaving until that last day.

Madelyn wasn’t sure what day it was, or how long they had left. They had been divided into groups of three, each under a seasoned paladin who was making sure they didn’t die. She was with Wren and Helix, the other half-elf. They were fighting a group of lower level demons, Dretches, which needed to be taken out quickly as they were capable of summoning more Dretches if given the chance. As the preferred weapon of Iomedae, all initiates were fighting with longswords, which seemed to be doing the job. Still, of the 15 only 3 had managed to smite a demon; Silvester, Gwen (another human), and Jill, much to her relief.

It had already been a long day, and their fatigued showed as they were caught in a nauseating fog created by a newly summoned Dretch. Madelyn dry heaved, but kept her footing, making a quick retreat out of the cloud. Wren and Helix, however, doubled over, and were visibly unable to fight. They may be small, but there was more of them, and they kept coming. After only a few moments, Wren was hunched and bleeding over an unconscious Helix, trapped in the fog and flanked by the enemy. Madelyn didn’t need to think, she charged back into the fog, suppressing a gag and cutting an escape route for her friends trait: Dedicated defender. As she finally made her way to them, a Dretch moved in to strike at the incapacitated duo. She lengthened her stride, moving to place herself between them and their attacker, before slicing upwards and cutting into the monstrosity before her. Her strike hit true, and she felt a strange yet empowering wave as she fought the Dretch. It was easy to hit, and it seemed to struggle to hit her. As she delivered the final blow, the other Dretches retreated as the older paladin stepped in, striking them down with ease. Together, they dragged Helix and Wren away from the dissipating fog, Nigel (their paladin) bringing Helix back to consciousness and curing his nausea. By then, Wren had gotten over his own, and they all headed back to base to rest for the next day.

“You felt it, yes?” he asked as they crossed into friendly territory.

Madelyn nodded, looking at her hand as if it held some amazing power. She felt, solid? Stable? Complete? It was almost impossible to word it. Her Goddess had just blessed her with a minute amount of her own divine power. She was worthy of the blessings and powers of the Goddess she had spent years worshiping. It was surreal. It was humbling. It was overwhelming. It was so incredibly awesome.

I'm closer now Xander. When we meet again, I'll be strong enough to bring you back. Hold on...

Now, she was a paladin.