Welcome back to Our Brave Boys, a quest that is more about worldbuilding (or loredumping) but also a somewhat light RP setting. You are all young men of 20 years of age and are part of the Nation's Apprenticeship Required for Male Youths, otherwise known as ARMY. The Nation is one of many countries of the Empire, but after decades of suppressing Republican Revolutions, the Nation emerged as the leading faction championing the Monarchy, placing the late Princess of your Nation on the throne as Eternal Empress.The quest essentially runs as a world event where you are all common soldiers who have little control over the progression of the war, but are nonetheless free to write bits of your characters' thoughts and even subtle actions to bring life to your characters.The Nation has a mandatory conscription policy for all young men, who must serve for 5 years after conscription at 20 years of age. Nearly a year and a half has passed since the quest started, although new boys are welcome. You might want to skim through the archive to understand the lore.To get conscripted, please take a look at the instructions in the first thread: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2025/6220569/OOB2: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2025/6258776/The Story Thus FarYou are the junior brothers of Lexion XXI, 41st Artillery Cohort, Battery Green, Section 1. Any additional entries will overflow to Section 2 of Battery Green.Legion XXI spent several seasons training and laboring in Japmi until the Southern Principality reported instability due to Revolutionary riots, prompting the Sovereign Marshal to order Legion XXI to be stationed across the bay from the Southern Principality. While Legion XXI was on standby, the Grand Prince of the South escaped a revolutionary coup, prompting General Reigen Mugen to push forth and establish a foothold before the revolutionaries dig in.
Things to Know>The NationYou are a scion of the Nation, the embodiment of all cultural values, histories, and memories. All the relationships everybody has within the Nation, all the burdens they bear, and all the fondness they hold to each other, from your younger peers to your ancestors from time immemorial, are all part of you. It can be almost thought of as an advanced Tribal organization. The Nation is multi-ethnic, though largely culturally homogenous, with a founding tribe of piebald pygmies with large, round ears. Over time, it received genetic introgression, producing a variety of skin, hair, and eye colors that all ultimately assimilated into the Memories of the ancestors.tl;dr - your state>The CountryThe physical homeland of the Nation, also known as the End of All Rivers. It is located in a vast swamp that's the estuary of all rivers on the western side of the continent. The Country is more than a physical location, but the earth and trees the Nation has diligently cultivated since it could learn to remember. The Country is not something to be owned or given. As far as the Nation has known, it simply belongs there as much as the Nation does not belong in the World Above.tl;dr - your homeland>The World AboveThe poetic name given to the outside world, as nearly all of it is located upriver at a higher elevation. The Nation has always remembered it as a chaotic world needing the Emperor to instill order and prosperity. The inhabitants of the World Above are all considered foreigners by the Nation.tl;dr - the rest of the continent>The EmpireFor two millennia, the Nation was under the protection of the Empire, the supreme and benevolent force that brought order to the chaotic World Above so that the Nation could remain in peace. It is comprised of several states, including the Nation. Several generations ago, the Empire fell to ambitious, evil republicans who sought to destroy the foundation of civilization. It lost its Emperor, and with no protection, the foreigners entered the Country to take it away from the Nation. As the Empire had always protected the Nation, it was time for the Nation to protect the Empire, and installed the Eternal Empress to maintain security.tl;dr - the suzerain of the world above the nation controls>The Eternal EmpressThe Nation is still considered a subject of the Empire, once having an Idol rule it as a member of the Empire's Lords and Peers. Unfortunately, during an era of chaos when the evil republicans sought to destroy the foundation of civilization, they executed your Idol. When the Nation rallied to preserve the Empire, it installed your Idol, once barred from the line of succession, as the Eternal Empress, a symbol of unity across the World Above and the Country.
>Apprenticeship Required for Male YouthsAlso known as the ARMY. All able-bodied men of the nation are required to complete a five-year apprenticeship to prepare them as functional members of society. Part of this includes serving in a military capacity. This mandatory service only exempts those too ill, enabling the Nation to field half of all standing Imperial Legions stationed across the Empire.>Matchmaking Assistant Initiative for DamselsThe Nation has a deep-seated fear of extinction ever since the Grand Republic attempted to eliminate the whole Nation via conscription of child soldiers. It was always considered proper for one to marry and have children by 25, but as all young men must serve in the ARMY, it leaves little time for young men and women to court each other. Thus, the babas and aunties of the Nation have banded together to help young women back in the Country connect with young men serving abroad so that they would be ready to immediately produce the next generation of soldiers once they return.
>You all sat on the defense watching the flanks for what felt like hours. Some of you even decided to count the tumbleweeds that rolled by. The more observant of you had to correct some of you for counting the same tumbleweed. As the sun neared the horizon, Lieutenant Shino Nozo ordered you all up to continue marching. It was cooler, and you had all already rested after watching the defense for hours. You only reported tumbleweeds."It was just a reconnaissance force up ahead. General Reigen Mugen wants us to get to the city within two days. We don't know if any loyalist forces are still putting up a fight," was all Lieutenant Shino Nozo said of it.>After two days of marching, passing by villages, acquiring maize and feed, you finally reached the outskirts of the City of the South, the original capital of the Heavenly Empire. Buildings slowly rising from two stories to five. It was said the City of the South was defended by mighty walls taller than any building, but you could not see it from here. Instead, sprinkled across the city-scape were many high-rise spires. You could hear the sporadic sound of gunfire from beyond.>Battery Green was placed in the rear of the line as reserves. You all pitched your tents but kept your packs lined up in a neat order. The order of the day was to stand by, although Lieutenant Shino Nozo left with all the officers to attend a strategy meeting. Before night, the Lieutenant returned."71st Infantry Cohort will be the main effort for us; we will be in reserves. As we have no guns, I hope you are all prepared to get close and dirty. The far right will prioritize seizing the nearby port for when the rest of the Legions arrive. Our focus will be too seize ground and a staging area for the Legion. Once we establish a foothold, we will conduct patrols until the main army arrives. The attack will commence at 0400 hours, so get some rest."You wouldn't all get to sleep the whole night. There was a watch rotation after all, and some of you were even posted up ahead to watch for any movement. These shifts lasted only an hour, and while you might be worried you'd want to sleep as much as you could before the big day, at least you weren't 71st Infantry Cohort.
>>6309135Wrong image, meant to post the whole section.
>>6309138>Nezu has never seen buildings this tall, nor a settlement this large. Unable to sleep well, he takes to doing a rough sketch of it. he loses steam part way through due to his still pervasive sense of doom and gloom, and so does not finish the work beyond some basic outlines, before laying down and "counting tumbleweeds" in his mind in an effort to fall asleep.
>>6309125Okay, guess I'll try to generate a new uniform-filler?>Name: Gorkau Orkaun>Skin Complexion: Lightly Tanned>Hair Color: Green with black patches (or the other way around)>Eye Color: Dark Orange>Ear Shape: Large, angular top>Other Facial/Head Features: Quite a square Jaw, heavy brow>Background: Second son of a brewer at Feather Falls. Kept a small cliff-side garden of herbs and mushrooms.
>>6309253Sorry, but dual-colored hair has to have one as white. It represents their piebaldness, the white patches essentially have no pigment. I suppose you'd rather have green/white hair instead of black/white? Otherwise everything is fine (even the ears).
>>6309270Ah, misunderstood that then. I might go with pure green hair then, no secondary colour, since we already have a green/piebald guy?..Feel free to use your judgement on what you think looks best.
>>6309138>Naro watches the lamps burn in the distant skyscrapers, wondering what people could ever want such tall buildings for. The smeltery chimney at home is way taller though, not that he'd ever admit to climbing the thing by ladder. He doesn't envy the 71st, potentially having to have to go door to door inside them.>It's cold on his watch with desert nights being uncomfortably chilly. Looking out into the dark as occasional distant gunfire cracks out in the night, he feels very vulnerable and alone and almost opens fire on an owl. It's a miracle he gets even a few hours of sleep afterwards.
>>6309138>Kiro, for his own, tries to force himself to sleep, to poor success. He lies awake in his bed, eyes shut, attempting not to think. >He wanted to join the Infantry when he registered - he wanted to see combat, to actually do something before being forced to go back to his lame village to do a lame job for the rest of his lame life. >But like this? He didn't like it. Not as part of something his unit wasn't meant or trained to do. But he was damned if he was gonna slip in the middle of a firefight because he didn't get enough sleep. >So he flipped his pillow once more, and tried to sleep again...
>>6309253>Feather Falls as seen better days, once a highly affluent resort town for travelers across the Country. These days, families simply don't have the free time to visit, leaving Feather Falls to nearly rot if it weren't for the nearby iron mines.Let's put you into the last slot for Gun 2 and pretend you've always been around.
>The sun was hours away before you woke up. A light breakfast was made for the whole Legion; maize tortilla made from locals topped with canned tuna. The fact that the tortillas were fresh made it very appetizing. You were all given rice balls filled with jam, wrapped in a leaf, as an on the move snack for the offense. This sort of snack is considered traditional, your ancestors always carried one or two back when an Emperor still protected you all.>Batter Green watched the 71st Infantry march off to the hamlet. They left in two columns and slowly spread out to form a whole row. Soon you heard shots fired. Bodies dropped. Lieutenant Shino Nozo told you all to hold. Some of your comrades remained in the fields as the rest entered the town. You saw one of your comrades on the rooftops waving a makeshift flag. Time for you to move.>You brought out stretchers to the fields where casualties where being cared for by medics. Where there was one who was stabled, you were told to take and move him into the town. A casualty control point was created in an abandoned restaurant where you remained on the roof top to watch the controlled chaos unfold. Before that, it had to be cleared of enemy dead, most of whom still carried muzzle-loading rifles. You continued to hear gunfire, screams, orders, demands, and cries throughout the town.>>6309232>Lieutenant Shino Nozo pulls you aside."How long does it take you to draw something like that? If we took a spire, do you think you could map out the local area?"
>>6310734>Nezu looks up from the dead and dying, who he has been observing with empty eyes."Uhh, not too long.">In truth, he's gotten incredibly fast at sketching scenery for backdrops. He takes his time on faces, poses, and on finishing touches, but he can accurately plot a basic map (including enemy positions) in rough and sketchy detail in second-to-minutes, depending on scale and scope.
>>6310734>In order to procrastinate on the grim task of removing the dead, Naro decides to sweep the rest of the building for any live enemies and make a checklist of where corpses need to be removed from.>He takes the time to collect various scattered military-looking documents in the upstairs back rooms talking about things he doesn't understand or have time to read. He leaves them on the counter downstairs on the off chance they might be of interest to the officers before he begins moving bodies in silence. He refuses to look at their faces.
>>6310734Sighing, Gorkau gets on with the task of searching through the enemy dead; taking their fallen rifles and stacking them aside in a growing pile before dragging the corpse where it needs to be set.
>>6310734>Unfortunately for him, because of his rather strong muscles, Kiro was one of the first to be assigned to carrying duties, ferrying the wounded to their respective destinations.>He tried not too think too hard about the moaning of the wounded.
>>6310734>Caspar picks through the enemy dead, taking it upon himself to pick out any identifying markers amongst the dead.>A necklace here, a ring here, even the rare decorated family rifle, and other little bits and bobbles are put into the pockets or tied down with some twine to ensure they visibly stay on the deceased for easy identification, especially the ones disfigured the most.>He looks each in the eye, the rest of the face, and body as he notes them all down, reminding himself that if he slips up one day that would be him too.>He catalogued all of the details of the deceased unto a list he intends to pass to the officer in charge as he takes the initiative to be a good soldier for the nation like he trained for.>His hopes that when he bites the dirt himself those on the other side take the same time to do the same for him, and that the urban fighting doesn't last long enough for them to resort to indiscriminate shelling, that only makes the retrieval of bodies and cataloguing even harder, especially when there is no one there left to confirm the identities of these men.
>>6310875>>6310898>>6311947>Fortunately, there was no friendly KIA, only WIA. Most of them were wounded during the initial charge across the field into the town. You had expected to find many bodies in the town, but came across not even ten. There were still more friendly wounded than deceased enemies.>There was a stark contrast between the ages of the enemy and you. While the Nation's ARMY had only young men under the age of 25, discounting officers, you had found men as old as 50 and boys much shorter than any of you among the enemy dead.>The collection of the dead was not meant to be some humanitarian and respectful effort, but simply to remove any clutter and potential threats. All buildings must be cleared.>After a few hours, your section was called in to provide covering fire on a building of an interest. It was a spire that Lieutenant Shino Nozo was interested in. Despite your carbines' smaller rounds, their rate of fire were ideal for suppressing the enemy to allow the infrant to charge in with their bayonets and stronger calibers. Most of the time, you didn't even know who or what you were shooting at. You just laid hate at any window your allies were far from.>After overtaking the Spire, there was a matter of securing it. The infantry did not want to have their backs to such a tall tower with many windows. As the infantry assembled a squad, Lieutenant Shino Nozo volunteered the section. He personally volunteered to go in first.>You all climbed the spire in a single file with Lieutenant Shino Nozo, who had his officer's sword drawn with some of the grooms behind him with their shotguns. Most of you just followed the line up, peeking out the windows to see the city below you. At some point when your guard was let down, concentrated on just moving your legs up every step, you heard gunfire echo from above.>As you continued up the steps, you saw Crom Crom comforting Henzo Zoro who looked shaken, slumped against the center wall of the spire with his shotgun laid to the side, its two barrels still smoking. Up ahead there was a corpse who only had half a head slumped against the outside wall of the stairs. You all continued up following a trail of blood drops, dripping from Lieutenant Shino Nozo's sword.
>>6313515>A strong climber - for Feather Falls is partly built into a cliff-face, and who there isn't? - Gorkau clambers the tower close behind Shino Nozo, trying to keep his footsteps as close as he can to the places where the Lieutenant earlier placed his feet, and not in the droplets of blood.>Glancing out the occasional window, the height does not trouble a brave boy from feather falls! Though the corpse with half a head is a worry...>He grips his carbine more tightly, and watches the spire ahead as he continues upward, trying to keep wary and alert to any more enemy higher up.
>>6313515>Having followed closely behind the grooms, Naro hears the gunshot loud and close and grips his rifle that little bit tighter.>Now the grooms are down two people, he finds himself uncomfortably close to the front. Still, if Lt. Nozo can do it, so can he! He focuses on checking his corners and not shooting at shadows while trying to ignore the trail of blood on the stairs from Nozo's sword.>It is a long way up though, and he hopes they'll reach the top soon. Perhaps one day they'll manage to install something like that new steam-powered crew elevator they recently got in the mine back home in these buildings.
>>6313515>There's so much death. Realistically, it's only a few people, and all of them strangers, but it's the most Nezu has ever seen. He feels a cold wind on his neck despite the temperature, and suppresses a shiver. He keeps careful pace with the other boys, lest anyone think he is afraid.>He isn't afraid... Is he? He doesn't want to run, yet every step forward feels...
>>6313515>Kiro continues to inch forward through the stairs, carbine gripped rightly within his hands, his finger hovering just above the trigger as his instructors had teached.>He wasn't afraid, obviously.He had more than enough guts to see a corpse and not be afraid. But knowing there might still be enemies, just lurking around the corner...it gave him a feeling he knew. Like when he was in the middle of a fight with some drunken worker and they started swinging their bottle. The hairs on his arm standing up to their end, a weird tension in the air. >He continues walking forward, his finger itching as if cocked to fire. He will not ending up like that man slumped on the wall. He will fire first
>>6313515>This is the moment, everything he was, is and could be will be settled here and now>its has come down to two choices, to run or fight>And Caspar knows he is a terrible sprinter
>For the rest of the way up the spire, you encountered nobody. It was just the one enemy. From the peak, on a balcony, you could see just how massive this ancient city is. You counted more spires behind the mighty walls beyond."This city was the seat of the Empire for over three meillennia. But it was lost half a millennia ago. Now we have returned to restore the Eternal Empress to her ancestors' throne," said Lieutenant Shino Nozo.>>6313915"Sono Sobo, you and your team stay here, draw the streets from the coast to as far as you can see. Count the floors, windows, identify roads and streets." The team included Tekezu Nezu and Sairus Myron."Everybody else, on me!">The rest of you made your way down the spire. Henzo Zoro looked fine now. Not every day you blew another man's face off. He no longer wanted to take point and offered to trade his shotgun to anybody who might be brave enough to run in the next building head first.
>>6316103>Oh. Its my turn then.Caspar takes point
>>6316103>As up we went, down we go>...a shame that the spire-top had neither kite nor giant bird to make the down more interesting!>...but probably best. Giant Birds and Kites would be seen and get shot by the enemy.>Gorkau guards the rear of the descent, and thinks again of how grand the city had seemed, even from heights that make places seem small. And feels all the smaller.
>>6316103>Nezu strains his eyes to count the windows, the floors. it seems like an impossible task, so much more detailed than he has ever drawn a backdrop for the action, and with no action to speak of... Well, none right now, not yet. Recalling what that action will entail, Nezu decides this is maybe for the best, and goes about his task slowly and methodically, as if it may just be his last "great" work.
Oh damn, I did not notice an update. Is this >>6316167 supposed to be Casper getting the Shotgun?
>>6317887am the first to reply so yeah i think i got dibs on shotgun
>>6317894Alright then, sounds good.>>6316103>Kiro, not one to stay in the back, continued to advance together with the head of a party, only a few steps behind his fellows in the front. >The suspense, to him, is worst of all. In a live battle, he might have known where the enemy was, and his only job would be to shoot there. But here, danger could lurk in each corner. >He hoped it'd stop soon, one way or the other...
>>6316103>Taking one last look, Naro wonders which part of the city below them they'll be sent into next.>He hopes it won't involve another spire, all these stairs are making him dizzy and tired>He still finds himself right behind the pointman on the way down. Why does this keep happening to him?
