33 Risen#re

The students couldn't help but let out a sigh, the way the commander was rubbing his hands together and smiling made them certain that what they were about to be told was anything but good news.

"Many of you have brought a number of items along with you, however, there has been a slight change to the rules this year, all of your equipment and items must be left behind."

"What about our clothes?" a girl cried out, "You can't expect us to travel an entire month without a change of clothes," she cried indignantly.

The commander looked around with a twinkling light in his eyes, "Of course I don't want that," he chuckled, "Before you leave tomorrow you will be given two pairs of military uniforms," he said graciously, not at all attempting to hide his amusement.

There were several noble boys and girls that looked like were going to have a fit, some started stomping on the ground throwing a fit, but commander Pexis didn't care if they didn't like it.

"If anyone does not like it they are free to remain here, but once you return to the academy you will face immediate expulsion, and that rule applies to anyone that forfeits before three days of the expedition are completed."

"What about put sleeping wear, you can't expect us to sleep in our uniforms," some else cried out.

'Oh, how spoiled these delicate children are,' he thought with amusement.

"I sleep in my uniform every night," he commented innocently, "So it shouldn't pose a big problem for you," he answered in an amused tone.

He glanced over at the candidates and noticed they weren't taking it all that well themselves, the two girls, in particular, had expressions of horror, the boys didn't seem too fazed except for Lirian whose face was scrunched up in concern.

"Where are we supposed to sleep...." someone shouted and more people began to shout similar questions.

As the growing discontent grew amongst the students, they began to make a loud noise that echoed throughout the steel base.

"Silence!" the commander roared, his voice was powerful and deafening as it rang in everyone's ears.

"As far as the basics and essentials go, all of those will be handled by your commander," he said gesturing to Lirian.

Lirian remained unperturbed by the numerous gazes that fell on him and waited for commander Pexis to continue.

"Now that, that's settled all of you return to the barracks while I have a word with the candidates," he said dismissing them.

The students looked around irritably, but they knew that it was pointless to complain, they cast glances at the candidates and left with unwilling faces.

---

A few minutes later the candidates found themselves in a room, very similar to the one in the academy cafeteria.

"Do you think that this place is monitored just like the one in the school?" Cole asked as he slowly walked around the room.

"I'd bet my life savings on it," Lirian said nonchalantly lying down across an entire couch.

Media walked up to a table and put a box the commander had given them down, after calling them out he simply handed her the box then escorted them to the room without saying a word to them.

They were all curious about the contents of the box and slowly surrounded out.

"Lirian get over here, don't you want to know what's in the box?" the giant high orc Tobias nagged him from the side.

"What's the point," Lirian complained, ", it's not like I can see anything, why don't you guys tell me what's inside?" he said stifling a yawn as he lay down in front of a hearth her could feel the warmth of the flame licking his face and slowly coaxing him to sleep.

He was also mildly annoyed by that new rule of not taking any belongs on the expedition, he packed the two blasters Anya had given him into his bag, he thought that he might need it on the expedition since it was a good opportunity for Telamon to strike he needed all the protection he could get.

But because of this new rule he could no longer sneak it in, and it left him more exposed than he'd like to be, the most important part was that they would be unsupervised, to call it a golden opportunity to strike at him was an understatement.

As they opened the box the first thing that came into sight was a large piece of folded paper, Media reached in to take it out and began to unfold it on the table.

As she opened it up completely, it took up almost the entire table leaving only a small spot for the box to remain on the table.

"It's a map," Wentian said with furrowed brows, while it could be called a map, in truth it didn't deserve the name, with the exception of the boundary lines that separated each zone there wasn't a single detail on the map.

What was even worse was that despite having the lines to separate the zones, none of the zones were labeled, which left them with no idea on which zones were safe and which weren't, hell it didn't even give any details about which areas were mapped.

Tobias slammed one of his giant fists against the table, "Every single bloody time!" he cursed, "It's like they purposely try to make things harder and harder for us every year."

"This doesn't deserve to be called a map, it's a piece of crap I could have drawn something better in my sleep when I was a baby, aside from the positions of the zones it tells us nothing at all," he complained, he mainly said it aloud so that Lirian could hear.

"It's fine," Lirian said waving his hands around, "Media already saw a detailed map, she can fill it in with what she remembers,"

They all turned to Media and she nodded confidently, "I can but it's going to take me a while there is a lot of work to be done,"

"No," Lirian quickly said, "We only have a few hours before we leave, fill in the details on the zones you think we can enter, so that we know our options and we can plot a course."

"But there is so much, what if I forget something important," she complained as she looked at the map, it would take her at least six hours to fill in all the basic information.

Lirian sighed, "Every evening when we set up camp you can fill in more of the map, but for now, the most feasible areas we can reach within 15 days is what you need to focus on."

They could only travel outwards for 15 days at most, it was the safest option for them if they wanted to return on schedule.

If they returned late every passing day would count as a demerit, completing things on time was an important factor they were certain that it held a certain degree of influence on the score.

"He's right," Edith said putting a hand on Media's shoulder, ", we don't have the time," she said with an encouraging smile, but her eyes kept drifting between Lirian and Media with a skeptical look in them.

"What about all the other intel I gathered about the fauna and wildlife, should I write it down first?" Media asked she began to fidget around uncomfortably, she didn't fail to notice that strange look in Edith's eyes.

"That won't be important until a few days into the expedition," said Tobias.

"There isn't really a need for you to write it down," said Lirian.

"Tomorow when we are traveling you can ask one of the mental psychics to record everything as you narrate it to them."

"Then they can write out a copy and slowly spread it around until everyone has an idea of everything valuable and rare found on this world," Lirian finished while stifling another yawn, to the displeasure of everyone around him.

Media began to write down and draw in everything she could remember on several different zones that seemed feasible for them to reach.

As time crawled by the room was silent as they listened to the sound of graphite being scratched onto paper, after an hour a small part of the map had completely transformed as details of hilly terrain and long winding slopes of land were easily identified by the details Media carved into the map.

They noticed that the zones she had drawn out had large spaces in between with little to no details at all, they also noted several symbols that were strewn about and highlighted by a key she had drawn on the edge of the map.

"These are all our options," Media said with an upturned face, she was very pleased with how well everything turned out.

She began to explain the other details that she didn't have time to draw in, so they had a better picture of the land.

"We should go to western areas," said Cole as he analyzed the map, ", there is a lot of areas that haven't been explored as yet and the danger level isn't high, we could even break off into separate groups to cover more ground," he said with a finger under his chin.

Tobias looked at the area he was pointing to and shook his head, "If we want to get there we need to go over a very rough area," he pointed at the contour lines of the area in between the military base and the lands Cole wanted to go to, ", the lands in those parts are too sloppy."

"If we were moving in small unites it would be fine, but with almost 3000 people, the climb would waste days of our time, and going around the slops will take just as much time."

"Why not go to the southern plains, the lands are pretty smooth and there are a few unexplored areas, if we are lucky, we might come across something good, but even if we aren't lucky, the area we cover should give us a fair number of points," Tobias voiced his opinion to play things safe then he turned to see what Edith thought.

Tobias, Edith, and Cole had the most experience in this field so each one wanted to know what the other thought before listening to their junior's opinion, and Lirians opinion on this matter was a no go if there was one thing he couldn't do it was read a map.