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[prodigalvampire]

Okay, everyone, I can't take the silence anymore. What's the consensus on the party Halcyn's throwing? It smells like a trap to me, but that's never kept me from a good time.

[There's a pause here as though he's shifting verbal gears.]

And has anyone else noticed the altars around town? Weird, right?

Comments

[skyward_eyes]

Mostly only the orphans with nowhere else to go.

[And they never really had a place to go after either.]

The Garden is an independent force, though. Beholden to no one nation. Which means, of course, we're also not citizens of any one nation.

[prodigalvampire]

So, this Garden kidnaps kids no one's going to miss and people just...let this happen?

[skyward_eyes]

No. Orphans that aren’t wanted or needed are sent away to the Gardens. We’re discarded.

[prodigalvampire]

Okay, so orphans are conscripted at the Gardens? You guys are a private Oliver Twist army?

[skyward_eyes]

“Oliver Twist?”

[He parrots from name back, clearly not knowing it.]

Those who graduate at my level are the best fighters in the world. Though those at equal rank to me are way better.

[prodigalvampire]

Don't worry about it.

...but that doesn't really answer the question.

[skyward_eyes]

We're mercenaries, commissionable. Basically our own world power now. But we only do what we must. We don't want to upset the whole world. The majority of the time we take contracts for monster hunting, protecting small villages in regions that armies can't cover. Sometimes we do more.

[prodigalvampire]

A world power comprised of conscripted soldiers with no ties to anyone but their own, and people are just okay with that?

[skyward_eyes]

Yes. WE did sorta save the world.

[prodigalvampire]

So they weren't before then.

[skyward_eyes]

It's more complicated than that. Everyone used us except for Esthar. And the program is less than fifteen years old.

[prodigalvampire]

So, private military, something like that?

[skyward_eyes]

Something like that. But it's more like specialists for hire.

[prodigalvampire]

Mercenaries, but everyone uses you, so it's fine?

[skyward_eyes]

Honestly? Yeah. That's how everyone seems to feel about it. I know it doesn't make sense, but it works, in my world.

[prodigalvampire]

Well, in certain circles, it works in mine, too.

[skyward_eyes]

Well then, why the interrogation?

[prodigalvampire]

Because most of those circles aren't on the 'legal' side of the law.

[skyward_eyes]

I mean, you're not wrong. Some of what we do is... questionably legal.

[prodigalvampire]

You mean what you used to do, because you're here now, right? Not that I have anything against mercenaries. My family employed them, only we called them "private security".

[skyward_eyes]

Well, I'm a guard now. So I'm going ot hold to the questionably legal by some perspectives.