Shadowcraft by L.L.R.

Chapter II: Alpha Team D

Chapter II

Seki woke up in his bottom bunker, and then retched when he realized one of the male soldier’s smelly foot was in his face.

Sleepily, he took out his toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste, and shuffled to the men’s room, rubbing the gunk off his eyes. He brushed his teeth while looking out the window. It was boring, since there was nothing but the dim sky and some fluffy purple clouds, the tops of the outlines of a few buildings, and darkness dozens of feet below him.

The S.O.L. main building is a single black tower almost two hundred- fifty meters high. It is surrounded by an open circular area four hundred meters in circumference. No grass grew here, only dirt. The tip of the tower’s long shadow touched just the edge of the circular area, it is said that once every few months, the entire S.O.L headquarters would run a level 5 security drill, the highest level of their defense system, and the Guard Unit of S.O.L. would initiate, ‘The Hydra’. This is an atum weapon unique to S.O.L. headquarters, where ten atum guards possess the great shadow of the tower and craft one large nu the shape of a giant tentacle that could literally sweep away an oncoming army, snatch an entire zeppelin out of the sky and destroy an entire city if the tower was in the middle of it. It can split into five thinner tentacles, and do separate tasks. History says that more than a hundred and fifty years ago, when the tower was still being constructed, the first Boss of S.O.L. singlehandedly used the tower’s shadow to clear the area of trees and debris.

This is the architecture of the S.O.L. base: The tower is divided into five areas composed of five floors each, the higher one goes, the higher the security clearance is. The fifth, fourth, and third levels are where the science, security, and intelligence departments are located, the second area is where the lodges of the captains and other professionals, their offices, the Boss’s office and lodge, are located, while the first area, which is the biggest area, is where the barracks for the atum soldiers, the classrooms, training rooms as big as warehouses, sparring rooms, library, and the metalshop and one of the armories were located. Outside the tower was a large courtyard where recruits would drill and train. There were different shooting ranges, obstacle courses, exercise buildings, and the hangar where the zeppelins and a few smaller light aircrafts were located. The entire compound was surrounded by tall electric wire fences with a tower every other few kilometres, forming a circular area. After that it is surrounded by an open dirt plain one thousand feet in circumference. After this is a ring of man-made forest that is divided into ten fenced training and exercise areas. After that is another ring of forest separated from the other forest by a very tall, very thick thorny hedge. This outer forest is where bearhounds are kept, a giant breed of dogs that have been domesticated since ancient times to guard their owners from shades and wild bears. Though generally a gentle giant to its family, it is so territorial and possessive of its owners that ordinary families do not take it as a pet. It hates shades as much as it hates cats, and females dig huge deep dens during mating season where they give birth to pups that are twice as big as human babies. A bearhound usually grows to reach about six feet high and twice as thick as a horse, it has a stocky body and a thick neck, it has short hair that ranges from chocolate brown to light grey, it has thick folded skin, paws almost as big as a toilet seat, limbs as thick as young trees, short pointed ears, small eyes, and teeth as thick as a thumb. The one flaw they have is that they can’t swim and are very afraid of large bodies of water.

Seki rinsed, and as he did, another older recruit from Alpha team C walked in wearing a large black costume shaped like a fat rhinoceros standing on two legs, its head was a hood over the recruit’s oown head. The recruit smelled of old rancid sweat and earth. Seki didn’t mind it. This was a normal thing around here. The recruit was a puppeteer-in-training, a soldier like Axel who wrap themselves in their nu and wear it like an armor with appendages that are usually huge and are used to grapple with large shades, or travel easily over buildings, leaping, jumping, and climbing. Each person’s nu takes a specific form sometime in their childhood, always it is in the form of something that made a big impact during that time in their lives, so usually for boys, nus take on the form of animals, weapons, soldiers, or the heroes in stories and plays, and each person is encouraged to develop a shadow skill close to the form of their nu. \When they were children, their nu looked blobby, S.O.L. trains them to give their nu a proper sturdy shape that’s useful and effective, and part of the training includes bringing a sample of what you want your nu to look like everywhere you go, and that meant during training, getting all sweaty, and most of the older guys didn’t have time to wash their costumes or “nu suits”, and so they usually smell a lot and people avoid some who are really stinky. Seki’s item was a sword and shield, he was only allowed to remove them when he was sleeping or when he is told to by his masters. Right now, he didn’t bring it because he believed carrying the heavy shield around was making him short, and as for the sword, he was too sleepy to care. Besides, there was no one around to scold him.