Post by Wolfe on Jul 12, 2019 20:25:50 GMT -5
Frankly, there were a number of different helpful roles that anyone could play when it came to a situation like this where all the licensed Huntsmen were out of the city. While a good chunk of the class was on the Argus Limited at this moment, with the constant influx of new students into Haven there were those that were too new to get a faculty member to okay them going or self-selected out of the mission entirely. For the former, it was literally just paperwork preventing them from having a choice on where to go. For the latter, well, there were only some other students who looked down on them for self-selecting out. The official messaging was that there was no shame in doing so if the trainee wasn’t confident in their skills, but the fact of the matter was that teenagers would be teenagers.
Still, to be part of a Huntsman Academy came with certain responsibilities. Funnily enough, those responsibilities included helping out on the entire city effort when the entire city was in danger. They would stay in the city limits and essentially be there mostly to provide aid to the police and local militia in case any attack slipped through the attacking force. Nobody quite knew exactly what the bandits had at their disposal and given that their force was an order of magnitude bigger than the comparatively small group of licensed Huntsmen that were going out to drive them off it was more than possible that stragglers would break off in any which direction. There was also a high probability of at least some Grimm being attracted to the area, which meant that they needed all hands on deck since all the Huntsmen were off in the offensive.
The entire city was boarded up at this point, with the only people out on the street being armed citizens, law enforcement, and huntsman trainees. The Mistral Police Department, frankly speaking, did not have enough manpower to adequately defend the entire perimeter of the city. They asked for help in manning some of the gates, and both local militia forces and Haven Academy answered that call by sending out groups. The main gate was fully defended by the police, but there was a lot of area to cover given that the capital had sprawled to encompass a large portion of both mountains. A lot of area meant a lot of gates, and a lot of gates meant a lot of people needed to cover those gates to ensure neither bandits nor Grimm got inside the city.
The gate that the trainees were defending by themselves was not one of the major ones, and indeed was just a side gate that the police couldn’t spare the manpower to defend due to the lower probability of it being hit by humans or any Atlas bots they managed to get operational… but they still needed to be manned in case it was attacked by Grimm. There was no telling what kind might be nearby, and for that purpose every trainee was given a radio in order to call for backup if they encountered too much resistance for them to handle themselves and to report being attacked in the first place. Men could be rotated pre-emptively if, for example, every attack was coming from the west and the entire east side was untouched.
The trainees were stationed on top of the gate along the wall, where there was a walkway that was wide enough for two averaged sized people to stand shoulder to shoulder if they squeezed in a bit. The walls were made of thick stone, and the gate itself was latticed metal operated by a winch that was located in what looked to be the guard outpost used to check papers and the like. They were assigned to the outpost until the licensed Huntsmen came back and were already out there for several hours. The Huntsmen all moved out before dawn and the trainees had been at their post since around that time. It was currently approaching noon, and absolutely nothing had happened thus far except perhaps the beginning of some sunburn if the trainees had not prepared for the sun.
They were stationed on the north side of the mountain, away from the direction of the bandit camp. This was considered one of the cushier and safer locations, but since gate assignment was done via random draw aside from the main ones it wasn’t as if the students had picked their deployment themselves. Scouting from this side was minimal, though, since all resources the past few weeks were spent on getting intelligence on the bandit camp. That meant that if there were any packs of Grimm nearby, nobody had any idea and it would be the job of the trainees to at best take them out if they decided to come or at worst stall for long enough for backup to arrive.
Due to the state of emergency that the city had been under for months, fortifications were already built up around the city and particular on each wall. Even a tertiary wall like this one had a turret installed which was a three barrel rotary machine gun. It was belt fed with the sole belt of ammunition containing two hundred rounds. This was enough for the gun to fire for about twenty-five seconds at full blast without running out of ammo, which wasn’t a lot. There was no resupply if the gun went empty, largely because the city felt anything deemed ‘extra’ should be spent on the gates most likely to see combat on the other end of the city.
How the students deployed, frankly, was up to them. They weren’t going to be micromanaged to that degree, but the fact of the matter was that since the north side was less defended any Grimm or stragglers who made it past the gate would be able to wreak havoc for much longer without a response than a similar situation in the south. While it was not the glorious sort of mission that storming the bandit camp would be, it was a critical sort of job nevertheless that ensured the protection of the civilians within the city walls from all directions. Whether it felt like it or not, they were doing a service to their Kingdom just by sitting there and suffering in the sun.
Still, to be part of a Huntsman Academy came with certain responsibilities. Funnily enough, those responsibilities included helping out on the entire city effort when the entire city was in danger. They would stay in the city limits and essentially be there mostly to provide aid to the police and local militia in case any attack slipped through the attacking force. Nobody quite knew exactly what the bandits had at their disposal and given that their force was an order of magnitude bigger than the comparatively small group of licensed Huntsmen that were going out to drive them off it was more than possible that stragglers would break off in any which direction. There was also a high probability of at least some Grimm being attracted to the area, which meant that they needed all hands on deck since all the Huntsmen were off in the offensive.
The entire city was boarded up at this point, with the only people out on the street being armed citizens, law enforcement, and huntsman trainees. The Mistral Police Department, frankly speaking, did not have enough manpower to adequately defend the entire perimeter of the city. They asked for help in manning some of the gates, and both local militia forces and Haven Academy answered that call by sending out groups. The main gate was fully defended by the police, but there was a lot of area to cover given that the capital had sprawled to encompass a large portion of both mountains. A lot of area meant a lot of gates, and a lot of gates meant a lot of people needed to cover those gates to ensure neither bandits nor Grimm got inside the city.
The gate that the trainees were defending by themselves was not one of the major ones, and indeed was just a side gate that the police couldn’t spare the manpower to defend due to the lower probability of it being hit by humans or any Atlas bots they managed to get operational… but they still needed to be manned in case it was attacked by Grimm. There was no telling what kind might be nearby, and for that purpose every trainee was given a radio in order to call for backup if they encountered too much resistance for them to handle themselves and to report being attacked in the first place. Men could be rotated pre-emptively if, for example, every attack was coming from the west and the entire east side was untouched.
The trainees were stationed on top of the gate along the wall, where there was a walkway that was wide enough for two averaged sized people to stand shoulder to shoulder if they squeezed in a bit. The walls were made of thick stone, and the gate itself was latticed metal operated by a winch that was located in what looked to be the guard outpost used to check papers and the like. They were assigned to the outpost until the licensed Huntsmen came back and were already out there for several hours. The Huntsmen all moved out before dawn and the trainees had been at their post since around that time. It was currently approaching noon, and absolutely nothing had happened thus far except perhaps the beginning of some sunburn if the trainees had not prepared for the sun.
They were stationed on the north side of the mountain, away from the direction of the bandit camp. This was considered one of the cushier and safer locations, but since gate assignment was done via random draw aside from the main ones it wasn’t as if the students had picked their deployment themselves. Scouting from this side was minimal, though, since all resources the past few weeks were spent on getting intelligence on the bandit camp. That meant that if there were any packs of Grimm nearby, nobody had any idea and it would be the job of the trainees to at best take them out if they decided to come or at worst stall for long enough for backup to arrive.
Due to the state of emergency that the city had been under for months, fortifications were already built up around the city and particular on each wall. Even a tertiary wall like this one had a turret installed which was a three barrel rotary machine gun. It was belt fed with the sole belt of ammunition containing two hundred rounds. This was enough for the gun to fire for about twenty-five seconds at full blast without running out of ammo, which wasn’t a lot. There was no resupply if the gun went empty, largely because the city felt anything deemed ‘extra’ should be spent on the gates most likely to see combat on the other end of the city.
How the students deployed, frankly, was up to them. They weren’t going to be micromanaged to that degree, but the fact of the matter was that since the north side was less defended any Grimm or stragglers who made it past the gate would be able to wreak havoc for much longer without a response than a similar situation in the south. While it was not the glorious sort of mission that storming the bandit camp would be, it was a critical sort of job nevertheless that ensured the protection of the civilians within the city walls from all directions. Whether it felt like it or not, they were doing a service to their Kingdom just by sitting there and suffering in the sun.
1067 words.
Posting this a bit early to give early signups the opportunity to get their first posts out of the way a bit earlier than planned. The next narration post will be made on the 22nd at the latest per usual event rules to allow everyone a 48h window to post. Posting timers will not start until the 15th, and if all posts of the first round are completed before the 22nd the posting timer will extend for that round for each person equivalent to the amount of time saved.
For example, if the cycle is completed on midnight on the 20th you would have completed the turn two days ‘early’. That gives all four participants a 12 hour bonus to their posting time in the next turn, so it will be 60 hours instead of the regular 48h. Missed timers result in skips and multiple no notice skips will endanger the ability to collect the Event Point reward at the end. Signing up to a group thread is a commitment, frankly, and this entire section is basically just a reiteration of what is said on the signup thread.
Posting this a bit early to give early signups the opportunity to get their first posts out of the way a bit earlier than planned. The next narration post will be made on the 22nd at the latest per usual event rules to allow everyone a 48h window to post. Posting timers will not start until the 15th, and if all posts of the first round are completed before the 22nd the posting timer will extend for that round for each person equivalent to the amount of time saved.
For example, if the cycle is completed on midnight on the 20th you would have completed the turn two days ‘early’. That gives all four participants a 12 hour bonus to their posting time in the next turn, so it will be 60 hours instead of the regular 48h. Missed timers result in skips and multiple no notice skips will endanger the ability to collect the Event Point reward at the end. Signing up to a group thread is a commitment, frankly, and this entire section is basically just a reiteration of what is said on the signup thread.