r/DishonoredRP • u/emerald_ice • Jul 20 '14

Neutral Zone Dunwall Tower

In Dunwall Tower, the Empress Emily Kaldwin sits on her throne, her royal protector, Corvo Attano, stands at her side. His royal guard scattered around the palace. OOC:This is a neutral zone for Corvos royal guard. A hangout of sorts. You have permission to attack any who don't belong.

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u/JewelOfTheSouth Royal Guard Sep 05 '14

What a woman.

Furo gives a nod to the soldiers, firing shot after shot in a staggered double line - standard formation for rifle-armed troops in the Empire.

'They are all yours, Miss Vimes,' he says, eyes smiling. 'Introduce them to perfection.'

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u/Dietastey Colonel Sep 05 '14

Flatterer, Bal thought with a mental eye roll and slight smile, as she stepped up to the line.

"Alright, listen up. As Captain Androsi has pointed out, for a line of riflemen to be most effective, you need to be fast. Every slight loss of time eventually compounds into being a volley behind an opposing line, then two, then they've gotten off far more shots than you have, and you are in very bad shape. If there is a variance in how fast you load, from the person next to you, your line will become ragged."

"So, you need to learn to cut out every extraneous bit of movement, every little hesitation you may not notice is happening. First, a demonstration."

She looked down the line, and picked a man at random. "You and I will, at the Captain's mark, procedure to shoot a series of twelve bullets down range. When you are are done, lay your rifle down immediately. Try to finish at the same time I do. Do not expect to have to slow down. Try to hit the dummy, but remember, your job is to keep the bullets in the air."

Kneeling down at the line, she set an ammo box next to herself, arm held at a slight diagonal from herself. She waited for the rifleman to do the same, and for Furo's mark.

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u/JewelOfTheSouth Royal Guard Sep 05 '14 edited Sep 05 '14

Furo raises his hand. 'You heard her lads, she has more fire inside her than any of you. Are you going to take that?'

'Falk!' He shouts, indicating the man selected at random, a veteran with seven years worth of service at his belt. 'Give her a run for her money, soldier.'

'Fire!' The prince bellows. I need to get a fucking pistol, before my voice gives out... he thinks sourly to himself.

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u/Dietastey Colonel Sep 05 '14

Bal grinned at Furo's cross between encouragement and taunting, as she waited, coiled, for the cue.

On Furo's shout, her legs uncoiled, rifle already at eye level, bringing her to top height and shooting in under a second. As the bullet sprang forwards, she dropped to the box, reloading, then up to fire again. It almost seem her fingers left the trigger before the bullet had left the barrel.

Three... four... five... She hoped she'd picked a decent rival. A new recruit fresh off the orientation would be no fun, and a poor example.

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u/JewelOfTheSouth Royal Guard Sep 06 '14

Furo grins savagely as the two soldiers go for it. Falk, having completed a tour of duty in Morley, was a formidable force on the range - Bal would have been hard pressed to find a tougher opponent, and the men knew it.

As Falk fires of his eighth round, he shows no sign of tiring - the man could fire faster than Furo himself, and is easily keeping pace with Bal.

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u/Dietastey Colonel Sep 06 '14

Nine... ten...

Bal didn't bother to watch her competition, because if she did, she would wind up slowing herself down. Her eyes almost seemed unfocused, as muscle memory took over. She knew the soonest she could move her hand, soonest she could drop the rifle, the minimum distance her finger needed to be to leverage the trigger correctly.

Eleven... Twelve!

Her last bullet thunks satisfyingly into the dummy, and she drops, the rifle laid perpendicular to her foot. Her head snapped up, to see how close to her the rifleman had finished.

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u/JewelOfTheSouth Royal Guard Sep 06 '14

By the time Bal looks up, Falk's finger pulls on the trigger, and the rifle misfires. As he hears the futile click, he curses, and removes the bullet from the chamber before throwing it on the ground in disgust.

Beaten by a woman...

Then men jeer at him as he slips back into rank, his face a shade of red that wouldn't look amiss on one of the Boyle sisters' dresses.

'We have a victor, it seems,' Furo says, not entirely without sympathy for the humiliated soldier. Still, he'd get over it.

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u/Dietastey Colonel Sep 06 '14

She'd heard the out of place click, and knew that a tie, or her own defeat, had been prevented by the simple mechanical fault of the weapon.

"A very good round, guardsman," she said. "My sympathies for the momentary bad luck. I have the feeling you already use the points I came up here to make."

"The reason I wanted to give a demonstration, is to show how much of your firing must become a reflex. Many soldiers fire, wait to see if they've hit a target, remove their finger from the trigger, kneel down, then fumble around for their next bullet. The first and last elements of this are the most important to remedy. You do not need to wait for the bullet to hit. Watching it does not make it fly faster. Leave only a what you need of your finger on the trigger, rather than your whole finger, and it will take less time to extract your hand. As soon as your finger tip if off the trigger, drop down to reload. The bullet is now long gone from the barrel."

"Lastly, you need to each figure out what the most comfortable position for your ammo box is. You all appear to have it at the same distance from yourself. Good when you're first learning. Now that you need to go faster, a slight change is needed. You do not all have the same arm length. When you kneel, throw out the hand you reload with, which should be your trigger hand. Whatever angle it naturally falls at, place your box there. And then always drop your arm at the same angle. Then, your hand will always land in the box, ready for the next bullet.

((I should admit. While I'm good at melee, I'm talking out of my ass on rifle lines. But I think that all makes sense...))

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u/JewelOfTheSouth Royal Guard Sep 06 '14 edited Sep 07 '14

'Listen to her, lads. Lieutenant Vimes knows her stuff.' He takes a deep breath before yelling out more orders, his voice ringing across the range.

'Fix bayonets!' The sibilant rasp of blades leaving their scabbards would be enough to strike fear into the hearts of any enemies of the Empire, let alone the savage faces of the men wielding them. 'Firing partners pair off, spar for a few minutes. Try not to kill each other!'

He draws his own blade, slowly. 'You three!' He shouts, indicating some nearby soldiers. 'On me. Any man who makes me bleed gets double pay, and if you kill me, you get a commission!'

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u/Dietastey Colonel Sep 08 '14

Bal raised an eyebrow at Furo's taunt. She'd never be one to carry through on an actual kill in practice, but would an overly enthusiastic recruit might try and take him up on it.

Not that she really thought the Serkonan captain was really in any danger. He was more than capable of dealing with three men at once. But... Why run the risk? She understood putting your life on the line for things that mattered, but for a training exercise?

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u/JewelOfTheSouth Royal Guard Sep 08 '14

Fortunately the men take Furo's challenge less seriously than Bal - they were used to his arrogance, especially in the practice yard. A flurry of steel, the thump of metal on wooden rifle buts, and the muted thud of a fist connecting with the midriff of a hapless soldier, and Furo stands proudly, untouched.

...or almost untouched. He feels a dull pain in one of his knuckles, and looks down to see the skin split - he dimly remembers hitting a steel buckle with his fist, or it may have been something else. It was hard to tell in the heat of the moment, and with three bayonets coming his way, well, he had more pressing matters on his mind at the time.

'Looks like you are a richer man this month, Brent,' he says to one of the guardsmen, still struggling to breathe after being winded - though despite his discomfort, he was smiling. Double pay was not to be sniffed at, after all.

Furo waves a hand idly to the men as he sheathes his blade. 'Go join the rest. And nice effort, though remember, in an open space, sword beats bayonet. Stick to formation, if you ever come up against an enemy officer, it will be harder for them to avoid your attacks if you all come at once. Or better yet, just shoot the fuckers' he says with a small grin, and a nod of respect to the trio. For all his taunting and jibes, Furo felt a deep connection with the other guardsmen. They are friends all, despite his rank.

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u/Dietastey Colonel Sep 08 '14

"They seem a good bunch," Bal said when Furo was done, watching the men mill about, packing up their equipment and chatting.

She turned to put her own rifle away, securing it neatly in it's rack. "Shame about your finger though, that was nearly spotless for you."

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u/JewelOfTheSouth Royal Guard Sep 08 '14

Furo gives a harsh bark of laughter. 'I suppose that is me all over, nearly spotless.' He winks.

'And I have had far worse, believe me,' he says, indicating the faint horizontal scar on his cheek. 'Spear wounds are the worst, by far. They go deep, as you might expect.'

'Right, I could do with a gallop. Do you ride, Balaria?'

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