TRAINING AND LIFESTYLE

For his initiation ceremony, the new Knight is brought to the "secret headquarters" of the Knights of Acacia. Generally, potentials are led to this place blind – no matter how they travel, Acacia will devise a method of keeping the knight "blind" or cast a spell so that, upon arriving at their destination, he has no idea where he is. The "secret headquarters" is actually located in a very tiny, medieval-type town in the middle of nowhere, which is known to its inhabitants (and not many beyond its borders) as Ayrton. The entire town - village may be more fair - has a population under 200 people. Much to the surprise of many of the newly initiated Knights, the townspeople seem utterly unfazed by the sudden appearance of dragons not only in the surrounding forests but at times walking down to the baker's - it seems at times as though the whole town is in on Acacia's "Little Secret." The smith and tanners are happy to provide any necessary armour or padding; the ferrier seems to be particularly skilled, somehow, at designing armour particularly suited to dragons.

How this town came to know of and support Acacia's scheme is unknown; equally uncertain is the amount of information possessed by most of the townsmen. As such, the Knights - who tend to be kept in the dark quite often themselves - are generally inclined not to discuss matters of "business" with anyone but their fellows.

The lifestyle of the Knights is a simple one:

Those who can work are instructed to. If you had a skill before joining, you are damn well expected to use it. With such a small population, the town welcomes any additional hands, whether they be apt at carpentry, sewing, or even just waiting tables. It's not hard to find employment in Ayrton. The locals tend to be very friendly, helpful, and seemingly openminded. In addition to working, Knights are expected to train with every available moment of their time. Of course, not all of them do this - The Raven's Beak is the only pub in town for a reason, its ale can't be beat - and those who chose to "waste" their time in such a manner are often met with a rather reproachful attitude from Acacia.

Acacia participates actively in the training sessions, often scheduling one-on-ones with each individual, but she does not socialize with the Knights. At all. She will converse with you if she must, but she avoids idle chitchat and refuses to speak of herself, her past, or her motives. She wears a hooded cloak at all times outside the village, as though terrified of her true identity being leaked - if questioned about this, she will snap that if Empire Corp were to have even the smallest thing to go in in regards to her appearance or past, it would be the start of the biggest Witch Hunt in the nation. Additionally, despite her confidence in those she's chosen, she claims she can never be completely sure any of them are not Empire's spies (willingly or not), and acts accordingly. As you can imagine, this isn't terribly helpful in raising the troop's morale. She encourages the Knights to keep their eyes and ears open and, though it's hardly a state of martial law, the atmosphere could be friendlier. Most Knights think she's paranoid, but they are careful not to say more than is necessary to the villagers, lest they incur Acacia's wrath later.

Still, the gig is a pretty sweet one - free room and board at The Raven's Beak, or rather the old Inn next door, a fairly nice environment, and the opportunity to kick ass and take names. Of course, some of the Knights - those who came from more "technologically-minded" locales, let's say - may be bored to tears, but them's the breaks.

Of course, they always have their dragons to look after, fly with, and generally amuse themselves with.

Knights are instructed to be extremely careful when flying, though there's a rather fair amount of forest and farmland between Ayrton and the next nearest village. As a matter of fact, there's an incredibly dense forest - the Ayruinn (air-win) - rather close to the town, which is the reason no one else has settled around there - it's not a very friendly place. However, it does make an excellent place to hide a bunch of big scaly beasts, and provides a great obstacle course for flight practice if you're foolhardy enough to even attempt taking off inside.

Acacia, as mentioned, is more absent than not, and tends to be gone for long periods of time "scouting" and finding new Knights. Very, very occassionally she will take a Knight or two with her on a "mission" of some sort, but most of these so far have resulted in small-scale attacks on Empire Corp's manufacturing plants. She says she wants to amass more Knights before attacking any major cities, since she knows at this point they're too few to be able to afford any casualties. (Not a very comforting thought.)

In any case, once she has a fair number of Knights on her side, she'll finally fill them in on The Plan - the big one, the series of carefully planned attacks which, she hopes, will bring the Empire Coropration, and Leopold Kingsley, to their knees.

In the meantime, the Knights are just hoping Ayruinn Forest doesn't run out of deer.