Caleb would always be willing to trade stories, so long as they didn't go too far back. He'd be willing to talk to anyone who asks, and regale them with mostly war stories. This is probably the one he'd tell first. (Sorry if it goes a little long, I just kinda started going and when I was done I realized I'd written three paragraphs of text.)



[hider=Caleb's War Story]

     "I spent some time as a junior officer in his majesty King Andrew VII's army. He knew my family, and they decided I had the courage and drive to lead a few men. So one day, a few lords on the eastern periphery decided that they didn't want to be ruled over anymore, because they didn't appreciate the king shutting down some sources of their income by making them illegal. Mostly because he thought they were either morally wrong or counter-productive to the welfare of the nation. Selling debtors into slavery was one, and making the consumption of poppy seeds illegal was another. He tried to make up for it by reducing the import and export taxes on booze, but that didn't sway them enough and they rebelled. So naturally, the king sends out a few battalions to go sort them out and restore order to the eastern periphery, my company of medium cavalry being amongst them."

     "We weren't an elite unit, just around a hundred young men with armor and horses who were supposed to cover the flanks of the heavy cavalry line. None of us had been to war, and I was the only one who had seen what battle really looks like. They were all excited and I figured only a complete idiot would try to take on the king's army, so we weren't expecting a fight. Maybe a few diehard soldiers who'd get cut down like grass. Imagine our surprise when one morning, while on the march, several full volleys of arrows start falling from the sky. The old vet in charge of out company caught one to the throat immediately, and we lost about a fifth of the guys in my company alone. I guessed where they were coming from, but it was chaos. I knew we couldn't just stay here though. So, I shouted the panicking kids that made up the company into order, and we charged towards were the arrows came from."

     "It was a ragged formation, but the other units saw us and decided they weren't gonna get shown up by a bunch of green cavalrymen with more courage than sense. That charge was bloody, and when we broke from the trees, we saw the archers in time for them to lose another volley. That one was brutal, took a third of us down, and a couple arrows hit me as I had become the tip of the spear at that point. One in my right shoulder, another in my left thigh. But I wasn't gonna let something like that stop me. So I yelled 'For the king!' and couched my lance. The others echoed by cry, and we hit the line. My lance hit the enemy line so hard it shattered. So I dropped it, I drew my sword and started slashing out any anything that wasn't wearing the king's colors. I remember someone brained me with a mace, then waking to a cleric patching my wounds the next morning. Maybe twenty of us from my unit survived, but the other units hadn't taken too many casualties because our actions got them to shut up and charge instead of having captains and nobles bicker about tactics while we were getting shot at. Of course Baron Marcus, who was leading the army, took the credit for ordering the charge and I was bitter at first. But he didn't forget my actions, then and later, or my silence as to who did what in his stories. He was thanked me for my valor at one point, and was kind enough to give me a parting gift when I left his command." He then knocks his breastplate as he finished his story.
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