Setting the bedrolls into the proper places and correctly took a little more time than he expected, both because they were no convenient modern equivalents where customer satisfaction(plus ergonomy) was the highest priority and because he had never gone camping in his life. Not that he didn't want to, just that he was always too busy doing something to really get into it, well at least he had figured out how they were supposed to be set just as the dinner was announced. Then he was pleasantly surprised when Zell decided to take the initiative and propose a sound strategic placement for all of them going forward, he had been toying with the idea of doing this but had shelved it as he didn't know how to breach the subject without sounding like an asshole giving orders (Which Zell somehow avoided, fucking charisma!).
He pointed at the triangle. "Lillianna, Adam, James. You guys need to be here." Then he pointed at the X's. "Fenna, MacKensie, you position yourselves on either side of our wizards. As Rangers, you can shoot too, but your speed and melee weapons mean you can take a bit of contact, defend yourselves and the magic users should any enemies get through our formation."
Yeah that made sense, he surprised himself by fighting against a few of the skeletons and winning but that was mostly because the skeletons were literally a bag of bones without a single muscle or any technique, against any other stronger opponent (
cough ogers
cough) he had been THE bag of bones without a single muscle or any technique and that was not an experience he wished to repeat. He had to admit Zell was surprising him by being this thoughtful, he hadn't taken the guy as an idiot or anything but it felt good to know someone else was watching out for the formations and the flow of human resources.
Satisfied he took a swing of his waterskin-
"Our most important piece of this formation is our Cleric: James," he grinned at James, knowing this might make him uncomfortable. "James is the only one who can use healing magic, which makes him key to all of us surviving battles. And perhaps more importantly; he's proven himself a capable leader in battle. He has a voice loud and strong enough that even hardened soldiers will listen to. And he has the level-headedness and wits and make good tactical decisions in middle of a chaotic battle." Zell pointed at the traingle again. "Here James can see everyone and everything, we can all hear him and he can make adjustments to our focus or our direction mid-battle."
"COUGH COUGH!!!"-Then started coughing as the water flowed the wrong way at Zell's next words, glaring at the bastard as he tried to communicate his desire for seeing his demise while trying to get his breathing under control, fuck the praise, he could see the asshole's grin and knew that he had been played then swore under his breath as his mind caught on, even if he had some reservations against going for the position of a battle strategist he had to admit it would be good to be recognized as such, in the previous battle they were all disorganized and even though they had won a lot of people had died.
The faces of the guards who followed him flashed through his mind.Grimacing he contemplated another piece of information, Zell had called him and cleric and with the whole blessing/priestly robes+accesories/magic thing it wasn't difficult to arrive at some conclusions, even more so when he looked around him to his fellow weirdos and if focused saw walking tropes instead of people, he never thought that agreeing to watch a few anime shows with his cousin would someday come in handy but here he was, man if she knew she would be livid, she was always the one who talked about what she would do if it happened to her.
Was she okay?Angrily he snatche-
FIREPAINDEATH carefully he grabbed one of the fish sticks and brought it to his mouth, at least the food was fresh, then he started listening to the conversations around him until one of them caught his attention. So the woman with the Falcon (Hawk? bird of pray?) wanted to set a watch through the night? Yeah, he could get behind that, it seemed like a good idea and the last thing this shitty day needed was a shitty night. As Mac volunteered to take the last watch he also offered and talked to the group in equal measure.
"I can take the watch in the middle if anyone wants to join me" Saying so he got to his feet and then started moving towards the stream.
"If anyone needs me I will be in the stream trying to make sense of the magic thingy on my head" -----------------------------------------------
The water of the stream was uncomfortably cold and his ankles didn't appreciate it, good thing he remembered to enter in just his small clothes so his robes weren't at risk of getting wet.
"Okay, Mr. voice in my head, I know you helped me last time and I am thankful for it, really I am, but telling someone to go jump in a river it's not a great way of explaining things!" He waited for a second for a response but sighed once it was clear that none would come, okay that only left the other option, before he could think and postpone it he started running towards the deeper part before jumping once he was sure it was enough to submerge him.
"Shit, shit, shit, this was a bad idea, this was a bad idea!" Of course it was at that point that he felt the symbol on his soul that represented the blessing start to, for a lack of a better term, fill up. At the rate it was filling up it was likely going to take him an hour to reach maximum and quick exiting and reentering at the stream told him that the charge didn't accumulate so he was going to be forced to spend the next hour inside the cold waters submerged to his chest.
Verga!