Chapter 2
Join the Army of Darkness
After a few minutes, all of your neighbors are out of their houses. The room now holds about thirty pawns, some with hats, some without. The hatted pawns seem to know what they're doing. The ones that freed you beckon for you to follow them. As such, you and your neighbors follow the new pawns through the big metal door. You turn back and look at the big tank with the knight inside. Nope. He's not ready yet.
You find yourself and the procession marching through a long hallway. You walk beside your friend from the other room. You raise a hand in greeting. He responds in kind. You look around the hallway as you walk. More houses similar to your own contain other creatures. They might be other pawns, but then again they might not be. Whatever they are, they don't look like they're ready. You've been around other pawns long enough to get a pretty good idea of what a creature should look like. You're not sure, but you think that two heads on one guy isn't a very good idea. These guys may never be ready.
You turn to your friend. He's still gazing at the variety of creatures in their houses. He turns to you and shrugs. You shrug back. Damned if you know what these guys are.
After roughly 48 paces from the start of the hallway, (or roughly 67 paces since leaving your house) you all come to another metal door. It opens to let you all through, and then closes again once the last pawn has passed. It must have opened because it wanted you all to go through.
The room you are in now has sort of a raised platform on the far wall. Hanging above the platform, as well as on the sides of some square columns, are a whole bunch of purple banners and flags. You mean, these things are EVERYWHERE in this room. On each of them is a black upside-down pentagon. You quite like this pentagon. Its shape, its color… it actually looks to you like a nice design for a house. Your mind briefly flashes back to memories of your current (former?) house. Maybe a little bit bigger, and with five sides. That would work quite nicely, you think.
Standing on the raised platform is a large guy in robes. He's a lot taller than you, you think. You say you think because it's hard to tell with him on his raised platform like that. It's about four or five paces high. Is that what leaders are supposed to do? Stand tall above their subjects and give commands? You wonder if the guy will give you a command to follow.
As the procession approaches the platform, you are able to get a closer look at the robed guy. They are nice robes indeed, you think. All purple and fancy. You behold his robes for a while, then shift your gaze to the rest of his persona. His hat, like his robes, is of the same deep purple as the flags and banners adorning the hall. The hat itself is pretty tall; it looks to be a little more than half your height. The guy is also holding a purple scepter in both hands. Wait. Not a scepter. Just a regular staff, with a curled top. Course it's just a staff. Only kings have scepters. You know this for a fact. And that guy is not the King. You never thought he was, not even for one second. You're pretty darn sure you'd know your own King when you saw him, and THAT isn't him. He still ranks above you, though. Just look at his hat!
The hatted pawns stand in a square formation to the guy's right. You and your hatless friends stand in a similar formation to the guy's left. The guy approaches the edge of the platform. You can see his shoes if you look straight ahead. He motions to the hatted pawns. He points them in the direction of the door to his right. The guy motions to your group. He points you to the door to his left. He then raises his staff high in the air with his right hand, then brings it down onto the platform with speed. A resounding, high-pitched "clonk" rings through the hall. The hatted pawns salute the guy, turn, salute your group, turn back around, and march out of the door as instructed. You feel inclined to salute them back as they leave, and apparently so does the rest of your group. You all proceed to salute the robed guy, then turn to your right and march out of the door.
You are in another hallway. This one has no creatures living in it, it's really quite bare. Just the same dull purple metal as far as the eye can see. The hallway is quite narrow, only about six paces across. The ceiling, though, looks to be at least ten paces above your head.
You think your procession is quite orderly. You all sort of shifted into a four by four square formation as you walked. The other pawns are only about a pace from you on either side. You are surrounded on all four sides by pawns, with your buddy at your left side. Everyone has the same stride length, one pace. It's not hard at all to keep up with the pawn in front of you, and the pawn on your six keeps perfect distance behind you. You feel that if you stopped at any time, the guy behind you wouldn't even bump into you. He'd just stop at the same distance behind you he has kept since you started marching. But you wouldn't stop marching without cause. Then you'd be responsible for a break in formation, and you could get everyone in trouble for being late.
With each pace your party advances, you hear a single "clang" from each carapaced foot stepping on the metal floor in unison. You like to walk at a certain speed, and you guess everyone else likes that speed, too.
Twenty-six paces. Twenty-seven paces. Twenty-eight paces. Twenty-nine paces. Thirty paces. Thirty-one paces. Thirty-two paces. You step through the open door, following the guy in front of you as usual.
This room is much wider than the hallway. The ceiling's a lot lower, too. Low walls run along the length of one section, such that the section is divided into six lanes.
Greeting you at the door is a slightly taller-than-normal pawn. His hat is more round than the regular pawns' hats, and has a brim that comes forward in sort of a semicircle. He also has a large black star pinned on his uniform. Must be a captain or something. He salutes your group as you enter. Your group stops in front of him and returns the salute. He directs your attention to a sign on the ceiling to his right. It depicts two pawns. One is in uniform, the other is naked. The pawn with the uniform has some sort of handheld device and is holding the left arm of the naked pawn. A red light is coming out of the device and onto the naked pawn's wrist.
The tall pawn uses both arms to indicate the line of pawns on your left, and points them to the second lane. The four of them salute, and then march to line up in the lane. The pawn then indicates your line, and points you to the third lane. You salute, and follow the pawn in front of you to lane three.
The lane is about two paces wide, that is to say, two pawns could wait in line side-by-side with a good amount of elbow room. Your line proceeds down the right-hand side of the lane. The low walls give way to desks on either side of the lane with little black boxes on them. A uniformed pawn is sitting at the desk on the right, and he beckons the pawn in front of you. He approaches the desk as asked, and you step forward a pace to take his place. You can see your friend a few paces to your left; he seems to be going through a similar process.
The pawn at the desk beckons you to approach. You step up to the desk and salute him. He has a handheld device in his right hand. He points to the grid of lines on your wrist. He gives you a reassuring look as you put your left wrist on the desk. This won't hurt a bit, he seems to say.
A red light shines on your wrist. You hear a beep coming from the pawn's desk-box. A little window on the box shows a picture of you. You find it funny, because before, the window showed a picture of the pawn in front of you. You were able to get a good look at him when you were all in your houses, and that was definitely him. Now the picture is definitely of you. You'd gotten a good look at your reflection, and you'd know that ogle anywhere. A bunch of little letters and numbers are on the right side of the picture, but you can't get a good look at them. There's a big number underneath your picture, though. It reads "#00002323." Twenty-three-twenty-three. You think it has a nice ring to it. You're pretty sure you saw the other guy's number, too, before the picture changed. It was #00002319.
You proceed out of the laned section of the room. More uniformed pawns are waiting in this part of the room. Two of them are showing #2319 how to get into a uniform. You get very excited. You feel like you're in the middle of becoming part of something very big and cool! Wearing hats, following orders, and maybe even going on adventures!
A pawn approaches you, and you decide to get a good look at his uniform. The left side of it has deep purple and light purple in a checkerboard pattern, and the right side of it is solid red. The top part, around the collar, is a solid, light purple cloth, a separate piece of clothing, with a black, upside-down pentagon on it. A white emblem is in the middle of the pentagon. It looks like an upside-down capital T with a horizontal line through it halfway up. The hats are sort of oval-ey, worn with the sharp bits on the front and back of the head. The uniforms are of varying color and pattern, but light purple, deep purple, red, orange and green seem to dominate, with pink and purple for the collar-cloths. Hats share the same color scheme as the main uniform, sans collar-cloth.
In the pawn's hands are a purple-and-red uniform, a light purple collar-cloth, and a green-and-orange hat. You are getting pretty close to flipping the fuck out with excitement. A second pawn comes up and takes the main piece of the uniform from the first. He throws it over your head, and pulls it down for you. Your head fits right into a hole in the uniform, with smaller holes at the sides for your arms. Easy enough to put on, and comfortable to wear.
It's a perfect fit. The collar cloth is next, it just goes over your head and comes down the front and back. Just a rectangular cloth with a hole in it, really.
After the collar cloth comes the hat. You grab it from the pawn, and put it on your head. They don't seem to mind. It's hard to tell, but you think they're smiling. One of them pats you on the back, and gives you a thumbs-up. Welcome to the team, brother.
Since there is no immediate need to move out until all of your neighbors have gotten through, you find your friend again. You raise a claw in greeting, and approach him. He's wearing a uniform pretty similar to yours, but not exactly. The collar cloth is the same light purple, but his main uniform is just solid purple on the right side and solid red on the left side. His hat has a green brim and the rest of it is solid orange. You're both looking pretty darn spiffy.
He raises his claw back to you. You raise both your arms out to show off the new uniform. His head goes back a little in silent laughter, his blunt teeth visible in a broad smile. You shake his hand, because you feel that's what friends should do when they become friends. You gesture to all this. The desks, the boxes, the lanes, the banners, the uniforms, the pawns, the hats. You want to know what he thinks of it all. He glances around, a little nervously. You think you understand. You want to know what it's all about, too. The King must have some reason for putting you all through this process. Something he wants you all to do. Whatever it is, you think it's going to be an adventure.
Welcome to the team, brother.
