Into the Dragon's Maw - A Soldier's Terror

My name is Sëan Ollimur, APh-61125-LGR-5AF; hoplite of Alexander’s glorious New Empyraen Army, may he soon return! I feel like a gamin korakun of a man right now but know I'm a rigger for life, short and terrifying though that life is like to be!

I was born, as a man usually is, to my mother and father many years ago….do I have to start like this…I. Well I feel like an eejit, so. OK. OK, but I sound like a right lemb! Fine…here we go, sorry….

I was born hundreds of feet beneath the surface of the Moon, in a city or complex very few people outside of us as lives here even knows about. Big secret, you see, apparently, the Hèg himself gave the Order of Silence to me great-granddad - Navarch Seamus Ollimur – himself that we was to hide down there and prepare for his return. Right before he nicked the Crown, it was…course a big Hèg like Alexander cannot nick the Crown what with it being his ship and all but it sounds more dramatic and story like told like that, doesn’t it?

So, I worked hard, always seeing the shades of me mothers and fathers before me urging me on to continue the tradition of service. I earned me black iron helmet, me uniform and blessed sotithorax with the Eye of Alexander and Vergina Sun on its breast. You watch; I’m a hoplite now but I’ll be epibatoi or a Harpy pilot in no time!

I’ve me trusty Uranos on my arm, me knife upon me back, me pistol on me hip, black iron upon me head so proud….ùra ùra, och the army!

It was a long and hard slog to earn my arm plates of blue and red with that beautiful golden Gaia set in them, I was shaking with pride as I kneeled in the dust so as Sergeant Gwydion could reach to set them on me. He looked me in the eye then, seeing as he could owing to my recumbent position, and said to me

“Ollie, I want you for a trip down to Gaia, lad. Being a gealer as you are, it’ll be a slog and a half, make no mistake. Got it in you, you reckon?”