IX. Meeting the 409 (part 2)

"Ey, so, you got a name there, tin man?" The soldier with the side-parted hair asked, looking at Iro.

"Iro," Iro said. "Do you have a name, flesh man?"

The man laughed, and turned to Joren. "Shit, you weren't kidding. It actually does talk. I'll be damned!"

He extended a hand across the fire to Iro. "Name's Ector. Ector Garsa. I'm the guy who patches the holes these idiots get filled with. And in the case of Gunter here, I also treat hemorrhoids."

The dwarf next to Iro spit into the fire, and looked at Ector. "I don't have zat. I zink you just vant a reason to stare at my azzhole."

Ector turned towards him and went to open his mouth, but Joren cut him off by holding up a hand.

"I'm Joren Falstaff. Staff Sergeant of Squad 409, which, as you may have guessed, is this group of miscreants," he said, nodding his head towards the rest of the group.

He pointed to the elf. "This is Basta Gilmore. Not his real name, but I still haven't heard the end of trying to say the proper elvish one correctly. He's the team scout."

Basta turned to Iro with a smirk, and bowed his head slightly towards him. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Iro," he said.

Joren pointed to Gunter. "This is Gunter Kraghammer. Resident engineer and sorcerer."

The dwarf flicked his eyes sideways momentarily in Iro's direction without turning his head, and grunted. Iro nodded to him.

Joren turned and motioned to the red-haired woman, who by this time had begun using something polished and round to hone the edge of her sword.

"This is Lyra Hereford. She's our close combat specialist, and also handles a lot of our non-combat magical needs."

Lyra stopped honing the edge of her blade just long enough to wave in Iro's direction with the stone in hand before resuming her work.

"And this..." Joren said, turning towards the gnome, "is Ophelia Reincrow. She, well...."

He trailed off for moment, seemingly unsure of how to continue that sentence, and Ophelia spoke up, her voice deeper and clearer than Iro would have expected based on her appearance alone.

"I'm an Oracle. I commune with forces outside of our plane, and in turn for my worship and offerings, they grant me their powers and knowledge," She said, quietly. Her eyes held the same intense quality as she maintained eye contact with Iro, until after several seconds he couldn't stand the discomfort any longer and had to look away.

"She fuckin' makes monsters out of her blood and calls tentacles out of her skin and shit!" Ector chimed it, his face animated like a child's. "It's fuckin' crazy, man!"

Iro couldn't help but be intrigued. And horrified. He was definitely also horrified. But that was beside the point. He returned his attention back to Ophelia. "You can?"

"Yes," the gnome said, simply.

"...can I see?" Iro asked, his morbid curiosity getting the better of him.

"No," Ophelia replied. She turned her attention back to the fire, and something told Iro that it'd be a bad idea to push the issue further.

"So what's yer story, Iro? Bossman here says you think you're hundreds of years old or some shit," Ector said, scooting a bit further down his log and leaning toward Iro. "That true?"

"I don't know," Iro said, shrugging. "I know I'm here, and I don't know where here is. And I'm alive, although not in a body I recognize or understand. Beyond that, I'm not really sure of anything right now."

"Well, for what it's worth, I ain't never heard of no clockwork man who can talk or remember things. So something weird's going on," Ector said.

"We don't know that. For all we know this thing is just a spy for Utrecht. Some mage could be controlling it remotely or something and making it talk," Lyra said, stopping her sharpening and speaking up for the first time. Her voice was rough, but higher than Iro expected. Without the grit, it'd probably sound very feminine.

"Captain Vrataski has sent off for a soulspeaker. If Iro here is a spy, or just a tool without a soul, we'll know that soon enough," Joren said. "In the meantime, our orders are to keep an eye on him so he doesn't leave, and treat him civilly, which you have all done well enough so far."

He glanced at Lyra. "And I expect it to stay that way."

"Understood, sir," Lyra said, her eyes flicking back towards Iro before she resumed honing the blade.

"So, what did you do? You know, before you ended up lost?" Ector asked.

Iro recounted what memories he had, including the fighting in the trenches and encountering the Paragon, then the next memory of running from something in a different trench, at a different time. He closed with giving a short explanation of where he woke up, and what he'd been doing up to this point. When he got to explaining where he got the uniform from, he saw a look of recognition flicker in Ector's eyes.

"This guy you took the uniform from... He have black hair, kinda like mine, and super white skin? Kinda short looking too?" He asked.

Iro thought back, and said "I mean, he was very dead, so I don't know if he was naturally pale, and he was sitting on the trench floor so I don't really remember how tall he looked. But, I do remember him having dark hair when I took off his helmet. Oh, and he was a medic too."

"Sound's like that's probably Michael's uniform, then," Basta said, breaking the momentary silence. He turned to Iro. "He'd have gladly offered it to you if he was alive."

"Probably vould have given ze boots off hiz veet, too," Gunter added as he tamped something into the bowl of his pipe.

"Yeah..." Ector said, as the group lapsed into silence.

After several long moments, the fire cracked loudly and the group seemed to stir out of their reverie.

"Well, I'm turning in," Joren said, standing up from the log. "I know we're on furlough at the moment, but plan on taking watch shifts in pairs to keep an eye on our new friend here. Captain's orders."

An almost inaudible groan rose from a couple members of the squad, and Joren added, "I'm taking a shift, same as the rest of you. Just not the first one." He walked towards one of the other tents, and added "Figure out who's taking first watch, and who's gonna join me on second shift. And for Mother's sake, keep it quiet!"

After a moment of staring at each other, Ector spoke up and volunteered to take the first watch alongside Gunter. Joren and Lyra would take second watch. Basta and Ophelia the third.

After a short while spent in relative silence, the later watches got up and went to their tents, for the first time leaving Iro alone with the two watchmen.