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I half wonder and what sort of items that Ingrid is going to get me. I would hope that it is a common enough thing that they should have a good enough idea of what is needed. Probably even have it ready whenever someone comes in for the first time. Though why they wouldn't just have it ready and waiting in the bedroom I have no idea. I suppose there is always the possibility of someone being unable to accept the reality of their situation and killing themselves. I personally have never heard of that happening, but then again I never really paid enough attention to what all was going on. That and they could very easily just have it marked down as having been killed in battle and no one on our side would be any the wiser.

And yet, despite knowing that that is a very real phenomenon. That that is something I can quite easily do, it isn't something that has really crossed my mind as an available option. As bad as this situation may be. As much as I have already died socially and in some degrees emotionally, there is simply no incentive to kill this body before it completely kills the mind and continues on without the me I used to be.

Ingrid comes back with another bag of items and places it onto the table. This one is naturally much bigger than the other two things she's gotten, probably something that might be a bit cumbersome to carry without any sort of support, especially since I am carrying two other items as well. Though I might try and put the two into that bag if I think I can manage it. Curious, I open the bag to see what all they put in it and understand why it isn't automatic. Thankfully there are no items in here that would be at all embarrassing to be caught lugging around. Heck, the only thing I have that might be would be the underwear. Nothing in there is all that uncommon. It's just it is very much tailored to what I am. A toothbrush with an extra-long grip so that I would be able to brush the back molars of my mouth without having to jam my fist in there. A fur brush. A couple of them, actually. One looks probably for shorter hairs, probably intended for the fur around my arms, legs and chest area. And one that looks more designed for longer hairs, probably my head and tail.

Thing of toothpaste, mouth wash. No comb, unfortunately. A nightlight apparently. Some sort of strange looking writing utensil, probably for writing in the book and spell paper since I'm hoping that to write on the spell paper it doesn't require something icky like blood or something. A small razor which will certainly come in handy. It is odd that they'd provide a brush for the tail and fur and then give me a razor all as a starting item set. You'd think they'd give the brushes and have me ask for the razor but who knows. I notice that the razor is electric, probably to help prevent people from trying to kill themselves with it. Has a few decent looking shirts. Without pulling them out I can't tell but probably are going to be long all things considered. Else some shampoo and conditioner designed for those covered in fur. And a hair doily.

"See anything amiss?" Ingrid asks.

"No, this should do for now," I wave sideways a bit, declining more with my hands. I don't know how much money I'd have to buy other things anyway. It's not like they've told me how much money I have or how much money I make in a given period of time. "Now just to figure out how to get all this back to my own room.

"Yes, yes. Ingrid help. Ingrid help."

I see the small imp move over around the counter again and approach me. At first I had thought she might cast that levitation spell thing on them for me. Indeed she does go about levitating the bigger bag with all the things for a moment, but then I notice the straps on the bigger bag starting to move. Apparently it's designed to be carried like a backpack if need be as she places my head below one of the straps and then begins to gently drop it. It is certainly awkward and my balance is already off. I widen the stance of my feet a bit to deal with it. It isn't really heavy, just a lot in front of me. I move to put my other bag into this one and then look at the stack of Spell Papers still on the counter. There's a couple of ribbons holding them all together like a parcel. I suppose I can just carry that with me and go on my way. I nod a thanks at Ingrid and head back over to my room.

The rest of the day passes busily but uneventfully. Taking the Imp's words to heart I begin working on transcribing the mine spell onto some of the spell papers. I haven't quite written the sigil that's supposed to go on them yet, so they aren't quite done. I imagine if I wanted I could just charge it up and it'd go boom right away. Or possibly wouldn't go off at all. Don't know if no sigil means everything is considered ally or enemy. And not entirely sure I want to know the answer to that question. I consider long and hard about what I want to have it be. I eventually resign myself on at least accepting my name as an easy enough sigil to remember. But obviously don't want it to be my name written out. Instead I try and do something similar to the engraving on the front page of my spell book, drawing a bit of a rose onto them, but with a bit of a flourish so that it isn't immediately obvious as to what it is. I actually used some of the blank spell papers as an experiment on seeing what they should look like. Once I've settled on a good model I erase all of the others, a task made easy in that there's a simple spell that clears away any writing on an inactive page of spell paper. I do about twenty of them before I hear a knock on the door.

I half wonder what that'd be about but then I figure it out once I open the door and see everyone else starting to move along the hallways as well. It's probably dinner time or some assembly time and someone was just having the courtesy to knock on my door so that I remember to get out and get some food and whatnot. That is certainly something that seems like a good idea. I am quite famished. After dinner Hammer collected me again but this time for shooting practice. Which I guess makes sense. I might have to use one, after all. Understandably enough I sort of suck at it. I mean I'm not at all bad. When following his directions I can usually hit in the right general area most of the time. But I am nowhere near the level of skill of the others. Jack got annoyed at himself if he even missed the bulls eye of his target. But in this I'm not all that concerned. It is, after all, my first day of training. All of these people have been here for a while. I'm sure given enough time I'll get good enough at shooting as well. Well, hopefully. Something about the way I was shooting just felt wrong. And I'm not even just talking about my stance being wrong. It's more like that fireball spell. It's not something so much in the technique so much as it is something I'm forgetting to do on top of the technique.

At any rate once that's finally done I go and hit the spell labs one more time, figuring I'd try to do a bit more practice with some of my spells, maybe figure out what I was missing. No real luck just yet though I did learn a few, well I'd probably call them cantrips or something. Spells that may be a little effective under the right circumstances but ultimately are just more getting the hang of things. Probably only ranked E spells or whatnot. Still, could be useful in a pinch. Once I've worn myself out again I head on back to bed. Knowing that I do have a mission tomorrow tells me that I really shouldn't use much magic, so that I have as much on reserve as I can for when the time comes, especially since I won't be able to do as much as I could today anyway.

Sleeping is a bit of a challenge. For the simple fact of being unable to ignore the things you normally could. The act of sleeping is to get the brain to let everything go until consciousness is gone. During the waking day I don't really feel my body. Well I do but not really. It isn't that hard to go about just pretending it is my own so long as I ignore anything that feels different and never look at myself. But the act of getting comfortable, in this body, takes acknowledging the differences. I can't fall asleep as I would as a human. Parts of my body, in particular my tail and feet don't really take well to being in positions that would be comfortable with a human body. Eventually I manage a posture sitting on my side that seems to work well enough. A part of me wants to curl up into a ball and sleep like that but I reject it completely.

I wake up the next morning to a sound over what must be an intercom system, probably waking everyone up at the same time. Well that will certainly have to be something to get used to and take appropriate steps to make sure I don't run afoul of by staying up too late. The first thing I do when I wake up is lie on my back. My body does feel a bit more normal and that damn tail is most definitely shorter now than it had been previously. Gathering up the courage I grab the covers and take a peak down below.

"Oh thank god," I sigh a relief as not only are those lumps much smaller but my own equipment has returned, albeit it much smaller than normal. Knowing that it's still only halfway back to normal I am not concerned. And since it is halfway that other bit of equipment is probably still there too, but isn't something I feel at all like checking.

I get up and get dressed, finding that the intermediary uniform does feel a lot more comfortable now than it had yesterday. My legs, though still odd, are much closer to normal than they had been. And my tail looks to be almost wisplike now. Probably a little over a foot and a half, the fur doesn't look nearly as thick now as it had before. Curious to see what I would be facing I look under the covers and find no great supply of shed fur. So that is also good to know. That would certainly suck after having to release if I would then have to constantly deal with a lot of shed fur all the time. Either way I grab one of the brushes and brush my hair but completely ignore brushing anything else. Well, I do brush my teeth but that's different. Much of the day goes by very fast, in part because I know what is coming tonight. We are started off with a bit of a run. Seems that's fairly common. Start off the day with some exercise that helps to warm up and stretch the body a bit. Running is definitely strange. Even with my body much closer to normal I still fall down a couple of times, getting laughs from some and just ignored by others.

Then it's time for breakfast and I'm given plenty of meat and eggs for breakfast. I was pleased. It was yummy. And then we went to go meet up with the other team we would be paired off with for this battle. It is during this time that they go about equipping us and it is during this time that I bring to mention to everyone that I had written up some mines. A few know what they are without any explanation. I guess they must know fire magic as well or have read through that part. Some others took a bit more time to explain everything. At any rate once they had their gear on I went about writing the sigil on each person, using the page I had kept my model as a guide for how it should look. With that some of them grabbed a few pages of the prepared mines and others did not. To be told at the end I probably still had about another ten left to be placed.

For my own armaments I was given a light vest, a pistol and an assault rifle, all of which seemed mostly ordinary. But then I wasn't deemed ready to handle anything more complicated and was being kept out of the main of battle anyway. These were just in case someone came close to where we would be stations. The battle seemed to be going to take place in like a full block of some warehouse area. The place had already been evacuated so no danger of people being hurt. And much of it was abandoned anyway, thus why it was chosen over other places. Jack being the sniper would be placed up in what used to be an office building overlooking much of the area. Since I was to shadow him I would be the same location.