Kylara'anon responds to Xyranma. "A demonstration would be appreciated, but it will have to wait until we are on the trail." When Xune appears Kylara'anon looks her over and gives her a slight nod. "Very well, you will be most useful." As she finishes, silver light heralds the appearance of Khalas. Kylara listens to him present himself, then responds. "What an eccentric performance."
She takes a deep breath, lets out a sigh, and gestures for the assembly to gather in front of her.
“Most of you are familiar, or at least should be, with the Way of Lolth.” She looks about for any blank, curious faces, and then proceeds. “This patrol will be ruled by the Way of Lolth, but it will be run by the Way of Patrol. So, for your benefit and our success, I will explain the way of patrol. I do not have time to give you full instruction as you might at a xonathull Magthere, a battle-academy, so this will have to do. Your first lesson is this; there are four roles in a patrol; Scout, Blade, Bolt and Lead. Scouts move in front of the main body, and behind it. Where needed, they also move on the flanks. Their purpose is to find others before others find us. They keep the main body from getting surprised by enemy. Their secondary purposes are navigation and drawing the enemy into ambushes by feigning hostile contact and then retreating into our kill zone.
The second role is the Blade. The Blades are the melee fighters, those who go hand to hand with the enemy. Blades may have ranged weapons, to be sure, but their primary purpose is to engage the enemy in close quarters and slay them.
The third role is the Bolt. The Bolts support the Blades and the Scouts with spell and arrow. Thus, the term “Bolt” is derived from both Lightening Bolt and Crossbow Bolt – so, by spell or crossbow, the Bolt’s give ranged support to the others. Healers are also included in the Bolts, as Healers support the others with spells. And when not healing, they had best be slinging bolts, arrows, knives or stones if there is fighting.
Finally, the fourth role is Lead. The Lead leads. Its that simple. I am the Lead for this patrol, so I will give the orders. Now, there will be a strand-of-command, in case I fall. Every person in the patrol shall be ordered, by their relative station, and by that order shall you know the strand-of-command. Normally, I would work this out before we set one foot into the wilds, but we are pressed for time and so I will have to learn your stations as we go and then announce the strand order afterwords.
For the time being, I need to know who can fulfill which roles; who are my Scouts? My Blades? And my Bolts?”
