It tastes like mouthwash mixed with kerosene.

The ache in her muscles vanishes nigh-instantly, replaced by the tautness of intense exercise. The heaviness of her limbs is gone. She's now wide awake and alert, and no longer feels so hot, though she's still sweaty. She feels like she could start running around again.

They nudge her back into the carriage, where a nice meal matching the kinds of things she tends to eat in the dining halls, but higher quality, is waiting.

Ew. But worth it. She steps into the carriage and accepts her meal. 

They let her shower and freshen up back inside the walls.

The final part of the test is a personality-quiz like questionnaire, except they're all essay questions. The leader is knocked out and the second in command is making an obvious blunder, do you follow orders or...? You are hired to assist a city with a siege however you can, what do you do? Etc.

She recognizes the value of doing something, even the wrong thing, and in the wake of a commander being knocked out it's important to preserve party unity, but nonetheless she would not allow the commander to make an obvious blunder; she'd point out the reason it wouldn't work, propose an alternate plan if she had one, and if ordered to her death simply refuse. Lesser blunders she'd go along with. She's not familiar with seige warfare but she'd try to insert agents, stir discontent and disunity in the enemy army, use fear tactics, maybe even sally if the odds were for her. The supply of the beseiging army is of paramount importance and efforts should be made to destroy it. 

She continues on in this vein, doing her best. She's inexperienced, but capable of taking a nuanced position and quite intelligent. She's used to thinking like a noblewoman jockeying for power, and that game of agent and counteragent comes through. She definitely has a superiority complex, though she's trying to control it.

The 'higher-ups', including the Amethyst Mage she met last night and the archer guy, take her answers and leave to consider. She's welcome to use the training area and equipment in the courtyard while she waits, otherwise come back in two hours.

She'll practice her sword drills, since her lessons are already done and she doesn't want to have any chance of being late to her appointment.

At her appointment, they say they're pleased to offer her a place in the Wall.

Well, the Wall's younger sister organization. They actually have two groups, one mostly composted of younger and relatively less capable people, and the more famous one composed of high-level combatants.

If she accepts, she'll sign a 2-year contract with the junior organization: The Fall Divers. The people there are closer to her power level, and frequently 'promote' into the Wall Club proper. The pay is decent, but the real meat of her future earnings would be per-mission bonuses. She'll get a 6-month training plan with good trainers and high quality gear, then start going on proper missions.

She barely considers before signing. The six-month training plan all expenses paid is exactly what she was looking for.

Congratulations to her! Does she want cake? They have cake and rum for these occasions. Does she want to go meet her new co-workers and see about scheduling the start of her training?

Yes and yes. (Finally, some decent company. She assumes.)

The Fall Divers section of the place is a lot lower key. More bright colors, less general opulence. A secretary of some sort warmly congratulates her! The other recent trainees are getting a lecture now if she wants to pop in? Or does she want to deal with logistics first?

She'll pop in, she doesn't want to miss her training!

A short, bearded old man is giving a lecture to three people. A vaguely asian looking man in some sort of foreign and tribal-looking outfit, a young-looking redhead woman in as simple a shirt and pants as she could get away with, and a very anxious looking blonde young woman wearing white priestess robes and carrying a metal staff decorated with angelic imagery. The display on the whiteboard is some sort of battle tactics.

"Ah, Mr. Tota? Here's Liath - the other new Fall Diver we've been sent. Apparently she has a good will. Bright Sorceress path."

"Welcome, welcome! Come sit, will you? I have to finish talking about the encirclement of Znevit and what we can learn from it, but then we can all get to know each other!"

The asian guy waves with a sideways grin. The other two greet her more subduedly.

She waves back casually and sits. No need to be intimidating to her own.

Mr. Tota continues the lecture! It's about the psychology of risk and Znevit's choices that led up to the current situation, which is a disaster for him.

Surrounded, with tired troops, in terrain suitable for the enemy, outnumbered, but with a few more high-level combatants and more support casters. What could Znevit do to get out of this? (He asks the class somewhat rhetorically.)

Tribal guy thinks Znevit should have turned and run a long time ago and now he's boned. Maybe he can get decent surrender terms. The priestess girl is too nervous to respond.

The redhead, though, says, "He should use his reputation. Znevit at this point had never lost a battle, and the Caledorians hated him, but they thought he was capable of nigh-impossible things. He should go out in front of his army and bluff. Thus biding time for his soldiers to rest, recover, and throw up makeshift fortifications."

Liath nods. "I agree."

"Why not surrender? Sometimes, you must accept that you have lost and try to preserve what you can."

"They wouldn't have offered him good terms. They thought they had him finally beat. One last gambit, risk all or save none." Shrug.

Liath is quiet, mulling the decision. 

"I might just hate giving up, but I prefer her solution."

"Hmm? Well, it's good to think for yourselves. Let's resume the lecture and everyone can meet our new friend afterwards."

He is quite a good teacher, though, managing to engage his students and present everything he has to say in the slightly rambling lessons on tactics in a compelling way.

When they're done, he says, "Go ahead and socialize a bit. Miss Liath, good to meet you. Go back to the secretery whenever you're ready to get a proper schedule set up."

"Hi!" The tribal-looking guy announces, holding his hand out for a handshake. "Name's Varrin. I do water manipulation and sword. Good to meet ya!"

She shakes his hand. "A bit of an opposite number, hm? Charmed, I'm sure."

Varrin laughs. "I'm not a bright, it's just a thing, lots of people in my clan have it, but I'm really lost and good at it, so..."

"L-Lucille," the priestess-looking girl says. "I... Heal things."

"Call me 'W' or 'hey you'. I'm older and stronger than I look. No magic, lots of punching, probably some other tricks once I think of them. Stronger than I look."

She nods to Lucille. "Glad to have you. You're probably going to save me from a nasty miscast at some point. Looking forwards to that."

W gets a smile. "Hey, W. How much older, do you mind me asking? I'm 27."