Sally breathed a sigh of relief after the Commander left. Bad news was, he'd figured out that she was a woman and not a man. Good news was, he hadn't fired her, and had told her in no uncertain terms that he'd had no issue with her being a woman, so long as she did the job. Of course, she was informed to notify the Quartermaster of her real identity, which would be a relief to him as there was already ten John Smiths on the payroll, and it would make things easier to know that one was really a Sally Butcher.
She then started to walk down the street that was part of her patrol route. It was an eight hour shift, from ten at night until six in the morning. Also, it was her first night on the job, and she hadn't much training with her weapon, a truncheon, a club that she was only allowed to use against a criminal's arms or legs, or tail, in order to disable them. She also had a knife, but that was only for cutting rope, or meat. She did have a metal breastplate, and backplate, and a helmet that, in addition to help protect against head wounds, also helped to keep the sun and rain out of her eyes, not to mention leather greaves and the like to protect her legs, however, her first defense, after foiling whatever crime she had disrupted, hopefully allowing the victim time to run away, was to run away herself. She didn't like that idea, but as the instructor pointed out, she and the other new recruits didn't know the first thing about street fighting, unless they were raised on the streets, and the important thing was to get to a place where help could easily be found, like the local taverns frequented by other City Guards, Licensed Thieves, Official Assassins, Legal Monster Slayers, Powerful Mages, and others who might make a would-be attacker decide to back off. It was one thing to attack a lone Guard, but it was suicide to attack twenty people trying to enjoy a drink. The only other things she had on her were her rations, and a bell, which she was to ring if there was an emergency, or if someone was trying to kill her. The idea was that is someone heard it, they'd come to investigate, giving a would-be attacker an additional twenty people to have to deal with. In in practice, this would give Sally a number of allies to help her out, in reality though, being confronted by over a dozen Guards usually caused criminals to run away themselves.
That was when Sally heard the rumble. She groaned. Her first night on patrol, and it was going to rain. Luckily, among the outfit she wore was a hooded cloak. It was brown in color, and decent protection against the elements. She put her pack down, got it out, and put it on just as the drops started to fall. She put her pack back on, and resumed walking.
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