PATH OF STEEL

"The interface ports along my spine burn like molten wire every time I disconnect, but it's the silence that truly hurts, the absence of my steel companion's heartbeat thundering through my bones. For ten years I've walked the Path of Steel, and I can barely remember what it felt like to move without hydraulic assistance, to think without targeting overlays painting my vision red. In the flooded paddies, I feel the wet crunch of bodies caught beneath my feet, hear screams that barely register in my sensory feed. My targeting systems never flag them as threats. Just flesh beneath the steel. My Daimyo praises my courage afterward, commends how I always push through the enemy without hesitation. Some nights, when the stimulants wear off and the neural dampeners fail, I dream I'm drowning in a rice paddy. I wake to find blood on my pillow from where my implant ports weep. But come dawn, I'll climb back into my mech's cockpit, let the machine's consciousness flood through my nervous system, and become steel once more. Because on the Path, you sacrifice your humanity one synapse at a time, until you can no longer remember which thoughts are yours and which belong to the war machine wearing your flesh."

• NRK-891 "Noriko," Veteran House Kuyō pilot,
  Day 6 of The Hunger, 119 AP

The Path of Steel has emerged as one of the most elite warrior traditions in Shima's feudal hierarchy. Aspiring warriors that wish to join the Path of Steel must first prove themselves, usually by hunting and killing mutants and hybrids in the dark mystical forests of Shima.

Once a warrior has made a sufficiently impressive kill, she will make the pilgrimage to one of the temples of the Path of Steel - usually at one of the Great Houses like House Ishida or House Kuyō, although smaller, sometimes independent Path of Steel temples exist.

At the temple, ff the elders are suitably impressed by the warrior's deeds, they may invite the warrior to prove themselves in combat against other aspirants.

The aspirants must fight each other to the death - the Path of Steel accepts only those, who are able and willing to kill without mercy.

Those warriors that survive undergo a surgical procedure to have a neural interface implanted. Once installed, the implant allows the now cybernetically enhanced warrior to undergo neural fusion with their mechanical steed, their consciousness melding with targeting systems and hydraulic reflexes until the boundary between pilot and machine dissolves into perfect synthesis. The Path of Steel demands total sacrifice of human frailty - wires from the interface port snake through the aspirants spines, their nervous systems rewired to accommodate the machine's electrical demands, often leaving them dependent on stimulants and neural dampeners to function outside their cockpits.

In the meantime, the temple's artisans prepare a mech for the new pilot. Mechs come in many different types of sizes and are carefully maintained and repaired, as the manufacture of new mechs in the post-collaps world, while not impossible, is a painstakingly slow process.

Soon, the new pilot will go on their first training missions. It takes time for pilot and machine to become one, so the first missions are usually border patrols or raids on undefended villages. The Path teaches that collateral damage is not merely acceptable but inevitable - peasants working the fields become unfortunate statistics as massive metal feet crush through terraced fields and auto-cannon fire tears through building structures and flesh alike.

Once they achieve the status of full pilot, the Path of Steel aspirant swears allegiance to her Daimyo and may call herself Samurai, proudly displaying the crest of her house on her mech.

The samurai of the Path of Steel view their mechs as extensions of their Daimyo’s will, each thunderous step a declaration of power, while the screams of enemies cut down with heavy gunfire or simply trampled into the mud, are drowned beneath the roar of engines.

But the highest form of combat for the Samurai is the clash of machine versus machine. While the regular troops on the ground die anonymously in their hundreds, the duels between these mighty war machines are often turned into tales that pass into legend.

The aftermath of these duels usually leaves scarred battlefields, covered thick in the dead bodies of ground troops and peasants caught in the crossfire. Far from the mech's cockpits, down in the mud, there is no glory to be found in the wars between the Great Houses.

In the quieter periods between battles, the Samurai of the Path of Steel guard their Daimyo's precious lands, providing security for their master's realm and subjects.