Foxing: the act of using selectively bred, spiritually attuned foxes to navigate Purgatory. Foxers — the men and women of the Church who handle these animals — are tasked with recovering important relics from outside the walls of Enclave, and leading Zealots or Lightbringers safely to their destination.
The service fox and Foxer work in tandem with one another. The Foxer relies on their service animal’s unique spiritual attunement to help them avoid anomalies or wildlife, and the fox relies on the Foxer for safety, food, and companionship. Indeed, without these clever foxes leading the way, the crusade to reclaim Purgatory in God’s name would still be a distant dream, rather than an inevitability.
Becoming a Foxer
Foxers train for years to earn their scarves. It can take as many as six years in Academy to become a Foxer and sufficiently bond with a service animal, not to mention pass board exams. Given the significant academic and physical rigors, aspiring Foxers are paired with kits at the start of their Academy training. This allows the Foxer and fox to grow and bond with one another throughout the course of their studies.
Animal handling, basic combat, survival, relic identification and retrieval, multi-terrain navigation, cartography, and other skills are all part of a Foxer’s tool set — tools which compliments their fox’s unique sensory and navigational abilities.
Foxers and Scarves
When a Foxer graduates from Academy they are honored with an orange and white scarf as a token of their unique standing within the Church. Each white stripe on the end of the scarf indicates a rank within the Church’s Foxers, colored bars denote what order of Foxers a person belongs to.
The Hazards of Foxing
Foxers come face to face with the worst of Purgatory’s offerings: harvesters, heretics, wildlife, and of course anomalies. As such, Foxers maintain some of the highest casualty figures in the Church’s ranks. For every twenty Foxers sent out beyond the walls, only six may return; sometimes less. As such, intelligent, capable Foxers are in high-demand — and highly-rewarded.
The Rewards of Foxing
It’s little surprise that Foxer’s are given a place of high honor in the Church. Foxers represent the backbone of the Church’s efforts to return control of Purgatory to the hands of mankind. Without Foxers, there are no guides across Purgatory for Zealots or Lightbringers. No relics serving our people.
Salaries for Foxers scale first by rank, and then by order plus deployment. The more prestigious the order of Foxers, the higher the pay. The same is true for orders of Foxers who deploy to dangerous or contested theaters — higher pay.
The need for capable Foxers is great, thus salaries are substantially higher on average. Even a first-rank, freshly certified Foxer can expect to make near twice what a Zealot or Lightbringer would make.
The next section in Foxing: A Standard Field Manual will cover what it takes to become a Foxer.
Oliver Hart
Author of Foxing, Leaves of Fall, Liquid Courage, Beating the Heat, A Red Winter, Weber’s Gambit, and many other stories. He primarily writes hmofa, but dabbles in most genres. Interests include, writing, reading, technology, and music.
Stories: Foxing, The Leaves of Fall