by Dean Henegar
Congratulations: You have enlisted 12 new soldiers into your unit. Total unit count 42 enlisted soldiers, 1 elite soldier.
At least I now had nearly a full platoon of soldiers. The mercenaries had already been training alongside my troops, so they should be able to integrate well. While I thought about it, I pulled up my help tab and looked for the Imperium army structure. I knew the ranks followed modern United States military closely, but I wasn’t sure what the unit structure looked like. The necessary information was easily found, and I scanned the data.
Imperium Army structure: The armies of the imperium follow a well organized and flexible structure. This structure enables them to form forces as small as a section of 5 men, up to an army group consisting of tens of thousands.
Squad: 10 men (broken down into 5-man sections)
Platoon: 5 squads
Company: 5 Platoons
Battalion: 3-5 Companies
Brigade: 2-3 Battalions
Division: 2-3 Brigades
Corps: 2-3 Divisions
Army Group: 2-5 Corps
These are general guidelines and individual strengths of unit will vary based on composition. An example would be a reconnaissance or cavalry platoon having fewer numbers than a comparable heavy infantry unit. Additional forces may be attached to various units as well, such as engineers, scouts, or magical support formations.
That was close to what I was used to, infantry formations being heavier than a modern military and not having two-man sections or fireteams. This was to be expected when swinging swords instead of firing rifles. All in all, the commander class still seemed to be right up my alley in terms of play style.
Chapter 18
With our new increased numbers, I made some changes to the position of our forces within the caravan. Daegan no longer forced us to ride at the back of the column so I placed myself and one squad directly behind the lead wagon, one wagon and squad in the middle, one wagon and squad at the rear commanded by Sergeant Brooks, and the remaining twelve men scattered throughout the caravan, riding on individual wagons. This would give us the ability to take over the role the mercenaries had held…and do it more effectively. The only concern I had was our ability to combine our units and handle a large threat quickly, but I felt the flexibility of spreading out our forces outweighed that small risk.
I also made an interesting discovery one day during our noon break. I had seen Drake and Quimby often leave the caravan at lunch to hunt game. Their kills added some tasty, fresh meat to our food supply and helped stretch the rations of the caravan. They also often found edible plants and fruit which were always a big hit. Due to this, the two Rangers had been very popular among the caravan families and had struck up a relationship with some of my soldiers as well. Seeing Drake and Private Tremble talking about Drake’s most recent successful hunt, I approached the two.
“Drake, would you mind taking some of my men with you on your hunts? Private Tremble here is our tracker and could use some of your experience. I know rangers have a lot of scouting skills and your field craft may help us in the future.” Unexpectedly a prompt appeared.
Do you wish to issue the following quest to Drake?
Train the Scouts: Take along Private Tremble and another soldier with you when you scout for game. Pass along some of your knowledge with them while in the field.
This quest will reward the player with a minimal amount of experience and requires you to place a monetary award as well. Payout levels as follows.
5 silver if completed, 8 silver if the player exceeds expectations.
Do you agree to these terms: Y/N *note, if you do not have sufficient funds on hand when the quest is turned in, you will face an experience penalty as well as a reputation reduction.*
I quickly hit yes, and another prompt appeared.
Quest options:
Maximum number of players offered the quest:
Time limit or open timeframe:
I hit 3 for maximum number players, knowing that likely only the two rangers could do it but left an extra slot in case Yendys druid class allowed her to as well. The quest activated, and Drake looked at me in surprise.
“Woah, dude! I didn’t know you could offer quests! When did this start?” Drake asked excitedly.
“Just now actually. As soon as I asked you to help, a bunch of prompts to create a quest popped up. Hopefully you guys can get some extra experience for this, and I get to offer a few coins to make my forces more effective,” I said.
“Thanks! Ok if I try and share the quest with Quimby and Yendys? There haven’t exactly been a whole lot of quests while on the road so far for us, just a repeating quest to hunt game for the caravan,” Drake asked.
“Sure. I left the quest open to a max of three people figuring all of you may want to take a crack at it. Private Tremble… select another soldier who you think may have the aptitude for reconnaissance and get with Drake to arrange a hunting schedule,” I added while Drake ran off to find his friends.
My class being able to offer quests could be a powerful ability. I looked in the help log and found nothing else about players starting quests. Just an entry stating it was possible for certain unique classes and that their ability to offer quests evolved as they grew in power. Apparently, it depended on my initiative to try and find a quest that fit with my class specialization.
During our travels we hit the second five-day mark, and I was pulled once again out of the game. This time there was no conversation with Clio, just the same feeling of helpless weakness for an indeterminate amount of time, and then finding myself back asleep on my cot. From what the guard told me, I had been “asleep” on my cot for just over an hour, so that meant with the 5 to 1 time compression in game, I was only in the real world for approximately 10 minutes. This really wasn’t too bad. I couldn’t remember my experience out of game, but hopefully I will recover more of my memories as time progresses. I couldn’t let myself get too anxious since only two days had passed in the real world and I needed to give my mind and body time to heal.
So far, the scenery on the trail had been rather monotonous. We were heading generally north though the trail sometimes curved about to avoid any natural barriers. Rolling hills were seen off to the right which was east for us, broken occasionally by a small patch of short trees here and there. To the west was the forest. It stretched all the way to the border, from what Daegan told me. It typically began a good quarter mile from the trail and the men would venture in at noon and night to cut firewood. Off to the north, in the direction we were heading, a range of mountains began to take shape as we drew closer each day. Our destination was at the foot of those mountains in what Daegan referred to as the transition zone. At each transition zone was a small waystation, usually guarded by whatever faction controlled the zone. Scanning the rules for the transition zones, I saw that they could be used to fast travel to zones that you had already visited. So that was why I had to take this 2-week long caravan ride to the zone Hayden’s Knoll was in. Once I explored more zones, I could travel to any of them instantly, once I reached a map transition point. This was also the reason for a military force being assigned to the transition point, giving warning of a potential invasion as well as to police up any ne’ err do wells entering a zone before they could cause much harm.
The scenery began to change drastically on us later in the afternoon. The forest had begun to grow closer and closer to the road, as we crested a small rise we were greeted with a large section of the road completely covered by brush, twisted looking trees and unusual plants. Daegan, in the first wagon, called a halt to the caravan and I hopped off my position in the second wagon, running ahead to see what Daegan wanted to do about this.
“By the gods, never seen anything like this in my life,” Daegan said while shaking his head in disbelief. “The entire road is covered. Bogan run through there and see how far the forest has grown over the road,” Daegan ordered one of his drivers who quickly trotted into the tangled mess of fore
st. “One of you track down that logger, Barnaby and his kin. We may have to chop our way through this mess. The sides of the road look to be way too steep here for us to just go around.” Daegan began to examine the sides of the roadbed, which did indeed have a steep incline the caravan would have to traverse, if we wanted to avoid the overgrowth. Daegan looked to me as he grabbed a handful of crumbling soil at the side of the roadbed. Looking down I could see the angle to the right of the trail was indeed too steep for the lumbering beasts and wagons to traverse.
“If the overgrowth doesn’t cover too much of the trail we can cut through. Otherwise, we’ll have to backtrack about five miles to leave the road, then make our way around that mess while trying to move overland through the hills to the east without a road. We could lose days of travel if we have to do that. The wagons move MUCH slower over open ground as they need a hard-packed roadbed to support all the weight we’re carrying,” Daegan said to me.
During this time, Barnaby and the other three lumberjacks came up carrying their axes, and he whistled at seeing the overgrown road.
“Daegan, when was the last time you did this run? That kind of growth should take years to cover this much area,” Barnaby said.
“I just traveled this route about three weeks ago on my way back from the transition point. The forest was back from the road about a quarter mile from the trail like it usually is. Something unnatural about the whole thing. Just looking at those trees gives me the Durks.” Daegan stated. I quickly searched my help file looking for the phrase “Durks”, and the info popped up.
The word Durks is often used by residents of the Imperium to describe a sense of foreboding, impending trouble, or fear. Legend states the phrase has it origins from a farmer named Durks who dug up something strange while he was working in his fields one day. He had found a small wooden sphere with the very faint etching on it that resembled a face. Durks claimed the item was his good luck charm and wore it around his neck, despite the mocking his neighbors gave him for the silly looking necklace. Shortly after finding the sphere, farmer Durks began to become paranoid, often suddenly turning to look into space as if searching for something at the edge of his vision. His skittishness became worse over time and led to much teasing from his fellow farmers, when they saw him in the tavern. One night Durks reached his limit from the taunting and left the tavern in disgust, ripping his necklace off and throwing on the floor, all the while vowing to never wear it again if they’d leave him be.
After leaving the tavern, Durks made his way down the dark path toward his home, but then turned around when he saw a bright flash of light from the tavern window accompanied by a rush of wind and an oppressive feeling of wrongness…which is when the screaming began inside the tavern. Crashing furniture and blood curdling yells continued for a while until all was silent. Durks stood transfixed in fear watching the now silent tavern. Then the door to the tavern slowly opened and a figure stepped out, hidden by the darkness. The being stopped just outside the tavern and slowly turned its gaze toward Durks. Red glowing eyes shrouded in a hood gazed at farmer Durks. The shrouded creature sized up the farmer and with a hissing voice said to him, “The summoner was kind to leave me so many morsels to feast upon…my gift of thanks to you summoner is to spare your life for tonight, but I will feast upon your flesh in the future…don’t worry, I promise to take my time and let you savor the pleasure of me slowly devouring your flesh and soul.” With a gurgling chuckle, the creature sprinted into the forest.
Nobody believed Durks’ story and chalked up the deaths in the tavern to a bandit raid, and the consumed flesh of the tavern’s victims to scavengers that got to the scene before the militia could be assembled. Durks himself disappeared a few nights later, his neighbors becoming concerned when they hadn’t seen him in many days. They found his farmhouse door open, but Durks was nowhere to be seen and nothing appeared to be missing from the farmhouse. The only possible clue, a large blood stain in his fields with scraps of torn clothing that were identified as belonging to Durks…and carefully placed atop the clothing was a small wooded sphere with a face etched onto it. The face was now clearly visible and appeared to be screaming in eternal torment…the face was that of farmer Durks.
Creepy, and I also got the same feeling when looking at the overgrowth. There was something not quite right about it. Bogan, the driver, soon returned to the group letting us know the overgrowth continued for about 300 yards before petering out.
“Barnaby, how long do you figure it would take your team to clear a trail through 300 yards of that stuff,” Daegan asked while gesturing toward the overgrowth.
“If I can get some extra bodies to help, we could clear that in a few hours as long as we don’t have to dig up tree roots. If you can get me, say a dozen of your drivers, we can make it happen,” Barnaby said.
“I’ll gladly lend a hand as well. We have some axes and I’ll have a squad of my men to help, but I don’t want to pull too many for the work detail. We’ll still need to keep an eye out for trouble,” I added.
I detailed off the squad to help with clearing the path and sent word of what was going on to Sergeant Brooks at the back of the caravan. Once that was completed I saw Daegan assign about half his drivers to helping the loggers with clearing the road, several of the colonists also got into the spirit of things and lent a hand. As the loggers got to work I heard Barnaby give a shout of disgust and I jogged over to where he was working.
“Gahh, look at this mess. I’ve cut down a thousand trees in my life and have never seen the likes of this,” Barnaby said while pointing at the tree he had just chopped into. The tree leaked a greenish red watery sap that resembled infected blood and the foul liquid gave off the smell of corruption and rot. Picking up the chunk of wood that his blow had severed from the tree Barnaby tossed it to me. In addition to the foul smell, the wood had a sickening, spongy, flesh like consistency, not at all like any wood I had seen. Gags and muttered complaints from the rest of the work crew confirmed that the overgrown shrubs and plants also leaked the same reeking sap the trees did. Daegan took the chunk of wood from me to examine, then gagged and he tossed it off the road.
“Nothing to do but get the job done, I suppose. We don’t have to like it, but we do have to finish it if we want to get where we’re going,” Daegan said as he tied a scarf around his nose and mouth and went to work. Following his example, Barnaby began to hack at the trees once more. I grumbled and began to tie a scarf around my face as well, needing to make an example for the troops as I firmly believed you shouldn’t ask your men to do something that you aren’t willing to do yourself. A tap on my shoulder granted me a reprieve from stench forest duty. Turning, I saw Drake and Quimby standing there.
“You guys up for hacking apart some rot-filled foliage?” I asked.
“No sir, I wanted to let you and Daegan know we just got an update on our starter quest. The quest is called cleansing the foul forest and we have to go into that mess and stop whatever is causing it. Just wanted to give you some heads up why we’re leaving. Enjoy chopping your barf trees while we’re gone!” Drake joked, and the two rangers moved into the forest. Yendys ran after them yelling, “wait for me!” and she soon disappeared into the forest as well. Last but not least, Crunchy the unicorn beetle trotted after his companion like a puppy following its master. I turned back to the task at hand, and began ripping out smelly vines.
Chapter 19
The work proceeded quickly, as I think the smell motivated us all to finish in as little time as possible. I idly wondered if the smell would permeate my uniform, and if it would ever wash out. So far, every twenty-four hours in game our bodies and clothing automatically cleaned themselves, thankfully. After an hour of work, we had made good headway when one of my soldiers shouted.
“Sir! It’s that crazy bug companion that the druid has.” The soldier pointed as Crunchy made its way limping out of the forest, making a beeline directly to me. The beetle trotted up to me and began nudging my leg and th
en moving back a few steps toward the forest. It repeated the process, trying to get my attention. Watching this, I was reminded of a tv show I watched as a kid. The show was an old black and white one about a kid and his dog. The moron kid seemed to fall down a well or something every week and the dog would go back to town to get him help. Crunchy was trying to tell us something had happened to the 3 halflings. When I realized this a quest prompt appeared.
Quest: Rescue the Halflings. According to Crunchy the Unicorn Beetle, the halflings are in trouble. Find a way to help them.
Reward: experience and reputation gain
Accept: Y/N
I quickly hit accept and began to issue orders.
“Sergeant Brooks! Looks like something might have happened to the halflings. I’m taking 3rd and 4th Squads into the woods to look for them. You stay here and keep the men working to help clear the road and guard the wagons. 3rd Squad, 4th Squad, form up in full battle rattle, no packs!”
The men quickly geared up and were ready quickly, not quickly enough for my taste as that crazy beetle never stopped his head butt to get my attention routine the whole time we were getting organized. As soon as the men were formed we proceeded into the woods in 2 columns. I had Private Tremble and the other private, who was training as a tracker, lead each of the columns, following the trail that the halflings had left. Crunchy never left my side the whole time and it seemed content to let the trackers lead the way, which told me we were likely on the right path. The trackers brief time working with the rangers seemed to help as they had little difficulty following the trail, though it would have been much harder, if not impossible, for them if the rangers had been trying to hide their passage. The forest was dense, but not impassable, and the foul-smelling taint seemed to permeate every growing thing we came across. Tremble stopped and motioned me forward. The men spread out in a defensive line as I hurried to see what the tracker had found. Tremble pointed at a pile of corpses laid out on the forest floor. There was what appeared to be a deer and its fawn. Both were covered in puncture wounds and looked to be mummified as if something had drained all the fluids and flesh from the bodies.
