Bastions

by Jeff Sproul

  "Yep." Riley nodded. "We tried taking a small step forward, and stumbled back a couple feet. But we're still in possession of all our territory for the time being. So there's that at least." He turned and looked over to one of the televisions in the room. There was only one that was playing mixed news. In this case, it meant that the news station was reporting on multiple games. The other televisions were currently set to a Supreme Hunter Online tournament that was going on with two million GD in prize money.

  "You think Golem will invade SHO?" Aaron asked, as he had glanced over to one of the televisions as well.

  "I feel as though Golem is probably just focused on Sigil for the time being. If it seized enough territory in Sigil…then man, I have no idea what would happen. Two games, under the control of one monster entity? That'd be so crazy, and unheard of."

  "Hmm," Aaron murmured. "I wonder if the developers plan on doing anything. I haven't been checking the forums as much as I should."

  "I read a post on the Mage World forums where the devs said that they didn't have the capability of implementing a change to the game that would help players in dealing with Golem, without giving Golem the ability to benefit as well. I think the fact that all the games are linked together is the way we defeat Golem. All those players were kind of trapped in Mage World with Golem by themselves, but now there's a bunch of games that could technically take the fight to Golem. We're fighting it in Sigil right now, but theoretically, players could traverse over to Mage World and fight it on its home turf. I suppose people could even be doing that right now, for all we know."

  "Besides that hellion nest that brought the dragon over, are there any guilds working on a method of travel between games? I haven't heard of anything," said Aaron.

  "Well, I guarantee that we don't have the available resources to try it, that's for sure," said Riley. "I don't think I mentioned it to you, but Warcry and the alliance that she manages have that shielded part of the city that you might've seen a few articles about."

  "Oh, that's Warcry's turf?" Aaron asked. "I thought I remembered her being over in that area, but I didn't realize she and her alliance had gotten that powerful. Wow. Yeah, people have been talking about The Dome, as they're calling it. A few guilds have already attacked it, but couldn't get through. I don't even think they came out to defend the shield, since it was practically impervious to attack."

  "I don't know about that," said Riley. "But from what she's said, their alliance is in a really fortified state right now. The only problem with that is that I doubt she'd be able to convince her alliance to push anywhere on Golem, because why would they bother when they're so protected?"

  "Yeah…" Aaron murmured. "But she's in charge of the alliance, isn't she?"

  Riley shrugged. "She's the one who created it, but she created a council of guild leaders. They all vote and decide on things. And apparently the majority of them wanted to put their research and resources into that shield. So that's what they did. I sent her a message the other day and mentioned the Golem issue. She said that I should keep her informed, but that it's unlikely that her council will want to attack anything that would net them a lot of losses. So yeah, I really don't see any help coming from Warcy this time around. But it's not like she owes me anything. Not after how she helped me fight Shade and his guild back when we were…well, we were fighting you." Riley smirked, looking back to Aaron.

  "If only we could go back in time and change things." Aaron sighed and shook his head. "We could do it allll differently. Speaking of which, do you like Relinquisher's powers more that you did Radiance's?"

  "Oh, definitely," said Riley. "Radiance was nice, but…well, at the end of the day, he was a healer that could really only heal. Not to mention, playing him as I did, I kinda put myself in a situation where I wasn't really socializing in a good way. As much as it pissed me off at the time, and as much as I stressed over it, I'm glad things changed, and I'm a lot happier with Laura, Chase…hell, even Carla. I was sad to see Seth move on from the game, and of course everything that happened with Todd and Erica. Then there's Brenda, who I still feel is a traitor to us. But…oh wait, I told you that we think Parviz died, right?"

  "Died died?" Aaron asked with wide eyes.

  "No no, just his character," said Riley. "Or at least we think just his character. Nobody has heard from him, but he never mentioned any health issues, and most of that stuff has alleviated by now. But we're still waiting for him to come back. His powers were really useful for a lot of things. Plus, he was cool. We got along pretty well, I thought."

  "He was always nice. Definitely more agreeable than Amber, that's for sure," said Aaron.

  Riley smirked. "Yeah…even Amber has gotten…dare I say…friendly?" he chuckled. "I think that despite how Amber was pissed about us joining Sage, he still views The Brawlers as comrades and friends, and the rest of the alliance as players to keep at a distance. We get along pretty well with The Vigilant though."

  "Did they lose many people in the fight?" Aaron asked. "I know you said that you guys didn't lose any in The Brawlers, and that you saved Gem."

  "They lost their guild leader, actually," said Riley. "And they almost lost Gem, but we managed to save him. And then they lost some guy I'd never met. Someone who could make energized bricks, or something. I don't know the specifics. But their losses weren't too bad overall."

  "Do you know which players Golem was able to absorb and take the powers of?" Aaron asked.

  "Well, that's another thing, I suppose," said Riley. "None of the players that have come back were the ones that Golem absorbed. There's still players that haven't come back since they were killed and we're not exactly sure which ones Golem killed and absorbed."

  "You don't think those players might've died for real, do you?" Aaron asked.

  "I hope not," Riley murmured as he tapped a finger on the table. "I guess it's possible if something weird is going on with the data going through a person's head when Golem absorbs them. But I can't see it as anything worse than when I steal someone's power. I mean, how bad could that data transfer be, in comparison to the entire world loading in your head. You know?"

  "You said Golem didn't claim that many people, right?"

  Riley nodded and looked back up to Aaron. "Yeah, only a few."

  "So maybe they just didn't feel like coming back to Sigil, if Golem had the capability of attacking you guys and nearly winning. And now Golem has the power of several players, and whoever else it might've eaten since it arrived. You said it has Parviz's power. So it's probably collecting what it can, so that it can expand and remain hidden until it reaches critical mass."

  "I think Golem will have a harder time reaching whatever it might determine critical mass to be," said Riley. "In Mage World, all of the spells and stuff had pretty concrete requirements, even if people could research new spells and specialize in different trees. It might've had a sandbox world, but Sigil Online has limitless possibilities when it comes to powers. Sure, we see a lot of similar ones, but there's so many out there, and I'm sure there's some amazing powers that neither of us have ever seen or even heard of. As far as I know, Golem can't access the forums or the internet. It has to gain data by surveying, scanning or seeing it itself. So even if those jellies are all over the place, watching for players that it wants to eat, it still might not know everything. And, it's likely that due to its lack of knowledge, and the possibility that a bunch of players might be incredibly good at fighting it, it might need a lot of time to get where it needs to be."

  "That makes sense," Aaron agreed.

  "The one big problem is actually getting players to go out and fight it. So far, there hasn't been a unified push against it. Only a few guilds here and there, fighting over their own turf."

  "I think despite some of the small conflicts you've mentioned, most players don't see Golem as much of a problem," said Aaron. "Especially if Golem isn't fighting them or going after their territory."

  Riley nodded. "And therein lies the probl
em. It's crazy how…I dunno, is clever the right word? Golem seems to be a really competent AI, but there's plenty of enemies that have been clever in games before. So it's not really anything new, but if you account for how powerful Golem is, it's problematic."

  "Yep. Definitely unlike anything that we've had to deal with before," said Aaron.

  Riley quietly rapped his fingers against the table while he stared off to the side, watching one of the monitors. His eyebrows then lifted as he looked to Aaron again. "Wouldn't suppose you made any progress with those wallets?"

  Aaron shook his head. "I'm still hacking them. Well, still hacking the first one. It hasn't fried my machine and it hasn't fried the wallet either. So…we're just going to have to wait."

  "Right," Riley sighed. "Hopefully we can get something…anything out of them. I might need the credits if this Golem situation doesn't improve in the next few weeks."

  "I'm sure someone will figure something out," said Aaron. "Until then, all we can do is wait, I suppose."

  "Yeah," Riley murmured. "Wait."

  Chapter 27: The Wait

  Over the next seven days, The Crimson Alliance held its ground. Several other guilds probed the alliance's defenses, but none gained any ground into Crimson Alliance territory.

  Riley found himself on guard duty for different amounts of time. Sage and Chrono worked out a schedule for players to patrol Crimson City. In return, some of the alliance's funds would be paid out in a stipend to those players willing to help out while the alliance was in tough times. Nobody was forced to watch over the city if they couldn't be online, or if they needed to be out leveling, but those who did were compensated directly by the alliance's coffers.

  Riley made a little money, but wasn't able to pump his character up. He gained almost no experience at all, but at level one-hundred, the gains made per level started to taper off. There was a notable difference between a level one and a level twenty-five, and twenty-five to fifty, and then even fifty to one-hundred. Of course, a player's powers and skill were the deciding factor, and how well they dodged or acted in a fight. For Riley, finding a better piece of gear somewhere would probably be better than gaining another level, since he would only gain a single stat point.

  Since Riley had little else to do than to go on patrols with some of the other players in the alliance and keep an eye on his surroundings, he kept in frequent contact with Aaron and Chrono. There were times where he'd talk to one or the other for over an hour, since he had little else to do.

  Just because they weren't being actively attacked didn't mean that they couldn't be attacked if they showed weakness. The current state of Sigil Online warfare was to scout your enemy and find a weakness so that you could exploit it in your attack. If Crimson Alliance didn't appear to have a hard weakness, then it would be more difficult for an enemy to build up the courage to attack such a large alliance, even if that alliance wasn't as well-off as they used to be.

  One of the positives that the alliance had going for it was that thanks to Sage's ambition, it had constantly gone on the offensive to seize territory, mainly within the city itself. Outside of that, Sage had orchestrated numerous attacks against nearby outposts. It allowed them to seize key resource nodes out in the wild areas.

  Beyond attacking a base, the second key component of warfare in Sigil was raiding convoys. If a base didn't have a decently efficient teleporter system set up, then they had to transport materials via actual vehicles. These caravans would often be well-defended, nearly as much as a city itself. But oftentimes, they were easy pickings if you knew what route they were taking. The Vigilant had only had partial success with raiding caravans, but that was because their quarry knew full well what they were doing.

  On a related note, the four-legged bastion hadn't been seen since the day they’d encountered it.

  Chrono had surveyed the territory that The Iron Hounds and The Fists of Atlas had controlled, but there was no worthwhile resources in the area. It was likely that the two guilds had abandoned the area, regardless of the strange occurrence that had happened with the bastion hound.

  Golem had appeared in various capacities throughout the week. It hadn't made any significant attacks on Crimson-controlled territories, but Chrono had watched a live feed of it attacking several outlying outposts that belonged to other guilds. In each scenario, Golem swarmed the sites and obliterated the defenses. Each outpost remained standing, but after the attack, there was never any further movement. No troops. No players. No Golem. At least, on the surface. Thanks to ground-penetrating scanners, Chrono was able to see that there was some sort of activity beneath each base, but each time they sent a scorpion to check out what was going on, something would intercept and eliminate the tunneling scorpion before it could get close. Something that could move without being spotted by the highest levels of Crimson Alliance aerial scans, at least.

  Ever since the arrival of Golem, Sage had tasked Chrono with upgrading their surveillance measures at the city and in the outposts. Unfortunately, their aerial reconnaissance drones weren't as adequately upgraded.

  It had been a long week of standing around, talking, plotting, planning and waiting.

  Riley wanted to take the fight to Golem, but Golem was claiming more and more territory, spot by spot. Crimson Alliance was in no condition to fight Golem in a head to head battle. If other guilds realized this weakness, then it could spell doom for the alliance.

  So despite the fact that they wanted to deal with Golem, their hands were tied. It was far easier to attack a weakened Crimson Alliance than it was a potentially near-limitless enemy hive-mind.

  So, just like Golem, Crimson Alliance had to do a bit of hiding as well.

  Riley wasn't sure how much waiting he could do.

  But as circumstance would have it, Sage wanted to have a meeting. A message was sent out to all guild leaders and all second-in-commands within The Crimson Alliance.

  Sage had formulated a plan on how to deal with Golem.

  Riley couldn't have been more eager to show up at The Crimson Alliance HQ. He was ready for action. He was ready to fight Golem and be rid of Sigil's new plight. He was ready to have things get back to normal. At least, as normal as the Bastion update had made life in Sigil Online.

  When Riley arrived at the HQ after having been out on the edge of Crimson City, he found that he was actually one of the last few people to arrive. Unless some weren't coming.

  As Riley entered the room, he spotted Laura. She stood taller now since she'd obtained tier three. He was immensely happy for her. Interestingly enough, they hadn't seen the dragon since that day a week ago.

  Taurus stood beside Thrash. The two were conversing, but their subordinates were nowhere in sight. The two tended to take care of alliance matters personally, and then delegated instructions afterwards.

  Sage was nowhere to be seen, which wasn't unusual. The guy liked to make an entrance when he held meetings. Chrono was talking to Aegis, while Ava stood nearby, looking very bored.

  Chrono and Aegis were the nearest players, so Riley headed over to them first, but noticed that Laura had spotted him and started to walk over to them as well.

  "So, what's going on? We waiting on anyone else?" Riley asked.

  "Hey Reli," Ava spoke up.

  "Hey," Riley replied, as Chrono and Aegis looked to him.

  "You were the only one we were waiting on," said Chrono. "This is us, for the time being."

  Riley's brow furrowed as he scanned the room once more. "What about The Weavers and The Sappers? Are any of the smaller guilds joining?"

  "Apparently not," Laura spoke up as she neared the small group. "It's just us."

  "Sage wanted the core guilds," said Chrono. "Again, for Sage's plan, we need the smaller guilds to buffer the city. As for The Weavers and The Sappers…well, none of them are in a position to assist us with this operation."

  "I don't see how there can be an operation after what happened a week ago," came Taurus's voice from across the s
hort distance of the room.

  Chrono turned to him. It was hard to determine if Chrono could glare, but Riley couldn't help but imagine that he was. "Sage will fill us in on what's going on," he shot back, but Riley had heard Chrono speak enough to know that the hellion was holding his tongue.

  A bright red line appeared in the center of the room, then slowly opened into the shape of an oval. Sage walked out of it, followed by a robed figure. The person was dressed in robes with silver and gold coloration. Despite the figure's hood being up, it was easy to make out their short brown hair and a curious white lotus tattoo on their forehead.

  "Sorry to have kept you all waiting," Sage spoke up as he glanced around the room.

  "Who's this?" Taurus asked, despite the fact that the question had to be on all their minds.

  Sage slowly turned and gestured to the robed figure with his hand. The figure brought their hands up and pulled the hood back, so that all could see his features. "My name is Gregory. I'm a friend of Sage's. Back from when he used to co-manage our guild in Mage World."

  "Gregory came to us with what he knows about Golem," Sage spoke up, as he regarded the members of The Crimson Alliance. "Apparently, I'm not too hard to find." He chuckled. "But I was thankful that Gregory came to us. As many…or all, of you know, I had a hand in Golem's creation. As did every member of our guild in Mage World. Gregory here has shed some light on what's going on." Sage took a moment to pause, as if collecting his thoughts. "When we created Golem, there were four members who were in charge. Our guild leader Argon, myself, Gregory, and Melissa. We technically reported to our leader Argon, while Melissa managed our combat forces, Gregory our research, and I, our assets. I was sort of the guild's logistics officer."

  Taurus coughed, which sounded more like a growl than someone trying to clear their throat.

  Sage looked to Taurus, then continued on. "I sealed Golem away with a spell that consumed all our finances, but Melissa, thinking that she'd found a way to control Golem, set it free, since she had guild permissions to nullify the shield at her will. She set Golem loose on her enemies, using it as a tool to purge her hostile neighbors. But Melissa couldn't control it. It can't be controlled. She had enlisted Gregory's help, as Gregory and his late wife were both responsible in the main research of Golem. Gregory aided her, at first, but has since been trying to usurp Melissa and provide intelligence to other Mage World guilds in order to fight Golem in any way they can. But this hasn't been an easy task. Melissa's guild, now called The Goldbearers, are wealthy and powerful. According to Gregory, they're also here in Sigil Online en masse. And they haven't stopped their intention of using Golem to further their goals."