by Charles Dean
“Lord Darwin, did we come at a bad time?” Justin Yoo approached Darwin from behind as Darwin stared off towards the boss’s lair, eyes still fixated on the disappearing image of Stephanie. It wasn’t just because she was beautiful. It was because there were still a hundred questions he needed to ask her, starting with the question about how she had found a way home.
“We?” Darwin had momentarily forgotten that he was expecting company. He turned around to see Justin wearing the new bathrobe uniforms with his arms at his sides standing by for instructions. “Oh, no, not at all. Perfect timing, actually. Did everyone make the journey okay?”
“Yes, Lord Darwin, everyone is ready and accounted for. I was sent by General Alex to make sure the area was secure before the logistics specialists and civilian population arrived,” Justin explained. The stiffness in his stature as he stood at attention made it almost awkward to look directly at him.
“You didn’t happen to run into any Humans along the way, did you?” Darwin remembered that he was supposed to have bandits show up as well.
“No, Lord Darwin. We ran into several groups of monsters, insects and the likes, but the offensive forces of our growing army were able to dispatch them quickly and easily, securing their resources without delaying the expedition.” Justin didn’t move as he answered the question. Even his head didn’t turn to follow Darwin as his leader moved. He just stared straight ahead in the same awkward, overdone, boot camp pose Darwin was used to seeing in a 1980s movie.
“Justin, can you please relax?” Darwin had a hunch that he should just treat the NPCs of StormGuard Alliance as roleplayers and give them orders to act how he wanted them to act.
“As you wish, Lord Darwin,” Justin said, but his posture didn’t change.
It’s not really ‘as you wish’ if you’re just going to stay stiffer than a morgue’s inventory lineup. Darwin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alright, how long do we have until Alex and the other crews arrive?”
“They should be here within the next five minutes, Lord Darwin.”
“So, I don’t have much time to do anything with until they arrive?” Darwin frowned. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
“No, Lord Darwin. I apologize for not notifying you sooner, but Alex gave strict orders that you are never to be interrupted when you are speaking to Lady Stephanie,” Justin answered.
Darwin sighed. If Alex was about to be here, it meant he was about to have a ninja-like stealth assassin pop up and try to scare him into an early grave. It wasn’t just Alex, either. Almost all of the Turtle-Wolves seemed to be behaving more and more in the same stealthy fashion as if Alex’s sneaking abilities were less of a skill and more of a contagious condition. You’ve caught Sneaky Foot, suffer -2 to noise for five turns, Darwin mused.
“Lord Darwin, is there anything I can do before he gets here?” Justin offered, ever helpful.
“No, Yoo . . . Well, actually there is one thing.” Darwin thought for a minute. Stephanie said that a player couldn’t be notified of the portal, but that didn’t mean an NPC couldn’t be told to guard the entrance to it. Since he couldn’t stand watch over it himself, it might be a good idea to have someone trustworthy stand guard. “I need you to go to the back of this dungeon. There is a set of stairs at the back of the boss area. Don’t let anyone enter it. Not even General Alex or Lady Kass.”
“As you command, Lord Darwin.” Justin bowed then promptly disappeared.
The way they appear and then vanish, are they trying out to be billionaire vigilante crime fighters? Darwin laughed, remembering some of his favorite movies as a kid. He was about to go find Fuzzy Wuzzy, but as soon as the idea popped into his head, he noticed dozens of glowing red dots, then the bodies that they belonged to, appear in the horizon.
“Lord Darwin,” Alex called out to him, “I apologize for the delay. It could not be helped. We came as quickly as we could, but it was hard sneaking a certain multi-headed beast out of the city unnoticed.”
You managed to teach a gigantic Hydra your fade technique too? Darwin put his right hand against his temple. This is too much. How does a Hydra manage to get out of a city unnoticed? It could literally shade a building if it stood in the right spot, yet it escaped a denizen-heavy harbor without anyone seeing it? “Do I even want know how you pulled that off?” Darwin muttered audibly.
“I can’t answer that, Lord Darwin. It might be a boring explanation, or it could be an informative one,” Alex answered as if it were a serious question.
“No.” Darwin wasn’t sure if he should laugh or facepalm at that answer. “Nevermind that. We have more important business to discuss. Is there someone else qualified to take over and manage the initial base setup? There are time sensitive issues that I need to talk to you about.”
“Yes, Lord Darwin. Give me a moment.” Alex gave the slightest of bows and then walked over to a group of Turtle-Wolves loaded up with giant backpacks plus additional gear and began issuing out a series of orders. Darwin couldn’t make out what he was saying to them, but as soon as he finished, they all nodded and began moving. Each of them put down their stuff next to the door of the entrance of the cave then went out and started instructing the other Turtle-Wolves, who did likewise. After that, Alex returned to Darwin. “Thank you for your patience. Now, please tell me how I may be of service.”
“Well, actually, the thing is I have a very good reason to believe that we’ll be sieged sooner than we anticipated by the Animal Kingdom,” Darwin said, expecting to see a shocked expression, but only getting the same stone-faced look from Alex in response.
“Lord Darwin, since our conversion, every single one of us is capable and willing to fight to the death on the battlefield.” Alex’s chest puffed a bit as he boasted. “This shouldn’t be something to worry about. We will defend and defeat the enemy no matter when they arrive.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure we will be fine, but I’d rather not have many men and women we fought so hard to keep alive butchered the first day they arrive. I’d rather not have any die at all, but realistically that’s not something you can expect out of a battle.” Darwin’s eye twitched as his forehead wrinkled. I need a plan. I need something more than just fighting off the enemy.
“To be honest with you,” Alex said as he looked at the horde of civilians and Turtle-Wolves filing into the dungeon, “it simply won’t go that smoothly. This is something you will have to come to terms with, Lord Darwin. We will fight, we will win, and we will bring glory to the great StormGuard Alliance, but if the foes are numerous, it will not be a picturesque scenario.”
“I know it’s unreasonable, and I should simply, as you put it, come to terms with this, but I need better than that . . . ” Darwin sighed. “But I just can’t.”
“Well,” Alex said as his eyes flickered around for a moment while he scratched his chin, “if we are able to get enough swords for every man, woman and child, and I can muster up around a hundred hours worth of form training time with each one, and then we can give each of them a few hours to hunt in different regions until they are confident with their blades, then, perhaps then, we could gain you that victory you are looking for.”
“No other ideas?” Darwin felt as if each attempt to get a positive response out of Alex about the outcome of a real battle was like scratching a lottery ticket at a gas station and hoping to win big. Alex was indeed a great quartermaster, and a good General, but he also wasn’t the type to lie and sugarcoat the truth for him.
“None, sir. Perhaps you, in your great wisdom, have a solution to offer?” Alex’s tone was polite, but it was just off enough that the way he said it made Darwin feel like he was actually trying to say ‘Why do you expect me to solve your problems for you?’
“I . . .” Darwin wracked his brain for an idea. Wait! That’s it! “Alex.” This time he straightened his back and spoke confidently. This time, he’d be the commander that his people needed, and not just some guy with two swords and a knack for grinding. “Alex, if we d
on’t have swords, what weapon do we actually have in abundance?”
“Spears, sir. Even after selling a good portion of our stock, due to the possibility of hostile conditions, we have enough spears to arm four times our current population, the risen included.”
The risen? That’s an interesting way to refer to the monsters I converted. “Good, and how many craftsmen do you have capable of making armor or working with wood?”
“Working with wood? Given proper instruction, roughly anyone over twelve years old could handle the wood. We’d have to allocate project managers to make sure the quality was uniform, but that shouldn’t be a problem. No more than one project manager for five to ten workers, and we can easily afford that.” Alex tilted his head to look at the trees that were now situated behind Darwin as the two talked. “As far as armor, I believe we have only ten or twenty people capable of manipulating metal with fire.”
“Good, good.” Darwin’s smile grew bigger as he put the numbers together in his head. This was exactly what he was hoping for. “Alright, I think we should be able to actually do this then.”
“Do what, sir?” Alex raised one eyebrow.
“Win, and win by a landslide.” He grinned, one lip pulling up higher than the other.
“What do you need me to do, Lord Darwin?” Alex returned his grin. He didn’t even know the plan, but his confidence in Darwin’s abilities was not to be shaken.
“First, I need you to take as many men as you can and split them into two groups. One group needs to clear out these woods. I don’t mean kill all the living creatures in them. I mean chop down every tree and haul it up here. We’re going to need all the wood we can get. The second group needs to go into the dungeon and start harvesting the dead Blue-Drakes. Strip them of their scales and their bones, and make it a priority to get those both gathered up before bothering with the meat. There will be plenty of respawns for meat, but those scales and bones are a must,” Darwin said as he began to unfold his plan piece by piece to Alex.
He knew the basics of it. There had been great empires that rose and fell by the edge of a spear. He remembered hours and days of playing games where he had been forced to command armies and forces into battle that had devastated their enemies with a spear. If this was going to be a war, he needed it to be a total war. Not to mention, years of playing real time strategy games as a zerg-style commander against terrain had given him intimate familiarity with what made and broke a base’s defense.
A lot of people made the mistake of thinking that a good defensive position was one that sealed off all possible attacks. This was a misconception. For a fort to be able to stop an enemy no matter which side it attacks on, it must be stronger than the enemy on all of those sides. Sure, with preparation and time you could easily reinforce the position’s defenses on all sides, but there was a reason most people believed the best defense was a good offense. It just simply wasn’t cost effective to play the ‘Defend All Sides’ card. Instead, Darwin had learned early on that his greatest fear when trying to decimate an enemy’s ranks was not the commander who was prepared for anything, it was the foe that either knew what point he would strike at or lured him into striking a certain point. That type of opponent, the type that could control the battlefield, would always stop him. That’s the type of leader Darwin needed to be, the one who could force the Panda King to fight on his terms at his location and at his pace, and he had just the experience and role models to help him do it.
There was only one problem left: the Panda King likely didn’t get that position from being an amateur. If Darwin were going to win, he would have to use tricks from a world that the Panda King had never been to.
“ Also, we’re going to need a few people to scout ahead, let us know when and where the enemy is going to be coming from,” Darwin said, looking at the soon-to-be-demolished tree line. He knew where they would attack, and he knew he didn’t have much time or men to spare, but he also didn’t want their siege to have the advantage of being a surprise. One thing his Demon people had going for them was that they never got tired or had to sleep, an advantage he would absolutely need if he were to sustain a siege as large as the one he feared would come. Now, all that was left was to farm ZombiDrakes and pray that he could muster a large enough army in time to stop any force from taking the mountain. Too many pieces on the board, he grumbled as he pulled out his blades. Too many pieces on the board moving too quickly.
Chapter 9: Phallic Force
Qasin:
“So we can’t kill the panda because we need his help. We can’t wait with him because he doesn’t trust us. We can’t go off and just talk to your brother because he has a ‘soul-stealing’ woman with him. You have explained this all thoroughly, but there is a missing piece you still haven’t told me about.” Qasin looked around annoyedly at the cityscape strung out around him. It wasn’t just the stares, the snide remarks under the breath of the passerbies that were still audible enough for Qasin to hear, or even the pungent smell of a hundred animal people desperately needing a dunk in the river that bothered him most about the area now. He had gotten used to all that.
In fact, their resentment almost made him smile. Thoughts of how he would repay their ‘kindness’ wormed their way through his mind and pulled his lips into a grin. Slice, dice, chop and grind, he thought to himself as the images floated through his head. It was taking a great deal of self-discipline to prevent the grim fantasies in his mind from actually being carried out. He needed to bide his time until Eve was done with the animals here, until they had served their purpose. Once her goal was accomplished, she would have no problem if he dealt justice to these beasts who dared to look down on Humanity with such hateful eyes. I will restore order for mankind in this barbaric land, he told himself, grinning as he glared back at the leering menagerie in the streets.
“If you understand all of that, then what is there left to say?” Eve kept walking through the marketplace, head held high as if nothing were wrong.
How is she comfortable here? How is it that these people don’t irritate her too? “Perhaps the thing that I want to know even after understanding all of that is, why are we still standing in this forsaken den of dogs? The Panda King, to whom you went for help, isn’t interested in us right now, so why do we have to wait around in this city?”
“Because, dear Qasin, they will want us. In fact, as soon as their scouts arrive, they’ll be back, and we need to look confident in our prediction.” Eve continued to strut around, pausing only occasionally to look at items on display around them.
“If they don’t, if we’re stuck waiting for nothing, I’m personally going to go and try to reason with that brother of yours,” Qasin said.
“Qasin, why do you think my brother is worthy of being reasoned with instead of killed when you are already holding your blade and eyeing these citizens like prey?” Eve turned around to look at him. “Why is it that you insist on talking to him, helping him understand, but these people aren’t worth even a moment of your time?”
“The same could be said for you. You constantly nag me to talk instead of kill, yet you force me to talk to the people I want to kill so that you don’t have to converse with the people you want to murder,” Qasin grumbled.
“I don’t want to kill my brother, I just--” Eve protested, but was interrupted by a messenger from the Panda King before her excuse could be voiced. It didn’t matter though. Qasin was sure he had heard it along with every other excuse she had dozens of times before.
“Ma’am, sir, your attention is required in the royal courtyard,” a giant Ursine warrior said as he appeared behind the two. “The King wishes to speak to you.”
“Tell them we’ll be there when we finish up here.” Eve tried to wave off the guard, much to the ire of Qasin, who wanted to conclude the business as quickly as possible, but the guard was persistent.
“Ma’am, the King expressed his desire to see you immediately. We should proceed to the royal courtyard without delay,” he pre
ssed again.
“As I said before, I’ll be there when I finish here,” Eve said, looking at Qasin with a smile. He couldn’t be sure, but he was almost positive that the smile said, ‘See, we were right where we needed to be when we needed to be there. You were upset for nothing.’
“My Lady,” the voice grew deeper and more hoarse, “I believe your business here is concluded,” he said as forcefully as an Ursine might. As he spoke, several dozen Ursine and Panthera warriors began appearing on all sides of Qasin and Eve. Each of them was fully armored, and they were all grouped in a circle surrounding the pair.
“I see, so it’s that type of invitation. Does your King still not trust me? Sending so many people to rush me away . . . Well, I suppose if I must. Let’s go, dear,” she said, turning to Qasin. “We shouldn’t keep our host waiting.” Eve sauntered past the original guard in the direction of the royal courtyard, the entire group of additional guards still surrounding them as they walked.
“So was this all part of your plan too?” Qasin mumbled in a voice that would be audible only to Eve. He didn’t like the idea of guards listening in on his conversations, a distaste he had developed and fostered when he was constantly forced to guard against the Human Council back in his days of only being a puppet monarch.
“I don’t wish to delay this meeting any more than he does. We need him still, Qasin. Remember that. Yet, we can’t let it seem like we’re happy about being called back,”
“Why not?” he asked, the foul taste from his earlier experiences at court welling up in his mouth. “Why can’t we just state our intentions and be done with this game?” His disgust was growing with each passing moment. Not just with the animals, but with Eve as well. He was beginning to wonder how much of what she said and did was really just part of her games, part of her attempt to move him like a pawn.
Here I thought that I was free of your kind, he thought as he stared at her, his contempt for the people around him slowly finding a new home. Perhaps even now, all I need to do is kill. Will you leave me and play your games elsewhere if I just start murdering your other puppets? It worked once, it worked twice, and it hasn’t failed me yet. If a problem exists, I just need to kill. As his two feet carried him blindly to his destination, these old thoughts flooded Qasin’s head with memories of Wilhelm bleeding out against a wall. He was following Eve for now, but his mind was quickly looking for reasons not to, reasons why he should trust his gut and butcher the people who threatened his kind.
