Hope Engine

by Andrew Lynch

  As the Geeko reached us, it tripped and fell on the floor, lying there, trying to catch its breath. It pointed to the Eastern wall. Right in the middle, Ixly’s honour guard were jumping up and down, waving their weapons in the air, trying everything they could to get our attention.

  Fair point, we’d had some serious tunnel vision the last half hour.

  ‘Ixly, you handle that. I’m going to check Overseer and see what intel our hunter’s new vision provides, then I’ll be over.’

  Before either of us could so much as take a step, the Eastern wall lit up in a golden, atomic explosion, and disintegrated.

  Chapter 46: Big Green Taunt

  “Disintegrated” wasn’t entirely true. The blast had been strong enough to vaporise part of the wall, but the rest of it? Scattered across the entirety of Thanis. Which would have been fine, except Ixly’s swamp did of course take up half of the Eastern wall, and that was where the gate guard reinforcements were resting.

  I sprinted to my altar, trusting Ixly to get there as fast as he could. I heard the beat of his drum and felt it speed my footsteps.

  I dived head first at my altar and once again my vision shot into the air. The resting guard had, to a man, lost at least 50% of their Life, and dozens had died. Anyone that had been on top of the wall had been scattered if they hadn’t already evacuated. Except for two particularly burly looking, orange Stagodon, who were now joining up with Ixly. Damn, but they were tough sons of bubonic buttercups.

  The only good thing, was that, for some reason, there weren’t any Eastern Shadow pouring in through the breach. Why? I had no idea, but I didn’t have time to look a gift sandworm in the mouth.

  Speaking of which, the hunters were all in place, and it was a very illuminating sight. Koif had made some serious manoeuvres since his previous deployment. Instead of an army completely surrounding me in blocks of two hundred, he’d split his army into only two evenly sized, groups. One at the main gate, and one at the rear.

  The main gate guard had taken some losses, but held up surprisingly well, all things considered. They were fatigued, and if things hadn’t just gone completely batshit insane then I’d have rotated them out for the reserves. As it stood, however, the reserves were battered. I selected everyone on the North wall and sent them to the East wall, including Ixly’s goblin horde, and everyone from the Southern wall went to the West. This was now a battle of two fronts. The one that was fucked, and the one that was double fucked.

  At the ambushed Eastern wall, I could see, in the middle of a thousand troops, Koif and his ten honour guard. They were positively glowing. I mean, literally. They must have had personal light shields. Brilliant.

  I focused on the breached wall. The outside of it was charred, with an atomic shadow staining the ground around it. The inside was littered with rubble and bodies. Some of them were my cultists. Many were Ixly’s Stagodon. Followers that would never respawn. The losses here were real. The lives were real, digital or not. How could Bri have abandoned this? She let them die by taking a quarter of my village with her. No, stupid. I’d let them die.

  Whoever came up with the phrase “If you want to make an omelet, you have to crack a few eggs” to hand-wave away killing people, was some creepy motherfucker that had never seen anyone they care about die.

  I sighed, and it almost turned into a sob. Not yet. Hold it together. Stick to the plan. I’d known this would happen when I decided to stand my ground. No, that wasn’t what I’d decided. Horace had decided to stand his ground. I had decided to protect my friends. Everything had a cost. To strike back at The Eastern Shadow, I had to bait them in. How much was I willing to sacrifice to gain power? How many of the troops? How many of my followers? How many of my friends?

  I could give up. Koif was here to convert, not destroy – although no one was quite sure what the difference was. Raise the white flag, and no one else had to die. Bri had abandoned us. With a single decision, everyone else could be saved. Or I could get my reserves to their feet, and plug them into the broken wall, and tell them to resist whatever came their way. As long as I plugged that hole quickly, then Koif couldn’t use his superior numbers against us.

  Except that wouldn’t work. I couldn’t bunch everyone together because a few well placed artillery strikes would decimate my entire army.

  So, the same question. How much was I willing to sacrifice to gain power?

  I selected the downed units around the breach and arranged them into two groups, setting them to line up against the wall. This formation was far less effective for defence, but at least the enemy mages couldn’t just start taking free shots at my army. Equally if the enemy started pouring through the breach, they would now be able to establish a beachhead and overwhelm me. What would I sacrifice?

  At this rate, I’d be sacrificing everything for nothing. I had to stick to the plan!

  If I left it any longer, the enemy could begin shelling Thanis, creeping carpet bomb style. I selected every mage I had, and set them to launch all their artillery spells.

  Parts of the enemy formation scattered. I wouldn’t be able to catch them off guard like my first few shots had, as they weren’t relying on their light shields to save them. But damage was still dealt.

  The Eastern Shadow began its advance. Koif was still in the centre of his army. Remarkably smart and cautious of him. If he’d been at the back, I’d have grouped up the assassination Geeko and had them shadow him. As it was, I found all that were still alive and sent them to sit behind the attacking army. They weren’t going to follow them in, they were the clean up force for anyone that ran. Was I expecting anyone to run away? Oh, I had an idea or two.

  Koif wasn’t charging in either. It was a slow and measured march. It was more intimidating than if he’d just let them all go crazy and sprint at us. But that would have wasted their stamina, and their first few waves wouldn’t have been prepared for my ambush. Apparently Koif had well and truly learned his lesson. He wouldn’t be making any more rash decisions. He was going to weather my limited artillery on his advance and quickly crush my handful of weakened defenders.

  I left Overseer mode and ran towards the breached wall and the clash with Koif.

  I wasn’t going to sacrifice my people without being on the front lines with them. And damn it, I would respawn. I could face down a few thousand measly shadowless troops. As I approached, I could see the ranks of the enemy army stretching out. There were enough that they could almost encircle the whole of Thanis. But they were moving too slowly. I lined myself up directly in front of the breach so I could see the lumber mill. The first few lines of the army had moved past it, paying little attention to a seemingly abandoned building. Good. But I needed to make sure that no one looked at it. Distraction.

  I could tell by the slight doubling of my footsteps that Horace was behind me. ‘Stay with Ixly.’

  ‘I believe you need me by your side, master.’

  ‘No. Round up the cultists and guard Ixly. No! I need a message sent to the mages. All of them.’ I gave him some crude instructions.

  I heard his footsteps peel off from mine and knew that he’d do as I asked. For a bit. Until he decided to do what he wanted to do instead. Needless to say, I didn’t think he’d be guarding Ixly after he’d delivered the message to the mages.

  As I reached the walls, I could hear Ixly banging away on his drum. He’d gathered his followers around him, and I could see he was preparing something for which he wanted troops he knew and trusted. That meant his goblins were free. Perfect.

  ‘Ixly!’ I shouted over the top of his beat. ‘I need to borrow your goblins!’

  He kept the music going, but sent his little horde my way with a head jerk. Goblins. Small, vicious, kind of stupid. These little guys were armed with slings and stones. One or two had a pointy stick in the belt around their waist. These belts were moth-eaten cloth, coarse sack material, or a mouldy leather for the fancy ones. Some of the belts had ornaments hanging from them. Pebbles with holes in t
hem, a colourful hunk of glass, a particularly sticky bit of mud – different for all of the little critters, and some held nothing. However, they all had one thing in common. The loincloth. It reached down to their knees. It was like a little, barbaric, evil monster’s Scottish kilt. So, just a regular kilt, then.

  They hopped around and gnashed their teeth together, but they were following me. I walked through the rubble strewn breach in the wall and the goblins swarmed along behind me.

  Sometimes the key to distraction was subtlety. If I jumped up and down, waving my arms like a loon, screaming, ‘Look at me, look at me!’ then it would be obvious. Koif would be able to tell that I wanted him to look at me instead of elsewhere, and at this point I’d gotten the best of him enough times that he’d be suspicious. The artillery fire that flew overhead in intermittent bursts was a good start. Having dozens of your men die every minute was pretty distracting. But he was playing it safe. Giving himself time. Time to approach with caution. Time to not fall into any of my traps, real or imagined.

  Now, in truth, I didn’t really know much about Koif, so this was all guess work. In the tutorial, he’d mentioned his fastidiousness. His men had been rigidly trained, and not only had there not been a hair out of place, but there hadn’t even been a speck of dirt on their white uniforms. The Pristine Guard, indeed. Then, he’d joined an army where it seemed that free thought wasn’t a big selling point. I highly suspected that he’d been given the riff raff of The Eastern Shadow’s army, and had converted people during his march towards Thanis, hence why they were a mish mash of different races, sizes, and genders. I bet that Koif wanted the entire army to be as identical as his Pristine Guard.

  Standing well in front of my walls now, I turned around so I had my back to his army.

  It was still only a bet, of course. I could be wrong. Maybe he didn’t care about propriety. Maybe I’d caught him on an off day. And sometimes, when you have the choice to gamble or do nothing, doing nothing is the best option. But I knew his army could beat mine. He knew it too. Sure, bottlenecking would work for a time. It would turn the gate and the breach into a meat grinder that both forces could feed into, and hey, it did seem that my army was more skilled than his. But they weren’t that much more skilled. His 2,000 to my 400 was a bad bet for me. He would win the meat grinder. In fact, the only way for me win this fight would be to have Koif, in a blind rage, commit his entire ambushing force, himself included, to charge this breach, then have me somehow destroy that force, followed by running my army out of the breach, round the side of my walls, and flanking the other army. It would require that level of impossibility to actually win.

  One step at a time.

  I took a wide stance and lifted my robe. I could see all the goblins stop fidgeting and look at me. Some confused, some laughing, some instantly getting the idea.

  Step one. Get Koif to commit.

  I bent over.

  The goblins, crude and simple beings in most situations, understood why they had been chosen for this vital task.

  I very quickly learned that the devs of the HOPE engine had modelled goblins as anatomically correct. The proportions were questionable.

  Ragged cloth and leather were quickly discarded in the race to be the first to let their goblin nature shine. Some turned and bent over, drumming a frantic rhythm on themselves. Others let themselves hang free and let gravity do its insulting work as they jumped up and down.

  They say that when you die, your life will flash before your eyes. Now, much to my dismay, one slide in that feature presentation would involve knee-length green cock. I’m not saying this was my big sacrifice, but it was still worthy of note.

  I stood upright and faced the enemy army. A single arrow pierced the ground – it missed me by a mile, but I took it as an encouraging sign that firing discipline had gone out the window. I ripped my robe off, leaving me facing a thousand, increasingly more angry troops, in just a steel cuirass, jailer’s chain, and still very supple leather boots.

  I shouted something incoherent as I took a menacing step toward the enemy. The goblins joined in, circling around me now, jeering and screaming and laughing at the enemy. The enemy who were running towards me.

  I joined the goblins in laughing – partly to antagonise the enemy, partly because I realised how crazy this idea was and the fact that it was working was laughable. I picked one of the goblins up and held him above my head to make sure every single one of those shadowless monsters knew they were being insulted.

  Another arrow buried itself in the ground, much closer this time. I stomped over to it, pulled it free, and broke it over my knee. I held it up in triumph to the naked goblins, and they cheered and jumped and touched… oh okay, time to rein them in before that got out of control.

  The enemy army was getting close enough that it was almost time to make a tactical retreat. I’d rather walk calmly back to my own walls than have to sprint.

  Another arrow hit a rock on the ground, and ricocheted into me. Luckily it hit my cuirass and not my vital organs.

  ‘All right, boys, wrap it up. I want you all back on those walls!’

  They didn’t listen immediately, I’d riled them up too much. I returned to my discarded robe and donned it. A yelp from behind me, and I turned to see a goblin on his knees with an unfortunate new piercing. That woke the rest of the goblins from their excitement, and they all ran around trying to find their own scrap of rag that protected their, non-existent, modesty.

  I could hear individual voices in the roar of the army now. That in itself made me want to run as fast as I could into the safety of my walls. But I stayed strong. I took slow and purposeful steps as the goblins around me panicked and ran. I wasn’t some psycho, immune to fear, but I controlled it. I channeled it into my fists, clenching them so hard it almost hurt – in response, they glowed purple, dark energy lashing from them. I didn’t know why they were doing that. A response to my own fear? But I wasn’t complaining, because it must have looked intimidating as hell to the enemy. They’d already taken a pounding from my surprise dark magic artillery, and now here I was, the defending army commander, literally glowing with the stuff.

  Eyes, this game was cool as shit sometimes!

  Arrows began to land all around me now. I must have been in range of their general ranged fire, not just the ones who were taking pot shots at me. I passed into the breach of the wall, and through to the other side. The goblins ran off to the nearest rope. Ixly’s drum beat infrequently and quietly now, but he stood at the head of of thirty Stagodon, plus his two honour guard, now truly unshakeable from his side.

  He had a big grin on his face.

  ‘I shall hold this breach for you, Severo. We’re ready.’

  Oh dear. He’d snapped.

  ‘No, no. We can do that without wasting your minions.’

  He sniffed the air. ‘My Stagodon are the strongest melee troops you have at your disposal. I’m no fool. It’s now or never.’

  I hesitated. He was right. It was now or never. And I was sure he was also right about his Stagodon being the most powerful melee troops in my army. But they were his troops, and more importantly they were his followers. He’d levelled up alongside them. Grown his village with them. He had bonds as strong with them as I did with Horace – Horace, who despite killing me once or twice, was now stood behind me, having silently fallen in step behind me as soon as I had returned from taunting the enemy.

  I had to make a decision one way or the other. The enemy was almost upon us.

  ‘No. I want you on the walls.’ I turned and addressed Horace. ‘I want all the cultists in formation, right here.’

  Horace ran off to gather the cultists who, until this point, had been interspersed among more heavily armoured units. They were wicked fast and surprisingly sneaky, but couldn’t take a hit.

  ‘Ixly, back on that wall and drop the beat. Also, when the last rank of enemy are within 100 metres of the lumber mill, blow your horn.’

  ‘Severo…’ he
sighed. ‘It’s your fight. As you will it.’

  He ordered his Stagodon to stay and moved for the wall. He didn’t use the ropes to get up, of course – being the beast that he was, he just scaled it like an angry giant lizard in a far eastern countries capital, that is very firmly legally distinct from Godzilla.

  I grabbed his forearm and he stopped. ‘Ixly. What aren’t you telling me? Why do you want to be where the fighting is worst? You have a death wish?’

  He pulled his arm away. ‘Of course not. Maybe I have a life wish. Just like Bri.’

  Through our time together, I had always found Ixly to be wise and fair. Never one to lose his composure. But in this fight, he’d gone from being ecstatic at the beginning, to right now, where he was stomping off like a child. I was a self-centered prick sometimes. I’d been upset that Bri had left, but he had his own bond with her. If anything, the two of them were closer than I was with either. They had a shared pain of the real world and used Tulgatha as their escape. To me, Tulgatha was life. To them, it was a way of bearing life. Losing that had thrown him off to the point that he was volunteering not only himself, but his followers for what amounted to a suicide mission.

  Don’t worry, friend. I’ll get us through this, then we can find Bri.

  I turned back to the walls. ‘Everyone! Form up in the breach and show your commander what you’re made of!’

  Chapter 47: You Spin Me Right Round

  I start with numbers, because numbers are easy.

  It took 30 seconds for 1,000 enemy troops to cross 100 metres and crash against my 200 men.

  In that time, my mages managed to fire 4 artillery spells into the charging enemy, killing 80. My ranged units let loose 280 missiles – a mixture of stones, spears, and arrows – killing a further 50 enemy troops.

  Over 10% of the attacking force, killed in 30 seconds. A foolish charge that left them open to the full force of whatever ranged attacks I could bring to bear, before they clashed with my walls. If only I had another 5 minutes.