Liar King
Author: Adam Elliott
Date: 2017-10-28 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy
Description: From the very first hour Cayden had set foot inside the massive, real-life game that was the Tower of Babel, nothing had gone according to plan. A unique skill, a handful of new friends and the wrath of an ultra-wealthy, patricidal lunatic were just some of the complications to his best laid plans. So why was he even surprised when a special event trapped him, his companions and dozens of other players inside the tower, squaring them off against a murderous army of stone-faced warriors? If they are to have any hope of survival, they'll have to leverage not only their own personal power, but th

Tower of Babel: Liar King

By Adam Elliott

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.

Tower of Babel: Liar King

Copyright © 2017 Adam Elliott. All rights reserved. Including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Epilogue

From the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

For my Dad,

You showed our whole family the meaning of strength and perseverance.

I am still so proud of you.

Prologue

The job had seemed off to him from the start.  The broker was offering too much Zeni for such a simple task. It gave Reinhart flashbacks of every Mr. Johnson that had ever back-stabbed him in Shadowrun, and he'd told Dolph as much.

Their brave leader hadn't listened. They were being paid two-thirds in advance, he'd argued, so it wouldn't make sense for the quest broker to pull the rug out from under them. Some Elan just had more Zeni than sense. If they didn't take the quest, someone else would.

From the way Dolph's screams echoed down the hallway, Reinhart was fairly sure Dolph now wished that someone else had.

On its face, it had been a simple task. Visit an out of the way dungeon and use a key provided by their employer to enter a secret chamber. Once there, they could scoop up whatever loot they could find, so long as they located a particular spell component in the process. Jobs like this were their bread and butter, just never for so much money.  And never on such a short time-frame.

Why they'd been asked to make the run that very evening was one of the many questions Reinhart planned to ask, preferably at knifepoint, once he found his way out of this hellhole.

If he found his way out.

Reinhart didn't even know what went wrong.  One second they were rampaging through the secret chamber, snatching up nearly everything that wasn't nailed down and wishing they'd brought a crowbar for the things that were. The next Dolph was sprinting for the exit and four of the stone statues that ringed the chamber had burst free of the walls, the blades of their weapons gleaming metal as they attacked.

The statues were so ubiquitous in the complex that Reinhart hadn't cast them a second glance when they'd first entered the chamber. They had impassive stone faces with Oriental features, their weapons, and armor derivative of a similar, though slightly more fantastical heritage. Lifelike, but uncanny, everything about them so perfect in its detail that he'd found himself uncomfortable just looking at them.

There was a name fo such statues, but it had proven frustratingly elusive up until the moment Nirvana had shouted it as the stone men advanced on her.

Terracotta Soldiers.

Their cleric hadn't made it out of the room. Dolph was their tank, and without him, they had no way to manage the enemies properly. Reinhart had taken a wicked slash across the right side during the retreat to the door, and Nirvana had drawn Aggro from the entire group by healing him. The last he'd seen of her she'd been stumbling away from the encroaching monsters, crying for help before growing silent as swords and spears pierced her.

All sense of cohesion had vanished as they fled.  His two allies had bolted ahead of him, trying to catch up to Dolph. Their haste had led them headlong into another group of soldiers, with predictable results. The level of the soldiers appeared to vary, as low as ten or as high as twenty, but considering that Dolph, at level eight, was their strongest, they didn't stand a chance.

Discretion had been all that kept Reinhart alive.  He was a magical trickster, a class that mixed a small amount of spellcasting ability with traditional rogue skills.  His Vanish spell had allowed him to bypass wave after wave of the guards as they'd roamed the corridors, while his Sneak skill had muffled his steps and hidden him in the shadows while his MP recharged.

It might not be enough to save him, however. With each passing minute, the number of soldiers marching up and down the corridors continued to increase. Their heavy footsteps had long since replaced the skittering noises of the dungeon's usual low-level inhabitants, and before long he suspected the only things living in the dungeon would be stone. Eventually, one of the soldiers would have a perception skill high enough, or have enough circumstantial modifiers, to finally spot him.  Once they did, it wouldn't be much of a fight.

“Where is it?” The words reverberated through Reinhart's body, as though he were standing next to the bass speaker at a rock concert. The sound of them came from everywhere and nowhere, not an echo but an omnipresent noise. It was as if the very walls themselves were speaking.

“I don't have it!” That voice was more natural, and one he recognized. Reinhart had been taking the shortest, safest route to the surface and from the sound of his nearby voice, Dolph had apparently had a similar idea.

It would have been better to double-back, he knew, but even with his common sense screaming at him, Reinhart couldn't fight the feeling of curiosity that filled him. Dolph had taken something before he fled, that much was clear now. It would be nice to leave with the knowledge of what, and why, particularly when he went to have that talk with their employer. So instead of retreating, he advanced, creeping along the wall until he finally slid into the shadowed corner of a small stone room.

The room had six occupants. Dolph was on his knees, each arm pinned up at shoulder level by the steady hands of a stone soldier. Two more had the sharp edges of their polearms pressed along the exposed flesh of the player's neck, prepared to execute him at a moment's notice.

The final stone warrior was different than the others.  For one thing, the bearded statue had color to his clothing, stone meant to resemble vibrant purple and red silks was painted as such wherever it was revealed beneath the golden armor. His skin remained the same grey stone, but his hair was black as night, the topknot atop his head held in place by a golden leaf pin that shimmered in the room's dim torchlight.

"I know you do not have it." It replied though its mouth didn't move to form the words.  They came from the walls, from his soldiers, from the very ground that they stood on.  The booming authority of the soldier's voice filled him, and Reinhart knew in that instant he would tell the construct anything it asked of him. “You gave it to someone.  Who?”

“I don't know!” Dolph cried.  “It was a man.  My employer said to take the relic and to give it to him. That was all!”

Reinhart shook his head.  It hadn't been hard to two and two together to figure out that Dolph had been the source of his misery, but it stung hearing the man say it. Dolph had always been more than his fair share of greedy, but this was so far beyond that. Considering how fast he'd run, Dolph must have known something was going to happen, even if he didn't know precisely what. He knew there was a risk and he did it anyway, without telling them.

If the constructs didn't kill him, Reinhart was going to.

“And this man has left the Tomb?”

“Yes! At least, I think! I can help you find him though. I can tell you about his employer. I can tell you everything, just let me-” Dolph's pleading was interrupted by the butt of a polearm struck across his jaw.  The one in charge hadn't given an order, but all four had worked in an uncanny unison to allow for the blow, then returned to their original positions just as quickly.

“Yes, you will tell us everything. Before you die.” The leader said bleakly, ignoring Dolph's pleading screams and instead turning its unblinking eyes to the ceiling. It stood in silence, as if collecting its thoughts before it spoke, though Reinhart was certain it was no longer speaking to anyone in the room. “Thief.  What you have taken will be your death. And the death of your people. I allow you one hour to return it, or you and all your kind will face oblivion.”

Chapter One

“Left side, many whelps. Handle it!” Cayden shouted with a combination of frustration and resigned bemusement as he absorbed the impact of another of MEKA Dragon's swiping robotic claws on his upraised shield.  He'd known from the very beginning that nothing good could come from a pickup group with two random players, or pubbies, as they would be known in a traditional MMO. But he'd hoped against hope that maybe, just maybe, he could trust them to follow simple instructions.

Five minutes into the tenth-floor boss fight, he'd be happy if he could just avoid getting them all killed.

It reminded him of the allegory of the Pubstove:

A hot stove sits in the corner, bearing a brass plate with the brand name “Pubbies” riveted into its frame. Having touched the stove in the past and found it to be hot enough to burn your hand, and having witnessed others touching this stove in the past and also burning their hands, how do you choose to proceed?

Cayden had chosen to slam his face into it.

Not that he'd had too much of a choice. Celia, Shifty and himself had been powering their way through floor after floor in the aftermath of the incident with Immolatus.  Their strong combination of classes had made short work of even level quests and monsters, but as a three-man group, they'd been forced to avoid any content, such as dungeons, that had been designed with a full five-man party in mind. Unfortunately, that content included floor bosses.

He'd accounted for them in his original routing for the game, of course.  A bookmarked website kept track of which floor bosses were alive or dead on any given day and provided an editable tracking sheet so that groups could avoid squabbling over who had 'next' on any given boss.  Ideally, this meant that all Cayden had to do was keep an eye on the list, wait for another group to defeat the boss, then travel through to the next floor before it could respawn.

That was the idea anyway.

The strategy had worked without a hitch for the first nine floors, but a combination of bad timing and bad luck had stymied their efforts on the tenth. A group had been scheduled to fight the boss three days after their arrival, the perfect amount of time for Cayden and company to grind their skills, levels, and quests before progressing to the next floor.  Unfortunately, that group had failed in the attempt. Worse yet, for Cayden anyways, was the complete emptiness of the upcoming schedule. They could wait two weeks for a group to clear the boss, or they could do it themselves.

It wasn't a choice. None of them could stomach the idea of sitting around for two weeks waiting for some other group to maybe get it right. Which meant they needed two more party members. Which meant they needed pubbies.

Which gave them the Banes.

"Oh for... Personal Skill Use: Taunt!" Cayden shouted, following his command with a roar that was as much irritation as battle-cry.  Thankfully, the game couldn't tell the difference, and the skill went off without a hitch, a half dozen cat-sized dragon-whelps giving up their pursuit of Truebane and Darkbane in favor of rushing Cayden.

The two players continued to sprint away at full speed, somehow utterly oblivious to the fact that their pursuers had found a new target.  Cayden did not doubt that the twin brothers had thought that moniker bane made for a cool pseudonym, but he wondered just how many players now thought of it as a curse. They certainly felt like the bane of his existence, at the moment.

"Uh, little help?" He shouted as he shifted a step back and to the side.  It was a vain attempt to get both the whelps and their adult sibling into his forward arc where he could hope to block their attacks; an effort made all the harder by Grasp the World locking him within a small area.

“On it!” Shifty shouted from the other side of the blue and silver dragon.  It was difficult to hear what he said next over the sudden roar of the dragon as the creature lashed out its tail in his direction, but the effect was obvious as two of the whelps fell away from the onrushing pack.  Their feet were pinned to the floor as they thrashed and gave mewling roars of their own.

"...Out of time!" Celia finished.  In the confusion of the battle, he hadn't even heard her start casting, but he wondered why he had ever doubted her help. Two more of the whelps suddenly vanished without fanfare save for a comical pop of air. It was Celia's crowd control spell, an ability that sent non-elite or boss enemies up to thirty seconds into the future.

He'd still have to deal with all six eventually, but fighting them two at a time instead of six at once was a hell of a lot more manageable.

"Skill Use: Shield Bash," Cayden yelled a moment after blocking MEKA's most recent lunge for his throat.  The flat of his shield struck the metallic beast a solid blow just below the red visor that passed for its eyes.  The force of the attack sent the monster stumbling away, its head shaking this way and that as it struggled to throw off the stun effect that Cayden had inflicted.

The momentary reprieve gave Cayden all the time he needed to deal with the remaining two whelps. By themselves, the small winged creatures were only tricky due to the erratic nature of their attack. The first pounced him, managing to find purchase on one shoulder, but the other found only the tip of his sword, piercing its own frame in the wild attempt to strike at him.  It let out a squeal of shock and pain, then went silent as Cayden flicked his blade and finished bisecting the small creature.

The one on his shoulder didn't go so quickly.  The black and white lizard pecked, scratched and bit at Cayden, staying one step away from the young man's grasping hand as it skittered from shoulder to shoulder, then settled in the middle of his back, raking its claws over and over against his breastplate.

Truebane's Holy Smite hits you for 212 Holy. [Dark Resist Impaired]

“Really?!” Cayden cried incredulously.  The whelp on his back had taken similar damage from the Lightcaster's spell, but Cayden couldn't help but think there must have been some way to do it that didn't involve scorching him with divine power.

“S-sorry.” The man replied awkwardly.  Both brothers were nineteen, but neither had the maturity or self-confidence to match their age.

“Just deal with the whelps!” Cayden swung back into action, turning on the Mechanical Dragon and ducking behind his shield just as a ray of blue fire shot from its beak. “We've got this thing!”

In truth, Cayden was beginning to wonder if the brothers had done more harm than good.  They'd contributed significantly to DPS on the boss, but their inability to follow instructions and stop throwing damage over time spells had triggered its second phase before Celia had managed to heal Cayden back to full health. Their inability to just stand in one place had been what had inundated the party with whelps, and considering how deep he was into the yellow half of his HP bar, Cayden wondered if their stupidity would be the death of him yet.

Thankfully, the two brothers proved at least competent at the one thing he'd brought them along for, dealing damage.  Alternating dark and holy spells provided the Banes with a steady source of damage, even if they did sometimes stumble over their words or incantations.  The mixture of a Lightcaster and a Nightbringer made for a powerful combination, which had been part of why Cayden had picked the pair in the first place.  At the time he'd thought they were clever for coming up with a strong build combination.

Now he was reasonably sure that they'd picked it so they could pick cool names and an all black and white color scheme to match.

Either way, the pair of them made short work of the remaining whelps with a somewhat excessive barrage of spells. That left Cayden, Celia and Shifty able to focus on the real threat, their weapons clanking and shrieking off the chrome surfaces of the bipedal dragon as the beast gave ground before them. MEKA had solid stats, but by now its attacks were becoming predictable. It was actually a neat little Easter Egg, a mechanical enemy with a robotic attack pattern. Claw, claw, bite.  Swipe with the tail, bite, try a breath attack.

They pounded on the dragon, laying strike after strike across its surface until, at last, it roared in final defiance. Cayden and his comrades backed off from the creature, their weapons lowered, but the Banes continued to attack, launching spell after spell at the dragon as it fell back towards the silver and blue walls of the compound.

“It's dead," Cayden said with a roll of his eyes.

“Doesn't look dead.” The twins replied in unison.

"Did you not even...?" Cayden started, then a smirk caught the corner of his lips, a similar smile coming to the the faces of Celia and Shifty as they made the same realization.  The trio began to put distance between themselves and the dragon, slinking back to the edges of the room even as the brothers advanced on the dragon, throwing spell after spell.

“Did we not what?” Asked Darkbane, before a rumble of laughter echoed from the towering dragon.  It's metallic head lowered once again; it's mouth opening with blue fire bubbling inside.  But instead of the beams that it had thrown their way time after time, a small sprite of blue-white flame emerged, floating in slow, erratic patterns just above the dragon's mouth.

Neither brother knew what to make of it. But Cayden did. He stood on the sidelines, grinning and watching as the flame wiggled this way and that. It turned slowly, until it, at last, revealed a face inside the flame, a comical looking visage consisting of a pair of black flames for eyes, and an equally ridiculous black flame smile.

The flame's expression didn't change, but it apparently caught sight of the ones who had defeated the dragon.  It rushed towards them, and the brothers attempted to flee, albeit into one another. Their awkward crash sent them sprawling to the ground as the flame descended upon them, striking the top brother in the pile, Truebane, in the center of his back.

“Gah!" The man cried, though it was more from surprise than pain.  A second more and he was back on his feet, eyes twisting this way and that as he sought out the flame. The flame was gone, but in its place, there were new smiles, Cayden, Celia, and Shifty all grinning ear to ear.

His brother, on the other hand, was not grinning. “Ethan! Your face?”

“What? What about my face?” The panic in Truebane's voice was as palpable as the shock on his brothers.  “What happened!”

“You're all... scaly.”

It was too much.  Cayden burst out laughing, followed soon by Shifty.  Celia, to her credit, lasted the longest, doing her best to put on a mask of sympathy that slipped only as she watched Truebane run fingers along the green scales that had sprouted all across his skin.

“What the hell!” Truebane shouted, whirling on Cayden. “You knew about this?!”

"So would you, if you'd bothered to read the prep work Celia gave you," Cayden said through barely controlled laughter.

“You think this is funny?” This time it was Darkbane venting his anger, the dark-haired young man on the verge of violence.

"A little, yeah," Cayden admitted.  Unperturbed by the vitriol coming from Darkbane, he gestured to the man's reptilian twin. “Check your debuffs.”

There was a short pause as the young man navigated through menus on a pair of antiquated AR glasses.  Then he nodded grimly. "The Dragon's Curse.  It's okay Erick; it is temporary and cosmetic.  A couple of hours and I'll be back to normal."

“Which, again, you'd have known if you had spent five minutes reading.” Celia chimed in irritably. “Or if you'd played any classic games at all.”

“Hey, we skimmed it for the important parts, okay?” Truebane frowned, unnerved by the sudden amount of hiss in his words.

Shifty was not amused. “You skimmed it?  Did you consider skimming the part about avoiding the whelp caves when MEKA knocks down the far wall?”

“Everyone is alive, what do you care?” Darkbane shot back.

“No thanks to y-”

“Shifty...” Cayden said the name softly but firmly.  Outside of shot calling in combat, he didn't like to give orders in their party.  The mutual respect was part of what made their dynamic work so well, but from time to time Cayden had to put his foot down, even if it was awkward to chide a man twice his age. “We made it through, which is what matters. If they want to get themselves killed going forward, that is their business. Let's check the loot and get going.”

The brothers continued to protest, eager to continue the argument.  To his credit, however, Shifty turned away from the pair in disgust, following Cayden to the fallen, sparking corpse of the Mecha Dragon.

“Why hasn't it despawned?” Celia asked.

Cayden shrugged. “Floor bosses all die in different ways.  Some will ash away after a while, others, like this guy just sort of lay here until reset.  Seems like it's just rule of cool from the Developer.”

“Okay.  But... where is the drop then?”  The blonde persisted, creeping up on the destroyed machine just a few steps behind Cayden.

"Chest cavity." He replied, casting a slightly annoyed glance back over his shoulder.  It made sense for the party healer to spend most of her time behind the tank, but over the last week, it had started to irk him just how often she spent peeking just over his shoulder.  "Now who didn't read up on the details."

"I've got it pinned if it mattered." Celia stuck out her tongue, the undignified act making the sixteen-year-old Chronomagi seem even more her age.

"I am certain," Cayden replied dubiously as he clamored up onto MEKA's fallen frame.  It felt weird to stand on the fallen robot, in large part because this wasn't the first time he'd beaten it.

When he was seven, his mom had brought out an old cardboard box containing a host of dusty electronics.  A Super Nintendo, an original PlayStation, and her favorite, the Sega Master System her mother had bought her as a child.  His mom had insisted he try out some of those old classics, and the time spent rampaging through games like Metroid, Zillion, Kung Fu and, ironically, even Rampage, were among his fondest childhood memories.

One game that had always stuck with him, however, was The Dragon's Trap, an old Sega adventure game that began with a fight against the very dragon upon which he was now standing.

To say the experience was surreal was an understatement.

Cayden didn't understand how anyone could think the Developer was anything other than human. Who else could mimic gamer culture in so many ways? Who else would be crazy enough to use reality warping power to make the tower in the first place? For Cayden, the question was never if he was human, just what on earth he was thinking.

“What on earth are you thinking?”

“Huh?” Cayden jumped, startled out of his musings by Celia's playful tones.

“You're just staring at the thing.  It's creepy.”

"You're creepy." He shot back ineffectually before clamoring over the metal husk of the defeated dragon.

MEKA's chest cavity was easily accessed, the two plates over its heart having loosened during its death throes.  They pulled apart quickly, revealing a mass of wires, circuitry, heat sinks and other technical components. In the center, shielded behind a second protective barrier, he found the crystal, housed within a cowling of orange and grey metal.

"This loot will light our darkest hour," Cayden said, rolling his eyes.  The phrase had appeared on his AR glasses the moment he'd removed the assembly from its housing.  Only once the words were spoken could he pull on either end of the casing, drawing it apart as the crystal began to shine with an incredible light that was dimmed only by the sudden appearance of an item window on his display.

WonderPlate (Rare)

And now... Proceed with your adventurous undertaking.

Defence: 250

Required Level: 20

Required Strength: 24

Durability: 30/30

Bonus Resist Damage 10 (All Except Holy)

Immunity to all Polymorph or Petrification attacks. (Not Again!)

Special:  Impeccable shininess.

Everyone else was similarly looking at their AR displays or in Shifty's Case, their screens ,when Cayden looked up.  Owing to the two pubbies in the group, Cayden had decided to set the loot system for the boss encounter as personal.  This reduced the overall amount of loot the boss would drop, but guaranteed that each party member had a chance to receive at least one piece of loot tailored to their specific build.

Considering all difficulty the Banes had put them through, it seemed prudent.

Shifty was as hard to read as ever, but whatever she got, Celia was overjoyed.  The petite girl was hopping foot to foot in her light blue linen robe, her hands balled into fists as she shimmied this way and that. Undignified, but considering Cayden had done the same thing on more than one occasion he wasn't about to point fingers.

“So what's next?” Truebane asked, his lizard tongue struggling with each and every syllable.

“Next?” Cayden asked with an upraised eyebrow. He walked to the edge of MEKA, hopped to the ground and snapped his fingers to gain access to his full menu. A few seconds of silence followed, then the face of each brother tightened as a message appeared on their display.

Cayden has kicked you from the Party.

“Does that sum it up enough for you?” Cayden asked with a sickeningly sweet grin.  “In case you missed it on the rundown you didn't read, the stairs are right there. They lead directly into the middle of Terebeth, the floor capital, so you can't even accuse me of putting you at risk getting to town. Have a good night boys.”

The two men exchanged looks, an unspoken communication passing between them before a different sort of non-verbal message was passed in Cayden's direction. He was only too happy to return it, keeping his hand extended in their direction long after they'd turned their backs on him and headed for the stairs.

It was only once they were finally out of earshot that Celia's soft giggle broke the tension in the room. “What a bunch of...” She started, clearly intending to drop a particularly unpleasant name before she shook her head an thought better of it. “I thought they'd never leave.”

"You're telling me," Cayden remarked dryly. He began to intone a mixture of English and Runic words, canceling the series of buff spells he had placed on his person to diminish his MP to the point that the twins wouldn't have any questions about why the tank had such high MP.  At the same time, he toggled an option in his menu, removing the blocks that he'd put in place, blocks that concealed his Runemagi class levels and abilities.

“Any runes worth having?” Shifty remarked, making his way alongside the pair with a whetstone in one hand and one of his throwing knives in the other.

“Let me check.  Skill Use: Find Rune." Cayden said.  His AR display dimmed, all his usual pinned information and statistics falling away to provide no distraction as he turned and surveyed the room.  Find Rune was the level eight power from Runemagi and perhaps the most useful of the bunch.  It highlighted any and all runes within roughly two hundred and fifty feet of him on his display, even through walls or other obstacles.  It was useful, of course, for expanding his vocabulary, but it had proven equally helpful in finding a couple of totally undiscovered secret rooms during the course of their adventures.

"Nothing." He said, at last, disabling the skill.  He hadn't expected to find much.  The walls of the floor ten dungeons looked like blue painted silicon boards, covered in all manner of gold traced circuitry, but little else.  If there were any runes to be found in the entire complex, they would have been found here. "Can you stop doing that though?"

“Doing what?” Shifty asked.

“Sharpening knives next to me? Sounds like hell and makes me think you're going to stab me.”

"Wouldn't be the first time." The middle-aged thief grinned, the dark leather of his armor creaking around his slightly oversized midsection as he brought himself upright.

“Which we still need to talk about.” Celia joined Shifty with a smug expression of her own. The two had swapped stories during the weeks he'd been gone, and the fact that Cayden and Shifty had first met in combat had been chief among them. He'd lied to her by omission, and she wasn't likely to let him live that down. “Get right up next to his ear with it.”

"I'd rather you not." Cayden groaned.  "Why are you doing that now anyway, we're done for the day. Going straight to town."

“Forearmed is forearmed.” Shifty shrugged.

Cayden cocked an eyebrow.  "I'm almost entirely certain that isn't how the expression goes."

"Potato, potato," Shifty replied without the slightest difference in the pronunciation of the two words.

“I am entirely certain that isn't how that goes.” Cayden frowned, looking to Celia for help. “Celia, could you ple-”

His words came up short at the point of one of the girl's upraised fingers.  Her other hand was just behind her ear, covering it slightly as listened to some audio being broadcast by her glasses.  All three stood in silence as she listened, both Cayden and Shifty watching as blood drained from Celia's face

“What happened?” Shifty was the first to ask as the hand came away from her ear.

"A joint CFC raid went completely wrong.  Don't have all the details, but there was apparently some big infighting afterward." Celia replied with a soft frown.  "Silver died."

Chapter Two

“Wench, bring some drinks for my friends!” Silver bellowed, slamming her fist down onto the tabletop.

Sarah cocked a carefully shaped blue eyebrow at the command.  She was doing her best not to laugh, but there was no mistaking the humor dancing around in bright emerald eyes as she looked from Silver to Cayden and then to Celia.  "I don't think so."

“Wench, bring some juice for my friends?”

“You really think it is the type of drink I was having a problem with?” Sarah asked with a wry smile.

Silver sighed and rolled her eyes. “You're no fun. Sarah, could we please get them some drinks.”

“Milk for the kids.” She said, ignoring Celia and Cayden's shouts of protest. “Rum for Shifty, of course. And for you my elegant lady?”

“Are Green Russians actually a thing?” Silver asked drearily.

"Not a good thing." Sarah laughed before, at last, looking to Cayden and asking the obvious. "She's been here for an hour and still won't tell me. What happened?"

"She died," Cayden replied before Silver could shush him.

“Ughhh.” Silver confirmed, setting her head down on the table, a puddle of onyx hair concealing her from view.

“Oh! Sweetheart.” Sarah cried, bustling around the table to force a hug on the slumped over woman before Silver could realize what was coming. “What happened?”

“I don't want to talk about it.” The young woman mumbled into the tabletop.

“I'm sorry? I didn't catch tha-”

“I don't want to talk about it!” She shouted sitting abruptly upright and nearly throwing Sarah to the ground in the process. Half the bustling tavern was staring at the outburst, Elan, and Humans both rubbernecking to see what all the drama was about. "I don't want to talk about it, and I don't want to think about it. I want a glass filled with wine, which remains filled with wine until I'm ready to go to bed."

"You know I think we have one of those." Came a remark from nearby Symbal, the silver-haired owner of the inn of the Dizzy Sheep.

If Silver's sudden outburst had bothered her, Sarah didn't let it show. That welcoming, perpetual smile remained plastered across her face, and a hand stayed on Silver's shoulder as she asked the next question on her mind. "Okay, okay.  I won't ask. Was just surprised. Not like you to show up out of the blue."

"I invited her," Celia spoke up.

"More like browbeat me into it." Silver muttered.

“More like invited you.” Celia persisted. “You're not going to do yourself any good pouting in your quarters at the guild hall.”

“Yes, because I'll do so much better getting day drunk here for a month while you are out adventuring.” Silver grumbled.

"And hang out with us every evening when we get back." Celia retorted, intentionally ignoring the negative part of her one-time bodyguard's comment.

The Inn of the Dizzy Sheep had become a regular haunt for their little band over the last few weeks.  Good food, warm beds and pleasant company, it was an ideal resting spot, even if the cost to teleport there each evening, and back each morning dug a small pit into their available funds. In Babel, it was hard to put value on a place you could call home.

"Oh, goodie." Silver said dryly.

Shifty looked up from his fiddling with a bit of leatherworking.  "If you didn't want our company you'd have stayed in your room."

“Quiet you.” She retorted quickly. “Don't try and bring logic into this.”

A ripple of laughter rolled around the table before Cayden spoke. “If you don't want to talk about it, that is fine. But what do you mean a month?”

Silver's eyebrows knitted together in confusion for a moment, before at last, the comment fell into place. "Oh, the death timer." She nodded. "Downside of using a Green Dream.  If it activates to save your life, the death penalty is a month instead of seven days.”

“Ouch.” Cayden winced. “Well, small blessing, but I doubt they're going to go anywhere without you.”

Silver snorted at that. “Flattery will get you places mister. Though truth be told, I'm starting to wonder if we're ever going to get anywhere, with or without me.”

“It's that bad?” Celia asked softly.

"Honestly? It's worse." Silver frowned. "Not to piss off your sister by being the grim voice of reason in the room, but we still haven't seen the Demon's third stage. I don't think we're even close."

A somber moment passed over the assembled players as her words, depressing as they were, sunk in.  The progression guilds had been hammering away on Sobol's Demon for nearly half a year, and Silver didn't even think they were close? On the one hand, it bolstered Cayden's confidence that he'd be able to catch up to the leading guilds before the game was over.  On the other hand, was he rushing all this way just to smack headlong into the same unbreakable wall?

“Okay, I need a-” Silver started, only to be pleasantly surprised by the arrival of a glass of rich red wine. “You are too good for this floor Symbal; your talents are wasted here."

"So true. Though perhaps I wouldn't be working so hard if some of my employees..." She fixed Sarah with a stare as she spoke. "Worked rather than gossiped."

"R-right. Rum, milk and some food. I'll be back right away." Sarah stammered, bustling off in a hurry, as much as to escape that withering stare as to fill the order.

Silver smiled at Symbal, then waited for the older woman to leave earshot before turning her attention to the three low-level players. “Speaking of progress.  How goes that grand quest of yours?”

Cayden sighed. He knew Silver would ask the question, how could she not? It had just come earlier than he would have liked. A glance at the upper left-hand corner of his display told him everything he needed to know, two pinned reminders of quests still unfinished sitting there, taunting him.

Special Quest

Learning to Run

Requirements: Locate the Entrance to the Throne of Tabbris.

Reward: 35,000 XP.

Grand Quest

Find her.

Requirements: Locate and free The White Knight

Reward: ???

"Speaking of lack of progress, you mean." Cayden shrugged, his voice low. He doubted anyone outside of the ring of their table could hear a word they were saying over the clattering din of the inn, but he still didn't like discussing the quest in public. "I'm looking for a location, but I can't find a single reference to it online, or in any library, I've visited."

Cayden left out the fact that he was banned from the one library he thought would be most likely to contain the information that he needed.

“You know, the CFC offer to help does still stand.” Silver hinted.

"And if I completely run out of ideas, you will be the first ones I come to," Cayden replied as diplomatically as he was able.

Luxuria, on behalf of her guild Thermonuclear Box and the broader 'guild of guilds' known as the Coalition for Completion, had been making the same sort of offer through a variety of intermediaries on a near-daily basis.  He couldn't blame either of them, particularly in light of Silver's new bluntness, but it was an offer he was getting tired of refusing.  It felt too much like cheating, and even if it hadn't, their help would put him in the cross-hairs of their competitors, somewhere he desperately did not want to be.

"Suit yourself.  Just try not to get yourself, or Celia, killed in the process." Silver shrugged, turning her full attention to the long-stemmed wineglass that Symbal had so graciously provided.

“What about me?” Shifty chimed in from across the table.

“Hmm? What about you?” Silver replied to a gale of laughter.

The mage played non-nonchalant on the issue of his grand quest, but he was reasonably sure that Silver was chomping just as heavily on the bit, if not more-so, than her guild leader.  Silver had dedicated over two years of her life to this game, time spent almost entirely on the bleeding edge of progress, only to get stuck at the halfway mark. That alone would be maddening. But to have to watch Cayden bumble around with a grand quest that might give her the edge she needed to progress, fearing that he might screw it up and fail or get himself killed?

If their roles were reversed, he probably would have strangled her by now.

Shifty and Silver continued to throw shade and ice-cold burns at one another as Cayden's attention drifted from the inn to his display.  There were a few new messages demanding his attention, a letter from Sarah sent earlier in the day, a text message from his father reminding him of his mother's upcoming birthday and the usual handful of messages from fans asking if and when he was going to start streaming again.

The last one made him wince.  His last live stream had been over a month earlier, back when Immolatus had first put a bounty on his head, and since then he'd done almost nothing regarding content for his channel. First the bounty, then Runemagi, there were just too many things he had to keep close to the chest to be able to stream.  Idiots like the Banes might have missed the obvious if they even bothered to look at his class levels, but among an audience of thousands most of them were going to notice that he was level twenty, but only had ten listed class levels.

Which reminded him.

Cayden closed out of his message menu and entered his character information screen. He was immediately assaulted by the cheery victory music and glittering light show that accompanied the shining red Level Up button displayed prominently on the left side of his screen. Killing MEKA had put him just over the top, but in the bustle of Celia's overly dramatic pronouncement, it had slipped his mind to go and level up.

As usual, he was presented with an enormous list of possible classes, and, as normal, Cayden already knew what he was going to select.  He'd topped off on Runemagi three levels ago and then switched right back to his original Guardian progression.  Runemagi had changed his long-term goals for how he planned to build his character, primarily by forcing him to take levels in classes that had good Energy/MP ratios, but in the short-term his focus was still on improving his primary role as a tank.

You have reached Guardian Level 10

+40 HP

+20 TP

New Skill Learned!

Cover

Type: Active Combat Skill

Skill Level: Novice Level 1

Effect: Increase movement speed towards targeted ally by 300%.  While in effect, attacks that would normally be made against targeted ally are made against you instead. All attacks intercepted in this fashion have their damage reduced by 25%.

Duration: 10 Seconds

Cooldown: 1 Minute.

Cost: 200 TP.

Cayden laughed slightly at the skill, drawing a curious look from the companions at his table before he gestured to his glasses by way of explanation.  Cover was most well known as a 'someone screwed up' ability, so of course, he unlocked it after he was finished dealing with the brothers and their constant mistakes.

Despite its reputation, Cayden viewed Cover as more of a sustainability tool than one of desperation.  With a good party, he could juggle monster aggro to allow him to use Cover whenever the ability was off cooldown, treating it as a combination of a movement ability, a taunt, and a damage reduction skill.

Cover could be even better if he invested his new point of mastery into it, but that would have to come later.

Still mainly ignoring the banter of his friends, Cayden distributed his stat points in the usual manner for a level in Guardian and took a brief glance at his character sheet.

Name: Cayden

Gender: Male

Bloodline:  Agares-Tabbris

Class: Guardian 10, Runemagi 10

Experience: 190,697    Next Level: 211,000

Strength: 21

Dexterity: 33

Vitality: 34

Energy: 51

Stat Points Remaining: 0

Mastery Points Remaining: 1

Max HP: 2260    HP Recovery: 6.8/Second

Max MP: 3410     MP Recovery: 10.2/Second

Max TP: 1620   TP Recovery: 8.8/Second

Not half bad, all things considered.

From there he navigated to his skill menu. His list of abilities was becoming expansive, but for the moment he focused his attention on the skills that might make good candidates for mastery.  Grasp the World was out, for obvious reasons. Runic Overload was too situational and costly to use often, while its sister skill Runic Empowerment wasn't strong enough to deserve it.  Taunt, Shield Bash, Southern Cross, all had their merits, but his attention was primarily focused on his newest skills.

Revenge

Type: Passive/Active Combat Skill

Skill Level: Novice Level 3

Passive Effect: When skill is not on cool down increase damage dealt by 5% of all damage received within previous ten seconds.

Effect: Strike foe for Mainhand weapon damage plus 53% of all damage received during previous five seconds.

Cooldown: 45 Seconds.

Cost: 250 TP.

Find Rune

Type: Active Skill

Skill Level: Novice Level 4

Effect: Highlights any unknown runes within 265 feet.

Cost: 1000 MP.

Ritual Casting

Type: Active Skill

Skill Level: Novice

Effect: The user is capable of crafting more complex and time-consuming ritual spells.

Duration: Variable.

Cooldown: Variable.

Cost:  Variable.

All three made for very tempting options when it came to his mastery point. Revenge would upgrade into Justice, healing him a large amount of the bonus damage dealt on hit, which could add a lot to his tanking in tough fights.  He'd heard of at least two prominent Guardian players who swore by the skill, and it was on his mastery list one way or the other.

The other two were more problematic. The skill menu didn't show Cayden what a skill would upgrade into if he invested his mastery points, it only told him if the skill was available to be upgraded.  For skills like revenge, this wasn't a problem they were well known and easy to research.  The other two, however?

Cayden hadn't had much time to play around with Ritual Casting in the weeks since he'd unlocked the ability, but from what he could see it appeared to be identical to the ability that most focused caster types got around level 20.  As far as direct one on one combat, it was next to worthless. There were high-level battlefield magics but unfortunately, almost all such magics required multiple participants, and as of yet Cayden had been unable to find enough willing casters to learn if arcane or divine spellcasting could contribute to his ritual spells or vice versa.

Out of combat, there was a host of possible uses for ritual spells that he could cast all by himself. From alarm magic intended to wake them if someone approached their camp, to divination magic to spy on a distant location, or to ward against specific dangers they might expect, such as petrification.  Ritual casting could prove an invaluable resource in the future.  Even more so if he mastered it to allow for even more complex rituals. Useful in the future, but he needed a larger vocabulary and some testing to make the most of it.

Which brought him to the final option, Find Rune. So far the skill had proven to be nothing short of outstanding. The ability to know the location of nearby runes had vastly improved the number of words in his Lexicon, which in turn increased the usefulness of the ability overall. He still had quite a distance to go to the next cut-off point at two thousand words, but the boost in strength he'd obtain when he got there would be nothing short of incredible.

The problem was that he didn't know what would happen if he upgraded Find Rune. Babel included a decent number of other Find type skills, but the difference between mastering them was often significant and didn't translate well to Find Rune. Upgrading the ability could do anything from increasing his range to making it an 'always on' passive, to translating unknown runes directly.  He just couldn't tell, and that uncertainty was the only thing that gave him pause.

Cayden liked to think of himself as a gambler, a risk-taker. But part of that identity was tied up in the knowledge that he always had an idea of the odds before he did whatever stupid thing that came to mind, even if the odds were poor. With Find Runes he had no idea.

He might end up kicking himself in the backside later, but with two taps of his finger on empty air, Cayden confirmed the choice for his new mastery.

Justice

Type: Passive/Active Combat Skill

Skill Level: Mastered (Novice Capped)

Passive Effect: When skill is not on cool down increase damage dealt by 5% of all damage received within previous ten seconds.

Effect: Strike foe for Mainhand weapon damage plus 60% of all damage received during previous five seconds. User heals for 60% of all damage received during previous five seconds.

Cooldown: 60 Seconds.

Cost: 300 TP.

“What if you get it Cayden?”

The use of his name startled Cayden out of his electronic trance, dragging him back to reality where the table of his friends were all staring at him intently.  He returned their gazes, nudging his glasses just far enough down the bridge of his nose that he could see them all without the swarm of menus obscuring their faces. “I, uh-”

“-have no idea what you were asked." Shifty finished helpfully with an entirely too smug grin.

"Don't worry, she should know better than to ask anyway." Silver said sternly over the lip of her wineglass.

"I don't see the problem. We're all here for the same thing, aren't we?" Celia asked.

“I'm here because it pays better than roofing.” Shifty retorted dryly.

“The fact that you don't see a problem doesn't mean it isn't a custom.” Silver continued. “It's no different from the way we ditch our arms and armor when we get back to town. You just don't ask.”

"Okay, I am officially confused," Cayden said in the hesitation between Celia shooting back at Silver.

“She wants to know what you'd wish for if you got the chance.” Shifty chimed in while the two women spoke over one another in an attempt to express the same idea.

Cayden nodded, a slight hint of surprise crossing his features. It was a well respected, if unwritten, rule among most progression players not to ask what their competitors might wish for if given a chance. He wasn't sure where or how it had started, though there were a number of theories ranging from an attempt to cut down on inter-player violence to a superstition based on a number of early player deaths.

Whatever the reason, Cayden honestly hadn't ever given the rule much thought. It was arrogant of him, but who cared what other players planned to wish for if he intended to be the first one there? “It's okay. Though to be honest, you'd be disappointed with my answer.”

“Oh?” Celia perked up. “What is it?”

“Just drop it.” Silver warned, her tone growing more unpleasant by the moment.

Cayden hesitated, but a part of him balked at being ordered around. "That's just it. I don't know."

Celia raised an eyebrow at that, apparently surprised, but it was Silver that spoke, her voice icy. "You don't know?"

Cayden shrugged. “Not really. I never gave it much thought. Figured I'd just decide in the moment.”

“Oh my god Cayden, that is hila-”

"-Are you serious!?" Silver cut into Celia's words; her wine set down as the dark-haired woman leaned angrily over the table. "You're going to decide in the moment? Honestly, Cayden, is there anything you don't half-ass?”

“Silver!” Celia snapped sharply. “Cayden didn't mean-"

"-Oh you didn't mean that to be insulting?"The older woman shot back at both of them; her eyes narrowed as she talked over Celia's more uncertain voice. "Well, mission failed."

All three of the table's other occupants exchanged looks with one another in the silence that had followed Silver's outburst. For her part, the mage drowned whatever further words she had roiling on the tip of her tongue beneath another swallow from the apparently bottomless wineglass.

"Silver." Cayden was more shocked than angry; the emotion reflected as much by his lack of words as his tone.

Somehow, that discomfort dug even deeper into whatever wound he had poked on Silver, the woman snapping back before she could help herself. “This really is just a game to you, isn't it Cayden?”

Cayden opened his mouth to state the obvious, that it was a game, but closed it just as quickly as Silver bit into him again.

“Do you have any idea how many friends...” She started, losing her train of thought almost immediately as she pounded her right arm down on the table with a heavy thud. “Do you have any idea what the cost of your little adventure is? Do you even care?!”

“That is enough.” Celia tried to interject.

Silver certainly didn't think it was, but Celia provided a new target for her wrath all the same. “Is it? Maybe if Lux bothered to talk to you at all you'd have some inkling of an idea.  You do know why they call me Silver, don't you?”

"Okay, maybe bottomless wine is not in your best interest tonight," Symbal interjected sternly, summoned by the sudden vitriol being spewed at what was usually a quiet table. The snow-haired tavern owner snatched the offending wineglass from Silver. Seeing her libations in danger, Silver abandoned the argument in favor of one with Symbal, then stopped short as something about the older woman gave her pause.

“I don't want to have to cut you off, but you're acting...” Symbal trailed off as she realized that it wasn't just Silver staring at her. Every person sitting at the table was eyeing her with a mix of concern and wonder. “What?  Do I have something on my fa-”

The last word was left unspoken, as Symbal, and nearly half the tavern's other occupants shimmered, then burst into motes of bright, multi-colored light.

Chapter Three

The immediate aftermath of the light show was chaos.

Players leaped from their tables, swiping at screens or invisible displays to arm themselves against whatever threat had struck the occupants of the Dizzy Sheep. The Elan occupants almost universally bolted, or in some cases stumbled, for the doors, wisely deciding they didn't want to be a part of whatever came next. The tension was everywhere in the room as individual pockets of players faced off with one another, scanning the room with a range of detection abilities, with their weapons at the ready for a follow-up attack.

Eventually, it became clear that there would be no second wave.  Whatever had happened, had happened.  Fear gave way to confusion and uncertainty as players once again took to their digital devices in search of answers.

"She's alive!" Sarah shouted with relief.  "She's still on my friend's list so she... wait. Why is she on the first floor?"

Sarah tapped away at the mirror display in her hand, the tower's equivalent of a modern smartphone, albeit far more advanced than anything humanity had been able to develop on their own. Cayden could see her furiously writing her way through a message, then stabbing at the send button over and over in frustration as the device failed to respond.

“I can't message her. Do you think?” Sarah frowned, leaving the last of it unsaid.

“No.” Silver replied. “I've been trying to message Lux to get someone down here, but it keeps kicking back my messages.  It isn't just her.”

Cayden understood the concern in Silver's voice, and why she'd be asking for help so quickly.  Safe-zones, such as the one encompassing the entirety of Islo were intended to be more or less immutable.  You couldn't attack someone in a safe-zone without a duel request, nor could you steal from another player, or do any of a few dozen other negative things, including forcible teleportation. Players that did so suffered anything from Terms and Conditions violations, to straight up being attacked and killed by the Emperor's Guard if they resisted.  Safe-zones were safe.

At least, they should be.

"It is off floor messaging." Cayden chimed in moments before a playfully pleasant tone sounded from Sarah's device as his message arrived.  Under other circumstances, the fact that she used that as his ringtone might raise some eyebrows, but high-school level gossip was not particularly high on anyone's list of priorities. "Messaging on floor works, but you can't contact anyone on another floor." He frowned, pushing a few more keys before he added. "Or outside of the tower."

“So we're cut off?” Shifty asked with immediate concern.

“Looks that way.” Cayden frowned. “Maybe people can leave the floor, either through the teleport crystal or just physically walking?”

"How about we worry about that once we figure out what the hell just happened," Celia said.

“Easy for you to say, some of us have lives outside of this damn-”

“-Shifty. It will be fine, okay.” Cayden said, reaching out to put a hand on the other man's shoulder. “It's probably temporary and even if it isn't, your kids will fine until it gets sorted out.”

The reassuring words did little to ease the stress evident on the older man's face. Cayden had yet to meet Shifty's children, but from what he'd seen of them the two precocious youngsters were as mischievous as their father. They lived outside of the game with their grandmother, half a world away in Italy, but it was impossible to miss how close they were to their father's heart.  Shifty wasn't like Celia or Silver.  He'd taken a job with Vitalita to pay his bills, and he'd stuck with Cayden for a similar reason, selling the trade goods and crafting components he came across to support his children back home. To be cut off from them entirely was a nightmare.

“So what do we think happened?” Silver asked. Whatever argument they'd been in the midst of was forgotten. The once bleary-eyed girl was sober and attentive.

Silence reigned in response to her question as their little group wracked their brains over the issue. Around them a handful of other players appeared to be pondering similar questions, whispering back and forth with one another. When the very rules of Babel seemed to have been broken, knowing who you could trust was at a sudden premium.

“What level was Symbal?” Cayden asked, the small number of players in the once bustling tavern having sparked an epiphany of sorts.

“Uh...” Sarah replied, thinking on it for a moment. “Two.  Maybe three, I think?”

Cayden nodded. It made sense with his theory, but he'd need more than a single anecdote to be sure.  He hefted his shield arm, then bashed the rounded bottom edge of it against the table as hard as he could, striking it three times until he had the attention of everyone in the room. “Show of hands. Who here is lower than level twenty?”

A few hands raised in response to his question, though many of them faltered as their owners realized that their companions were staring warily at Cayden.  It was a foolish way to phrase the question, he realized. People here were paranoid enough without him giving them a reason to think he'd been sizing them up.

“Fine.” He shouted. “Did anyone higher than level twenty disappear?”

This time the response was a little better. The various players looked at one another to be sure, exchanged muted words, then eventually a few groups gave some indication in the positive.

“Level fifteen to twenty?” He asked again, this time the answer came back negative. “Level Ten to fifteen?” Again, nothing. “Level Five to ten?”

There it was. Hands started to rise throughoutall of the varied groups of players.  He had to ask a few more questions, but within half a minute they all knew at least one vital aspect of what had happened. Players lower than tenth-level or higher than twentieth had all been teleported off the floor. Players six or higher had ended up on the third floor; anyone lower had ended up on the first.

"A floor event?" Cayden asked, at last, his voice lowered to keep this particular musing to himself and his cohorts.

“Looks that way.” Silver frowned.

"Okay, pretend I don't know what you're talking about," Shifty said, clearly annoyed. "Because I don't know what you're talking about."

“A floor event is,” Cayden shrugged, “kinda what it sounds like.” As Shifty's face tightened into an angry grimace, he quickly expanded his answer, "There have been two so far, Floor thirty-three and Floor forty-two.  Players activate a trigger that begins the event. Once they do, the floor is locked down, and the players have to complete whatever challenge they are faced with in order to reconnect with the outside world."

"So we're trapped here," Shifty said. "For how long?"

This time it was Silver's turn to break the bad news. “No way to tell until we get more information.  The thirty-three event lasted a little over a day and a half. The forty-two...”

“How long?”

Cayden winced. “A little over a month and a half.”

Shifty swore under his breath.

“Shouldn't we have gotten some system notification then?” Celia asked.

Silver shook her head. “Events aren't like that. They're a little more... theatrical.”

As if on cue, the sound of a bell ringing echoed into the Inn of the Dizzy sheep from the street outside. A voice accompanied every few chimes of the bell, a man shouting in his most authoritative tones. "The mighty Duke Elazio de Medeces, Ruler of Islo and beloved of the Great Emperor, commands the immediate presence of all bloodline descendants at the Ducal palace within the hour.”

The bell chimed again, the same voice shouting the words louder than before as he drew closer.  Booted footsteps of the town guard accompanied him, and, in the distance, the players could just barely hear the bells and voices of similar criers going about their business throughout the city.

Several of the other small pockets of players seemed to have come to the same realization as Cayden and company, if only judging by the paleness of their faces.  A floor event was nothing to scoff at. Fatalities for the floor forty-two event had been exceptionally high, and in this case, it was hard to know just what to expect. There had never been a floor event on a floor anywhere near this low. Let alone one that required the removal of all low-level players from the floor.

"Might as well get going," Cayden called out, at last, sounding more confident than he felt. "The sooner we get this event dealt with the better. Right?"

A small murmur of agreement rippled through the assembled players, accompanied by a few sharp glares from players who didn't like the suggestion that they were following someone else's lead. It didn't matter to Cayden because he meant what he said. If this were anything like previous events, it wouldn't start in earnest until a critical mass of players had assembled as requested.

Slowly but surely, the various throngs of players began to shuffle towards the inn doors. Many of them took one final swig of ale or shot of hard liquor as they left their tables. Cayden couldn't blame them, if anything, this was going to be a hell of a night to try and deal with sober.

***

The Ducal Palace was among the most opulent structures in all of Islo, second only to the Temple of the Great Emperor. It was a place Cayden had, until recently, only seen from afar.  There were a large number of quests that took players there, of course, but his routing and the somewhat unique circumstances of his early days in Babel had conspired never to give him a reason to visit.

In some ways he was glad. He could see relative boredom on the faces of many of his fellow players as they made their way down carpeted hallways adorned with marble busts, framed portraits and all manner of esoteric trinkets the Duke's ancestors had collected over the years. Some of them had probably walked this hallway half a dozen times or more delivering fetch quests to and fro, so it was little wonder they had lost all sense of awe. Cayden at least, got to enjoy a certain feeling of gravitas as he joined over half a hundred of his fellow players on their walk to the Duke's audience chamber.

The room itself was massive, easily able to accommodate them despite their numbers.  Tables and chairs had been set out, but many players chose to stand or to linger along the edges of the room.  Nearly everyone had retained their armor, though many, like Cayden, had stowed their weapons for the time being.

With their equipment on display, it was easy for Cayden to narrow down some facts about the players around him. They type of armor by itself was enough to narrow down the class options for a given player, and even its overall quality could suggest a lot.

Not for the first time, Cayden was thankful that Silver didn't keep to the sort of ostentatious displays of power that some high-level players enjoyed. There were no foot long shoulder pads on her armor or spinning orbs of arcane might that would tell people just how powerful she was. Instead, she wore the same armor she had when he'd first met her, a full body black suit of leather and more unique fabrics covered her from neck to toe, it's outline trimmed in the same red as the heavy red cloak that typically concealed everything beneath.

The Duke's empty throne awaited his arrival upon the upraised dais at the front of the room.  His eminence had left them waiting for the better part of a half hour, more than enough time for Cayden to get a good read on a sizable amount of his fellow players.

Upon their arrival at the palace, the players had divided into roughly four separate types. First were the solo or group players like Cayden and his fellows. Players who might have a couple of friends or at best a full party.  Second were the guildies, roughly twenty in total over two distinct guilds; they had arrived in two clumps of players that had been hard to miss. Then there were the corporate players, farmers, caravan guards and the like; they were a ragtag bunch equipped in anything from best in slot gear for their level to barely above beginner equipment depending on their role.

And finally, and most worrisome, there were the Toy Soldiers.

It had taken most world governments less than a few weeks to realize the immediate national security implications posed by Babel. Some of those concerns were rather blatant, a person with the ability to wish for whatever they wanted could wish for world domination as readily as he could wish for world peace, but even the subtle ones were of grave concern. A nation that had to rely on a third party for Albieth steel could find themselves with a critical shortage of metal for new airframes, or tank armor. Relying on Vitalita for medical components could backfire in the event of an armed conflict and so on.

The result was the Toy Soldiers, a somewhat derogatory term coined as a catch-all for state-sponsored players. For some, like the soldiers on the far end of the room, it was accurate, young men and women hired as soldiers but tasked with fighting a very different sort of battle. But there were also diplomatic corps, roguish special forces, and non-combatants that still fell under the same term. If a government sent you to Babel, you were a Toy Soldier.

Technically there were two separate groups, a party of five Americans and a much larger group of Israelis, but it was only the second that worried him. The Israeli contingent numbered nearly a full third of all players in the audience chamber, and unlike some of the more lax behavior he had seen among their ilk, these particular soldiers still held their full military discipline. They stood at ease in five ranks, their commander walking up and down the lines of them, stopping here and there to speak to a soldier before carrying on.

Cayden didn't know what to make of her. She was pushing thirty, and if she had ever been a pretty woman that time had long since passed. Her black hair was shaven down to little more than a stubble that peeked out from beneath the beret she wore. Her face was studded with acne, her skin an angry red despite her calm demeanor. What struck him most was the air about her, a confident presence and sense of authority that was hard to quantify as her squat, dominant form traced its way back and forth through the line of her troops, chainmail clanking with each step.

If this was like the other two Floor Events, everyone in this room was going to have to work together. That was going to be fun, in the Dwarf Fortress sense of the word, anyways.

Cayden's thoughts were interrupted as a loud proclamation broke through the dim hum of conversation. “Ladies and Gentlemen. His Royal Eminence, Elazio de Medeces.”

All eyes turned forward with the announcement, just as the Duke's bodyguards came into view.  They were imposing figures, men of muscle and sinew clad in gleaming mail who walked with military precision, flanking the four corners of their ward. The man they guarded, or rather, the boy, was rather less intimidating.

It was hard to be intimidating when you were twelve.

A titter of laughter ran through the room, including a not-quite suppressed giggle from Celia.  Even Cayden, who knew what to expect, had a hard time not cracking a smile at the sight of the dark-haired, grey-skinned tween surrounded by his enormous bodyguards. It just looked silly, a child trying his best to look regal and important while not yet topping five feet.

If the crowd's reaction bothered the young duke, the boy didn't let it show. Elazio had a stern poker face as he crossed the room, ascended the dais and settled down onto his throne, his guards taking up positions at the foot of the stairs and on either side of him. The previous buzz of conversation was muted as the young aristocrat surveyed the assembled players with that same stern expression, waiting until nearly every word had died off on their lips before starting with his own.

"We thank you all for responding so quickly and promptly to our summons, particularly considering the late hour." The child began with the best impression of a regal tone his high-pitched voice could manage. "Reports have trickled in suggesting that most of you already realize that something is amiss, so in the interest of time, we will be dispensing with the normal protocol and formality of such an event, and instead getting to the heart of the matter immediately."

“Six hours ago, the court's high seer, Agamarang, suffered a powerful vision that left him blind and on the verge of death. Before his passing, he was able to relate enough of the visions cryptic details to warn us of what was to come." The Duke's expression grew as stern as the boy could manage, his eyes narrowed as he glared at the assembled players. "One among your kind has disturbed the Wardens of the Liar King."

The name sent a ripple throughout the crowd, but it was mainly one of confusion. Few players recognized the name, among Cayden's band only Silver and himself showed any immediate recognition. That wasn't a surprise; Babel had backstory every bit as expansive as the lore and history of reality, so only someone who had played for ages, or someone who was an obsessive nerd would know much about the relatively obscure name.

For those who did know, however, it was troubling. The Liar King was one of the seven kings who had defied the Great Emperor in his ascension to power over all of Babel. The stories claimed that he was a massive trickster, a manipulator without equal who spun plots within plots. He was far weaker than the Great Emperor in personal, magical and military might, but among the most dangerous of all of his foes solely because of his intellect. The armies of the Emperor marched on his castle, only to find it empty and their fields and dominions plundered in their absence or met him in combat just to see the battlefield arrayed with magical traps.  Whatever the situation, the Liar King somehow twisted it to his advantage.

Legends told that the Great Emperor slew the Liar King on no less than a dozen occasions.  Twice he was left for dead on the field of battle. Once he was thrown from a cliff-face, while his supposed final death was a brutal public execution. After the last, the Great Emperor had the body split and dismembered, its pieces taken throughout the tower and concealed in tombs and prisons beneath the earth so that any attempt to revive the Liar King would prove an impossible task.

It had failed, of course. The same legends said that the Liar King had reappeared a century later, albeit less than he once was, content to work from the shadows instead of opposing the Great Emperor directly.

At the time he'd read it, Cayden thought the whole thing sounded like a cool premise for a quest chain. Now, he was slightly more dubious.

“We do not know what was done to disturb them, whether something was taken or some sacrilege was laid. What we do know, is that even as we speak, the Wardens stir.” The royal continued. “If any of you know the ones responsible, this is perhaps our only chance to easily rectify the mistake.”

The words hung in the still air of the audience chamber, with the soft shuffling of feet and whispers of conversation as their only reply.  The young man let them linger there longer than necessary as if somehow hoping that those responsible would be pressured into honesty by the delay before at last, he spoke. "Pity.  Our cousin is holding a similar meeting in Sunè, so with luck, the responsible party will be located there, but we suspect not. Accordingly, we shall begin preparations sooner, rather than later."

The assembled players exchanged looks with one another, but the Duke pressed on. "In his... wisdom, the Great Emperor crafted an army to serve as the eternal guardians of the Liar King.  These Wardens were to keep him forever imprisoned, but I fear that they now do us more harm than good."

“None of the scouts or envoys we have sent to investigate the tomb have returned.” The Duke said, a frown showing on his face for the first time. “The Great Emperor charged our family with assisting the Wardens during times of trouble, but between our losses and Agamarang's vision, we fear that they are not what they once were. That they do not recognize friend from foe.”

"You ever get the feeling that the Great Emperor isn't exactly good at long-term planning?" Sarah quipped.

“We suspect you are all aware that the floor had been locked. This was a precaution against a resurgence of the Liar King. It was intended to keep him trapped here so that his Wardens could deal with him should he escape. The floor will remain locked until we can return the Wardens to their rest. Which is why we've summoned you all here.”

A number of replies, some far from polite swelled out of the crowd. They threatened to shout down whatever the young man had to say before his guards began to pound the stone floor with the butts of their pole-arms, demanding silence and attention as only armed men could do.

“The danger posed by the Wardens is immense and will grow as they awaken fully. By ourselves, I believe the Elan will fall. By yourselves, the Bloodlines, the Humans, will fall.” The boy stood, his eyes scanning the crowd. “Only together will we have the capability to endure and find a solution for what is to come.”

Chapter Four

In a real video game, the speech would have been part of a cut-scene, accompanied by a swell of intense music as the crowd built itself into a frenzy of cheers and a grand alliance was forged.  In reality, the line was met with distrust and unease.

Would it be dangerous? What did the Duke want them to do, enlist? Such questions passed from person to person as the Duke stood awkwardly at the front of the room.  He'd obviously expected a different reaction, and for just a brief moment it looked like the young man might cry, before he tightened his expression, firmed his resolve and continued to speak. "Who among you is the strongest!"

There was a little back and forth among various groups, no doubt trying to guess if they were the top dogs in the room, and who among them was the best of the best. Cayden didn't have any such problem; he knew his party contained the strongest.

“Right here.” He shouted, gesturing to Silver with the index fingers of both hands.

The Duke studied her for a moment; young eyes narrowed as he shook his head. "No, not her.  She has much potential power, but her power is restricted at the moment. Next to her."

“Hmm?” Sarah said softly as Cayden turned his fingers to point at her. “Oh no, nuh uh.”

“My eyes are not wrong on this.” The Duke replied.  He was still studying her, and this time there was no mistaking the soft, incredibly thin line that glowed around the grey skin at the edges of his eyes.

“Your eyes are not wrong, but I want no part of this M'lord. I'm retired.” Sarah replied.

“Did you just call him M'lord?” Celia asked quietly.

"N-no," Sarah replied.

“You totally did, didn't she Shifty?” They rogue nodded to the question, grinning ear from ear.  The grin only grew as Sarah attempted to surreptitiously swat at the laughing blonde.

“You don't even know what I would ask of y-”

“I'm just a waitress, m... sir.” Sarah pre-emptively countered in her most measured tone. “There are better selections. I promise you.”

“You then.” The Duke said, gesturing this time to Celia.

“Me?” The girl said, surprised.

She wasn't the only one. The look of shock from both Cayden and Shifty set her skin blushing, the girl unable to meet their eyes for several long seconds before she added, softly.  “I've been grinding in the evenings. I didn't want you guys to feel like I was just dead weight.”

Before either man could voice their objection to the absurdity of her worry, or their annoyance at being left in the dark, Elazio cut in once again. “Yes, you. I would offer you th-”

“Sorry. But no.” Celia replied.

“You don't even know what you are being offered.” The Duke replied with some irritation.

“I know. But Cayden is my party leader. If you are offering us something, offer it to him.”

The Duke nodded, but instead of turning his attention to Cayden he instead focused to the far end of the room where a single young man lingered. “You then, sir?”

The man said nothing for a moment, only turning his head once the sudden lack of conversation became notable.  When he realized he was being addressed, he laughed a nervous laugh, snapped his fingers to close out of whatever display had been distracting him and turned to face the Duke.

He was a handsome man, that much would have been clear to Cayden even if Celia and Sarah weren't all but drooling open-mouthed at the sight of him. He must have been a late arrival, because Cayden didn't recognize him from his earlier look around, and he would have been hard to miss. For one thing, he was tall, standing two or three inches over Cayden, though he was equally wide in the shoulders. His body appeared to be built out of nothing but the muscle in a way that would have looked normal in an MMO but was rather out of sorts for the typical player in Babel.

He dressed to compliment his chiseled good looks, the top button of his tunic open to reveal a bit of the broad chest beneath, while his long dark hair was pulled back from his face in a loose pony-tail save for wherever a few stray strands fell to tickle his jaw line. He was among the rooms only unarmed occupants, someone who was apparently not entirely rattled by the imminent danger.

“I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass as well.” The man replied in a firm voice that would have suited a man a decade older than his eighteen, or perhaps nineteen years. “Solo player, probably better to give your investment to someone with some allies.” He nodded toward Celia who almost swooned at the attention. “Girl seems to have the right idea.”

The Duke was visibly furious, perhaps one step away from a full-on childish tantrum.  Of course, a tantrum was probably more appropriate for a child his age than many of the things he'd already said and done. "And you, Cayden, was it?"

“It is.” He replied.

"I offer you the temporary rank of Field Marshall," Elazio said with as much gravitas as he could muster, given the situation. “To be charged with the Defence and rebuilding of Bastion, with five hundred Elan soldiers under your command.”

Cayden's eyes widened at the offer.  He'd never considered himself even a particularly useful armchair general, let alone someone who would be expected to lead soldiers into battle. Yet before he could even begin to formulate a reply, a rough voice lashed out from across the chamber.  "You entrust him with five hundred men?! Are you mad? He is a child!"

It was the woman from before; he knew even before he looked. The leader of the Toy Soldiers.  Considering the context, he couldn't exactly blame her for her anger, even if his own swelled at her words.

"A child who is stronger than you, apparently." The Duke shot back with cold rebuke. It wasn't hard to see precisely what part of her complaint the child-ruler had a problem with.

“Higher level, perhaps.” The woman continued unabated, reaching for the hilt of her sword. “I'll be happy to lay him low if that will change your mind.”

The threat, even one directed at a player rather than their liege, was enough to spur Elazio's bodyguards into action. The four men closed ranks around the young sovereign, their weapons at the ready in a way that gave even the trained soldier second thoughts. Ultimately, however, it was the Duke who defused the situation. He waved his hands, urging away his guards with one and directing the woman's hand away from the hilt of her weapon with the other. "We have more than enough dangers to focus on outside these walls.  He is not the only one I would offer such a position to. Someone will need to lead the defense of Islo itself, after all.”

The implicit offer seemed to mollify her, lessening the overall tension long enough for the Duke to continue to distribute his offers and titles. In the end, five players, Cayden included, ended up being given titles.  The distribution fell roughly along the same sort of splits he'd noted when he'd first arrived, with no group or party being assigned more than a single task to manage.

The commander of the Toy Soldiers, Asch, was named Captain of the Islo Watch, expanding the ranks of her twenty-five players to include a number ten times that in Elan guardsmen. The two guilds turned out to be the Lords of the Edge and Goon Squad. Each was given the title of Knight-Captain, a keep with a terribly familiar name, Crossroads and De'Arnise respectively, and a hundred soldiers to manage and defend the countryside. Finally, the corporate guild turned out to be Celes Metals employees, all of whom seemed more than happy to be put in charge of a small defensive outpost between Islo and Sunè and the fifty men that came along with it, even if their leader balked at being a mere lieutenant.

“We have been told that the bloodline families have a common device to communicate with one another at great distances. Is that correct?” The Duke asked in the aftermath of distributing the various titles. After receiving nods or verbal agreement from each of his newly minted officers, he continued. “I expect you to use it. I know you are diverse, and most of you are not soldiers by nature. Many of you would balk at being ordered, but we can ill afford feuds.”

His look to Asch and Cayden could not have been more pointed if it had come at the tip of a spear.  Even so, the toy soldier did not attempt to bridge the gap between them. It fell to Cayden to walk the short distance, his hand outstretched. The soldier lingered far longer than was polite before taking his grip, her rough fingers squeezing his hand to the point he worried she'd start doing HP damage if she didn't let up.

"Excellent. Our staff will provide you with all the necessary information." The Duke turned to leave, his bodyguards forming in tight alongside him as he added, almost offhandedly. "Field Marshal, a word."

"Hmm. Daddy's calling." Asch said with a smirk, finally releasing his hand. "Keep you and yours out of our way, and we'll tolerate you. Boy."

Cayden longed to reply, but a combination of the Duke's brisk departure and a lack of a witty response made him hold his tongue. Instead, he smiled, a grin that twisted her face into a rictus of irritation that persisted long after he'd set off to try and catch up to the child ruler.

"Sir," Cayden said as he fell into step beside Elazio, trying not to laugh at the absurdity of it. “Or... is there something I should be calling you?”

“In formal situations, Duke, Sire, or any number of proper titles would be appropriate. In private, Elazio, or El will suffice.” The young man replied, offering Cayden a genuine smile.  After an audience where the boy had been forced to keep a stern or impassive expression, it was almost unnerving to see a normal, childish grin. “Cayden is fine?”

“Yeah.  No one calls me Cay though.”

"I'll endeavor to remember that," El replied.

They walked beside one another in silence for much of the corridor, the sound of clanking metal and his bodyguard's booted steps filling the void left by the absence of their words. As they reached the corner, and it became clear that the Duke wasn't going to continue, Cayden spoke once again. "You asked to speak to me?"

"Yes." The boy nodded. "Forgive me; I just wanted to collect myself."

“No problem. That had to have been rough, especially at your age.”

The child ruler looked up sharply, eyes as grey as his skin fiercely catching hold of Cayden's. He didn't say anything, just kept that gaze steadily on Cayden until at last the young man relented, holding his hands up in surrender. “Forget I said anything.”

El laughed, the humor flooding his eyes so quickly that it was clear he'd been on the verge of laughter through most of his staring contest. “You don't get the throne in Islo by being weak, even as a child.”

Cayden frowned. He knew the history of Babel, especially the lower levels, and the sad fact was that the way you get the throne in Islo was by being explicitly designed to fill that role.

Babel was so real that sometimes it was hard to remember that all the lore, all the quests, even all the Elan were as much fabrications as the physical tower itself.  The event might have a player based trigger, but the actions Elazio had just taken? That was programming, wasn't it? A thousand soldiers divided so every significant group of players had some stake in the war aspect that appeared to be the event's gimmick. The Wardens weren't somehow corrupted by the Liar King; they were created solely to be part of this event.

The thought made him shudder. There were Elan Rights activists for a reason. Apart from skin, eye or hair color, most Elan were functionally indistinguishable from humans. But if they were designed specifically for things like this, to take specific actions in regards to a pre-defined event, well that made them different from a human, didn't it? Did they even have free will at that point?

Elazio was staring at him. A thought for another time.

"Probably not," Cayden admitted at last. "So what did you need?"

“Hmm? Oh, yes.” The kid laughed, halting in his tracks.  “You've never commanded troops in battle, have you?”

“Does Starcraft count?”

“I-”

“Don't get the reference. Don't worry it h-”

“No, I get it. I just don't think it applies.” Elazio interrupted.

“Wait. What?” Cayden asked.

“I'm royalty. People constantly try to curry favor with me. About a year ago someone brought me one of your 'Lap-Tops' and showed me how to play a few games on it.”

An NPC playing a videogame. Pretty sure the Developer didn't program him to do that.

“That... is actually kind of cool. But yeah, no. I don't have any experience.”

Elazio nodded. “I expected as much. I will be sending one of my most trusted men along with you to Bastion, to serve as your military advisor.  Would this be amenable to you?”

“Absolutely.  All the help I can get.”

“Then you'll be accepting Roberta's help as well.” The Duke said with a self-satisfied smile.

“Roberta?”

“My lead engineer. She will serve you in that role, as well as a civic role as mayor of the town.  Assuming you decide to put effort into repopulating the walled town around the keep itself?”

“Honestly hadn't given it much thought. Still trying to soak this in.”

“Soak quickly.” The young boy replied. “Your task is most crucial of all.”

Cayden frowned. “I assume you're going to explain why a keep I've never heard of needs more defenders than your city?”

“Perceptive.” Elazio mused, joining Cayden in his worried expression. “A moment more.”

Their path carried them through a set of large double doors into an opulent library that made Cayden wince in spite of himself, then through another set of equally opulent doors into a much smaller chamber.  A man awaited them there, standing at full attention in heavy plate. He was perhaps the most ridiculous Elan Cayden had yet laid eyes on.  His navy blue skin might have looked alright on such a severe man, but the short crop of hot pink hair atop his head would have been absurd even if it wasn't matched by the similarly offensively bright waxed mustache.

It was a small miracle Cayden didn't break down laughing at the sight of him. Was he a glitch? Or had the Developer just randomized the colors of the various Elan and this poor bastard got the short end of the stick.

The soldier stood in front of a mirrored table. No, not a mirrored table, but a mirror table. It was nearly ten feet long, and four feet across at its widest point, but the dusky purple surface was unmistakable. A display table, a mirror like the one in his back pocket, though writ quite a bit larger.

“Valserys.” The Duke nodded as they entered, his composure tightening once more as the boy left and the Duke returned.

“My Lord.” The man responded without hesitation. “I have prepared the surface as you requested.  Is this the one?”

"Not my first, second, or even third choice," Elazio replied, clearly fighting down a smirk. “But he will do. Cayden, this is Valserys del Teremetsio. He is the military attaché I spoke to you about.”

"Pleasure," Cayden said, stammering the last half of the word as Valserys chose the same moment to speak the same words. The two exchanged looks and a hint of a smirk before the Duke continued.

“Show him.”

The soldier reached out and stroked the edge of the mirror with a gloved finger, causing its surface to glow with life. Displayed upon it was what appeared to be an aerial view of the entirety of Babel's second-floor, though it quickly zoomed in to focus on the most critical areas.  Some had their names written plainly on the screen, while Cayden knew from experience that touching others would give him additional information.  It was, after all, the same map he could pull up on his mirror.

The only thing that seemed out of the ordinary to Cayden was a glowing circle on the far end of the map, miles removed from Islo, Sunè or any of the other locations he knew well.

“This is the area where we believe the Tomb of the Liar King to be located," Valserys explained. “Even now we have scribes and scouts endeavoring to confirm and narrow down the specific location, but we are fairly certain that our initial estimate is accurate to within roughly thirty miles.”

“Why do you think that?” Cayden asked.

“Our initial estimates were based on information contained in the Ducal libraries. Recent events have confirmed the general location.” The general touched his mustache as he looked to the Duke, as if uncertain about precisely how much detail he should give, continuing only after a nod from the young boy. “Two villages in the area were found burned to the ground before we lost contact with our scouts. Given estimates of the land speed of the Warden Army, we have a fair amount of confidence that this is the location of the tomb."

“So the plan is what, exactly? Go kick their door down?”

The pink-haired soldier shook his head. “With everything we know, the military consensus is that a frontal attack would be suicidal. The Wardens were charged with suppressing a rival to the Great Emperor himself. As a military force they must be mighty indeed.”

“Our plan, as it stands, is to defend our lands while we discover the cause of their awakening.” The Duke explained. “If we can rectify what has disturbed them, it should mollify the army and allow them to return to their slumber.”

“And if we can't?” Cayden cocked his head to one side.

The Duke smiled wanly. “My scholars tell me that the full army is reputed to number in the thousands.  Though even that is not our largest concern.”

On cue, Valserys touched a point on the map. It sat with both Sunè and Islo between it and the Tomb of the Liar King, with a glowing callout on the map labeling it as 'Bastion.'

“We cannot be sure of the Warden's intentions, so we have to assume the worst, that the Wardens believe they have failed entirely in their task to restrain the Liar King.” Elazio swallowed hard, drawing a path along the map with his finger as he spoke. “If this is the case, then the Wardens will muster, fighting off any threats as they gather in strength before finally making for Bastion.”

"Why there?" Cayden asked though he suspected he had an idea of the answer.

"The keep is home to the final sanction; the last recourse should all else fail.  The Warrior."

Valserys brushed his fingers along the edge of the screen once again to show an illustration of a figure.  It looked childlike at first glance, curled up into a fetal ball.  But the longer Cayden looked, the worse it became.  The figure was stone, a soldier rather than a child, one clad in ornate oriental armor.  What had looked like toys at first blush were buildings, siege equipment and full grown men and women.  It was a giant stone soldier.

Quite the fitting name.

"Should the Wardens breach into the Throne Room of Bastion, they can awaken The Warrior with little more than a touch," Valserys explained.

"And if they do?" Cayden asked though he'd played enough videogames to know the answer.

Elazio answered anyways. “Then the Warrior will kill every man, woman and child on this floor.”

Chapter Five

“Anyone else feel like we're going to end up fighting Dracula before the night is over?”

Most of Cayden's party were usually pretty on the ball with his references, so it came as a bit of surprise that Michael was the only one who appeared to get it. The new addition to their party hummed Bloody Tears to himself as they advanced on the castle gate. A point in the man's favor, Cayden supposed.

Cayden still wasn't sure what to think of Michael, the ruggedly handsome solo player who had turned down command of Bastion in favor of letting it fall to Cayden's party instead. He knew what the gals in his party thought of him though, if only because it was all but impossible to ignore the way Sarah and Celia had fawned over him in the lead up to the teleportation that had left them less than a mile from Bastion.  Only Silver appeared to have been immune, the ever-serious mage too busy in her plotting to give Michael much more than a cursory smile.

In the twenty minutes Cayden had spent talking with Duke Elazio, the solo player had managed to ingratiate himself to both Celia and, to Cayden's surprise, Shifty as well. By the time Cayden returned, the three of them were laughing like good friends, and no amount of reasoning or excuses could convince either of them that Michael would be anything but an asset to their party.

Admittedly, Cayden lacked any good angles of attack.  Michael was of a comparable level, with a DPS focus that fit well into the open space of their party.  Worse yet, his build, once it was explained to Cayden, was pretty well thought out. At first glance, a dozen levels in a tanking class like Juggernaut should have disqualified him, but once Michael explained its interaction with the abilities of his other class levels, well, even Cayden had to admit he was impressed.

Grudgingly.

So why didn't he like the guy? Was it just something as simple as petty jealousy? Everyone fell for that from time to time. Right?

No. Not me. Never. Cayden thought to himself with a roll of his eyes. He could figure out things with Michael later. Right now they had a very, very large fish to fry.

“Not on any maps I've got, not even the internal guild ones.” Silver said from the back of the line.

"So it is safe to say that it probably didn't exist until this morning," Michael replied before Cayden could.

“Which was pretty much what we figured.” Cayden continued his thought anyways.  “Guess we're going to have to clear it the hard way.”

“I'd feel a lot safer doing it if Sarah was with us.” Celia chimed in.

“Wouldn't we all.” He replied. Despite pleading from Celia, and slightly more dignified requests from the others, the waitress remained resolute in her earlier position. She was retired as an adventurer. Besides, she'd said, who would watch the Dizzy Sheep if she was off gallivanting around?

“No help for it.” Cayden continued, glancing over his shoulder. “Anything we should be concerned about?”

Roberta and Valserys took a moment to glance at one another as if exchanging information and deciding which would be the one to speak all in a single look. It was Roberta who drew the short straw.

Elazio's lead engineer was nothing like what'd Cayden had expected, though admittedly it was hard to narrow down exactly what he had expected in the first place.  A petite and slender woman of perhaps fifty, Roberta stood head and shoulders below Cayden at just under five feet in height, though one could never tell it from the presence she exuded.

Roberta was as strong-willed as she was tiny. While her voice wasn't deep, she made up for it with an air of authority, a curt tone that spoke of nobility. "Uncertain as of yet, Field Marshall."

“Uncertain?” Shifty asked.

"Legend has it that the upper floors of the keep are replete with powerful guardians," Roberta explained. "But most of them are tethered to their locations, and should present no threat to you unless you seek them out."

“That said, the lower floors have been abandoned for centuries. It is likely that some, or all of the grounds are overrun.” Valserys added.

“Wunderbar," Cayden said dryly. "You three wait out here while we go inside and-"

“I'm sorry, who is the third person in that statement?”Silver interjected sharply.

He'd been dreading this. “Who do you think Silver?”

“Oh please Cayden, drop the chivalrous crap for once in your life.”

“This has nothing to do with...” Cayden shot back, his temper getting the better of him for just a second. “You're level one hundred, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you take a 90% penalty to basically everything. Right?”

“Yeah, but-”

“What is 10% of one hundr-”

"If you'd let me finish instead of being an ass!" Silver snapped. "You'd know that with all the stat boosts from my items, I'm closer to a level fourteen or fifteen."

He hadn't thought of that, though the smirk on her face as realization crossed his made it almost impossible to see the logic in her argument through the haze of irritation.  She had a point, but damn if he wanted to admit it now.

“You know we can't risk you.”

“What risk?” She scoffed. “Cayden, I've been playing this game longer than everyone in this party combined. You think I'm going to pull aggro or run into a trap like some idiot noob?”

"She's right," Shifty said from the sidelines, saving Cayden the shame of having to admit it. "Even underleveled, we're better off having her than having the empty slot.”

"Thank you!" Silver said with an exasperated sigh. "I'll sit at the back and sling some damage, and we'll get this all done faster."

Cayden looked to Celia, then even to Michael for help. The former stared back at him expectantly, while the latter only shrugged in a way that felt like a near-perfect summary of Cayden's options.

"Fine." He said, at last, snapping his fingers and searching out his social menu to add Silver to their active party. "On the condition that you stay within thirty yards at all time so that I can cover you if need be."

“You won't need to.” Silver replied with such sweetness that he felt his teeth ache.  Before he could interject, she held up a finger. “Yes, fine, I will. Shall we?”

Instead of responding to her, Cayden turned his attention to the two Elan with their party. “Will you be alright out here alone?”

Valserys nodded. "The beasts in the area are easily dispatched if we come across any at all. We will enter the castle once you send word that it is clear."

“Alright.”Cayden nodded. "Everyone ready?”

The group gave their assent, but all eyes turned to Michael, the party fixing him with a unified stare until their meaning finally clicked in his head. “Oh. Right. Yeah. Command: Full Equip.”

The air around Michael shimmered as piece after piece of his thick armor materialized into existence upon his body.  As a juggernaut, he wore nothing but the mightiest plate, the ornate Albieth steel engraved with defensive inscriptions and painted a blood red that made the stunning man stand out amidst their party, even if he was now wearing a full helm.

“Well then, shall we?” Cayden asked with a smirk.

“Really?” Silver asked, eyeing him with a blank expression.

“Really.” He replied, offering her his most charming smile before turning in the direction of the lowered drawbridge.

Bastion was the sort of castle you'd only ever see in a film or a video game. The type that could only exist when budgets and time constraints weren't a real concern, and you were willing to ignore a few laws of physics to make the scene picturesque. Even calling it a castle wasn't strictly accurate. Cayden wasn't exactly up to date on his ancient architecture, but he thought that 'walled city' might be a better term for the majority of what lay ahead of them.

The curtain wall of the city was, by his best guess, about fifty feet tall and at least half that in width. Towers studded the length of it at various intervals, at least thirty by his casual count.  The whole of the town was surrounded by a twenty-foot wide moat, though it was curiously absent of water.

Perhaps not so curious, considering it is supposedly abandoned. Cayden realized as they walked across the creaking wood of the immense drawbridge.

The outer walls were merely the first ring in a series of defenses that they had been able to see as they approached the fortress. A second, crescent-shaped wall separated the lower city from the upper township, with a single road the only official thoroughfare between the two. And after that, most impressive of all was Bastion's Keep itself.

Even as little more than a silhouette against the night sky, the keep was a majestic building. It sat on the edge of the sheer cliff-face, with the lake below surrounded by a final wall for conventional defense. It almost reminded Cayden of some sort of twisted tree, with branches growing out of the main bulk of the keep to rise up in half a dozen individual spires, connected to one another by walkways. Here and there even those branches grew their own offspring, small offshoots that hung off the edges of the established towers with such flimsy connections that Cayden knew some sort of magic had to be involved in their creation.

Travel through the city was safe, but unnerving. Silver and Celia provided light with their magic, but there was never enough to cover every darkened nook and cranny or to reach the end of every dim alleyway. By the time they reached the second wall, the whole party was dripping with dread and tension. By the time they arrived the keep itself and saw the first motion within its walls, it was a relief to see that they'd only have to be fighting the walking dead.

"Skill Use: Observe," Cayden said under his breath as they watched the shambling corpses and misshapen skeletons pacing aimlessly back and forth inside the courtyard.

Shambling Terror

Level 16

HP: 1050/1050

MP: 10/10

TP: 200/200

Skills: Unknown

Resistances: None

Weaknesses: Holy 100%

Blood Skeleton

Level 15

HP: 750/750

MP: 0/0

TP: 500/500

Skills: Unknown

Resistances: Darkness 50%

Weaknesses: Holy 100%

“Not exactly much of a threat.” Michael said, looking to the others.

“Individually, no.” Cayden nodded. “But I count nine that we can see from here. There are probably going to be at least that many that we can't. Likely far more than that. Might be better to take them piecemeal.”

“You've got a plan?” Silver asked.

“Nothing clever. They're bunched up too tightly for us to pull them in small groups. But if we pick a fight at range, the skeletons are going to reach us a lot faster than something called Shambling Terrors.”

Silver nodded. “Considering how slow they are moving, we might be able to just keep backing up and kite the terrors with ranged attacks.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Cayden nodded. “So who is pulling?”

The group looked between one another. In their regular party, it wasn't even a question. Shifty had the longest range by far, so it just made sense for him to pull the targets. Here, however?

“How about we let Mrs. Boomspell do her thing?” Shifty suggested.

“I prefer Ms. Boomspell, thank you very much.” Silver chided. “I don't think I have anything that'll hit them all, but I'll get their attention for sure.”

"All we can ask of you," Michael said. They couldn't see his playboy smile beneath that horned helmet, but it came through all the same in his tone.

“Celia, go with her to the front and be ready to cast something to slow them down if they end up coming at us faster than we expect, alright?” Cayden instructed. There was a twitch of annoyance at the corner of Silver's eye at being babied, but whenever he was uncertain, Cayden erred on the side of having a backup plan. Irking Silver was just a happy little bonus. “Ms. Boomspell, you may fire when ready.”

“Aye aye, Field Marshall.” Silver shot back with a smirk. She might not get along with Cayden at all times, but she did enjoy his sense of humor more than she cared to admit.

What followed was half a minute of spellcasting.

Even though most of Silver's most potent magics were locked behind level or stat caps as a result of her death penalty, Cayden admired how she worked with what she had. Spell after spell fell from her lips, Directed Targeting, Minor Power of the Magi, Inner Fire, Scourge of the Undead and others. Each incantation was a short-term damage boost, stackable with the others to produce a more powerful effect for a correspondingly increased cost.

Silver knew what she was doing, and that alone made Cayden smile, albeit one he quietly hid behind a gloved hand for fear he might get caught. The last thing he needed was for Silver to catch him grinning like an idiot.

A lesser player like, say, the Banes, would have opened up immediately on the monsters. Even most good players might only throw on their usual rotation of pre-battle buffs. Silver wasn't doing either. Instead, each spell was tailored to her opponent, and her goal focused on inflicting the maximum possible damage in that first attack when the enemy would be most vulnerable, when she could strike the greatest number.

It was a little thing, not something that would swing the fight wildly in their direction, but the sort that could add up to dozens of other small tweaks, leading to victory. It was that eye on perfection that separated Silver from the thousands upon thousands of players who had tried and failed to climb the tower as she had.

“... until all is fire.  Fire Burst!” Silver finished the incantation and raised her left hand, a ball of magical fire already coalescing into existence before her open palm. It hovered there for a moment as she closed one eye, squinting at the distant targets, then let fly with only a thought, the ball of fire streaking towards them.

As one, the group of players braced for the shockwave of the spell, and they were not disappointed. Closer than the others, the force of its detonation would have toppled the waifish Celia from her feet if she hadn't been expecting it, and even further away Cayden wisely took a knee to bear the brunt of it.

Then it happened again.  And again. In all, the little ball of flame detonated a total of six times before its light finally flickered and extinguished. Each blast was accompanied by a mostly unreadable flood of damage notification on Cayden's display. What he could read was enough to know that the spell was doing damage and that it had been perfectly chosen for the situation. Most of silver's pre-combat spells usually applied to only a single spell, but in the case of Fire Burst they applied to each and every one of the concussive blasts, drastically increasing the overall effectiveness and the ratio of MP spent to damage dealt.

Even better was the number of enemies hit. Despite its relatively small radius, the spell was centered in the middle of the archway separating the courtyard area from their party.  Intelligent mobs, even ones as stupid as Goblins would shy away from the damage, waiting for the explosions to subside before racing after their foes. The undead, however? They were single-minded as any zombie movie would have Cayden believe, and more than willing to stride through the repeated explosions if it meant getting closer to prey.

The Blood Skeletons were half dead by the time the first ones reached them, and they were well on their way to full dead not long afterward. Apart from his taunt, Cayden didn't even feel it necessary to utilize his skills. He hacked at the creatures, chopping them limb from limb and interposing himself between them and his allies as they rushed them in ones and twos.

Somehow the zombies proved even less of a challenge despite their numbers and more hardy constitution. They were too slow, allowing the party to retreat whenever necessary, healing themselves and thinning out the enemy with ranged attacks before the melee fighters jumped back into the fray once again.

Even the Blood Skeleton's surprise ability proved to be a non-starter. Cayden could see what the Developer had intended when he'd designed it, an enemy type that respawned into a weaker version of itself mid-combat could give a group fits in a number of situations. This was not one of them, however. Their method of kiting the zombies had inevitably taken them some distance away from the fallen skeletons, so far away in fact, that they hadn't even realized the skeleton torsos had reanimated until they had already cleaned up the zombies and were on their way back to the keep.

“Anyone else feel like we over thought this?” Michael asked with a snicker as he sidestepped a groping hand from the prone upper body of a crimson skeleton. Without the element of surprise, the things weren't a threat to anyone, even if it did take a half-dozen stabs of the Juggernaut's rapier to put the thing to rest. “I mean, we have the level and skill advantage.”

“Are you willing to bet your life on that?” Cayden shot back, slicing away the last HP from another of the downed foes.

“... good point.”

And so it went. The courtyard ahead was vast, and even Cayden's conservative estimate had proven wildly low.  They pulled the enemy in twos and threes, in fives and tens. Each wave came with a retreat, splitting the monsters by speed to tear them apart piecemeal before returning for another group.  It was slow going, but crucially, it was safe going.

They kept their MP and TP up with short rests between draining fights, nibbling at snacks or taking advantage of low-level consumables whenever one party member had expended more resources than the others.  Within a half hour they had cleared a path to the main doors of the keep, and within another thirty they had finished exterminating the last of the courtyard's undead to make sure they had a path to retreat.

“Anything worth having?” Shifty inquired as Celia and Michael picked over the last of the loot crystals dropped by the slain monsters.

"Some money, a lot of vendor trash," Celia said with a shrug. "Oh, and two, Count them! Two minor potions of healing.”

“They're trash mobs, what did you expect, epic loot?” Michael laughed.

Celia stuck her tongue out. “It would have been nice. I've been wearing the same pair of shoes for nearly ten levels. I swear they're starting to wear out.”

“Wait. Didn't we find an upgrade sometime last week.” Shifty asked, suddenly interested in the conversation once again.

"We did, yeah." Cayden grinned. "What was your excuse for not upgrading again, Celia?"

The blonde Chronomagi straightened up and began to swipe at the air in front of her, pretending not to hear him and quite possibly pretending to be using her AR display at all.

“Was it because they were ugly?” Michael asked.

“And the new guy gets it in one.” Cayden laughed.

“I feel her pain is all.” The handsome juggernaut replied, the words muted by the concealing full helm he wore. It was hard to tell if he was serious, even as he edged up next to Celia, lifted a foot and tapped the side of it with a fingertip. “These were a boss loot drop. I carried them around for two days until I got back to town and could have them dyed.”

The admission brought a giggle to Celia's lips and a retch to Cayden and Shifty's. The dark knight looking juggernaut had proven effective in their early engagements, despite the fact that they hadn't had much opportunity to showcase his particular gimmick. He was talented as a fighter, but definitely, more of a ladies' man than Cayden had any taste for.

"It is getting late. Any chance we could get this finished before sunrise, or am I just herding cats?" Silver asked irritably. The sorceress was standing apart from their group; her body leaned back against the stone wall to the right of decayed wooden doors of the keep.

Everyone nodded their assent, but Cayden couldn't help but notice the slight pout that formed on Celia's lips as Michael turned his attention away from her to the task at hand.  That is going to be trouble later on.

Or he was just jealous.

No. Not him. Never.

Chapter Six

The door to Warrior's Keep didn't so much open as it collapsed under its own rotten weight as Michael and Cayden wrenched it open. A smattering of termites and other vermin native only to Babel fell away from the disintegrating mess, leaving a wriggling pile that not one of them wanted to be the first to walk through.

Sadly, Cayden was the tank.

“I think I'd have preferred wall chicken to door roaches” Cayden grumbled, kicking the largest bugs out of his path as he advanced.

The room beyond was lit only by the stray rays of moonlight that crept in through the damaged outer walls of the keep and the empowered light spell that Silver had bestowed upon his shield.  When asked what the difference was between a light spell and an empowered light spell, she had only replied 'It's very bright.'

Creeping his way into that cavernous darkness with only a twenty-foot bubble of light from his shield to guide him, it didn't feel very bright.

“Marco...” Came a female voice from behind him.

“Oh, shut up!” He snapped back. “Are you coming or what?”

“Not with that attitude, Polo.” Silver remarked, before turning her attention to Michael and beginning the incantation for a similar light enchantment.

Each step on the stone floors echoed off into the darkness, repeated back to him from an obtuse angle that had him twitching involuntarily towards the invading sound. Slowly, pillars came into range of his light source, five-foot thick monoliths that reached from floor to ceiling in the cathedral-like entrance hall.  Two rows of such monoliths ran parallel to the door with a thick red carpet leading the way forward between them. Each column was just far enough apart that a new one came into view only as the previous one was vanishing behind him.

"Isn't this place is a little bigger on the inside than it looks like on the outside?" Michael asked as his own heavy footsteps fell into pace alongside Cayden, their overlapping spheres of light expanding their view of the enormous hall.

"Not sure why you'd be surprised by that," Shifty replied. "Sort of Babel's thing isn't it?"

Cayden frowned. "It is, but that sort of thing usually only happens behind an instance-"

A sudden cacophony of stone and metal turned the whole party on their heel as the entrance they'd just recently passed began to crumble.  For only an instant, Cayden considered rushing the door, throwing himself beneath it to hold open a way for the others to escape, but he'd never have made it. In mere seconds the entrance to the keep had crumbled to nothing more than a pile of rubble strategically placed to prevent any natural egress.

"-gate."

"Just had to Jinx us, didn't you?" Silver grumbled.

"That is sort of his thing isn't it?" Celia said with a roll of her eyes.

"Well, going back is out of the question for the time being." Cayden did his best to ignore the jabs as he turned his attention back towards the darkness ahead of them. "Scripted dungeon, we might as well keep on script?"

With a murmur of agreement, they began to move, Cayden in the lead and Michael as their rearguard. They walked a few feet, listened, then walked again, each time taking care to listen for any scuttling monsters or pattering footsteps in the darkness that would otherwise have been concealed by conversation or the clatter of boots.

Every so often the path diverged. Gaps opened between one column and the next, and upon investigation, they found doorways leading to smaller rooms, staircases, or hallways. It felt wrong to leave such possibilities open at their back, but with nowhere to retreat, forward was as safe as backward.

Besides, if they'd learned anything from videogames, it was that ominous red carpets led to the boss.

Their pace in that bubble of light amidst inescapable darkness was slower than any of them would have liked, but it did eventually produce results as the edge of their light crept over the first of a half-dozen steps leading up to a closed double door.

"So, do we knock? Or?" Michael asked with a tone so insufferable that Cayden could hear his smug grin, even if he couldn't see it.

"When everyone is ready, I'll open it." He looked among the group his eyes lingering the longest over Silver.

The mage took the hint, and Celia joined her as the two began to layer protective spells and damage boosts upon themselves and their party members. The whole process took a little more than a minute, complete with gaps of silence while they listened for some unseen beast waiting to spring from the shadows.

"Ugh. You forget how much of a pain it is to pre-buff when you don't have Rary's Accelerated Preparedness." Silver sighed as she completed her last spell.

"Our hearts bleed for you," Cayden replied.

"I do lead a pained existence." She continued, enjoying how her banter seemed to irk him. "Are we going or-"

This time the young man replied with actions rather than words. He'd tested the door during their preparation and found it locked, so this time he hit it running, an armored shoulder splintering wood and causing the frame to buckle dangerously inward. It took two more blows, and the reluctant acceptance of help from Michael before the brace on the other side of the double doors finally shattered.

The sound of fire greeted them, a sharp scrape and crack, like that of a match being struck. It accompanied the first flames as they burst into life, candles sticks, torches and braziers nearest them all catching fire spontaneously, as though the opening of the door had provided the spark of oxygen they needed. Then a second row caught flame, then a third, and a fourth. Each row brought more life and color to the room.

It had been a throne room at one point, perhaps.  There was a dais at its far end, and another series of majestic columns on the outskirts of the room to give any entrant the feeling that they were small, insignificant.  It lacked a proper regal seat, but with the amount of broken stone, wood and refuse strewn throughout the room, it was entirely possible the components were still here.

As the last row of combustibles took spark, a new sound grew to dominate the room. It was a grinding noise, something heavy being dragged along something equally unyielding.

Stone against stone.

It was Celia who finally spotted the source, concealed as it was by the echoes of the open room. With her usual measure of understatement. "What are those?"

All eyes followed hers to the ceiling. There were five circular holes cut into the stonework, each covered with metallic plate that was slowly, but surely, retreating into the framework next to it.

"Nothing good." Silver frowned, beginning an incantation.

Her spell struck the ceiling right as the final few inches of plate were disappearing into the wall. It struck hard, an explosion that rocked the room and left Cayden blinking away spots from the brightness of its flame.

There was a massive crunch, something hitting the floor not far ahead of him, but as he blinked away the vestiges of Silver's spell, it was not the chunk of masonry that he had expected, hoped, to see.  Instead, it was a humanoid shape, devoid of gender or any defining features. It held a long blade in its right hand, and a kite shield strapped to its left, its posture low and ready for combat.

It was only when the thing swiveled its faceless head in his direction, and rolled its sword arm the same way he always did before a fight, that he recognized it for what it was.

"Doppelganger!" Silver shouted before Cayden could even form the word.

They were in trouble.

Copycat monsters were a dime a dozen in the RPG, action, and even fighting games he played as a child, but to his knowledge one had never been seen in Babel. If this were a full-strength clone of him, he'd have his work cut out killing it before it killed him, but that was the least of their problems. Five holes, five party members. That meant there was one for Silver.

If it didn't come with her debuff, they were all dead.

A second crack accompanied the fall of Michael's duplicate, followed by a third as Celia's double joined him. If they were coming down staggered then Cayden wasn't going to give them the time to regret that choice. "Personal Skill Use: Leap Attack!"

The bounding lunge carried him into the middle of the enemy formation, the weight of his falling blade striking down across Celia's marionette as the thing put its arms up in a futile attempt to block. "Personal Skill Use: Taunt!" He roared, following it with a wild cry as he met himself sword to sword. It was an unsettling feeling, recognizing his own mannerisms, his own swordsmanship at work. "Celia, heal me. Everyone, burn her down ASAP, and keep away from-"

An unnatural sound bellowed from his duplicate, and a sensation of unbridled anger washed over Cayden as the noise struck him. How dare that thing? He'd kill it! He'd tear it limb from limb without the slightest care. It didn't matter that Michael's duplicate was trying to skirt around him, to go after his party, or that the Celia copy was in the midst of some sort of spell, her distorted speech causing his ears to ache. Nothing mattered. He needed to kill this damned...

Shifty Copy's Trick Shot hits You for 472 Physical [Bleed, Movement Impaired]

The goddamned thing just taunted me! Cayden realized only as the damage from the simulacrum's attack drew enough threat to break him out of the red fogged fury inspired by his enemy's skill. On the one hand, he ought to thank it, on the other... it had dealt an eight of his total HP, even with his overall HP increased with a Greater Durability rune spell.

That had become a problem, as of late. He'd dumped level after level into Rune Magi, which granted him a whole host of mostly unmatched magical talent, yet it also weakened his primary role. He was good enough to tank so long as they were punching at or below their weight, but ten levels in a magic user class had left his overall HP sorely wanting, which forced him to keep up with armor and skill alone. Celia and Shifty carried the difference, but if he was honest, he was probably the weakest link in their team, especially when he couldn't use his magic directly.

Another hard thump sent Cayden whirling, his sword already upraised as he called out "Skill Use: Southern Cross!"

He'd known what he would find there before he'd even begun to turn. The other four were already fighting, which left the Silver copy, a smooth, doll-like creature already raising a hand in his direction.

Please work!

Your Southern Cross hit Silver Copy for 351Physical

Your Southern Cross hit Cayden Copy for 28 (Blocked)

His first blow struck clean, giving him all the information, and relief he could have wished for. So much so that he was only mildly perturbed when his doppelganger managed to interpose himself between blows with a judicious use of his Cover skill. The real silver wouldn't have taken anywhere near that much damage from such a low-level attack, nor would her HP bar have dropped so deeply as a result.

The copy was subject to the same death penalties the real one. They weren't instantly dead.

Still, they were fighting their exact duplicates. Not the best time to be letting his guard down.

"Celia! CC!" He shouted, calling for her crowd control spell to remove her opposite number from the field. The words fell on deaf ears, however, or rather, absent ears.  A quick look at the battlefield showed that his Celia was missing, even though the enemy’s was alive and kicking.  Short-lived confusion set in before Cayden realized the obvious. They had beaten her to it. Wonderful.

"Huh. Okay, new plan." Cayden muttered in frustration, his mind racing for that new plan as he parried aside another blow from his faceless self, attempting to enter a blind spot in his shield to get another swing at the 'woman' behind him. "Micheal. Do your thing!"

The other man laughed. "Like I need you to tell me."

The copies knew how to use the skills they were given, that much was obvious. But would they know how to combo them? And more importantly, would they know enough to avoid what was coming next?

Michael lowered his rapier and began slamming his free fist against the thick metal chest plate.  It was a taunt, similar but not identical to Cayden's. Cayden's drew aggro by cranking his threat through the roof, defaulting enemy targeting to him until someone else did enough damage to draw it away. Michael's, by contrast, was a mind-affecting ability. No matter the threat, every enemy in range would attack him if able for the duration of the ability. Once it was over, his aggro would return to its original state, allowing him to choose when and how he wanted to be struck.

As expected, the clones swarmed him. The enemy Silver shot a bolt of lightning that cascaded off a crimson gauntlet, while two knives from their Shifty dug perilously deep into an exposed joint area. Entropy spells and rapier strikes peppered the cardinal knight, forcing him back as his HP bar began to deplete. Michael's allies used the moment to their advantage, giving nearly as good as their temporary savior was taking, but the taunt didn't make their enemies stupid. They still defended themselves, even if the focus of their attacks was Michael.

Cayden took the moment to pressure his foe and felt a swell of pride as he forced the creature out of the boundary of its Grasp the World ability. That pride was fleeting. However, as he saw the stumbling creature level it's sword parallel to the ground, it's palm stretched in Michael's direction. "Aya..."

"Michael! Mitigate!" he shouted.

"...Natha!"

A ripple of distorted violet flame erupted from the faux-Cayden's hand, the runic energy racing towards Michael who just barely turned to face it in time. Unlike Cayden's Guardian class, Michael's juggernaut was focused almost entirely on passive damage resistance. Where Cayden blocked, Michael soaked, allowing his armor to take the brunt of the damage dealt to him. With higher HP, the effect was usually around the same, but even a juggernaut couldn't face tank everything.

Fortunately for them both, Cayden's warning had arrived in time, the flame washing around Michael as his Force of Will ability allowed him to dissipate the majority of what would have otherwise been crippling, perhaps even fatal damage.

"What the hell was that?!" Michael demanded.

"Later!" Cayden shouted, pressing the attack against his duplicate to prevent a second spell from finishing the job. "Get Shifty!"

"Like I need you to-" Michael laughed again, too distracted in the moment to finish the thought.  He flourished his blade as he advanced on the retreating rogue, his longer steps closing the distance despite two more daggers clattering off the edges of his plate. The advance was relentless, but if the copies understood the danger, they did nothing to react to it appropriately.

The proper response was to get the hell away from him.

At level ten, the Juggernaut class gained a new resource, called Momentum, a pool that built with every point of damage they took. Once a Juggernaut had taken enough damage to fill the pool, they gained temporary access to two different abilities: Unstoppable and Immovable.  Immovable negated all damage taken by the next hit, making it an outstanding ability for tanking, if a tad situational. The opposite, Unstoppable, was an attack ability that would quadruple damage dealt by the next successful hit. It sounded good on paper, but the inability to pair it with an active skill made it decidedly underwhelming for such a situational ability.

Unless you had a way to guarantee a critical hit, such as, say, a duellist's Blade Flourish skill.

The tip of Michael's rapier jabbed into the fake Shifty's torso just below the left side of the ribs. Hardly a crippling blow under normal circumstances, the combination of the two abilities caused the copy's body to detonate like a bomb, a cloud of ash erupting from the gaping wound where it's torso used to be as the two halves of its body skittered to a stop a half-dozen feet away.

It was an incredible combination, one Cayden was vaguely sad he hadn't thought of himself, and one he was hard pressed to beat. He'd been wracking his brain ever since Michael had divulged the gimmick, on how best to confront it, hypothetically speaking. Thus far his best solutions were to burn Michael down before he could activate the ability, successfully block or dodge it, or run for the thirty seconds it took for his charge to dissipate.

He almost felt sorry for the poor, dumb copies.

"Silver next!" He shouted, seeking to press what advantage they had. It wouldn't be long before Celia returned from her exile through time, but he'd feel a lot safer if they could take out at least one more of the enemy damage dealers before that happened. "I've got Michael."

That was the other major problem with the strategy. Killing an equal level mob from half health in a single strike generated a lot of aggro, which wasn't exactly ideal right after taking enough damage to activate the skill in the first place. Then again, that was what tanks were for

Cayden rushed forward, utilizing his Cover ability to put himself between Michael and the remaining enemies moments before the first wave of their assault struck. Magic of all forms assaulted him, a hail of metal darts and that same runic fire from his own copy, paired neatly with all manner of elemental magics from Silver's fingertips. The latter came slower and slower as the seconds ticked by, however, as Shifty's daggers and the real Silver's magics began to find purchase in the slender doll. Eventually, their combined assault began to overwhelm the duplicate Celia's healing prowess, and the enemy copy of their cocky magi fell to a flurry of attacks.

It was their fight. Cayden smiled in relief. Four to three, no, five to three, he corrected himself as Celia's status bar reappeared on the corner of his display, the copies didn't stand a chance. Still, no reason to be cocky, however, particularly with the walking nuke that was Michael still on the enemy side of the field.

"Healer next!" Cayden ordered, moving forward to engage the looming form of the enemy juggernaut, crying out a taunt to keep his attention before adding. "Nice of you to join us, Celia."

"So that is what that feels like." She laughed nervously, briefly studying her own hands as if uncertain if what she was seeing was real.

"Celia." Silver demanded, snapping her fingers. "A little focus?"

"Easy for you to say." Celia pouted before starting into a healing incantation.

The cleanup that followed was easy compared to the nail-biting terror that had led up to it. Outnumbered, and down the majority of their damage dealers, the enemy force simply couldn't outpace them. Their Celia was brought down by a combined barrage of attacks, and mercifully their Cayden at last felt shortly after that, though not before one more taunt uncomfortably manipulated Cayden's psyche. With Michael the last of their group, they defaulted to a mix of Cayden's two ideal strategies, the five of them pouring damage onto him until his ability activated, followed by kiting him to death while Cayden played keep away with his taunts.

In all the fight must have been measured in minutes, but to Cayden at least it felt like hours, perhaps days. His hands were lead weights at the end of his arms, barely mobile. His fingers ached from gripping the hilt of his sword, and he wondered, briefly, if he'd ever get the feeling of vibration out of his left arm. He'd had more dangerous fights, but never something so long, nor with such uncertainty from the very outset.

The faces of his allies all told the same tale, all but Silver. The physical exhaustion was there, but not the mental. Her eyes were clear and thoughtful, introspective as if she were plotting the next ten moves in a chess match, rather than standing in the aftermath of a life or death struggle. It made sense, he supposed, that a woman with her experience would not have the same reaction, yet it was unnerving all the same.  Would he have eyes like that one day? And if he did, would that be a good thing? Or a bad thing?

"We should grab their loot," Shifty said at last.

"Ever the mercenary." Celia giggled. When he stiffened at that comment, her hands immediately came up, covering her face as the circumstances of the evening came back to her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

"It's fine. I think we're all pretty damn exhausted." Shifty replied with his most soothing tone. "But the sooner we get on with this the sooner we can sleep and figure out our next step. So grab your doppelganger."

The group nodded their agreement, and each went in search of their fallen doppelganger, collecting the small glowing crystal from amidst the dissipating ash. There was the usual of course, currency, crafting components and vendor trash, but two items immediately stood out:

Mage Blade +3

A Mage Blade of the Elzmere style. It imparts powerful magical benefits to the initiated.

One-Hand Damage: 65-85

One-Hand Damage (Mage): 85-125

Required Level: 7

Required Strength: 7

Required Dexterity: 13

Durability: 25

Energy + 7

Empower (1) Once/Day

Special: This weapon has increased damage for anyone with at least five levels in a spellcasting class.

Deed to Bastion

Ownership and acceptance of this item entitles and entrusts command over the Walled City of Bastion and all lands and territories within ten miles in all directions.

The first was a straight upgrade over his existing sword. He had already tempered his blade twice since obtaining it, increasing the original Mage Blade he'd gotten from Rap Rat to a +2 variety, so it made sense thematically that they'd give him a +3 as a reward. His allies reported similar findings, though each of them had gotten a second piece of upgraded gear, rather than a deed of their own

Cayden snapped his fingers to bring up his AR menu, and dug down into his inventory, locating the Deed in an open space of his pack, and summoned it to hand.

It was a positively ancient looking scroll, the paper yellowed and so brittle that the very idea of trying to open it filled him with dread. Despite that fear, however, the document seemed to actively resist damage as he opened it, gaining unnatural flexibility the moment the vellum would have otherwise been pushed to its limits.

A series of notifications barraged Cayden's display as the first glowing words of the document came into sight.  Chime after chime, dinged in his ear as his log was flooded with the phrase: New Rune Learned.

The document was written in the Great Emperor's Runes, he saw, but each shone with eldritch power the very nature of the document imparting the meaning of the words he was seeing, which in turn added them to his lexicon. Was this another way he could have stumbled onto his unique class? Or just an interesting interaction of the two? Either way, any pouting over sup-par loot drops was long gone as the document added well over a hundred new words to his vocabulary, bringing him to over eleven-hundred words known.  Halfway to his next major boost.

Ironically, even translated the document was almost illegible. His enthusiasm for the addition to his lexicon flagged somewhat as he realized that words like heretofore and forthwith were among those he'd just discovered. The legalese was strong with this one.

The one thing that was easy to understand were the two options that revealed themselves at the bottom of the unrolled page. I accept, and I decline. It wasn't enough to merely possess the document; he had to agree to its terms. It's very complicated, magically binding terms. Wonderful.

"Any of you know how to speak lawyer?" Cayden asked, after giving the document another fruitless pass with his eyes.

"I took law 10 in high school?" Celia chirped.

Silver and Shifty each shook their heads but Michael was advancing, his arm outstretched for the scroll. He took it when offered, and scanned it for barely an instant before handing it back. "Pre-Law, before I ended up here, but I'm not going to be much use to you."

"Why not?"

"Paper looks blank to me," Michael explained.

"Ah. Damn." Cayden grumbled. Because of course, Babel couldn't ever just make something easy.

Then again, it wasn't like he had much of a choice anyway. What was he going to do, not accept ownership of the castle and surrounding lands? Like that'd help.

He touched the I Accept option.

The braziers and torches throughout the room flared to life at that touch, and behind them, he could hear the sound of sound of sparks and fire as light flooded the entrance hall from whence they'd come. The room around them shifted subtly as well, the moss between stones retreating, the door that they'd smashed in their entrance knitting itself back together. The keep was coming alive under their very feet, even the cool night air of the place replaced by a toasty, fireside sensation.

"Home sweet home." Cayden murmured.

Chapter Seven

“You're up early.” Silver remarked with a sly grin as Cayden arrived.

“You're one to talk.” He shot back. The young woman was as pretty and made up as ever, but there was no covering the heavy bags under her eyes. “Couldn't sleep either, huh?”

She shook her head. “Not in the slightest.”

“Because you're worried about all of us dying? Or because you want to see how this all works?”

“Yes?”

Cayden snorted with laughter. “Hey, at least you're honest.”

Crisp footsteps were fast approaching from behind Cayden; the young man was forced to step aside to admit Valserys, Roberta and, to his surprise, Michael. The latter appeared to be just barely awake, his baby blue eyes squinting, even in the dim light of the study.

"Field Marshall," Valserys said sharply before he snapped to attention. Long seconds passed before Cayden finally realized what the pink-haired soldier was waiting for and gestured for him to relax.

“Good morning Valserys, Roberta. I appreciate you being so prompt." He wasn't sure on that last point, having left his AR glasses back in his room in his fumbling haste to get here on time. But their arrival with Michael certainly suggested it. "Is everything ready?"

“As requested.” This time it was Roberta, the diminutive grey-haired woman smiling in satisfaction of her own pronouncement as she gestured to a nearby table. “Better, in fact, with the recovery of this from the tower store room.”

Cayden turned his attention to the oaken legged table that dominated the center of the room, his brows knitting together in confusion as he studied it. The top of its surface was dominated by a scale model of what appeared to be the majority of the second floor. Mountains capped with white snow rose from its surface, while small puddles filled in for lakes and other large bodies of water. Islo, Sunè, and Bastion were all represented, along with a small representation that he could only assume stood in for the location of the Tomb of the Liar King.

"A gorgeous model," Cayden admitted at last. "Though I'm not sure it is better.  The more tactile view of the landscape is nice, but the screen I'd requested would be more useful for organizing our forces.”

Roberta shook her head. If she was annoyed, she made no sign of it. Instead, she drew closer, reaching out a slim-fingered hand to take hold of his and press it against the side of the table. "I assure you, Field Marshall, it is far superior. But first, I surrender ownership to Cayden."

With that touch, the model rippled and began to collapse. Mountains and cities faded back into a dull grey surface in a matter of seconds, then coalesced back into a new image just as quickly.

This time the model was not of the floor, but of Bastion itself. As before, the entire top of the table was taken up by the replica, though this time the scale was different. Cayden could now see individual soldiers walking the battlements, with others patrolling the streets or manning the front gate.

The city itself was a wonder of detail as if the world's best miniature model had spent a lifetime hunched over a magnifying glass to apply every minute detail imaginable. Due to its scale it was still imperfect, but it was without a doubt as close as one could get given the limitations.

"Amazing," Michael said softly from the sidelines.

“To put it mildly.” Silver said in quiet admiration.

Cayden's head turned in her direction, surprised. “This isn't something your guild has?”

Silver paused for a moment, considering whether or not to reply before shaking her head. “No. The guildhall has something similar, but nothing quite this detailed.”

“They wouldn't.” Roberta said with perhaps a little too much glee. “This is known as a War Frame. One of only ninety-nine in existence, most of which are reputed to be on the upper fifty floors.”

“I'll sell it to you guys if we get out of th-”

"No, you will not!" Roberta said with a stomp of her foot. "The table is bound to Bastion and will no-"

"It was a joke, Roberta," Cayden said dryly.

“I-oh. My mistake Field Marshall.”

“Just Cayden, please. It feels weird having you call me that.” Cayden smiled, but the sour expression on the older woman's face didn't budge. “So, this War Frame, tell me more about it.”

That seemed to put some life back into her. “The War Frames are relics of the Great Emperor, powerful artifacts placed in places of future need."

“Event items then.” Silver said. “I don't suppose you know where we can find the others, then?”  Roberta shook her head, and Cayden shot the Magi a look that returned with equal ferocity. “What?  I wouldn't be a good gamer if I didn't ask?”

"Continue Roberta," Cayden said, rolling his eyes. Silver wasn't wrong, but that didn't stop it from annoying him.

"The frames themselves are items of immense significance." Roberta gestured to one of the soldiers pacing the outer walls. Eventually, Cayden took her meaning and reached out to touch the soldier. It felt both smoother and cooler than he'd expected, like touching a shaded pebble on a hot summer day.

As he touched it, a small spray of particles erupted from the edges of the table, floating upwards into the air before coalescing into a dark grey pane, filled with text:

Aleph

Level 10 (Elan Infantry)

HP: 100/100

MP: 0/0

TP: 100/100

Move: 130

Attack: 10

Defence: 10
Special: None

Resistances: None

Weaknesses: None

“What am I looking at?” Cayden asked as the window floated above him. Before either of his advisors could speak, he clarified. “I know these must be his stats, but this isn't a normal interface. If it is, these can't be correct.”

"The HP is too low," Michael added, stating the obvious.

“And mobs don't have a movement stat.” This from Silver. She was studying the floating screen with the same intensity as Cayden, the two talking over one another as the same realization hit them. “Mass Combat Rules?”

“I'm sorry, Field M- Cayden.” Roberta said. “I'm not familiar with the term. Valserys?” The stern man replied with a simple shake of his head. “It is my understanding that the War Frame produces a sort of... summary of military strength, allowing for informed tactical decisions to be made by even the most novice of military commanders.”

“So mass combat rules.” Cayden nodded, running a weary hand through his hair as he sought to wrap his mind around what he was seeing.“Neither of you have any idea how this works, do you?”

“...Not directly, Field Marshall.” Valserys admitted. “I've been assigned to assist you with strategic and tactical matters but this, this I am not familiar with.”

“Wonderful. So we're going to be learning by trial and error.” Cayden groaned.

“Better than having some Navi shouting in your ear, Hey Look! Isn't it?” Silver smirked.

He pondered that for a moment, then grudgingly agreed. “A tutorial would still be nice.”

“How are we seeing this?” Michael asked, seemingly ignoring the other two for his own thoughts. “The updates, I mean. Is it real time, if so, is it some sort of divination, or?”

"It is a form of natural Mind magic, as I understand it," Roberta explained. "When I transferred ownership of the frame to you, it linked to the mind of every being under your command. It registers their senses, and reproduces them here."

“So, if they see an enemy...”

“Then the enemy would appear on the frame as well.” She nodded. “And depending on the qualities of the unit involved, as well as prevailing conditions, the frame can provide you with varied information about the opponent.”

“A real-life board game within a real-life video game," Michael remarked with equal parts wonder and horror.

“Certainly looks that way.” Cayden nodded. Then he turned his attention to Valserys. “Order a hundred of the men to the courtyard.  And see if we have any sort of sparring or training weapons that we can give them. I'd rather we not have to risk our troops to do some tes... why are you looking at me like that?”

Valserys was indeed looking at him like that. It was an expression that was hard to describe, not quite confusion, but something beyond that. Like he was asking him to do the dumbest thing on earth and, being the professional he was, Valserys was trying to find a polite way to verbally slap some sense into him. “Field Marshall-”

“Cayden.” He cut in.

The man bristled at that. “No, Field Marshall. You are my superior officer, and when dealing with formal business,I would prefer to address you as such.” Rebuking his superior didn't come easy to the other man, and it took him a moment before he could finish the thought that he has started. “You do not need to give me instructions on how to direct the troops. The frame allows you to make your will known directly.”

Cayden turned his attention back to the table, a frown pulling at the corner of his lips. Natural Mind magic, she had said. It wasn't enough that the frame allowed him to essentially peek on the vision of every soldier under his command, but he could move them directly?

Tentatively, he reached out and touched the same soldier he had begun with. The figure didn't move as he poked and prodded it, nor was he capable of lifting it from the table itself. Which made sense, this was a projection, not some godlike interface where a Black and White style divine hand was descending from above to move the units he'd selected.

“Try touching him and touching somewhere else?” Silver suggested. It was better than any idea Cayden had in mind, but ultimately no more successful.

“Double click?” This time the words came from Michael.

“Yeah, because that'll... work. Damn.”

He'd humored the other man even as he'd taunted him, thinking that proving his point by acting on it would keep any argument to a minimum. To his shock, however, Cayden watched as a vibrant blue line erupted from the soldier he'd touched to the area he'd 'double clicked.'  Almost immediately the man turned and began to march down the street as indicated. He took the shortest, safe route to the destination, and once he arrived, he stopped and stood motionless.

To his surprise, Michael didn't have any snappy comeback, or even any petulant or snippy reply.  The man, like the other two humans in the room, stood in silence. No doubt his mind was processing the same sort of complicated thoughts and emotions running through Cayden's?

“Do they have to obey when ordered like this?” Cayden asked at last.

“A soldier will always obey an order.” Valyserys insisted.

“That wasn't what I meant.” He shot back. “Do they have to follow the order. Does the frame compel them to do so?”

Valserys fell silent, either unable or unwilling to answer. In the end, it was Roberta who did so. “I cannot say for certain, but my best guess is yes, and no.”

"Well, that is certainly helpful." Silver frowned.

“Apologies, Lady Silver.” The mage snorted at that, but Roberta continued unabated. “It is a difficult subject to discuss. What do you know of Mind magic?”

In truth, it was a subject about which Cayden knew very little. Mind magic was Elan magic, similar to the Transmutation or Illusion magics that Aaron and Vincent, his Rune Magi instructors, had specialized in. He knew that they were grouped into a number of spheres, but beyond that, not a lot else. It hadn't been pertinent to his build order or his strategy for playing the game, and there was little enough information out there about it as it was.

“One of the twenty-one spheres of Elan magic, it is sort of what it sounds like, isn't it?” Michael asked. “Manipulation and domination of the mind.”

Roberta shook her head. “Perhaps to a layman, but it is far more than that.”

“The magic of Those Who Stayed is the magic of fundamental creation.  Life, Death, Mind, Shadow, Fire. Each of the twenty-one spheres of magic reflects an unbridled natural power.” She explained. “The magic of your arcanists touches on this power, drawing and mixing to create its effects. While the magic of the divine draws power from the Great Emperor or his surrogates.”

“An Elan spellcaster draws power exclusively from a single sphere.  A Transmutationist from the Manipulation Sphere, or a pyromancer from fire.”

“But there are arcane pyromancers," Michael interjected.

Roberta shook her head. “It is not the same. Even your pyromancers dabble in other magics. They have powers universal to all disciplines and can learn from outside their discipline even if they are more limited. An Elan might twist their source into unique shapes and permutations, but it always originates from one source."

“In addition to the manipulated magic of the Elan, however, there is natural magic. The existence of elements in nature, of good and evil, time and energy, all of these exist as natural manifestations of the spheres of power."

“And mind magic?” Cayden asked.

"I was getting to that." Roberta smiled softly. "Emotions, thoughts, and ideologies are all part and parcel of Mind magic. Among those, the concept of loyalty." She gestured to the table, to the man that Cayden had ordered. "This man has sworn loyalty to you, and as a result, the War Frame can impart your orders to him. So long as his loyalty is sufficient, he will follow them unquestioningly.”

Michael cocked his head to the side quizzically. “Sufficient?”

Roberta shrugged slightly. “The mind sphere is nearly as far outside my expertise and understanding as one can get, but I believe there are spells that can qualify, perhaps even quantify loyalty.”

“Like a stat?” Cayden pressed.

"In a manner similar to the way the frame quantifies combat statistics, yes," Roberta replied. "Considering the dangers, the troops Duke Elazio provided you with should be unquestioning in their loyalty. Short of literal suicidal orders, they should obey any command they are given.”

And there was the rub.

Cayden blanched at the thought. It was one thing to be put in charge of Elan troops, giving them verbal orders and fighting alongside them. But this? For all the discussion leading up to it, the answer Roberta had given had been the one he'd dreaded. These men would do what he forced them to do. The frame wasn't giving orders to soldiers; it was pulling the strings of puppets.

"This... is wrong." He said, at last, looking at his two Elan advisors. “Don't you see that? I mean you must.”

Roberta eyed him for a moment, then reached for the table itself. With just a few manipulations she directed its focus to the tower, then to the study itself.  He could see the Elan there, two black figurines across the table from three similar figures made out of white stone. “With respect, Field Marshall, I believe I know better than you do.”

It took him a moment to catch her meaning, his guts wrenching when he finally did.

"The frame manipulates natural loyalty," Valserys explained. “But I have a stronger loyalty to my men than I do to you, Field Marshall.”

“That is why we tested it on ourselves before bringing it here. The effect is not one of domination, but of suggestion.” Roberta continued for him. “A subtle distinction, but one we are willing to endure for the greater good of the task at hand.”

Valserys nodded. "My soldiers would obey any order from your lips, short of suicidal orders. That the orders come differently makes little difference."

Cayden looked to Silver, then to Michael. Of the two, only Michael seemed to have the same expression of discomfort that Cayden knew was plastered across his own face.

"They're right." Silver said at last.  He shook his head, but she pressed on with the thought despite him. "It is a little messed up, sure, but given the option, I'd say we're way better off directing them through this thing than out in the field."

“I know it makes sense from a game sense, but these are people we're talking ab-”

“No Cayden.” She shut him down. “They are Elan; there is a difference. Look, I'll show you. Command: Privacy."

Roberta and Valserys spoke in near unison. "Excuse us, Field Marshal, we'll leave you to discuss this in private."

“No. Stop.” He ordered, wincing at how quickly they stopped in their tracks. “They're different, I'll grant you, but they're still people.”

"Look, if you don't have the stomach to use this, you can go out, and I'll manage things from here." Silver snorted.

"You cannot," Valserys said sternly.  “The troops will only follow Cayden or those he has commissioned in his service.  You are neither.”

Silver waved in the direction of Valserys. "There you go. Deputize me, and you can go out in the field without having to worry about any of this." Her voice turned sickly sweet as she continued.  "I'll even stay nice and safe just like you wanted."

Cayden's skin warmed, and his nostrils flared as he struggled to fight down the anger welling up inside him.  "Okay, that is it, Silver." He growled. "You've had it out for me since Immolatus.  What the hell is your problem?”

“Didn't I make it clear enough last night in the tavern?” She shot back, glaring daggers. “Here, I'll use small words. You act like this is a game.”

“You two maybe this isn-” Michal started, trying to interpose himself between the two, before a harsh look from each sent him packing.

“You really think that?”

“Of course I do.” Silver snarled. “You have a unique skill, the first unique skill I or anyone else has ever heard of. But you don't share any details with the CFC. You have a Grand Quest that for all we know, could be the secret to defeating Sobol's Demon. But do you accept our help? No, because you want to do it yourself! How many people do you think have died while you've been playing the Special-Little-Snowflake gamer?”

“Silver I-”

“No.” She snapped. “You asked, and I'm not done!” Her hand gestured towards Valserys once again, then out to the courtyard at large. “How many players do you think are left on this floor right now?”

"I have no idea," Cayden said, biting his cheek to keep from snapping at her.

"Two hundred thirty-eight." Roberta chimed in quietly.

“I'm sorry?” Cayden asked.

"There are two hundred thirty-eight bloodline descendants currently remaining on this floor."

“How could you possibly know that?”

The answer came to him even before the diminutive Elan finished pulling up the list on the War Frame. It was just a list of names and levels, with a small counter at the top left corner to give a numbered total.

"Nearly two hundred and fifty players." Silver shook her head. "Hundreds of people and you are debating on whether or not it is okay to use the best tool we have at our disposal to keep them safe?”

“I'm not debating anything. It's a question of freewill.”

“They are Elan!" One of the woman's hands raked through waves of her long raven hair, fingers crooked as though she were about to tear it out at any moment. "They have no more free will than my shoe. Elan are no different than any other mob in the tower; they're just better at pretending to be alive."

“I've had quite eno-”

“Command: Silence.” Silver said flatly, choking off Valserys in the middle of his outburst.

“Enough.” Cayden finished for the man who could no longer speak. “You don't like Elan, fine. We get it.”

"No, you don't! It isn't about liking Elan or not; it is about survival. The Developer doesn't care if we like Elan, but he sure as hell is going to expect you to send them into battle if he gave you that." She pointed at the nearby War Frame. "If you're this caught up in the idea of giving them orders, do you think you'll be able to send them into combat? To send them to die? Because if you aren't then you need to appoint someone who can."

An uneasy quiet settled as Silver finished the last of her rant. Her face was flushed, her hands clenching and unclenching with each deep breath she took in to calm herself.  If not for the crippling debuff, it seemed possible to Cayden, perhaps even likely that she might have lashed out at him in anger at that moment.

"I understand what you are saying," Cayden said at last. "Maybe you're even right."

“Then yo-”

“I'll use the War Frame.” He nodded. “But I'm not going to throw these people away, and I'm sure as hell not going to put you in charge if that is how you feel. They aren't cannon fodder, no matter what you say, and we aren't so desperate that we need to expend their lives carelessly.”

“No, I suppose not." Silver said grimly. There was more she wanted to say, that much was clear, but she bit her tongue, willing to accept her victory, at least in the short term. "Not yet.

Chapter Eight

"Roberta." Cayden turned his attention to the Elan woman. "What else can you tell me about this War Frame?"

She stepped forward when spoken to, still a tad demure in the aftermath of the player's screaming match. Her expression spoke to how little he would like her answer. "Precious little, I am afraid."

"Unwilling? Or unable?"

"Unable." She said promptly, as though she were afraid to allow even the implication to linger for more than a few moments. "What little I do know comes from knowledge the device imparted on me when it came into my possession, and some small experimentation before we had it moved here."

Cayden quirked an eyebrow at that. "Imparted knowledge?" He asked. Just as quickly, however, he realized her meaning. When Roberta had transferred ownership of the device to him, he hadn't had to ask what she was doing, or why she was doing it. He simply knew. The sensation had been so insidious that he only now realized that the thoughts were not his own.

It was not a sensation he enjoyed.

"Yes, Cayden. You should have similar understanding about how to transfer ownership of the-"

Cayden cut her off with a raised hand. "I understand. Tell me about your experiments."

"Of course, Field Marshall," Roberta replied, reverting to his title out of discomfort.

What followed was a brief crash course on what little Roberta had gleaned from the artifact in the time she had spent with it. She showed him how to select multiple individuals, which turned out to be as simple as drawing a line around them, rather than touching an individual. Tapping a soldier twice in rapid succession would add or remove him from a group selection, while a floating information box kept track of the selected individuals and the overall power of the selected unit.

In addition, Roberta showed them how to, in her words, alter the height of the viewing aperture.  Or in English, how to zoom in and out.

"What is that line?" Cayden asked as Roberta pulled back from the close-in view of Bastion.

"I... am not certain." She admitted.

The line in question was ruler straight. It ran perpendicular to one of the keep's outer walls, appearing as an unnatural indentation in the plains outside the city. Its course ran directly across where Cayden and his party had entered, so it would have been impossible for them to miss it if it physically existed, which made it an oddity on a map that was otherwise perfectly to scale.

"Zoom out a little more," Cayden instructed, the map distorting and shifting as they drew the view further back to show both the city and its surrounding environs.

"Is that?" Michael asked, only to end his thought with a gale of boisterous laughter as he came to the same realization that everyone else had.

The line was one of six similar indentations that surrounded a section of Bastion. Six equal length lines set at a 120-degree angle to the next to form a perfect hexagon.

It was a hex map.

"Just when you think Babel can't get any nerdier." Silver said, shaking her head.

Cayden snorted. "At least we know what the Movement statistic is for now."

At Cayden's direction, Roberta continued to zoom out, pulling back until the entirety of Bastion was in view.  The city took up a total of sixteen hexes in a roughly rectangular shape three hexes wide and five hexes long, with a final hex sitting at the end where the keep itself was located.

"Valserys, how big would you say each of these hexes is?" Michael asked once he'd finally managed to stifle his mirth.

"Hmm." The Elan pondered, stepping forward to lean over the edge of the frame, stroking his absurd mustache. "I will have to check the keep records to be certain, but I would venture the keep grounds themselves to be roughly three miles across."

"Makes sense." Silver said. "The Developer tended to use easy numbers whenever he could get away with them."

"It'll make for slow movement." Michael all but ripped the words from Cayden's tongue as he chimed in again. "If we're assuming one point of movement per hex.  Eight miles each day isn't much more than a brisk walk."

Cayden shook his head. "Let's not assume."

At this distance seeing individual units was impossible, let alone selecting them, but drawing a line around one of the city districts still provided Cayden with a list of all available soldiers. He chose one at random, then double tapped the empty plain in a hex just outside the city gates.

As before, a blue line sprung into existence, glowing brighter at the location of the soldier and dimming into non-existence as he passed.  What was different was the speed.  Where before the War Frame had tracked every movement of the soldier, as he marched from his post to the designated location, this time it tracked the entirety of the soldier's travel, a mile of distance, in mere seconds.

"Did he just teleport?" Silver asked her eyes on Roberta.

It wasn't until Cayden nodded at the Elan builder that she acknowledged the question. Apparently, she held a bit of a grudge.

"Not unless he could do so under his own power," Roberta said. "As I explained, the War Frame only directs soldiers to-"

"Then how do you explain this?" Silver interjected, gesturing to the image before them.

Cayden had zoomed in while they had been speaking, the image now filled with the plains hex.  Zerald, the lucky volunteer, stood amidst tall grass, idly looking this way and that but otherwise at full attention. He responded to further orders, walking forward, then backward, this way and that at Cayden's direction.

"This is complex magic that I am unfamiliar with." Roberta continued, bristling at Silver's tone. "My best guess is that this is either a projection of what will happen upon his arrival or that there is some other function to the artifact that I am unclear on."

"A manual from the Great Emperor would have been nice," Cayden grumbled, tapping on the soldier once again to bring up his statistics. As expected, his movement statistic now read 7/8.

Michael chuckled at that, only to grow silent as a thought crossed his mind. "Is there an options menu?"

For an instant, Cayden rolled his eyes at the suggestion. Then the insidious nature of the idea crept upon him. It wasn't that crazy after all, was it? This was a game, after all, and there were menus for everything else. Why not this War Frame?

Once the idea had been planted, it proved easier to find than expected. The board itself had no such function that they could find with any number of somatic gestures, but as the owner of the War Frame, Cayden's mirror did. It was a new category under the existing options menu, one that proved initially disappointing. The majority of the options were quality of life sliders of the sort one might find on any PC game, the kind that allowed him to adjust the zoom and scroll speed of the War Frame, or to choose how quickly he needed to touch the board in order to double tap. It was only at the bottom of the menu that he found anything interesting.

Always Display End Turn Button.

He toggled the option to Yes, and a new button labeled End Turn instantly bubbled up from the fluid material of the War Frame.

"End Turn?" Silver said, her voice dripping with disdain.

Cayden shrugged. "Are you that surprised?"

Silver pondered the question, then shook her head. "No, I suppose not."

There was one more option of note in the menu, one that Cayden flipped without a moment's hesitation. Always Display Detailed Combat Log.

At his instruction, the long edge of the board opposite Cayden erupted as a wave of that grey material took to the air, eventually coalescing to form a window roughly three feet high and six feet long. The window shifted slightly as Cayden moved, always altering its position so that it was directly in front of him, even if it had to bump into his allies in the process.

It was empty, as he'd expected a combat log to be. Sadly, it probably wouldn't stay that way for long.

"So what're we thinking?" Michael asked after being forced to join Cayden on his side of the table by the combat log's sudden appearance.

"I'm thinking we need to learn when turns end." Cayden shrugged.

"There are probably three a day." Silver said absently; her eyes narrowed in thought.

Michael raised a brow. "How do you figure?"

The mage's gloved right hand reached out to indicate Zerald's movement points. "Eight movement." An expression of understanding dawned on Cayden's face, but when Michael's remained blank, she continued. "Eight miles a day is too low, as we agreed, right? Well if they refresh three times in a day, then that would be twenty-four."

Michael continued to stare at her, somehow more confused than before her explanation. "So what?"

"One day of overland movement in Dungeons and Dragons is 24 miles," Cayden explained.

"Oh for..." Michael threw up his hands in frustration. "Is there anything in this damn game that doesn't have some nerdy as hell backstory?"

"Three turns." Cayden continued, ignoring Michael. "Morning, Afternoon and Evening?"

"That was my guess." Silver nodded. "There is probably some sort of night phase as well, but if the Developer is splitting movement the way we think he is, then you're probably intended to rest during the evening."

"You're making a lot of assumptions," Michael said, his tone still sour.

She nodded. "We'll have to test all of it, yeah. But assuming that it is all based on some obscure geek factoid is probably the safest of the many assumptions we're going to have to make today.  Wouldn't you agree?"

While the two continued to debate the subject, Cayden turned his attention back to the War Frame. His fingers played over the polished wood of its edge, shifting the zoom level and adjusting the positioning and rotation until Bastion alone filled the display. He selected a number of his units, twenty in total, and send them in the direction of Warrior's Keep, then turned his attention to Roberta. "We have training weapons, right? How do I alter their equipment?"

"I am not entirely sure." She frowned. "Perhaps the keep itself?"

"Good an idea as any." Cayden agreed as he tapped a finger to the jagged outline of Warrior's Keep.

A trio of new windows sprung into existence at that mere touch.  One hovered above the frame itself, high enough to be out of the way, while still low enough that he didn't have to crane his neck to see it. The other two shimmered into existence on the left and right sides of the frame itself, their edges connected to the Combat Log in a way that most reminded Cayden of an old-timey GM screen.

"Uh, thank you Roberta." Cayden laughed.

"My pleasure Cayden." She replied sweetly.

"In retrospect, it might have been better to start here." He added, eyes scanning over the new data. The new windows contained a wealth of information, with even more seemingly hidden under minimized tabs.  There was so much that Cayden found it difficult even to begin to decide where to focus, especially since so much of it lacked any context.

In the end, he settled on the top window. It was by far the smallest of the three, and the information it contained seemed simultaneously most critical, and the easiest to understand.  The most important things often were.

The window consisted of a series of colored symbols, each of which rested next to a set of either one or two numbers. He'd seen similar interfaces in other games, and with that context alone what he was seeing was easy enough to understand. The small corn symbol next to the number 200, with a smaller +10 inset next to that, for example. Food. They had 200 Food, and they were producing 10 per turn. Next to that was a treasure chest overflowing with coins.  Their treasury, no doubt.  A beaker with only a single positive number? That would be their research.  The glittering eight-pointed cross next to it was more difficult, and he couldn't begin to guess the purpose of the Crown.

I can touch them. The thought struck Cayden like a bolt of lightning, in part, because it wasn't his own. Imparted Knowledge, Roberta had called it. Cayden knew, instinctively, that he had only to reach out touch the display for it to expand upon the information it was giving him.  So he did:

Food: 200/+10

Grand Zenni: 100/+10

Magic: 100/+10

Influence: 100/+10

Production: +10

Research: +10

Touching each resource caused a new surge of material to waft up from the table, creating a small bubble of information to describe the function of each particular resource. Food was as simple as he'd imagined it.  The city needed food to support civilians and soldiers, insufficient food would cause people to leave or wound his soldiers, while a surplus would cause immigration. Grand Zenni was a measure of how much taxation was being imposed on the citizens, filling coffers that could be used in various ways to improve the city and its soldiers.

The Influence resource served as a combination of a diplomatic resource, and a morale stat.  He could expend it to influence Elan and other non-player settlements to adopt his policies or do things in his favor. However, the city gained a percentage boost based on his it's current Influence, meaning that using it to influence others made the city weaker in general.

Both Production and Research lacked a running pool of resources and were instead spent entirely each turn. Production applied to whatever buildings, items or other constructs were in the queue, while any research produced went towards discovery of the magical or scientific concepts he designated.

And then there was magic. The description was not entirely clear, but if he was reading it correctly, ambient magical energy was stored in the sleeping Warrior inside the keep itself, as a sort of magical battery. That magical power could be harnessed by casters, both Elan and Human, to fuel magical abilities far beyond their natural potential, as well as to provide a consistent source for large-scale, permanent magics, such as wards.

"Cayden, you know that when all this is over, I'm probably not going to be able to stop Luxuria if she wants to take this from you, right?" Silver said with a surprising amount of worry in her voice.

He could only laugh, raising a hand in apology as he saw the concern for him begin to morph into anger. "I appreciate the thought, but how about we burn that bridge after we survive crossing this one." Cayden smiled. "Besides, technically I think this still belongs to Duke Elazio, correct?"

Valserys nodded grimly. "That is correct, Field Marshall."

"There you have it. She can take it up with the Duke. We're just squatters."

"Mhmm." Silver replied skeptically.

There was one more icon on the display that Cayden had yet to touch.  It was a picture of an anvil set upon a red background, set far enough apart from the others to be clear that it was something other than a basic resource.  The numbers 0/1 appeared next to it, and as he touched it, the map below adjusted to show a small, hilly area some three miles away from the city itself. "Roberta, what am I seeing?"

To his surprise, it was Valserys that answered. "That is the location of a collapsed mine, Field Marshall. My men scouted it just before dawn and have it currently marked off limits."

"Monsters?" Michael asked.

"Quite a number, yes." The soldier replied.

Cayden studied the location."If it were to be cleared out?"

"We could set up operations once again," Roberta said. She'd been anticipating his question, or perhaps expecting to inform him of the situation, and she came prepared with a large, dusty scroll. "I had this pulled from the Duke's archive.  Apparently, the mine contains all the necessary materials to provide for an Albieth Steel forge."

"Needless to say, having the materials to produce our own steel would be invaluable in arming any further soldiers you might muster," Valserys added as if he needed the explanation.

"Would we be required to clear it ourselves?" Michael wondered.

Valserys gave Michael a steady look, the professional equivalent of laughing derisively before he responded. "You have an army at your beck and call. That would seem an ill use of your time."

"We are quite a bit stronger than the typical soldier," Cayden said in rebuttal, bemused to find himself defending Michael of all people. "If we can spend our time and energy to keep soldiers alive, I would rather we take that opportunity."

"Of course, Field Marshall."

Cayden smiled. "For now, let's send a small detachment to investigate the mine and determine the intensity of the threat."

Valserys eyed him steadily.

"Hmm? Oh! Right." Cayden blushed, looking back to the War Frame. Just one more thing on the list that he would need to puzzle out. How to send his units on a scouting mission.

"This would be our build queue then?" Silver asked, snapping Cayden out of his thoughts.

Her eyes were focused on the right pane of what he was calling the Keep Menu, and from what he could see, she was right on the money.

The window contained a little over a dozen individual entries, divided up among four different categories.

Unit Equipment

Elan Infantry

Elan Heavy Infantry

Elan Cavalry

Elan Archers

Elan Workers

City Development

Keep Wall Repair (3 Turns)

Inner Wall Repair (3 Turns)

Outer Wall Repair (3 Turns)

Lower Township Repair (2 Turns)

Upper Township Repair (2 Turns)

Keep Repair (1 Turn)

Territory Development

Mine

Magic

None

"The mine I get. Unit production is off limits because?" Cayden asked.

"We lack the required resources to produce weaponry.  The aforementioned steel," Valserys explained. "In addition, the city's current population is zero, and thus, there is no one to arm or train as soldiers or laborers."

"Thought as much."

"Your people can have the keep repaired in a single turn?" Silver said with some measure of surprise.

Before Roberta could respond, Cayden spoke for her, gesturing to the War Frame "No. Look here."

Keep Repair

Preliminary repairs of the keep are now underway. (1/6)

Cost: 10 Production

Influence: +5

Food Storage: +50

Housing: +25

Additional areas of the Keep will become accessible.

"Ah. Well, that explains that." Silver nodded. "Going to have to prioritize quite a bit. Can we work on more than one thing at a time?"

"Good question. I think so." Cayden reached out, touching a pair of the wall repair options to highlight them. Upon touching the second, the indicator beside each flickered for a moment, then returned as a six instead of a three. "Yeah, we can, but it is splitting the labor. Useful if we're worried about going over on something, I guess, but I can't see much of a point otherwise."

"If there is a limit to how many people can be working on a single project maybe?"

Roberta thought about that, then gave a slight incline of her head. "I can't be certain regarding how it would interact with the War Frame, but diminishing returns from manpower on a worksite is certainly an issue we may contend with on larger projects."

"What are you thinking of starting with?" Michael queried.

"Well, let's look at the rest before we start making decisions," Cayden replied, reaching for the list once more:

Upper Township Repair

The upper township prefers to run on a gold standard.  He who has the gold sets the standard. (1/6)

Cost: 20 Production

Civilian Housing: +250

Grand Zenni: +5

Lower Township Repair

Lower in class as much as location, this district grows the backbone of any fledgling town. (1/6)

Cost: 20 Production

Civilian Housing: +250

Production: +1

Wall Repair

An unassailable position often goes unassailed. (1/5)

Cost: 30 Production

Defense Bonus: +10

Upkeep: -1 Grand Zenni

All three walls were identical in their effects and descriptions, with the deciding factor being one of location. Repairs of the outer wall would protect the entire city but were assailable from more angles.  The inner wall was more easily defended but left the lower city to rot, and of course, the Keep wall would allow them to concentrate their entire force, at the cost of leaving the whole city to burn.

For Cayden, it was an easy choice, but he waited for his two compatriots to finish reading, watching each of them intently as they studied their options. Eventually, Silver was the first to speak. "The Lower Township."

Cayden smirked. He might not get along with Silver, but their minds were all too often on the same wavelength. "Michael."

"Gotta agree with the gal." He winced at his own word choice as Silver's expression darkened. "Production bonus is too much to pass up."

"Glad we don't have to argue about this." Cayden de-selected the wall repair options and chose Lower Township Repair from the list. Before hitting the confirm button at the bottom of the menu, he turned his gaze to Roberta. "Just for peace of mind. Upkeep is exactly what it sounds like, right?"

Roberta laughed, a playful sound she couldn't quite keep down in spite of herself. "Yes, Field Marshall. The cost is used to employ skilled laborers and other staff to maintain the condition of the wall once it is repaired. Judging by the listed cost compared to my previous experience, I suspect it is calculated daily."

"Well, that is one thing off our plate this morning." Cayden nodded, stabbing the confirm button with a certain amount of satisfaction. "What is next?"

Chapter Nine

"I believe you still had intended to conduct some mock combat," Valserys observed dryly.

"Damn, that's right." Cayden chuckled. "Way too easy to get lost in this thing."

Luckily for him, the left-hand pane required substantially less attention than its counterpart. Rather than a list of possible options that he needed to select from, it was a detailed breakdown of the current condition of the city. It listed his districts and the bonuses they currently provided (none), the defensive bonuses granted by the city walls (zilch), it's population (nada) and so forth. It detailed the amount of food currently produced and consumed, as well as who consumed it. His food was being imported from Islo, one of the Duke's gifts to help them begin, while his production came from the builders they had been assigned. All in all, it was a useful breakdown of information he had already plucked from elsewhere.

Only two things stood out as new to him. The first was a gauge labeled City Size. Currently, it sat empty, with a city size of zero. Next to a counter of 0/1000. A thousand civilians to increase his city size. Whatever that did.  A useful goal if ever he'd had one. The other was a small indicator tucked away in the middle of two different categories labeled Happiness. Currently, the space beside it was occupied by a single white dash. In the future, however, he'd have to keep an eye on it. The last thing Cayden wanted or needed, was rioters.

Towards the bottom of the page sat the menu he sought, a button labeled Stores but despite his renewed focus on it, Cayden couldn't help but be distracted by the one next to it. Research.

"Probably best to get this out of the way while we're here?" Cayden asked, entering the menu before anyone could stop him.

He was actually a little disappointed by what came next. While Cayden had never been an enormous strategy game buff, he had played enough of them in his days that he had expected to be assaulted with an enormous tech tree, or perhaps, heaven forbid a tech web. What appeared before him was neither, just a floating pentagram graph and a small set of sliders next to it. The five points of the graph were labeled: Exploration, Development, Warfare, Magic, and Civilization.

Each of the five categories was represented on the sliders beside the graph itself, with two points of research devoted to each creating an even shape in the nearby diagram. By moving the sliders, the boundaries of the smaller pentagon were distorted, flattening in some places and becoming sharp points in others.

"Blind research." Silver's voice said with a sigh.

"Looks that way." Cayden agreed, one outstretched finger manipulating the sliders back to their starting positions. "Any suggestions on where we should set our focus?"

Valserys stepped forward at that. "Would not a focus on military development be ideal? Given our situation?"

"Not necessarily," Michael responded. "Repairing the walls would have been the military option among our production choices, but developmental choices will make us stronger in the end."

"He is right," Cayden said flatly, holding up a hand to forestall any protest from his aide. "We can't devote extra resources to military options so early, particularly when we don't have any idea of what sort of reward they'll bring. But we also can't neglect them either." He sighed. "I think a balanced approach is our best choice, at least until we know more."

"Almost." Silver said thoughtfully.

"Almost?" He inquired.

"We should devote extra research to magical pursuits."

Michael laughed. "Trust the magic caster to say we need to spend more resources on her discipline."

Silver rolled her eyes in reply and gestured towards the resource bar. "Cayden, we have a starting pool and income of magic, and nothing to spend it on."

"That isn't entirely true." Roberta interjected.

All three players looked in her direction, and the petite Elan girl straightened her spine so as not to wither under their attention."With respect, Field Marshall, I'm not known as Roberta the Builder for nothing."

"Roberta the..." Cayden started, groaning in unison with Silver as the simultaneous thought struck them.

Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "Is there something wrong?"

"Just the Developer's sense of humor." Silver explained. "What is it that you are capable of doing?"

"Ah, I understand," Roberta replied, even though she clearly did not. "I am a creationist which-"

"Does that mean you believe the Developer created Babel in six days?" Michael snidely interjected. A backhanded smack from Silver shut him up and allowed Roberta to continue.

"-is the discipline focused on the magical creation of materials and objects." Roberta continued. "I can use my personal magical energy, what you bloodline families call MP, to aid production in the city."

Cayden studied her for a moment, before gesturing to the War Frame. "Was that already factored into the amount of production listed?"

"Yes, I believe so," Roberta said softly. "It is a bit difficult to estimate, but if I had to guess, I think my abilities account for roughly five points of the listed 'Production.'"

Michael whistled at that and earned himself another swat in the process.

"And you can use the city's magic power to fuel your abilities?" Cayden pressed, his mind already abuzz with new possibilities.

Roberta smiled, "Yes, on a roughly one to one basis of magic to production."

"That certainly changes things." Silver murmured.

"All of it?" Cayden asked.

"Hmm? Oh, no, Field Marshall!" Roberta vigorously shook her head. "There is a limit to how much power anyone can channel. As a novice, my limit is rather low. At best I believe I would be capable of refreshing myself once, which would allow me to double my output for the day"

Cayden's heart fell, but he did his best not to let it show.  Dreams of completing the first round of construction overnight fell by the wayside, but even still, a bonus was a bonus. "If I wanted you to do this-"

"You would simply direct me through the War Frame." Roberta smiled. "I cannot tap into the city's source without such express permission.

"Which brings us back to where we started." Silver observed. "We've got a big pool of magic, and nothing to spend it on."

"Unless," Michael grinned, looking to Valserys. "You don't also happen to be holding out on some hidden powers, do you?"

The military man bristled under the accusation, drawing himself up to his full height and resting a hand on the guard of the long blade sheathed at his hip. "I resent the implication."

Michael began to retort, but Cayden physically interposed himself between the two before a playful argument could erupt into something worse.

"Silver does have a point." He mused. "What would we drop points from?"

"Civilization." Silver and Michael said in unison.

"You can't cut back on civilization. You will regret this!" Cayden snickered. When the other two stared at him blankly, he rolled his eyes in response. "Philistines, no wonder you want to cut back on civilization." Despite his taunts, Cayden reached out a finger and adjusted the civilization slider downwards, then devoted it's two remaining points to the Magic category. "Done and done."

He hit the confirm button, then swiped away the menu entirely. "Now where was I?"

Silver rolled her eyes. "Cayden, you have the memory of a goldfish."

"And like, a particularly absent-minded goldfish," Michael added.

"Hey-"

"The Wayne Szalinski of goldfish." Silver interrupted.

Cayden raised an eyebrow at that. "Obscure reference much?"

"I'd have said the Ronald Reagan of goldfish, but that seems in poor taste." She retorted.

It was only then that the three realized that their Elan companions were still standing in the wings, alternating between exchanging baffled glances and looking at the players like they had lost their minds. Cayden often wondered just what Elan must make of humans when they went off on tangents like that. Probably something similar to the way they felt whenever an Elan started rambling on about the Great Emperor.

"You were preparing troops for mock combat," Valserys said at last, once it was clear the players were waiting for one of them to say something.

"Yeah, I remember now." He admitted, reaching for the display once again. The storeroom menu proved easy enough to navigate, in part because it was largely barren. It contained a listing of their arms and armor, their horses, a smattering of siege defense weaponry, and little else. That was going to have to change.

Equipping the troops proved as easy as selecting the items in question, then selecting the units to which he wished to assign them. He briefly experimented with assigning archery equipment or horses to his existing troops, but in each instance, the system kicked him back with a notification that the unit in question was not trained for that method of combat. Likewise, attempting to alter the equipment of soldiers outside the keep itself resulted only in a notification that a unit could only change their equipment when adjacent to the armory.

Once he knew what he was doing, it didn't take Cayden long to alter the equipment of the twenty soldiers he had sent to the keep for his experiment. Their smattering of axes and swords were uniformly replaced with wooden blades from the keep storeroom before the soldiers themselves were marched into the empty courtyard that had so recently been filled with shambling terrors.

"So... uh.  What now?" Cayden asked.

"I would recommend forming the men into discrete formations." Valserys replied. "As it stands, you have them in groups, but not formations. A group without discipline is little more than a mob and just as easy to disperse."

"Form them up. Got it." Cayden replied though he did not actually 'have it.' He knew how to select multiple units, and how to direct them from place to place, but it took him nearly a minute of awkward fumbling and touching at the War Frame before he finally stumbled on how to organize them into a formation. He had to press and hold on the summary of the collected units until a sub-menu spawned with two options. Create a Formation and Add to Existing Formation. Seeing as he didn't have any existing formations, it was a rather easy choice.

His selection drove the creation of yet another new window, along with a small floating keyboard. This one an empty, save for instructions along the top of its frame. Please enter a name.

"Suggestions?" Cayden asked,

"Silver's Raiders?" The shameless mage offered, before crossing her arms at Cayden's indignant look. "What? Like you've never wanted to name something after yourself?"

"1st Formation?" Michael proposed.

"Any good suggestions?" When no offers were forthcoming, Cayden studied the keyboard for a moment, then began to type. "The Fighting First."

"And the other?" Valserys asked.

"My request for suggestions was open to you as well," Cayden replied.

The very idea seemed to take Valserys momentarily off guard. The regal officer scrutinized Cayden for a moment, judging his intent before at last replying. "If you would, I'm sure the men would be honored to be known as "Bastion's Second."

Cayden smiled. "Absolutely."

With names selected, Cayden studied the first of the two identical formations before him.

The Fighting First (Formation)

Type: Infantry (Elan)

Level: 1

Unit Count: 10/10

Formation Bonus: +2

HP: 100/100

MP: 0/0

TP: 100/100

Move: 8/8

Attack: 120

Defence: 120

Special: None

Resistances: None

Weaknesses: None

"Formation Bonus is new." Michael said as if both of his fellow players hadn't noticed that the instant the information had been displayed.

"Yeah. It looks like it applies to each unit in the formation." Cayden continued the thought, looking to Valserys. "Is this just a generic bonus, or?"

The soldier looked somewhat wounded as he replied. "Difficult to say, Field Marshall. The vagaries of the War Frame are not entirely familiar to me." Before Cayden could press him for an answer, Valserys continued. "In combat, having multiple soldiers in formation provides a significant improvement in the combat abilities of the whole, which is likely what this represents."

"So the more soldiers we have in a unit, the better?" Cayden solicited.

"To a point." Valserys cautioned. "At a certain point, a formation can become unwieldy, with too many men to properly direct."

Silver gestured to the War Frame. "Rather than picking his brain based on his best guess, wouldn't it be easier just to add more troops and see what happens."

"She has a point," Michael smirked.

"Silver always has a point," Cayden admitted. The worst part of it was, they were often too accurate for his liking.

Cayden selected a handful of random troops from elsewhere in bastion, adding them one after another in groups of ten.  The next increase was at 25 soldiers, then another at 50, again at 75, leading to a final +6 bonus at a full 100 soldiers. Past 100 the bonus fell off immediately, dropping to +5 with 101 units in formation, +4 with 126 and so forth.

"So our ideal formation would be one hundred then, huh? Easy to remember, I guess." Michael said as Cayden's experiment came to an end.

"Not alway-" Cayden and Silver both began in unison. The two exchanged glanced, with Cayden eventually deferring to Silver. "Not quite." She continued. "It'll depend on a lot of factors, how many units we need in the field, what other bonuses we might be able to apply, and so forth."

"I'm not following," Michael admitted, squinting a little as he tried to run the numbers again in his head.

"A group of one hundred gets the higher bonus." Silver explained smoothly. "But a group of one twenty-five has an extra twenty-five members getting the smaller bonus. It isn't a huge difference, but they would be the stronger unit."

Michael continued to narrow his eyes, one hand waving awkwardly in the air as he worked through his mental map. "Carry the one and... okay, yeah, I'm going to take your word for it."

"You should." Silver smirked.

"Don't feel too bad," Cayden added. "You're still correct that we're mostly better off running units of one hundred. You can field five groups of one hundred, instead of four groups of one twenty five. Probably better in almost every instance." With that said he looked to Valserys. "What now?"

The Elan had been waiting for the question and responded without hesitation. "The formations you have would be functional combat units as they are. But I recommend leadership."

"Always nice to have that." Silver said, giving Cayden a sidelong glance that he promptly ignored.

"Do we have any existing officers?"

"Only myself," Valserys replied. "You can assign me to a unit if you wish. Indeed, once the battle is fully joined, I recommend it in fact. For now, however, I suggest you promote from within."

"And how do I...?" Cayden's question trailed off, his eyes ignoring the stubborn glances of his fellows as he turned his attention to the War Frame.

This one was easy to figure out.  He needed only to select an existing unit within a formation and hold his finger there until a new menu arrived.  There was only a single option. Promote. Cayden touched it without hesitation and was met with a warning.

Promoting this soldier will cost 5 Influence.  Are you sure? Y/N

"Is there any difference between the various soldiers?" Cayden asked. "Or should I just promote whomever I want."

"Some soldiers would likely be more suited to command," Valserys admitted. "Unfortunately I am not familiar enough with any of the soldiers the Duke has entrusted to you to make any suggestions."

Cayden nodded, then began to zoom the map out far enough that he could see the city and its outskirts. He selected two units and directed both of them to return to the keep, expending most of their remaining movement in the process.  Once there, he promoted each, and couldn't help but notice a certain smile of satisfaction on Valserys face at his choice.

He'd used the two as his guinea pigs already, so Aleph and Zerald had earned their promotions.

"Leadership +2 and +1." Cayden read aloud as he inspected each of his new officers in turn. "I'd ask if you knew if that was good but..."

"I couldn't begin to guess," Valserys replied, cracking another smile.

"Figures. We'll promote some others later to see what we can see. For now..." Cayden navigated back to the keep, and ordered each of his new officers to take command of a Unit, with Aleph in charge of 'The Fighting First' And Zerald, the leader of 'Bastion's Second.' "Let's see what happens when they fight."

There were two options in the formation menu that seemed like they could serve Cayden's purposes. The first, demonstration turned out to have more to do with parade marching than combat, but the second, Practice Drills was precisely what they were looking for. Giving the order to one formation gave Cayden a warning that they would be unavailable for any other purposes for the remainder of the turn. Selecting it with two, however, brought the Combat log to life at long last.

Do you wish these two formations to engage in mock combat? Note that any damage sustained during simulated battle will not be healed until end of day? Y/N

There was only one answer to that.

The moment Cayden touched the floating query, the two units formed up into solid lines across the field from one another. There was a moment of shouting and posturing before each began to advance on the other in slow, methodical steps. Soon enough, the two clashed, shield against shield, wooden blades striking down on their foes, sending men sprawling. Eventually, the din of battle began to die down, with Bastion's Second beginning to withdraw a short distance, harried by their opponents farewell attacks.

In the aftermath, the Combat Log told a tale all its own:

The First Company attacks Bastion's Second - Attack Value: 1800 vs. Defense Value 1700.

The First Company deals 27 damage to Bastion's Second.

Bastion's Second attacks The First Company - Attack Value: 1700 vs. Defense Value 1800.

Bastion's Second deals 24 damage to The First Company.

"In real combat, the losing formation would be forced to flee the field," Valserys explained as the players studied the results of combat. "Or the losing army in an instance where multiple formations are engaging in combat in the same area."

"What determines which side is the losing formation?" Michael asked.

"I'd say the one that received the most damage?" Cayden said dryly.  He was about to say more when a soft buzzing in his pocket drew his attention.

"Largely correct." Valserys agreed. "With a few small caveats. Any side lacking leadership will almost certainly cede the field to their opponent on anything but an outright victory. In addition, there are a few tactics that can be used to alter the winner or loser in a particular engagement."

"Tactics?" Silver asked though Cayden was no longer listening.

It was his mirror that had buzzed. Without his usual AR display, a simple vibration function was the only way for the device to get his attention, to alert him to his new skill:

Leadership

Type: Passive

Skill Level: Level 1.

Effect: Leadership Bonus +1. Access to Level 1 War Tactics.

The words War Tactics were highlighted on his screen, and a single touch took him to a new section of his skills menu, where a series of four new abilities awaited him.

Blitz

Type: Tactic

Skill Level: N/A

Effect: Increase unit attack strength by 25%. Reduce defense by 15%

Defensive Stance

Type: Tactic

Skill Level: N/A

Effect: Increase unit defense strength by 25%. Reduce attack by 15%

Combat Screen

Type: Tactic

Skill Level: N/A

Effect: Select one friendly formation in the same hex.  Melee enemy formations must engage this formation before engaging screened target. Enemy tactics or special movement type (Flying, Teleportation, etc.) may override this tactic.

Full Withdrawal

Type: Tactic

Skill Level: N/A

Effect: Increase unit defense by 50%. Reduce attack by 75%. Unit loses combat regardless of damage inflicted or received. Increase chance of leadership survival.

"-Cayden?"

He looked up at the sound of his name, to see all four of the room's occupants looking his way expectantly. He'd missed something. "Uh, mind repeating that?"

"She was asking what had you burying your nose in your mirror," Michael explained.

"Ah," Cayden said, covering up his slight flush of embarrassment by handing the device over to his fellow players. The two studied it for a moment, Michael looming somewhat unnervingly over Silver's shoulder as the latter surveyed the same options that had kept Cayden's attention fixed on the screen.

"Well, those will be useful." Silver said, handing the mirror back. "Assuming you don't have to lead the units directly to benefit from them."

Cayden considered that for a moment, then shook his head. "No, just from the wording, I think they'll work with the War Frame."

"One way to find out." Michael offered.

Before Cayden reached out for the board, he turned his attention to Valserys once more. "To be clear, this mock combat doesn't put the troops in danger. Correct?"

"Not directly, no," Valserys replied, before choosing to qualify his statement further. "It will still cause damage as the War Frame registers it, so it would obviously be unwise to engage in any practice in a situation where our troops could be at risk."

Michael arched a brow at that. "Wait, but if it's damage, shouldn't there be wounds? Deaths even?"

The pink haired Elan officer shook his head. "The battle is rarely the source of most casualties." He explained. "For every soldier that dies in the clash of shields and blades, ten more die during the rout. A damaged unit might have lost some of its soldiers, but the damage is mostly to morale and organization. Otherwise, a unit with one of its one hundred health would be a single soldier, an absurd concept at best."

"So the damage they take from these practice runs is organizational?" Silver asked.

"And morale, and exhaustion." Valserys agreed. "I know of scant few soldiers who would be ready to throw themselves at a waiting enemy after hours of drilling under a hot sun."

"Point taken."

"So we'll avoid drilling them to the point of exhaustion. But a few more tests more shouldn't hurt." Cayden said. "Before that. We should make a few changes."

"Tests hmm?" Silver asked, a twinkle in her eye. "For science?"

Cayden grinned, that same mischief playing across his expression. "For science!"

Chapter Ten

If there was one thing about Babel that Cayden thought he would never get used to, it was waking up in a strange bed.

Son of two middle-income parents, he'd never traveled much as a child or as teenager. The few vacations they had in a year were most often spent camping or visiting family. Waking on the hard ground beneath his tent, or on an air mattress in his uncle's office, those were what Cayden was used to. Awakening in a four post bed so large that he couldn't reach from one end to the other no matter how he slept? That was just weird.

It was a weirdness compounded by the hour in which he woke. Somewhere, outside of the endless ocean of down feather bed, his mirror was buzzing at him, the slightest line of light emanating from the corners of the face down device. It was the only artificial light in the room, though just enough of it was illuminated by the crescent moon visible through floor to ceiling windows on the far end of the bedroom.

The Master's Chambers, Roberta had called them.He'd slept in an open bunk in the barracks during the few fitful hours of sleep he'd first gotten upon their arrival, but neither of his Elan advisors would have him doing that again once they'd heard the tale. It was unseemly, they told him. Beneath his position. It simply would not do to have one entrusted with so much quartered in such a dismal place. So Roberta had placed him here, high up in the west wing of the tower, in a bedroom he was fairly convinced would have fit his entire suburban home with spare room for the shed in the yard.

Silver and Cayden's experiments had continued well into the mid-afternoon. When they finally did halt, it was a matter of exhaustion, both for the units under their control and for the players themselves. Neither had gotten much sleep in the few hours before dawn, and excitement over the artifact at their fingertips could only keep the pair going for so long. Michael had bowed out after only an hour of study, and eventually, the same exhaustion weighed so heavily that any further experimentation would have been counter-productive.

A nap was in order.

"Ugh... what time is it?" Cayden mumbled to himself as he half rolled, half crawled to the edge of the bed. He fumbled first for his mirror, then the glasses that lay beside it. Just after nine, his alarm had been going off for several minutes at him already. He must have been more tired than he thought. If he didn't hurry, he'd be late.

As if on cue, a soft rapping noise sounded at his door.

"I'm awake!" He grumbled the same mantra he had used countless times to lie to his mother over the years. In truth, he wasn't sure his current state as a bleary-eyed, shambling mess of a human being actually qualified as being awake.

Again the knock sounded, and he took just a moment to bury his face in a pillow before at last letting his feet suffer the abuse of the cold stone floor.

The oppressive darkness of the chamber disappeared at a word from Cayden, albeit a Runic word that sent a wheel of flame spinning about the room.  It lit the wick of candle upon candle, forcing Cayden to squint against the sudden brightness that threatened to overwhelm him. "Just a second. Let me get some damn clothes on!"

Cayden donned his AR glasses, followed by the form-fitting haptic gloves that allowed him to interface with the device. Once both gloves were snug around his fingers, Cayden snapped them to bring his display to life. A small bounty of new messages awaited his attention, but those had to wait as he stepped from bed, navigating into his inventory with one hand as he wiped the remnants of sleep from the corner of one eye with the other. Clothes. He needed clothes.

The fabric materialized onto his frame as his bare feet padded across smooth stone, then the thick bear rug closer to the door. One perk that he had to give Babel, he'd never have to do laundry again, so long as he stayed. Each time the outfit was withdrawn from his inventory, it spawned as though brand new. No wrinkles, no stains or imperfections marred the tunic and leathers he'd chosen. He'd ripped this outfit at least once or twice during his adventures, but the damage never lingered. It had even sized down with him as steady exercise, and a more sensible diet had cut away some of the pounds he'd earned in a sedentary life of video gaming.

"Oh for crying - ! I said I'm coming!" Cayden half shouted at the door as the knock sounded again and he finally yanked it open.

"Good morning!" Celia said, the slim blonde's body doing a terrible job of hiding the silverware-laden cart she had with her. He raised a bemused eyebrow at her choice of words, but she wasn't having any of it. "Took you long enough."

"Did you not hear me yelling?" Cayden shot back, only to see her expression darken with uncertainty. "Or is this room..." He abruptly shut the door, shouting at the top of his lungs, then opened it again.

"Yeah, soundproof, I think." She finished for him. "Are you going to invite me in? Or?"

There was something about the wording of the question that made him blush, and not just the fact that Celia was looking particularly pretty. Adventuring didn't often lend itself to the sort of runway model looks that adorned the covers of thousands of books and videogames. If they were lucky enough to get back to the Dizzy Sheep, Celia was often straight to bed after dinner and dressed for the road by the time he woke and if they spent their night in the wild she rarely ever ditched the heavy mage robes at all. Just seeing her with her hair down was a rarity, to say nothing of the flowing purple dress that hugged an hourglass figure.

Cayden pretended to consider the question, largely to buy time to compose himself. "Depends on what you have on that tray, I suppose."

"Oh, go ahead. Just kill all the suspense why don't you?" Celia fumed, pushing past him with the cart in tow.

"I think you did that when you forgot to hide the tray around a corner." He retorted. The door shut behind him as he stepped away from it, following her to a four-person sitting table where she began to unload the dishes.  The smell of breakfast foods, hash browns, pancakes, and syrup, wafted up to entice a stomach he hadn't realized was quite so empty.

"Remind me why I do anything nice for you?"

"Honestly? I have no idea." Cayden laughed weakly. "I'm sorry Celia, I'm a jerk when I wake up."

"Really? I hadn't noticed." She smirked, shifting the dishes one by one from the trolley to the table.

It looked delicious. More than that, it looked normal!

One thing Cayden had discovered, even before he first stepped foot inside the tower, was that he should never trust Elan cooking. The tower's denizens looked mostly human, acted mostly human, and were, as he understood it, more or less biologically human, but they had very different taste when it came to food.  Bitter foods were among their favorites, and spicy or worse yet, slimy foods had a place at every breakfast table as far as they were concerned. They could be taught to cook regular meals, of course, but dining with an Elan you didn't know was begging for disaster. With unknown Elan military cooks expected to prepare their meals, he'd already resigned himself to a week of survival on trail rations and whatever snacks he had left in his pack. To see such a bounty, it almost brought a tear to his eye.

"Did you...?" Cayden asked despite knowing the answer.

Celia shrugged in response, her expression nonchalant as she took a seat. "I owe you."

"Oh." His head shook as he settled into the seat opposite her. "Celia, if you owe anyone, it is Michael."

"I already have." She explained with a giggle. "Unlike someone, he was up at a reasonable hour."

Cayden's hand lingered imperceptibly as he reached for a stack of pancakes on a nearby plate.  It took everything he had not to frown, and even more to bite his tongue. "Ah."

Considering the playful light that began to dance in Celia's eyes, everything he had wasn't enough.

"Cayden... are you jealous?" Celia asked, a very feminine giggle falling from her lips. "I mean, I'm flattered and all but-"

"I'm not jealous." He said flatly, suddenly more interested in syrup than conversation.

"You are! You totally are." The high school queen bee Celia would have been if not for Babel was in full force now as a smirk played over her lips. "Is it because he's more handsome than you?"

That stung more than he'd like to admit. "Really Celia?"

"Hey, I made you breakfast. I get to tease."

"I saved your life." He retorted.

Celia wiggled a finger in front of him. "Actually, Michael saved my life. You said it yourself." The girl pondered for a moment, before adding. "Okay, maybe not good looks. Level envy?"

"Oh, just eat your pancakes!"

"Yeah, I didn't think that was it." She continued not giving his words a second thought. "Afraid he is going to steal me when all this is over?"

"Could we not?" He half asked, half begged.

"Nope." Celia shook her head vigorously. "Silver had me eating crow for weeks about how you and I met. Let me have this."

Silence reigned at the table for a moment, before Cayden, at last, offered a heavy sigh. "It isn't just you." He held up a hand to forestall any inquiries. "And yes, part of it is you, try not to get a big head about it."

"Too late."

"I just don't like him." Cayden shrugged. "I'm trying not to make a deal out of it, because I know I'm just being petty. I've been like... the guy around our party for a while. Feels weird to have someone else people are admiring and looking to for leadership."

"You think I admire you?" Celia asked slyly.

"Well, you did stalk me for my autograph."

"You go to a dungeon for an autograph onetime..." Celia rolled her eyes, digging into a few bites of the meal before her before she added. "I didn't go through all this effort for him, you know?"

"Hmm?" He cocked his head to one side.

"The breakfast, I mean." She explained. "I said thank you, yeah. He kept me alive, but you kept all of us alive. Don't think that I don't know the difference."

A small smile pulled at his lips, though Cayden was less than pleased with the light blush that crept up along with it.

"Besides, he's DPS, and you are a tank. You're harder to replace." Celia reached across the table, patting him on the cheek with a manicured hand. "And you're not too awful to look at."

***

An hour later, after a breakfast of delicious pastries and merciless teasing, Cayden, at last, made his way down through the winding halls to the strategy room.

"Our fearless leader emerges!" Shifty said, eliciting a small rumble of laughter from both Michael and Silver as the three milled about the edge of the War Frame, with his two Elan advisors trailing off in mid-conversation to give him their full attention.

"Good morning to you too," Cayden replied with a chipperness he did not entirely feel. "Didn't expect to see you up so early Silver."

The mage shrugged but made no effort to disguise the smugness of her smirk as she taunted him. "I woke up around the same time you did. I just didn't have a breakfast date."

Beside him, Celia's neck began to adopt a rosy hue, but Cayden kept on without blinking. "Understandable. When was the last time you had a date?"

The harsh clearing of a throat interrupted any further banter, all eyes drawn to Valserys as the prim-proper soldier did his best to conceal the particular disdain he had for their back and forth. "Good evening, Field Marshall." He began. "Everyone is here as instructed. Shall we begin?"

"And I thought you were a killjoy," Celia whispered from his side, drawing only an incredulous glance in reply.

"Thank you Valserys," Cayden responded. He then motioned to the War Frame. "Have you explained the functions of the War Frame to those who weren't here this morning?"

"I have, Cayden," Roberta said. "As much as they were interested in it, in any case."

Shifty shrugged. "This sort of thing is what we keep you around for in the first place, isn't it?"

Cayden considered for a moment, then nodded. "I suppose it is. All the same though, can you at least let Valserys instruct you in the basics at some point? Never know when we might be in a situation where I'm not available."

"Sure thing." The older man said unconvincingly.

"Field Marshall, a few small matters require your attention, before we begin?" Roberta added, sensing an opportunity.

"I suspected as much. Let's sort them quickly."

As both Cayden and Silver had surmised, the day was indeed separated into three turns. The first began sometime after dawn, the second just after noon, and the third in the late afternoon a few hours before dusk. It had taken some digging, but they had discovered a timer function that could be activated on the Frame itself and, perhaps more crucially, a turn order function.

The way it currently stood, each portion of the day was divided into three parts. Monster, Player, Warden. Any local monsters large enough to qualify as settlements acted first on each turn, with roughly an hour devoted to them.  Next came Cayden's turn, which lasted approximately two and a half hours. After that, the Wardens acted for an equal amount.  The whole thing repeated itself twice more, then night fell, and no one acted until the following morning.

There were still a few hiccups in his understanding. If the other players were using War Frames, or devices similar to War Frames, then they either shared a turn with him or for some reason were not included on the current turn order. He'd have to get in touch with the others to be sure, but until he was, he didn't dare touch the end turn button, for fear it might negatively impact their plans. And that was currently his best-case scenario.

The only other alternative he had worked out with Silver was that the turn order only took into account, nearby groups. If his faction was far enough away from Islo that his troops wouldn't be able to interact with theirs during a turn, then why include them? It made sense, but the suggestion was troubling all the same. If it was true, that meant there were Warden troops within striking range of Bastion itself.

"Per your orders, I withdrew magical energy from the city's reserve to empower my casting.  This allowed us to complete the Lower Township and Keep repairs, as you can see here." Roberta motioned to the War Frame, where a pair of golden icons glowed and dimmed for his attention. Cayden touched one, and it formed into a small text box, informing him the Lower Township Repair was complete, something he already knew. The other, the Keep Repair, was more interesting:

Keep Repair Complete

Influence: +5

Food Storage: +50

Field Supply Limit: +100

The Throne Room is now available for audiences.

Something about the way the term audiences struck a chord with the gamer part of Cayden, but the thought had to be pushed aside as Roberta continued. "We should assign new production before the end of the turn, so as not to waste the labor of our craftsmen."

"Perish the thought." Cayden grinned. "Any suggestions?"

"I wouldn't begin to presume, Field Marshall."

He scoffed. "It isn't a presumption when you are asked, Roberta." Cayden pulled up the War Frame's production menu and touched each of the two new options in turn.

Lower Township Repair

Lower in class as much as location, this district grows the backbone of any fledgling town. (2/6)

Cost: 40 Production

Civilian Housing: +500

Production: +2

Keep Repair

Preliminary repairs of the keep are now underway. (2/6)

Cost: 20 Production

Influence: +10

Food Storage: +50

Field Supply Limit: +50

Additional areas of the Keep will become accessible.

"Indeed." She replied, studying the new options in turn. "Further repair of the Lower Township would be in keeping with your original goal of favoring production. It would also put us that much closer to having sufficient housing for the thousand Elan population you desired."

"My thoughts exactly," Cayden said. Despite the confidence in his words, a frown did still cross his face. "I would also like to get at least the outer walls repaired sooner rather than later, however. If the Wardens are closer than we think, we'd be better off having a defense than not."

"I do not necessarily think repairing the walls would be wise at this juncture, Field Marshall." The uncharacteristic interjection from Valserys was enough to raise eyebrows on both Elan and Human, the two turning to regard him as he continued his thought. "We know the location of the primary tomb, suggesting that any local forces would be comparatively weak. If they are not, minor repairs to our wall will be pointless. If they are, then prioritizing repairs with an upkeep cost would be doubly wasteful.

A moment of staggered silence followed the appraisal, with Roberta being the first to speak. "He raises some significant points."

"That he does." Cayden smiled. He gave the other man a nod of approval, then continued. "We will continue our focus on the Lower Township for the time being." Cayden tapped his orders into the War Frame as he spoke. There was no need to give the instructions verbally, but it felt right to do so all the same. "Sixteen production per turn should leave us with eight left over on the third turn. Let's devote that to repair of the keep."

"Something in mind, Cayden?" Roberta asked.

He shook his head. "Call it a hunch that the additional areas will be more beneficial than the Influence boosts let on."

"As you will." She agreed. "If you will excuse me, I'd best attend to my task before the turn end."

"Get some sleep afterward." He replied.

"I'm sorry?" She asked, as though confused.

"That applies to both of you." Cayden continued. "You do a damn good job at hiding it, but I don't think either of you have taken much more than a few hours of sleep for well over a day now. I appreciate the loyalty and the work ethic, but I need you fresh during out turns when it matters."

The two Elan exchanged glances, something unspoken passing between them.  Relief followed, and the pair smiled as they replied. "With pleasure, Marshall."

As Roberta retreated, Cayden turned his attention to his fellow players. He closed out of the majority of the windows on the War Frame and beckoned for them to take up positions around the table before he began. Once they were settled, with all faces turned expectantly in his direction, Cayden pulled the map out until it displayed an overview of the floor itself, with Islo and Sunè to the West and North-West, and the Tomb of the Liar King still further beyond those.

"I'm no good at inspirational pep talks, and you'd all probably laugh at me anyways. So let's cut to the meat of things." Cayden stabbed a finger at the Tomb displayed on the map. "This is our enemy. Assuming their ground troops move at the same speed as ours, they can be here in as little as seven days. If they move faster, which isn't unreasonable, that number gets cut down further."

The announcement had a predictable effect. Even Silver, who had worked out the calculations with him, seemed somewhat unnerved.  That was good; he wanted them, needed them, to take this seriously. "If Duke Elazio is to be believed, and I don't have a single reason not to, the capture of this keep is a flat game-over for everyone on the floor. The Wardens know this, and they're probably going to come at us with everything."

"Could we maybe have the pep talk after all?" Shifty asked, after an awkward moment of silence.

Everyone laughed, but the tension was still there as Cayden continued. "Well, that was the end of the bad news, if that makes you feel any better?"

It didn't seem to.

"Well, what is the good news?" Michael asked when no one else seemed willing to speak.

Silver pointed at the map by way of response. "Geography for starters. We've got Islo between them and us. Unless their army is so massive that they can siege the city and attack us at the same time, they're going to want to deal with Islo first.  Any alternative leaves an army at their back, both as a threat to them and the tomb, which is untenable."

"We can send our forces to assist Islo rather than fight the Wardens piecemeal."Cayden continued from where she left off. "And this river..."

"The Ryks." Valserys clarified.

"The Ryks," Cayden repeated for his own benefit. "Has only two crossings, making it ideal as a fallback point to defend."

Celia studied the map with narrowed eyes, as if trying to spot some hole in their plan. "Then what?"

"Hopefully it doesn't come to that." Silver admitted. "This is a game event, which means it is expected that we can beat it. While the Elan are doing the dying holding off the Wardens, our job is going to be to find and return whatever it was that was stolen, to put a stop to this before it comes to a head."

"And if we can't?" Celia pressed.

"Do you want to tell them? Or should I?" Cayden asked.

Silver graciously waved a hand in his direction. "Your plan."

All eyes were on him now, and Cayden found he didn't like it. "I don't play a lot of wargames, but my dad did. One of the things he taught me is to look for a secondary way to win. Securing the objectives is nice, but if you can't do that, consider standing knee deep in your opponent's blood, he used to say."

"Charming fella." Michael snorted.

"Like father like Son." teased Celia.

"My point is, there is no guarantee we will be able to find and return the artifact easily. The owner might be dead in a ditch somewhere so far away from anything meaningful that we will never find him." Cayden continued, doing his best to ignore the peanut gallery. "Which is why I started counting distance and time. We need to stretch this out for twenty-nine days."

The others looked at one another, each wondering if they were perhaps the only one that didn't see what Cayden was getting at.

"Twenty-nine days left on her death penalties." He explained. "Then Silver is our walking, talking win condition."

Chapter Eleven

Day One - Morning Turn

Aleph couldn't begin to fathom why he, of all the men detached for service with this Cayden, had been promoted. Exceptional qualities under stress, the Lord General had said, when he had arrived to pin the rank to his chest. A proven track record of worthy behavior, and a sterling example to fellow soldiers who would now serve under his command.  It was a load.

Then again, nothing about the bloodline descendants, the players, ever made much sense at all.

He knew half a dozen of his fellow soldiers who might have made a more qualified commander for the newly formed Fighting First. Men more adept at combat, more talented speakers, or those who had already formed strong bonds of trust with the soldiers who were eventually organized into the new formation.  Any of them would have made a more qualified leader. Instead, the player had picked him.

"And people act like they're so damn smart," Aleph grumbled. There was nothing for it, however. An order was an order, and he wouldn't be moved to pity himself. Better to lead the unit as best he could than to show dishonor or irresoluteness in the face of friend or foe.

The pommel of his longsword crashed against the steel of his shield with a resounding cacophony that drew the attention of every eye in his formation. They were a hundred strong, himself included, a force to be reckoned with, even if their leader was a rank amateur. In the hour they had been waiting under the beating sun, he had let discipline slip just enough to top off morale. Let the men talk. Let them gossip, and babble away their fear while they waited. There was no risk of ambush, and these men knew well enough to fall into ranks the moment the order came down, even without his bellowing voice throwing orders.

Not that it stopped him from bellowing them all the same.

"Get into line before I make you," Aleph shouted, striking his shield once more, this time with the cross guard of his weapon.

Just down the field, he could see two other units gathering themselves. Bastion's Second had become a bit of a rival formation as a result of the previous day's practice, and his men were eager to show that they, not the Second, would be the premier unit of the newly restored city.

The other unit was so green they'd only been formed that very morning. Aleph hadn't even been given time to introduce himself to whatever poor sod Valserys, rather, The Lord General, had placed in charge. Despite that, they'd been given the honor of going first into combat. The tactic had been explained to them during the march out to the vicinity of the mine, but it still rankled.

This new unit, Officially Bastion's Third Infantry, and unofficially, The Pointy Third, were spear wielders. Their job was to engage defensively, to bait out any surprises that the enemy might have in store for them, and do a bit of damage in the process. Once that was done, the first would step in and hit the enemy with full force. Ideally, they'd wipe them out in a single engagement. If not, the second would be there to clean up what was left.

It should be as simple as that. The scouts who had investigated the mine the previous evening hadn't been able to give a direct accounting of the beast men who called it home, but their best guess was less than one hundred. Aleph might not trust his new commander quite yet, but he liked anyone who sent them into combat with the odds at least 3:1 in their favor.

The whooping battle cry of the Pointy Third drew Aleph's attention.  Things were underway now. Ahead of him, he could see a one of the twisted beast man gesticulating wildly. There was shouting among the enemy, the sound of horns. Slowly, the creatures began to emerge from the mines, slavering muzzles drooling saliva, knuckles dragging along soil at the end of oversized, twisted arms. Each creature was different in its disfigurement, a hunchback here, a milky white eye there. It was unsettling to even look at the monsters, their rusted gear and haphazard armor a parody of the Elan equipment.

All the same, it was good to see them at all. There had been significant concern that the Beastmen would not come to the surface for a stand-up fight. The Lord General had been convinced that they would, of course, yet Aleph suspected it had less to do with the creatures wishing to meet their doom head on, as had been suggested, and more to do with the fact that the mine did not have a rear exit. If the animals wanted to retreat from this combat, they had to advance out of the quarry where the mine was located.

Anything was better than fighting the fiends at close corners in the winding tunnels of the mines. The Beastmen had superior vision in the dark, and the Bastion soldier's numbers would count for little or nothing in such close quarters.  Fortunate for them that the monsters weren't tactically inclined.

A rough line began to form in the quarry.  Like the creatures themselves, their formation was ragged, and Aleph suspected it would be easily broken when the battle was well and truly joined.

Speaking of which. He thought with a grim smile. The Pointy Third had begun to advance, three ranks of spear-wielding soldiers marching down the shallow slope towards an enemy that raged and spat in their direction. Aleph didn't speak Beastman, but he still felt the intent of the obscenities being lobbed in their direction, even if the specifics eluded him.

The ground closed between the two forces, spear tips lowering, the beast men charging.

"Here we..."

***

"...go" Cayden murmured under his breath, trying to conceal his unease. He didn't want Valserys hearing him, or worse yet, Silver.

It wasn't that he thought the plan would fail. He'd spent hours the previous evening, and a few more when he'd awoken before dawn, going over every facet of this strategy. The attack would work, the mine would be theirs before the Beastmen ever got a turn to respond. His concern was keeping friendly casualties as close to zero as possible, and if he was honest with himself, how he'd react if he couldn't manage that.

Which was why he struggled to keep his face impassive as he watched. The last thing he needed was another lecture on how the purpose of expendable lives was to be expended.

In front of him, the two formations crashed into one another. Just over fifty Beastmen threw themselves over and over into the defensive wall of shields and spears that was the Pointy Third, a name Celia had suggested when neither Cayden nor Silver could come up with anything better.

It was going well, at least, as far as Cayden could tell. The Third was holding formation, the front line absorbing the brunt of the flailing assault, while the rear two did the majority of the damage with polearms thrust over shoulders or between specially formed gaps in the shield. For a unit that hadn't existed until early this morning, the Third was giving a marvelous accounting of themselves.

"Looks like there aren't any tricks." Silver observed passively.

"Certainly seems that way." Cayden nodded.

Their original plan had called for a combined formation attack, with Aleph, or possibly even Valserys himself, leading a three hundred man unit to simply overwhelm the Beastmen with sheer numbers. Not exactly elegant or clever, but in terms of practicality, the Attack and Defense of such a unit would have been second to none. It was a plan they had to put the kibosh on, only after Celia noted the obvious flaw, that any sprung trap could run the risk of destroying a majority of their forces in a single bad engagement. Needless to say, both Cayden and Silver had felt suitably foolish for not considering that possibility.

"Number 12: One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child." He said with a wry grin.

"Hmm?" Silver asked, giving him a look that was only mildly more befuddled than the expression on Valserys' face.

Cayden chuckled. "An ancient list of things you should and should not do if you become an evil overlord. Like how you shouldn't turn into a snake."

"Yeah. " Silver replied. “That never helps.”

Before Valserys could voice any of the no doubt numerous questions that he had in mind, the combat began to reach its conclusion. As expected, the Beastmen had lost the engagement, which left this as the moment of truth.

The defeated enemy had only two directions to which they could retreat. They could delve back into the caves, which Valserys assured him would be a nightmare of tunnel warfare that might be best fought by the players themselves if they planned to avoid casualties. Or they could retreat into the empty hex Cayden had left between the combat and the frontline.

They chose the latter.

"Yes!" Cayden shouted, pounding his knuckles down on the side of the War Frame. Beside him, Silver was grinning from ear to ear, and even blue-skinned Valserys couldn't entirely conceal his delight at a plan well struck.

"As expected, Field Marshall. Well done."

"We should be thanking them, not me," Cayden replied, ignoring the look of distaste from Silver in favor of the results being displayed in the Combat Log.

The Pointy Third (Defensive Formation) attacks Beastman Formation - Attack Value: 1350 vs. Defense Value 870.

The Pointy Third deals 39 damage to Beastman Formation.

Beastman Formation attacks The Pointy Third (Defense Formation) - Attack Value: 870  vs. Defense Value 2500.

Beastman Formation deals 2 damage to The Pointy Third

"That... went better than expected." Silver said as she finished reading the results.

"To put it mildly." Their plans had assumed the worst-case scenario estimate of one hundred Beastmen given by the scouting reports, which would have put their actual damage received closer 17. With the numbers so much lower, this wasn't so much a battle as it was a slaughter.

"Shall we send in the First to wipe them out?" Valserys asked.

"Yeah. But let's take them off of Blitz." Cayden smiled. "I don't think they're going to need it."

***

The order came like a jolt to Aleph's mind. Attack.

He'd been waiting on pins and needles since the first clash of bodies since the first inhuman scream had reached their ears.  These Beastmen were nothing. Poorly equipped, barely trained.  They had unusual physical strength, enough to overcome some of their disadvantages if they'd had the numbers. But they didn't have the numbers. Or the leadership.

Or the morale. The creatures fled from the Third, some with literal tails between their legs. They fled for the safety of the open plains, but in such a disorganized fashion that they didn't even stop to consider the other two Elan forces standing between them and their escape.

"Looks like they've forgotten we're here!" Aleph shouted, to a round of laughter from his men.  They were nervous, he could see it on their faces. Any man going into combat would be, but this nervousness lacked the normal fear that accompanied the din of battle. His men were nervous they wouldn't get their chance at a war story. "What do you say we go remind them."

A series of bellowing whoops, joined by the clash of steel against shields was the only reply Aleph could hear.  And it was the only one he needed. "Bastion First Company! Fighting First! March!"

Well, disciplined boots stomped foliage underfoot as the Elan advanced down into the quarry area.  The Beastmen had made it halfway up the slope in their retreat, before the sight of the other two Elan formations had given them pause, and even now Aleph could see the fear behind beady eyes. Should they retreat, try and fight their way back through the Third at their rear, soldiers who had rounded to act as the anvil to Aleph's hammer.

The First didn't give them the chance to decide. They broke into a steady jog on their way down the slope, shouting and hollering, weapons upraised to let the fiends know what was coming for them. This was not the organized march of a spear wall, but the violent charge of a hundred men with a thirst for combat and glory.

Aleph's men struck the Beastmen like a wave, collapsing the integrity of their line in an instant, the center breaking under the weight of the Elan charge.  Soon it was less of a formation than a gaggle of independent skirmishes, their leader brought low by Aleph's blade, their pocketed soldiers struggling to break free of the Elan that had them encircled on all sides.

There would be no surrender taken, no quarter given and no retreat allowed.

***

The Fighting First attacks Beastman Formation - Attack Value: 1900 vs. Defense Value 731.

The Pointy Third deals 61 damage to Beastman Formation.

Beastman Formation attacks The Fighting First - Attack Value: 731  vs. Defense Value 1900.

Beastman Formation deals 5 damage to The Fighting First.

Beastman Formation has been destroyed!

"I believe that victory should be to your liking, Field Marshall?" Valserys asked with a certain sense of self-satisfaction.

Cayden returned the man's smile. "I don't think I could have asked them to do any better. You'll have to give me some tips on the proper etiquette to honor their deeds when they return."

"With pleasure."

He turned to speak to Silver, and instead found the dark haired mage studying an open window on the War Frame.

The Fighting First (Formation)

Type: Infantry (Elan)

Level: 1 (15% to Next Level)

Unit Count: 100/100

Formation Bonus: +6

HP: 95/100

MP: 0/0

TP: 100/100

Move: 4/8

Attack: 1852 (10 base, -2 Equipment, + 6 Formation, +2 Leadership, +1 Warmaster Bonus)

Defence: 1852 (10 base, +2 Equipment ,+ 6 Formation, +2 Leadership, +1 Warmaster Bonus)

Special: None

Resistances: None

Weaknesses: None.

The Pointy Third (Formation)

Type: Spear Infantry (Elan)

Level: 1 (5% to Next Level)

Unit Count: 100/100

Formation Bonus: +6

HP: 98/100

MP: 0/0

TP: 100/100

Move:3/8

Attack: 1337 (10 base, + 6 Formation, +2 Leadership, +1 Warmaster)

Defence: 2475 (10 base, + 6 Formation, +2 Leadership, +1 Warmaster)

Special: None

Resistances: None

Weaknesses: None

"Something caught your eye?" Cayden asked after several moments of studying the same screens.

"Hmm?" Silver asked. He was about to repeat himself when the words finally processed inside her mind, and she indicated a number of fields. "The math seemed wrong to me. Didn't you notice?"

"You mean the Warmaster bonus?" At her nod, he continued. "I found it on the Frame this morning. I can designate any unit on our side as Warmaster, and that unit gives half their Leadership, rounded up, as a bonus to all units. The full bonus, in the event that they are actually with the unit."

"Why not assign Valserys?" She asked. "He has a +4. I don't think they'd even have scratched our units if you had."

Cayden winced. "I needed a control case." The smirk was already beginning to form on her face, and he quickly continued his thought in an effort to get ahead of it. "The next fight, I'll nominate Valserys, and see how much XP I get towards leadership."

"Ah, so all that about not putting them at risk goes by the wayside when it comes to leveling up your skills, hmm?"

"No." His cheek hurt from biting down on it. He didn't need another argument. "I tried putting Valserys in charge, and it doesn't give us any access to new Tactics. I need to know whether or not I get the same XP regardless of who is in charge because the Tactics might be make or break in some fights."

"Chill, chill, I was only teasing." Silver held her hands up in surrender.

No, you weren't. He thought. Still, he decided to drop the subject, returning his attention to the frame. "Decent experience for combat as well. If we can find other fights like this, we can feed them levels pretty quickly."

"I was thinking the same." Silver directed his attention to the Third Company. "If I had to guess, I'd say five experience for a fight, and an extra ten for a kill."

"Which means our best strategy against things we can beat and contain is to come at them in defensive formations to maximize the number of times we get to swing at them." Cayden mused.

"Depending on how quickly they heal." Silver clarified. "Which, I suppose we'll find out as soon as the turn ends."

"Mhmm. Before that, though." Cayden reached for the War Frame and selected Bastion's Second. A line glowed between the unit and their destination as he directed them from their support position to the mine itself.

The moment the second crossed the threshold of the Hex, the Mine option on the nearby production menu began to glow.  It pulsed for a few seconds, just long enough to draw Cayden's attention, before settling down into the same neutral color as all of his other active options. The mine was theirs now.

With such an invitation, it would have felt almost rude to ignore it:

Mine Development

It's about time that you mine some Iron (1/1)

Cost: 30 Production

Production: +5 when worked.

Iron resource now available.

"Cayden, are you drooling?" Silver asked.

"Only a little."He shot back without the slightest hint of embarrassment. A +5 bonus to production would be enormous by itself alone, to say nothing of the ability to produce new unit equipment. He almost swapped over to production of the mine then and there, but he held off on two counts.

The first was that anytime workers were pulled off a project, it lost all progress made by the removed workers, which would be a substantial loss in the case of the Lower Township repairs.  The second was that caveat. When worked. They'd all be best served if he spoke to Roberta about its meaning, before jumping that particular gun.

"Might I make a recommendation, sir?"

Field Marshall, he could take. But Valserys calling him 'Sir'? They were going to have a talk about that later. "Please."

"An area subject to recent infestation is likely to have substantial rewards." A hand reached up to pull on one end of his waxed mustache as he spoke. Perhaps not the best visual image when one was talking about looting the dead, but Valserys didn't seem to notice the issue. "If we were to instruct the Second to search the mines before ordering them back, it could prove beneficial."

"I was already planning on ordering a sweep to be sure we didn't miss anyone." Cayden smiled broadly. "We'll just call that an extra incentive."

"Of course, Marshall."

With the unit still selected, Cayden double tapped the banner that served as their visual representation. A small menu sprung to life just above it, with new contextual options due to their location. Site Search was at the top of the list, and Cayden gleefully selected it:

This formation will be unavailable for three turns while Site Searching. Are you sure? Y/N

"Well, that is a bit of a kick in the teeth." Cayden frowned. The plan had been to have all three units back inside Bastion by the end of the midday turn, but that wasn't going to happen. They could withdraw the other two, but he wasn't particularly excited about the idea of leaving a fifth of his combat strength out by itself with backup half a turn out of reach.

Silver appeared to have the same idea, judging by the intensity by which she had begun to study the map. "We could leave the First and Second on site, then move the Third into the field, here." She indicated. "Puts them halfway between Bastion and the mine, with enough Move left to support both."

"Works for me." He concurred, already directing the Third to spend its remaining movement in order to start them on their way.  With that done, he reached out and selected Y on the waiting menu.

Immediately the Second moved into action, their miniature representations moving about like so many ants on the tabletop.  They were building a camp, constructing some small measure of fortification and comfort. It was a good idea, actually, one he had the first replicate with the remainder of their turn. A unit with no less than half its remaining Move was allowed to take the Fortification action during its turn. This involved digging trenches, setting stakes, even setting up temporary watchtowers. It increased both the unit's sight radius, from two hexes to three, as well as gave it a 10% bonus to defense that was stackable up to a total of 40%.

"So what now?" Silver asked.

Cayden shrugged. "I guess now we wait."

Chapter Twelve

Day One - Midday Turn
Resources – F – 240 +10, Z – 140 +10, M – 120 +10, I – 150  +20, P +17, R +10

"Ah. Well that sucks."

"A succinct way to phrase it, yes, Field Marshall," Roberta replied, her brow wrinkled in consternation. She hated being the bearer of bad news, he had discovered. Being the one who had to tell him that the city would not be able to work the iron mines for the increased bonus to production until it's population exceeded 1,000 certainly qualified.

"Hmm, nothing for it," Cayden replied with a shrug. "Even so, depending on what happens with the Lower Township once this phase of repairs is completed, we may start work on it anyways. If only to have immediate access to the iron for steel production.."

That seemed to give her pause. "Will you be sending me to oversee the construction?"

He hadn't considered that. The War Frame abstracted things to a degree that it was incredibly easy to forget that he wasn't just playing a game, but giving orders. If he assigned Roberta to work on a project miles away from the city itself, he doubted she'd be available for these briefings. Which could be trouble when he still spent half the day plying her with questions.

"I don't think so." Relief sagged the petite woman's shoulders, visible enough to prompt a question. "I take it you didn't want to go?"

"Field Marshall, I would nev-"

"Roberta." His interruption was as stern as a sixteen-year-old could manage when talking to an adult woman. "First off, Cayden, please. Secondly, I'm not mad. Just curious."

Her bright eyes remained briefly guarded before at last she sighed. "Caves unnerve me at the best of times. Recently monster-infested caverns, more so."

"You do realize I wouldn't be sending you out with anything less than a full company as your bodyguard, right?"

"You-" She started, taken aback by the statement. "I-I did not realize that."

He reached out, placing a hand on her shoulder. She felt small under his grip, and it felt odd to reassure her in such a fashion, but the way her expression softened eliminated any measure of awkwardness from the moment. "I don't exactly have a wealth of mages." he felt her stiffen at that but pressed on. "And fewer confidants. I don't think I could handle losing you to some leftover critter in a dungeon."

"Thank you." The woman replied, a tentative smile at last playing across her lips. "Ending up as a meal is not so high on my preferences either."

Cayden cocked an eyebrow. "They eat people?"

"Beastmen?" She snorted. "I am fairly convinced they'd eat anything not nailed down, if only so they could save the nails for last. Why I once-"

"Begging your pardon, Field Marshall."

The unexpected voice belonged to a lightly armored soldier in the strategy room doorway. How long he had been there, waiting for a moment to interject, was hard to tell, but from the way his chest was heaving, Cayden suspected it hadn't been long.

"Can I help you...?" Cayden asked. They had been so busy over these first few days that Cayden had barely set foot outside the keep itself, let alone fraternized enough with the troops to begin to attach names to faces.

"Sandoval, sir. I'm a runner attached to the keep guard." The soldier kept a strict posture despite his quickened breath. "I've been dispatched from the front gate. We have several individuals requesting an audience."

Assigning troops to the front gate had been Valserys' suggestion. At the time it had seemed like a bit of comical theatre, the walls were so damaged and porous that there seemed little purpose in stationing troops at the one place an enemy was unlikely to approach. Valserys had rebutted him by suggesting it as training for once the walls were fully repaired. Apparently, he would owe the mustachioed Lord General an apology.

"Did they seem dangerous?" Cayden asked. That they'd arrived at the gate at all suggested they were friendly, but there was no harm in asking.

"My impression was that they were locals. Only one of the group was armed in any meaningful way."

Cayden looked to Roberta. "We did expect civilians to arrive." She said. "We are counting on it, in fact."

"Let them in. Keep them under guard, but be polite and respectful at all times." Cayden relayed to the runner. "I'll receive them individually in my study once the-"

"In the throne room." Roberta cut in. "The Field Marshall will receive them in the Throne Room."

Well, that explains that. Cayden thought. He'd been wondering what sort of audiences the Throne Room was going to throw at him.

After a few seconds it became apparent that the soldier was waiting, that with two conflicting orders, he wasn't willing to depart without further guidance. "No sense in arguing, I suppose.  Throne Room it is."

***

"You look positively Regal Cayden." Shifty's voice dripped with sarcasm as he watched his party leader ascend the short flight of steps up the dais where the throne awaited.

"That is Field Marshall Cayden Caros the Third." Celia chimed in with her best approximation of a posh British accent.

"The fourth, actually." Cayden corrected.

"Huh?"

"Cayden C. Caros the Fourth." He explained. "I come from a long line of alliterative names."

"You're joking." Silver replied, deadpan.

"Am I?"

The magi studied his face for several long moments. "I honestly can't tell." She frowned. "But I am going to find out."

"No, you aren't." He replied sweetly.

Before she could form a proper response, the doors at the far side of the throne room opened with a groan of ancient wood on even older hinges. A row of ten guardsmen flanked either side of a small gaggle of individuals, with Roberta at their head.

They looked a mixed bunch. The lead pair wore earth tones, browns and beige clothing stained with soil and grime. He'd come across enough farmers in his time in Babel, hell, even his time back home, to be able to recognize their kind on sight. Behind them came a more well-dressed female, her clothing free of dust or damage. An aristocrat perhaps? Or something else?

The older man who brought up the rear of the procession was so heavily armed that Cayden mistook him for a player at first. Only the vibrant, unnatural emerald of the man's eyes, staring out from beneath a loose shock of red hair, hinted at his true nature.

In the few minutes they'd had to prepare, Roberta had given him a crash course on what to do, what to say, and how to act with his visitors, but he was already grating against the rules she'd laid down. He felt it was polite to rise to greet guests, but a man of his position was to remain seated and detached.  He needed to speak crisply, formally, and most importantly, he needed to choose his words carefully.

"Greetings, and well met." Cayden said once the trio had reached the foot of the dais, doing his best to adopt a tone of authority he most certainly did not feel. It had the intended effect on only one of the three petitioners, the farmers taking the customary knee while the latter two merely inclined their heads in greeting. "I have been informed that you have requested an audience."

"Yes, M'lord." The lead pair said in unison, their heads still downcast.

Now that they were closer, Cayden could see a distinct familial resemblance between the two, the younger of the two burly, tanned Elan the spitting image of his elder. Even their unique coloration, the crop of stark white hair atop their heads seemed to match, though the older man's was peppered with a handful of black strands. A son then, or perhaps a nephew?

"Well I must say, it is nice to have visitors." He smiled despite Roberta's frown. "You've come to speak, so let us speak."

"Yes, of course. Thank you."

"Preferably with you standing," Cayden added. "I am as new to this as you are, but I don't think either of us wants me to be having a conversation with the tops of your heads."

That much earned a laugh from the younger of the two, which in turn brought a sharp glance from his senior as the two returned to their feet. "Yes, you are right m'lord. We've come to-"

"My Lord Marshall, if I may?" The well dressed woman interrupted the farmers mid-sentence, "I understand the brief delay in our audience, but surely our matter is more important than anything these two have to say."

At Cayden's left, Silver raised an eyebrow. "And you are?"

"Dame Gustava Bonaventura." The woman retorted plainly. "Though I am speaking to the Marshall, not to you."

To her credit, Silver didn't snap back, despite the other woman's tone. If anything, she appeared bemused by the reply.

Instead of engaging her, Cayden turned his attention to Roberta. "Which of the three arrived first?"

"They are currently in the order of arrival. As per your request, Field Marshall."

"Thank you, Roberta." He replied, turning his attention briefly back to Gustava. "If your issue was so pressing that you needed to be the first to speak with me, you should have arrived sooner." One hand raised to forestall her reply. "I will hear from them, then I will hear from you.  Now, gentlemen, where were you?"

The two exchanged looks before the older of the pair began again. "We've come on behalf of a group of nearby homesteads to request assistance securing our lands against local banditry."

"How many do you represent?" he asked.

"Forty-one farms in total, m'lord."

"And how many bandits?" This time it was Michael who spoke, leaving the Elan struggling to look between one player and the other.

"If my companions have questions, you may answer them," Cayden said with his most reassuring smile.

The man nodded. "It is difficult to say, a few dozen at most, we believe."

"Not exactly a challenge while we have an army at our backs," Celia remarked.

"Assuming we don't just do it ourselves," Shifty added.

Cayden wasn't convinced. "Our assistance is certainly a possibility." He said, watching a smile blossom on the elder man's face, only to falter as Cayden continued. "But I have to ask, why us?"

"M'lord?"

"You say there are forty farms, each has at least one able-bodied individual, no?" Cayden pressed. "So why not a militia to deal with the issue before now?"

"It is as you say m'lord. The issue isn't combating them, it is finding them."

"Which means patrols. And scouts." Silver mused, catching on to Cayden's concerns. "And time, which we have a limit of."

"M'lord, you must-"

"This isn't a no." Cayden interrupted. "You will be our guests here for the night. Once I've discussed the issue with my advisors, I will give you my answer." His attention turned to one of the nearby soldiers. "Escort them to one of the guest quarters, and send for Valserys to question them as soon as he is available."

"O-of course M'lord. Thank you." The older man cast a scathing glance to the youth beside him for having tried to argue the point, then bowed at the waist. "Thank you for your hospitality."

Cayden nodded to the two men, trying to contain the wince that threatened a twitch at his left eye. Silver was right, depending on the location of the farms and the amount of effort required to protect them, he might have to turn them down, even if helping them felt like the right thing to do in the moment.

"Gustava, was it?" He asked then, turning his attention to the next pair in line as the farmers departed the throne room through a side door.

"Dame Gustava Bonaventura." The uptight noblewoman replied with visible irritation.

"Apologies, as I said,I'm rather new at this." His admission did nothing to mollify her. Indeed, she seemed somehow more irritated by it as he continued. "If there are some formalities I am unaware of, perhaps Roberta can arrange them before we-"

She shook her head derisively. "No my lord, this will be sufficient."

"Then how can we help you?"

"The mine you recently purged, the one currently held by your troops. We would like it returned."

Cayden arched an eyebrow at that. "Returned?"

"The mine in question is part and parcel of our ancestral lands, bestowed upon the Bonaventura family in perpetuity.”

“I was... unaware of this.” He glanced to Roberta, who offered only an uncertain shrug by way of reply. “Who bestowed this land upon your family?”

"Why, the Great Emperor himself." The Dame replied, her body drawn to rigid attention as if merely saying his name had stiffened her spine.

To his right, Shifty offered a derisive snort, but Cayden continued without acknowledging it. “Hard to argue with that. Do you have the deed with you?”

“The Deed?”

“Is that not the correct word?” He cocked his head to one side as he rattled off alternatives. “The title? Contract? Bill of Sale perhaps?”

Pride gave way to anger as Gustava's face twisted into a sneer. “The Great Emperor did not deal in anything so petty as paperwork.”

"Well, I do. Indeed, the paperwork that I received with my claim of bastion explicitly grants ownership of all terrain and resources within ten miles of the city."

“That mine-”

“Was overrun by Beastmen as recently as this morning.” Cayden interrupted. “You must admit that somewhat weakens any claim you have to ownership. Possession being 9/10ths and all.”

Hands clenched and nostrils flared, but to her credit, Gustava lingered just long enough in her reply to let her anger subside. “We did not have the force to hold the mine.” She admitted. “Which was why I rode for your keep when one of Duke Elazio's messengers informed me that you had taken possession of the ruins here.”

“You've spoken to the Duke's messengers?”

“Yes.”

"Then you know why I was given possession of the keep, to begin with." He pressed.

“I do.”

“And why I would be understandably reluctant to relinquish control of a nearby iron mine?”

“My Lord, your needs-”

Cayden cut her off. “My needs are your needs.” One hand raised to gesture back the way she came. “You saw our walls upon your arrival, yes? All the work that has to be done if this citadel is to be even remotely defensible against what is coming.”

“I did.” She responded curtly.

“Then let us help each other.” He replied.

That seemed to perk her attention. “And how would we do that, my lord?”

“You have men who would be able to repair and work the mine, now that it is safe once again?” He waited until a nod confirmed his suspicions before continuing. “You have men with no mine to work, and I have a mine with no men presently to work it.”

Gustava frowned. “You would have me pay for what belongs to me?”

“My men risked their lives for what belongs to you. It seems only fair.” He retorted. “I would require the whole of the mine's production for one month. After that, my men will turn possession of it over to you.”

She considered his offer for several seconds before she shook her head. "I would be sacrificing too much. Half the production."

"You have to spend money to make money. Without my soldiers, you would have nothing." Cayden shot back. "But very well, 4/5ths."

“Three-” Gustava started to say, the words dying in her throat as she saw his expression darken and she decided it was best not to press her luck. “One month?”

“One month.” He nodded.

“I would have this agreement in writing.” The woman's mouth twitched with the slightest hint of a smile. “A contract, as you said.”

“A wise decision.” He chuckled. “I will have Roberta prepare the paperwork for you before the end of the turn.”

“Turn?” She asked, eyes narrowing as a brief snicker ran through the assembled players.

“End of the afternoon.” Cayden clarified with some embarrassment.“When is the earliest your men will be able to start?”

“I can have them here on the morrow.”

“Excellent.” He replied, ignoring Celia as she tented her fingertips in a decidedly Mr. Burns fashion at his choice of words. “Escort Dame Bonaventura to one of the sitting rooms to await Roberta.”

As a pair of guardsmen peeled off to obey his instructions, Cayden ushered the last of the three Elan forward with nothing more than a beckoning of his fingertips. Not for the first time, Cayden marveled at how absurd it was for him to be ordering anyone around, let alone Elan nobility.

"Well met, Field Marshall." The red-haired man began, a thick but impossible to place accent tinging the words as he strode forward. One hand rested on the jewel encrusted pommel of a sheathed blade, but there was no threat to it, just the calm collectedness of a well-trained swordsman. "I am Azazi, of the Forty-Nine Blades."

The words meant nothing to Cayden, but they meant everything to Silver, judging by the way the young woman gasped in surprise and made her way up to stand beside him.

“Someone I ought to know?” He asked.

"An NPC mercenary band." She whispered low enough not to be overheard. "They start showing up in quest chains at floor forty and up. Tread lightly."

Cayden nodded, then turned his attention back to the green-eyed warrior. “Well met Azazi, of the Forty-Nine Blades.” He said. “How can I be of assistance to you?”

“It is quite the reverse, Field Marshall.” The man replied with a hint of bemusement. “Unlike your other guests, I have come not beg of you, but to offer my services to you.”

“And what services would those be?”

The forward nature of the question was the right reply, judging by the smirk that continued to spread across Azazi's face. “They are Two-fold.” The man explained. “I am here on behalf of the Blades to offer services of some of our... lesser companies, to your cause, should you have need of them in your upcoming battles.”

“A way to spend our Zenni, if nothing else.” Cayden murmured under his breath before raising his voice to be heard once again. “And the other?”

"The opening of Tombs has opened new possibilities as well." Azazi's smirk became a wolfish grin that Cayden found far from reassuring. "There are opportunities available during this war that my organization requires assistance to exploit fully. Well paying opportunities."

A quest giver as well then. They'd expected something like this to come along, if only because it wouldn't be much of an event if the only people able to meaningfully contribute were those selected to run the various fortresses.

“And where would we find you, assuming we want to take advantage of these services you are offering?” Celia asked.

Azazi turned his smile in her direction, its edges softening as his eyes studied her in a decidedly less than professional fashion. “Admittedly, I had hoped your Field Marshall would provide me lodgings.”

"So you do want something from me," Cayden said wryly.

“Quite right.” Azazi laughed. Even his laughter seemed to hold a hint of that accent, each chuckle a distinct 'ha' as he dipped his head in defeat. “You have caught on to my plan. So what shall be my punishment?”

"A room in the tower I would think." It was impossible not to laugh alongside the man, though Cayden wondered just how much of it was an affect rather than genuine humor. "We have an abundance of offices as well If that will suffice."

“You are most gracious to this lying man.” He nodded.

"Well, you can return my gratitude with an answer."

“Anything within my knowledge.”

“Are you the only one of your organization who has presented himself?” Cayden asked.

Azazi shook his head. “No. There are ten of my brethren dispersed throughout the floor.”

Well, there goes that plan. Cayden sighed. Having access to the only quest giving NPC could have given him leverage to dictate a more comprehensive strategy to the other players. No such luck.

“Thank you Azazi.” He said at last.

“It is my pleasure, Field Marshall.” The man replied.

“These men will-”

"Forgiveness, but I have one final gift for you as well." The warrior's left hand went to his side, where a scroll was tied to his hip. Deft fingers loosened the knot without looking before he tossed the roll of parchment neatly into Cayden's lap. "Call it an offer of good faith."

Cayden reached for the scroll, then stopped. “This isn't anything dangerous, is it Azazi?”

One red eyebrow raised in reply to the question. “What harm could a scroll do?”

“You would be surprised.” Silver said, taking a half step away from Cayden as the young man began to unroll the document.

What he found was a map. With all the time he had spent stooped over the War Frame, it took only seconds for Cayden to recognize the area, and correctly orient the page. The map showed Bastion and its environs, out to perhaps fifteen or twenty mile. All the landmarks he expected to find were there, along with a few others his scouts had yet to report, a small keep nearby labeled Bonaventura, as well as a spot several miles distant marked, ominously, with a skull.

“I'm probably going to regret asking this, but what is this skull?”

Azazi only smiled. “That would be a sub-tomb. One positively brimming with Warden Troops.”

Chapter Thirteen

Day Two – Morning Turn
Resources – F – 260 +10, Z – 260 +10, M – 130 +10, I – 190  +20, P +17, R +10
Completed – Lower Township Repair II

“There you are.” Silver said. “We've been waiting for you in the courtyard for twenty minutes. We're going to be late.”

Cayden looked up from the War Frame. "It's only..." He started to say before his eyes caught sight of the actual time on his display "Okay, yeah, I'm late."

The look of dismay on his features tempered Silver's irritation, her expression softening as she studied the palpable frustration upon his. "Still trying to puzzle it out."

“Thought I'd give it one last go before we headed out, yeah.”

“And no luck?”

“None.” Cayden sighed, waving her over.

It was a familiar sight, one they'd spent much of the previous evening looking at from every possible angle. A Warden tomb thirteen miles from the keep, with three small stacks of miniature soldiers filling the hex before its entrance in what Valserys had termed a Division.

A division was formed when multiple formations occupied the same hex and could be created from up to ten separate formations. It offered no direct statistical bonuses over formations spread over multiple hexes, but there were plenty of strategic or other tactical advantages. You could 'hide' vulnerable units, such as archers within a division, using screening tactics to force enemies to engage your defensive units first. Likewise, you could compress a much larger force into fewer hexes, minimizing the danger of things like hit and run tactics.

Also, a division would only vacate their hex entirely once all units had been individually forced to retreat, which was, near as Cayden could guess, the primary reason for the Warden division. With three units directly in front of the tomb, it would be that much harder to dislodge them and gain access.

Half a dozen windows were open on the War Frame, but the one dead center was the first to catch her attention.

Warden Infantry (Formation)

Type: Infantry (Warden)

Level:?

Unit Count: 100/100

Formation Bonus: +6

HP: 100/100

MP: 0/0

TP: 100/100

Move:?

Attack: 1800 (10 base, + 6 Formation, +1 Leadership, +1 Warmaster)

Defence: 1700 (10 base, -1 Racial,+ 6 Formation, +1 Leadership, +1 Warmaster)

Special: Construct Traits

Resistances: ???, ???, ???

Weaknesses: ???.

“Is this accurate?” Silver asked.

“I don't see any reason for it not to be.”

“But... how?” She frowned, looking down to the Frame itself. “We didn't get information like this on the beastmen until we fought them.”

"Tried something new." He explained, directing her attention to a single banner several hexes away from the Warden forces. At a touch, it expanded to detail an individual Elan soldier with only two remaining HP.

Silver examined the soldier's information for several seconds before it finally clicked. "You sent one of the scouts in by himself."

“Like an IP ping.” Cayden nodded. “We get the same information whether we send a single soldier or a formation. I gave him orders to retreat immediately once the battle was joined, then used all of his movement to get him as far away as possible.

“Clever.” Silver admitted grudgingly. “But isn't he still at risk? That is only seven hexes.”

A frown crossed his face. “If they go after him he is done without question, though it will put either one formation or the whole division out of position unless they have a lot more movement that we expected.”

"Acceptable losses then." She asked.  As his frown deepened, she reached out, placing one hand on his wrist and squeezing gently. "Look, about what I said the other day..."

“Nothing to say.” He reached out, swiping away the Warden statistics. “We're going to have casualties. You were right.”

“And you're okay with that?”

Cayden sighed and shook his head. “No. But I can't see any way around it.” He pointed to the frame as he spoke. “Three hundred Warden infantry in a single division. We outnumber them by a full hundred, and between Valserys' warmaster bonus and their racial penalties, we hit a hell of a lot harder, but there isn't anything to finesse here. Nothing but us slamming our units into theirs until they go down.”

“No easy Coup de Main.” Silver said.

“Exactly.”

“A half-assed Kobayashi Maru.”

Cayden's eyebrows raised. “Never took you for a Trekkie.”

“I'm not. My dad-” The girl winced, a sudden fragility to her features as the board suddenly absorbed her attention. “The point is, maybe this is the Developer's way of teaching you that you aren't going to flawlessly win each battle. It wouldn't be the first time he's included something to help players psychologically adjust to something that would be horrifying in the real world.”

"Don't suppose you can think of any good way to cheat," Cayden said after considering her words.

“Afraid not.”

He lingered briefly before replying. “Worth a shot. Let me just lock in the orders before we go.”

Their battle plan was simple. A road ran to within two hexes of the Sub-Tomb, and as he had learned during his initial estimates for how long it would take the enemy to reach Bastion, travel by road was greatly accelerated.  His units gained an additional hex of movement for every two they spent, which would allow them to travel most of the distance to the Sub-Tomb in a single turn. Once the midday turn started, they'd go off road, stack into a single division and march on the Wardens.

The Third and Fourth would take point, a terrible pun as Celia had been delighted to draw attention to, with orders similar to those they'd used on the Beastmen. A defensive stance aimed at minimizing casualties, while still drawing the win. Their goal was to force a retreat out of the entire Warden division, to allow Cayden and his group to lay claim to the tomb entrance. Which was where their quest came in:

Event Quest

Halt The Awakening

Requirements: Defeat the commander of the nearby Sub-Tomb and return his ceremonial weapon to Azazi of the Forty-Nine Blades.

Reward: 22,000 XP.

The quest had been the last of Azazi's 'gifts.' The mercenary, shockingly, had ulterior motives in telling them the location of the active Sub-Tomb, he wanted something from inside it. Even though he knew the Elan man was effectively programmed to behave in this fashion, it didn't keep Cayden from feeling like he was kind of a dick.

Still, the information had informed their strategy.  The quest called the enemy boss the 'commander' of the Sub-Tomb. It was a bit of a stretch, but he hoped that by killing the boss, they could rob the enemy forces of their Warmaster bonus.  Perhaps if they were lucky they'd even go all Phantom Menace and shut down entirely.

A man could dream.

“We've got this.” Silver offered her most reassuring smile as she saw Cayden's hand lingering over the War Frame.

"I wish I had your confidence." He murmured.

Only a small amount of book-keeping remained once he had set the orders. As promised, Dame Bonaventura had sent engineers to begin repairs on the mine. At ten Production per turn, the mine should be up and operational by the following morning, which was better than he could have hoped for.

Even without it, the completion of the second set of Lower Township repairs had increased their total production to seventeen, and as expected, had opened a new option:

Lower Township Repair

Lower in class as much as location, this district grows the backbone of any fledgling town. (3/6)

Cost: 60 Production

Civilian Housing: +750

Production: +3

The repairs were nothing if not consistent.

Cayden selected the third set of Lower Township Repairs as his next in queue item after the completion of the upcoming tower repairs. It'd take a little bit over a day for this one section of repairs, and likely longer still for the ones after that, but he was hoping that seeing one of the lines of repair through to its conclusion would provide something more than the linear increases that they'd seen thus far. If it didn't, at least he'd still see continuing boosts to Production which should help them in the long run.

Finally, he turned his attention to the last remaining window.

This action will cost 200 Grand Zenni. Are you sure? Y/N.

The action in question, was the hiring of one of Azazi's mercenary bands, an option that had appeared on the War Frame the previous evening, shortly after they had accepted their first contract from him. It was an expensive proposition.  Even with the one hundred Grand Zenni, they had earned from their site search of the mine, two hundred was nearly enough to wipe out the entire treasury, and even that would only earn them a single day's worth of assistance.

The soldiers were worth it, of course. Even their most basic units had equipment and experience that far outstripped anything Cayden could field. Bringing them along would vastly reduce friendly casualties, but he'd hesitated all the same. He could do this with his own troops without spending a dime, after all.

Provided he could stomach the losses.

If only the mercenaries accepted payment in regular Zenni, it wouldn't have been a problem. Silver had happily offered to throw money at the problem but to no avail. The Developer wouldn't allow a cheat that simple.

Cayden drew a deep breath, reached for the floating window, and declined the offer.

"We should probably get going before Celia sends a search party," Cayden remarked.

Silver only laughed. “Cayden, who exactly do you think sent me in the first place?”

***

“So that is the tomb, huh?” Shifty asked as the party waited on a ridgeline overlooking the open field beneath them.

“Yeah. Why?” Came Cayden's curious reply.

“Just not what I expected.” The older man said with a shrug.

Celia looked up from the spellbook in her lap, a bemused look crossing her expression. “What did you expect it to look like?”

“Something more... I dunno, tombish. I'm not asking a lot here.” He shot back at the sarcasm in Celia's tone. “Sloped roof, statues. Maybe some columns or gargoyles or something?”

But not a hole in the ground.” Celia teased him.

“Definitely not a hole in the ground.”

"Well, they do have statues." Michael pointed out, calling attention to the plains beneath them once again as the enemy forces crested a small depression that had kept them momentarily out of view. "Lots and lots of statues."

None of them had been quite prepared for their first glimpses of the Wardens. They'd been told the Wardens had been crafted to guard the liar king, but for whatever reason, all of them had envisioned some form of monstrous humanoid, or other inhuman beast. Once Cayden had seen construct traits on the War Frame his imagination had shifted to a more robotic enemy, so even he was unprepared for a literal Terracotta Army out of his grade school history class.

Nor did things get any better the longer they watched them. There was a certain uncanny valley effect in the way the stone soldiers moved, in large part because they were just that, stone soldiers. Their bodies were rigid in general, but they could still move with a fluidity that seemed all but impossible. Stone shouldn't move under its own power, but if it did, it sure as hell shouldn't move like that.

"No archers." Silver commented. The mage had bemoaned her lack of divination spells to help her watch the battle for much of the trip. In the end, it had taken a pair of binoculars from Shifty to mollify some, but not all of her complaints. "Few nasty looking spears."

"Not much we can do about it now," Cayden replied. There was a certain freedom to knowing that the orders were set through to the evening turn. Valserys had remained behind in Bastion to watch the War Frame and adapt their tactics should things go wildly off the rails, but absent that, the die was already cast, and they had only to wait and see if it would be a one, a twenty or something in between.

Not that the freedom had kept him from trying to experiment and push the envelope on their march to the Sub-Tomb.

For one thing, he'd learned that his troops could use ranged weapons. Just not well. If he put a crossbow in the hands of a trooper, as he had, the man could be instructed to fire it, even if his accuracy was lacking. Nothing useful in the short term, but if they ended up defending Bastion itself, it would be good to know that his troops could be ordered to throw rocks.

For another, rules regarding the movement of troops were absolute.

It had been an easy enough trial. They'd followed along with the First until the unit reached the limit of its movement, then he'd asked one of the soldiers to follow him far enough that they'd have crossed into the following hex.

At first, the soldier had come up with excuses. He needed to eat or had orders to do this or that. When it became clear that Cayden would not take no for an answer, he became somewhat insubordinate. It had taken three of them to slow-walk the Elan soldier to the edge of the hex, the man becoming more and more averse, to the point they had to carry him the last few steps.

All of it was nothing more than an attempt by the Developer to keep from impacting the vermilissitude of his game. The moment they reached the hex wall, the soldier could go no further, his body stopped by an invisible field that permitted players, but not soldiers. There would be no circumventing movement rules by way of forced movement, that much was certain.

“Going well so far.” Silver continued.

"Which is our cue to get moving," Cayden replied. "Grab your things; I want us in there as soon as our troops clear the hex."

Staying out of the combat had been a hard decision, but a necessary one. Much like the forced movement, none of them had any idea how their presence would affect the combat power or other facets of the planned battle, and a fight as close as this one was not the proper opportunity for them to test things. Cayden had insisted on going so far as to stay fully outside of the hex itself, lest their very presence throw a wrench into the plan.

Of course, that also meant they had the better part of a mile to hike before they could even begin exploring the Sub-Tomb. With only a handful of hours before the start of the Warden turn, they were cutting things close, even without the walk.

“Alright everybody, let's mosey!” Cayden announced.

A brief pause followed his words, followed by uproarious laughter.

“Let's mosey?” Shifty snorted between waves of laughter. “Since when are you some banjo playing farmboy.”

“It's a refere-”

"Turns out we didn't actually beat Cayden's doppelganger after all." Celia giggled. "Lucky for us its factory setting was '19th-century southern aristocrat."

"Whelp, time to hit the old dusty trail," Michael added in his best, but still awful, southern accent.

“Oh for...!” Cayden started, his attention turning to Silver. “You get it, right?”

Her smile said she did, but the shake of her head denied it all the same. “Oh no, do not bring me into this.”

Cayden's head sagged in defeat as he summoned his sword to hand and began to march down the slope of the hill. “Fine. Whatever, you uncultured swine. Come on then.”

The jovial mood of the party darkened as they crossed the open field. The tail end of the battle was still raging, its noise and smells an uncomfortable mixture as they drew near. Babel might be a mostly bloodless game, but it still had sweat, and tears and screams.

But only from their allies.

Even on the retreat, the Warden army didn't voice a single cry.

"There is our opening," Michael remarked as the last of the Warden units began an orderly withdrawal. His forces harried them, but unlike the Beastmen they had picked apart so easily on the retreat, the Warden troops fought fiercely in formation even as they gave ground. He was no military tactician, but even a layman could see that the Warden troops would not be quickly swept aside once defeated.

Ahead of them, Bastion's soldiers had discarded one form of tool for another, hundreds of them putting shovel to soil, or collecting materials from the small number of supply wagons they had brought with them. This had been part of his strategy as well, the reason the location of that road had proven so fortuitous. It left his units with just enough movement that they could begin to fortify themselves against what he saw as an inevitable counterattack.

"Half soldier, half construction worker.  And people ask me why I never joined up with the army." Shifty marveled.

Three sets of eyes fell upon the rotund rogue, but it was Celia who took the easy shot. “Really? That is why you didn't join the army?”

“Why young miss I'll have you know that when I was your age-”

“Regale us about the big bang some other time Shifty.” Cayden cut in. “You're up.”

"... this isn't over." Shifty frowned, his steps picking up speed until he was moving at a light jog ahead of the rest of the marching group. The difference meant he reached the entrance to the tomb half a minute before they did, which gave him plenty of time to scour the entrance for traps.

As it turned out, he found two. A pressure plate activated what they suspected would be a barrage of poison darts, while a misstep would send them plunging forty feet down into the most traditional trap imaginable.

"Not exactly the most original defenses," Shifty remarked with a grin as his party members approached, instructing them how to circumvent the pressure sensor, and which side of the tight hallway would send them falling into a pit of spikes vs. which would not.

"Sometimes the classics work best," Michael replied as he awkwardly shimmied around the edge of the pit trap in armor that was not exactly made for delicate movement.

“And sometimes they are just really good at instilling a false sense of security.” Cayden cautioned.

"I'm keeping my eyes open," Shifty assured him as he stepped aside to let Cayden lead the way into the torchlit darkness.

The outside might not have looked very 'tombish' as Shifty had described it, but the inside certainly did. Every inch of the place looked positively ancient. If a surface was not covered in a small mountain of dust, it was adorned with a frightful amount of spider webs. Trickles of water had formed natural interruptions in the artificial corridors, the various ancient text that adorned the walls worn down to almost nothing by the ravages of time.

One other thing it had in common was that it was eerily empty, and frighteningly quiet. Considering the mass of Warden soldiers guarding the entrance, they had planned on considerable resistance, yet they'd found none. There were Terracotta soldiers inside, dozens, perhaps hundreds more that filled alcoves and lay across sealed caskets, but they were either ornamental or inactive.

It was also tighter than they'd expected. The walls were close enough to one another that Shifty and Cayden had to turn at an angle to fit through the narrowest parts of the passages, while poor Michael was forced to stoop and bow almost constantly.

There were runes here or there, highlighted by Cayden's occasional use of Find Rune, but they'd have to wait.  What had looked like little more than a hovel from the surface was expansive beneath, with branching passageways that sloped up and down seemingly at random, as though the tomb itself were designed to confound those searching it, which he supposed it was.

“This is going to take a while.” Silver said as they reached their third intersection.

“Maybe we should split the...” Celia started, only to trail off as the absurdity behind her own words struck her.

"You were going to say 'split the party,' weren't you." Michael teased.

"No." She replied unconvincingly. "Even still, it might not be the worst idea. We're stuck going single file anyways, so it isn't like-"

"What is the number one rule of tabletop gaming," Michael asked.

"This isn't-" Celia cut herself off with a frown as Michael's body language shifted. "It's 'don't split the party,' but that doesn't necessarily apply here."

“I thought the number one rule was 'Thou shalt not lose caster levels.'” Silver smirked.

"She's right," Cayden said.

"Thank you, Cayden." Silver smiled sweetly. "I remember because the second was 'Thou shalt not lose caster levels. Verily this rule is unto like the first, but is of such import-;"

“I meant Celia.” He snorted. “This place is way too huge for us to be able to find anything before it rolls over to the Warden's turn.”

Silver's face darkened. “So we let the Elan take a bit of a bigger hit and make sure we do this properly.”

A pause hung in the air before Shifty spoke. “What would we do for party splits?”

“You can't really be considering-”

"Celia would go with me, and you three could go together," Cayden said. "Michael can tank decently against anything we expect to find, and the two of you do so much damage that he won't have to do so for long."

To Cayden's surprise, Michael nodded at the suggestion. “All the Wardens outside were at or around level ten. We can handle that, and we can retreat if we stumble on anything bigger.”

“Works for me.” Celia nodded.

“I'm being outvoted again, aren't I?” Silver asked icily.

“You're the one who wanted to tag along in the first place.” Cayden reminded her.

“To keep you from doing anything stupid.” She scowled. “Can we at least try and keep close to one another?”

“Yeah. That we can manage.”

***

They managed it for all of fifteen minutes.

The convoluted nature of the tomb had made any attempt at keeping one group close to the other an exercise in frustration. Even attempts to run parallel to one another through the series of right angle passageways were frustrated by subtle changes in depth that left one party passing under the other rather than meeting up as expected.

A running map was kept, of course, which meant they were only separated from one another in a practical sense, too far away to help in a hurry if something were to go wrong. Neither group was truly lost, not with mapping software that would supply helpful directions to either the exit or to their companions at a moment's notice.

"At the next stack of dubiously humanoid bones, turn left," Cayden muttered.

"What?" Celia said, her steps picking up slightly as she realized she was lingering too far behind him.

"Nothing." He assured her, a smile cast over his shoulder. "Just being smarmy."

"What else is new?" The girl inquired.

"Hey, I resemble that-" Cayden paused mid-sentence as the scrape of a stone footstep alerted him to danger ahead.

The two of them waited together in silence, but they didn't have to wait long.

Just ahead of them, a Warden rounded the corner with shortsword in hand. Its face was stern, but it was an unmoving expression, one crafted onto its very features.

The more he watched it, the more difficult it became to shake the discomfort that washed over Cayden. It was his first time seeing one of the stone men up close, and he didn't like it. The way it moved felt as though it were violating the very laws of nature, like watching the skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts. The movements were wrong, not quite choppy but not fluid either. Stone moved in a way it was not meant to move, then solidified with each step, as if the statue were being crafted and recreated with each movement.

Only one thing stood out from the drab, cracked stone warrior, and that was the steel in its hands. The blade of the shortsword was metal, steel that gleamed in the fire lit hallway as the warrior advanced.

"At least we're probably going the right way," Cayden remarked wryly.

If Celia gave any reply to his quip, it was smothered by the clatter of body against shield as the stone man picked up speed, the crunch of its footsteps resounding down the short distance between them as fast as the warrior himself.  For a man made of stone, the Terracotta warrior was fast.

Warden Soldier hits you for 92 Physical (Blocked)

He hit hard as well.  Too hard for a mere level ten. "Skill Use: Observe."

Warden Skirmisher

Level 12(Elite)

HP: 1800/1800

MP: 0/0

TP: 1150/1150

Skills: Unknown

Resistances: Earth 50%

Weaknesses: Water 100%

Special: Construct Traits

An elite, that explained it. Elite monsters were one step removed from boss monsters, a Starscream to the more frightful Megatron. At equal levels and numbers, they posed a substantial, but not necessarily life-threatening concern. When they were outleveled and outnumbered, not so much.

Cayden grunted as he pushed back with his shield, shoving the Warden soldier back far enough to open distance to attack. "Skill Use: Southern Cross."

A sensation of warmth flooded his limbs as he felt the usual loss of control take hold, bringing him through the motions of the skill and inflicting significant damage to the stone soldier in a quick one-two of downward and horizontal strikes.

“Pain of the past, return to the present! Old wounds!” Celia incanted only a few steps behind him. A glow of light accompanied the words, a small ring of magical energy pulsing from beneath the Chronomagi's feet as she directed her arcane energies at the already stumbling Warden. The effect was immediate, a half dozen new cracks appearing in their opponent's stone facade.

Cayden knew they didn't need healing for a fight like this, and it was always satisfying to work alongside a party member who was smart enough to make the same sort of deductions.

"For once, it might be nice if the right way didn't involve things that wanted to kill us," Celia replied, at last, a brief sigh falling from her lips as she started to cast a new spell.

In the end, they made incredibly short work of the Warden. Elite or no, a level 12 enemy wasn't going to stand up to players of their caliber for long.

"Crazy suggestion. What do you think about going this way?" Celia said, indicating the right-hand corridor that the Warden had come from.

"You had me at crazy suggestion," Cayden replied to a giggle from Celia.

The passage ahead of them sloped down, and unlike most of those they'd come across so far, there didn't appear to be any offshoots. It ran straight for a distance, then curved sharply for a few dozen feet, before going straight once again. After the third such curve, the design became clear, a corkscrew pattern leading them deeper and deeper into the depths of the dungeon.

"Guys. I think I've we've got something here." Cayden said after toggling the party chat feature on his display. Then, after a few seconds without a reply, he repeated. "Silver? Shifty? Celia can you-"

The girl held up a finger in reply, apparently already on it. "Helloooo? Shifty, you there?" A few seconds passed, before she turned her attention fully in Cayden's direction, shrugging with a combination of confusion and worry. "Maybe we're too deep?"

"It isn't like these things use Cell towers," Cayden said dubiously. Even so, he was struggling for a better answer.  To his knowledge, there was no skill, monster or environment in all of Babel, save for the chamber of an unbeaten floor boss, that should disable voice comms.  Party chat was so secure that they hadn't even bothered to test it before splitting up. "Maybe something in the area though? Let's go back up."

Cayden edged past Celia in the narrow hallway and took the lead once more. It was a harder walk back up the slope than it had been down it, but he didn't murmur a single complaint. At least, not until they'd rounded their fourth curve.

"Okay, something is very wrong." He murmured. "Command: Map."

"Oh," Celia said softly, after trying, and likewise failing to open her own map. "That isn't good, is it?"

Chapter Fourteen

"We must have passed through an instance barrier," Cayden said with a frown. His hands worked fruitlessly through the air, manipulating the AR display in an attempt to force open his map.  Instead, he was greeted with the same reply as before, a grumpy sounding audio cue that told him he'd selected an invalid option.

"The hallway?" Celia asked, though she already knew the answer.

"Considering we can't go back up? Yeah, I'd say so." He agreed. That hadn't stopped them from trying, but after traveling twice the distance upwards as they had descended, it seemed a fair assumption. "I've never really heard of a gate like this though, one that traps you without warning."

"It is probably just that then, a trap."

Cayden bit back the desire to swear. Celia was probably right. If they'd been with Shifty, his Trap Sense ability probably would have alerted him in some fashion before they'd started on their way down.

"So this is why you don't split the party," Celia said with an infectious giggle, one that soon had Cayden chuckling alongside her despite himself. "Could be worse, I suppose. I could have been trapped down here with Silver instead of you."

She had a point, Cayden could certainly think of worse people to be stuck with. Michael, for one.

"Well, we don't know that we're trapped," Cayden said, tipping his head towards the downslope. "We can't go up, but it is still possible there is something besides an infinite tunnel if we keep going down."

"It is also possible that something is a boss with a ceremonial weapon who will wreck our faces," Celia noted.

"Do you have a better plan?" Cayden asked.

"I... do not."

"Well, that settles that then." It was possible that someone from the other half of their party would notice they were missing sooner rather than later, that they might even track Cayden and Celia back to where they'd disappeared, but it wasn't one he planned to hold his breath for. Instead, the pair returned their attention to the downward slope and began walking.

Soon enough, just as they were beginning to think that the loop went both ways, their boldness was rewarded by the sight of a pair of crackling braziers at the foot of the slope. It was the first new thing they'd seen in several minutes, their faces lighting up in both a literal and metaphorical sense.

"So do we-" Celia started, before she found Cayden's gloved fingertip pressed mere inches from her lips, hushing her. He said nothing in reply but instead sunk lower into his stance, adopting a half crouch as he sheathed his sword. His next steps forward were slow and measured, each well prepared for as he shifted his weight from one foot to the next in an attempt to minimize the clank and scrape of his metal armor.

"Teri Antha," Cayden whispered the runic words and extended his free hand. Under other circumstances, Celia couldn't begin to hazard a guess as to the sword of magic that radiated from Cayden's outstretched fingertips to form a glittering, transparent barrier. But given the context, she had her suspicions.

"An illusion?" She asked, just barely above a breath. When he nodded, she smiled.  The magical shield Cayden held in front of him was enough to cover them both. All she had to do was keep quiet.

Slowly, carefully, the pair advanced until they reached the bottom of the slope, where at last the inside of the room was visible.

It was smaller than either had suspected, a stone-walled room just barely larger than the strategy room where Cayden had been spending so much time as of late. It was a particularly apt comparison, considering the large, ornate table that dominated the room, and the Warden who stood studying paper maps laid out atop it, his side to the doorway, oblivious to the players watching him.

That would probably be their guy.

"Skill Use: Observe," Cayden said, just barely loud enough for his mirror to register the words.

Warden Officer

Level 15 (Boss)

HP: ????/????

MP: ????/????

TP: ????/????

Skills: Unknown

Resistances: Earth 50%

Weaknesses: Water 100%

Special: Construct Traits, Defensive

Cayden turned his head in Celia's direction, and caught the gaze of the young time mage. It was too dangerous to talk, but that meeting of the minds spoke for them.  She saw the same stats he did, and she knew the danger. The boss was five levels lower than them, but it was still a boss, still a very significant threat when there were only two of them to fight it.

They had thirty minutes before the roll-over to the Warden turn. Once that happened the boss' behavior might change. It might leave, or others might awaken and join it. It was a certainty that its troops would launch an attack against his, with his full Warmaster bonus, if the officer were still alive.

Shifty, Michael, and Silver could arrive at any time, but counting on their arrival within the next few minutes was a bad gamble. Even finding their way to where Celia and Cayden had disappeared would probably take longer than they had.

Still, if it were any other player, they'd have shaken their head. Shifty had to think about more than himself, Michael only thought about himself, and Silver didn't care about the Elan enough to risk her neck. Cayden wasn't actually sure that Celia did either, but she cared about what Cayden thought, which was enough to draw a slow smile and an eventual nod.

Just the two of them against a boss monster? What could go wrong?

Cayden returned her smile and turned his shield arm until she could see his fingers. He waited for another sign, then, once Celia was ready, he began to count on his fingers. Five, four, three, two...

The two burst from the doorway as Cayden's illusionary barrier scattered away from his sword hand like glittering leaves. Cayden did not attempt to disguise the noise of his approach, the Albieth steel of his Mage Blade singing as it cleared his scabbard, then cracking sharply as it crashed against the stone neck of the Terracotta warrior.

No scream of alarm or cry of pain accompanied the blow, only the clatter of papers and books as the sheer force of Cayden's advance drove the half-turned officer against the table. The creature's left arm was pinned to the frame by the weight of its own body as the Warden reached for the blade sheathed at his hip.

They couldn't give him a moment to breathe, Cayden knew. Humanoid Boss monsters were among the most easily exploited category of Boss enemies, in large part because they mimicked something that existed in reality. A manticore or an ogre didn't have to obey laws of physics, the way a humanoid enemy might, their strength and unnatural weapons precluding the sort of rush tactics that worked on real-world humans.  He couldn't grapple with a dragon, but he could prevent a Warden from drawing his sword, at least for a time.

"Personal skill Use: Shield Bash." Cayden intoned a moment before he drove the curved edge of his shield into the head of his opponent, a critical damage notification appearing along with the stun indicator on the Warden officer's callout.

Despite their main weakness, humanoid enemies were often amongst the most dangerous of Babel's opponents, ironically for a very similar reason. An enormous beast like, say, the MEKA, typically kept to predictable patterns once engaged in combat, while a humanoid type fought more naturally, with feints, parries, and adaptations.

"... embrace the moment, accept your fate. Slow Time!" Celia finished chanting behind him, and not a moment too soon. His stun effect had been short-lived, as it always was on a Boss type enemy, and once free of it the Warden had finally managed to draw the short sword at its side clear of the sheath.

Under the effects of Celia's magical slowness, that wasn't so much of a threat.

"Skill Use: Southern Cross," Cayden said as he slipped to the side of the Warden's first thrust. It would barely last longer than the stun, he knew, but while it lasted the Officer was of little threat to them. It was like fighting an opponent covered in molasses, only quite a bit less sticky.

His own moves, however, were crisp and clean as always. The skill took over control of his body, drawing him through the same two-cut motion he had performed hundreds of times, each cut shaving off an appreciable amount of the officer's HP.  It was a relief, to see his sword do that much damage.  The boss wasn't invincible; it wasn't even particularly durable. They could win this.

The Warden's sudden increase in speed caught Cayden off guard as he gloated, a surprise backhand catching him cleanly across the jaw as Celia shouted in alarm.  It stung, though the HP loss stung quite a bit more, a bit of instant Karma as the Warden took the opportunity to put some space between them.

"I'm fine. Just cocky." Cayden grumbled, the damage already fading as Celia's Future Theft drastically increased his healing speed at the cost of some of his future regeneration.

If the Warden could talk, it chose to say nothing as it finished it's backpedaling, fifteen feet of distance separating the two swordsmen.  Its gaze occasionally flickered in Celia's direction, but Cayden had done it far more damage, and thus garnered more threat than Celia's heals had provoked so far.  She was safe, at least, for the time being.

Curiously, the Warden spun it's short sword with an unnatural flourish as it reversed its grip on the blade, holding it point downward, the business side of the single-edged shortsword towards Cayden, while the flat of the weapon rested back against its forearm. A defensive stance, Cayden recognized, but behavior quite unusual for a boss fight. They didn't usually let their enemy take a breather.

"Well, if you're not coming, I guess I have to," Cayden said, picking up speed with his shield before him as he drew back his sword arm.

The kick to his instep nearly buckled Cayden's entire leg as it brought him up short, a pair of short jabs bouncing off the upraised shield in a way that made Cayden's bones hurt just thinking about it. The only thing the Warden didn't attack with was its short sword; the weapon kept close to its body, its edge turned to intercept Cayden's attack, parrying it aside almost effortlessly.

Ah, so that is how it is going to be. Cayden frowned. There was a name for the fighting style, and a player class that practiced it, but both eluded him as took his turn to put distance from the boss. It explained the comparatively low HP, even for an underleveled boss. The Warden fought with active mitigation the same way he did; only it used a blade as its shield and its other limbs as its weapons.

He might not remember the name of the style, but he remembered why he'd disqualified it early on in his decision about what to play. It was great at martial mitigation, but it sucked at fighting mages.

"Swing away, Celia."

"What?" The girl asked in confusion.

"DPS. Do damage." Cayden insisted.

"You know I'm the healer right?"

"Just do it," Cayden called back at her, taking a quick sidestep to dodge another kick and position himself more squarely between Celia and the Warden officer.

"... Okay.  You asked for it. Skill Use: If life, death." Celia replied. Immediately, one of her hands came up, palm perpendicular to the floor. Magical energy began to flicker around her fingertips, and in an infinity symbol beneath her feet, as she intoned the words of magic in a steady cadence. "If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity. If life, death."

As the last words fell from Celia's mouth the lemniscate beneath her feet shattered the glow of its magic forming into her hand before dark tendrils snaked out to ensnare the Warden. Cayden watched with a mixture of curiosity and horror as the stone of the Warden weakened and cracked wherever it was touched by the tendrils, as though decaying before his very eyes.

The spell, though powerful, was nowhere near enough to kill the officer, but it was enough to get his attention. It feinted, drawing a block from Cayden before it moved to circumvent him, stopped only by a roar from Cayden's lips as he taunted, pulling the monster's focus right back where it belonged.

"Hit it again," Cayden demanded, activating his Grasp the World ability moments before he absorbed another hail of the Warden's blows with the surface of his shield.

Celia was correct that she wasn't DPS. The damage done by her best combat spell was barely on par with mid-level magic from a damage focused class, and its rate of MP usage could be best described as garbage, but it got through the creature's defenses in a way no physical attack was likely to, which made this a damage race.  One they would win, so long as the Warden didn't have a second phase or some mystery skill.

It did turn out to have a mystery skill, several in fact. Yet by the time the Warden began opening up with its illusionary duplicates and high damage combination attacks, the terracotta foe was already in the bottom quarter of its HP bar, while Cayden had saved up more than enough MP to unleash some damage dealing spells of his own.

The fight ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. Well, and also the bang of Cayden's Explosive Wave runespell.

A quiet ding chimed at the back of Cayden's AR display as the force of Cayden's magic sent the body of the Warden officer flying, it's limp and already half decayed body collapsing into ash as it struck the nearby wall.

"Did you just?" Celia asked.

"I think I did, yeah," Cayden replied. If Celia heard him, she gave no indication, too busy inside the same menu Cayden was all too eager to delve into. It took only a few button presses before he was rewarded with:

You have reached Guardian Level 11

+40 HP

+20 TP

He double checked that the quest from Azazi remained unfinished, then grinned when it was confirmed. That boss was worth the equivalent of two full levels, probably to make up for the fact that they had no other way to level.

"Huh. You know, terrifying death event or no, I could get used to XP gains like these." Celia said.

Before Cayden could reply, Silver's voice cut in across his headset. "There you are! Are you guys alright?"

Cayden opened his mouth to reply, then closed it when he looked at the level range of his party.  Only he and Celia had gained any XP for the encounter.

He was alright now, but he might not be once Michael and Shifty got their hands on him.

Chapter Fifteen

Day Two – Night
Resources – F – 290 +10, Z – 295 +15, M – 145 +5, P – 220 +20, R +10
Completed – Keep Repair II (Dungeon)

“Welcome home, Field Marshall.”

“Valserys.” Cayden inclined his head in the other man's direction as he entered the strategy room, doing a rather poor job of concealing just how startled he'd been by the Elan's presence. “I didn't expect anyone to still be up.”

"I estimated your time of arrival and slept accordingly once the evening turn was over." The officer responded curtly, though for once Cayden was sure he could detect a sliver of a smile hidden just beneath the twists of that neon mustache.

"You're going to teach me how to do that sometime." The young man was not so hesitant with his smile as he moved to join his officer. "I twist and turn all evening."

“An old soldier’s trick I am afraid. Once you spend enough nights with a rock for a pillow and two hours before march, it becomes second nature.” Valserys shuffled to one side to allow Cayden extra room in front of the War Frame. “I've left open combat results for your perusal.”

“Appreciated.” He nodded. “How'd we do, generally.”

"Well." The stern man drew his attention to a window on the left side of the War Frame that contained the statistics most relevant to his query.

The Fighting First (Formation)

Type: Infantry (Elan)

Level: 1 (70% to Next Level)

Unit Count: 98/100

HP: 69/100

MP: 0/0

TP: 82/100

Bastion's Second (Formation)

Type: Infantry (Elan)

Level: 1 (35% to Next Level)

Unit Count: 95/100

HP: 63/100

MP: 0/0

TP: 82/100

The Pointy Third (Formation)

Type: Infantry (Elan)

Level: 1 (30% to Next Level)

Unit Count: 100/100

HP: 75/100

MP: 0/0

TP: 82/100

The Undaunted Fourth (Formation)

Type: Infantry (Elan)

Level: 1 (20% to Next Level)

Unit Count: 99/100

HP: 74/100

MP: 0/0

TP: 82/100

Cayden winced as he studied the numbers before him. “This is 'well'?”

"When fighting an enemy that cannot suffer from negative morale? I'm afraid so, Field Marshall." Valserys frowned. "The Wardens don't rout the way a living soldier would. They still lose much of their combat effectiveness once their formation is broken, but even individual soldiers will fight to the last rather than turn tail for their safety."

"From Hell's Heart, they stab at thee."

Valserys smiled wanly at the quote. "An apt description." The Elan touched thoughtfully at the edge of his mustache. "I ought to give you more credit."

“For quoting Star Trek?”

“I was under the impression that quote came from a bloodline poet called Shakespeare?”

“Err... yeah, that too.” Cayden laughed.

"Casualties may still rise as we finish the cleanup, as such we won't have the final total until the midday turn, but I expect few if any additional losses."

“They didn't attack on the evening turn then?”

"As you expected, Field Marshall, they did not," Valserys confirmed.

"Well, I'll take small blessing where I can get one," Cayden said.

They'd known with near certainty that the Wardens would launch an attack to retake the entrance to the tomb on their midday turn, but what they'd had to count on was that the damaged Warden units wouldn't launch a second attack in the evening if doing so would end up destroying their units. It was a gamble, but a fairly safe one.

It had proven correct.  Unable or unwilling to suicide to deal damage, but with nowhere else to retreat, the Warden units just stood there, which meant that Cayden could have his units spend the next two turns defensively beating on heavily damaged Warden units, simultaneously soaking up the XP and minimizing casualties.

Valserys eyed him briefly, then turned his attention back to the displayed figures. “The first influx of civilians began to arrive while you were gone. I took the liberty of conducting a census upon entry, and we've more than enough military capable lads to replace the ones we've lost in the field once the units return.”

As Cayden's expression darkened, Valserys softened. “Field Marshall... Cayden, if I may?”

Whatever dim path Cayden's thoughts had begun to tread upon was lit bright as day by the mere sound of his name from the Elan's lips. It was easily enough to snap him back into focus. “By all means.”

“I didn't think it was my place to interject when you and Lady Silver-” Cayden snorted at the word Lady, but Valserys continued unabated. “-were discussing this upon our arrival. But to some extent, she is correct.”

“I need to accept losses.”

“No. You need to be willing to expend lives.”

Cayden blinked in surprise, but before he could speak, Valserys continued. “Let me be clear, I am not suggesting anything akin to the wanton disregard for Elan lives that she suggested.” That much was clear by the way his body language stiffened even discussing the idea. “But she was correct that you cannot fight the way you are now.”

“We've won every battle thus far.” Cayden pointed out.

“By fighting not to lose.” Valserys shot back. “You put yourself, Lady Silver, and by extension, all of us at risk to prevent a handful of casualties.”

“You heard.” He winced.

"I did." For the first time, it struck Cayden just how large the age gap between him and his advisor was. He'd been treating Valserys as a peer, despite the fact that the old soldier had at least a lifetime of experience on him. "And I understand why you did it. Just as you need to understand why you cannot continue this way."

"Because I'm fighting not to lose," Cayden repeated.

Valserys stepped away from the War Frame, pacing a short distance to look up at a nearby painting of the castle and its surrounding area.  The elder man sighed briefly, one hand twirling the edge of his mustache as he searched for words.

“When I was just a tad older than you, I was given my first command. A hundred men with a focus on hunting and killing a band of brigands who had been going up and down the Teri-Taneth valley demanding protection money. I had a force that was more than sufficient to put down my enemy, but I was young and ambitious. I didn't want to merely defeat my enemy; I wanted to crush him without losses."

Valserys continued to study the image before him, as though it somehow bolstered his memory of the event. "It was a disaster, as you might be expecting. I didn't suffer a single casualty, but the villages I had been sent to protect suffered hundreds. I spent days manoeuvring my men to pin the thieves against a river so that not a single one would escape, days that they spent pillaging and killing everything they could get their hands on."

“Perfect is the enemy of the good.”

“Quite right Marshall. Quite right.” Valserys smiled. “What I'm saying is that I understand your reticence. I even appreciate it.” He gestured to the War Frame as he continued. “I'm sure the men do as well. But with everything that is at stake you cannot continue this way.  Fighting not to lose means taking no risks, and making no sacrifices, even necessary ones.”

“I understand what you're saying.” Cayden frowned. “I really do. It's just... that isn't me. I'm the guy who restarts a stage when I take replaceable losses, the one who keeps replaying over and over until I get a perfect result. I'm like that with little pixel men, and you're asking me to knowingly send living people to their deaths.”

“To save others.” The older man conceded. “If you had these abilities, to try over and over again, my council would be different, I assure you. I am neither asking, nor suggesting that you throw away lives. Only that you measure them carefully against the lives of everyone, and everything else. And that as a result, assure that those that do fall, are doing so with purpose.”

The young man considered his elder for a moment, before at last nodding. “I'll try.”

“That is all I can ask of you, Field Marshall.”

“Still not willing to stick with Cayden?”

"No sir, no I am not," Valserys replied, that hint of a smile once again frustratingly close on an otherwise serious face.

Chapter Sixteen

Day Four – Morning
Resources –  Size 2, F – 320 +5, Z – 340 +15, M – 160 +5, I – 280 +20, P +25, R +10
Completed – Lower Township Repair III, Upper Township Repair I

"Gotta say, Roberta, this is one hell of an improvement."

“Why thank you Cayden.” His elfin advisor replied absently. She was focused on the task at hand, though apart from that focus, the process looked positively effortless. A swoop of one hand caused the air to glow, particles of glowing energy coalescing into iron nails that hovered in the air. At a command, the nails struck home, the barrage creating a staccato noise like gunfire as they pierced the wooden frame that itself had been held in place only by the force of the Elan's will.

He watched as the process repeated itself twice more, then as new joists levitated to the top of the now solid frame. Cayden had to admit; he was impressed. What might have taken a modern building crew hours to do properly, she was doing in seconds.

Hundreds of similar buildings in various stages of completion lined the streets of what had been a ruined city only days before. Even more encouragingly, dozens of new citizens could be seen on their way up or down the common road, most moving with a decided purpose in their steps, busy on one task or another.

Apparently satisfied, Roberta lowered her hand and at last opened her eyes, turning away from the half-finished building to grace Cayden with a smile. "Come to survey your kingdom, Field Marshall?"

“I-” Cayden started, about to frown when the teasing dimples at Roberta's cheeks gave up her mischief. “No, I just wanted your advice and didn't want to drag you all the way back to the keep.” He admitted, before adding. “Though now that you mention it, it probably wouldn't hurt for the workers to see me once in a while. Perhaps I ought to put on a hard hat and kiss a few babies?”

Roberta stared at him in bafflement.

“It's a thing that human politicians... you know what, nevermind.”

"I seldom do," Roberta replied. She took a brief aside to direct a few workers to attend to the work she'd started, discarded the heavy workman gloves that seemed entirely unnecessary for someone who was doing no real work with her hands, then turned her attention fully to Cayden. "How can I be of help."

"Well, we've got some short-term planning to do and some long-term planning. Where do you think we should start?"

“What was it that Shifty said the other night? Dealer's choice?” Roberta grinned.

“It still amazes me that Elan never developed card games.” Cayden murmured. Of all the oddities he'd experienced inside the tower, walking in on Shifty and Silver attempting to teach Valserys and Roberta how to play poker the previous evening was still surprisingly high on the list.

At least it hadn't been strip poker.

"Let's start short and go long," Cayden announced, shaking his head vigorously to clear that particular mental image away. “The War Frame tells me the city grew overnight. We're now Size 2?”

“I thought it might, with the new housing all complete.” She replied. “Did you bring it with you?”

“It?” He asked with some confusion.

“The War Frame.”

Cayden's eyebrows raised.  Her voice sounded serious, but the question was nonsense. “No Roberta. I did not carry the War Frame down to see you.”

“What?” It was her turn for incredulity, followed swiftly by a roll of her eyes. “Cayden, you do realize that the War Frame is portable, yes?”

“I... did not.” He admitted.

"That explains why you left it behind with Valserys..." Roberta thought aloud, the pieces of what must have seemed like bizarre behavior from her perspective now falling into place. "I'll join you there this evening and show you how. It shrinks down to a miniature of itself on command."

Cayden balked at the explanation. “Is there anything else about the Frame I don't know that I ought to?”

“I had thought to ask you the same thing, Field Marshall.”

“Tonight then.” Cayden frowned. “Back somewhat more on topic.”

“You'd like suggestions on where to focus the new citizens.”

He nodded “Hit it in one.”

The growth in size had opened up a new set of options on the War Frame when he'd gone to check on it that morning. He'd found a banner in the miniature courtyard, a banner that represented the new citizens of Bastion. The moment he'd touched it, the Frame had drawn back, giving him an aerial view of the city and its surroundings, with each hex labeled with a small indicator to inform him what sort of resources it would produce.

Setting his citizens to work on the plains outside the city would produce food while sending them to the nearby foothills or forests would increase production. He could also earn more Grand Zenni, albeit a relative pittance by setting them to work along the nearby river, but as of yet, he'd found no source for influence, magic or research.

"If it were me, I'd recommend we start by working on food production," Roberta replied. She surveyed his expression for a moment, then shook her head. "Which is what you'd already decided."

“I wouldn't go that far.”

She scowled at him. “You wanted a sounding board.”

"In a manner of speaking," Cayden replied. "Clearly, I don't know everything, so I thought a decision like this merited a second opinion."

That seemed to mollify Roberta's growing ire. “It is not as if it is a permanent decision in any case.”

“No. But it would take a full turn to re-assign them, which feels like a waste.”

"Well, I think you've got it right." She admitted, somewhat grudgingly now. "The increased population has halved our food production. And even if it hadn't, we have to plan for the future. Our food comes from Islo for the time being, but that won't last if the city comes under siege."

“Do you think we should look into building a farm directly? The option came available on the War Frame when the city grew.” He pressed.

"Not yet," Roberta said. "Assuming you've decided in favor of our guests?"

"I dispatched the Fifth this morning," Cayden replied. "The Third will be back to garrison before the end of the turn, and Valserys is right. It will help us to be seen in a positive light by the locals."

“And we can devote men to work the farms, saving us from having to build them ourselves.” She added, finishing his unspoken thought.

“That too.”

“Sounds like you have your answer then.”

“Fifteen Food from the citizens working the farm. That should fill our stockpile in the short-term, and give us enough food to feed our troops and a size three city in the medium.” He tapped his chin with a finger as he thought. “Which leaves us with the long term.”

"You are still struggling to decide whether or not to continue on this course of action." It was phrased as a question, but Roberta made it a statement as she indicated the half-finished building with one hand.

Cayden sighed. "Assuming everything keeps going linear regarding cost and bonuses, the Lower Township will be fully repaired by day six. But the bonus it gives to production will take nearly twenty days to pay for itself."

“And the battle will be over in twenty-nine.”

“Exactly.” Cayden began to pace slightly, only going a few feet in any direction before swinging around to go the other. “The housing bonus helps ameliorate things somewhat, but it could still be a lot of lost opportunity to focus elsewhere.”

"It isn't like you to second guess yourself quite this much," Roberta observed.

He winced. “That obvious?”

“A little.” She leaned back on her heels to think. “Silver?”

“Who else.”

“She has a point.” Roberta talked over him as he began to complain. “But not an overwhelming one.”

“You think we should focus on production first?”

“Yes. But I also think you need to have more faith in your decisions.” Roberta scowled. “And I also think I had a similar conversation with her last night. Very persistent, that one.”

"Yeah, tell me about i-" The sharp chime of his AR glasses cut Cayden short as a notification appeared on his display. "One second." He said to Roberta, before manipulating the air in front of him to connect the call. "Hey, Celia. Can I get back to you in-"

“Cayden. It is starting.”

***

Fifteen minutes later Cayden stood opposite Celia in the strategy room, her AR glasses recording him while a player on the other end was making a similar transmission. The conversation was far from private, with upwards of twenty players linked in on the call. Best put his strong foot forward.

"Rat," Cayden said as a man came into view on the other end of the stream.

“Cayden.” Came the man's reply, his expression grim. It was not a look that Cayden welcomed seeing.

In the hours and days after the announcement at the Ducal Palace, Cayden had left the task of communicating with the other player guilds largely in Celia's hands. He'd thought that most players would be more amenable to a pretty face and an upbeat attitude than a sixteen-year-old try-hard gamer.

And he'd been correct. Celia had shown a knack for diplomacy quite like her older sister, and within two days had gotten in touch with the leaders of five of the six active strongholds, including two others that had been commissioned in Sunè on the same evening. Only the Toy Soldiers had remained fully out of her reach, and even that resolve had weakened somewhat once Celia had begun contacting some of their rank and file players rather than their leader.

Of the six guilds, the only one Cayden was in personal communication with on any regular basis was Goon Squad.  Their holding, De'Arnise, was one of two that stood between the Tomb of the Liar King and Islo and was all but guaranteed to be the first to be attacked. That dubious honor had been enough to warrant Cayden's personal interest in the keep and its commander.

Vilerat was a bald; goateed man in his thirties, a former software engineer that Cayden probably would have still picked out as a software engineer, even if he'd not been told as much. He was always smiling, the sort that always seemed to be in on the joke that Cayden wasn't. On a normal day, that smile irritated him, but he'd never suspected how concerned he'd be in its absence.

"How bad is it," Cayden asked at last.

“On a scale of one to-” The teenager's frown was enough to stop Vilerat from dancing around the subject any further. “High thousands.”

Cayden felt as though he'd taken a body blow. “How high?”

"Best guess from what we saw is eight or nine thousand." A soft rumble emanated from Celia's headset, as all of the participants that Cayden had muted cursed and gasped. "It is hard to get an accurate number right now because the column is moving through a wooded area. Once they are out, they'll be on plains, and we should have a much better count."

“For all the good that will do us.”

“Chin up.  At worst, the enemy outnumber us a paltry six to one; good odds for any player.” Vilerat laughed weakly.

"If we had an army of players, I'd probably agree with you," Cayden replied. He drew a deep breath and reminded himself that Vilerat wasn't the only one watching before he continued. "So what are you planning in the immediate future."

“Honestly? I'm planning on running.” The bald man chuckled again. “We're going to do as much scouting as we can to try and get a grip on what is coming, but the majority of my troops are mounted. Better to save them for where they can be useful than lose them fighting a hundred to one on the fort walls.”

The camera shifted at a gesture from Vilerat, turning to display a wooden table similar, but not identical to Cayden's War Frame. “We're going to leave a small detachment behind, twenty men, to hold the keep in the hopes that they can act as a speedbump. Even slowing them down a turn is better than having them walk right past the keep.”

Cayden bit his tongue.  The idea of calling twenty sacrificed Elan a 'speedbump' sat poorly with him, but it was hardly the time or the place to argue semantics. “And then you'll retreat to Crossroads?”

“That was the thought. Yeah.” Vilerat crossed his arms as the camera returned to him. “Feels a bit too much of a Three Little Pigs situation for my liking, but hopefully Islo turns out to be made of some solid brick."

“Any chance you can harry them a little with that cavalry of yours?”

Vilerat's grin returned, white teeth positively glowing in the video. "Way ahead of you. The whole reason we found them in the first place is that we spotted one of their scouting parties. Gave them a bloody nose and took out a hundred of their soldiers before their mounted units chased us off.  I'm hoping to have my guild make hit and run attacks on the army itself as it passes during our turns so that we can dodge in and out of the hex where they can't follow us, but we'll have to see."

That... was an excellent idea. How had he never even considered that?

“I say something wrong?”

“I- er... no.  Just feeling a little dumb.” Cayden confessed. A slight blush rose to his cheeks as he heard another sound from Celia's headset, laughter, but he pressed on to distance himself from the embarrassment. “Any word on how fast they're moving?”

"Slow." The other man responded. "Their outriders ran us off as I said, but the column is only moving maybe four or five hexes a turn."

Cayden considered that for a moment. “Their cavalry is as fast as yours?”

"Yeah," Vilerat confirmed. "Stone horses too, so I don't see why their infantry would be any slower. "

“Then they're moving at the speed of their slowest unit.”

“Bingo.” He made a comically awful finger gun in the camera's direction. “My guess is siege units.  It'd pretty much have to be if they want to take any of the big cities.”

“Assuming they keep to the same speed, and your troops manage to slow them down, that puts them at Islo in what, four days?”

The reply came after a moment of calculation. “Maybe five depending on route and terrain. I think there is enough difficult stuff between here and there that it might slow them down.”

“All my men will be back in the city by midday.  We'll leave immediately.” Cayden replied. “Should put us at Islo in time for the party.”

"Assuming the Iron B-" Vilerat started to say, interrupted by a somewhat nauseating shake of his cameraman's head as he was reminded that at least one of her men was on the call. "Assuming the Captain of the Islo Watch lets us into the city."

“We'll contact her directly, but with numbers like these, she's going to have to see reason.”

“You'd think so...”

"Now who is being a pessimist," Cayden smirked.

"Hey, pessimism is like paranoia. It's only a vice if they aren't out to get you."

Chapter Seventeen

Day Seven – Evening Turn
Resources – F – 540 +20, Z – 530 +25, M – 205 +5, I – 460 +20, P +40, R +10
Completed – Lower Township Repair VI (New Specialization Unlocked), Upper Township Repair III

Cayden heard the argument in the depths of the city garrison long before he saw any of its participants.  An older building slightly offset from the Ducal Palace in the center of Islo, its stone corridors hadn't been built with privacy in mind. Even normal conversations echoed through its walls.  To say nothing of the one-sided shouting match taking place as the stern-faced thirty-something Toy Soldier ushered him into the waiting conference where Dinah Asch, their leader, was engage in a livid conversation with her ostensible allies.

"Absolutely not," Vilerat growled, his usually pale face blotched and ruddy with fury.

"This is not a negotiation," Dinah responded without emotion, her back to the doorway.

“No, you're right. What you are asking for is capitulation! Which is why I'm saying, absolutely not.” He continued, pounding his fist on the table before jerking the other one in Cayden's direction. “Cayden, please tell me you're not going along with this!”

At that, all eyes turned to Cayden and his party, though only two of the room's dozen occupants were faces he recognized. Judging by the expressions on the majority, he had more enemies than friends in the room, even with Celia, Michael, Silver, and Sarah in tow.

"How about we start by telling me what I'm supposed to be opposed to," Cayden said brusquely.  It was a petty jab, but Asch had spent the last three days refusing his calls in favor of an in-person meeting, so he was in a somewhat petty mood.

“Nice of you to join us at last, Field Marshall.” The Israeli soldier scowled, her tongue positively dripping with sarcasm at his title.

Celia bit on that particular bait before Cayden could rise to the occasion; her voice strung through with annoyance. "We did try and inform you that we would be running late."

“I'd heard. Something about a sub-tomb?”

“On your side of the river. Yes.” Celia said pointedly.

It had been one of two such tombs that had added nearly an entire day to what should have been a three-day journey.  Neither had posed anywhere near the threat that the first one they'd discovered had located, but each had required a halt to the march a deployment of the troops and a delve into the dungeon in search of a relic for Azazi. In total it had been worth a full two levels, putting Cayden and his companions on the very cusp of level twenty-five, with only five more levels to his next skill and mastery point, but it had been a frustrating delay all the same.

“We've had to keep our eyes focused to the west. For rather obvious reasons.” Dinah said curtly.

Silver raised an eyebrow at that. “Even so, wouldn't you want to be sure your line of retreat is open?”

“Oh, we haven't even gotten to the nonsense that is her plan.” Vilerat scowled.

“We'll get to that, I'm sure.” Cayden's voice was as cool and conciliatory as he could make it as he continued. “For now, how about we start at the top.”

"Yes, of course." Dinah waved to an empty spot around the War Frame that dominated the center of the small conference room. "We were just discussing the disposition of troops."

“You mean your usurpation of command.”

"Rat," Cayden said softly. He understood the man's anger, days of zero communication had put his teeth on edge as far as this meeting went. But the soldier already saw him as a child.  If he acted out or took this as anything less than serious, they'd get nowhere fast. "Dinah, if you could-"

“Captain.” She corrected him, her steady gaze holding his as she spoke. “Captain Asch. If you would.”

“Ah. Captain Asch, if you could bring us up to speed?” Cayden replied, doing everything in his power to keep from treating her official title with the same disdain she had treated his given one.

It took only a few waves of the Captain's hands for her War Frame to retreat from the close in view of Islo to a more general view of the whole surrounding area. She was good with the device, probably better than Cayden was, if he was honest, her hands working over it like a maestro directing an award-winning performance.

“De’Arnise fell almost immediately after it was put under siege, as was expected.” As she spoke, Cayden couldn't help but notice the discoloration of her right hand, a mass of white scar tissue tarnishing her olive skin at the joint between thumb and forefinger. “The keep did not survive more than a single turn, but it did tell us two things.”

“The enemy has an abundance of siege equipment, and they are willing to hold their entire advance for a turn to employ it rather than take slightly higher losses throwing themselves at structured defenses.”

Asch spat Michael with an annoyed stare, one the other man happily shot back, before she continued. "Shortly thereafter, Crossroads keep was taken. This time didn't make the same mistake they made at De’Arnise. They encircled the entire keep, preventing the token forces left to hold it from retreating."

"Which is a tip-off of a different sort." Cayden nodded.

“How so?” Dinah inquired.

He had to bite back a scathing reply about how he'd sent her a message regarding this very topic, choosing instead to repeat himself. "It lets us know that they learn from their mistakes, but they have sort of inherent weaknesses. Makes me think of the Buggers, more than anything."

The captain's eyebrows knitted together in confusion as she looked to a similarly confused aide for clarification. “The Buggers?”

“You know, the...” Cayden started to say, before realizing that she did not know. "Ender's Game. Orson Scott Card. The enemy was an insect race called the Buggers." He explained. "In the latter third or so, they get a weapon called the Little Doctor, that can destroy the enemy as they cluster together.  In early battles, the enemy was sloppy, with big weaknesses as a result, but they clean them up the more they are exposed to the weapon."

“You think it was an intentional weakness?”

To that, he could only shrug. "This is all a game. If the Developer just wanted to kill everyone on the floor, he could have just had the event change the air to acid. Vilerat killed a scouting party with ease; then the enemy scouting parties started having mounted backup to counter him. They run troops away, and the next time the Wardens encircle them. Makes sense."

That much seemed to get through to her. “So what are you suggesting?”

“I'm not even sure.” He confessed. “Other than that we shouldn't necessarily jump at the first chance we get to exploit a weakness. If the Wardens clean up their strategy every time we find a weakness, then we need to absolutely abuse that weakness on the one chance we've got it.”

"An interesting thought." The grudging admission seemed to visibly pain her as she directed their attention back to the frame. "I have a small number of scouts out watching the Warden forces as they advance. And as you can see, the head of their column is barely a day's march from the city."

Calling the thing a column almost felt wrong to Cayden as he studied the frame. He'd imagined a snaking, single file line going back into the distance, but apparently, once they'd left the forested area to the west of  De'arnise they had formed into a double thick marching order six hexes long, a line that bulged to three hexes across at its middle.

It was all new to him, of course, because the Captain couldn't be any more bothered to share data than she was to pick up the phone.

“Each hex contains roughly a full division of about a thousand enemy soldiers, with a small vanguard of several hundred extending out roughly six hexes ahead of the column itself.” She indicated a much smaller smattering of enemy banners just ahead of the mass of the Warden army. “We're still blind, composition wise, regarding the units in the column. The two sieges suggest they've got a sizable number of ranged units, but that the force is primarily infantry. Less than a thousand mounted soldiers in total.”

“And the blob in the middle?” Silver drew attention to the elephant in the room.

"Siege equipment, along with what we think is the general command staff," Asch explained. "If they have any magic casters, we expect they'd be there as well."

“So Vilerat's initial estimate was off?” Celia asked after some basic mental math.

Asch dipped her head grimly. “Our estimate is eleven to twelve thousand, including the van and rearguard.”

A quiet murmur rumbled through the room before Cayden asked the obvious. “If the column's head is a day away from the city, then we can expect the siege equipment here no later than the following afternoon, with a full attack as early as that evening. Does that sound correct?”

“It does.”

“Then how can we help.”

Asch met his gaze steadily as she replied. “You can turn over control of all of your forces to me.”

"And there it is," Vilerat said, striking the edge of the table once more.

“In the words of a wise man...” Cayden began, doing his best to push down the anger welling inside of him. “Absolutely not.”

Though she might have been expecting it, Asch didn't take the refusal well. “Then you should take them and go back home.”

“Because that is rational...” Came Sarah's muttered grumble.

"More than." Dinah shot back before Cayden could make any apology for the insult. "I cannot conduct a defense of this city when a number of its soldiers are outside of my chain of command."

"With respect, Captain, can you afford to defend this city without us?" Cayden asked. "Between the three of us, we have about six hundred men. Twice what you have."

"Twice what I was given." Asch corrected. "Perhaps you haven't been expanding your forces the way I have, but the Islo guard is up by over a thousand armed men, paid for by emptying the Duke's coffers and two thousand citizen militia."

Cayden caught Sarah stiffen out of the corner of his eye at that, and he reached out in spite of the setting to press his open palm against her wrist in a calming fashion. She'd spent much of the walk from the Inn to the barracks ranting about the citizen militia. To hear her tell it, the militia amounted to nothing more than walking civilians into the arms of their enemy as arrow catchers and cannon fodder, and Cayden couldn't disagree with the assessment.

“The militia is an entirely different matter I had meant to speak to you ab-”

"Here for an hour and second-guessing my commands. Is it any wonder I don't want a teenager in charge of a third of my defense?" The soldier said scathingly.

“Here for an hour and I find out that you're planning on throwing barely armed civilians into a meat grinder. Is it any wonder we don't want you in charge of our men?” Cayden shot back angrily. This was not going the way he intended. “I know this is hard for you Toy Soldiers to grasp, but this is a game, not reality.  How effective do you think a Level 2 Artisan or a Level 1 Shopkeep is going to be exactly?”

“If we are going to hold this city, sacrific-”

“You cannot hold this city." It was all he could to speak the words with some measure of calmness, rather than yelling them into her face. "What exactly is your plan? Captain Asch?"

"Defense, in-depth strategy using the field, as well as the city's two main districts. With the defender's advantage, we should be able to cause significant enough casualties to-"

“Not your defensive strategy.” Cayden interrupted once more. “Your plan to actually win the event.”

“My plan starts by holding the city.” Asch snarled. “I have my players out scouring the countryside for any hint of the item that caused all of this mess. When they find it-”

“If.”

“-we will return it. Until then we should be able to endure any siege.”

"Even with the help you are rejecting, you are outnumbered ten to one by an enemy that doesn't care about their casualties." Silver cut in, her words as angry as they were incredulous. "What makes you think you can survive that any longer than De’Arnise."

“And you have a better plan, I suppose?”

“Do you even read our messages?” Celia complained.

"Observe her," Cayden said, jerking a thumb at Silver as he tried to get his anger under control.

“I don't see-” Asch started, before realizing the futility of trying to argue the point. “Skill Use: Observe.” She intoned, then, a moment later. “Oh. My.” Surprise dotted her voice, quickly smothered by skepticism “But she'll just be taken off floor as soon as her death timer expires.”

Cayden shook his head. "No, she won't."

“How can you be sure?”

“Sarah?” He asked.

“Command: Login. Desdaemona.”

Cayden waited a few seconds until the level forty callout appeared over Sarah's head. "The event is glitched." He explained. "Or rather, it uses a specific sort of flag that can be exploited. It only checks player levels when it is first triggered."

“How long until the timer wears off?”

“Twenty-two days.”

Fury flashed across Dinah's face. “Well you know, maybe if we wait long enough they'll just die of old age while we are at it.”

“You've had eight days to search.” Cayden retorted. “Have your men found even a hint of the missing item? Do you even know what you're looking for?”

"I won't sit here and be lectured-"

“I'm not trying to lecture you.” He insisted. “If we are smart, we can do both. Your men can spend the next three weeks searching, while we do our best to drag this war out long enough for Silver to come back into her full power.  But we can't do any of that if you decide to go full Alamo on us.”

"As I recall, the defenders at the Alamo held off the Mexican army for two and a half weeks," Asch observed.

Cayden looked to Silver, then to Celia, and finally Sarah. Each shrugged in turn, with no more idea about the validity of the comment than he had. “Bad example.  Waco?”

“Fifty days.”

"You get the idea," Cayden grumbled.

“But you continue to ignore mine.” She replied sharply. “Your plan relied on me holding this city as long as possible, does it not?” At a sign of assent from Cayden, she continued. “Then I need access to as many men and resources as you can spare.”

“And we are willing to give you those. Under our command.”

"If they are under your command I cannot use them!" The soldier retorted. "I cannot create a battle plan that relies on your soldiers holding a defensive position if I cannot be sure that your men will be there when the situation turns grim."

“My plan also relies on keeping soldiers and civilians alive as long as possible, and retreating them as necessary.” Cayden shot back. “Have you even begun evacuating the city?”

Asch's chin tipped up, her jawline setting. “Between the militia and those I require for production-”

"They are civilians," Cayden said sternly.

“They are Elan.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Sarah's voice was thick with venom as she pushed her way forward to draw face to face with Dinah.

"It means they are NPCs." If Asch was intimidated by the difference in levels, or even in height, she didn't let it show. Her acne marked face, always an angry red drew a deeper color still as the two locked eyes. "I have a duty to my men, and them alone.  If I have to expend-"

"Expend?!" Sarah shouted, the blue-haired monk near the verge of violence before Silver laid a calming hand on her shoulder.

“You know that those civilians would do more good in Sunè or Bastion.” Cayden pressed. If the morality argument had failed, perhaps a utilitarian one. “Once the fighting here starts-”

“As I said before, this isn't a discussion, nor a negotiation.” The captain said at last. “If you aren't willing to turn your troops over, then you have no argument in good faith." Asch drew herself up to her full height, her eyes turning to one of her guards. "We are done. Escort the Field Marshall and his retinue out of the city."

Chapter Eighteen

Day Nine – Morning Turn
Resources – F – 600 +20, Z – 605 +25, M – 235 +5, I – 520 +20, P +40, R +10
Research Complete (Magic) - Academy.

“So how'd they do?” Silver asked, her voice preceding her as she struggled with the closed tent flap.

"Better than I expected," Cayden said, torn between joy and annoyance.  "They blunted the entire Warden vanguard, dealing a bit over two-thirds total casualties."

Surprise showed on Silver's face as it at last poked through the tent flap. “That... is a lot better. How?”

Cayden didn't know. And that bothered him.

There was a random element to all combat results, Cayden had discovered. It was a swing of somewhere between 1-20%, a measure of unpredictability likely introduced to add drama, uncertainty and a bit of verisimilitude to otherwise easily calculated results.  But that didn't account for what they saw here, not by a long shot.

"Couple of theories." He replied though they were better described as guesses. "Better leadership bonus than we'd expected. Or she has access to tactics we don't. Or the militia units proved a lot more effective than we'd anticipated. Maybe a combination of all three."

“Or she dumped some of her players into the combat.” She suggested.

“Yeah. Or that.” He confirmed.

They'd finally gotten around to testing that particular strategy, albeit only in theory, not in practice, during the march from Bastion to Islo. During the march, Cayden had assigned himself, Sarah and Celia to different combat units and had discovered that a player added roughly ten points of combat strength for each level they possessed.

If Asch had embedded even half of her players into formations with her Elan soldiers, that could undoubtedly have accounted for the difference in the unit's expected power.

If she had, it was a dangerous gamble. Cayden hadn't had a safe opportunity to test all of the effects in combat, but one of the first things he'd learned from attaching himself to a unit, was that it forced him to abide by the unit's movement restrictions. Any players that were accompanying the Elan units out in the field would be trapped in hex by the same invisible barrier as the Elan themselves, so long as they remained as part of the formation.

“Looks like you owe her an apology.” Silver said.

“You know, I recall you raising similar objections.”

“With everything we knew at the time, the field battle was a bad idea.” Silver said with a roll of her eyes. “Perhaps if she'd been more open with us.”

Cayden snorted at that. Perhaps if she'd been a unicorn as well, she might have been purer of heart and willing to accept their help. It was a useless theoretical. As it was, they'd just barely gotten the good Captain to allow them a forward observer so that they could get an idea of how the battle had progressed.

They'd have had better luck asking if they could pull out Asch's fingernails than asking her for direct combat data.

Silver's gaze scanned the War Frame. “Do you think she's got a shot?”

"No," Cayden replied. "She sucker punched them hard, and we probably could have done more, but she's going to have to retreat into the city as soon as the afternoon turn starts. Once she's in there, it is only going to be a matter of time."

“So we just pack up and go home?”

“I don't like it either. But what choice do we have? We can't stay here once the bulk of the army arrives. Even if they don't wander right past us, they'll find us by sheer bulk number of checks.”

In the aftermath of the disastrous meeting in the barracks, Cayden had taken his forces, as well as those of the Goons and Lords of the Edge away from Islo, squirreling them into in a wooded thicket on a hill overlooking the main river that flowed into the city. The location gave them a commanding view, but, more importantly, it gave them some measure of concealment. An enemy in the adjacent hex would spot them immediately, but for every hex beyond that, the chance was halved. Beyond five hexes, they might as well have been invisible.

“Any luck talking to the Duke?” Silver inquired after a moment of silence.

When diplomacy had failed, there had been some suggestions of a coup. The Duke had put her into power; he could take her out of power, couldn't he? Sadly, it was not to be. "None. The palace is still locked up tight. I had Celia do some asking around, and it looks like no one has been able to enter since the event kicked off."

Silver sighed. “Maybe we stick around nearby and try to cover their retreat?”

"That assumes she's going to try and retreat. Or that they'd let her if she did." Cayden played his hands over the edge of the War Frame until the city filled the view. What had once looked so welcoming to him, that first night, now filled him with a heavy sense of dread as he surveyed it.

The problem was the lay of the land. Like most castle cities, Islo was built along the banks of a river, but unlike many others, the river added little in the way of defense to the city proper.  Its course ran through the southeasternmost tip of the city, forming a fast-flowing moat that separated the Ducal Palace and other military structures from the civilian town. As a fortification, it gave an impressive bonus, but it was also, ultimately, a dead end.

Islo had six significant gates, all of which were on the western, civilian side of the river. This meant that any attempt at a retreat from the city had to begin before a withdrawal to the final defensive line. Once the Wardens had laid siege to the Royal Quarter environs, there was no easy escape from the city.  The idiots who designed it hadn't even developed some clever escape tunnel for the Duke or his family that they could utilize to guide the civilians away.

The Developer designed it that way for a reason. Cayden reminded himself as he studied the city for the hundredth time. The stupid design of the city was part of the event, surely that meant there was some clever way to circumvent it.

“Well maybe if w-”

A sudden, vicious rumbling of the earth turned the rest of Silver's sentence into a shriek of alarm. Behind her, the ground tore itself asunder, a half foot wide crack running from one end of the tent, between the two of them, beneath the War Frame, and out the other side in the space of a blink. Outside the tent horses cried, men and women screamed in alarm, accompanied by the sound of collapsing foliage.

The tremor continued for half a minute, the left side of the tent collapsing entirely before, at last, everything was still.

"C-command: Party Chat," Cayden said, his voice unsteady, eyes wide with the same fear in Silver's.  He realized abruptly that he was holding her forearm with white knuckles, and that she was clinging just as tightly to his shoulder. She blushed as their eyes met, the moment of awkwardness dispelled for both as Cayden spoke again. "Everyone okay?"

“Yeah. Michael and I are fine.” Celia's tone was a barely above a whisper, as though she were afraid that even a fully spoken word could reignite the disaster.

"I'm good too," Shifty replied. "You probably want to come see this ASAP though. West side of the camp."

Something in the elder thief's voice brooked no argument. “On our way.”

The camp was a mess as Silver and Cayden passed through it. Fallen trees had done damage to at least a dozen tents and cookfires, though injuries, thankfully, appeared to be minimal. What had been a comparatively sleepy morning, had turned into a buzz of activity, as soldiers moved this way and that, arming themselves in case of coming danger.

“Hey, over here.” Shifty shout came twice as the party chat function of their display duplicated the already audible words.

“What happened?” Cayden began.

The question proved wholly unnecessary as he reached the crest of the hill.

Miles and miles of terrain were arrayed out before them, the whole of Asch's battle line stretched across three miles of terrain just outside the westernmost gate of Islo, with a disorganized smattering of Warden forces directly opposing them. It was the exact scene he'd been surveying on the War Frame minutes before.

Save for the slightly curved, miles long wall of jagged stone that ran directly behind the Elan forces.

"What the hell?" Cayden asked. His eyes flicked to the corner of his display, answering at least part of his question. Just after noon, into the start of the midday turn. It must have rolled over while he'd been talking to Silver. Which meant this was Warden magic.

“Did they miss?” Silver laughed as she joined them on the ridge.

If they had been attacking the Islo forces, the magic had been a catastrophe. Even at this distance, there didn't appear to be any significant damage to the allied forces. A bit disorganized perhaps, which was to be expected considering how close they'd been to the epicenter of the quake, but the majority were already back in formation.

Stranger still, the Wardens hadn't attacked. While his experience with them was admittedly limited, the Warden troops they had engaged thus far had always launched their attacks the moment the turn rolled over, if they were going to attack at all. It was possible that they were too damaged to attack, but even then, their movement was... unusual.

One formation at a time the Warden troops were disengaging. Cayden watched as a unit of around eighty terra-cotta warriors turned their backs, marched for a considerable distance, then reorganized.  One formation became four,  the those four then turned, and marched directly back into the line from whence they'd come.

“What are they doing?” Celia asked. Cayden started, so lost in his study of the troop movements that he hadn't heard her arrive. Or rather, hadn't realized she was still on party chat, his embarrassing search for the source of the voice in his ear drawing a titter of laughter from nearby Silver.

"Looks like they are changing up their unit structure," Michael said, mastering the obvious. "But why?"

“Maybe put in some blockers to try and reduce casualties before the main force gets here?” Shifty suggested. Even he didn't sound particularly convinced by his own suggestion.

For several minutes the assembled players watched in a captive confusion as formation after formation engaged in the same bizarre behavior.  It was only when some of the newly formed units began to break off, moving around the flanks of the Elan units, that it finally clicked in Cayden's mind "Oh hell."

“What?” Silver asked.

“The Wardens are boxing them!” Cayden shouted over his shoulder, already moving at a full run back towards the War Frame. “Command: Call Vilerat.”

“Cayden, are you seeing this?” The voice came through as Cayden was halfway back to his tent.

“Yeah. It is bad. I'm going to be forwarding you some orders for your Cavalry, can you t-”

Vilerat cut him off. "I'm transferring temporary control to you. The edge troops as well." Before Cayden could question him, he added. "Your Warmaster bonus is higher, and if you're in this much of a tizzy, we're going to need it. Just give them back, okay?"

“I'm not in a tizzy...” Cayden complained before he cut the call. “Command: Call Asch.”

An angry buzz was his headset's reply.

“What the... Command: Call Asch.” Again came that same irritating noise, somewhere between the Family Feud buzzer and an especially broken hand razor.

His call wasn't being ignored, nor blocked. In either of those situations, it would have still tried to connect, even if the ringing was just for show. No, the only other times he'd heard that noise  were when he'd tried to call off floor at the start of the event, and when they had been inside the Warden sub-tomb.

It wasn't the tomb then. Maybe the Wardens themselves? No, that didn't make any more sense. They'd passed messages back and forth during the march, even when personally engaged with Warden infantry. But if not the Wardens then what? An aura projected by some of the Warden officers perhaps, like the one they'd found in the tomb?

If that was the case, then they were in worse trouble than they thought. Asch must be on the field herself.

“You really need to stop with this Sherlock Holmes, walk away in the middle of an epiphany without explaining yourself crap.” Silver complained as she came up fast on his heels.

"They're trying to box them." Cayden explained again to Silver's continued bafflement as they entered the half fallen command tent. A runic word sent a wave of force rippling across the table, blowing away dust and refuse that had piled onto it as Cayden took up a space at its side. "They split up their units so that Asch chokes on them trying to escape."

"Cayden..."

He frowned in reply, mind whirling through a thousand thoughts at once, even as he struggled to find a way to easily explain the threat he saw. At last, he blurted, "It's like one big speed bump vs. a bunch of moguls."

"Those little white things from Final Fantasy?"

"What? No. Mogul, not moogle." He rolled his eyes. "It's like a speed bump, but for skiing."

"Uh-huh." Silver replied dubiously.

"Look." Cayden gestured to the War Frame as he spoke.

The battlefield it showed looked almost indistinguishable from the one they had seen only minutes earlier. The allied forces still occupied a three mile line of hexes, with Dinah and her regular forces occupying the center of the battle line, with a thousand militia men to either side.  Behind them, however, was that stone wall, a four-mile monstrosity that cut off any hope of direct retreat.

Surrounding all of it were three ranks of Warden infantry.

The rank nearest the Elan forces contained two formations, each comprised of somewhere between ten to twenty Warden soldiers; apparently his forward observer wasn't able to give him an accurate headcount. Each rank behind the first added another formation, three for the second, and four for the third. Their formation bonuses would be minute, small enough that even the militia units should be able to tear through them without significant losses.

But that wasn't the point of them. They were speed bumps, not combat units.

"Imagine that all of these, were combined into just enough formations to still be able and surround our allies. What happens?"

Sarah barely had to think at all as she replied. "Asch's forces attack them directly and wipe them out in an engagement or two."

"And now?" he asked.

A frown took to the girl's face as she grimly inclined her head. "Now it takes a minimum of nine attacks."

"And because they are surrounded, anyone who does attacks doesn't get to leave, because a formation has to complete its whole turn before the next one can take its turn."

It was a clever trap, like a strong fork in a game of chess. Normally a unit could move and attack in any order it wanted to. A cavalry unit could, for example, attack an infantry unit, then move nine or ten hexes to escape from retaliation on the infantry's turn, or even move towards it, attack, and then retreat back out of range. But when a unit was surrounded, as all of the Islo forces were, they had nowhere to go. Her militia could attack the unit next to them, maybe even kill it, but then they'd be stuck inside the encirclement until the following turn, even if a later unit managed to finally breach it.

"Nine attacks." Silver murmured quietly. "They're going to lose a third of their forces. If they are lucky."

"I don't think they're that lucky." Cayden said tentatively, pointing again to the War Frame. "If most of these units are on the higher count, a militia unit probably won't have the power to kill them in a single combat. She'll lose all of the milita, or most of her regular forces trying to escape, because anyone still in the encirclement when the next Warden turn starts is going to get obliterated once the rest of their army catches up."

"Can't Asch just split her formation? Bring them down closer to parity with the Wardens?" Sarah asked, scrutinizing the War Frame. "It wouldn't save everyone, but it'd lower the damage."

"I'm not sure." Cayden admitted. "I doubt it though. The Wardens moved away before they split their units, remember? I'm guessing you can't alter formations if they are adjacent to the enemy."

Silver tilted her head, then scowled. "Damn, you're probably right. It makes sense." She looked to him then. "Is there anything we can do to help them?"

Cayden shrugged. "That depends. How well can you ride?"

***

As it turned out, better than Cayden

"This sucks, this sucks, this sucks!" The young man cried, one hand clutching the pommel of his saddle for dear life as his steed galloped towards the Warden lines.

"Oh come on Cayden. This was your idea." Michael's voice came through crisp and clear over Cayden's headset, one of the few things he could hear at all besides the wind whipping past his ears.

"Aren't you from Iowa?" Celia asked slyly.

"Yeah. The modern part."

Silver's reply came even before Cayden could regret his choice of words. "There is such a thing?"

"You know what-"

"Could we focus just a little?" Shifty's voice overrode whatever poor insult Cayden had in mind, and drew all their attention back to the matter at hand.

It had already been a hard ride, and it was about to get harder.

The plan was a simple one. Bastion came before Islo in the turn order, and since they were outside the encirclement, Cayden's forces should be able to break the Warden trap without being subject to it.  At least, that was the theory.

In practice it would be a little more dicey.  His Infantry had to move three hexes just to reach the outside of the Warden line, and another four after that to reach the nearest city gate, which meant that they'd only be able to engage the first ring of Warden troops. This meant that the Cavalry graciously entrusted to him by Vilerat was going to do the brunt of the fighting. Even accounting for the natural 25% bonus that Cavalry had on the offensive, the Blitz tactic bonus, and the fact that cavalry could attack multiple times a turn, provided they defeated a formation with each attack, it would still be a close thing.

Which was where Cayden and his companions came in. Between the five of them alone they added over a thousand combat value to the unit. Nearly two, once the offensive bonuses were accounted for. More than enough to allow them to trample through each and every one of the five remaining units. And if they failed, there was still a second, fresh cavalry unit waiting  to clean up their mess.

There was, of course, one other problem. But that would have to wait until after.

"Not far now." Silver said as their horses navigated the bodies of nearly a hundred slain Warden soldiers, roughly half of which were already partially or mostly ash.

"So what do we do once we get into the hex? Just hang around with the cavalry? Or do we have to fight to provide the bonus?" Shifty asked.

"I'm honestly not sure. " Cayden winced. "I really wish we'd tested this when we-"

A sudden wave of heat flooded Cayden's chest, as though a fire had started next to his heart, cutting him off mid-sentence. And just like a fire, it spread, the heat expanding to his shoulders and abdomen, then to his arm and legs. It felt similar to the sensation that occured whenever he activated one of his combat skills, but worse, as if somehow stronger.

I can't move my arm. He realized a moment before he understood that he couldn't move anything. Even his eyes were no longer under his control, his perspective fixed to whatever the tower wanted to show him, like a cutscene from a first-person shooter.

His body moved under its own impetus, the once barely stable boy now upright and steady as his horse picked up the pace, rushing headlong towards Warden soldiers that had already turned to greet him.  Armed primarily with single-handed edged weapons, the Warden formation could not brace in any meaningful way, their line fracturing into pieces as the cavalry struck them with a sound unlike anything Cayden had ever heard, like thunder colliding with an artillery shell.

The whole of the combat was over in moments. So quickly that Cayden's body had scarcely begun to whirl it's horse for another pass when the last Warden soldier was pierced by a speartip.

Goon Kavallerie (Blitz) attacks Warden Formation [18th] (Total Defense) - Attack Value: 4725 vs. Defense Value 825.

The Pointy Third deals 100 damage to Beastman Formation.

Warden Formation (Total Defense) attacks Goon Kavallerie (Blitz) - Attack Value: 412  vs. Defense Value 2677.

Warden Formation deals 1 damage to The Pointy Third.

Warden Formation has been destroyed!

For just a moment, the fire dimmed. If that had been the end of the orders that he'd left in the War Frame, Cayden suspected control would have been returned to him there.  Instead, came the next order, the second in a queue of five attacks each predicated on the success of the others. The War Frame allowed for a complicated series of If-Then commands, which Cayden had appreciated at the time, but despised now. He wanted off the ride, out of the unnatural sensation of being a prisoner within how own body.  But that wouldn't be happening, not for another four formations.

Still, the combat results were promising.  It might be an unsettling violation of the very concept of free will, but at least they were winning while they did it.

His own voice built up to a scream of unbridled fury as the men and women of his formation closed ranks and began another charge towards the second enemy formation. Behind him he could hear Celia chanting away at a healing spell he'd never heard of, while a few bolts of fire and thrown knives further announced their intentions to the unfortunate subject of their stampede.

The second verse was same as the first, while the third made a fine capstone for their trilogy. Their combat losses barely registered, while the defeat of their enemies was total.  No Warden soldiers took flight, or dropped to their knees in surrender. Each had to be run down, each fighting to the last, albeit with greatly reduced efficiency as their already small numbers were further reduced.

Their only complications came as Goon Kavallerie began to advance on their fourth victim.  Ahead, Cayden could see their intended target, but unlike the previous attacks, he could also see another enemy formation on the move.

Warden soldiers, numbering perhaps twenty in total, were moving at a full run from their position in what must have been the adjacent hex, while Cayden's target simultaneously marched to meet them. The behaviour was curious, but Cayden was sure he had it figured out, even before an alert appeared on his display to spell out what he was seeing.

Warden Formation [22nd] reinforces Warden Formation [24th].

A defensive reinforcement tactic. Silver had actually theorized something of the sort might exist earlier in the week, she was going to be unbearably smug when all this was over.

The reinforcement was a good strategy, Cayden knew. If Asch had tried to lowball the enemy by hitting them with the militia, the reinforcements would step in and make the fight just difficult enough to punish her for it. It would have the beneficial effect of making her have to attack with a similar force all throughout the rest of the line, even though none of the later units used the same reinforcement tactic. The Warden general was frighteningly good.

Pity for him that he hadn't been able to account for Cayden's concealed forces.

Reinforcements or no, the Goon Kavellerie with Cayden at the head tore through the defending Warden forces as if they were not even there. Perhaps if the reinforcements had stacked their strength, they might have been strong enough to blunt the human's charge, but instead the tactic merely pulled a second enemy into the line of fire. More grist for the mill, as it were.

In total they rampaged through a total of seven enemy formations before victory at last released them from the clutches of combat. Cayden shuddered in uncontrolled revulsion when he finally regained control of himself, his reaction comparatively mild when put up against the awkwardly funny metallic heaves that came from Michael or the far less comedic tears that streamed down Celia's cheeks.

"Okay, I am not doing that again." Shifty said at last, his voice thick and hoarse from his involuntary battlecry.

"Yeah, count me out." Silver agreed, making a snipping motion with her fingers as she caught Cayden's attention. "Could you?"

"Not yet." He said apologetically. "I can't remove us from the unit until the start of next turn."

"Not a moment too soon." Michael said queasily.

"You know if you're going to throw up, you should probably take off the bucket." Cayden replied.

Michael shot daggers at Cayden, the effect, ironically, somewhat lessened by said helmet. "Leave my bucket out of this."

"Only because you asked nicely." Cayden smirked.

"So what now?" Shifty asked, a fair question considering Cayden had been a bit light on the details beyond 'Charge the Wardens.'

"Now comes the fun part." Cayden admitted. "We get to see if Asch opens the gate and lets us in, or if we all stand out here and probably die."

Chapter Nineteen

Day Nine – Midday Turn
Resources – F – 620 +20, Z – 630 +30, M – 240 +5, I – 540 +20, P +40, R +10
Completed – Upper Township V

"It seems I owe you a debt," Dinah said, her voice carrying over the raucous noise of marching soldiers as Elan troops continued to file into the city in her wake.  When neither of her two guests immediately replied, she pressed on. "You made quite an impression on my soldiers with your best impersonation of the Light Brigade."

The young man smiled, a certain mischief in his eyes as he replied. “Didn't that end poorly for the Light Brigade?”

The captain opened her mouth to reply, then scowled. “Hoisting me by my own petard, are you?”

“He is only human.” Silver observed, annoyed that Cayden had gotten to the retort before she could.

"My attaché, for example, thinks I misjudged you," Asch said after briefly holding his gaze. "Or, at the very least, was too hasty making any assessment so soon."

“And you?” Cayden asked.

The stern-faced woman's expression twitched for a moment as she fought against a crooked smile, one that eventually blossomed despite her best efforts. "Agnostic. But open to proof." She waved a hand in the direction of the Royal Quarter as she continued. "If you two will follow me? We have much to discuss."  Asch turned without waiting for a reply, her brisk steps setting a steady pace for a few seconds before she realized neither player was following her.

"We're still attached to our unit." Cayden explained, we can't go more than a mile from the gate."

"Ah." Asch laughed. "Well that complicates things. This way then, there is a decent enough tavern nearby."

The silence that accompanied their walk was just the wrong side of awkward.  A grown, professional woman flanked on either side by teenagers who were, for the next few weeks at least, her peers. It wasn't hard for either of them to see why Dinah might dislike that particular arrangement.

“Thank you, for opening the gates.” Silver said at last.

“Not like you left me much of a choice.” Asch retorted with a tilt of her chin. “I'd have had a mutiny on my hands if I hadn't opened the gates to permit you.” As Cayden and Silver smiled, Asch continued. “Not that I suppose you imagine it'll do you much good now that you're trapped in here with us.”

Cayden's eyes narrowed at that. “Excuse me?”

“The walls?” When the confusion on the young man's expression only deepened, she clarified. “The Warden's summoned five walls in total. One behind our field army, and then four more on the gates furthest from their advance.” As horror replaced confusion, Asch allowed herself a bitter laugh “You didn't know.”

At any other time that bark of laughter might have driven Cayden into a fury, yet suddenly all he could feel was a blurry numbness. Warden troops would besiege the remaining two gates before he got so much as a turn to react, while the newly magicked walls would keep them pinned for at least long enough for the Wardens to complete the encirclement.  It was just as Asch had said.

They were trapped.

“Ignorance is often mistaken for heroism.” The officer murmured the aphorism with a certain sense of irony.

“If you'd told us-” Cayden began.

"But I couldn't." Dinah shot back. "Even if we'd agreed to share information beforehand, their trap cut off all my communications. By the time I could have told you, it would have been too late." She looked back over her shoulder to the ragged bands of Elan troops that were still following in their wake. "Besides, if I had told you, would you have abandoned us? Abandoned them?"

As much as he hated to admit it, she had a point.

“So what is our plan?” Silver asked, ever the pragmatist.

“At the moment, I don't see that much has changed.” Asch shrugged. “If anything, it reinforces my original strategy. A breakout is out of the question, even if we smash one of the walls, we have to assume the enemy will use the same strategy to bog us down with chaff to keep an escape from getting any real distance.”

“What about an alternate method of retreat?”

“There is one possibility.” Asch acknowledged. “I had a few of my men investigating the sewers to be sure there was no danger of a surprise attack once we retreat to the Royal Quarter, and they discovered-”

“A dungeon, I know. It won't work.” Cayden interrupted. “Elan can't pass through an instance gate into a dungeon.”

The officer's face fell. “You're sure?”

“It can't hurt to try, but yes. I'm sure.”

"Then there is nothing," Dinah said. "When the time comes we can use the dungeon to evacuate all of the players. Hopefully, we will have bled them enough, and bought enough time to make it worthwhile." The woman smiled grimly. "If we are lucky they try and starve us out. That would buy you quite a bit of time for your plan, wouldn't it?"

Cayden clenched his jaw, teeth grinding against one another as Asch spoke. Islo was home to thousands of Elan, thousands of men, women, even children whom she had already written off for dead, regardless of the outcome of the siege.

"You're going to expand your militia."

It wasn't a question, Asch could see that much plainly on his expression. "I am."

"You're not even going to try and come up with an alternative?" Color flooded his cheeks as he pressed her.

"Such as?"

"I don't know!" Cayden shot back angrily, brushing away Silver's hand as she tried to hold back his fury. "See if they can dig an escape tunnel if you plan to be under siege that long. Knock a hole in the back wall, or hell, just lower them down on ropes if you're worried the Wardens are going to cross and leave the rear vulnerable."

"Any mass exodus is going to be noticed. They'll be run down by Warden cavalry who have nothing better to do during the siege." Asch retorted.

"If you'd sent them away a few days ago, like I told you to, they'd already be safe on the Bastion side of the damn river!" Cayden shot back, nearly as angry about her being right as he was about her failure to act when the time had been ripe.

Any pretense of walking to a destination had long since vanished, the two squaring off with one another in the middle of the street, Asch's hand noticeably on the pommel of her dagger as she spat her own venom in reply. "A mistake, fine! What would you have me do now? Spend their lives for a purpose, or leave them unarmed and terrified as the Wardens take their city.  I can't very well teleport them out now can I?"

"Why not?" Silver cut in, before Cayden could throw either words or the punch that his balled fist suggested he would prefer.

"Why not what?" Asch snarled.

"Why can't you teleport them out?"

The Israeli officer rolled her eyes. "Do I look like a spellcaster?"

"No, not you." Silver said irritably. "We were teleported to Bastion by one of the Duke's mages. Victoria, I think her name was?"

It was hard for Silver to keep a straight face as Asch and Cayden went through the same series of expressions. Irritation, confusion, realization followed finally by complete, red faced embarrassment.

"The Ducal Palace has been closed since the event began." Asch replied sternly, though there was no mistaking the fact that she had forgotten the Elan sorceress just as readily as Cayden had.

"Then we go knocking at the end of turn. Kick the door down if we have to." Silver replied, eyes turned to Cayden. "Unless you have a better plan."

"Nothing off the top of my head." Cayden admitted. "But what makes you think she can help. Teleporting seven people from here to Bastion is a far cry from teleporting the population of an entire city."

"She might not be up to it herself." Silver conceded. "But with help, she might be."

"What sort of help?" Asch inquired.

"Player help, along with a generous helping of the city's magical power. Which I doubt you'll mind spending since it'll all be lost anyways." Silver smiled wanly. "I've been talking over some of the basics with Roberta the Builder back at-"

"Wait, Roberta th-"

"Not important!" Silver cut in, desperate to keep the topic at hand. "One of the things we've discussed is the possibility of enhancing her abilities beyond the novice level by having other mages, human mages, linking up with her as part of a ritual spell. If that holds true for her, it should probably hold true for this one as well."

"And if she's above a novice you think she can teleport larger groups?" Asch

Silver considered the question for a moment, and then shrugged. "Without talking to her, I can't be sure. But I think so." The girl thought about her own answer for half a heartbeat before adding. "Actually, I think we'd be better off doing something more than that. Maybe a teleportation circle. It wouldn't go nearly as far as Bastion, but it doesn't have to if the goal is just to buy some distance to run away."

"You were going to tell me about these conversations when exactly?" Cayden asked.

"When I had something to report." Silver scowled. "I never got the chance to test it out before Vilerat summoned you."

"Nobody summons-"

"Yeah, yeah. Sure thing Megatron." Silver snorted with laughter.

"How much would you need?" Asch asked.

"Magic? No idea, but let's default to all of it and be pleasantly surprised when it is less."

Asch seemed unimpressed by the reply. "And how many players?"

"As many as we can spare, to be honest. Myself for sure, probably Celia as well, assuming her magic is compatible. If you have anyone else, we'll use them too." Silver shrugged. "Again, really hypothetical."

"Even a 0.1% chance is better than the flat zero we had a few minutes ago." Cayden's voice barely contained his relief.

"Doesn't some of your plan still hinge on us remaining?" Asch's eyes were on the young man as she spoke. "To hold the Wardens in place long enough, I mean.  If we retreat too soon that would impact your delaying tactic."

Cayden briefly scratched his chin as he considered her words. "Yes and no. They'll get done with the city faster, but if we set things up right, they'll be weaker for it."

"Set things up right?" Asch repeated with some consternation.

"An idea I had a few days ago on the march. At the time I didn't think you'd go for it, but if we're abandoning the city. Well, I think you might like this one."

Chapter Twenty

Day 10 - Midday
Resources – F – 680 +20, Z – 720 +30, M – 255 +5, I – 600 +20, P +40, R +10
Completed – Upper Township VI. (New Specialization Unlocked)

"All right you raggedy sons of bitches, form up!" Aleph shouted, the pommel of his sword punctuating the end of his sentence with a clatter that, like his words, was almost entirely drowned out by the roar of a nearby formation. It didn't matter, the words themselves weren't really what was important, he'd begun to learn. In the din of battle, the men could barely hear him, but they looked to him all the same. In a lot of ways, it reminded him of raising his boy. The infant didn't have even half an idea what he was saying, but the fact that he said it was reassuring enough.

"In front of you, at least ten thousand of those stone-faced bastards." He pointed with the tip of his blade to indicate the well-ordered horde just across the thin river that separated the Royal Quarter from the city proper. "Behind you, at least ten thousand of your fellow Elan. Your neighbors, your barbers, for some of you perhaps, even your wives and children!"

"Between them, you." His words continued unabated as he paced back and forth up the line. Aleph never had much-liked heights, and given the option, would have much preferred to be giving this speech with firm ground beneath his feet, rather than on the allure of the tallest wall in the damn city. "But our new commander is generous! We don't have to stay here all day, or all week, with our arms getting tired from breaking open so many Stoneheads. No, as far as he is concerned, this is an afternoon outin-"

The sudden flinch of his soldiers forced Aleph to a knee, mere moments before a ballista bolt rocketed just overhead. It wouldn't have hit him in either case, but even with a couple of dozen feet of clearance between them, the weapon had come too close for comfort.

“Do you mind?!” Aleph shouted over one shoulder, to the mirth of his soldiers. His heart beat heavily as he stood, a glare alternating between his men and the enemy. The latter was a far greater concern, the first of their great siege ladders moving into position. “Looks like they're so impatient they won't even let me finish my speech.” He snickered. “You know what to do. Smash their ladders, break their heads and we'll be back in Bastion in time for dinner.”

A deep, low horn sounded on the Warden side of the field, a terrible and unnatural air that split what little calm remained in the air. The sound of it reverberated across his skin, prickling gooseflesh as the bottom dropped out of his stomach. There was nausea and fear, like the sound of some great animal growling nearby.  The humans had a name for the noise, but it was one Aleph hadn't bothered to learn.

He'd already heard the noise three times in a week; he knew what it meant. The Wardens were coming.

As the deep note faded, a new noise replaced it, a sound far more familiar to any common soldier. The harsh snap and clattering whistle of arrows in flight. Hundreds of them. Perhaps thousands.

His pep-talk hadn't been entirely accurate. While it was true that the Warden forces numbered somewhere above ten thousand, they were only facing a fraction of that number. The section of curtain wall that bordered the river was only two miles in length, and even though it expanded slightly on the opposite side of the river, the space was still just large enough for about twenty-five hundred men at any one time.

Twenty-five hundred men could still shoot a lot of arrows. Fortunately, they had among the best defensive positions one could hope for, including a high battlement for just this sort of situation.

Almost as one, his men pressed forward, locking their shields together in an impenetrable wall above their heads as they sheltered behind the thick stone battlement.  Hundreds of arrows clattered off stone, and hundreds more overshot the wall entirely to land in the courtyard below.  Only a few dozen found any purchase on the top of the wall itself, and of those, the majority came nowhere near a shield, let alone a soldier.

As a single attack, the volley was less than useless. The complete failure sparked another round of laughter among Cayden's men, their morale soaring in the face of such a flimsy first strike.  Then the second wave hit, followed by the third. The Warden archers had thousands of arrows, and the lack of an opposing force of artillery left them free to fire until they had spent the entirety of their ammunition.

Each round of the withering fire took its toll, wearing down arms and inflicting the occasional injury here and there down the defensive line. The laughter didn't last, especially since every man on the wall knew what was coming next.

The Wardens had used a similar tactic in their assault on the outer wall, to great effect, forcing the defenders to keep their heads down while their infantry got into position to begin to storm the defenses. They hadn't even lasted the full morning, not with so much wall to defend.  The Wardens had shattered them in three separate places, forcing a complete retreat mere hours after the battle had been joined.

They could have lasted longer, Aleph believed, if the players had devoted the militia to the wall instead of whatever madness they had put them up to in the city. Even just having them absent might have been enough, considering how damaging it had been to morale to watch as Islo's citizens tore their home itself to shreds.

Aleph couldn't begin to fathom their plan, why they had devoted so much manpower to ripping the city to pieces. Some little parts of it had made sense, such as the barricades they had constructed as they'd shattered structures, and thrown belongings into the streets, but there was no rhyme or reason to where they'd placed them. They didn't help the retreat, in many places they actively impeded it, in fact.

The Wardens wouldn't have to destroy Islo once they captured it, the humans had done it for them.

Despite their earlier setbacks, however, he was confident that they could hold the Royal Quarter for quite some time, even if the Field Marshall didn't need them to. Defending the outer wall had always been destined to fail, with the Warden forces able to bring the entirety of their numerical advantage to bear the odds were too great.  Here the odds were, if not in their favor, significantly strengthened.

Their forces were shaken from the morning engagements, true, but they were also concentrated. They had a river between them and the enemy, and had ruined the bridges in their retreat. If the Wardens thought they would take the Royal Quarter with ease, they were in for a sore surprise.

A hard thud struck the wall, causing it to shudder beneath Aleph's feet. His first thought was catapult, but then, that had been his first thought this morning as well. The Wardens seemed aware of how ineffectual their heavy artillery would be against the powerful and ancient walls of Islo, so while they did take the occasional pot shot, as evidenced by his near decapitation earlier, they had saved the weapons for last on their first assault. The sound wasn't a weapon; it was a tool.

"Siege Ladder!" Aleph cried, rising from behind the defensive merlon, sword, and shield in hand. "Come on you apes! Do you want to live forever?"

Another hail of arrows rained down upon them as the Fighting First rose to confront the new threat, the weapons blessedly finding nothing but shield and air in their flight. There would be no more; Aleph knew, not with enemy forces rushing up to meet them with all speed.

His word choice hadn't been entirely accurate, he now realized. What had appeared to be a ladder on first glance, had been assembled into a device that was as much ramp or staircase as it was ladder. Unable to cross the river to fix it near the wall's base, as they had done outside the city, the Wardens had relied on a much larger contraption, one that was supported in a half dozen places by great pillars of earth that erupted sometime during the enemy's volley fire.

The magics had helped create a much more able siege weapon, one that would be simultaneously easier to climb and harder to detach. A worrisome combination.

"Axemen!" Aleph shouted.  They had some time before the first of the Warden troops reached the top of the weapon, and they needed to do work while they could. Below he could see that the earth supporting the device had wrapped around the very frame of it, giving it an incredibly stable base.  This would not be so simple as pushing the ladder over; they would need to destroy at least a few feet of its top if they had any chance to disable it.

Perhaps just as concerning, was what he saw below.

The bridges that they had taken great pains to destroy upon their withdrawal had been replaced by the same infuriating sorcery that was supporting the Warden's siege weapons. A pair of twenty-foot-wide stone arches now extended from one river bank to the other, Warden soldiers flowing over them faster than the river ran beneath. In the lead up to the battle, he'd questioned the wisdom of leaving some five hundred of their men in the garrison. He no longer did.

Nor did he have time to gawk and ruminate over strategy, not as the first of the Warden soldiers reached the crest of the ladder, spear in hand.

Three blades pierced the Terracotta warrior before he could even lay a foot upon the battlement itself.  In an instant all semblance of life drained from the creature, the unnatural elasticity of its earthen limbs taking on a sudden rigidity as it toppled from the ladder, no doubt to shatter on the ground far below.

A cheer ran through his men, many of whom pressed forward in an attempt to get a swing at the next warrior as it arrived. First blood was theirs, such as it was. As was second, third, fourth and fifth.

Aleph had never had the misfortune of assaulting the walls of a keep, but he could not imagine how any Elan could rush into the waiting point of the enemy's blade the way these Wardens could. They were relentless and without fear, arriving two or three at a time and being struck down nearly as quickly.  Each tried something new, a few taking faint swings at their Elan executioners, others trying to block or parry from their awkward position.

Eventually, a strategy paid off. One of the advancing Wardens took the blades of his attackers, a sword to each shoulder and a third through her abdomen, but the stone-faced woman kept coming.  She threw herself bodily onto one of her attackers, unyielding hands closing about the man's throat as she bared down upon him. She was slain a moment later, but not before her distraction allowed two more of her comrades to find purchase on the battlement.

Slowly but surely, Aleph's forces were pushed back, until a small pocket of the Warden soldiers had formed. A brief skirmish erupted, one of his men falling under a crooked dagger held by one of the dirt-fleshed monstrosities. Then the tide swung again, the Elan pushing forward, laying low the few Wardens who had dared to challenge their supremacy.

And so it went. In the thick of combat Aleph could spare little thought and even fewer glances up and down the line of the battlement, but what he did see looked remarkably similar.  The Elan were giving better than they got, but it was by no means the sure thing they had hoped for.  Here and there a failure produced a threat, exhaustion leading to further mistakes that cost yet more lives.  A small breakout to their left threatened their flank in a way that might have been fatal had reserve forces not stepped in to cover them.

Time was barely a thought in the maelstrom of combat, only that persistent reminder at the back of Aleph's mind. Just a few hours.

“Heave!” Aleph shouted, throwing every ounce of his strength into the aching muscle of his shoulder as the latter in turn was braced against the back of his shield. Behind and beside him, his men did the same, putting all their weight into driving yet another successful cluster of Warden soldiers from the crest of the wall.

Each of the six stone soldiers were somehow heavier than they looked, and the footing was treacherous with a tangle of limbs, but the Elan prevailed. The weight lifted in stages as the stoneheads toppled one by one from the edge of the wall, back down onto the ladder from whence they'd come. “Now!”

The mass of soldiers parted as the axemen returned.  Their work was almost done, and the warriors they had toppled back down the ladder had opened just the gap they needed.

A sharp crack accompanied each swing of the ax, loud enough to be heard over the ever-present sounds of combat. Each impact was music and salvation to the Elan soldiers who watched their fellows, balanced precariously on the edge of the battlement, taking swing after swing with reckless abandon. The sound of splintering was heaven itself as the head of the ladder gave way, parts of it plummeting to the ground below while remnants clung to the wall where their metal spikes had pierced it.

It wasn't perfect, the opened gap only three feet wide, but with a few men left to dissuade jumpers, it would be enough. The Wardens weren't coming up this ladder.

Only twelve more to go.

Chapter Twenty-One

Day 10 - Evening
Resources – F – 700 +20, Z – 750 +30, M – 260 +5, I – 620 +20, P +40, R +20
Completed – Keep Repair III (Library)

“Is everyone in position?” Cayden whispered. A chorus of affirmations resounded through his display, some voices he recognized, almost with many more that he didn't.

One voice came through more clearly than the others, with a soothing calmness he certainly didn't feel. "You can stop worrying. It is going to work."

"Prepare for the best, plan for the worst," Cayden said wryly.

“I am ninety-nine percent sure that isn't how that expression goes.” Came Shifty's reply.

"Well, you sure as hell better hope it is." Cayden laughed. "You're sure you don't want backup?"

He could almost hear the Carnivalist's eyes rolling through the audio. “We've got two stealthy characters, one at each gate. So unless you've got an extra one you're just planning to spring on me, no-”

“Okay, okay. I get it.” he relented.

A quick glance at the timer in the corner of his display told him that it was almost time. The Warden evening turn was going to begin any moment now, so it wasn't like they had time to fix things if something had gone wrong.

Not that anything as simple as that would stop him from worrying.

“Roberta. You're sure he wo-”

"For the third time, Field Marshall, Yes." It had taken considerable prodding to get the Elan woman to travel back to Islo when he'd concocted this plan, but it had taken far more to get her comfortable enough to use a player mirror that they had left in the Royal Quarter. "I have reinforced and jammed the four remaining gates, and no, the enemy will not be able to detect it unless they physically try the gates."

"Hey, can you blame me for-"

“Yes!” Came a chorus of voices too numerous to count.

Apparently, he'd been a bit neurotic about the plan.

“Time is coming up.” Silver said quietly.

“Okay. Good hunting, everyone.  Silver, you give us the word.” Cayden said.

With that said he sunk back against the wall, the final rays of the setting sun cascading in through a nearby shattered window in a way that sent a rainbow skittering across the floor of what had once been the common room of the Inn of the Dizzy Sheep.

This had been the part of his plan that he'd liked the least, the one that pained him still.  And he'd only spent a few months with this city as his home. He couldn't imagine what the Elan had felt when they'd been ordered to smash everything in sight, to pile books and clothing, to topple buildings that had once been their homes. Some had nearly rioted at just this indignity, let alone what would come next.

And then there was Sarah. Her reaction had been one of just barely restrained violence.  Cayden couldn't even say he blamed her.

The sound of heavy footfalls shook Cayden from his ruminations and caused him to sink even deeper into the shadows behind the bar.  It wasn't the first patrol that had marched past his hiding place since the Wardens had taken the city that morning, but with luck, it would be the last.

Cayden wondered if the sight of Warden troops in motion would ever stop being eerie. Eventually, probably just in time for him to be faced with some equally unsettling creature.

It was the fluidity that bothered him. When they stood still they looked like any picture he'd ever seen of the Terracotta army he'd first heard about in a second-grade social studies class, even down to the individual wear and tear.  He'd seen a fully functional Warden soldier with a head half crumbled away due to imperfection in its craftsmanship.  When they moved, it was uncanny, as though he were seeing a different statue in each instant.  They didn't move like people; they moved with the facsimile of how a person should move.

He shuddered as the two soldiers marched out of sight, his revulsion put on hold as a text message appeared in front of him.

Bammer: Cayden, I've got someone special here.

“Special how?” Cayden asked. The message wasn't from one of his party members, but the name was familiar.  Samuel, the other thief. Bammer, as his fellow soldiers called him.

When there was no immediate reply, Cayden frowned and pulled up his display, typing out the same question in text. Bammer was in a very precarious position, so it made sense he didn't want to talk. But it was still strange he wasn't on the call at all.

Bammer: Special as in officer.

Cayden: Can't be an Officer.

A prompt interrupted Cayden before he could explain further, an text box materializing on his display, informing him that Bammer was trying to bring him in on a video call. He quickly accepted, and the center of his AR display was soon dominated by a video of a Warden officer on horseback.

Special was indeed the correct word to use, as was officer. Possibly even general. If he'd been on foot, the man would have stood a head taller than any Warden soldier, or even any Warden officer, that they had seen thus far. More telling was the intricate way this one had been constructed.  He was painted, and appeared to be dressed in fine silks as well as armor, silks that moved so convincingly, and yet so unnaturally that it made Cayden's eyes hurt to look at them for long. This was a Warden built to stand out.

"Okay. So maybe it is an officer." Cayden admitted begrudgingly. "Back to the drawing board on that theory."

“Skill use: Observe.” The words were barely more than a breath, but they had an immediate effect as Cayden's view of the officer was further enhanced with a less than helpful status readout:

Temüjin

Level 35(Boss)

HP: ????/????

MP: ????/????

TP: ????/????

Skills: Unknown

Resistances: Unknown

Weaknesses: Unknown

Special: Construct Traits

"Yeah, that certainly looks like final boss material." Cayden murmured.  A few more figures wandered into frame as the officer passed, a compliment of soldiers Cayden suspected to be bodyguards followed directly in his wake, with a second set forming a close rank around a robed Warden that Cayden suspected must be the caster.

“Level 28.” Bammer seemed to be of a mind with Cayden as he continued to whisper. “If that is the caster, we might want to try and make a run at him. Make things at Bastion a lot simpler.”

“Too risky.” He replied. “If you can keep an eye on where he goes, and we get a good shot then maybe. But if he keeps sticking around with his boss he's too much for any of us to handle.”

"Maybe we'll get lucky, and we'll get him in the bargain," Michael said, adding his two cents to the conversation.

Cayden scoffed. “We should be so lucky.”

“Quiet down boys.” Silver said abruptly. “Looks like it is almost time.”

He started to reply, then thought better of it. Instead, Cayden took a moment to draw a few deep breaths focusing on the rise and fall of his chest to steady his nerves. If this doesn't work.

Seconds passed in silence, as Cayden turned his focus once more to the timer at the corner of his display. Six minutes into the Warden turn, shouldn't he be able to hear the start of the battle? Or was he just too far away. He began to stand as Silver's voice cut through his thoughts with a single command. “Do it!”

A heartbeat passed, then the sound of an explosion rocked the city of Islo. Another heartbeat and a second equally powerful detonation shook the already profoundly damaged exterior of the Dizzy Sheep, the rainbow on the floor of the inn vanishing as what remained of the windowsill crashed into the empty street outside.

The signal was hard to miss, but even still, Cayden lingered longer than he should have.  By the time she'd been told, Sarah didn't have much say in stopping the plan, but she did have just enough to guilt him into being the one stationed at the Dizzy Sheep.  What was the Game of Thrones quote? He who passes the sentence should swing the sword?

He who burns the city should set the fire.

“Natha Ierith.” Cayden invoked, a wave of flame erupting from his hand to engulf the nearby staircase.   The runic spell was large on area yet low on damage, but it didn't matter, no, it was actually better. Too strong of a fire much burn itself out before it really got going, and for this to work, it needed to go everywhere.

He cast the spell six more times, depleting the majority of his MP as he made his way to the door.  By the time he exited, the inn was fully ablaze, as were buildings on either side of it, and part of the broad street that had been piled with anything and everything flammable they could find.

Why did he always end up burning things to the ground to solve his problems?

Cayden continued to discharge waves of magical fire as he began a lazy jog along his slated route. He knew his fellow players, twenty in all, would be doing the same. Bit by bit, they were putting nearly every inch of the now abandoned city to the torch, save for a few narrow corridors that would, or at least should, allow them to reach the Royal Quarter before the conflagration grew entirely out of their control.

The Wardens would not be so lucky. Barricades that had appeared useless when the Elan soldiers had retreated to the Royal Quarter would prove remarkably effective once doused with alchemist's fire.  Not that they were needed after those two explosions.  No, the barricades existed only to sew confusion for the enemy commander, to make him waste time and movement trying to find an escape route rather than throwing himself against the Royal Quarter's now weakened defenses.

There was no escape. If Silver had given the go-ahead, that meant the enemy had stopped marching troops into the city.  As much as half the Warden forces, along with their commander, should be trapped in the furnace they were creating. Trapped because Shifty and Bammer had just collapsed both of the remaining gates into a pile of impassible rubble. Trapped because if they tried to use any of the other exits, they would find them bound and reinforced by Roberta's creation magic.

His jog turned into a run as he ignited the last building on his list, the street behind him awash in flame, while the ones ahead of him were already beginning to be scorched by that same cruel mistress.

The paths they had laid out in advance to avoid getting caught in their own trap were serpentine, most large enough for one or two people abreast, so as to preclude the possibility that any substantial Warden formation could take advantage of them. Cayden's, for example, took him through two tight alleyways and through three half-collapsed houses, before at last depositing him at the southernmost edge of the Royal Quarter.

From there it was down a trip into the cringe-worthy sewers.  Asch's investigations had indeed found an unsecured link between the city and the Royal Quarter, one that would have proven exceedingly dangerous if the Wardens had ever been given enough time to locate it. As it was, the entrance provided a stealthy, if somewhat distasteful, method of entering and exiting their secured position.

“How are we doing?” Cayden asked as Michael grasped his forearm and helped him over the last lip of the sewer exit.

“So far so good. You're the third one back.” Michael replied. “One of the toy soldie-” A sharp glance from the nearby Dinah cut the derogatory nickname short. “One of Asch's men ran into a patrol, but he managed to lose them on his B-route. Everyone should be back within a few minutes.”

“And the army?”

"Holding," Asch replied, looking up to the battlements overhead. "For now. Most of the rest are through the portal already, but it is going to be tight. We probably should have put a few dozen more on the battlements."

Cayden shook his head. “Every man we put up there is a man we're going to lose.” He said, his heart stinging at the fact that he had to say it at all. To get the most out of their one trap, they had to allow the Wardens one more turn to move troops into the city, but that came at a cost. Someone had to guard the Royal Quarter, and the hundred and fifty men they'd left behind to do it were not going to be able to escape with the rest of them.

Fighting to win was even harder than he'd expected it to be.

“Everything set up and ready to torch here?” He asked, turning his attention away from the uncomfortable knot in his stomach.

Michael grinned wickedly. “Ready to blow. The Ducal Palace turned out to have an alchemy lab.”

“I'm sure the Duke will be happy we're putting it to good use.”

"I'm sure the Duke would have us all hanged if he could get away with it," Dinah said with something just barely approaching humor in her tone. "He was... uncooperative when we finally removed him from the Palace."

“That will be a fun conversation. I'm sure he'll be reasonable ab-”

Before he could continue, a voice cut in over his audio feed. “Are you guys seeing this?”

“Yeah, but who the hell is that?”

“I don't know, but she's tearing through them like tissue paper.”

"Guys, cut the crosstalk." Silver barked. "Someone with eyes, give us a feed."

“I've got it.” Came an unknown voice, followed by another video call notification.

The video feed was not great, both in the sub-par device recording and streaming it, as well as the nauseating head bobbing as the source, struggled to get into a position with a clear shot. Twice the feed hung and skipped rapidly to catch up before at last, it stabilized into something resembling a sensible image.

A blue-haired young woman tearing her way through Warden soldiers with her bare hands.

***

"Command: Call Sarah!" Cayden shouted in a mixture of panic and fury. When the device replied with an angry buzz, it took every ounce of his self-control not to scream at the top of his lungs. "Oh for f-  Command: Call Desdaemona."

This time he was rewarded with a soft chime, followed by a quiet jingle as the software embedded in his AR display paired off against his mirror to make the call. A few seconds later, another chime, a moment of dead air, then the sound of ragged breath. “A little busy right now Cayden!”

“I can see that. What the hell do you think you're doing.”

“Putting an end to this.” She replied, punctuating her word with a martial kiai as her right leg swept through the midsection of a Warden soldier, bisecting the stone soldier just above the waist.

“Sarah, there are thousands of Warden soldiers out there. Even if you make it-”

“Busy now. Talk later.”

Before Cayden could say another word, a pair of soft chimes signaled her decision to end the call.

“Goddamn it!” Cayden swore. “Silver, maybe she'll listen to you.”

“I'll try.” Came the voice from his headset.

“What is she trying to do?” Michael asked incredulously, having missed Sarah's side of the conversation as he watched the video of the charming waitress brutally tearing through Warden troops with seemingly no regard to their attacks.

“I have a pretty good idea.” Cayden frowned, manipulating a few options on his display before speaking again. “Bammer, do you still have eyes on that officer.”

“Neg. He shouldn't be hard to find though. He was heading straight down the Royal Road in your direction.”

Cayden threw up his hands. “Stupid.”

“What?” Michael asked, still not getting it.

“She's making a run for the enemy officer.”

"Isn't that good?" Michael asked, gesturing to the feed on his display. "She's tearing through them like they aren't even there."

"Officer is a level 35 boss. She is level 40. Even if she does take him down, she isn't getting out of there alive." He pounded a fist into his hand and called out into the open air once again. "Silver, please tell me-"

"She blocked calls after the first ring. Probably too much of a distraction." Silver said apologetically. "I can try and divert some of the-"

"No," Cayden replied flatly. "Get everyone back here and through that portal."

Dinah's eyes lit up in surprise, alongside with the first real, genuine smile he'd ever seen on her face. “I'll go with you.”

“Are you sure?”

"Wait, what do you mean go-" Michael asked, his eyes flickering back and forth between the two. "Oh, you have got to be kidding. You just said it is suicide for her and now you're going out there?!"

"Safety in numbers," Cayden replied as he turned and began to walk in the direction of the nearest of the two gates.

“And you're going along with this madness?” Michael asked, fresh anger in his tone as he turned his attention to Asch.

"Heroism is often mistaken for madness." The older woman said with a chuckle, extending her arm and manipulating virtual space until an enormous two-headed great-ax materialized into her grip. "This is honestly one of the better ideas the boy has ever had."

"We'll get her and ditch in the sewers," Cayden explained as he reached the gate and the sally port door to the embedded in the wall to the side of it. Some fifty soldiers manned the defense, ready to abandon it the moment they received the all clear to run for the nearby portal, but as of yet the door, reinforced by Roberta's magic, was holding.

“And if we get a good shot at the officer?”

"He is twice our level, what exactly do you plan to do to him?" Cayden scowled. "If it looks like Sarah can take him down, great, then cover her. Hopefully, we'll get to her before she gets to him."

Nearby, Michael sighed in frustration. “You know you two are nuts, right?”

"I know you weren't holding your sword a minute ago," Cayden observed.

"I hate you so much right now." Michael spat. "Let's get this over with."

Chapter Twenty-Two

The outer door of the sally port swung open to silence. It was one of the other things that made the Wardens such uncomfortable foes.  A goblin or a Beastman might shout obscenities or war cries in their language. A powerful monster might roar or give some other indication of its displeasure. A Warden soldier did none of that.  They simply re-oriented, fixed their weapons and went on the attack with an almost terminator-esque verve to kill their new target.

Fortunately, as far as the siege of Islo was concerned, if anyone was Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was Dinah.

The foot-wide blade of her ax swept through the bodies of three Warden soldiers, as she emerged into view, killing two and gravely wounding the third as the weight of the weapon sent the injured soldier flying, in an impressive display that would have given pause to any living opponent. The attack had its flaws, but the comparatively tremendous wind-down time after her use of the cleave skill was no weakness at all when she had Cayden and Michael to back her up.

They came out the door behind her at a dead run, swords lashing out at the nearest Warden forces to take advantage of what little element of surprise remained. Behind them a few Warden soldiers swarmed the sally port, their attempt stifled as the Elan soldiers inside slammed and barred the door behind the players a moment before Dinah 'rewarded' their tactic with two overwhelming swings of her ax.

Warden soldiers were everywhere around them, their shadowed forms illuminated only by the roaring hellscape that lay just across the river.  There were more than expected, but it shouldn't be a problem.  Already he could see formation after formation pulling back from the wall, retreating down this street or that one as their commander ordered them towards perspective escape routes that would ultimately prove fruitless. What units weren't retreating were attacking, their focus on the battlements or the gates, trying to break the Royal Quarter's defenses in hopes of finding shelter from the roaring conflagration outside.

If these units had been organized against them, their little trio wouldn't stand a chance, but there was no order to this.  Their only threat was the knee-jerk offense of individual nearby Wardens.  That they could deal with.

"To the North bridge!" Cayden ordered. The Wardens were particularly thick there, but trying to swim or use the South bridge would take too long. Sarah was fast and driven.  If they wanted to catch up to her, the only hope they had was to follow her wake for lack of a better term. After all, if the enemy were chasing her, then they wouldn't be impeding them.

Together, the three of them began cutting their way through the Warden troops with a steady rotation of skill usage. Dinah's would use her area of effect attacks, killing or injuring a cluster of enemy troops, then Cayden and Michael would rush in, snagging the enemy aggro and putting down the wounded Warden troopers before any nearby healers could clear away some of the damage.

It was slow going at first, leapfrogging from one group of enemies to the next, but the longer they fought, the easier it became. Apart from a few archers taking pot shots, the Warden troops were not smart enough to vary their tactics or to adapt on the fly to the player's strategy.  And like anything else, the more they did it, the better they got at it. By the time they'd reached the bridge, nearly three dozen Warden soldiers lay in pieces in their wake.

"I'm going ahead," Cayden shouted to his companions, bracing his legs beneath himself as he shouted. "Personal Skill Use: Leap Attack!"

The jump carried him from the bank of the river a few feet from the bridge to the middle of it, his sword quite literally disarming one of the Warden troops on the newly constructed earthen bridge as he landed. Two more struggled to bring their long weapons to bear in the packed crowd, but they were unable to get them in line with Cayden's body before he intoned two words of runic power "Jegara Karatha!"

A wave of magical force pulsed from two of Cayden's upraised fingers, followed by an immense explosion that cracked the earth beneath his feet, but thankfully did not shatter it.  The Wardens nearest him, on the other hand, had no such luck, their bodies detonating into little more than gravel as they were blown away from him.

Those a little further away were knocked off their feet, the majority blown clear off the side of the bridge and into the water below. The water wouldn't hurt them, he knew, it might even save them from the fire, but it got them out of the way, which was all he could have asked for.

"You are going to need to explain that later," Dinah shouted as she ran past him, her ax whirling once over her head before collapsing down onto the torso of a Warden soldier struggling to recover from the blast.

Cayden laughed. He'd always been garbage at keeping secrets for long.

Past the bridge, the density of the Warden soldiers began to thin dramatically, which in turn allowed Cayden and his companions to pick up the pace to a full run. Here or there a Warden soldier would issue forth from a building, or a nearby formation, but in ones and twos, the typical Warden soldier was no threat at all to any of them.

Skill Level Up: Sprint

Type: Passive

Skill Level: Novice Level 9

Effect: Improved running speed by 13%.

Cost: 9.2 TP per Second + Penalty for Armor weight.

The notification at the edge of Cayden's hub drew another laugh.  His skills had the worst, or maybe the best possible timing when it came to level ups.

"I don't suppose either of you can jump?" Cayden asked after nearly two minutes of running. Ahead of them, one of their barricades accented his query, a ten-foot-tall mound of burning refuse that would have been impossible for a normal human to safely circumvent.

The question earned nothing more than dirty looks from his compatriots. A man in the heaviest armor a player could buy, and a woman with an ax bigger than he was.  It kinda was a dumb question.

“I think there is a path around if we-”

“No need.” Dinah interrupted with a smirk. “Just keep out of the way. Skill Use: Earthsplitter.”

Asch skidded to a stop just before that boundless inferno, her right leg bracing beneath her as she brought the head of her ax behind her body.  Its edge glowed with a violet light as its owner drew a deep breath, readied herself, and attacked.

The light of her weapon cut an arc through the air that it was almost hard to look at, the sudden impact of the blade reverberating through Cayden's very bones like a nearby artillery strike. Its effect was an order of magnitude more than he'd expected, the edge of the ax a mere foreword to the shockwave that quelled fires and sent material flying in every direction.

In the aftermath of the strike, a third of the barricade was just gone. A neat hole cut clear through the center of the enormous pile with only a deep gouge in the cobblestone and a slightly smaller crater around it to mark it as an attack.

"Remind me not to piss you off," Michael said, his wide-eyed expression belying the casual way he joked about what he'd just seen.

"Never a good idea to tick off a Brutalist," Cayden said, his eyes on Dinah. "That is your class, isn't it."

Dinah gave him a sidelong look as they filtered through the now open gap and began to sprint once more. “What gave it away?”

It was a rhetorical question, Cayden knew.  Only one class in all of Babel had attacks of that magnitude.

The Brutalist class was a case study in extremes. They used the largest two-handed weapons they could find to inflict the maximum amount of possible damage with each and every hit, with almost nothing devoted to speed or endurance, and only a token to defense. High-level Brutalist techniques, like the one she had just demonstrated, could routinely drain a third or more of their user's TP in a single strike while generating positively absurd amounts of threat as a result. Coupled with the ponderous nature of their attacks, most Brutalist fights were short and, well, brutal. One way or the other.

It was a class Cayden had never even considered picking at character select, but that had more to do with his particular style of gameplay than any inherent flaw with the class. There was definitely something to be said for being able to end a fight in a single, powerful technique; it just wasn't for him.

“We should be getting close, shouldn't we?” Michael asked.

"Unless she or the officer turned off somewhere, yeah." On a regular day, they would have been able to see Sarah by now, in fact, they probably would have been able to see her from the Keep itself with the road as empty as it was. The smoke made that impossible, however.  Rolling plumes of thick black smoke emanated from nearly every nearby surface, the light from those same fires the only thing keeping them from being immersed in total, confusing blackness as they ran.

If this weren't Babel, they'd also be choking to death by now, Cayden knew.  Instead, there was just a debuff, a slow damage over time effect that was little more than a nuisance by now. In roughly five minutes it would upgrade to something more dangerous, and five minutes after that their HP and TP would begin to drop precipitously, whether they were in combat or not.

He should have been worried, but then again, if they were still in combat ten minutes from now, Cayden was sure they had bigger concerns to deal with.

"-ill use: Izuna!" The shout from ahead of them was just barely audible over the crackling fires that surrounded them. It was Sarah!

Before he could celebrate, however, a sudden gust of wind nearly threw the three of them from their feet. A heavy curtain of smoke followed an instant behind the wall of pressure, stinging their eyes as they passed through it, and briefly upping the shallow damage of the smoke inhalation DoT.

As they emerged from the other side of the smoke, the trio found that what they could not see seconds before, was, for the moment at least, now as clear as day.

Sarah, perhaps fifty feet ahead of her would be backup.

She was moving with speed unlike anything Cayden had ever seen in person. Videos of higher level players had never really done them justice, and though Sarah was only mid-level by the modern standards of Babel, she was still a sight to behold as she swerved this way and that. Her curvaceous body, simultaneously dodged the blades of four separate footmen, along with the much more dangerous spear point of the mounted officer.

"So much for getting to her before she got to him," Michael remarked with a certain smugness.

"Clear out the mooks," Cayden instructed, struggling not to rise to the bait as they advanced. "Command: Party Invite Desdaemona."

A split-second later, Cayden got to enjoy his own sense of self-righteous satisfaction as Sarah glanced in their direction, did a double take, and glanced back again. If she'd had the time or the opening, Cayden was reasonably sure some rude gesture would have accompanied that double take, but instead she was forced to accept his invitation as she shouted her displeasure. "- idiot! What are you doing here?"

"Oh don't you even start with me!" Cayden snapped back, moving at a dead run towards the melee. "I'm not letting you suicide by Warden, and you know it. We've got the small fry; you take down kahuna."

Sarah's expression screamed her displeasure, but there was no time for argument.  Instead, she called out another skill use, drew her arms into her sides in a defensive combat stance, then threw them out as one of the Warden troops was fool enough to attack her.

Her counter-attack struck harder than it had any right to, the impact of her punch and the spin-kick that followed sending the lower level Warden troops sprawling, most of them in Cayden's direction, where he happily scooped up their attention with a use of his taunt.

What were small fry for Sarah were still meaningful opponents for Cayden's impromptu party. The earlier battles had depleted a sizable amount of their TP, a loss that had mostly persisted as they spent TP running, and lost yet more to the damaging effect of the smoke. Fighting four elite Warden soldiers without access to a healer, while half exhausted would have been a tall order if Sarah hadn't already knocked out nearly a third of their HP as more of an afterthought.

“No, no, no.  You're fighting over here. Personal Skill Use: Taunt.” Cayden commanded as his previous use of the ability expired. Sarah's threat was so overwhelming that his taunt was struggling to keep up with it, even after she was no longer fighting them.

Sarah's battle with the officer had taken her nearly twenty feet away in a handful of heartbeats. He had reach on her, and a skill with his spear that would rival any of the old wushu films Cayden had watched in his youth. The stone weapon whirled this way at that; a bright red tassel pained so lifelike along its tip that for a moment Cayden mistook it for fabric.

Foot by foot the mounted officer was driving Sarah back, though he was doing little damage in the process. Each thrust or slash with that razor sharp point was met with a head fake or a juke. Sarah's body was constantly out of line with the weapon, her palm parrying the haft of the weapon when it came too close, a flip carrying her a half-dozen feet back when the officer committed to a thrust.

The battle was nothing like the first time he'd seen Sarah fight. Back then, during his last attempt at rescuing her, she had been so far above the people she'd been fighting that she had only taken it as seriously as her anger allowed.

A split legged skirt flowed beneath her as Sarah danced beneath a sidelong swing of the weapon's point.  She turned from defense to offense in the blink of an eye as she took to the air and threw a quick one-two combo. The sound of Sarah's fists striking stone was enough to make Cayden wince in sympathy, but it wasn't enough to stop her as her slippered feet found purchase on the neck of the officer's mount.  The thing bucked, of course, but not before Sarah was able to lay out another brutal combination that sent the officer reeling back in his saddle.

It lashed out at her as she retreated, the haft of the officer's spear catching Sarah in midair with such force that it threw her into, or rather, through, the wreckage of a nearby flaming building.

"Is she okay?" Michael asked as his Penetrating Strike skill lived up to its namesake by tearing a neat hole clean through the torso of one of their three, now two, remaining Warden opponents.

“You something like think that will put her down?” Cayden scoffed, putting his back into a shoulder rush as he drove one of the officer's bodyguards back into the path of a mighty uppercut from Asch. “Check her HP. She is barely under half!”

As if on cue, Sarah's voice echoed from the top floor of the burning building, a blur of motion erupting from its roof. "Personal Skill Use: Dragon Hammer Flash: Disaster!"

The officer had been under no more illusion that his attack had killed Sarah than Cayden had, but his preparedness meant nothing in the face of Sarah's speed. The spear came up to meet Sarah as she plummeted from the sky, but she dodged its point with an almost disdainful ease.  It would have still been enough to keep her from her intended target if he had been her intended target to begin with.

Instead, the falling ax kick scythed clean through the torso of the officer' mount, killing the statuesque creature in a single instant and dropping its rider unceremoniously to the ground. Just in time for Sarah to lay a knee to his chest and begin a positively epic beatdown.

If what had come before was superhuman to the point of absurdity, the beating Sarah laid to the officer was charmingly in the realm of reality. It had more in common with a UFC fight night than some Shonen anime, her slender body pressing down onto the officer with all of its weight, while her fists and elbows engaged in good old-fashioned ground and pound that would have been right at home in any back ally brawl.

There was no skill used, let alone any skill use as Sarah rained blows down upon her pinned opponent. It wasn't even much of a fight, with Sarah in her element and the officer entirely out of his. If nothing else it reminded him of how far downhill a game of Dungeons and Dragons could go once a player figured out the grapple rules. A referee would have stopped the fight, and despite the danger, they were all in, Cayden couldn't help but mutter a quote under his breath. "Stop, stop. He's already dead."

If only it were so simple.

A lance of stone erupted from just out of view, the head of it catching Sarah cleanly in the abdomen as she drew back for another punch. The force of the magic sent the blue haired girl sprawling, her HP dropping precipitously into the red.

Its source was nearby, the robe-clad Warden already working his hands through the motions of another spell that might have been enough to finish the job. And Cayden was in no position to stop him.

"No, you don't! Personal Skill Use: Throw Object!" The words were Dinah's, punctuated by a grunt of exertion as that enormous great ax left her outstretched fingers. It tumbled end over end towards a mage who was suddenly far less interested in completing his spell than he was remaining alive. The caster threw himself sideways, narrowly avoiding the scything blade as it embedded itself in the wall of a nearby business.

"Return!" Dinah instructed, the weapon rematerializing in her hand, it's owner already at a full run towards the mage. "I've got him; you cover her!"

“Sarah! I've got... damnit!” Cayden swore. He was too late.

Potions, like most MMO consumables, were limited in their use.  You could drink any potion you wanted, but once you did, there was a timed period before you could use another.  In Babel, this took the form of toxicity. If he were to take another potion within a few minutes of his first one, the second would apply a potion effect commensurate to the strength of the benefit the potion could have provided.  Drinking too many potions could literally poison you to death, so if you were going to use one, always use the best.

Which made it immensely frustrating to watch as Sarah finished downing one of her quick slotted items, a medium strength potion that didn't even return her to half health, rather than the full healing elixir he held in his hand.

"Just cannot catch a break tonight," Cayden growled, sweeping aside the downswing of a hammer as one of the small train of Warden soldiers that had been following them finally caught up. Two quick swings of his sword and a single Southern Cross thanked the soldier for his bravery and left Cayden with just enough time to think.

Things were going downhill fast. They were already nearing the end of the Minor Smoke Inhalation debuff, which meant Silver was well on her way into the medium variant. He knew for a fact that she wouldn't be able to hold up for long once the severe version kicked in, no matter how good her moves were.

He had to make a decision.

"Help Dinah," Cayden told Michael.

“What? No. Where you go, I go.”

He turned on the armored man, eyes narrowed. "Michael, this is not the time for this. The two of you can take down that mage if you land that Unstoppable, but we won't be able to get the Officer with the mage shooting at us. Let's take some kind of win out of this."

Cayden made it three feet before he felt Michael's hand on his shoulder. “Cayden, you aren't-”

"Michael." He replied, his voice icy. "You wanted to be part of our party so bad? Well, part of that means doing what you are told. Go help Dinah, or find yourself another party."

With the helmet on, Michael's expression was inscrutable, but his body language was not. Frustration, anger, perhaps even humiliation.  And then, without a word, acceptance.

Sarah's battle with the officer had progressed a significant distance down the smoke-filled streets by the time Cayden looked back.  The Warden Temujin, was on the offensive once again, his attacks slightly more reserved this time. He'd had some respect for Sarah before, but if Wardens could feel fear, this one certainly showed all the signs.

It was a stalemate not at all in Sarah's favor, not as the flames licked out and the fire grew thicker. So Cayden changed it.

His body rocked into the side of Temujin's body as his Leap Attack concluded. The damage was minimal, but it broke his balance in a way that Cayden was more than happy to exploit.  A swing of his other arm came next, a shield bash whose stun would only last a tiny fraction of its normal duration against a higher-level boss mob.

That fraction was all Sarah needed.

"Custom Skill Use: Psycho Dragon combo!" Sarah cried, bounding forward with a four-hit combination.  A left-hand jab inflicted another stun on the wounded officer, then a blow to the body from her right doubled him over.  A second jab removed his balance almost entirely, just in time for the final kick to strike him along the jawline, the whole sequence finished in just under a second.

Cayden realized he probably looked as surprised as the stumbling officer did. Custom Skill Use was a comparatively little-known facet of Babel. Use most often for PVP; it allowed a player to modify the pattern of an existing skill to make it more difficult to dodge, at the cost of being immensely more difficult to utilize. The game offered no assistance with custom skills, and they had to be performed flawlessly to avoid a penalty.

That Sarah not only had a Custom Skill but was able to use it this well despite how rusty she must have been was startling.  Asch wouldn't be the only one with questions for later.

"Sarah, it is time to go," Cayden said, moving to put himself a step between Sarah and her downed foe.

“Once we've got hi-”

“No Sarah. Now.” Cayden pressed. “How long do you have before you start choking?”

“Long enough.” She scowled.

He moved to take another step between them, but Sarah brushed passed him, rushing Temujin once again as the latter sought to bring his spear into action. “Sarah! You... ugh!”

“Cayden.” Silver's voice reverberated in his ear.  It cut in and out, it's clarity increasing as Sarah pressed Temujin further and further down the street. “The Wardens have broken through.  They'll have the whole curtain wall within the minute. I think it is time for us to go.”

“We aren't going to get there anytime soon.” He complained. He'd blindsided the Warden officer once, but that wouldn't happen again. They were just too fast, their moves too crisp and practiced for him to edge in upon their battle. “Get everyone out and have Victoria close the portal. We'll find our own way home.”

A second passed, then Silver replied, his headset indicating that she'd switched to a one on one channel. “Be careful, okay?”

“Perish the thought that other people might hear you care, huh?” He teased.

“Hoped you wouldn't notice. Aren't you a little busy?” Her voice positively dripped with sarcasm.

“I see all!” Cayden said in his best, over the top 'voice of god.'

Laughter played through the connection as Silver giggled in spite of herself. “Don't die. You idio-.”

If either had anything more to say, there was no more chance to say it as his comm went dead once more. Whether by luck or by design, Sarah had turned the battle back in his direction, her pressure presenting him with the officer's rear as the Warden was driven back in his direction..

“Skill Use: Leap Attack.” Cayden uttered under his breath, not wanting to draw attention to his re-entry into the battle.

It didn't matter, the Warden officer was ready for him.

As Cayden descended upon him, the officer swept the point of his spear through a wide arc, forcing a retreat from Sarah. Then, in the same breath, it stepped back, driving the butt of it's weapon skywards to intercept Cayden without even glancing back to acknowledge his existence.

Temujin's Western God hits you for 1296 Physical/Magical

With just the haft?! He thought incredulously, the whole of his body weight held motionless on the rear end of the Warden's spear as though he'd been impaled. If it had been the business end of the weapon, he probably would have been.

He was to Temujin, what Temujin's rank and file had been to him.

“Cayden!” Sarah shouted in alarm as the Warden began to advance, finally tossed the young man away with nothing more than a flick of its wrist.

Then just as quickly it stopped. Its head turned in Cayden's direction as he struggled to his feet, stone features twisting together into an expression of malice. The transformation alone was an unsettling sight, to say nothing of the fact that it was the first real emotion they'd seen from any Warden.

“Cayden.” It repeated his name in an unnatural voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once, attention now focused more on him than the immediate threat posed by Sarah. “The commander and the thief. You will suffer in measure to your authority!”

“Skill Use: Grasp the World!” Cayden cried in alarm. His heels dug into the cobblestone bracing his body just in time to receive the point of his enemy's spear on an upraised shield arm.

Temujin's Eastern God hits you for 891 Physical/Magical [Perfect Block]

Shield destroyed!

The shining speartip, infused with the power of the enemy's technique, pierced his shield. It pierced his arm as well, but that was somewhat lower in the grand scheme of things compared to the fact that the enemy had nearly killed him through a perfect block. Right below the fact that the Warden was readying for another attack, in fact.

“Natha Sere.” Cayden invoked the runes of teleportation without a thought as he reached out a hand as stroked the nearby conflagration. It was a short jump, one that carried him barely a handful of feet to a burning pile of refuse at his opponent's rear. The jump was disorienting for him, but equally confusing for Temujin who found himself spearing cobbestones rather than flesh. Neither distraction lasted long, however, the Warden officer already whirling for another attack as Cayden brought his sword up, point outstretched and level with his shoulder. “Skill Use: Justice.”

His body lunged forward under the control of his skill, the tip of his mageblade biting deep into the side torso of the Terracotta warrior who had failed to arrest his charge. His body lingered there for a split-second, before the grip on his sword twisted, a horrendous crunch accompanying the action as he slashed the now horizontal blade out of side of the wounded boss monster, a bright line left in its wake.

Your Justice hit Temujin for 316 damage Physical (Reduced)

Your Justice heals you for 1312 HP.

Temujin roared in agony and fury, the haft of his spear sending Cayden tumbling end over end once again. A regular attack rather than one of his special moves, the damage dealt by the swipe was comparatively minor, meant more for opening distance than causing serious injury. He'd pissed it off. More than that, Cayden thought he'd actually hurt the Warden.

Pity he wouldn't have the chance to do it again. His shield hung in two halves from the remaining straps on his left arm, and the cooldown for Justice was a full sixty seconds. And considering the Warden had all but killed him in less than ten... nah, he'd be fine.

“Not a chance.” Sarah shouted as Temujin began to advance upon Cayden once more. Even in the Warden's rage, her blows were not to be ignored, it's attention drawn squarely in her direction after a few short exchanges. Its attacks were a more wild this time, less elegant artistry and more terrible ferocity. It thrust and parried, swiped and retreated as the two began their dance once again. A dance with an abrupt hitch as Sarah took the lead. “Custom Skill Use: Psycho Dragon Combo.”

Temujin's Western God Desdaemona for 717 Physical/Magical

Something wasn't right. The counter had been fast, too fast in fact. In one fraction of an instant, Sarah was on the offense, her fists raised as she sought to land a variant of that same four hit combo from a minute earlier The next, Temujin hand thrust, the point of his spear struck deep into Sarah's belly, reducing her HP to an alarming low.

“Is it...” Cayden murmured, his eyes growing wide as he cut away the remnants of his shield. “Sarah! He is a bugger!”

The girl's expression was one of total bafflement for just long enough to worry Cayden. He could explain his theory further, of course, that the enemy before them was just like the armies Cayden was now sure it commanded. You could fool it once, but the same trick would never work twice. It had suffered at the hands of his leap attack, then it had expertly countered his leap attack with Western God. Sarah had pummeled it half senseless, but the next time it preempted the very first blow.

Just as worry started to settle in, Sarah grinned. She sunk lower in her posture, hands coming up in a new form of guard as her eyes sought out those of her opponent. “Let me show you some new things then.”

What followed was a chain of skills, each thrown one after another with barely a second of gap between them. The point of her elbow thrust up against an exposed jawline, a hard kick to the left instep, an over the shoulder throw, even a flying side kick that would have looked at home in any number of Bruce Lee films. She applied pressure with every move, adjusting her posture, stance and positioning to keep him pinned with his back to one of the towering infernos that lined the city street.

“It is over.” She declared as Temujin slumped to a knee, the Warden's HP bar down to the final hint of red. “Skill us-”

Her skill choice was interrupted by a cough. Then another, and another. Unable to talk, she lashed out, taking another sliver off that insignificant tick of health. But she couldn't do enough, not as it seized upon her weakness, not as the hacking cough made any sort of skill use unbearable.

So close, yet so far. Even damaged as he was, without Sarah, this was a lost battle. The Warden would gut Cayden if he were fool enough to advance without some sneaky tactic or well thought out plan, and he had neither. And even if he could, the only skill he had left to use that could do any damage at all was Southern Cross, an attack that would never land without Sarah in the wings drawing most of the Warden's attention.

There was only one thing to do, as much as he hated to do it.

“Ileia” Cayden whispered, drawing on his mental fortitude as he formed the runic magic into a physical form. The stones of the street lifted, flying in large numbers directly towards Temujin, who predictably raised his guard at their approach. The projectiles stopped short however, soon joined by hundreds, then thousands more as the street became a stone wall, a several foot thick barrier that should buy him just long enough to-

A crack like thunder disrupted Cayden's plan, his wall exploding outward in a shower of rubble that peppered him with stinging, but non-damaging debris. On the other side of the impact, stood Temujin, none worse for the wear even as part of the stone wall collapsed just to his left.

“You have got to be...” Cayden said in dispair. He began another wall, then a second, a third and a fourth, dispelling one of his own personal buffs to free up unused MP as he advanced. Each new spell was accompanied by the sound of an impact, of stone shattering into fragments at the hand of the Warden general. It was everything he could do to keep ahead of it. And even then it might not be enough.

“Natha Sere!” Cayden cried out with everything he could muster.

What he didn't do was focus. Simply speaking the runes was not enough to invoke their power, which was good, because Cayden didn't want to. Instead, he knelt beside Sarah's crouched down body and spoke two more words, hoping that the cracking flames and the officer's own attack would conceal the sound of his voice. "Teri Antha."

One of his hands was outstretched, palm facing towards the wall as the Warden broke through, the other wrapped tightly over Sarah's mouth, doing everything he could to muffle the sound of her coughs.

For just a heartbeat, Cayden thought they were dead. Temujin stared directly at them, violet painted eyes all but glowing in the firelight as the Warden loomed impressive and powerful. Then his head turned left, then right. The fury of its expression softened to mere frustration as one hand rose to its temple and its drew closed.

Not the time to be meditating. Move you dumb bastard, move! Cayden inwardly begged. Summoning wall after wall had depleted the majority of his remaining MP, and his illusionary barrier was not a cheap spell to begin with. Thirty-five, no, forty seconds at the most.

That pool of time ticked by both faster and slower than any period in Cayden's life. His MP ticked down with exaggerated slowness, each sip from the pool an eternity, only for vast swaths of this to vanish in as long as it took his eyes to focus on the officer before them. Temujin was searching for them, of that much Cayden was fairly certain. Some sort of psychic connection with his troops. There was little sense to search for them on foot when he could order his troops to do it for him.

Ten seconds left. They wouldn't make it.

The angry sound of metal biting into stone opened Temujin's eyes, the Warden officer looking down in befuddlement at the slim dagger embedded in his shoulder. He stared just long enough to watch as a second, then a third dagger joined the first before turning their attention to the obvious source, a heavyset man clad in black leather, perched precariously on a rooftop only a few buildings down the street.

Temujin's reply was not one of words, but of actions, the now dirt and gravel road grinding under his footsteps as he advanced, first at a brisk walk, then a run as he saw Shifty starting to retreat.

Cayden turned as the Warden passed, the barrier kept interposed between the two of them until well after the Warden had darted down an alleyway. Until well after Cayden was sure they were safe.

“Could you be any more irresponsib-” He started to say, his eyes growing wide as he looked down at Sarah's limp body. At some point during their concealment, the smoke had finished the job, draining the last remnants of her HP and putting her into bleedout. Another minute and she'd be dead.

“You know...” Cayden grumbled as he snapped his fingers and searched his bag for a set of bandages. “At this point we are even for that whole 'getting you kidnapped thing'.” He adjusted her body to lay flat so he could bandage her more easily, but not before making a show of nodding her head to what he'd been saying. “I'm glad you agree.”

"We destroyed the temple alter in the city, plus the whole building is kind of on fire, so you should respawn in Sunè, assuming everything goes well. If not, well, you've got my number, right?" He resisted the urge to bob her head again as he tightened the last of the bandages, watching as her HP slowly crept up towards full.

"When you get there, let me know you are safe. And, once you're ready, I think you and I need to have a talk." He smiled down at her as light began to pour from her body, the sign that she was about to return to her respawn point. "Wish me luck, Des."

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Shifty, you still alive?” Cayden asked.

“Yeah.” The thief's voice replied across Cayden's headset, a bit more ragged and fearful than Cayden was used to. “Turns out that Stone Men can jump though.”

“Well, at least one of them can. Sure you lost him?”

“Must have, because my comms are back on. Thought the persistent bastard was going to camp my hiding spot until it burned down around me, but something else got his attention. “ Shifty replied.

“I'm not even sure I want to know what that was. But thanks, I owe you.”

The other man's mocking grin was almost palpable over the call. “Wait, you were there? I was just trying to save the pretty girl.”

Cayden rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to his display. First, he sent Shifty a party invite. Once that was done, he reopened his party chat. “Michael, Asch. You two alright?”

Asch replied after a brief pause. "Barely. We've downed some potions, but the smoke is canceling out all of our health regen, and then some.”

"I'm about the same," Cayden admitted with a wince. They didn't have long before the smoke inhalation upgraded to major. "Did you-"

“Yes Cayden.” Michael snapped.

“We got the enemy caster, yeah.” Whether she knew the source of tension between the two men or not, Dinah wasn't saying anything about it. “Turns out he could resurrect their soldiers, so it is good we got him when we did. Score one for the good guys.”

“I'll take it.” He agreed. “How far are you from the sewer entrance?”

"As the crow flies? Not far at all. But most of the paths that were setup earlier are collapsed by now, and the ones that don't have Warden soldiers in the way. We might just have to burst through the back of a house somewhere."

"Yeah, I see you on my map now," Cayden replied. "We'll come to you, then find a way through together."

"Roger that," Dinah replied.

It didn't take long for Cayden to get to Shifty; he ran where he could, and abused his Flame Walk spell whenever an obstacle impeded his progress. Past that, however, things began to slow dramatically.

Just as Dinah had suggested, the Warden troops were everywhere, occupying nearly every intersection and crossing listed on Cayden's map. The two of them managed to skirt a few patrols, by way of alley or an as of yet unburned rooftop, but at a certain point, it became clear that the Wardens were not going to let them simply waltz into the sewers.

He had to give the enemy officer credit; it was a decent enough plan. Most of the Warden troops they'd already come across were wounded to varying degrees, and Cayden knew that it would only get worse for them. The smoke was a killer for the players, but the heat would be what eventually did in the Wardens. By dawn, most of the soldiers in the city would be destroyed. So rather than cower them in the coolest locations, in an attempt to save them, Temujin had decided to dedicate hundreds of them to make sure that the Players who had killed his spellcaster, humans who had nearly killed him would have nowhere to run.

If the plan hadn't been directed at killing him, Cayden might have given it a grudging thumbs up.

"Yeah, this isn't happening," Cayden said from deeper into an alleyway as Shifty kept guard from its mouth. "We've got Warden troops everywhere. Temujin knows we can't wait him out.”

“Who?” Michael asked.

“Temujin," Cayden repeated before he realized his mistake. "The enemy officer."

“Ah.”

“So we try fighting our way out?” A small cough accompanied Dinah's reply, a worrying side of what was to come.

“Mix it up a little, yeah.” Cayden grinned in spite of himself. “Got a weak point in mind?”

“Only about twenty of them between us and the sewer entrance if we go this way.” A glowing line appeared on Cayden's display, drawn from Michael's current position to the sewer entrance.

"We'll cut through them and pile in behind you then," Shifty said, throwing a glance back to Cayden for his approval.

“A better plan than I've got.” He shrugged. “You all ready?”

"As we're going to be," Dinah replied.

Michael agreed. “No sense wasting time.”

Cayden strolled to the edge of the alleyway, taking up a position alongside Shifty. His heart was pounding, and he desperately wanted to take just a few seconds, just long enough to calm his frayed nerves. But Michael was right. Every second they wasted here was a second closer to asphyxiation. “On three.”

“Three.” Dinah shot back impatiently.

Just outside their alleyway, the Warden troops jerked in unison, as though a universal puppeteer had tugged their strings all at once. Their heads turned North, to where Dinah and Michael must have begun their assault. The behavior was markedly different from the haphazard warfare they'd encountered on their sortie from the Royal Quarter. No doubt Temujin had time to focus this time, without the distraction of Sarah trying to punch him repeatedly in the face.

"Go," Cayden instructed. Shifty didn't need the encouragement, his knives already flying at the foes guarding a nearby alleyway that was their initial destination.

On both ends of the street, the focus of the Warden troops shifted. Eyes focused on Shifty, and then on Cayden. Metal weapons gleamed in the firelight as soldiers brought them to a ready, and the mob charged.

“Move, move!” Cayden insisted, the back of his hand slapping at Shifty's right shoulder until the man got the hint and let Cayden sprint past him. One of the three soldiers guarding the entrance to the alley was still alive when Cayden hit him, the flat side of his replacement kite shield striking with enough force to bare the soldier clear off his feet. That was one thing too many players forgot when it came to Babel. For all its mechanics, sometimes a simple shove could do more than the best skill usage.

“Earth Wall.” The words fell from Cayden's mouth as Shifty ran past him. With so many on their heels, this wall wouldn't last much longer than the ones he had cast earlier, but it didn't have to. A minute, perhaps half a minute would be enough to keep them from getting mobbed down as they cleaned up the immediate opposition waiting on the far side of the alley.

Only two blocks had separated Cayden and Shifty from Michael and Dinah. During better times he could have run the whole of that distance in a matter of a minute, but with Warden soldiers blocking their path at every turn, it took them closer to three. Three minutes with the timer counting ever downward.

“Are you guys almost to the entrance?” Cayden demanded.

“Just about!” Came Asch's reply, the words filed with exertion, the clang of swords audible in the background.

“Good, because we're coming up on your tail now.” He said.

"Try not to be too close," Asch replied. "We've got a lot of them right behin-"

"Right behind?" Cayden asked. When there was no immediate response his eyebrows knitted together in consternation. "Asch. Asch? Dinah? Michael?"

"Well, that can't be good," Shifty said with his usual mastery of understatement.

Cayden wasn't sure whether to laugh or to glare. Instead, he turned his attention to the map in front of him. "She's right; we probably don't want to follow their exact path. This way."

Even on the alternate route, they had to cut their way through a half dozen Warden soldiers, and barricade out over twice that number before they were firmly back on track.  Only a few hundred feet, a single long alleyway, separated them from the sewer entrance.  Only a few hundred feet, when Cayden's map went blank, then vanished entirely.

"Stop. Stop!" He shouted, forced to physically grab Shifty as the other man tried to surge passed him.

"We're almost-" Shifty started, before he too realized the danger. "An officer. Damnit. Is there another way?"

"Not back that way," Cayden said, jerking his thumb in the direction they'd just come.  The Warden troops that had been chasing them were chasing them no longer. Instead, they had closed ranks with one another, forming up in defensive posture along every possible route at their rear. They weren't pursuing, merely cutting off retreat.

"A trap?"

"An invitation." The voice echoed from every surface, unmistakable in its origin, even if Cayden could not yet lay eyes on its source.

"Well, how can we refuse that?" Shifty asked with a tone that spoke volumes about how much he wanted to.

As they advanced, so too did the Warden soldiers behind them, the stone men taking up a position at the mouth of the alley. There wasn't much point in trying to run, Cayden knew. Temujin had guessed their exit strategy. Even if they tried for a different sewer grate, the officer would have his minions herd them around until he could get in front of them.  Assuming they didn't die of inhalation before they could reach their next destination.

The alley ahead of them opened to a public common area where overturned carts and other flaming debris had been pushed aside or stomped out to leave a wide open space. Nearly a hundred Warden soldiers occupied the plaza, with Temujin at its center, mere feet from the exposed sewer grate that should have been their salvation.

Asch and Michael were there as well, guarded but still armed despite the horde surrounding them just out of arms reach. Considering Temujin could probably kill the four of them from full health with ease, it somehow seemed more humiliating that he let them keep their weapons, despite having the upper hand. As if taunting them to make an attempt.

"Crawling from the madness you've wrought and the crimes you have committed, like the vermin you are.  How fitting for a group of Bloodline descendants."

"Technically it is a waterway." Was Cayden's only reply.

Temujin was not amused.

"You have done unspeakable things to bring us to this point, and further terrors to keep your crimes from being remedied, but no longer." The Warden general paced as he spoke, his spear tapping the ground with every odd step as he snarled out his words. "I know you do not have it with you. But of you four, you three have touched it." Temujin's gaze swept over the three men of the group, excluding only Asch from his wrathful stare. "You will tell me where you have hidden it."

"I don't even know what it is." Cayden replied with equal venom. "You killed the emissaries Duke Medeces sent to treat with you, so how the hell are we even supposed to-"

"You know what you did!" Temujin cried, the sheer power and weight of his voice enough to send an involuntary shiver down Cayden's spine. "You can deny it all you will, but I sense it on the three of you, and the warrior woman I fought earlier as well. You've not long to live, why spend your last moments lying?" The warrior-general tipped his chin up, looming over Cayden and Shifty as the last two were forced into line. "Tell me where you have hidden the Liar King's shackles, and I will allow it to be swift."

For several long moments, no one spoke. Then, just as Temujin's stone face twisted in fury, Shifty replied. "You know, shackles were never really my thing. If you're into silk rope and blindfolds though, boy do I know the place for you."

Anger turned to confusion as the Warden officer stalked down the line, his powerful physique dominating in the presence of the more squat and rotund father of two. "What are you blathering about? Rope? Blindfolds. I care not for these things."

"Ah, my mistake, my mistake." Shifty smiled with a sickening sweetness. "But if shackles are your thing, I might know a solution."

"Go on," Temujin said impatiently.

"Well, it just sounds to me like you're over thinking things with all this focus on domination and command. Message Avaritia, she knows the place the shackles are hidden. Just down in the sewers in front of us, in fact. You can send your army to go check if you'd-"

"Enough with your nonsense and your lies!" Temujin growled. The back of one stone hand struck viciously across Shifty's right cheek, a blow that took the Carnivalist off his feet, and drained nearly half his remaining HP.

"Okay, okay!" Shifty said, rolling onto his hands and knees. There was a long pause as the older man struggled for breath, then, at last, took to only a single knee as he looked into the stone face of Temujin  "All I'm saying is that you don't need chains to go f-

A sharp crack of air and a flash of light interrupted the last of what Shifty had to say, as a trio of figures appeared at rear or the line. Each was chanting as they materialized, and within moments more magical energy shaped the battlefield. Warden soldiers winked out of existence under the influence of Celia's crowd control spells, while an enormous wall of wood and iron appeared out of nothing at Roberta's command, separating the players from the Warden General.

Most importantly, were the words from Victoria, a benediction sweeter than any prayer Cayden had ever heard.

"...and return us home. Word of Recall!"

***

"Really Shifty?" That was the best way you could come up with to work it into conversation?"

"Hey, I'd like to see you do better." The rogue shot back at Celia, his tongue sticking out of his mouth in a decidedly childlike fashion. "Besides, it could have been worse. My backup was a Viagra joke."

"How do you function!?" Celia cried, to the laughter of the assembled players.

It felt good to be able to laugh, Cayden decided, even at Shifty's terrible jokes.

Despite Celia's annoyance, Cayden thought the Carnivalist was rather clever. At the time, he'd thought Shifty was just venting his anger with his crude rebuttals, but in retrospect, he probably should have caught on the moment he'd used the name of Celia's account. No one called her Avaritia.

He might have been a bit clumsy in his wording, but Shifty smart enough to think of Victoria, and unlike Cayden, he'd been able to come up with a plan to reach her while surrounded by the enemy.

As the laughter began to die down, Cayden paced slowly away from his companions, walking to the edge of the forested hill to look out over the city only a few miles away.

There was almost nothing left. In the hour since their retreat dusk had begun to settle over the city, but the sun was almost entirely obscured by the plumes of black smoke rising from the walled city. Some of the intense blaze had already managed to burn itself out, but other parts of the city, particularly the Royal Quarter, were fully ablaze. The Duke hadn't been happy when they'd all but battered down the doors of his palace to demand the services of his sorcereress, and he imagined the young royal would be positively beside himself once he learned what had been done to his city under the guise of saving it.

Not for the first time, Cayden wondered if he'd made the right decision. They could have left the city to the Wardens, who probably would have passed through it without a care once it was no longer a threat. It wasn't like the Wardens were going to loot the place.

How many homes had they lost? How many people, both Human and Elan were there? People like Sarah, who no longer had a place to call their own. It could be rebuilt, he knew, and by almost all military standards it was an outstanding victory.  Thousands of Warden troops dead for a few hundred of their own, but even still, it felt bittersweet.

"You okay?" Cayden turned to find Silver on her approach, a wary smile upon her pursed lips.

"You're worrying about me for the second time in one day. Do you know something I don't?"

"I know that you're being a jerk right now." She laughed, tucking a few strands of loose hair behind her ear before she continued. "Look upon my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

"Not where my mind would have gone." Cayden replied.

"No?"

"No. Ozymandias is all about hubris and decay. This..." He waved a hand in the direction of the still flaming wreckage they had left behind. "I am become Gigabyte, destroyer of systems."

"I am like, ninety percent sure that isn't how that quote goes."

"Only if you are a philistine. Reboot is a classic." Cayden laughed softly, then turned away from the scene of destruction. "Is everyone ready to go?"

Silver glanced back over her shoulder before replying. "I think we should give them a few more minutes at least. The Wardens aren't going anywhere until the morning, and it looks like everyone could use some time to breathe and get rid of some stress."

"You're probably right." He conceded.

"Always am." Silver grinned. "Humble too."

The two stood in silence for several minutes then, watching the fire across from them as the sky dimmed and the stars appeared above them.  A ribbon of green and blue trailed across the sky, the colors too vibrant to have ever appeared on earth. The horror and the majesty of Babel in a single image.

"That was a brave thing you did." She said at last.

"Why thank y-"

"Stupid." Silver cut him off. "But brave."

Cayden glanced in her direction. "You don't think we should have?"

"I didn't say that." The girl laughed again, rubbing her eyes as a waft of smoke stung them. "I probably would have too. Guess we're both stupid."

"Yeah." Cayden chuckled along with her. "I guess we are."

Chapter Twenty-Four

Day 12 - Morning
Resources – F – 640 -20, Z – 780 +10, M – 275 +5, I – 680 +20, P +40, R +20

"Hey." Sarah's soft voice was reproduced by his headset like a whisper in his ear. Gone was the usual vim and verve of the blue-haired girl, color seemingly drained from her cheeks.

"Hey." He replied in the same quiet tone, unsure of precisely what to say or to ask, despite being the one who requested the video call.

As expected, Sarah had respawned in Sunè barely an hour after her 'death' in Islo, but in the day that had passed, that had been the only information the girl had been willing to provide. His calls had been unanswered; his messages received no reply. It was only when he threatened to expend some of their limited resources to teleport to Sunè that she finally relented, and accepted his call.

She hadn't taken her loss well, that much he could plainly see. The displayed reflection of the ordinarily immaculate girl was instead ragged, her hair untouched, her eyes sunken. Though she stared straight into the mirror to give him his video feed, her own eyes were offset slightly to the left, unwilling, or perhaps unable, to look at the image of him being streamed onto her glasses.

"Look-" They both said at once, the jinx barely enough to force her to crack a smile. Each jostled for a few moments, trying to let the other go first before at last Cayden took the initiative. "I'm sorry for being so pushy. I just... we needed to talk."

"I know," Sarah said quietly. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed hard, nostrils flaring as she took a deep breath before continuing. "I screwed up."

"You did," Cayden admitted even as the kinder side of him railed against the honesty. "But we all screw up sometimes, and in the end, no blood, no report."

"I nearly got you killed.  Nearly got all of you-"

"Horseshoes and hand grenades." Cayden shrugged a little. "We didn't have to chase you, so the only person you nearly got killed was yourself. And in the end, we destroyed the enemy caster, which we probably wouldn't have managed any other way. We gambled, and we won."

"That doesn't-"

"No, it doesn't make it alright." He agreed. "But I'm also not your officer or your leader. I'm your friend. I'm not calling to scold you."

The girl on the other end of the call quivered, one hand moment momentarily distorting his vision of her as she adjusted her glasses long enough to wipe away a tear. "Thank you."

"My pleasure darlin'."

"Cayden. Your rural is showing."

"I suppose it is." He chuckled. "You know if there had been any other way-"

Sarah held up a hand to forestall any further words. "Cayden, its fine. I get what you did. I'm just sorry about the way I reacted. The Dizzy Sheep was just... it was important to me."

"Because of Symbal?" He asked warily.

"Among other things, yeah." Sarah sighed briefly, then studied the image of him on her display. "How much have you figured out?"

"Only a little," Cayden admitted. "That you used to be involved in PvP for one thing."

She winced. "So the bad part then."

"I figured. But didn't want to assume." He replied, choosing his words carefully and studying Sarah closely as he did. "If you'd been a duelist, or involved in any sort of arena, I probably would have been able to find your name when I searched for it, even if it was a while back. Which leaves..."

A few breaths passed before Sarah finally saved him the discomfort of saying it. "Player Killing."

"Why?"

"Because I was a screwed up kid." Sarah murmured. "The game was brand new, and it was better than having my stepdad hit me for the hundredth time, so I ran away. I made some new friends, built a party, and at first, it was fun. Just a real-life game, right?"

"Three of us died getting to level twelve. Other parties were beating us up the tower, and I kept pushing for us to try and take on things we weren't ready for.  We didn't have the gear or the money." Color and shame flooded Sarah's face as she spoke. "The first time was this level 30 solo player, Katya. Sebastian, my party leader, had been trying to get her to join us all week, probably because he thought she was cute."

"And she said no?" Cayden asked.

"With more colorful words, yeah.  Seb didn't like that. He took a swing at her, and once she started beating him, we all piled on her." Another tear briefly interrupted the tale. "She had more money, and better gear than the five of us put together. And it had been so easy."

"How many?"

"I honestly don't know. At least a dozen."

"How can you not know?" His voice was incredulous, just one step below a yell as Sarah shrunk away on the other end of the video feed.

"You think I was myself during all this?" She asked with a mixture of indignation and embarrassment. "A young girl with a bunch of older guys in Babel, with no supervision? I was high more than I was sober."

"And that is your-"

"No!" Sarah cut him off. "It isn't an excuse. I'm a terrible person. Is that what you want to hear?"

Cayden said nothing, his mouth opening and closing a few times as he searched for any sort of proper reply. What could he say to an admission like that? Player killers were a small, but dangerous fact of life in Babel, but when he thought of them, he thought of lunatics covered in bones or creepy silence of the lambs types. Not her.

"You don't have to deny it. I know I am." Sarah said, her voice just barely above a sob. "I know what I did."

Unsure of what else to say, of how to comfort her, Cayden instead pressed her story. "Why did you stop?"

"I'd like to say I grew a conscience. But in truth, we just got sloppy." Sarah looked down, no longer meeting his digital gaze, or letting him see her reflection as she spoke. "Sebastian picked someone with friends in high places, and they came after us with everything they had. I managed to get away though sheer dumb luck, and I hid on the second floor."

"And Symbal?"

"They couldn't attack me in town, but they still made my life a living hell. I couldn't find a place to sleep, to buy food. Symbal was the only one who knew what I was, who was still willing to give me a place to stay, and something to do with myself, even if I had to hide who I am to do it."

Cayden cocked his head to one side, about to inquire further as realization struck him. "Your name isn't Sarah. It's Desdaemona."

"Funny how you can miss something as simple as hearing your own name." She smiled. "But really, I prefer Des."

"How long have you've been there...?"

"A year and a half," Des replied. "It was the closest thing to a good home I've ever had."

"And I burned it to the ground." Cayden winced.

"You did." The slightest hint of a wry smile emerged on her face as she looked back to the mirror once again. "But I can think of worse reasons to have done so."

"So what do we do now?" He asked after a brief hesitation.

"I'm going to join some refugees making their way to Bastion," Des replied. "I've got another five and a half days on my death timer.  After that, I am yours to command."

"I meant after this?" Cayden said. "Once this event is over. And about the others."

"I'll tell them once this is all over." She promised. "And when it is all over if you'll have me, I'd like to join you?"

"Why?"

"Because if I can help you get that wish, then maybe you can help me fix the mistakes I've made."

Chapter Twenty-Five

"Welcome Home, Field Marshall."

"Valserys," Cayden replied. For a moment he said nothing more before emotion got the better of him. "You have got to stop sitting to the side of the door. This is like, the third time you've nearly given me a heart attack."

The officer regarded him coolly at first, though a half smile eventually snuck in below that absurdly colored mustache. "Perhaps Sir should try expecting my presence."

"How can I? You're like the Spanish Inquisition." He waved away any requests to expand on the idiom and instead continued speaking. "Command: Quick Item seven."

His steps carried him further into the room as the miniature War Frame materialized into the palm of his hand. Silver, Michael, and Asch were all quick on his heels, and before long the table once again dominated the center of the Strategy room, the room's occupants arrayed in a semicircle around one side.

The map had changed significantly since he'd last looked upon it. The once proud city of Islo was now little more than burnt out wreckage surrounded by powerful walls, while a long of crimson banners and marching miniatures streamed out from where it had once been.

"So, we've lost Islo," Cayden said, starting with the obvious.

"I wouldn't say we've lost it." Silver smirked.

"Really?" Cayden asked.

"Really." Silver replied, unwilling to back off the reference despite his tone.

"Islo is gone." He rephrased after losing the brief battle of wills. "And with it, a huge number of Warden troops. The best estimate we have from the Goon scouts we have in the field suggest we've knocked out as much as a third of their army." Cayden allowed his friends a brief moment of self-congratulations before he continued. "The real question is, what do we do next?"

"The bridges, wasn't it?" Michael asked.

"That appears to be their next destination," Valserys confirmed, indicating the two bridges that crossed the Ryks river at the roughly halfway point between Bastion and the ruins of Islo.

"The real question isn't if the Wardens are going to the bridges, it is if they are worth defending," Asch said.

Cayden tapped the tip of his nose. "She's got it in one. With the Islo and other player forces added to our own, the combined army is greatly expanded." He brushed at the side of the War Frame, manipulating its surface to call up a new menu. "Once all units are back to full strength we'll have about Sixteen-hundred infantry men and two hundred Cavalry."

"But there are some problems with that," Valserys added.

"There are." Cayden agreed. "Right now we don't have enough Field Supply Limit for all of our forces."

"Which means what, exactly?" Michael asked.

"It means that if we deploy them all in the field at once, we start getting charged extreme upkeep costs in terms of Food, Production and Grand Zenni," Cayden replied. "We have enough to field about half the army right now, but anything over a thousand at one time is going to cost us."

Michael crossed his arms. "So that should be our priority for construction. Shouldn't it?"

"It would be if we didn't also bring home a little over nine thousand civilians." Silver said as she rubbed the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger. "We have housing for not even half that many, and now that Islo isn't providing us with any Food, we've only got enough to feed all our mouths for about twelve days."

"We can feed them all for the time being," Cayden assured the others as a ripple of worry ran around the table. "The increased population allows us to work another three tiles around the city, which should alleviate that worry once we get some farms up and running, but housing is going to be our number one priority.  Over-population is giving us the same sort of negatives we get from having too many soldiers under arms, and unlike the soldiers, we can't alleviate the problem by having them sit around and do nothing."

"So you're saying that victory has defeated us?" Michael chuckled.

Cayden snorted. "I'm saying that we need to take a few days and secure our gains, even though we'd be better off going on the offense if we could."

"Then there won't be any defense of the bridges?" Silver asked.

"Not unless we come up with some grand plan in the next few days," Asch replied before Cayden could. "As soon as the turn starts tomorrow morning, we'll be smashing the northernmost bridge. After that, we'll be taking stock to see if we can put up a meaningful defense of the southern bridge. Ideally, we can hold it for a day or two before smashing it as well."

Silver arched a fine black eyebrow at the repeated mention of we but rather than comment on that; she considered the strategy. "Can't the Warden troops just swim across? Or... I dunno, zombie walk across the bottom? It isn't like they need to breath."

"I'm actually kind of proud of this one," Cayden replied with a wide grin. "Valserys?"

"Yes, Field Marshall." The elder Elan replied.  With a gesture, he swept away the current image on the War Frame, and with a few more he drew up an image of the Ryks that stretched south of bastion and north all the way to Sunè. The Warden troops were much closer in the image, their army pressed against the bank of the river, while the Elan forces opposing them were stretched over ten hexes to the north and six to the south.

"While it is indeed possible for Warden troops to swim, I believe that this Temujin will find it tactically inadvisable," Valserys explained. "The current of the Ryks is strong and swift. Even a Warden soldier will be swept some distance downstream if they enter the water.  Though the specific distance is quite variable."

As the Elan general spoke, banners indicating various Warden units took to the river.  The moment they did so, however, the individual banners split and fragmented, a single unit producing up to twenty miniature banners that traveled downstream, coming up in ones and twos on the Bastion side of the river before being quickly dispatched.

"You can see what happens when they do so. Their formations are broken, the individual soldiers scattered. They all make it across the river, which would not be true for our soldiers, but they do so in such a scattered and fragmented way as to be functionally useless as an armed force."

Silver's head bobbed as the demonstration came to a close. "So long as we guard our side of the river..."

"They shall not pass." Cayden finished for her. "It stretches our line quite a bit, which is worrisome if they have some other surprise, but so long as we keep units across from them, down enough of the river bank, they can't ford it. And even if a few do breach, they can't bring their siege equipment across either."

"Which makes Sunè our next battleground." Michael pointed to Islo's northern sister city. "Are we going to burn that one to the ground as well?"

Silver gave a disapproving gesture before any of the others could. "Even a stupid opponent wouldn't let that work twice."

"A defense of the city then."

"We won't have the manpower to do that either," Cayden replied. "If we pile enough troops into the city to make a difference there is the very real possibility that the Wardens leave the city and try to ford the river instead. If we don't put enough in, then they take it and kill our defenders in the bargain."

Michael seemed aghast. "It sounds like you are suggesting we just let the city fall."

Cayden and Asch exchanged glances before the latter leaned back on her heels. "The city will start it's evacuation as soon as we demolish the second bridge. That should space out the refugees well enough that they don't further exacerbate our problems."

"And remove the last stumbling block between Bastion and their army." Michael persisted. "I get that we want to keep Elan casualties at a minimum, but at some point, we need to make a stand. Sunè sits astride the Ryks, if they capture the city, then they have their river crossing."

"Just forcing them up that far buys us over a week," Cayden replied. "And we're already working on plans for what happens once they are on our side of the river. Have a little faith."

"Care to fill us in?"

"I said working on," Cayden said, to table-wide laughter.

"What about the shackles?" Silver asked once the mirth had died down.

"I've instructed the garrison to conduct an exhaustive search, as you requested," Valserys replied. "A magical search might turn up more, but at this point, I am confident that the only shackles in Bastion are the ones chained to the wall in the dungeon."

"He did seem very convinced that we'd handled them," Cayden said, expressing a similar concern as Silver. "It is possible that we've come into contact with the owner and didn't realize it."

"Which begs the question of what sort of player steals an artifact that causes this sort of havoc without returning it," Michael added. "Assuming of course, that it is a physical object with any power and not just some trinket that triggers the event."

"We do need more info." Cayden agreed. "Which is one of the short term goals I've been discussing with Dinah." For once the Toy Soldier's face did not twist into a mask of annoyance at her first name being used. "The second upgrade to the Keep was, as Valserys helpfully pointed out, a dungeon. As of yet, we haven't had much use for it, but I refuse to believe that the Developer put something like that into this event without intending for us to use it as part of the event." Cayden smiled grimly as he regarded his allies.

"I think our next goal must be to capture a Warden officer if we want to have any hope of getting to the cause of all of this."

Epilogue

Day 12 - Midday
Resources – F – 640 -20, Z – 790 +10, M – 280 +5, I – 700 +20, P +40, R +20
Research Complete (Warfare) - Barracks

"The books you requested."

"You're too quick Ainsworth," Cayden said without looking up from the text he was studying. "I haven't even puzzled out all of these quite yet."

"Might I suggest you begin puzzling faster then, Sir Cayden?"

That bit of prim and proper snark was at last enough to draw Cayden's attention away from the page. His eyes flickered up just as the head librarian carefully deposited a stack of books heavy enough to make the table groan slightly under their weight.

Bastion's Librarian was, to Cayden at least, the perfect example of a man who fit his name to perfection.  Some people were Kevins, or Davids, or Steves.  Ainsworth, he was absolutely an Ainsworth.

Just a tad over five feet tall, the diminutive Elan was among the oldest of his kind that Cayden had ever met.  At least, he thought so. When Cayden had tried to pry on the subject, the librarian had replied only that he was "older than most and younger than some," which was of course, supremely helpful. Even an attempt to order the information out of him had proven a failure when the Elan had helpfully reminded him that he was a librarian, not a soldier.

But he was old, that much was clear from his hunched back and scraggly grey beard. Unlike many of his kind, Ainsworth looked almost human. It was only his eyes with their unnatural crimson hue that gave him away as anything less than an octogenarian who had somehow stumbled into the tower by mistake.

For all he knew, he could just be an old human in contact lenses.

As far as Cayden could tell, Ainsworth just came with the place. The library had finished construction while they'd been out on campaign, and just as with the jail, it came with an employee to keep it running. Valserys didn't hire him, nor did anyone he'd interrogated on the subject. Even now, Cayden wasn't sure whether the Elan had been drawn to the library by some compulsion, or whether he'd come into being fully formed when the library was finished.

How cruel would that be, to come into existence in old age, with the sole purpose of acting as a librarian? The very thought made him shudder.

"Are there any other subject you'll be requesting? Or shall I leave you to your work?" The old man asked, dutifully separating the stack of book into three distinct piles.

"No, I think this should do." He replied with a smile.

The library had been one of his first destinations once things had settled down upon his return. Unlike the dungeon, the library did have a practical effect on the war effort, in that it significantly increased their overall research points. Still, Cayden hadn't been convinced that was it's only purpose, a conviction that had rewarded him with enough new runes to bring his total vocabulary to 1837/2000, on the very cusp of his next leap in power.

Even that knowledge hadn't been enough, however. It wasn't like the Developer to give them something as detailed as the library, without hiding some sort of Easter Egg within its shelves.

So far, however, that search had proven fruitless.

"Very well Marshall," Ainsworth said curtly, indicating each stack of books in turn. "As requested, these three are every bit of knowledge the library contains on the Liar King. These four deal with constructs in general, or the Wardens in particular and these last five are the tomes most related to Elan magic." The librarian tapped the final stack with a fingertip as he added. "I took the liberty of marking all relevant passages that I could locate, seeing as you appeared somewhat overwhelmed."

Cayden blinked in surprise. "That... in two hours?"

"Sir. You've been here for six." Ainsworth said with just the slightest hint of bemusement.

"What?!" Cayden shouted, lowering his voice only after a steady glare from the Elan. "I'd set an alarm... and... oh" He rolled his eyes as he realized his mistake. Even a high tech smart device powered by literal magic could still screw up when he selected PM instead of AM. "These are going to have to wait; our turn is going to be starting soon."

"Of course, sir," Ainsworth replied dutifully. "But before you go, I had one more thing to call to your attention."

"Hmm?"

"It will take not but a moment." The elder man smiled thinly beneath his well-kept beard. "You had initially gathered all our books on the language and runic characters of the Great Emperor."

"Yeah," Cayden replied. It had put them off on the wrong foot to start off with. Ainsworth didn't appreciate the fact that Cayden's Find Rune ability had allowed him to gather every book he'd desired without even stopping to inquire about the filing system.

"You missed one." The librarian said, clearly relishing the words as he extended a thin volume.

"It must not have been important," Cayden replied. Most likely it was a book that contained only runes that he had already added to his lexicon. "Put it on the pile and I'll-"

Any further words caught in Cayden's throat as he caught sight of the leather bound cover.  It was bland, a brown leather book no more than a few dozen pages at best. But it wasn't the size or quality of the book that drew his breath, but the symbol stamped into the leather on its surface. A symbol he'd seen only once before.

The rune of The White Knight.

From the Author

Thank you so much for reading Tower of Babel: Speedrunner.  I've been a writer in one form or another for much of my adult life, but this is actually the first time I've been proud enough of my work to publish it under my own name.  I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I stressed out and panicked about meeting my deadlines.

If you liked the story and want to support me as I continue to release additional books in this and other series’, there are a couple of ways you can do so.  The simplest is to just leave a review.  It takes as little as a minute, and good reviews are the life blood of a self-published author.  You can also recommend my work to others via any of the myriad LitRPG platforms that are out there on Facebook and elsewhere.

In the event that you like my work and want to tell me how much you liked it, or you hate it and want to tell me how badly I suck you can contact me by E-mail or on Facebook and Twitter.  You can also sign up for my Mailing List if you'd like to be made aware whenever a new book becomes available for publish.  Saves people time camping me on Facebook, if nothing else.

Finally, by reader request I now have a Patreon page.  Readers will get the earliest access to rough drafts, cover art and other fun goodies.

If you like LitRPG, but somehow simultaneously have been living beneath a rock and don't know about it, I recommend the LitRPG Podcast  by the Amazing Ramon Mejia.  While you are there I also recommend you look into purchasing his amazing book Adventures on Terra: Beginnings and Adventures on Terra: Escape.  Ramon runs an incredible show and he is probably the person single most responsible for making me believe this book could succeed.  So, if you like this book, give him some love while you are at it.

If you don't like it, it is his fault.

While I'm at it, I'm also going to recommend the amazing works of Life Reset: A LitRPG Novel (New Era Online Book 1) by Shermer Kuznits and the amazing Delvers LLC Series by Blaise Corvin

And of course, I want to plug all the amazing LitRPG communities:

LitRPG Society

GameLit Society

LitRPG Facebook Group

LitRPG Books

LitRPG Forum

I'd also like to thank Tomas Muir for the amazing cover art. He helped me short notice this time, which is always nice.

Thanks to Podium Publishing, who've picked up Tower of Babel for an Audiobook series, with the first book releasing this December.

Thank you to my readers, the next one will be coming much faster this time, I promise.

And as always, thanks to my beloved Maea for putting up with my usual meltdown as deadlines grown near.

Want to read more? Please enjoy this teaser for another of my upcoming LitRPG novels:

Blue Hills

Chapter One

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Alexander mashed his face helplessly into the pillow beneath him, groaning in frustration as even the plush weight of it pressed over his ears was unable to fully silence the shrill mechanical noise.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

What even was that noise?

Alex tried to place it within his sleep fogged mind without opening his eyes. Even though the closed lids he could feel the radiance of the sun beating down on him from the nearby window.  He must have forgotten to draw his blackout drapes before he went to bed.

Today was not starting out well.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

“Okay, let's cut that crap out right now!” Alex grumbled as he rolled onto his side and at last opened sleep crusted eyes.

It was an old mechanical alarm clock, the type he'd last seen in a motel on his drive through the deep south.  Probably thrice or more his age, it's crimson numbers blinked with each infuriating beep. It even sounded old, now that he was listening like the clock was struggling its best to produce every beep.

The table beneath it looked just as ancient; a hand carved wooden thing that made up in charm what it lacked in sophistication. This wasn't some thrown together Ikea end table, it the sort of relic that got passed from family member to family member, held onto even though if anyone was honest, it was kind of ugly.

Of course, the big concern was that neither table nor alarm clock belonged to him.

This wasn't his bedroom.

In a panic, he rolled onto his right side, reaching out across the enormous king sized bed to give the bunched up covers a quick tug.  They moved freely, but that only filled him with mixed emotions.  The bed was empty, and he was alone.  It was a small blessing that he hadn't stumbled home blackout drunk with a stranger from the bar, but it did nothing to answer his immediate question.  Where the hell was he?

Beep! Beep! Beep!

“Oh for...!” Alexander growled, reaching for the alarm clock.  Deactivating the alarm proved harder than expected in his exhausted state, but he restrained himself from throwing it at the wall just long enough to locate the switch on its rear facing. It wasn't until the clock had been well and truly silenced that he read the numbers on the old timey LCD. Six O'clock.

For a night owl like him, Six O'clock in the morning was a near mythical time, one that only ever came around when tabletop gaming stretched so far into the evening that it rolled around into early morning. He hadn't set the alarm for six in the morning in, well, ever.

Despite that, he felt surprisingly rested.  Alexander was by no stretch of the imagination a morning person, even getting up at his mid-afternoon wake up time on the weekend typically left him a shambling zombie of a man until he'd finished downing a cup or two of the pure powdered sugar and caffeine he called 'iced tea.'

This morning though? Now that he'd pushed through that initial fog of half consciousness, he was quite lucid.

Score one for adrenaline. Alex thought to himself.  Even as it crossed his mind, however, he knew that wasn't right. Apart from that initial fear that he'd drunk his way into a one night stand, nothing about the situation he'd found himself in had prompted much of an actual fear response, which was odd in and of itself.  He'd just woken up in a strange bed, in a place he didn't recognize.  Shouldn't he be more frightened?

Chirp-chirp!

The sudden noise in the still air of the bedroom did send a jolt through him as if to accent just how odd the calm he felt was.  It was nothing, of course, just a Blue Jay sitting on the windowsill, babbling away with a number of other birds just out of sight.  The bird was beautiful.  In truth, Alex couldn't recall the last time he'd seen a bird like that in the city.

Maybe a pigeon that was particularly fearless of the subway that rumbled past his flat on the third floor?

This place was nothing like his flat.  No cheap drywall or 'apartment beige' on these walls.  These were hardwood, massive logs cut and paneled along the wall to give the feel of a log cabin.  No, that wasn't right.  He could see part of the outer frame of the building through the room's sole window, and it looked no different on the outside than it did on the inside.

Not exactly a lot of log cabins in the city.  Where the hell was he?

Alexander rolled over once again, awkwardly contorting his body until he managed to bring himself fully upright.  The comforter fell from his chest as he rose, and he could feel the coolness of the wood beneath his feet as they touched the floor.  It was at that point that he realized that however, he'd gotten here, it hadn't been with his clothes.

A short scan of the room with a bed sheet wrapped around his waist confirmed what he suspected.  His clothing was nowhere to be found.  The search did turn up clothing when he checked the wardrobe, but the flannel work shirts, jeans, and overalls he found there weren't exactly in keeping with either his semi-professional work attire or his more grunge casual wear.  He wasn't sure which he'd have been wearing when he got here.

Come to think of it; he couldn't remember much of anything that must have happened in the lead-up to his arrival here.  What memories he had of the previous day were fuzzy at best.  He knew he'd gone to work.  He'd been ill and tried to call in sick, but his boss wasn't having any of it, so he'd dragged himself half dead to his cubicle. He remembered the morning meeting, sitting down at his desk and then...

The sudden sound of knocking from the other room startled Alex out of both his recollections and the bed itself.  His bare backside hit the floor with a thud, just barely managing to pull a long white sheet down with him to preserve his modesty.

The knock came again after a brief delay, then a third time after a proper amount of time had passed.  Whoever was outside was patient, but insistent.  They weren't going away, but maybe they could provide some answers.

“Just a minute!” Alexander shouted at the sound of the fourth series of knocks as he struggled to his feet and cinched the sheet tightly about his waist.  A quick peek into the bathroom found surprisingly modern fixtures, save for the claw footed tub that dominated the left side of the room, but none of his clothing.  His search of the living room proved no better.  A TV, a two chair cafe-style dining room table festooned with books and a thick bearskin rug were the only things of note in the spartan common room.

Definitely no pants.

“I'm coming; I'm coming.” He called out as the knock came again, carefully skirting the two windows on the front of the living room to avoid giving his visitor an eyeful as he moved for the door. It was only once he was safely concealed against the wall beside it that he finally reached for the door.

Alex was surprised to find not a single lock on the old door.  His apartment had a chain, a deadbolt, and a knob lock and he still felt unsafe, but his guest could have just walked through at any time, had she not been so polite.

And of course, his guest had to be a woman.  Because this simply wasn't awkward enough.

“Oh!  Hello, Alexan...” She started moments after the door had opened just wide enough for her to see his face.  Her eyes had begun locked on his, but as she spoke they drifted downwards, her words trailing off as that gaze traveled along his bare, muscled chest.  “I.  Oh my.  I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to rush this quickly!  I'll wait out here until you're dressed!”

It was difficult to place the age of the woman standing on his porch, save for the fact that she was quite a bit his senior.  Her dark hair was streaked through with patches of silver, her face wrinkled with lines of age, but without the full on wrinkles of someone in their twilight years.  She still cared about her appearance enough to dress well, a prim and proper business casual skirt and blouse, while her cheeks were tinted with the slightest hint of rouge.  She looked like every other middle manager who had stopped climbing the ladder in her forties, save for the cute little miniature top hat settled on the back left side of her head.

“I'm having a little trouble finding my... wait.  Did you just call me Alexander?” He asked.

“Well, yes?” The woman asked in confusion; her eyes still averted from him. “Do you prefer Alex?”

She knew his name.  How the hell did she know his name!

“If you're still getting yourself acquainted, I can come back.” She said as she studied the craftsmanship of the wall next to the door.

“I... look, I'm a little confused on what the hell is going on here,” Alex replied, an edge of stress finally finding purchase in his voice.  “Like for starters, where are my clothes!”

The older woman looked at him quizzically, her head tilting to one side, that little top hat straining against the pins that must have held it in place. “I'm not sure what you mean.  There should be an entire wardrobe full of them.  Isn't there?”  She paused for a moment, then added.  “Medium shirts, 30' waist, right?  If they gave you the wrong...”

She was still speaking, but the words were going in one ear and out the other. She didn't just know his name; she knew his waistband size?  Just where on earth was he.

“Uh... okay, my mistake.  Just give me a minute.” He interrupted before shutting the door in her face.  Alex reached for the lock, only to remember there wasn't one, then raced for the wardrobe once again.

A cursory search of the clothes within proved that she was telling the truth.  Everything inside was perfectly sized for him, from the shirts and pants to even the socks and underwear.  Apart from the tailored suit he owned for special occasions, Alexander couldn't recall the last time he owned clothing that fit anywhere near as well as every single piece they'd provided him.

Too bad it was all ugly.

Alexander wasn't precisely a fashionista. He bought most of his clothing from discount racks or big box stores, but even still he did still have something that could be tenuously called a style.  And these were not it.  After a veritable rampage through the wardrobe, he'd managed to throw together precisely one respectable outfit, blue jeans, a black t-shirt and a brown leather jacket thrown over it to complete the look.

A glance in the mirror told him he didn't look half bad.  The shirt complemented his short, dark hair while hugged him tight enough that it hinted at the swimmer physique he'd held since high school. The jacket helped to give him a slightly more rugged air than he was used to, which was nice.  Even at twenty-two, people tended to describe him most often as 'boyish,' and he considered it a lucky night at the club if the bouncer merely checked his ID instead of scratching and poking at it under the assumption he must be some underage kid trying to sneak a few drinks.

He traveled into the bathroom on a hunch that proved perhaps more worrisome than the wardrobe. As he'd feared, the medicine cabinet contained all his usual essentials in brand new, unopened packages.  His brand of razor, his shaving cream.  Even the weird toothpaste he'd used since childhood due to his hatred for all things minty.  Someone had gone to the trouble of stocking all of his necessities.

It was time to figure out why.

“Oh! Alexander! You startled me!” The woman on the porch exclaimed with a laugh.  “Did you find everything you were...” She trailed off again, a smile creeping unseen across her face as she followed his gaze.

There hadn't been much to see with the door opened little more than a crack for him to speak through, but with it thrown wide open to confront her, he was in turn faced with the reality of what lay behind the woman on the doorstep. A vast open space of the sort Alex had never, ever laid eyes on.

Alexander had been born in the city, he'd grown up in the city, and he'd lived all of his adult life until this moment in the city.  The closest he'd ever come to nature was the park that sat behind their first apartment when he'd been young, or maybe the rooftop garden on the projects when he'd been a teenager.

This was incomparable.  Grass and fields as far as the eye could see, with little thickets of trees and bushes here and there that appeared to grow progressively more wild the further they were away from the house. It must be acres of land, all barely touched by human hands. Alex had never seen anything like it, and he was damn sure he wasn't in the city any longer.

“Takes your breath away, doesn't it?” She asked at last.

“I...” Alex stammered, looking down at the shorter woman. “Where are we?”

“Well that is going to be up to you to decide, isn't it?”

Alex felt sudden fear grip his heart.  Was this heaven? Hell?  Had he died, and this woman was some celestial bureaucrat here to help him nail down his idea of paradise or punishment? “What?”

“Well, it belongs to you now.  So you're going to have to name it.” The woman chirped, oblivious to his sudden terror.  "Your Uncle called it Birch Branch, but I don't really think the name suits you.”

“Uncle? What are you talking about?”

Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion as she looked up at him.  “I'm sorry, you seem confused.  I'll just start from the beginning.”

“Please.”

“My name is Marie Mayer.  And please, no jokes, I've heard them all.”

Alex stared at her blankly.

“Because I'm the mayor?” Marie asked incredulously. “Your uncle had a much quicker wit; you know that?”

“Still half asleep.” Alex stammered by way of apology.

“Mhmm.” She replied skeptically. “As I said, I am the mayor of Blue Hills.  Your uncle asked me to act as a welcoming party should you arrive, and help you with some of your logistics and the like until you're well and truly settled.”

“You keep saying 'your uncle.'  I don't have an uncle.”

Another wave of confusion fluttered across the older woman's face. “Are you sure?  You are Alexander Adamson, are you not?”

He opened his mouth to say no, but the use of his full name brought him up short.  His mom was an only child; he knew that much.  But just because he hadn't met any siblings on his father's side didn't mean much.  He'd never been very close with his father when he was young, and once dad ran out on them, well, it wasn't like his mom had any reason to keep in touch with her brother-in-law if she had one.

“Less sure than I was a minute ago,” Alex admitted with a frown.  “But I'm not sure why any uncle I've never heard of would be so interested in me.”

“You were his last living relative, as I understand it.”

“You mean other than my dad right?” He asked.

“Your uncle never spoke much of his brother,” Marie said cautiously, perhaps suspecting the fragility of the ground she tread upon.  “But it was my understanding that his brother had passed away several years ago.”

The notion hit Alexander like a body-blow.  The last memory he had of his father was not a good one, a knock-down, drag out screaming match between his parents that had ended just short of physical violence.  He'd watched from the top the banister as his father had grabbed his jacket and keys, then stalked out the door.  Alex had seen neither hide nor hair of the man for two-thirds of his life, and he didn't miss him.  But to hear that for much of that he'd already been...

“I'm sorry. I'm not the person you should have been hearing that from.”

“Yeah, would have been nice if my 'uncle' could have come out to tell me himself,” Alex responded bitterly.

“I...  Alexander, you know that he...”

Alex was surprised by how strong that second blow struck him.  He didn't consider himself a sentimental type, but to learn that he had someone in this world besides his mother and that he'd lost them without ever even the chance to know them? That was more than he'd expected.

“This is my inheritance then?” He asked.

“Quite right.” Marie nodded. “There are a number of his old books set out on the table when you get the chance. One of them should contain the deed for the property.  Once you've settled on a name, you can bring it to the town clerk, and we'll make it official.  Get you a proper sign and everything.”

“How did he-”

“A question for a different time.” Marie interrupted softly. “You have a busy enough day without dwelling on ideas like that.” She reached out a slender hand, patting him on the shoulder. “For now, how about we get started.”

“Yeah, I suppose we sho-” Alex started to say, before his thoughts caught up with him all at once.  Was he really about to just go along with all this, as if he hadn't just woken up nude in a strange bed with no memory of how he got there?  This was barely a step above waking up in an ice filled tub with a letter telling him to go to a hospital!  “Okay, no.  I need some answers first.  Like how the hell did I get here.”

Marie seemed perplexed.  “The train.”

“What do you mean, the train.”

“I'm not sure what possible words I could use to describe a train better than the train.” She replied, not sure whether to laugh or be offended by his tone. “You came in on the midnight train and then came straight here. I'd just assumed you were tired.”

This was ludicrous. Alex had never been on a train in his life.  Even blackout drunk he was fairly certain he'd have remembered hitching a ride on a train.  Heck, the only train station he knew back home was the subway! “And what happened to my clothes then? Or my stuff?”

“I'm not sure,” Marie admitted. “Your uncle had employed a housekeeper, who has been keeping the place tidy since his passing. It is possible that she took it for a wash while you were sleeping?”

“The housekeeper comes by before six in the morning?”

“Hmm? Oh, no.” She shook her head; then a smile crept across her face. “Wait, did you sleep this whole time?”

“What do you mean this whole time?”Alex asked.

“Alexander... you got in on the midnight train yesterday.” Marie laughed. “You are just like your uncle, willing to sleep an entire day away given the chance.”

Alex stared at her blankly. This was getting weirder by the second, but that was the least of his concerns.  “Wait, so... what day is it?”

“Sunday, the first.”

“Oh, you have...” Alex swore under his breath, turning to march down the length of the porch as another wave of panic washed over him. “You mean it took me a day to get here, and then a day to sleep off whatever hangover I must have had?! Oh god, I am so fired.”

“Fired?” Marie asked.

“From my job!” He exclaimed. “When does the next train come through?”

“Same time as every month.  The twenty-eighth.” Marie replied, before adding. “But before you get carri-”

“The twenty-eighth!” This was a nightmare.  This was very clearly a nightmare.  He woke up with no clothes in a strange place with a woman telling him his father was dead and he'd already missed a day of work.

He slapped himself.  Hard.

“Alex!” Marie shouted.

“Hmm. So that didn't work.” He struck himself again, a full open handed cuff across his right cheek. He didn't have much faith in it, but when the second slap failed Alex decided to try a pinch all the same.

“Alex, stop.” She insisted. “You aren't fired from anything.”

“You don't know my boss. He'd fire someone with ebola for missing a day of work!”

“No.  I mean you can't be fired.” Marie said, studying his face. “Don't you remember? You quit.”

Chapter Two

It wasn't a dream, but it sure did feel like a waking nightmare.

Alex hadn't believed her at first, the whole thing sounded just too crazy to be real.  Quit his job?  He'd spent a year and a half as an unpaid intern in the hopes that maybe, just maybe they'd take him on in the cubicle farm. Was she insane? Was he?

After a few minutes of discussion, he'd at least managed to rule out the former.

Marie had plenty of documentation to back up her claims.  Her cell phone had a number of time stamped calls from his phone, along with contemporaneous text messages with him that included, among other things, travel details. Using her cell to call his work had proven her truthful there as well. Alex hadn't told them to shove it or anything, but he'd quit without proper notice. That bridge was burnt.

Somehow, over the last two days, he'd quit his job, broken his lease and told a bunch of his friends that he was moving away. And yet somehow, he didn't remember any of it.

“I know it might be asking a lot, but is there any way you could drive me home?” Alex asked.  He was sitting on the porch now, suddenly more weary than he'd ever felt.  Being told that your whole life had just evaporated around you while you slept did that to a person.

"I'm sorry Alex," Marie replied, shaking her head.  She held up a finger to silence him as he was about to protest. "It isn't that I don't want to, I simply can't.  For one, I don't own a car.  Blue Hills isn't really automobile friendly."

“And for the other?”

She winced. “The only road out of town had a mudslide early last year.  We haven't been able to scrounge up the money to have it removed.”

Alex felt the last strand of hope tugged free of his body.  “You're telling me that the only way in or out of this town is a train that only comes by once a month.”

“You could hike.” She admitted even as her face suggested how bad of an idea that would be.

“How far?”

“... a little over a hundred miles.”

“Ughhh.....”

“I know, I know.” She said, patting him gingerly on the knee as he slumped prone across the porch with an arm thrown across his face, nearly clipping his head against the door in the process. “Just think of it as a vacation!”

“A vacation?” He scowled.

“Why not?” She shot back, a bit of sassiness in her voice. “You've got your own cabin, and all of this land on it to explore, not to mention the rest of the valley.  If you work hard, you can even build up a little nest egg to help you get back on your feet once you go home!”

“Work hard?” Alex asked as he shifted the arm just enough to glare at her. “On vacation.”

Marie smiled. “Well, this is a farm after all.”

"Me? Farm?" Alex laughed. "Look, no offense, but I'm a paralegal. I dig through books for a living, not soil.  I couldn't even keep the houseplant in my first apartment alive, let alone try and get anything to grow."

“Just a suggestion. I've got plenty of others too.”

“Besides, I'm here for twenty-eight days, not six months.  Not exactly a lot of time to grow crops.”

That seemed to confuse her.  "Months?" She asked, before waving the thought away in favor of a different one. "There is plenty of time if you wanted to learn." Marie turned away from him, digging into the satchel she had set down at the foot of the stairs when the two of them had sat down to hash things out.  She rummaged around within it for a few moments.  "I was going to give you these.  Some potato seeds.  They only take five days to grow.  Plenty of time for a few crops."

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I'm not super familiar with farming, but I'm like... ninety percent sure that a potato takes longer than five days to grow.”

“City boys.” Marie scoffed. “Always thinking that things take months if they don't finish in an afternoon.  Just take them!”

Marie reminded him of his mom when she talked like that, sternly laying down the law.  Except his mom would never be caught dead wearing spectacles and a silly little top hat.  Still, just like his mom, there was little sense in arguing when she had her mind set on something.  Better to just take the seeds.

“Thank you.” She said sarcastically, before standing and brushing herself off.  “Now come on, get up and, let me give you the tour of the place like your uncle wanted.”

Holding his dead uncle's last wish over his head to make him take a tour. Marie could be positively savage when she wanted to be. “Fine. Fine.” He grumbled.

“Alright!” She replied in a tone far too chipper for his taste. “We'll start close and move our way out as we go. Sound good?”

“Do I actually have a choice in this? Or is this sort of a rhetorical question?”

Marie stopped for a moment, pondering. “Hmm.  Probably the second one.”

Alex rolled his eyes and grabbed the porch banister, using it to leverage himself upright.  He'd barely taken a handful of steps to catch up to Marie before she was pointing to a large wooden box, perhaps six feet long, four feet wide and three feet tall.  It was painted a dark brown, with a coarse rope handle protruding from the top of a hinged top.

“Please tell me that isn't the outhouse.”

“What? No! Ugh.” Marie shuddered. “Your bathroom is inside, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” Alex laughed.

She rolled her eyes.  “That is your shipping bin. I'll come by every day on my morning walk.  I'll take anything you've put in the bin, and bring it back to the general store in town for sale.”

“That seems convenient, though don't come around on my account.  Not likely to be shipping much, if anything.”

Marie shrugged.  “It is a habit I started with your uncle, too old to quit now.”

“If I do ship things, how do I get paid? Do I go to the general store?” Alex asked. It felt bizarre to even say the words general store in a context that wasn't from a video game or an old western film.

"Ah, we'll make a capitalist farmer out of you yet," Marie replied, reaching back to pinch his cheek before he could stop her. "No, you don't have to do anything. It'll all be credited to your general account."

“My general account?”

She nodded. "Blue Hills is a pretty tight knit community. Back in my grandfather's time, we decided that it was silly to carry cash everywhere when everyone knows everyone.  Instead we each just have a general account that I keep track of at my office.  Every day I total up everyone's purchases, update the accounts and update their account books on my morning walk."

"That seems..." Alex started a bit at a loss for words.  It wasn't that he didn't have words of course, but that the ones he had were probably not ideal.  Nuts, insane, crazy, stupid, he had plenty of choices, just none that weren't insulting. "... dangerous." He finished at last.  Not perfect, but she didn't look angry.  "Don't you worry about cheating, embezzling? Things like that?"

"Not really," Marie said plainly. "As I said, we're a tight knit little group. It wouldn't work in a big city, but no one here would try to cheat us. Just not in character for a resident of Blue Hills."

"But how do you deal with anyone who isn't from Blue Hills," Alex asked incredulously.

“We still have money.” Marie rolled her eyes. “When we sell crops and crafts at the end of the month I just convert it from Zeni into the dollar and then I-”

“Wait. Zeni?  What the heck is a Zeni?”

“Oh, you'll get used to it. Part of the town's system, it makes book-keeping a little simpler for me.”

“How?” Alex asked flatly.

Marie eyed him for a moment, a more stern gaze than he was used to.  “Look, it is probably a lot for you to take in for one day.  Right now the important thing you need to know is that when you buy something at a store, an appropriate amount gets debited from your account.  Try and bring the book with you and don't overspend while you're here.  I've given you a thousand Zeni to help you buy any essentials you might need while starting out, alright?"

“Could you maybe throw in a couple of glubarks while you're at it?” He asked.

She cocked her head to one side.

"Nevermind you're probably right. Definitely not in the right state of mind to try and puzzle out economics." He said, at last, a half smile on his lips. "You mentioned that it is tight knit.  How many people are we talking about? A few hundred?"

“With you?” Marie tilted her head back in thought before replying. “Thirty-Six?”

“Thirty-six?” Alex laughed. “Wouldn't that technically make you a Hamlet?”

“Wouldn't complaining about the choice of what we call our town make you a pedant?”

“... point taken.”

"I thought you might," Marie smirked. "Let's continue."

They didn't have to go far.  Less than twenty feet from the shipping bin, Marie gestured to a small wooden chest pressed up against the side of the house. A handful of farm implements were laid out on the ground next to it, along with a small satchel similar to the one she wore.

"These are, unfortunately, all that was left of your uncle's tools and storage," Marie explained. "Most of what he owned was auctioned off to cover debts, as per his will, but he made sure to leave you a sort of starter kit."

“Wow.” It was the only reply Alex could find within himself.

"I know they don't look like much.  But they are great starter tools." Marie gestured to each item in turn as she spoke. "An axe to get you whatever lumber you need, a hoe for tilling soil, a scythe for harvesting crops and a watering can for... well, I'm sure you can guess what that one is for."

“I was fairly sure of what all of them were used for.” Alex briefly rubbed at his temples with his thumb and forefinger. “So we're going full Amish here, huh?”

“Oh, nothing that bad.” Marie scowled. “If I could have provided you better tools, I would have, but as it is I had to go out and splurge just to get you the things he forgot you'd need.”

With that Marie hefted the satchel and tossed it in his direction.  It was a brown leather of the same sort as his jacket, its roughly textured surface inlaid with relatively intricate highlights and stitching.  The whole bag couldn't have weighed more than a few pounds, and even Alex had to admit it fit remarkably well as he looped the strap over one shoulder.

“That should get you started, though you may want to see Raven about getting a larger one if you find the size to be too limited.  It should hold twelve unique items, while the chest here can hold thirty-six.”

Alex stared back at her blankly.  Did she mean pockets? He turned his attention to the bag itself, but it appeared to only have a single pocket on its outer facing, without any dividers or other means of separating what was put inside of it.  What on earth was she talking about?

Before he could think of a polite way to voice his question, Marie was off again on her tour, walking briefly around the edges of the house before gesturing with an outstretched hand. "To the north, you'll find the Indigo Forest.  It is not only a beautiful place for you to go for a walk, but it can serve as an extra source of lumber, scavenged materials, wild crops and the like."

“Wouldn't that tick off the property owner?”

"The land is kept in trust by the town itself." Marie smiled. "Treat it kindly, and we won't have any more cause to complain about you than we did your uncle."

"You seemed to have a lot of arrangements with my uncle," Alex observed.

She cast a sidelong look in his direction as she turned, a new sharpness in her tone. "Your uncle was a great man who did great things for this town. Only right that we gave things back.  Now if you'll follow my gaze to the west, you should just be able to see the top of the town clock tower."

So he could.  Of course, if he hadn't been told to look, Alex doubted he would have ever spotted the distant building.  Only the very top steeple peeked out over the rolling hills that separated his far from the town proper, though it was enough to give him some sense of the distance between the two.

“Bit of a walk from here to there, isn't it?” Alex remarked.

“Fifteen minutes or so. You'll get used to it.”

Alex snorted.

"To the south, you've got the foothills. We've got a few of the outlying homesteads out that way, along with the town blacksmith and our famous hot springs."

He wasn't sure which was more ridiculous, that they still had a blacksmith, or that Marie thought anything in this Podunk village could be considered famous.

“You might want to go have a talk with Leo at some point.” She continued, either not recognizing or choosing to ignore the skepticism on Alex's face. “There is a small mine on the property that your uncle had Leo seal up when it became apparent that your uncle no longer had the strength to work it.  If you don't take to farming, that might be more your style.”

“What did they mine?” Alex asked, after a moment's thought.

"You know, I'm not sure." She admitted. "A whole host of different ores, but I can't be specific.  Leo should be at his shop for most of the day; perhaps he'll know more."

Alex nodded. “So what else do I need to know?”

"Hmm, for the moment, I think that is it." Marie grinned. "There is quite a bit to the village, but rather than drag you all the way there I believe it is better for you to explore in your own time."

“Short tour.” He laughed.

"Small town." She shot back, her voice twinkling with amusement. "I live in a bright red building in town, and I work at city hall.  Pretty much impossible for you to miss either of them.  If you have any questions today, you can come and ask.  Otherwise, I'll be back tomorrow to see if there is anything you're struggling with."

“Besides 'How I got here and why I don't remember any of it.'?” Alex asked.

“Yeah.  Besides that.”

For the first time, it occurred to him that Marie might not believe him.  Perhaps she thought he'd been intoxicated after all, or maybe she just thought he'd gotten cold feet about the whole thing once he'd gotten there.  There was just that little twitch in her smile when he talked about how he didn't remember, the same sort of look his mother used to get when he told an obvious lie, but she decided to humor him anyway.

“Well, I'd best get back to town.  It isn't going to run itself.” Marie said sweetly.

“I wouldn't be so sure about that.” Alex murmured under his breath before giving the most confident smile he could muster given the circumstances. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

He watched for about a minute as his one lifeline picked her way through the shrubs and rough terrain of the farm, then set out on her way up the hill that would take her off the farm and into the town proper.  What on earth was he supposed to do now?

"Would have been nice of them to give me a shed," Alex muttered to himself as he returned to the tools laid out on the soil next to the house.  The chest wasn't nearly large enough to hold the scythe or the hoe, but it should fit the watering can and the axe if he angled the latter correctly.  If there was one thing he hated, it was clutter.

Alex leaned down scooping up the watering can in one hand.  It was an ancient thing, like something out of the 1950's, with a gaudy teal paint scheme, but it was in remarkable condition.  It was metal, but there wasn't a hint of rust or discoloration on the farm equipment.  It looked as though it had just come off the manufacturing line.

Watering can in hand, he walked a few steps over to the wooden chest, snickering a little at its design as he approached it.  It looked for all the world like a treasure chest straight out of a storybook, with iron banding running here and there across its frame, and a comically oversized lock latching it shut.  Considering the key for the padlock was nowhere in sight, he gingerly removed the lock and set it aside before he opened the chest itself and set the watering can and lock inside.  He'd figure out where the key was later.

Next, he went for the axe, plucking the thick wood handled farm implement from the dirt and looking it over. Just like the watering can, the axe looked both ancient, while at the same time good as new.  Like someone's platonic ideal of what the perfect woodcutter's axe would be.

It was only when he turned to stow the axe in the chest that things took a turn for the weird.

“What the?” Alex blurted aloud in sudden surprise.  He'd put both the watering can and the padlock inside the chest not twenty seconds ago.  But the chest was empty.

Must have dropped them beside it or something. He thought to himself as if that made any sense at all.  His memory hadn't exactly proven itself reliable, but even so, Alex was certain he'd placed both items directly into the chest.

To free up his hands, Alex set the axe down inside the chest and walked a slow, circle around it. The whole thing was ludicrous of course. After all, he was trying to find a foot tall watering can that should be plain as day, not a missing contact lens.  Still, he approached the challenge with the same studiousness of a man who opened the same cupboard five times in search of his missing keys.

Then he noticed the axe was missing.

"No way," Alex said, backing away from the open chest in shock. "There is just no way."

There really wasn't.  Even if he worried that his swiss cheese brain had somehow led to him losing the watering can, there was no way on earth he'd made the same mistake with the axe.  But what other alternative was there? A trap door?  That'd be insane.

Alex checked for one anyway.

Satisfied that the dirt underneath the treasure chest was indeed solid earth, his mind spun for a rational or even irrational explanation, though to no effect.  Things didn't just disappear when you put them in a box, that didn't make any sense.

It can hold up to twelve unique items. Marie's words about the chest and his satchel came back to him in a rush.  Is this what she'd been talking about?

"Only one way to find out," Alex said to himself, though he was far less sure than his defiant words let on.

The strap slid from his shoulder before Alex set the open bag down on the ground next to the open chest.  From there he returned to the two remaining implements.  He looked between them for a second, then opted to avoid the one with the gleaming, sharpened edge for his experiment.

Hoe in hand, he returned to the open bag and took a deep breath.  Then he pressed the butt of the hoe into the bag.  Tension melted from his shoulders as he felt the wooden tip of the hoe push against leather and halt against the unyielding ground beneath.

"Well at least that isn-" Alex said, though he'd spoken far too soon. The hoe in his hand shimmered as if the physical object in his hand were nothing more than a mirage. Then, in the blink of an eye, the mirage collapsed, while a blur of motion shot down into the open bag before vanishing completely.

Perhaps he just needed a harder slap.