This river appeared to be the middle choke point between the two halves of the map. Past the river, the forest resumed. Identical looking grassy plains curved northeast and northwest. The entire map must form a figure eight, with the river and platform at its middle.
When Amara or any of her units moved south, they’d have to cross here. Having the scout placed nearby would give me fair warning of the next attack.
The scout nodded once and closed the chat window. I shook my head. Having NPCs activate, and even terminate visual chats was new for me, and I can’t say I was getting use to it.
As I got closer to the altar, its details became more clear. It was nearly identical to the one at my base, entangled skeletons with the top one extending an arm, waiting to grasp a banner.
The wide platform had no defenses. Bringing the banner here, let alone keeping it safe for five minutes, seemed a near impossible task. How could you defend it?
Footmen Unit training complete.
I smiled. That would do the trick.
With just enough gold, I started another unit to training. Then, selecting the new unit, I ordered them to move north to my position and guard the altar. I’d wait here until they arrived, then…
Movement to the northwest caught my eye.
A group of trolls were approaching on foot. But these were not grunts. Workers.
As they got closer I could see they were wearing blue shirts under overalls. But their leggings only went down a little past their knees, giving them a comical look. Each held a hammer or axe.
A quick look beyond them, and to the northeast approach showed they were alone.
I laughed, and summoned my bow, waiting until they got within range.
“Easy pickings,” I said with a smirk.
“I’ll say!” came a shout from behind me.
I whirled to see Amara in mid-leap from atop the altar, descending upon me.
With no time to react I could only bring up my bow in a feeble attempt to block her sword.
But she crashed into me, driving her weapon straight through my chest. The force of the sudden attack knocked me off of Smoke, and I fell to the ground.
Flat on my back, my avatar had become paralyzed. I knew what this meant.
Amara bent over me, leering. “Payback’s a FILTERED, ain’t it, honey?” She wrenched the sword from my chest then turned her attention to poor Smoke.
As my screen darkened, I cursed myself for being so stupid. Then a message appeared before my vision.
You Have Been Slain in Battle!
Then my screen went black.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Amara Frostwalker has killed Vivan Valesh. +1,000 Battle Points for Amara Frostwalker.
For several moments after my avatar’s death, I yelled a stream of profanities with Amara’s name attached to them, until I was blue in the face.
She’d hidden near the altar, probably under the platform itself, in Shadow Form. She knew that the approaching troll workers would probably distract me enough for her to sneak attack.
That’s the second time she’d caught me off guard.
A thirty second timer counted down against the blackness of my view-screen. It was all I could do but glower at it.
A new system message appeared:
Your Mount has been killed.
More profanities, more glowering.
The thirty seconds felt like hours as adrenaline pulsed through my system. There was no doubt now that Amara had played a Battle Field session before. Possibly several.
And I was the Battle Field noob she got to toy with.
The counter reached zero and my screen brightened.
Vivian Valesh has been reborn to the world. Let the Battle continue!
My avatar was no longer at the middle, but was looking up at a low ceiling. I sat up to find I was on a raised stone slab in a cramped room. Fire sconces on the floor were the only source of light. Cob webs hung from the beams above and murals of battles draped across the stone walls.
A crypt.
An ascending stairway could be seen through the crypt’s only door.
I stood and looked my avatar’s body over. There was no sword wound in my chest and my cloak and cloth armor were undamaged. The health indicator on my screen showed my hit points at 100%. Nothing was missing from my inventory either (not that I could access it anyway).
Other than finding myself transported from the platform, there appeared to be no obvious death penalty.
Still, this beats a newbie zone, hands down.
I took the narrow stairs up to emerge from a floor into a tall round room made of stone blocks.
The Keep.
Far above, the Lookout waved through the trap door then returned to his duties.
Welcome home, I thought. Death was a quick trip back to base.
I stepped outside and squinted from the sunlight.
The archery range was complete. Several targets were lined up along the end of the range with a small stone building for housing archers at one side.
I pulled up its menu.
Train Archer Unit: Cost 300 gold – Yes/No?
Yes.
Several archers appeared on the range and shot arrows at the line of targets. Others stood to the side, fletching new arrows.
Training time: five minutes.
By now, there was enough gold for another unit of footmen so I started their training.
I frowned at my status line. Resources were not being collected even close to fast enough. If I wanted to begin an assembly line of troops, I’d need more workers and for that, a Keep upgrade.
The current bottle-neck was stone. Maybe if I took workers from…
Enemy Contact!
What?! I spun around looking for an enemy army rushing toward the base. Then my eyes were drawn to the map.
The footmen unit I’d assigned to the center altar was close to arriving at their destination. Two enemy grunt icons were now at the middle and moving to meet my lone unit.
I slapped my virtual forehead. I had completely forgotten about them, and now they were marching straight into trouble.
Panicking, I ordered the unit to stop, which they immediately did. But what to do with them? If I had them engage the enemy, they would be killed by overwhelming numbers. Plus, there were other enemy unit icons appearing from their north and heading toward the center platform.
But having them retreat wasn’t an option either as they were now too close to the enemy and would be cut to pieces.
With little choice, I decided they would fight and maybe reduce the enemy’s unit strength. Selecting the unit again gave me a formation menu with a little diagram beside each.
Circle Formation
Staggered Formation
Square Formation
The square formation looked to be the most compact and gave them a small defensive boost. Or so I hoped.
Square Formation selected.
I watched, helpless, as the footmen unit assembled themselves just as the first of the two grunt units smashed into them.
Footmen Unit training Complete.
The new unit assembled outside the barracks.
Now what? I looked around at my base. There were the two footmen units here, one of which split in guard duty, with an archer unit to pop out soon.
Do I send the two footmen units out now and follow up with the archers? Or do I sit here and let my troops die because of my own stupidity?
The abandoned unit was in full engagement now. My combat log started to scroll.
+1 Battle points
+1 Battle points