“Sorry guys, but we need a wall up around our only village.”
Chris selected Use Hero Labor and felt a sudden weight in his hand. He looked down and found an axe there. Looking over at Nathaniel, the battlemage was holding a shovel. Ku had a pick. Even Scout had on a dragging harness like a sled dog. Doing the math quickly in his head, Chris reassured his party memebers, “It’s only for a couple hours guys!”
Chapter 17
“Yo, yo, yo, Kaiyden, my man, uh... orc? What’s up in your neck of the Divided Lands?” Jeremy was contacting the leader of another side through the Diplomacy Menu. It showed him a fancy painting of the leader and allowed him to hear what they were saying. This had been where the necromancer had first seen the alluring leader of the village Pius, albeit as a 2D portrait. Her voice and weird way of talking had not hurt Jeremy’s burgeoning interest any. He wondered how much longer her village would hold out against his undead siege.
“Hey, Jeremy. Just got my first town. Teamed up with another army to take out our kings because the idiots were always fighting each other. You got a tutor? Mine’s called Yoda. He’s the one that suggested teaming up with the other army. I thought it wouldn’t work. I kinda didn’t want it to work. This game is really fun when you get to kill stuff. But, we got to come back and kill lots of stuff. They’re calling me a Chief now.”
“Spectacular, big fella. So, you’ve got resources now?”
“Resources?”
“Yeah, like food, wood, stone. You got any of that?”
“Uh, let me check.”
Jeremy tapped the fingers of his Control Undead glove and fiddled with the silver chain on it. He was used to waiting on Kaiyden. The big lug was not exactly the sharpest tack in the drawer. But, Jeremy had figured out how handle him.
After a few moments, Kaiyden’s voice returned to the conversation. To Jeremy ‘s surprise, Kaiyden sounded guarded. “I got some stuff.”
“What do you mean you’ve got some stuff? Like what?”
Kaiyden paused for a long time. Finally, he answered, “Why don’t you ask for what you want and I’ll tell you if I’ve got it.”
Jeremy was glad that the Diplomacy Menu did not show Kaiyden his angry face. What was this guy doing? Why was he suddenly playing it close to the vest? He had been willing to commit mass murder with Jeremy back on Earth. Now, he is not going to reveal the exact set of resources he has available in the Divided Lands? You just cannot trust people, man. Gotta take care of yourself...
“I need three units of stone that are all together in one solid block. You got anything like that lying around? All my stone is in smaller chunks. Those aren’t big enough for what I’m doing.”
Again, there was a long pause. Kaiyden had to be checking with someone else. It was probably that Yoda guy he had mentioned. Man, Yorick was a useful guy to have as a tutor, but it would be a cold day in the Divided Lands before Jeremy started taking orders from him.
Kaiyden came back again, “Yeah, I got that. I want 50 gold for it.”
“Come on, Kaiyden! The rate in the Trade Menu between our two sides says 8 GP for 1 unit of stone.”
“Yeah, but I got something special you don’t. You want it, and I need 50 GP to build a troop of mountain trolls. We gonna do this?”
“Yeah, big fella. We’ll do this.” Jeremy’s gold income was only about 20 GP a day. It came through trade routes since he had no mines yet. But, he had figured out that he could supplement that income by selling Theodora food. In addition to all her other extremely attractive traits, the head of the village Pius had a plentiful treasury as well. Dinner and a movie could wait. It was not like she was going to break through the siege anytime soon. Although, she did keep coming out and whacking a bunch of his undead ever so often with Light spells. Jeremy needed to get some human troops and put them on guard duty there.
Jeremy navigated to the Trade Menu and put the stack of coins onto his half of the trading block. He knew they would disappear from his treasury in Jeremyville once he accepted the trade. After a few long moments, Kaiyden’s chunk of stone appeared on his side. Impatiently, Jeremy selected the ACCEPT option as forcefully as thoughts could.
Jeremy signed off, “Catch you on the flip side, Big Daddy-o.”
“Yeah, you...”
The necromancer had left the Diplomacy Menu before Kaiyden had finished. Jeremy needed to see if his blacksmith in Rogerstown was done with the chains he had commanded him to make.
On his way out of the city ruins, Jeremy poked his head into a particular room to make sure that part of his plan was still in place. Just by opening the door, he could tell the smell of rotten flesh was filling the room beyond. His two pets were still where he had left them.
“Good boy, Ralph. Good boy, Chuckster. You guys wait till I get everything ready for you. Then, it’ll be off on a little play date with a paladin for you!”
As Jeremy closed the door, he muttered up to Yorick, “I wish you Witches could Control Undead like me.”
The skull replied, “And I wish I’d taken that Alteration spell so that I could change into a body with hands and try on your glove. I still think it might work. You could gift it to the witch doctor fellow...”
Jeremy puffed out a frustrated breath. “Yeah, I ain’t trusting him to send it back. He’s just going to have to figure out a way to use Ralph and Chuckster without Control Undead, which he might not even get from the glove by the way.”
“True.”
Jeremy smirked to himself. “If I didn’t have to be so clever to pull this off, it would feel like cheating.”
***
Chris had to decide what to do. A beautiful orange and red sunset had spread over the western sky as they had finished the village wall. The frogre and warriors had not returned. In fact, the fen birds were pipping and whistling off their different calls as if all was right in the world. Chris had turned to Nathaniel and commented, “Surely it is just a matter of time before they come back, right? This Witch King will hear about what happened and send a bunch of troops over to take us out, won’t he?”
The problem was that Chris wanted to go back to the Church and get his banner from Brother Aleksandr. With it, he could make Fish Guts the capital for his side. It would give them defensive bonuses and economic advantages.
Brimming with confidence, Nathaniel laughed. “Let him try. If what you said is true, they’ll be so full of arrows by the time they get the wall down, they’ll be easy pickins.”
Chris had discovered that walls gave a huge advantage to defenders because attackers had to destroy them before defenders ever started taking damage. He had also found out that he could make another militia troop from the goblin villagers that were already there in Fish Guts.
The twanging bowstrings sang as Ku and Nathaniel helped the goblin recruits learn archery. Hero Labor helped speed up training as well as construction.
Ku looked at Chris from behind one of the villagers as he adjusted her grip on the bow. The goblin Man-at-Arms smiled a toothy grin. “With your attack aura on and all the militia near you, it will be twenty shots at +2 to hit and +2 damage. That’s not even considering the Light damage you deal.”
All of the kingdom level projects took hours worth of time to complete. It felt a little like Clash of the Clans, but not quite as annoying because there were not any time intervals designed to force you to make in app purchases to speed them up. Even with Ku and Nathaniel helping, the second Militia troop would not be done for another two hours.
If he made Fish Guts his capital, projects and troops would complete faster as well. There were so many advantages to planting his banner here. The problem was, if he went back for the banner, would this village still be his when he got back?
Still torn over the decision, Chris crossed his arms over his chest in frustration. “If I go get the banner, you guys won’t have my aura here to boost your attacks. That would be the prime time for Bubbling Pot Tiara Guy to come eat you all like he tried to do to Ku.”
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br /> Raising one eyebrow in a Spock pose, Nathaniel asked his leader, “Logically speaking, how’s he going to know that you’re gone?”
“He could have someone watching the village.”
“We’re at war with them. We’d get a notification if their guys were within range of any of us. We’ve got lookouts on the corners of the wall. Troops can’t sneak up in kingdom level conflicts unless you’ve got some pretty special powers.”
Incredulous, Chris shot back, “How do you know that?”
“I’ve been reading the rules.”
“Could a Witch King have special powers?”
Nathaniel’s smile broke into a grimace. “Maybe, I guess.”
Chris fell silent while Ku and Nathaniel continued working with the goblin militia members. After an impressive round of archery where every goblin hit the target and most even got within a foot of the bull’s eye, Chris broke his silence again. “Can single units sneak around?”
Nathaniel sighed. He was sure his answer would seal the deal and keep Chris protecting the village all night like a broody hen. “Yeah, single units don’t show up. There’s no mini-map that shows single enemies or monsters on it. The Leader’s Battle Map just shows entire troops.”
The paladin’s answer caught the battle mage by surprise.
“I’m going to get my banner, Brother Aleksandr, and our goblin prisoner. Then, I’m going to have that prisoner show me how to get to the Witch King’s capital while Brother Aleksandr guards this village.”
Nathaniel smiled wide while he nodded, “That sounds like a plan. The Witch King won’t be able to see you moving around, will he? That’s what you meant. I thought...”
“What?” asked Chris. “You thought I was going to sit around and do nothing? No, we’ve got to beat them before they mobilize their resources for fighting.”
***
“What in the world are they doing here?” Chris was staring over the edge of one of the gullies that ran down into the river north of Fenton. To one side, the goblin prisoner was quaking. On the other, Brother Aleksandr was trying to peer through the misty night air.
The former monk whispered to the paladin, “Are you sure the Witch King has a troop there? I don’t see anything.”
“They are out there still a few hundred yards north of us if I’m reading the scale of the map right. They’re heading south toward the village.”
Brother Aleksandr grabbed Chris’s arm. “Fenton! They could take Fenton unopposed!”
The paladin nodded. “We’ve got to stop them, or at least get them to retreat. How did they know about Fenton? We caught their thief before he got back to them.”
Eyes narrowing as he began to calculate, Brother Aleksandr replied, “That might not have been his first trip. You could ask him later. Now, we need to prepare to fight. How strong is the troop?”
“It looks like a ten member troop of Goblin Warriors. They’ve got the word ‘seasoned’ after them on the map.”
“That’s their experience. They’ve fought before and won’t retreat easily. We’ll have to get them down to a quarter of their starting health as a group before they withdraw. If they have a leader with them...”
Chris looked over at the Mage of Light. “Leader? Like the Witch King himself?”
“Yes. As a Hero of their side, his presence would grant them bonuses to fighting. He would be able to fight along side them as well. Though as a Witch, he will mostly be limited to buffs as they lack good damage spells.”
“Well, we’ll just have to deal with him when he shows himself, I guess. Sure wish our prisoner could tell us about him.”
“It would seem that was why he was made mute. Brutal, but effective. What are we going to do with him? I think he would help us fight if we armed him.”
Chris just shook his head at the older man. “I’ve already got one goblin on my side that I barely trust, I don’t need another.” In truth, Ku was growing on Chris, and he actually wished the little Man-at-Arms was here to help.
Chris looked down at the shaking, mute goblin prisoner. He told him in Goblin, “You’re going to have to be tied up for this.” Getting out a length of rope, he added, “Sorry.”
The goblin sighed in resignation. He rolled over and put his hands behind his back. Chris hogtied him quickly, and headed up over the edge of the gully. He reached back and helped Brother Aleksandr up as well. “Let’s party up. I’m not worried about experience from this, it’s more survive that has me concerned.”
Brother Aleksandr nodded and Chris moved him into place on the party screen. He checked the Battle Map again and saw that the troop was about fifty yards away on the cart path that ran between the fenlands to the north and the village to the south.
Hissing through his teeth as quietly as possible, he motioned to Brother Aleksandr. “We’ve got to go. They’re right there!”
“I’ll stay back and get ready to wade in. If you need it, tell me so I can heal you.”
Chris whispered back, “Right!” He pulled out his shield and his banner which was mounted on the shaft of a spear. The banner doubled as a weapon and gave a bonus to the defense of the bearer. Its damage was less than his war hammer, but Chris’s strategy made the defense more valuable at the moment.
Roaring at the top of his lungs and hoping his point in Charisma made a difference, Chris charged and shouted in Goblin, “Meet your doom! You will be roasting in the Fiery Place with Worms tonight!”
Chris called out, “Onward Christian Soldiers!” His Soldiers of the Light aura burst into life. The orange, spinning, spiny wreaths circled him and lit up the surprised troop of Goblin Warriors. At the head of the troop, a much taller figure spun around at the sound of Chris’s shout. It looked to be the height of a man and was wearing a dirty green robe and a tribal mask with feathers.
Chris had caught them by surprise, not just descriptively, but in the way that mattered to the Game.
You have surprised Goblin Warrior Troop (seasoned), and Witch King. You have one combat interval before they will be able to act.
Chris decided to try to lop the head off the snake right away. He went toward the front of the marching line and the man in the mask.
You attack Witch King with Banner. Chance to hit 90% [50%+(8-0)x5%]
You hit Witch King for 11 damage (4+7). Witch King shares damage with Troop.
Aleksandr casts Journeyman Ray of Light (Disc) for 15 damage (9+6).
Like a nuclear blast, a flat shock wave of light blasted out from Brother Aleksandr in every direction. Because they were surprised, the goblins could not move to escape it. But, once the light hit a target, that target cast a shadow that protected everyone else behind them. Chris ended up blocking part of the light that would have hit the Witch King.
Witch King takes 7 Light damage. Witch King shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 15 Light damage. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 15 Light damage. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 15 Light damage. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 15 Light damage. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 15 Light damage. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 7 Light damage. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 7 Light damage. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 6 damage from your Soldiers of the Light aura. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 6 damage from your Soldiers of the Light aura. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 6 damage from your Soldiers of the Light aura. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 6 damage from your Soldiers of the Light aura. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 6 damage from your Soldiers of the Light aura. Goblin Warrior shares da
mage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 6 damage from your Soldiers of the Light aura. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 6 damage from your Soldiers of the Light aura. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 6 damage from your Soldiers of the Light aura. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 6 damage from your Soldiers of the Light aura. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Goblin Warrior takes 6 damage from your Soldiers of the Light aura. Goblin Warrior shares damage with Troop.
Frustration and adrenaline made a bad mix. Chris let out an angry howl at the stream of text flickering across his vision. How was he going to be able to keep up with all this? Suddenly a prompt appeared.
Combat Interval information exceeds limit. Enable Combat Interval Summaries? [YES] [NO]
Almost shouting his answer, Chris picked YES and tried to stab the Witch King again. His chances were different as the surprise effect was over.
Chance to hit 80%. You hit for 9 damage.
Aleksandr casts Journeyman Light Armor (Abjuration).
Aleksandr’s Armor caused a bright flash behind Chris. In front of him, almost all of the goblins started to duck or dive out of the way. They had thought it was another light blast. The next one would not catch them all so easily. Chris got ready to deal with as many of the attacks as he could.
Five of the goblin warriors attacked him. He blocked one, avoided two, and was hit twice. The other five goblins got out potions and downed them.
You take 12 damage. Your armor absorbs 4.
Goblin Warrior Troop heals 41 Health.
The Witch King backed out of Chris’s spear range and pulled out a glowing neon green potion. The Witch King popped the cork and downed whatever it was. Immediately, his green robe swelled and the mask stretched.
Shocked, Chris watched as the Witch King grew into the muscly, rubbery skinned, gigantic frogre. The emblem blazoned on its chest kicked off his Heraldry skill again.
Openings Page 27