by Taj McCoy El
Kwaad chuckled at the request. “That shouldn’t be too hard. Please, tell me everything. I find this to be fascinating.”
“Well, I don’t know much about reputation since I’ve only been out of the training village for three days, all I can tell you is specific to the knockers.”
“Understandable.” Kwaad was still taking notes as Mo spoke.
“Ya know, is there somewhere we could sit and do this?”
“My pardons, we can sit on the side of the house. There’s a bench there.”
“Sounds perfect.”
They strode out of the fenced yard and made it to the house and were sitting down in a matter of minutes. A bench next to the house gave a wonderful view of the flower garden in front of them. The light from the windows illuminated the dark garden and cast long shadows.
“So, Knocker specific…”
“Right! Well what happens is, that whatever controlling forces there are in Majesta, I’m not certain what or who they might be, actually make these men behave in a manner that is unbecoming to the rest of the populace.
“For example, have you noticed how the knockers always have the hand on their knife or are waving their knife about?” Kwaad nodded. “They don’t even know they’re doing it.”
“They go out in public and wind up inadvertently threatening someone and starting a fight. When they think it over, they don’t know why the fight started. Their own actions are in a blind spot.”
“Now for this interesting fact. I’ve got a couple of knockers concentrating on not pulling their knives, or even reaching for them for that matter. As it becomes a conscious activity, I’m sure we can get them some more reputation-based quests in order to help them.”
"I see,” Kwaad said and finished scribbling, and then looked up at mo. “So, what happens when they get back to a positive reputation?
"I guess that’ll be up to them. Just like us they have dreams and families they’d love to see. For instance, did you know that Bonkers wants to open a bakery?”
“Really? He seems like he’d rather slit your throat than do an honest day’s work.”
“And yet here we are.” Mo leaned back with his hands behind his head. “Life is funny that way. One day everything is fine, then the next it all just gets ripped away from you.” His train of thought went back to Mayah, and he went silent. “The people that you didn’t even know you were depending on just disappear and you’d do anything to get them back.”
Mo took a deep breath. “If you’re lucky, you can get them back. If not? How do you even comeback from losing the cornerstones to your life and watching your life crumble through your fingers like sand?”
“Time. Friends. The sheer will to survive?” Kwaad posited
“But what if that’s not enough?”
“Well, I guess you wind up like them.” Kwaad nodded back at the yard filled with knockers. “But since they don’t look to be giving up anytime soon, neither should you.”
“Heh…” Mo smiled. "I guess you're right about that.”
“Well, if you excuse me, I have enclosures to build and my father will surely remind me of that if I don’t get over there. You just relax and I’ll bring your food to you when it’s ready.”
“Thanks, Kwaad. You did good out there.”
“If I didn’t my Da would’ve drowned me and made a new son to take my place.” Kwaad replied with a straight face.
Mo chuckled first, and then Kwaad broke, both of them laughing at Driskel’s gruffness.
“Get some rest.” Kwaad reminded Mo.
“No need to tell me twice.”
Mo watched Kwaad walk off and saw Mephi, who spied him and walked over.
Not really meeting his eyes, Mephi asked, “Got a minute?”
“Sure thing.” Mo pat the seat next to him and turned to look at Engele’s garden in the deepening night.
“So…” Mephi paused uncomfortably looking around at anything but Mo. Mo sat and waited patiently for what he was going to say. Mephi seemed to work up the nerve and finally repeated himself making sure he had time to talk, “So, got a minute?”
“For you? Definitely.”
“I want to tell you a sad story. it’s a bit gruesome and very personal so if you’re not up to hearing it, just let me know.”
Mo looked at Mephi and nodded, then he turned back to the garden.
“So, I was in the army back in ‘37. Up until an incident happened in the eurasian land grab. I was deployed in a little crap hole of a town where they had a factory that was manufacturing their own knock-off version of MemCrystal. The plant was ancient. A retrofit originally built in the 90’s and still had a giant tower for its cooling system despite the global environmental act.
“Well, anyways, a group of insurgents snuck in and attempted to take over the town because of the factory. There were other targets of opportunity of course but the crystal was the main draw. Guess they were thinking if they could make crystal, they could make tech and get a bigger advantage.
“So, of course the coalition forces show up. It was the Americans, Russians, the Brits, and a few Germans. They decided to throw a mixed bag at the problem. The insurgents caught wind of our plans and wired the whole city to blow. We didn’t know that then.
“As we’re advancing through the town, buildings start exploding around us. Real bad scene. buildings started falling over and blocking whole streets around us. The land crawlers get bogged down and targeted so the higher ups have the bright idea to pull them back and let us go in on foot. We had to hump 17 klicks without any heavy guns for support. We were taking fire the whole time. Drones are falling out of the sky like thirty-pound snowflakes and we lose over half our guys on our way in.
When we reached the factory, we barely had time to get reorganized and find out who’s in charge before the orders come in to advance. Had to make it through a field of auto sentries in shielded bunkers. EMP grenades are doing diddly so we took ’em the hard way and made it through.
“After we fight our way through all that and get halfway to the control room, we get a call routing our unit into the black echo of tunnels underneath the plant. What a flarfin nightmare that was.
“We reseal our suits for heavy-chem-enviro and send the drones in first, and we’re picking up nothing. First half of the unit follows them in and suddenly there’s this boom and a cloud of smoke from behind us and the HUDs are only registering the people still with us in the tunnels.”
He took a few deep breaths and grabbed the fabric at his knees. “They blew up shrapnel grenades in the tunnels behind us. Steam and toxic sludge were getting aerosolized into the air, and we only had one direction we could go. We send the drones first. They’re scanning different paths for hostiles. They all go dead in an instant. Radios go dead a second after that. We figure their jamming our signal. Meanwhile the steam is getting thicker and thicker. At this point a few of our suits have tears or are leaking at the seams. And that stuff burned.
“The steam is everywhere. Everything in front of us is just a wall of white. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my visor. The headlamps are starting to melt and flicker out, making it even worse. Then the HUD scanners start going the same way when we intercept enemy units and start taking fire from one of the flanking tunnels. We couldn’t see ’em. Half the men get split away from me. And we start dashing through the tunnels and trying to find our way out. It was every man for themselves and with the HUDs offline the translators fritzed out.
“I got people yelling at me in Russian and German and I don’t know what to do except yell back and look for any enemies.
We get hit by a drone swarm and the world goes black and when I wake up everybody’s…gone. My eyes are itching from the steam. A giant chunk of rubble is laying on top of me and I don’t have the strength to move it.
“Drones came through and scanned the tunnels. I lay there underneath the rubble holding my breath not making a sound. My friends are nowhere to be found and the toxic chems leak t
hrough my suit as it slowly dissolves.
“The drones finally cleared out but by that point I was too done to move. Everything goes black and he next thing I know I’m Stateside in a hospital room and my mother and sister are crying over me.
“My sister ran out of the room and my mom almost followed her. But to her credit she stayed. She told me how happy she was I made it, but I can still remember the look of horror on her face.
“Let’s skip the gory details but I was missing a lot of my old self. some was too broken from the rubble and some had been poisoned by the chems. When I started noticing the extent of the damage I wigged out. They couldn’t get me to calm down. They shot me up with meds and I went back to sleep for quite a while.
“It took 6 months of them waking me up and trying to get me to stay calm, but it never happened, man. They wouldn’t let me use a mirror and I think my mind was broken, maybe more than my body.
So Attactus steps in, and they throw me in a pod and boot me up. It was weird at first. Talking to docs that looked like video games or on video windows just floating in midair. I wondered if this was my own personal hell. But eventually they showed me pictures of my body. When I calmed down and would talk again, they pulled me out so I could actually see my mom. It was hard for her to look at me. So, I went back into the pod and talked to her through the simulation.
“It was better than the real-life reaction she had. But I was logged in more than out and there weren’t many people with a 24/7 schedule like me. My sis finally came around, though. That made me happy. I’m paying most of her bills so she can have whatever life she wants. A life I couldn’t live anymore.
“That’s when I started gaming pretty hard because no one was around, and I didn’t need as much sleep for some reason. Rekt game after game, because, game was life now.
“Found out I’m fairly decent at it and got a decent thing going now. Attactus gifts me new pods and uses me to test long term immersion and I get to game for free. The military pays for my data so they can study it and in return they pay for my electricity, medical costs over and above the normal stipends. and a steady supply of nutritional paste that I’m glad I can’t taste—even if I wanted to. And there you have it. I’m the soldier that should’ve died but lived to game.
“Also, I’ve got enough money to spend on whatever I want out of the deal. But no way to touch it. I mean I come out of my tanks for system overhauls or medical checks but I’m starting to feel like this world is more real than the real world.
“That’s why when I saw the steam…” he paused her for a long moment. So long that Mo thought he wouldn’t say anything else until he forced himself to continue. “That’s’ why when I saw the steam, I saw my team…”
Mo was shocked to say the least. But he didn’t let an ounce of emotion reach his face or body language. Playing bluff with a genius had taught him those skills.
“So, I understand if you think I’m crazy and want me off the team. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened,” Mephi concluded and looked at Mo.
Mo stood up and looked out over the view so that Mephi couldn’t see his face. Forcing his body language to say nothing while his mind raced. What it landed on was, "I did tell you my grandfather was a Marine, right?”
Mephi nodded.
“So, one of the things he told me was that if I ever went to war, trust my brothers. I didn’t have to like them or love them but if I was part of the team, they would help me when the time came, and I should do the same.
“Mephi I don’t love you, but I do like you—most times. So, if I didn’t want you on my team we wouldn’t be here. I wanted—no, I want you here.”
Mo turned to face Mephi. "I can handle that you’re gonna have your moments. And I’m okay with your 24/7 schedule. So, now the choice is going to be up to you. Are you gonna be able to trust me and Ziggs enough to lean on us when you need to?”
“That’s why I’m sitting here.”
“Then that means all that’s left is to kick some butt and take names because we’re all out of bubblegum, right?”
Mephi chuckled at the malapropism. “If only you could murder critters like you murder words.”
“So, I take that as a yes?”
“Depends on what you’re asking.”
“I’m asking you to hang out with us and let us know when it’s getting rough for you so we can support you.” Mo said seriously. Mephi looked into his eyes and saw the truth there.
“You got it.”
“Awesome. One last question.”
Mephi looked apprehensive.
“What’s a booger hook?”
Mephi stuck a finger up his nose and flicked whatever he had collected from his nostril.
“Ooohhhhhh…”
✽✽✽
So, to conclude and then go over strategy one more time. In our build menu, we have arrow towers for 5BP. They’ll be our starting weapons because they’re cheap and easy. Next in line are our Fire and Ice towers for 10BP. They will be used in the early mid game stages if my theory is correct.”
“What if your theory is stupid and wrong?”
“Then I’m smart enough to fix it. May I continue?”
Grax gave Mayah a dismissive wave.
“As I was saying we’ll use the ice and fire towers for the early and mid-game phases. Then the magic missiles which are probably heavy hitter are 20BP out the gate. We’ll use them for the middle and end phase. We’ll try to leave one slot open on top of all buildings until we get our defenses secured. Never know when you need to add a little more fire power. Finally, we come to walls. Walls are 20BP and allow you to block the mobs path.”
“Can’t we just block off the whole front and keep them out?” Margaret asked.
“Tower defenses usually need you to keep access to your base. We can definitely try it though.”
“Just build ranks of walls and put towers on the top.”
Grax and Mayah looked at each other, and then shook their heads letting out a simultaneous, “Nah!”
Grax said, “That would be too broken, and any tower defense designer wouldn’t allow it.”
“But we’re gonna try it aren’t we?” Mayah probed.
“Of course!” Grax laughed
“Now, let’s go over the strategy one last time,” Mayah said to her team. “We’ve got the lanes numbered, from left to right, one through five. The rows will be starting with the square as A, up to and through M, which is the street in front of the temple. The buildings starting with the first row are labeled A1 on the left all the way over to A4. They go all the way up to L1-4. each building will allow us to place four towers on it. So, the first place we put arrow towers will be building A1 and building B1.
“Mags, you will be at the temple gate, which is M-3, with Vergie and dolls for backup to fight off anything that passes us at B-1.” Margaret nodded and Vergie chuffed.
“The plan as it stands is to use 80 of our 100 starting build points to build four walls to choke the enemy off and lower the points of ingress they have access to. We’ll let one mob through, and then build arrow towers where we think they’ll be most effective.
“We’re going to pound them and take their points and set up a combo of attack towers and form a long slow walk of pain. From B-1 they’ll probably run straight down lane 1. I’m hoping the display will let us see the enemies while we fight.”
“We’ll know in five minutes,” Grax interrupted again, earning him hard stares from the ladies. “Sorry.”
“Mags if you want to send a doll to every intersection on row L it might give you a heads up on where they are coming through.”
Margaret made a note on her interface and nodded again.
“Remember we need to let ONE mob get to the temple so we can calculate how damage is done. Preferably an early mob because it’ll be weaker than a later mob. 500 points of durability may or may not be a lot. We won’t know until we see if they attack every round or if they’re one hit wonders.”
“Jawohl, Mein Flaumigkeit!!!” Grax flipped an over the top salute that ended in a scowl from Mayah as she pulled her Scarf up over her face again.
“Yes, dear. Chat is up and active. Gate is at a full 500HP.”
“Okay countdown is at 3:50 and ticking, Mags. Get back to the gate and set up.”
Margaret turned and ran back towards the temple gate.
“Whoosah!!!” Mayah limbered up and shook out her arms. “As soon as timer hits zero I’ll build the walls and you catch any spawns. Let the first one through.”
"I got it princess.”
They watched the clock count down to zero
Wave 1 starting.
Temple Gate Integrity: 500
Build points available: 100
Wave 2 starting in 11:00 minutes
The clock jumped to 11:00 minutes and started counting down again. Mayah saw three red spots appear on her HUD. in front of her she saw red shimmers forming at the far end of the square, one in front of lane 2, 3 and 4. She opened the build tab and built walls across lanes 5,4,3, and then 2.
The mobs were shorter than a weesps and more hunched and gnarled. They weren’t as fast as the weesps either. All of them made a hard left and went for the opening on lane 1 as soon as all other openings were closed.
"I got the last one,” Mayah cried and charged out to attack the mob at the back. Strangely, the mobs didn’t react to their presence at all even when attacked.
Grax took down the second mob, and they let the first mob go on its way
Fluff: One skaduswaar on its way.
Mags: Skaduswaar?
Fluff: You’ll see, a few hits will do the job.
Fluff: But DON’T hit it.
Mags: Got it.