by D. Rus
Our guys had fought till the very end. They intended to surprise the enemies and deal them a terrible blow. This would hopefully discourage the Lightsiders from attempting a second assault any time soon. We assumed that the loss of twenty-thirty thousand warriors at once would be a serious knockdown for the enemy and would cool off some of the more hotheaded leaders.
But that’s not what we got...
The enemy’s rear divisions simply could not see how the ones in the front got massacred. Thus they did not witness the bloody fight and were now bravely trampling over the gravestones and the bodies of their fallen comrades.
But my army had no reserves. The resurrected warriors put on some second-grade spare suits, wrinkling their noses at the sight of the government goodies behind the open doors of the clan storehouses. Some merely sat in their underwear, lost in thought, dragging on a cigarette as they waited for the evacuation team to act.
They were ordinary guys, but the demands I had placed on them were extraordinary. Heroes are always scarce and are often revealed by a certain situation. Like when you run into a drunk gang in a dark alley with your girl behind your back. Or find a burning car with kids trapped inside, beating their fists against the glass…
The usual retrieval line bringing back equipment from the battlefield finally broke down. My stealthers simly couldn’t break through the advancing wave of enemy fighters. Besides, fifty people get exhausted pretty fast when they have to carry thousands of gravestones.
The ground shook as the enemy army ran straight at us. The crowd effect turned the individual warriors into one single organism. The sense of fear and individuality was gone. All sins were forgiven beforehand. Permissiveness intoxicates like a drug.
Usually I saw mostly the backs of my warriors. But now, I gazed into hundreds of pale faces in the early morning gloom as they turned back to look at their leader in alarm.
I strained my absolute memory as I retrieved from it the latest version of portal beacon directions. There was a digital version of it, with passwords upon passwords and terrifying seals thrown in as well. But thoughts are always faster.
"Demons, get on the walls!" I ordered my precious single-mission NPC reserve to assume positions, then commanded the tracking wizards: "Portal at point 19A!"
After that I turned to the weary defenders of Tianlong and said, "Get down, boys! We’re in for a big Boom!"
Forcing my way through the head wind current, I finally made it through the portal arch. I fell out at about 600 feet from the entrance point, where our siege machines were.
There was a great deal of bustle. The broad-shouldered dwarves tried to quickly master the stolen artillery. They were writing out all the manuals and ballista charts that they downloaded from the VirtNet. We were short on spare parts and technicians with appropriate skills.
Chaos swallowed up the munitions supply storehouse. The balls of a Russian trebuchet could not be loaded into the French mangonel, and ballista ammunition jammed the British scorpio.
By contrast, the yard of nonconventional weapons was pleasantly quiet. The medium-size palisade and the biting looks of the Timurites helped to ensure that its territory remained orderly.
The shooter squad was smoking nervously, standing far away from the aerial bombs covered by a sackcloth. The potential kamikazes meditated in the shadows, preparing for the mission’s finale and praying for success.
When they saw me, the warriors jumped up. The senior officer proceeded to report: “Greetings, Sir! The artillery battalion manning the heavy siege machines is ready for battle. The sectors are established, the spotters are in position on the walls, and we are compiling an independent chart of advancing enemy ranks within our firing range. We’ll be ready to fire in forty seconds.”
"Go for it!" I ordered briefly. "Use the 500K GP bombs. Operators must have Holy Unmercenary status."
"Only four of those here, Sir!"
My jaw twitched. That wasn’t enough! We needed to switch to plan B.
"Snowie!" I called. "No, wait! We can’t launch you that far…Lizzie! Put the harness on! I want you to hold on to that bomb like you hold on to your dagger you got for your coming of age birthday party."
The topographer tuned in to the spotter and raised his voice: "Dense crowds of enemy fighters in the probable damage zone. If their direction and speed stay the same, they’ll reach the certain damage zone in fifteen seconds and the guaranteed damage zone in thirty."
I turned to the leader of the battalion. "Open fire once you’re ready. Your objective is to take out as many of the Lightsters’ manpower as you can."
"Yessir!" said the senior lieutenant as he saluted me, then sat down on the sand in a free and easy manner. Closing his eyes, he entered the nirvana-like state of going through the service interfaces, ranging charts and subdivision control channels.
"Firecracker 1, pointing at sector A4. Operator, get ready!"
"Ready to fire!"
"Ready for flight!"
"Countdown. Three…Two…One…Fire!"
Dang! The counterweight smashed into the stopper girder. The sling whistled through the air. The aerial bomb became a black dot in the distance as it flew toward the enemy.
Kaboom!!! The ground literally jumped, crashing painfully into the warriors’ heels and knocking minor damage numbers out of them. For the first time in hundreds of years, Tianlong’s skeleton finally moved, leaping up in place and giving a distinctive"ooh."
The log-analyst jabbered breathlessly:
"Direct hit! The operator gets credit for 2612 frags…2640...2670. Widespread bloodloss and injuries keep upping his counter. Initial loot: 3720 objects. 3766..."
"Firecracker 2, a hundred to the left, thirty inward. Fire!"
Dang!
"Bombs away! Calculating the operator’s scored damage and deaths…The harness caught on the locating block! Success! I see multiple targets hit."
Fucking shit! I thought as I ground my teeth. My greedy pig downed some Validol. Missing 4,000 loot items could have led to a heart attack even in milder skinflints.
"Firecracker 3, two hundred to your left, fifty inward. Fire! Everyone else, double-check the operators’ strapping!"
"We have a hit! 3300 frags. The enemy’s losses keep growing due to the large amounts of warriors wounded in the previous explosions. Loot: 4600. There’s a game achievements packet coming in. I am registering a significant increase of clan and alliance ratings."
"Fire!" the gunner cried again, aiming higher in order to hit the very heart of enemy formations.
Dang! Then silence…
"Bomb went straight into a portal arch. Explosion on the other side. 242 frags, all from the same clan. Loot: 311 items."
Fuck me!
"Fire!"
Dang! Bada-bada-boom!
The explosion was much stronger than normal. It also seemed to be closer.
"An attempt to seize the bomb in midair. Or we might’ve accidentally hit a flying seraphim…" commented the invisible analyst, digressing a bit. "Explosion at sixty feet off the ground. Frags: 4400. Loot: 5100. The numbers are growing. Midair explosions seem to be highly efficient: repeat them!"
"Mona-Lisa, get ready. Firecracker 5, fire!"
Dang! Boom!
"Direct hit! The ear-chopper is awaiting respawn. I am registering a 32 level increase."
I nodded. Not bad!
Within minutes we had relieved the Lightsiders of millions of dollars worth of gear and hundreds of thousands of human farming hours.
"The enemy’s advancing more slowly now. Personal gates spotted; some warriors are leaving the battlefield."
I looked around, searching for an operator for Firecracker 6. My loyal NKVD Timurites were bustling nearby as usual.
"Tamerlane! Limp over here. Come in, hurry up, bro! Put that harness on. Know what you gotta do?"
He nodded, and I stepped back.
The gunner took his time to pick out the best target.
"A hundred to the l
eft, go as high as you can. That place is teeming with casters. Fire!"
"Explosion! Golbin awaits respawn, a good hit: level increased by 43."
I froze, awaiting more news.
"The enemy is not slowing down. Blowing up their rear ranks is not as efficient!"
I glanced at Firecraker 7, the last one…It won’t change much, might as well leave it for the future generations. It can easily make an impression. Simply having it in stock might make some hotheaded foes back off.
I ordered: "Put the 500K GP back in the armory. Switch to droid rapid fire. Move it!"
The loader ogres pulled the canvas off the pyramid of wooden crates. We had learned our lesson and now packed the robots in containers of medium strength to minimize the chances of droids opening friendly fire in midair.
The cart wheels creaked nastily. The giant trebuchet jerked as the outrageously heavy crate with the droid was loaded into it. The officers stuck their thin arms into the openings that had been made in the crate on purpose. They inserted power supply units into the tight receptacles on the robots.
"Ready!" a squeaky voice said.
"Firecracker 1, fire!"
The counterweight flew toward the stopper. The goblin quickly pushed the power button on the droid and tried to slide his hand out of the crate.
Too late…
Dang! The crate flew into the sky, the stump of the golbin’s wrist dangling from one of its openings.
Crack! The steel trimming on the crate broke. The crate itself flew into a thousand pieces.
Having destroyed its packing in flight, the droid stuck out its sensors in all directions, scanning its surroundings and classifying tens of thousands of targets.
Its parachute flew open, and the droid landed softly amidst the enemy hordes. The enemies saw the scarlet marker on their maps. Without taking much time to think, the droid instantly initiated its primary self-protection program.
Zoom! The robot fired overheated plasma into the tight enemy ranks.
Bang! Bang! Bang! The heavy railgun released a whole series of tungsten shells which flew at the speed of no less than 15 Mach. The hard alloy slugs knew no barriers. They pierced dozens of bodies before finally sinking into the dunes.
Slap! Slap! Slap! More mithril robots fell from the sky. Let the fun begin!
The droids dealt a lot of damage. Their shots often got misclassified by the game environment which couldn’t resist foreign elements. How would a medieval world classify a lazer beam, an electrical discharge or a beam of severe radiation? However, every droid’s HP count was quite mediocre, just like one might expect from a level 300+ monster.
Having recovered from the initial shock, the crowd covered my robots with a dense cloud of destructive magic.
Our droid attack instantly turned into a game only millionaires could afford. True, every droid managed to kill a few dozen Lightsters and win us about thirty extra seconds. But that hardly changed anything; we’d live as long as we paid for it.
Things finally took a turn when the lieutenant droid rose into the air. Wrapping itself up in protective shields, it instantly came up with a tactical plan for the battlefield and took command of the other robots.
The assailant droids began a more organized attack. They covered each other when necessary, fired denser rounds into the more dangerous enemy zones, and asked for help when in trouble.
The two dozens of repairmen droids we launched last turned out to be the icing on the cake and gave our diversion its final polish. At that point, we were all out of somewhat aggressive robots. Sending the fragile navigator droids or the armorless super-cargo ones along with the helpless workers was dumb.
During the next half hour, the Lightsters fought desperately against the platoon of droids that buried themselves into the ground. The robots had nowhere to retreat. They defended their ground like the people’s volunteer corps might defend a hospital whose patients hadn’t had time to evacuate.
The plasma illumination made us think that our droids would last long enough to give us a decent break. But soon, the fire began to die down. Finally, all the droids engaged in their final hand-to-hand combat. There weren’t many of them left by that time. Clearly they had run out of ammunition.
The robots surprised us in their final moments. Edging their way into the enemy ranks, they overloaded their reactors, making everything bloom with blinding flashes as they made themselves explode.
The metal warriors’ swansong was a success. Even though the enemy busted up the line of droids, the Lightsiders were stunned and retreated to their base camp. They needed time to haul back tens of thousands of graves, resurrect the warriors who had lost XP, repair their gear, and achieve even higher levels in order to turn an unintelligible massacre into a grandiose victory.
Stealthers from both sides darted about in the moonlit battlefield, demonstratively ignoring each other and dragging away gravestones. No one had announced an official truce as that would have been bad for the Lightsiders’ public image. Doing everything secretly was the perfect solution.
Of course there were high words, attempts to hype up the enemy, and duel summons. Our walls filled up with more warriors; Flint’s guys, the Golden Eagles, and the other allies who had joined in. Here they finally took off their masks.
The influx of couch generals increased as they woke up and realized that it was a time of war and that their downtown homes were now in the outskirts, surrounded with smoking shell holes where their neighbors’ places used to stand.
The resentful avengers all came: those who had lost a favorite candle factory, an elite hen house, or a virtual cabin with a garden. An infowar was brewing in the real world. The people were stirred up. They logged in, revived their long-forgotten characters, shook the dust off them, then went on to join the game so they could kick the asses of those they didn’t like.
These types of reinforcements, however, were not very valuable and could not be trusted. We gave the new arrivals different sectors beneath Tianlong’s walls. Because of this, a few were offended by our suspicion. Blazing with rage, they left the battlefield with their heads held high.
We were not the only ones going through this phase; a muffled cannonade of portals opening came from the enemy camp. Some clans were leaving, disappointed by the two-day siege which had cost them time, money, and experience. Tons of newbies were eager to take their place, filled with enthusiasm by VirtNet’s growing hysteria. Those wishing to fight against the darksider Russians were plentiful.
The Guards of the First Temple were also gathering their forces. We needed to be ready for the final showdown "twenty vs. one." Surprisingly, the warriors were calm.
Like Suvorov used to say: "We are Russians; what a delight!"
That’s how everyone felt now. The gods were on our side, the First Priest had a deck of trump cards up his sleeve, and behind us were our homes. How could we lose?
A few hours later, under the cover of the morning fog, the enemy tried to play a trump card of their own.
I was busy listening to the report on the actions of a terror-group when all of a sudden, one of the hounds lazily lying around raised its head in alarm. It looked around. Its trimmed ears twitched, readjusting themselves to catch the signal. With a faint growl, the hound caught my attention and looked me straight in the eye.
Instantly my head began to fill with images as I received the message from this living retransmitter. I saw a cozy ravine, wrapped in shadows and a haze. It was illuminated with the glow of an open arch. The army was compressed like a tight spring as the warriors squeezed out of the portal. They looked like toothpaste that squirts out of an open tube when you step on it. At least three hundred new fighters arrived every minute.
Lightster cock up yer ass, where is this place?! I asked mentally. Coordinates!
The hound snorted, foaming at the mouth as it struggled to relay the entire perception spectrum of an Inferno creature.
First it sent me a thermal image of the territory. Ha, mor
e like a chaos of yellow and red blotches! Try something else!
Then, a smellogram: steel, skin, poison, warm flesh in dozens of tasty varieties. A unique spectrum that could be smelled from over five miles away. But it was not what I needed.
An emotions model: stress, fear, evil exhilaration, hatred. Bright strokes of feelings filled the surrounding area. Beautiful, but useless!
A magic imprint of the territory: the pattern of the astral world, ornaments of its threads of power and scattered plants and minerals issuing background noises. This won’t do! I just can’t make sense of this. Gimme a plain old picture, with a horizon and some dimensions!
New shapes flickered in my mind’s eye: a mountain ridge surrounding the Valley. Very close, a mile away at most. An acacia grove, barely discernible in the early morning light. A hill with random ruins, an ancient spiral road. Finally, a clear reference point!
I flipped through the pages of the Valley’s cartographic atlas in my head. I should recognize a conspicuous place like this one when I see it, come on! A mile from the edge, upland, ruins, serpentine road…Not it…not it…keep looking…Found it!
It was a place far from the castle, just over a mile away, straight ahead. Those bastards sure knew how to hide!
My warriors were on the walls. Reserves were mostly NPCs.
"Red alert! Breach in sector N27! Twenty thousand players, increasing by 300 per minute. Demons, dwarves and any remaining heavy golems: prepare to attack!"
But this wasn’t enough. And the closest basilisk egg we had buried was over two miles away, out of reach. One basilisk wouldn’t suffice anyway as we had spotted the enemy too late. We would have to use our backup.
"Get the King and both Wild ones from Arsenal 4! Teleport them right after me, to the point that’s closest to the breach zone. Let’s go, move!"
The wizards froze in a trance, their eyes twitching underneath their closed eyelids. Finally, one of them woke up and said: "Sir, we have a logistics issue. Only one of our portal casters has the beacon marker. We’ll send five of our wizards with him right away. They will make copies of coordinates. Two minutes at most."