by Jeff Sproul
"I think she's got a lot of stuff set up, but you could just call her," said Ava.
Aegis rolled her eyes. "Right, so, anyway, we'll probably need you and your giant scorpions, over here. I take it that you're all that could be sent? No offense, just wondering if we have anything else to work with."
"Yeah, sorry. Just me, I'm afraid, and them," he said as he gestured to the scorpions with his thumb.
"Well, hopefully they're strong," said Aegis, as she held her arm up and scanned the area. "Enemies are still holding where they are. I wonder what they're waiting for? I wish they'd attack so we could get this over with, but at least the delay has given us plenty of time to prepare."
"Do they know we're here waiting for them?" Riley asked.
"I'm sure they do. They don't know specifically where our assets are located. We have a lot of jammers in the area, blocking their scans. At most, they could use aerial visual surveillance, but we haven't seen anything flying overhead. At least, not since yesterday, and we shot that thing down pretty quick. Their usual tactics have been attempts to overpower us. We've been tricky enough to thwart that. But they're getting a bit more clever with each passing day. We think they're obtaining new resource streams. They’re producing more minions at a faster pace. They know we're weak from our fight with Crimson Alliance, cause we’d been in talks with them to reinforce us against you guys, but those talks never went anywhere and now they're hitting us almost every day, trying to whittle us down. They probably thought that they'd get a nice weak point into Crimson Alliance territory if they let us and Crimson Alliance duke it out. But we were still pretty strong when we allied. Now they're trying to push us and…it's just nonstop. We've been able to handle it for the most part, but we could use anything we can get. All these attacks keep most of our players and forces here in Crimson City. We can't explore the wild areas to acquire resources of our own. So we're in a bit of a downward spiral. I know that Ice Block has been talking to Chrono, and L.L. has been trying to get Sage to push some resources our way, but I think he's still on the fence about actually sending us materials, in case we stab you guys in the back."
Riley's brows lifted. "Should I be worried?"
Aegis grinned. "Well, you might want to be worried if we start losing ground to these guys over across the tracks. Then we might have to ally with them just to stay alive."
Riley gave her a cautious look, then glanced over his shoulder to watch as Ava poked the tail of one of the scorpions. He returned his attention to Aegis. "Look, we're stretched thin too. We're doing our best here. I'm sure things will improve. Maybe we can work something out to help clear up some of the pressure these guilds are putting on The Vigilant. Maybe we need to go on the offensive."
"Offense is expensive," said Ava from behind him. "Even I know that, and I just kick things."
"She's right," said Aegis. "Unless you know you can eventually win, or whittle your opponent down until you take their territory, a failed attack is just an expensive loss. Unless you're clever, or know a weakness in the enemy stronghold, the defender will usually win in a fight of equal value. Hell, the defender will usually win in a fight where they have fewer assets."
Riley thought on this notion. It was true. How much money had been spent on those fifty troopers and mobile mortar just for him to go out and crush it? Then again, he had taken some damage to the base, which needed to be repaired. It hadn't been a substantial force, but it had cost something to send out. For all he knew, the commander of that force had ten or twenty other forces of an equal size, just scouting around and looking for new targets to easily conquer.
Sigil Online had gained numerous real-time strategy (RTS) qualities with the advent of Bastions. And in a usual RTS game, the player who acquired a better economy generally had the ability to use their economy to gain military might, to then gain more economy. It was a cascading effect. The powerful remained powerful and the weak stayed weak. It was as simple as that. Only when multiple weak opponents worked together were powerful enemies able to be overthrown.
But unlike a traditional RTS game, Sigil Online was on a whole other level. There were players with powers that were so vastly different that such things could be utilized to great effect to turn the tides of a battle or war. Sure, economy and military might still mattered, but a strong and clever player made all the difference.
Riley hummed to himself a moment, then went on to say, "So, they're waiting for reinforcements, or maybe even a player to get online that isn't currently. They're trying to bolster their attack force, despite having already moved into position to attack. It's a bit silly, but who knows? On the other hand, maybe they're waiting for you to attack so that they can gain that defensive advantage and decimate your forces, only to then move on your territory when you're severely weakened. They might be hoping to get some player kills. That would set you back more than anything."
"Yeah, so far, we've managed to keep player losses to a minimum," said Aegis.
Ava was now walking around from the side. She stopped near Aegis and crossed her arms. "Yeah, that one dude we lost yesterday was kinda crap anyway. But I'm sure he'll be back. He wasn't that powerful, but at least he'll be able to rush back to…what level was he, thirty-five?"
Aegis nodded. "Yeah, that's some small benefit. Maybe we'll have him scour the wilds when he comes back. That way he can use his XP bonus to rush back to his level and do some good for us."
At this point, Riley was deep in thought. There had to be some way of winning this situation. Or at least, enacting some player-kills on the enemy.
With the Bastions expansion, the developers added a new mechanic to the game. If a player died, they would be able to remake their character as per usual, but instead of completely starting the game over with nothing, they were now given a 300% experience boost toward the level they'd reached previously. So if Riley was to die today, he'd drop all the loot and gear on his character, instead of having most of it instantly destroyed, and he'd be able to remake a character that could level three times faster than he had done normally. At least, to level 100.
"Do we have any data on if any players are over there?" Riley asked. "Do they have any nearby outposts?"
Aegis nodded and zoomed out on her wrist-band map. "Here's us," she gestured with a finger around their lit dots. "Here's the tracks between us," she said, gesturing further. "Then this is them across those tracks, and then further beyond, they have an outpost over here to the far left, close to the wilds, close to their front line, and close to us…kind of. It's their nearest facility for making troops. We also imagine that it's where they receive physical cargo shipments from their wilds outposts."
"Have you considered raiding their incoming resource caravans?" Riley asked.
"We…tried," Aegis sighed. "We had that idea on the second day of the expansion, but apparently, it was a pretty widespread idea that a lot of people were familiar with. So, we tried it with a force of high-damage units—you know, the raiding kind. But their caravans move in large groups and are well-defended. They had some stealthed troops as well, which were able to overwhelm what we sent. So, it was a bit of a trap. We won't be trying it again anytime soon."
"Do you track when they generally run shipments to that location?" Riley asked.
"Every day, I think?" Aegis replied. "We've stopped monitoring it as closely, but I believe they run a shipment caravan every day. We're not sure how many outposts they have, but we know that they collect toward the closest one before making the trek to this outpost here, in their city."
"It's not their city,'" Ava remarked.
"You know what I meant," Aegis sighed.
Ava smirked.
Riley turned around and looked at the three scorpions for several long moments.
"What's on your mind?" Aegis asked. "I'm open to suggestions. I'd like to be able to sign off and get some things around my apartment done."
"Give me a quick breakdown of what all of your nearby players can do," said Riley,
as he turned back around.
"Well, I can create a temporary shield around things. It'll absorb damage," said Aegis.
"I kick the hell out of things," said Ava, as she lifted a foot and wiggled it a little, which sent some static arcs around before she planted it back down on the ground.
"Oh, that's why she called you Kicks earlier?" Riley asked.
"Yeah, it's her new nickname. Don't worry, she's still not a tier two paragon yet. The slowpoke," Aegis sighed.
"Still higher level than you, though," Ava quipped.
Aegis glared. "Supports level slower, idiot."
Ava glared back.
"So…who else?" Riley spoke up, trying to defuse that sudden tension between them.
"There's Gem," said Aegis. "You met him back in that cave, right?"
"Yeah, he creates different gems that explode or do all sorts of things."
"Yeah, and then there's Ice Block…who isn't online, so never mind there. Um, there's Silver…Shooter! That's her name."
"Ah, right, because of the gun," Ava remarked with a nod.
"Silver Shooter is…well, she's like Brenda in your guild. But instead of a crossbow, she uses whatever weapon she currently has on her and turns it into silver, which apparently lets her do special things with bullets. I'm not entirely sure how it all works, but the results are good. Sadly, if something gets into melee with her, she kinda panics."
"She shot me that one time, when she was trying to kill that robot dog, remember?" asked Ava.
"Oh, I remember, she was shooting at all of us," Aegis murmured.
"Who else?" Riley asked.
"Oh, there's Domi over there," said Aegis, pointing out in the closer direction toward the tracks. "Domi is short for 'Dominion.' She creates zones, I guess you could call them? And she can manipulate what happens in those zones. So, she could create a zone of fire, cold, slowing, poison, acid-rain, whatever. She's limited on how big they can be and how long they can trigger for. She's definitely a trapper like Gem. So this is part of why we can't go on the offensive all that much. We need players with strong offensive abilities, and while we do have some in the guild, this is what we have to work with currently."
"I see, I see," Riley murmured to himself. He looked down at his hands. With his left, he'd borrowed Chrono's power earlier that morning. With his right, he'd copied Amber Impaler's. He could stop time and use the amber gel-like stuff. But he wondered if any of the powers that Aegis mentioned would help him do what he was planning on doing.
"I see the gears turning in your head. Wanna let me in on the thought process here?" asked Aegis.
"I feel like I need to go on the offensive," said Riley. "You're never going to gain ground defending. They're just going to keep growing and eventually, they'll overpower you. If it's not today, it could be tomorrow. You may be winning all the fights, but you're not gaining anything from it, right?"
"For the most part, you're right," said Aegis. "Ava here has some scavenger skills though, she's been working on them with the update."
"Yeah, my scavenger skill was pretty high already, but I've been building it up some more," said Ava. "So when there's a lot of destruction in an area, I find bonus resources that get spawned."
"Huh," Riley mused, remembering how he'd had to resort to scavenging back when he was grouping with Seth, Brenda…and Todd and Erica.
He took a moment to breathe as a wave of emotion swept over him, remembering how he'd grouped with the four of them. Then, in the Hellions expansion, Todd had died in real life. The ordeal was only punctuated by the fact that Erica had left the game entirely, and Riley had discovered that he himself was in a similar situation to Todd, but not as drastic. He'd discovered the benign tumor in his head and was cautioned about playing Sigil Online (or any VR game).
He shook his head, trying to pull himself from those thoughts.
"Alright…um," he spoke, trying to distract himself from those quickly encroaching dark thoughts. "Sorry, kinda drifted there for a moment. But what I was saying is that you need someone who can attack them, right? Are they allied? Or solo guilds?"
"I think they recently allied, yeah," said Aegis. "I'm pretty sure they've always been on good terms though. So it's not like we can create animosity between them."
"Yeah, I didn't have a lot of luck with a similar plan," Riley sighed. "But for what I'm planning, I'm going to need Gem and any fast energy regen items you might have on you."
Aegis's brow furrowed. She gestured to bring up her inventory and glanced through it. "I don't think I have anything other than food-bars. Eight minute full-energy regen is the best I have."
Ava had pulled her inventory up as well. She tapped at some unseen icon and a can appeared in her hand. She tapped at it, again, and again, until she was holding three yellow-striped aluminum cans. She walked over and handed them to Riley. "Here you go, bud. They'll regenerate 100% of your stam in a minute of downtime."
Riley's brows lifted. He knew that anything under five minutes to regen your energy was usually where the items started to get more expensive. So a one-minute regeneration time was probably a little pricey. "Um, how much you want for them?" Riley asked as he took them and placed them in his inventory. They didn't take too much space, luckily. But he really needed to unload some of the things he had. He needed to visit Aaron.
"Tell you what. I'd probably need all three if we end up fighting all those red dots on that map," Ava said, pointing over to the rendered map coming from Aegis's band. "You kill those for us and I'll call it even."
"Well, I'm pretty sure if I kill all of them, that makes me more than even," said Riley. "But I'll see what I can do. Now, you said Gem was…where?"
Aegis pointed to their left, down the street. "Head over there, they'll know you're a friendly. I'm sure you remember what he looks like. How long you think you're going to need? Mind filling me in on this plan?"
Riley grinned. "Is there any chance that they might be monitoring our audio?"
Aegis gave him a strange look as her lips parted. She then closed them and looked around. "Crap. Now that you mention it…I wouldn't put it past the Iron Hounds to have something cloaked and monitoring audio and visual, even if it can't transmit. It could still return to its master before you do whatever you're going to do. Crap…if that's the case…then…" Her eyes widened. "Maybe that's what they're waiting for? Detailed surveillance before they move in?"
Riley shrugged. "Sounds like you have some things to think on while I go do my thing. But, real quick, do you think I could get one of your bands? Got a spare?"
"Ava, you got yours on you?" Aegis asked.
Ava walked over and disconnected the band on her arm and handed it to Riley without question. "Here you go, now you've got two," she said as she nodded to the one already on his arm.
"Yeah, my arm's getting crowded." Riley smirked as he took the band and put it on beside the one Ava gave him. "Also, do you think the jammers you have in the area would be causing interference with communications from out in the wilds, with our alliance?"
"What do you mean?" Aegis asked.
"Like, if I tried to send a communication to Crimson City, from the wilds. Would your jammers be interfering with that?"
Aegis shook her head. "No, we have our jammers set to allow alliance-guilds to communicate through the interference. So we're just blocking hostiles and neutral guilds. Not allied ones."
Riley nodded. "Alright, got it…Oh! One last thing.”
"Yeah?" Aegis asked.
"If you see any white glowing orbs laying around, don't stare at them. There's a monster about twenty feet above them, stealthed. So, if you see anything like that, be careful. They're really deadly and new. There's…more to it, just be really careful if anything feels weird."
"Alright, we'll keep it in mind," said Aegis. "But I feel like we have greater concerns at the moment than worrying about some regular monsters."
"Yeah, yeah, just…trying to remember to tell people, is all," said Rile
y. "Alright, I'll do what I can. Catch you later." With that, he got back up on Scorp One and rushed off down the street.
He wished he'd been able to tell her his plan, but the risk of being found out was too great. And with an army full of mechanized things and the ability to stealth, well, he might be their only chance at an advantage. So as much as he wanted to divulge his plan, he couldn't.
If the Iron Hounds did have some sort of audio-visual reconnaissance unit and if it had just overheard them, it would probably report back right away. Which meant that the enemy force would either order an immediate attack, or hold off and keep an eye out for Riley.
An immediate attack would utterly ruin his plan, but at least it wasn't a good outcome for the enemies, because then it'd be unlikely that they'd fully mapped all the traps that The Vigilant had.
But if they didn't attack immediately, The Iron Hounds and the Fists of Atlas were as good as dead.
Chapter 10: The Best Defense
Riley wished he could've topped off his Deep Charge Battery. He needed to purchase some sort of charger for it. He should have enough time to keep his gear running, but he wished he could've been further prepared. The energy cans he'd gotten from Ava would be a big help, though. He just hoped they were going to be enough. He needed to invest in greater energy-regen if he was going to keep using energy-intensive powers. Like Chrono's, they were just too good not to use. But for now, he was going to have to let them go in favor of practicality and utility.
He'd located Gem, who was laying down and relaxing with his eyes closed. He wore a pair of dark brown denim pants and gray boots. He had on a blue jacket with an inside liner made of some kind of glittering material. Around his neck was a necklace of all sorts of gems. He had bangles and other types of jewelry all carrying the various gems he could make. He had dark black hair which also had a unique glint and glimmer to it.
The man had remembered him, even if he wasn't all that interested in his presence. Gem was skeptical when Riley asked to shake his hand. It didn't seem as though Gem knew what Riley's change of powers had been. Riley hadn't had the same powers the last time he'd seen Gem and Riley never directly engaged The Vigilant, despite the fact that The Crimson Alliance and The Vigilant had been fighting recently.