Bastions

by Jeff Sproul

  Even though the central cities were home to the majority of the player base, unique events could still happen all around Sigil.

  His status screen was lit up for his eyes only. He perused it gradually. Not much had changed, save for the buff from Nexis. He was just wasting time.

  He checked the time and realized that he'd already been standing there for thirty minutes.

  He shook his head with a sigh. "What's taking so long? This is ridiculous."

  He went back to glancing through his inventory. He wished that Sigil had some sort of in-game minigame that he could pass the time with. Maybe some sort of match-3 game, or…slots? Hmm, that'd be neat. A slots minigame that would let him spend his SC and gamble it to potentially earn more SC.

  Riley's eyes lifted to the sky in thought. He'd never realized it before, but Sigil didn't actually have any real gambling mechanics. Unless you considered farming monsters a gambling mechanic. Sometimes guilds would hold raffles and lotteries within their guild, but there was too much potential to be scammed if you tried to do anything outside of a guild environment.

  "We should have a raffle sometime," Riley mused to himself. "Need to remember to bring it up to Chrono. I'm sure he'll hate the idea, though." Riley shook his head, merely talking to himself.

  A shimmery distortion appeared about twenty feet away.

  Riley tapped a holographic button on his status screen to disperse it. As he did, a figure materialized ahead of him.

  "Who are you? What are you doing here?" came the man's voice. He was taller than Riley, maybe seven feet. Riley couldn't tell if his skin just looked like sandpaper, or if his entire body was comprised of yellow-orange sand. His body held an overall humanoid physique. His eyes were two opals, with no actual pupils.

  Riley hated eyes like this. He never had any idea where they were looking. It also made it problematic during discussions, unless you said the person's name before speaking to them.

  But in this situation, Riley was the only one there and the only one that he could possibly be speaking to.

  "Oh, uh…just hanging out. Nice day, right?" Riley asked, lifting his hand in a simple wave.

  "What are you doing outside our outpost? You've been standing here for half an hour," the sandman said.

  "Just hanging out, like I said. I was going for a walk and just needed a safe place to stand while my stats recover. This desert is brutal, huh?"

  Riley wasn't getting a good read of expressions on the man's face, other than a permanently furrowed sandy brow.

  "You're out here in the desert alone?" the sandman asked.

  "Yeah. Is this your outpost?" Riley asked, gesturing back to the wall he was leaning against.

  "It is, and you don't belong here," said the other man. "It's not safe to just wander up to people's bases."

  "It's not?" Riley asked, letting his brows lift in surprise. "I thought it would be safe. I mean, your defenses didn't attack me. So I figured they'd attack any strong enemies around here."

  "They only attack you if you're a threat," said the man.

  "Oh, well…that's good. I was worried that you didn't have any defenses. I hear the wild areas can be really tough. The range of monster levels out here is supposed to be high."

  "Yeah," the sandman grumbled. "I think you've been here long enough. Now go on your way, or we'll remove you."

  Riley was actually a little surprised that he hadn't been outright attacked by the sandman. The player possessed some measure of stealth. Riley's goggles were on, but he hadn't seen the man come around. The stealth capabilities of his goggles really were pretty useless. He needed to stop using that high-powered function. It wasn't doing him any favors.

  "Alright, alright. Thanks for not like…killing me," Riley offered up. "I'll be on my way."

  He seemed to be out of time.

  He leaned off the wall and stepped away, keeping the sandman in the corner of his eye.

  The ground trembled beneath his feet. So much so that he had to stop walking just to keep himself from falling over. "What's going on?" he yelled as the ground rumbled. Did the players at this outpost have a subterranean player, or minion?

  "I don't know!" the sandman called out, just as the ground burst all around them.

  Pincers tore into the air as scorpions crawled and dove up onto the surface with skittering legs. But these weren't scorpions from Crimson Alliance. They had the notorious Crimson Alliance form, but instead of being red or metallic in hue, these were covered in oily black scales.

  In an instant, Riley triggered Chrono's power.

  Time stopped all around him.

  He used his precious seconds to glance all around. There were seven scorpions that he could see. He maneuvered between them and rushed toward the desert. He kept a close watch on the little indicator in his vision that represented how much time he had in the time-stop. It wasn't long at all.

  When he was down to one second, he quickly created two duplicates. There was no time to make any more. He had to create them while running and as the time-stop effect diminished, there were now three Rileys running out into the desert.

  In a normal situation, Riley would feel as though he was at a disadvantage with Laura and Chrono's powers together. But for his current objective, they were perfect.

  Well, hopefully. He'd know if he didn't die in the next five minutes.

  When the time-stop vanished, the rumbling ground continued.

  Riley glanced back to see more of the scorpions bursting from the ground. They spewed forth and attacked the sandman, while half of their number turned and darted after him.

  He'd expected an attack from the sky, to be honest. But apparently Golem had stolen the method behind making the scorpions that they'd brought to the battle with the dragon. So, Golem thought the scorpions were useful too? Well, at least they had something worth stealing besides just their players.

  Riley looked ahead, running as fast as he was able to with his character limitations. His clones were heading off in different directions. One had veered to the left, while another continued on straight, while he was off to the right. He willed his duplicates to turn their heads as well and mimic things he would actually do if he was running away.

  Once the time-stop cooled down, he triggered it for another several seconds.

  Another turn of his head told him that the scorpions had closed a decent amount of the distance between them. They were easily twice as fast as him. Since his time-stop was the same duration as the cooldown, it meant that if the scorpions continued to run, then they'd catch him eventually.

  But he wasn't entirely alone out here in the desert.

  As he ran, he created two more duplicates. Now, it was him and four clones. He altered his path a little, making it so that he and his clones weren’t running in the same direction as they had been when they were last seen.

  When the time-stop ended, he and his clones all took a look back.

  The scorpions were engaged with the sandman. There were so many that he could barely see the other player.

  He had no idea what the player's powers were and he was a bit upset at the fact that he was probably going to get that guy killed in the game. But maybe his powers would help him get away? He did have an entire base at his back. Hopefully, if Chrono's scans were right, this outpost was well-defended.

  The second thing that he noticed was that the scorpions were spreading out in such a way to chase him and his four clones. They weren't just coming after his core body. They were heading after his clones too, which meant that Golem had no way of determining which was his core body.

  Laura hadn't been too thrilled about revealing her secrets, but she had divulged to Riley that if her core body died, she'd die. The core body had to be saved, but the clones were expendable. It was something he'd always wondered about, but Laura had always skirted answering. But now that he was using her powers, he really needed to know. He was just glad that she trusted him enough to divulge her secret. He didn't have the luxur
y of knowing about his abilities, since they weren't his abilities he was stealing. Generally, a player got a sense for what they were capable of over a few weeks after gaining their powers, or a new tier.

  For now, he was just thankful that Golem wasn't some kind of invulnerable entity. It had weaknesses that could be exploited.

  Riley kept running, but the scorpions, even though they were spread out, were quickly nearing him and his clones.

  They were almost upon him when he triggered another time-stop.

  He still had a ways to go, but he should be able to make it. He just hoped he could outrun these scorpions.

  He gained as much ground as he was able before the time-stop ended. He didn't have the spare energy to create more duplicates than he already had. He'd learned valuable information by creating the four he had. But any more would deplete his ability to use the necessary time-stops that he was going to need to get to his destination.

  The nearest scorpion reached the middle duplicate. Riley glanced over and realized why the scorpions hadn't fired acid at them.

  The scorpion's tail had shot forward, stretching twice its body length, in order to stab his duplicate in the back.

  In Riley's vision, he saw an indicator for that specific duplicate. Another indicator came up, showing that the copy had succumbed to a one-second paralyzing effect and a bit of damage.

  The clone dropped and smacked into the dirt as the scorpion pinned him to the ground. Riley didn't detect any further damage, but he willed the clone to try to get up as best it could.

  The duplicate struggled but couldn't free itself from the scorpion's grasp.

  Riley triggered a fourth time-stop.

  His other three clones were able to move with him, luckily. Even the clone that was trapped beneath the scorpion managed to wiggle free and get up. The middle clone started to run again but Riley knew he'd just get caught. At least this meant that maybe Golem would believe it to be real.

  He wondered if he should pull the other clones over to cover his own retreat but then he'd have to deal with far more enemies in direct proximity of himself. Not to mention that one-second stun.

  The time-stop ended.

  The scorpions caught up to the middle clone again and in a few more seconds, the two clones on the left of that one.

  Riley allowed the clone to his left to slow just a step behind him.

  He didn't want to engage in a fight. He had to push on. If he stopped and fought, the scorpions would overtake him en masse. This really wasn't going entirely according to plan.

  With a glance into the sky, he noticed that dark objects had appeared. It only took another moment to realize that they were a dozen angler jellies, descending from above. They were still a distance off, and not a direct concern. The scorpions were his priority.

  Sudden rumbles emanated from far behind him. Explosions. He didn't risk a glance back, but he figured that the outpost's defenses had kicked in and started attacking Golem's troops.

  He triggered his fifth time-stop.

  His eyes were dead set on a small white indicator that he was closing in on. Would he make it? He had to. He was out of energy to do another time-stop.

  His arms pumped. He wanted to run faster but couldn't. His character had a max run speed that couldn't be exceeded and that speed was gradually depleting the last vestiges of his energy.

  The time-stop ended.

  He didn't have long.

  The clones that had been downed turned on their scorpion assailants. Laura had lent him a pair of power gloves to use. They were pretty decent, for what they were. They were actually a single item that had the ability to be split. Not all items could be split, but with the right modifications like the ones he'd had Aaron make to his beam glove back in the Hellions expansion, any item could technically be modified to have the 'split' attribute.

  He directed the clone on his left to fire its glove beam at the scorpion that was closing the most distance on him. This didn't divert the scorpion, but it did slow it down just a little, as if the scorpion was trying to decide if it needed to divert its course or not.

  That brief delay bought Riley just enough time.

  He smacked into the side of some invisible object, but quickly pressed a button, indicated by a small white light in his vision.

  A panel the size of a clipboard lit up in front of him.

  With another press of a button, a hatch opened up to reveal the interior of the Invisirover.

  He hopped inside the still-active rover. He didn't waste time in getting his bearings; he immediately gunned it, causing it to jolt forward. Once it was moving, he closed the hatch and re-initialized the full stealth, so that the panel was no longer visible.

  A scorpion smacked into the side of the rover, causing it to skid and turn. Riled pulled the steering wheel hard to the right, thankful that the rover didn't tip.

  He could see the scorpion clawing at the air around the vehicle as the rover darted away. The scorpion stabbed with its tail, but missed hitting the rover. Which was lucky for Riley, since he had entirely forgotten to ask Aaron about giving him some materials to repair it with. It had been a slight surprise when he'd found it earlier at Outpost Rose and remembered that it was pretty banged up. It would've taken too long to have gone all the way back to Crimson City and then to Aaron's and then all the way back. The rover was at 826 of its 3200 hitpoints, which meant that it couldn't take a huge amount of punishment. But its stealth function was pretty powerful and according to Aaron, it could be overcharged for short durations. Which was a feature he hadn't needed to try out until now.

  Riley turned a dial on the dashboard which increased the power flow going to the invisibility field. As far as cloaking went, there was a stealth stat and a stealth detection stat. If your stealth detection was only 110, then you couldn't see something at 111 or above. But if you were using a scanner, you could technically detect something that was within 10% of your detection range. So while a player couldn't see something one point higher, it could still be detected within that ten percent range.

  This was a big difference between pre-Bastions stealth detection. There wasn't any hard proof as to how stealth detection even worked back then, but now, it was all shown as actual values, which, overall, the player base was rather thankful for.

  Riley kept turning his head to look outside the window of the rover. The scorpions were lashing about, but unable to find him as he put more and more distance between them and himself.

  He looked into the sky and saw that the angler jellies were still up there, but they were floating about in various directions.

  Riley wasn't sure if Golem had any stealth detection at all, or ability to discern his whereabouts, but if its unit movements were any indication, then it would definitely appear as though it couldn't find him with his current stealth level.

  Riley had parked the rover just on the outside of the player outpost's scan range. If he'd set it any closer, then it might've alerted them to something being amiss. But a randomly wandering player shouldn't have alerted anyone. After all, players did wander around the desert from time to time, albeit usually in groups.

  Riley let out a sigh of relief. He shook his head at both his good and bad fortune.

  He initiated a camera feed that would watch the targeted outpost while he pinged his surroundings.

  Just as with Outpost Rose, he wasn't able to scan much of anything beyond the base's wall, but he did get a good indication of Golem's forces in the area.

  From the range that he could detect, he was able to read 27 scorpions near the wall and 16 angler jellies in the sky. He didn't see or detect any strike hands nearby. He figured that strike hands were usually only deployed via a behemoth. Which meant that back during the attack on Outpost Rose, there must've been a stealthed behemoth up in the sky.

  He couldn't help but wonder how many more behemoths Golem had at its disposal in Sigil. The dragon and a few of their alliance members had managed to kill two in that previous enga
gement, but now? There could be dozens.

  Riley watched the scanner readouts and the camera view. He couldn't get a good visual on sandman. The scorpions were getting attacked by mortar fire and what appeared to be rockets coming from within the outpost.

  The scorpions were scaling the wall as the angler jellies were shifting to drift closer to the outpost itself. None were following Riley.

  At the expense of another guild's outpost and assets, their plan had worked. He just hoped that it would continue to work.

  Over the following days, Riley continued his plan of being bait and luring Golem to different outposts in the region. Everything was going well until he arrived at the daily debriefing on the fifth day.

  Laura, Chrono and Sage were gathered in the HQ by the time he got back. The three of them stood in a loose triangle, and all glanced over when Riley entered.

  "Hey," Riley called out with a wave. "Another success. This one was a bit easier since their scan range wasn't as far as the previous ones had been. That makes…what, fifteen outposts? Golem doesn't seem to be learning. So I guess we have that going for us."

  "Our success has run dry," came Sage's voice as Riley neared the group.

  "What do you mean?" Riley asked, as he looked to all their faces. It was hard to determine expressions on Sage and Chrono, but Laura had worry painted all over her face.

  "An unexpected outcome has occurred," said Sage. "One that might prove to unravel all the gains we've potentially made with your plan."

  "But we've been getting other guilds to engage Golem!" said Riley. "They know full well that Golem exists and is a real threat. We've hit fifteen different guilds and thinned out some of Golem's number."

  "We lost at the propaganda war," said Chrono. "We tried our best to have our members upvote any new posts on the forum, in regards to Golem. Especially the ones where you lured in Golem."

  "How did we lose?" Riley asked, desperate for some semblance of an answer.