Forsaken 337 BC

by Sharon Leslie

  Cain was the first to finish, he left his wives to their ablutions as he had Bounty prepare breakfast for them and the twenty-five Amazons. First to wake, last to leave the shower room Lesley found Bounty’s version of fresh coffee surprisingly good. The coffee went well with a plate of cold meats, pastries and boiled eggs.

  :Only thing missing is orange juice and a news channel,: Lesley thought as she washed down a jam-filled pastry with the last of her coffee. Together with Sophie, Lesley grabbed the breakfasts for the twenty-five and went to greet them. As they entered the room, they noticed each of the twenty-five Amazons were up, armoured and ready for the day.

  The leaders of each unit collected the food bowing to Lesley and Sophie then handed their breakfasts out, taking theirs last. Quarter of an hour later, Toni led the twenty-five, her sister-wives and Cain up to the entrance of Cybele’s temple. Cain asked a priestess if they could locate ten or more covered wagons, so after they had completed the local quests they could undertake the quest to take a caravan to Pappabele, re-opening the trade route.

  Myrina led the group with Bethany and Sophie at the front to the Amazons' palisaded encampment. Marching, three abreast, shields slung across their backs, Doru carried as though it were a rifle. It pleased Cain watching the symmetry and precision of the Amazons as they marched, his eyes drawn unerringly to their bottoms swaying below their shields.

  ^C^ Not had time to talk, not without being overheard. John let Enoch know that Jason is searching for Bethany. They have accessed the SPQR game servers and are checking the profiles of every female player who died in a ten-minute window around the time Bethany died. We have three real time hours to finish the quests here and start on the journey to Pappabele. ^

  ^T^ Right, we need to be quick then. We can get the girls to stomp on the other Amazons, roll them up in double time. We can leave Lesley, Myrina, Delta and Echo units to begin the basic training. Alpha, Beta and Charley come with us to the sacred grove and we kill the spiders. Come back get the rest of the troops, restart the training, create the caravan, clear the main trail, cross the sea, we have plenty to achieve. I wondered why when I overheard you asking about wagons. ^

  Unashamed Toni stopped, pushed Cain against the nearest house, wrapped herself around him and gave him a hot passionate kiss.

  "Don’t think you are getting any sleep tonight husband," she whispered to him. "We each agreed to make love with you while you were making our breakfasts."

  :No wonder they seemed to take a long time showering this morning. Plotting behind my back to arrange a sex session, cool. It is a normal man's wet dream having six women wanting him,: thought Cain as Toni peeled herself from his body. Running to catch up the group, Toni and Cain caught them as they were halfway to the camp, outside the city walls. There before them stood seventy-five Amazons, ready for battle. Areto proudly standing in front with three squad leaders.

  Cain and Toni jogged over to the support staff, taking five hundred blunted arrows apiece, which Cain asked them to make after Areto made her challenge.

  "Where would you like the mock fight to take place?" Cain asked Areto.

  "Here my lord Joseph, in front of the camp, so the remaining troops can see how our old ways will triumph over you. All you have been doing is running around, well, you will soon all be running like scared rabbits. How will being good at jogging to get to a fight fast make you better than us?" Areto said.

  "Myrina," Cain shouted. "Over to you. Operation Stomp. Keep their damage to a minimum. Unit leaders, arrows," The five unit leaders jogged over to Cain and Toni, taking the blunted arrows. On returning they handed out sixty arrows to each archer. Toni looked at Myrina’s skill tables, her leadership skill was showing level one,she thought it would level after this mock fight.

  :This will be a good time to see how mock fights can develop a major skill. Rahab, could you monitor the fight for me, please? I would like to know how Myrina levels her leadership skill, what triggers the additional points, if any.: Toni said.

  The seventy-five Amazons walked around fifty yards to the side of the palisade, setting up in three phalanxes, of twenty-five women, five wide by five deep. Cain and the DreamBabes noticed their Doru were still sharp.: thought Myrina as she led her twenty-five past the seventy-five in double-time.

  Myrina led the twenty-five, moving them opposite the three phalanxes now one hundred yards distant, she set up the twenty-five as a phalanx too. Areto watched the soon to be rabbits get in position and shouted, "Advance." Although she had lost the fight to one of Joseph's wives, Areto knew her troops would grind the pitiful twenty-five into the ground.

  "What could Joseph and his wives have taught them in such a short space of time? This should be an easy victory," Areto said to her adjuncts.

  From Areto’s point of view everything was going as she planned. Her seventy-five warriors moved in tight formations, closing on the opposition. She turned to Lord Joseph and offered a wager. Should he, rather his troops win, she would give him one gold bar per warrior they captured or marked as dead. Cain accepted the wager.

  As the distance closed between the two forces, Myrina finally split the phalanx she had originally formed. Now in the five units, the archers opened fire, on Myrina’s command of, "Loose." The support staff had fitted the ends of each arrow with a small wad of cloth, soaked in a red dye.

  After the three phalanxes covered fifteen yards, something covered twenty of their number in red splotches. The leaders of the phalanxes not realising the opposing twenty-five could accurately hit them at such a distance. Splotches of red dye appeared where arrows hit exposed flesh and armour. Myrina shouted out, "Target left only," as that phalanx had the least missing. Three rounds of arrows, ten women had received the red marks, and removed themselves from their phalanxes.

  The leader of the middle phalanx increased their speed, they had fifty or sixty yards to reach the cowardly peltasts. As they increased their speed, the leader did not notice the other two phalanxes had dropped behind. They were now simply movable archery targets as both had lost their leaders.

  Myrina sent Alpha and Echo out to her right hand side, while Bravo, Charley and Delta readied to meet the oncoming phalanx. The lead phalanx was now twenty-five yards in front of the other two phalanxes, one of which had stopped moving forwards. Their sides exposed, Alpha and Echo fired arrows freely into their unprotected flanks.

  Alpha and Echo hit eight more women in the phalanx before they stopped shooting and rushed across to attack the weakened flanks as the phalanx was five yards from crashing into Bravo, Charley and Delta.

  "Stomp," shouted Myrina as she rushed forward, pushing aside the Doru of the phalanx leader and jabbed her in the groin then slashed across her throat with the piece of wood coated with red dye. They marked the five remaining members of the phalanx within twelve seconds.

  "Regroup," Myrina shouted. With only one of her twenty-five injured, a Doru bounced from the rim of her Aspis and pierced her shoulder. With a quick battlefield application of a padded bandage, she was ready to face the remaining phalanxes.

  The two phalanxes had thirty-six warriors remaining, they were still thirty yards distant. Myrina took two seconds to come up with a new daring plan. Forming her five squads into two lines, they ran toward the opposing phalanxes, dashing into the space between them.

  Myrina had the archers open fire when she called, "Halt." Hitting the phalanxes unarmoured flank, side-on the archers removed eight more Amazons from the left phalanx. Myrina shouted, "Switch," and the archers' fired a salvo into the opposite flank. This time their arrows hit and marked nine Amazons from the right phalanx. The remaining four Amazons dropped their shields and Doru, then sat on the ground in surrender.

  The left phalanx managed a turn and faced Myrina and her troops. Nine facing twenty-six. Myrina offered them the chance to surrender, there is no shame in surrendering to a better force in a trial, she said.

  Instead of surrendering they tried closing the ten-yard gap to inflict p
ain and possibly death upon Myrina and her troops. Myrina did not get to shout her command as all twenty-five shouted, "Stomp." They rushed the nine, inflicting more pain than was possibly necessary. Twenty seconds had passed. The last of Areto's Amazons had been defeated, with no casualties on the DreamBabes side.

  Arachnid Armour

  Areto was fuming, she handed the seventy-five gold bars over to Cain. She turned and stormed back into the camp; the gates closed behind her. Cain could hear Areto shouting,

  "You can take the bloody useless seventy-five Amazons who died on the field of battle. If they can't win against you then they can't win against anyone." Cain led the others down to the scene of Areto’s embarrassment. Sophie and Lesley healed the few opposing phalanx players who became harmed in the training exercise. Rahab told Toni, Myrina had gained three levels of leadership points during the fighting. She gained two of the skill points, when she improvised coming up with the dash between both phalanxes.

  Once everyone had their minor injuries healed, Sophie cast her AOE healing spell. It washed away all the little aches and pains for everyone in the spell's range. Cain had the new Amazons sit in a circle, he gave the same speech he gave to the twenty-five two days previously.

  He told them he would make them into soldiers, who could fight for each other, for the unit they were with. They would soon match the twenty-five, the same ones who easily won today's face-saving exercise.

  One of the former phalanx leaders told Cain, Areto wanted them to play dirty that was why their Doru had not been blunted or padded. The former leader said,

  "Areto is full of anger, all because your weakest wife beat her, then another of your wives healed her. By healing her, you took away from her what was her option of dying. We all believe she would rather have stayed crippled, so she could die. She is a proud woman and feels you will cast her aside after you have taken all her troops."

  Cain understood the woman's mind,.he knew he would have to stop Areto from walking any further down a road leading her to Erebus' clutches. They split their group into units of five and began their training. Cain knew they would also receive training on the way to Pappabele, so they only spent twenty minutes teaching them the basics.

  Splitting the new Amazons into new units of five rather than the twenty-five of the phalanxes. Once split they would mirror the original training though with larger numbers. Cain made three units of each group. There were now four Alpha units, Alpha1, Alpha2, Alpha3 and Alpha4. They repeated the groupings with Bravo, Charley, Delta and Echo.

  Cain again took the Alpha units. Toni led Bravo, Sophie led Charley, Daphne led Delta and Lesley took Echo, again with Myrina. Each group moved to different parts of the combat area to receive a shortened basic training. With the new units created, Cain taught tactics, the main theme was mobility while listening to and following orders.

  Sophie taught battlefield first aid, without using her health spells. Again, Sophie wounded some of her units and had the others bind their wounds. After a while Sophie healed those she’d wounded, back to full health then wounded other unit members.

  Daphne taught killing strikes with eight straw manikins, she taught how working as groups they could overwhelm the opposition.

  Lesley taught basic Krav Maga, showing the new Amazon women, how to use the size of a larger opponent against them.

  Toni taught the basics of archery. She explained, as they did not have any spare bows, the theory around distance shooting, and targeting areas at close range.

  Cain and his DreamBabes spent twenty minutes with each grouping, the original units helped impart their knowledge too. Taking a twenty-minute break at the end, they completed the first steps of basic training in two hours.

  Speaking to Sophie and Bethany, Cain asked them to go to the camp and retrieve any shields and Doru the support staff had made. He also had them collect all the arrows too. Cain brought up the quest screen and looked for the quest regarding Athena's shrine, then ticked the "Accept Quest" button.

  On his local area map a distance marker was flashing. Looking Cain noticed the sacred grove was under a mile distance, beyond where they previously trained. Sharing the data with his women, Daphne and Lesley took the point with units Alpha1 and Delta1.

  Giving Lesley and Daphne a five-minute start, Sophie led ninety Amazons at a slow jog. Myrina started new jogging song.

  We don’t care why people bitch,

  We don’t care why people bitch,

  We’re the DreamBabes proud and strong,

  We’re the DreamBabes proud and strong,

  We’re the best don’t ever forget,

  We’re the best don’t ever forget,

  We’re the DreamBabes all the way.

  We’re the DreamBabes all the way.

  Sound out,

  one, two,

  Sound out,

  Three, four,

  Who are the DreamBabes here today,

  We’re the DreamBabes, here to stay.

 

 

  :How big are these spiders? Enoch, any ideas?: Cain said.

  {There are only a few old pieces of pottery showing arachnids. The arachnids have the upper body of a man or woman, positioned at the front of a very large spider body, a body covered in chitin armour. From the images it shows them with either spears or nets; though they could make the nets from their own webbing,} Enoch said.

  :Great and here we are, I wonder how many of my wives fear normal spiders.: Cain thought. Eventually he was pleased to see none of his wives, or Amazons were outwardly fearful of these arachnids. Since these were thousands of times the size of the type most people were afraid of.

  Three minutes after Lesley messaged the group, Cain was in a position to look at the sacred grove and the now dozens of large armoured arachnids.

  "Any ideas?" Cain asked. They spent the next ten minutes coming up with ideas on how to eradicate the arachnids. "I don’t think they will be open to talking somehow," Cain added. "I wonder if we can drive them away from the sacred grove. There must be something the arachnids are fearful of?"

  "Looking at their size, possibly a very large shoe, apart from that nothing comes to mind," Toni said. Everyone who heard her reply laughed.

  "Wasps eat spiders, though a wasp would need to be a Black Hawk size to eat these versions," said Sophie.

  "Alright, we go with our original plan. We herd them into small groups then squish them plan. The new troops make a square, twelve wide, two rows deep. We move in, separate them into smaller groups and fill them full of arrows or stab them with our Doru. Archers, hand the blunt arrows back to your team leaders, before we start," said Toni.

  One hour after they killed their first arachnid which was an archer, they killed another fifty-seven and they slowly cleared the sacred grove.

  :Things could have been much worse here, thanks to Sophie’s AOE healing spell, none of the Amazons was seriously injured and none died.: Toni thought

  After, a near disastrous burning down of the sacred grove as a well-placed fire arrow targeted one of the last arachnids. Regrettably in trying to beat out the flames the dying arachnid fell against a web-shrouded cottonwood tree. Only the quick thinking by Toni and the unit Alpha1, was a disaster averted. By using their water bottles, and their Doru to prise the burning arachnid webs away from the tree, then stomping the burning web into the ground was the whole sacred grove saved.

  Ahead Cain could see the altar under the large gnarly branched, cottonwood tree, surrounded by newer, tall and spindly cottonwoods. Positioned in front of Athena’s altar were three remaining arachnids. Cain watched as the arachnid on his right tossed balls of fire from one hand to the other, it then collected the balls in its
left hand turning them into a fiery whip.

  The arachnid on Cain‘s left spun two tiny water spouts from the palms of its hands. The fire arachnid moved its left hand and a ribbon of fire flowed around the larger arachnid in the middle. Tendrils of water twisted around the ribbon of fire, together, the water and fire of the magical sub-bosses used to protect the main arachnid boss.

  "Triple wall," shouted Cain. The shield bearers overlapped their shields and made a three high shield wall. When the fire mage shot three large fireballs from its left hand across the small clearing. They hit the shield wall which deflected them to the ground. The lead Amazons stomped on the flaming grass putting the fire out.

  The water balls behaved more like horizontal rain, seeking the small gaps and soaking the Amazons holding the shields. The fire arachnid cracked its whip and it curled around the edge of one shield, pulling it from the warrior's grip. A fireball sped across the clearing, the fire arachnid trying to take advantage of the missing shield. It was a yard from the shield wall when a replacement shield appeared in the gap, locking into place. The fireball bounced away harmlessly.

  Toni had the archers from Alpha1 and Beta1, target the fire mage sub-boss arachnid, using poison arrows. Cain had the archers of Charley1 and Delta1, use fire arrows against the water arachnid. Sophie had Echo1’s archers use their explosive arrows against first the water arachnid then the fire arachnid. The mix of arrows easily killed the two sub-bosses. The explosive arrows knocked them off their legs, and the poison and fire arrows weakened and killed the sub-bosses.