"Thank you for giving this old VET an exercise in humility. I would have put his chances against my best three fighters at less than nil. If he can put each one down in under ten seconds, in such a way they didn't even lay a hand on him, let alone mark him.
"I would hate to think he was coming after me. I told all my men what the fight was about. None of them wanted our three to face them. After the display they all agreed they wouldn't want Joseph to come after them too, even if they all stood together," Lesley said, "It is good having lessons where people we care about learn, and not get hurt. I am pleased you and your men understood my concern."
Cain's training of his Blacksmith skill had gone better than he hoped for. He was already producing quality journeyman weapons, such as the recurve bows. After three weeks of training, Cain now produced master-quality weapons. Now his Blacksmith skill was higher his first task modified his original design of the repeating crossbow. Cain made six jigs for turning out the parts for building journeyman-level repeating crossbows. With all the work and weapons needed, Cain employed three blacksmiths and their eight apprentices. Between them they began to make the journeyman-level weapon he made the jigs for.
With the employed blacksmiths and their apprentice busy, Cain made master-quality gladii and his version of the Israeli Ari B’Lila. These were for each of his wives and the leaders of each squad. Under Toni's suggestion Cain also presented during a shared meal in Bounty, the VETS with a single gladius and a Ka-Bar of master-quality.
Cain also made master-quality jigs to make the old US Marine Ka-Bar. One blacksmith levelled which allowed him to make high quality journeyman gladii and low-level master Ka-Bars for every Amazon and support staff. At the end of the three weeks, Cain had increased his Blacksmith skill to level eight.
Sophie and Daphne worked together on their Alchemy skills, they initially created simple heal and stamina potions. At the end of the first week, they moved on from simple potions and experimented with all the different ingredients. Daphne was pleased Sophie could heal as she was their potions tester; and sometimes their concoctions were both foul-tasting and poisonous.
Towards the end of the second week they both made master quality combined heal, stamina and mana potions, calling them Heamna potions. They spent over a thousand gold bars buying every ingredient the alchemy shops in Mantabele held, and more than thirty thousand vials of various sizes.
Using modern techniques, their potions were of high quality, with nil contaminants. Their smallest Heamna potion carried a restore and heal of five hundred points. Their max Heamna restored two thousand five hundred points, of heal, stamina and mana.
Like Cain, they both maxed their Alchemy skill at level eight. Lesley knew she could not make the armour for all the Amazons herself, she employed eleven armourers. Lesley first trained them then they worked on a mix of leather and metal armour. Lesley developed a layered style of armour resistant to sword thrusts, point-blank bow and ballista shots.
Lesley made the new armour into lightweight cuirasses and knee-length pleated kilts. One armourer she employed used the material to make a large blanket-sized protective sheet, which would quickly shield three warriors.
By the end of the second week, Lesley reached level eight with her skill as an Armourer. She and the armourers produced new higher grade armour for each Amazon. Lesley made special pieces for each of her sister-wives and a special lightweight and flexible armoured waistcoat, shirt and trousers for Cain.
Bethany was already level seven at the beginning of the first week and reached level eight by the middle of the week. Once Bethany had created the spell form the enchantment would need, it was easy to pour mana into the enchantment to make it active.
Her most striking enchantment was using a metal disc from which they had made ten rings. Her enchantment was one of invisibility. The disc held the enchantment making whatever they fastened it to become invisible. The rings allowed the wearer to see the object once the enchantment activated and had hidden it in plain sight. She added to the disc a second enchantment, making the object impervious to any damage, natural or manmade.
Bethany gave Cain and her sister-wives rings, which allowed them to install Bounty out in the open without the game recording system being able to observe it.
As Toni's skill was Wind magic, she spent the first week improving her skill by casting air shields, then creating small lightning storms and controlling miniature tornadoes. Her Wind skill soon reached level eight.
In the second week Toni practised her archery skill. Once she had reached level seven, she added wind magic to her archery. She was soon shooting her arrows to nearly a mile. Her arrows, wrapped with lightning, giving the target a massive electrical storm to deal with.
At the start of the third week, Toni had an idea and had a bowyer make her some test arrows which had small holes drilled in their length and sealed with beeswax after someone filled them with a mix of pure water and oil.
Practising with those new arrows with her wind magic, Toni had archers fire the arrows with her wind spell. In flight the beeswax melted, distributing a fine mist of oil and water droplets, hanging in the air and coating the ground. A second arrow carrying a flame ignited the oil droplets, exploding the area like it was hit with a powerful fire-ball.
Toni eventually created an arrow which worked without her wind spell pushing it, making it a weapon the Amazons could use without Toni or a person with a wind skill being present.
Myrina spent her time during the three weeks, practising her Animal Companion skill. She began with a mouse, followed by a cat then a large dog. It was by the end of the second week, Myrina knew she could control most animals and make aggressive animals become placid.
Without realising Myrina maxed her skill to level eight when a sea eagle bonded with her. The Animal Companion skill was at level eight and allowed Myrina to see and hear through her bonded creature, Josephine.
Tyler walked with Ian rather smartly across the training ground, to the workshop houses and Cain. They could hear the sound of Cain or Lesley working on their forges. Hammer blows ringing in time across the training area. Reaching Cain, Tyler tapped his ring and Cain nodded in response. They retreated inside to the first floor of Cain and his wives home, and entered Bounty. One minute later Toni, Bethany and Lesley joined them.
"We received an update from Mogastation and Boostoff, fifteen minutes ago. As you know they have been hanging around in the city doing little quests and trashing the VETS, you and the Amazons, every opportunity they've had. They have played their parts well, if I didn't know I would think they hated all of us.
"Finally, someone approached them and upon payment they agreed to share their knowledge about you. Someone led them to a merchant's shop-cum-warehouse near the citadel, that was one hour ago. They are now in Petrabele, using a travel-post Erebus' followers have installed," Tyler said.
With the news Tyler gave them, they quickly cleaned their appearances and took Tyler and Ian and headed for Cybele's temple. Inside while they prayed at the altar Cybele appeared, they shared the news about the travel-post hidden under ground.
Cybele agreed not to do anything with the news, or it would endanger the two VETS players. Cybele said she would wait until Cain had taken control of Petrabele. Cybele would send a priestess with them who had the gift of identifying those who aligned themselves with Erebus.
Chapter 28
Petrabele Falls
Their plans on how they would capture Petrabele made, they then decided to leave the VETS in Mantabele, with a coms-ring. Their plan was for the VETS to capture any of Erebus' priests leaving the building where they already knew the location of a travel-post.
Rather than keep their plans secret they ran a fake news action plan. They met in the main room of the inn they had rented the suite, and planned on their onward journey. As the plans were in the open it gave none-aligned players in Mantabele and NPCs knowledge that they would travel to a port, buy their passage across the sea. Fro
m there they would travel on to Macedonia, to see King Philip.
They made all their main plans in Bounty because the system and millions of paying viewers were always watching. Using a large digital sand box to draw their plan in the workshop, group leaders and his DreamBabes watched as they laid out their travel to Petrabele, the hire of or the capture of boats for their onward travel across the sea to the mainland.
Once they arrived in Petrabele they would buy supplies and send them back to Mantabele in the covered wagons they would be taking with them. Using the sand box mode they roughly drew a march plan to Petrabele, crossing the sea and a very rough outline of a march to Macedonia. The Macedonia plan was made with the help of the scroll maps, Athena's high priestess loaned Sophie.
Happy with the plans and the training they left Mantabele the next day. They travelled with one hundred empty covered wagons and their two hundred additional Amazons. Cain looked over the Amazons as they moved with a lithe grace, each unit following the naming convention they began in Agiasobele. Two hundred additional warriors, and their original Amazons, all trained as modern day soldiers. Their original Amazons had shown their worth in fighting the Centaurs, and with the extra training led by the VETS, they would be able to hold their own against seasoned PvP players, levels above their own. Cain prayed the rouse of leaving the original two hundred Amazons back in the barracks would work.
As their caravan train would be returning to Mantabele the had to hire two hundred drivers and companions. Their original drivers had already returned to Agiasobele, while their support staff were walking as a unit attached to group1. Cain assumed at least one driver or companion would be a spy for Erebus or Jason.
The remaining two hundred Amazons were acting for the cameras and Jason's spies. Pretending they were ill and confined to their barrack long houses outside Mantabele. While they were actually asleep, being carried in the barracks section, inside Bounty which was in Cain's inventory.
Lesley found how to open and access the strange door outline, beyond the workshop area inside Bounty. The door opened into a long corridor, with additional doors down its length.
They practiced on themselves first, then asked for volunteers from group1. Using two Amazons who slept during the first trial, making sure when Bounty folded they were safe. On, the second test they were awake and running down the length of the corridor when Lesley folded Bounty. According to the two trial Amazons they said they remembered running down the corridor and suddenly they fell asleep. When they woke they had no knowledge of time passing, yet were somehow asleep in their bunks not in the corridor. With their testing using Amazons completed, they trialled the folding with thirty, again with no problems.
Before they left, each player looked at their own stats, they had allocated all available skill points, Cain wanted them to see how each other was performing. Cain had Enoch produce the party-statistics in pairs, he linked Myrina with the Harem bonus information.
Myrina had grown in confidence since becoming a wife of Cain's, her hand-to-hand skills after being taught by Lesley were exceptional. Her bonded pet, a sea eagle, called Josephine by Daphne, made a wonderful forward scout. Josephine's sight was exceptional, she spotted the first ambushers three hours before they arrived in the ambush area.
Myrina went to Cain with the news of what Josephine had seen, with the information Cain split groups one and three from the caravan. The plan was for the two groups to run and get behind the large group of men who waited in ambush, over two hours ahead. Sophie, Daphne and Toni went with them, their aim was to capture the leader of the ambush or keep some of the would-be ambushers alive.
Nearly two hours later, as the caravan entered the ambush area, the bandits had arranged to attack as they moved past their location. Unfortunately for them groups one and three launched their own attack. With groups two and five pushing into the forest gloom they easily put those identified would-be ambushers to the sword.
Only one Amazon was injured. She stood on a small rock which turned her ankle and broke it after the fighting. Daphne captured the player who was leading the bandits, by enclosing his feet in solid earth. It surprised nobody that the captured leader was another priest of Erebus, a player in the JW Killers clan.
What surprised them were the two player warriors in the JW Killers clan, also caught in Daphne's earth trap with the priest. As the Amazons approached them the warriors killed the priest before killing each other. Cain cleared the pop-up from the small conflict. Toni asked, "Why did the warriors kill the priest?" to which Cain nor the other DreamBabes had a logical answer.
Daphne and Lesley looted the NPCs and Sophie looted the three players. The player who was the Erebus priest had a scroll in a side pouch, not his inventory so Sophie took it and read it.
Running out of the forest to Cain, Sophie told him what the scroll said. It did not surprise Cain as they all knew there was a risk of them getting a spy or two in the four hundred helpers. The note said they had left Mantabele five hours ago, the note also gave the caravan and troop layout in a rough sketch, though it gave no troop count, which Cain thought was an advantage.
At the bottom of the scroll was another message, written by somebody else. The foot note said they had to hold the caravan up for at least one hour with their ambush, so they would not make the caravan camping ground and its defensive walls.
They stopped for a break, watering the caravan horses and letting them feed. One and a half hours later they carried on the trail, knowing they had another fight ahead of them. The Amazons they had wrapped in bandages all rode in the covered caravans
The sun was half a span from slipping behind the horizon, Josephine let Myrina see the land as she scouted ahead of their travel route. There were two large groups of men on foot and one group of men mounted on horses, hidden under the canopy of the small forest which spanned the main trail to the port.
Planning their attack using party chat, while they took a break to water the wagon horses. Toni came up with an idea, she asked Myrina if Josephine was still watching the ambush site, in particular those who were leading the ambush.
Cain went with what Toni suggested, he went to speak to the new Alpha, Beta and Charley squads. Two minutes after he spoke with them they used their stealth skills and disappeared into the gloom. Cain called everyone together including the caravan drivers and said, "We need to wait here a bit longer two of our drivers have reported problems with their horses. We will bandage them and hopefully a few hours rest will give them the chance to make the caravan site, rather than not make the journey."
"We believe they should rest for another three hours will help them, then we will move on and reach the caravan site later during the night," Cain said.
With the message given everyone went back to their posts, the troops milled around the two large fires, some of the drivers who were not friendly with the Amazon's support staff went to their caravans.
Fifteen minutes later and Myrina messaged that the leader of the ambush had received a message as he stood down his troops, shouting the target will not be here for
another five hours.
As Myrina was telling the group, two members of the Alpha squad dragged a driver through to where Cain and his wives sat talking. The priestess who Cybele sent with them was disguised as an Amazon fighter, nodded to Cain, Erebus influenced the driver. On questioning the man, Cain learned Erebus was offering men the chance to sleep with his wives, should someone kill him.
Daphne, on hearing the man's sneer as he spoke cut the driver's head from his shoulders. The NPC dissolved within a minute. One of the Alpha squad handed Cain a spelled message scroll. Cain had the caravan lay-up in a double loop and pitched the now-invisible Bounty, away from any light source. He and Toni went inside, ten minutes later they came back out, bringing all of the two hundred Amazons with them, ready to fight.
As the Amazons all wore Athena's pendents, which Bethany had added a night-vision enchantment, moving through the land and the forest in the dark was an easy task. Each Amazon had their gladii, fastened across their backs. They did not bring their bows as quivers filled with arrows make too much noise when they ran.
They reached the ambush site less than forty minutes after leaving the caravan. Cain did not like the quietness until he heard a man softly speaking ahead of their position. The man was telling another person who made a noise to keep quiet, they all wanted to sleep while they had a chance.
^C^ T, D split the women into three groups, we'll come around them from the back. Let's see if our training has helped their hand-to-hand abilities. The Amazons split into three groups of one hundred each. Cain led his group for the centre, where Myrina said the leaders' tents were pitched. Toni led her one hundred to the right while Daphne led the remaining group to the left.
Forsaken 337 BC Page 35