by Galen Wolf
Armand glances over at the twenty or so enemy coming rapidly over the moorland towards us from the direction of their home village of Carrionburg. "You'll be outnumbered."
I wink. "I've had worse odds. They're not high level. If they think we're a hard nut to crack, that'll buy us more time."
He gives me a crisp salute and went to order the militia to their duties. I go down and fetch Spirit, my stallion from the field where he's grazing. As I do so, my owl advisor, Blodeuwedd appears for the first time in ages. "Mind if I tag along?" she asks. "I like to see you punish the bad guys."
I still remember our horrible defeat and my death in the fields outside Camelot before the enemy had took it and burned it down. This time I'll do some serious punishing. "No, come along. The more the merrier." The owl is immortal — an immortal NPC that can't die. Can't fight either, but she might give me a useful heads up from where she flutters overhead.
I mount Spirit and we trot to the palisade gates. Armand and a bow armed militia-man let me out. Standing by ready to go are the five spear armed militia coming with me. Leaving the protective palisade behind, we advance over the heather along the wide path that leads eventually to Carrionburg.
I pull my lance from my inventory. This crystal spear was given to me by my mentor Sir Mercurius when I was still a squire. Crystal is one of the most deadly materials and the lance is doubled folded using my smithing skill and had extra fire, cold and holy damage with an anti-lycanthrope effect. Nothing coming at me over that moorland is going to stand up to this.
My pennant flutters in the breeze, red diagonals on a green field, reminding me of my knightly name, Sir Gorrow of the Bloody Field, the place King Arthur knighted me. I'm going to have to get my own squire one of these days.
I advance the spearmen and tell them to brace behind their shields. It might look like we're going to wait for the enemy, but we aren't just going to wait. We're about a fifty yards in front of the protection of our own palisade -- but close enough to get covering fire from our archers when the enemy got near. The enemy, and probably my own guys are wondering why I've placed five spearmen out here on the moorland. But I have a plan.
The first enemy arrows sail through the air but land short, burying themselves in the turf a few yards in front of us. They're just getting range. I look over and see the dwemmer archers have advanced a bit closer. I see them draw and loose, and another sheet of arrows flies at us.
"Shields."
My guys duck behind their big kite shields. The enemy arrows rattle off them.
"Okay. here they come."
The wolf riders have broken ahead of the pack, leaving the dwemmer archers. This is going to be a problem for the Dwemmers because if they fire at the melee, they're going to hit their own troops. If they care.
Enemy boggle spearmen are advancing in formation. I just need them to get a bit closer.
Then there's a roar and the boggart wolf riders charge. Their snarling beasts race across the ground and slam into my spearmen. It's dumb riding animals onto spears and the wolves howl as they are spitted on our spearheads. But they're not all dead and they hack at my guys. Spirit snorts impatiently. I'm sitting on him behind and to the left. Presumably the Minions think they can break the spears then all concentrate on me.
Our archers can't fire for fear of hurting our own spearmen. And we won't do that.
Spirit shifts under me. "Easy boy, wait."
Blodeuwedd is on my shoulder. "And your plan is?"
"Wait. Watch. Learn."
The wolf riders start to back away, bloodied, but not yet defeated. I figure they're going to charge again, trusting to the weight of their beasts to break through. Maybe they think the morale of our militia is wavering. Maybe it is. I look over. I see fear in their eyes. They don't know what I'm doing.
In a calm voice, I call, "Steady. Hold your ground."
Now the enemy spears have caught up. They outnumber my men and they think this is going to be easy. I can see by the way they level their spears. I hear them cackling and laughing. They think this is going to be a walk in the park. I look back at my men. They are wavering. They're watching me. And the wolf riders charge and hit again I hear the crunch of impact. The line is driven back, but it doesn't break. Not yet.
"Now would be a good time to do something," Blodeuwedd says. I can almost hear the tension among the archers and Armand back up on the palisade.
I just need the enemy spears to commit. One more minute.
And they do.
They charge across the ground, roaring and snarling. This is the time. If I hesitate, my own line will think I'm not going to do anything and break.
I kick my heels into Spirit's flanks and he's ready. We charge. My lance is levelled. Ahead of me I see the enemy engaged with my guys. They think they will win. But the key point is they are committed. They can't turn, they can't run without getting cut up. I have them pinned.
And we hit them. My crystal lance spears the first boggle spearman. My lance carries 1650 damage when I'm mounted. The boggle spearmen have maybe 400 armor. Plus I'm hitting this guy in the flank so I get an auto-crit.
Now I'm on them and I've no room for the lance, so I stow quickly it and drag out my sword. I hack down into the next boggle spearman.
This is like shooting fish in a barrel. I kill the next and the next. When they sent these people after me, they didn't know who they were dealing with.
My spearmen rally and push. The militia kill another two of the enemy and then I get a message.
And then they're all gone, streaming in a rout across the heather. I spur Spirit after them. I don't even need my lance but I use it because I like seeing the huge autocrit numbers. The dwemmer archers turn and run before we're anywhere near them.
The militia spearmen are cheering and running and where the boggles trip and fall, they cut them down, grinding them into the bloody heather.
I'm after the riders now. I could let them be. I could show them mercy, but I'm not in the mood for mercy, not after what they did to Camelot, not after what they tried to do to my King, not with what they want to do to my village. So I kill and kill until they're all dead -- the riders, the spearmen and the archers. Not one of them makes it back to Carrionburg.
When we enter the palisade of Drift to the sound of cheering from the militia and farmers, Armand is there to come and give me a victory hug. Beside him is Bernard the Alchemist.
"You did well," Bernard says.
I'm still flushed with the victory. "Yeah. Thanks."
"They can't have known they would face such high level opposition."
"No, I guess. Their loss."
"They probably thought this was a measly little hamlet they were going to roll over with no trouble at all."
Armand laughs. "We showed them."
"Yeah," Bernard says. "Trouble is, I thought you wanted to be low profile. Silver Drift isn't low profile now. They now know there's a powerful knight here."
I stop. He's right, but I can't begin to feel bad about it. My troops did well. Two of the militia levelled to Level 7.
Armand says, "They're coming anyway."
Bernard nods. "But when they come again, they will come in force."
I smile at him. "Let them come. It's going to cost them."
3
Digging for Freedom
There's lots to do and I need to prioritize. I stand on the crag beside the tower looking over Silver Drift hamlet. Blodeuwedd my advisor owl flutters down out of the sky and lands on my shoulder.
"Hey," she says.
"Blodeuwedd! Haven't seen you in a few days. What've
you been up to?"
She blinks. "Owl stuff. You wouldn't understand."
I gesture to Silver Drift below us. The brewery is brewing, the farmers farming, the soldiers soldiering, or at least patrolling the palisade walls. "Any advice on what to do next? After all you're my advisor."
Blodeuwedd preens her yellow white feathers. "Not technically. You only get advisors up to Level 3 and you're now Level, what?"
“Eleven.”
"Yeah, well past the range."
"So why do you stick about?"
She shuffles up and presses herself against my ear. Her feathers feel soft. "'Cause I like you. Besides, you're the only show in town up here now Camelot has fallen."
"Every village and town in the north has fallen to the Evil One?"
"Yup. Well, except Alauna on the coast. That's besieged now. Some of the defenders got away by boat, but the rest will burn."
I rub my forehead. "How long do you think we have left?"
'Before the settlement falls?'
'Yes.'
She gives an owl shrug. "Days? Not weeks."
I exhale heavily. We need to get on with preparations.
I go through the palisade gates and the guards give respectful salutes. Blodeuwedd flies up to sit on the roof looking east -- the direction an attack will most likely come from. Jason the Brewer is in the brewery, counting barrels of beer.
"How many do you have?"
"Fifty. We would have sold the extra, but we've got nobody to sell them to now. So we're stockpiling."
"That's good. We need as much beer as we can get to feed the workers."
I still think it's weird that NPCs can get by on beer alone. I understand they prefer it to food, but it's no way a balanced diet. "Get ready to take it underground. And can you organize to get all the extra hops, barley and oats transported into the mine as soon as possible?"
He nods. "So, I'm right in thinking you want me to set up a brewery in the mine itself?"
"Yeah. We need to be able to feed the troops."
"We'll need water."
"Not a problem. The problem might be too much water in the mine if anything. I'm worried lower levels will flood."
"We'll need barley and hops too. We can't grow those underground."
I know this. That is something that has been on my mind. I say, "When you're done here, I want you to come with me and we'll go meet Thorvald the miner boss. Our priority is to take a tunnel north so we can get under the hidden valleys you surveyed. You can guide him where to dig so we can reach them as soon as possible. That's where we'll grow our hops and barley."
Together, leaving Blodeuwedd as look-out on the roof, we go back to the mine. The temperature drops as we step through the heavy wooden doors. The militia guard steps back. He's one of the corporals. I've delegated all the promotions to Armand my sergeant. I say, "Can you look at reinforcing these doors and actually disguising them from the outside? I want them to look like they're just part of the rock."
A look crosses his face that suggests he doesn't know where to start, but since I was knighted everyone gives me more respect and he's my man, so he accepts my order. "I'll get right on it, Sir Gorrow."
We go down the stone tunnel, our feet echoing as we go. We meet Thorvald about a hundred yards in. Him and his guys have made good progress with the tunnel going north. As we stand there, Bernard the Alchemist comes out of a side room. I see yellow flames flickering against the rough cut walls of the chamber he's just exited. "What are you doing here, Bernie?"
He points back at the chamber. "I made my own little den. I've got an alchemist's lab set up. Soon I'll be able to make healing potions, damage potions, invisibility potions, you name it."
I'm pleasantly surprised. I'd never told him to do these things, but it's great he's down with the project and adding his own skills.
"So, Thorvald, Jason knows where these valleys are to the north. We need to dig under and then dig up. Then we start planting fields."
Jason scratches his chin. "We've got ten miners and various soldiers and farmers. I reckon I've got enough beer to feed them for about ten days and we will continue brewing beer as long as we can in Silver Drift hamlet."
Thorvald says, "We'll keep digging. By the way boss, we're finding lots of minerals in the rock as we're digging through, cobalt, iron, titanium, gold, silver, iridium, and we think there's crystal in there too. Just none of the miners are high enough level to dig it out yet. Though we will be soon at this rate." He wipes sweaty grime from his forehead with his left hand, the right grips his mattock.
The more they dig the faster they level. But crystal! That's got a durability of a thousand. I can't work it yet, I need to put more skill points into smithing so I can work it, but when I can, with the double-fold skill I can make each piece of armor worth two thousand, and I wear five pieces so I'll have a basic armor rating of ten thousand. My mouth waters at the idea. I will be the tankiest tank around, and they said I was foolish putting skills into mining and smithing!
Of course, I need to level to get the skill points and I only level from fighting.
"Let me get this straight," Bernard says. "You want to bring the whole production of the village down here and hide away?"
"Yes, kind of, but we won't be able to hide away completely, so we've got to disguise ourselves. I don't want them to realize we are building and growing. I want them to think we're something else completely."
"But you want basically a town down here?"
"Bernard, do you remember the old dungeon building games. Before there was VR, you just used to play them on a PC or console?"
"Of course. I grew up playing them."
"The first games always had you as the adventurer but then there was a slew of games, some good, some bad, where you were the dungeon master."
"Yeah, yeah. Dungeon Keeper. What an awesome game that was."
"Showing your age there, buddy. But yeah it was. And there was PnP Dungeons and Dragons. I always used to play and wonder how the eco-system and economy of a dungeon worked. So you had monsters living in rooms and guard barracks and I'm like -- hey, how do these guys eat? What do they do all day, just wait for adventurers?"
Bernard chuckles. "True."
"But we—" I gesture round to the NPCs and Bernard and myself as players, "We're going to build a real functioning dungeon that has workers who eat and have jobs and where we have an economy that produces things so we can be self sufficient underground."
Jason says, "Plus the fields and farms in the hidden valley."
"Yeah, of course."
"Ambitious," Bernard says. "But possible. There are gemstones in the walls I can use to make my potions."
"Potions are made of gemstones?" I say.
"Sure. And water. Sometimes oil. But we'll find both of those down here. For example, amethyst and water makes a simple healing potion. The healing value goes up with the alchemist's skill level.
"Really? A healing potion is crushed amethyst? Who knew?"
He shakes his head. "There's more to it than that. Distillation, sublimation, maceration, dealkylation..."
"Lots of -ations, huh?" Jason says.
"He's making some of them up," I say.
Bernard looks hurt so I squeeze his shoulder. "Just messing with you, Bernie. It takes a lot of skill. A very welcome addition to our little settlement." I look around. "But we're going to need storerooms and workshops. I envisage a tannery, a joiners shop, an armorer --"
"—a baker?" Jason says.
"Sure. Of course. We'll feed the guys more than beer. I'm unhappy about them just having alcohol."
"We'll need more miners," Thorvald says.
Jason shakes his head. "And that means more supplies."
I wave away his concerns. "It'll be fine."
"Anyway," Bernard says, "What's to stop the enemy coming in here and stealing it all?"
I shake my head. "More staff, better defenses. Have a little faith in Gorrow. I'm onto it. Or at least I kno
w a couple of guys who can help." I glance around. "By the way, where's Oliver Stone and Asterix the Dwarf?"
Jason says, "The architect and the staffing agency guy?"
"Dwarf," Bernard says.
"Whatever." Jason points down a side tunnel. "Go about twenty yards down there and they've set themselves up in some chambers that used to house miners' tools."
I nod. "Okay, I'll leave you two to your work." I wave and Bernard and I follow the direction Jason pointed and we come to two small rock cut chambers side by side that have been turned into offices.
The NPCs, Oliver Stone, architect, and Asterix, Employment Bureau have set themselves up here side by side.
I would knock, but there are no doors. When we get a carpenter, I'll get that fixed. Oliver raises his eyebrows in welcome. "Sir Gorrow, how wonderful to see you. I'm so pleased you saved my life by rescuing us from Camelot. So is Asterix." He calls, "Asterix, your lord and savior is here."
The green bearded dwarf enters rubbing his eyes. He looks like he's been asleep.
Oliver Stone gestures to some rocks. "Please be seated. Sorry, it's the best I can do so far."
I sit.
Oliver says, "How can I help you, my friend?"
"I need architectural advice."
Oliver Stone looks pleased. He sits forward on his rock. "Go on."
"So, we're going to build a village down here—"
"—a town. Be ambitious, Gorrow," Bernard says.
"But I don't want the enemy to know we're here."
Oliver steeples his fingers thoughtfully.
I continue. "I want to have baffles and false passages. Maybe traps. Anyone coming in doesn't come out again. You get it?"
Oliver smiles softly. "You want a dungeon."
"Exactly!" I say. "How do I get one?"
"Well, dungeons operate slightly differently to settlements."
I shake my head. "I want both. We need one day to resupply, to raise an arm for when the king comes back."
"As he will," Bernard says.
"Then, we fight by his side and liberate the north from the power of the Evil One."
"Satanus," Bernard says.