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· Enemy vassal killed, Tier 7. Worth 25 points. Performed 0 times.
· Medium fort captured. 5,000 points.
ARMY MERITS:
· Items and equipment looted but returned. Worth 624 points.
UNACHIEVED MERITS: For reference purposes only.
· N/A
SUMMARY OF GAINS:
Team Merits:
· Raw Total: 10,580
· Team Multiplier: 1x
· Category Total: 10,580
Personal Merits:
· Raw Total: 5,035
· Personal Multiplier: 1x
· Category Total: 5,035
Combined Merits:
· Sub-Total: 15,615
· Total Multiplier: 1x
· Grand Total: 15,615
New Gains: 16,239 points.
New Total: 16,776 points.
Pather Team Ranking (Kingdom of Seven Suns): 132nd place.
Estimated Daily Stipend: N/A.
Matt couldn’t remove the grin from his face. He had earned 16,239 points, just from this mission. Beyond that he had little doubt that the kingdom would also reward them for their surprisingly successful operation.
The fact that they got double the expected points from taking the fort made him want to dance on the walls as he kept watch. Getting rewarded for taking the fort as a team and as a personal merit was interesting, but it was enough to make him start planning the next mission.
If they repeated this feat a few more times, they would have more than enough points to get the Tier 14 skills they wanted, along with some of the top tier items in the price range of hundreds of thousands of points.
He spoke to Conor as they passed each other on their opposite paths of walking the wall.
“We made out like bandits on this one.”
Conor grinned and fist-bumped Matt as he passed. “We need to see if we can do this again. I could use the points.”
Matt laughed at him and called out over his shoulder, “Great minds think alike. I can’t resist the lure of these points.”
The six of them watched the fort for four hours with the expectation that their reinforcements would arrive soon. They had been told it was taking longer, but they were already an hour late.
None of them minded the extra wait. It was free points, after all.
Liz, on the top of the fort with Emily, called out, “I see something.”
Matt looked where she was pointing, but it wasn’t from the southeast as he expected. No, it was from the north. Queendom territory.
“How many?”
“I can’t tell. I only got a glimpse. They were flying low.”
Matt thought hard. “Call it in and ask about the state of our reinforcements.”
A moment later, Liz said, “We are commanded to hold. Reinforcements are fifteen minutes out.”
Matt nodded. It seemed like a reasonable call. The approaching enemies would take time to get here, and he doubted they would engage immediately, allowing their reinforcements to scare them off. He doubted that either side was sending more than the fifty people who usually held a medium fort.
They would just need to defend the fort for a short while.
He and Conor moved to the front gate to see the approaching attackers. There were nearly one hundred people. Far more than he expected, but with the defender’s advantage, he expected that they could hold them off until their reinforcements arrived.
There was a special irony about defending the fort they just took over, but he tightened his grip on his blade and watched as the group of queendom fighters advanced.
He looked to Conor as he stood next to him and said, “You know what the queendom defenders did?”
“Yeah?” Conor didn’t look away but sounded confused as he replied.
“Yeah, we’re gonna take that, and do the opposite.”
10
The approaching small army stopped at the edge of the tree line and spread out. It wasn’t a full wall of people, but it was wide enough to alert the attackers if Matt and his team tried to escape from the fort by climbing over the back wall.
It was a good strategic decision that he wished they hadn’t made. If they were incompetent, this would all be a lot easier.
At least their reinforcements were only a few minutes away. Matt looked to their north and found nothing, but knew they had to be somewhere, racing across the horizon. They just needed to hold these guys off for a little while, and they would get harried from the rear, trapping them between a rock and a hard place. At that point, he hoped that the queendom would give up on retaking the fort.
Annie raced over toward them, under the area where they were standing on the outer wall.
“Any chance I can sneak out?”
Matt looked around and asked, “Can you drop down without your invisibility breaking?”
Annie was silent for a minute. “Not if they have a Tier 7. And the drop would be hard to hide.”
Matt reached into his bag and withdrew his modified golem crossbow, along with the three quivers of bolts he kept for the weapon.
“Maybe you can make use of this.”
He paused and asked, “Wait. Are you any good with ranged weapons?”
Annie shrugged and said, “It’s not my favorite style of combat, but I have the ranged module for my AI, and there isn’t much wind, so it should be fine.”
Matt cursed internally, but they had little recourse. He was needed to guard the broken fort’s door with Conor. It was very obviously broken, and he doubted that the attacking force would be caught unawares about their reinforcements. That would only lead to them sending a single, strong push to break through the weakest point. They would be hoping to secure the fort before more kingdom fighters could arrive.
It was a gamble on being able to overwhelm them with sheer numbers. With Annie on the walls, and the three mages attacking from the high ground on the fort’s roof, he hoped that they could hold through one or two waves.
The attackers would need to storm the fort quickly with everything they had, if they hoped to overwhelm them. Unless they had siege equipment with them. Then things would get a little dicey. Especially if they had the means to climb the twenty-foot stone walls. Ladders would take time to make if they didn’t bring them because of the limited space that lower Tier spatial bags had to offer. Grappling hooks were harder to use, but easier to carry, so there was a distinct chance that they were equipped with a few. He made a note in his AI that they should have brought grappling hooks with them. It would have allowed them to avoid the front entrance.
As he watched Annie vanish in the light of the setting sun, he received a message from Emily. “My [Bolt] is too short-ranged to use from the top of the fort. I need to be on the wall.”
Matt’s initial thought was to curse, but as he rechecked his surroundings, he noticed that it wasn’t that bad of a situation. They would need someone on their left flank to protect from attacks holding them down and allowing a token force to scale the walls. Annie could handle one side, being both invisible and ranged, but that left their other side undefended. This could work.
“Take the left flank.” He ran the simulations and then added, to his distaste, “Take Aster with you.”
His bond was a better pair with Liz and synergizing blood with ice, but she didn’t quite have the range that Liz did. Even then, the situation was still less than ideal. Liz was basically a water mage, who were mid-range at best. An archer would be ideal to cover them from above, with Liz guarding their rear, but they would have to have her take both roles.
Aster would be better on the wall, helping to keep people from climbing it.
He checked his AI and its internal clock. Fourteen minutes and seven seconds. They could hold out for that long.
The first row of attackers moved forward with quick steps and set up what looked like a stubby tube. Matt was confused until the image registered with his memories from the war movies that he’d seen. It was a siege cannon.
To his horror, they were pouring mana crystals into the rear holder from a spatial bag, as if they were water.
- Writer
