77. Fog of War

77. Fog of War

The throne room was not the only spawn point for the Battle of Mooncrest Manor.  There were five other rooms in the manor, and a spot outside, in which my teammates zoned into the battleground, for a total of about three hundred Travelers.  The bandits seemed to have an equal number of travelers and spawn points, although all of them started outside, forcing them to battle their way in.  If my teammates were smart, it shouldn’t have been hard to barricade the manor and turn the battle into a siege which would last until the higher leveled Travelers accomplished their goals.

It very quickly became apparent that most of my teammates were idiots.  My saving grace was that the other team was similarly impaired.  Otherwise, they likely would have swept through the manor in a wave and won the battle in the first ten minutes.  Instead, pockets of battles broke out throughout the instance, with fights that expanded and shrank as the travelers defeated their opponents, reinforced their allies, retreated, or died.

The Travelers who died were out of the battle for good, although it seems that they weren’t penalized the waiting normal waiting period to return to the world.  They did lose a level, or at least they were told that they would when they signed up for the event, but that didn’t seem to be enough to cause too many of them to act with caution.  They threw themselves into combat recklessly and enthusiastically.  If they were lucky, they killed a bandit or two before they died.  Most of our deaths were idiots who were ignoring the warnings and throwing themselves into choke points and getting slaughtered.  Fortunately the same was true for the bandits, and the system had given my side the tactical advantage as far as choke points were concerned.

Although the dead didn’t respawn, we did get constant reinforcements, as did the bandits.  That was where Morale came into play.  For every bandit we killed, we gained a point of morale, and our reinforcements arrived faster.  For every ally who died, we lost a point to bring in a reinforcement, and the time between reinforcements increased.  While we would never go above our maximum, it was possible for the enemy to kill us faster than the reinforcements could arrive, especially when our Morale was low.

If the deaths were all on our side, then despite the constant trickle of new Travelers zoning in, we would have been swiftly outnumbered and overrun.  However, as one of my allies colorfully put it, “at least when the idiots charge the meatgrinder we get a chance of getting a replacement who doesn’t have their head stuck up their ass.”

I watched the board nervously as the Morale points swung back and forth, listening to the Travelers who were hanging back in the throne room with me report on the progress of the battle as they followed along through the chat function.  The numbers changed rapidly, swinging back and forth.  Once we dipped down to eighty something, but then my allies rallied and we crawled back up to one hundred ten, and for a long time we heldsteady.  Long enough for five of the other teams to drive off their respective bandit leaders and win their version of the battleground, as the remaining leaders for the Bandits fell from twenty-nine to twenty-four.  Despite our lack of cohesion, I began to hope that we would actually prevail.

Ten Travelers were hanging out with me in the throne room.  The rogue, two healers, an archer, three mages and two warriors.  Three of my companions were doing nothing but trying to coordinate the rest of the battle ground.  There was not only a text chat, but the travelers had figured out how to open several voice chat groups, and my companions were serving as generals, calling out orders and instructions with surprising professionalism and authority.  Despite having never left my side to explore the rest of the manor.  They organized choke points, fall back positions, and ambushes.

Our troubles began when our enemies captured the spawn point outside the manor.  That cost us twenty Morale, but more importantly it cut off the teams that were sallying with the bandits outside, and it put a wedge in the blossoming cohesion that my generals had been forming.  Two of them wanted to form up a group to recapture the spawn point, or to capture one of the enemies.  The other leader insisted that everyone fall back and prepare for a siege.

During the confusion, the enemy rallied.  They hunted down my allies stranded outside, and they formed a breaching party fifty bandits strong. They began breaking through the choke points which had been established and, unlike the previous back and forth, they continued to dive deeper into the mansion rather than establishing territory of their own.

“They’re coming for me,” I said.  I glanced at the ‘scoreboard’ which displayed our overall status.  We were down to seventy-three Morale.  My allies in the other battlegrounds had chased off another three of the enemy leaders, but if I died in this charge it would all be for nothing.  “Do you think they know where I am?”

“It’s hard to say,” one of my generals said.  “We’ve managed to kill everyone who’s gotten this far into the manor before, but they might have had a rogue leading them who’s scoped out the path.”

“Then let’s move,” I suggested.  “If they capture the throne room we might lose another spawn point, but it’s all over if I die.  I’m not going to wait around for that to happen.”

“Can you move?” one of the Travelers asked, sounding surprised.  “I figured you were locked in this room.”

I shot her a glance.  Why would I be locked in place?  The only reason I hadn’t left the throne room was because it was heavily guarded, but that didn’t matter if we were the target of this latest kamikaze charge.  Rather than simply answering, I left the room.  My allies charged after me, my generals shouting out updates to my allies scattered throughout the mansion.

It proved to be the correct decision.  Thanks to my generals’ intelligence, I chose a different hallway than the one the enemies were charging down, and we lost the throne room moments after I had abandoned it.  We were down two spawn points, but if I had stayed behind I would have likely died.

I charged into an empty ballroom, where a small skirmish was still underway.  Six bandits were holding their own against eight of my allies, but when my allies fell upon them we brushed them aside like the dross they were.  I led the charge, stunning the party with [Concussive Sound] and [Dashing] in with my sword aflame.  I danced through the bandits on a surge of adrenaline, [Slashing] and [Thrusting] and [Riposting] and [Feinting] as I moved through them.

The warriors [Charged] into the melee with me, and a moment later the Rogue was behind their healer, swiftly turning her into a puff of mist with his ambush attacks.  I spotted a second healer trying to make space, and so I closed the distance to her with [Piercing Lunge], switching two [Arcane Weapon] to disrupt her heals as I focused on bringing her down.  With my party supporting me, she died quickly, and the rest of the bandits only moments later.

One of my generals cursed.  “We have to keep moving.  They got a shout out before they went down, the others will know where we are.”

“So let’s not be here,” I suggested.

The ballroom’s exterior wall had once been mostly floor-to-ceiling windows.  They were shattered now, leading to the rear of the estate.  None of the bandit’s spawn points were in this direction, or else it would have made a perfect point for their ingress.  Now, it was my emergency exit, and I took it.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to leave the manor?” one of the Travelers who had been with me from the beginning asked.

“We lose if I die,” I reminded her.  “Since we’re losing the siege, it’s time for me to run for it.”

“But don’t we have to, like, defend your castle or something?” she insisted.

“I don’t give a damn about this crap hole,” I admitted.  “The bandits can burn it to the ground.  I’m pretty sure that even if they do, the administrators will just give me another throne anyway.”

“I’ll tell the others to bottle up in defensive positions as much as possible,” one of my generals said.  “Hopefully it will take the bandits a while to figure out that he’s gone AWOL.”

We escaped out into the night, running into the forest behind the estate for cover.  Once we were some distance away from the manor, I pulled up my menu, which now displayed the battleground status.  We were down to thirty-eight Morale after the bandits had captured the throne room, but the other teams had driven off more of the bandit leaders.

“The others have fallen back to our remaining three graveyards,” one of my generals explained as we jogged deeper into the forest.  “They’re holding out the best that they can, but we’re not getting many reinforcements anymore.  It’s fine for now, because it seems that the bandits are searching for you in the manor and they’re not putting much pressure on us at the moment.  But if they make another big push, our defense will crumble.”

Just as he was explaining that, a notification popped up in front of me.

You may not travel any further in this direction while the battleground is under way.

While there wasn’t a hard barrier preventing me from going any further, I came to a halt nonetheless.  I understood, instinctively, that if I ignored this warning, the system would consider the battle a forfeit.  A forfeit might be preferable to a loss, especially a loss which would include my death, but I wasn’t willing to accept it.

“We circle back,” I said.  “I grow tired of hiding and running.  Let’s hit one of their spawn points.  They will not be expecting that.”

My generals instructed those still inside the building to harass and delay the intruders as much as possible while we carried out my plan.  My party was nineteen strong, and circling around through the woods, we managed to remain undetected right up until we came across the enemy spawn point.  The spawn point was marked with a scoreboard, like the one that had been in the throne room, as well as a circle faintly glowing red in the grass.  It was undefended, except for three lonely bandits who had just spawned into the battleground moments before and were still getting their bearings.  We fell upon them and brutally ejected them from the instance.  Once the bandits were dead, we simply needed to step into the red circle, and it turned white.

You have captured Bandit Spawn Point 4.

Enemy Reinforcements interrupted

Defend the spawn point for three minutes to claim it for House Jeoran.

I glanced at the scoreboard.  We had just regained twenty Morale, pushing us back to the low-fifties.  More importantly, the other teams were apparently doing their jobs successfully, because the bandits were down to thirteen leaders.  If we could just continue to hold out, we would win.

But I wasn’t satisfied with staying in one place.  Especially not Bandit Spawn Point 4, because I knew that the enemy would soon be coming to take it back from us.

I nodded towards the Travelers who had joined us in the ruined ballroom.  “Some of you stay here and capture the spawn point.  Defend it as long as you can.  The rest of us are going to go see if we can capture another one.”

“Are you sure you want us to split up?” One of my companions asked nervously.  “I think we should stay together.”

“We need to keep moving,” I insisted.  “And there’s no point in capturing this if we just abandon it right away again.  Someone needs to stay.  But not me.  If the enemy figures out I’m here, they’ll swarm us, and that will be the end.”

Ignoring their attempts to convince me otherwise, I jogged back out into the treeline and circled around towards the next bandit spawn point.

Five of them volunteered to stay, all from the group that we had picked up in the ballroom, leaving fourteen of us to charge the next position.  Bandit Spawn Point 3 was better defended; but there were only five Travelers, recently spawned, and they didn’t have a healer.  We cut through them like a scythe through wheat.

Our Morale jumped up to eighty.  Apparently our allies inside the manor were rallying as well, setting up choke points to keep the bandits trapped inside instead of rushing out to reclaim their losses.  This time, I stuck around until the spawn point flashed blue, and moments after it did, three new Travelers appeared, bringing my party back up to seventeen.

A small party of bandits appeared, but turned and fled when they saw our numbers.  I tsked, and we abandoned Spawn Point 3 immediately, because there was very little chance that they wouldn’t have reported to their allies that I had escaped outside.  We vanished into the foliage, hoping that we had sown enough confusion to disrupt our enemies, and to allow our allies to rally.