Jason experienced the strangest mix of emotions as the day approached that they would have to defend their home. There was certainly an element of stress or fear. The contract we signed said to live in the scenario for ten years or build an empire to win before then. I was so focused on the winning conditions that I didn’t pay attention to the first part, Jason had realized. It says I have to live. If I die, do I lose, and not get ownership of the servers housing my consciousness, or the payout, or the tickets to the Mars colony? Or do they just let me respawn, or start a new sim?

I thought I was probably being paranoid before. Now I wish I had been even more suspicious. I can’t believe Richard didn’t catch that.

Jason was relatively confident that he wouldn’t actually die or have his consciousness deleted if he died in the scenario. He had thought long and hard about the possibility before agreeing to the contract. A little research with Aleah’s help verified the system still had him tagged as a user, not an NPC, meaning it would use a different procedure in the event of in-game death than a non-player character.

Even the decision matrices and memories of an NPC wouldn’t be deleted upon death by default; instead, they’d be archived for usage in other simulations or another time. A quick change in memories was much more efficient than developing a new character from scratch.

Still, the idea of a mistaken archival didn’t sit well with Jason until he had seen the information for himself. Barring any changes, he was safe on that front.

That didn’t make death attractive, though, and his most recent realization of the possibility that the corporation had a “gotcha” in the wording reinforced his natural instincts to stay alive. It wasn’t worth taking a risk. This is not a game for me. The consequences are too real to play it casually, he reminded himself. Not to mention that I’ll feel every bit of pain. For my sake and my families’, I’ve got to win this battle and this war.

--

Tyler, Jason, and Alex spoke in low, urgent tones around the table in Jason’s house, the new default planning space. The window shutters and door were thrown open, allowing light to stream into the room. There was no glass in the windows - another item on Jason’s never-ending wishlist - and they had decided it was necessary to have one of Tyler’s soldiers patrolling the area to make sure no other ears would listen in.

Several of the guards had been tasked with scouting the road towards the approaching army. They hadn’t yet reported in, but the group was reasonably confident that they would at least get a few hours’ warning before being attacked.

“Give me an update on our numbers,” Jason requested.

Tyler launched into it. “I’ve been adding to our original squad of thirteen since we learned of the threat, searching for people that have experience in hunting with a bow. They’re not great with spears and even worse with blades, but they can actually shoot relatively well. That brings our actual military force to twenty-four, which is still next to nothing compared to the one or two hundred men we expect to show up at our doorstep.

“We have another 125 men of fighting age, but very few weapons and no experience. A few of those we might be able to add to our archers’ ranks, but they won’t be able to do much more than slow the soldiers down as they die bloody deaths. They’ll likely flee the moment they begin to die.”

“That doesn’t paint a pretty picture,” Jason commented quietly. “An untrained mob on our side, and professional soldiers on theirs.”

“Exactly, my lord,” the man replied. “An unequipped, untrained mob is what we have to work with. I’ve started trying to address the equipment issue, but the blacksmiths are completely focused on your guns.”

Jason started to speak, but Tyler jumped in again before he could. “I know, those seem important if they work as you say. But it also leaves me with only a few real spears and the rest of the men holding sharpened sticks with points hardened in a fire.

“I’ve taken groups of 50 at a time and gone through some basic motions, but they’ll be lucky to do more than bruise our enemy and hold them back a few seconds.

Alex spoke up. “Should we abandon the town and head to Brighton?”

Tyler barked back angrily, “And leave these people to their fate?”

“No, we would take them with us, of course.”

“Quite a few wouldn’t go.” Jason opined. “I’ve heard them say things to that effect. Those who did wouldn’t be able to take much - most of their wealth isn’t portable. And those that chose to stay might face even worse retribution when the enemy learns of the ones that left. If I thought I could get most to leave, I’d be callous to not consider it. But it would be a slow caravan, and there’s nothing to say they wouldn’t be caught, anyway.”

“I suppose you’re correct, my lord,” Alex allowed, “but this seems like sure death otherwise.”

“I have a hard time arguing with that description,” Tyler said, “but a death on our feet, defending our lands, is better than the slow death of a coward as we flee.”

“But it’s not death if we simply surrender,” Alex argued. “Just a new ruler. Apologies, my lord, but I’m sure they’d even let you keep your role as the lord if you pledged loyalty to the king.”

The conversations faded into the background for Jason as he thought about his next steps. If this were a game, I’d fight to the last. In real life, I’m not sure what I’d do. Probably cave to their demands, hoping their reputation isn’t as bad as what I’ve heard. It’s not worth dying to save a title or material things.

But this isn’t wholly fake or completely real - it’s somewhere in the middle. And this is less about keeping our stuff and more about preserving our freedom. These people, digital or not, were trying to build a life as free men and women, or at least as close as they can come to it in a society like this. Conquering nations are rarely generous with granting rights and freedoms to those who were there originally, and my gut tells me it will be worse here. Besides, I like to think I’ve been a relatively liberal, hands-off lord in the time I’ve been here.

Or am I just trying to justify the fighting because I want to build my own power base so I can win this scenario?

It’s probably partly that, he admitted to himself.

By then, Tyler and Alex had noticed that Jason wasn’t paying attention and were staring at him, waiting.

“There is no one thing that will win us this fight.” The silence stretched on for a few moments. “But there may be a dozen. Keep me from trying to be overly clever and complicating things - that will lead us to trip over ourselves. But here’s what I’m thinking:

“There’s no need for us to fight here. Let’s show up somewhere we’re not expected. Perhaps that’s an hour or two down the road from here - Tyler, you and I need to scout out potential sites later today. Keep the battle on territory our people are familiar with, but these guys are probably expecting to march all the way here unopposed. They’ll pay for that mistake.

The other men nodded at that.

“If they’ve got scouts out, they’ll probably be watching the road. We’ll need to avoid them as best we can. Make them think that our fighting force, if we have one, is still here.

“Will they have archers, Tyler?”

Tyler responded, “I can’t know for sure, my lord, but it is likely.”

“We’ll definitely need to make sure we’re not standing there in a nice bunched-up line for them to target. Perhaps if we could find a treeline along the road to stand right within and fire out of cover? Or make some sort of cover for ourselves? We’ll decide when we see the land.

“And that brings us to the core of it all - our guns. I’m just going to call them that even though they’re still missing all but the most basic components of launching a lead projectile. Does anyone know how many we have?”

Tyler shook his head, but Alex had an answer. “Otto’s team is churning them out faster than I thought possible. We have twenty-five so far with more being produced every day.”

“Excellent,” Jason continued with an impressed look on his face. “That’s more than I thought. How many per day are we making?”

“Eight. And that’s with multiple people working on them and long hours.”

“We don’t need to kill them all - I’ve heard that most armies like this would be routed after losing something like 10% of their numbers. If we can get a couple dozen bullets on target and make them believe we can keep it up, that’s got to scare the pants off of them. They’ll hear the explosions and their ranks start to fall, without seeing any arrows. We just need the enemy to give us a week or so and we’ll have enough guns that the odds start to shift in our favor.

“Tyler, let’s go scout out potential battlefields.”

---

“Two more days, and we should be at the next village,” The aide told his commander. “We’re nearly there.”