Lifey sat in her tent by the light of the fire, her hand fidgeting with the cool hilt of her precious sword. Her other hand brushed away a stray fringe from her ponytail hair before going back to the map parchment lying on her desk. She normally kept her hair down outside of Ages Online, but tied it up in-game so that it would not interfere with her movements. Her face was a mixture of anxiety, frustration and regret.

The Commander was entitled to an entire tent for herself and with it, she could be alone for a while. It was something she desperately needed after that fiasco at Vanguard Pass.

How could she have not seen it coming?

Vanguard Pass was a town that functioned as a gateway to and from Honduria, being situated in close proximity to the continent-bridging arch aptly named as The Grand Crossing. Originally, she had the intention to surround Vanguard Pass and contain the Hondurian army to just that small area but a slight miscalculation had cost her the battle and the momentum of war, landing her in the exact same situation she had wanted to avoid.

“Joint Operation window.”

Displaying current Joint Operation –

Defend Loyderidge

Trigent of Caerheim has beseeched you with the task of defending Loyderidge from the Hondurian invaders. Acknowledging your past achievements for the country, he lends you the kingdom’s soldiers for the duration of this battle. Resolve the conflict via any means.

Difficulty: B

Failure Conditions:

Loyderidge falls.

Trigent dies.

As the commander of the Joint Operation, you are entitled to share the quest with others and recruit them into the operation. They will then gain a share of the quest reward based on their contributions to the operation effort.

Current army size:

7194 Players

16415 NPCs

Hondurian army size:

8203 NPCs

Unaffiliated:

10 Unknowns

There had been approximately ten thousand players in the Joint Army before Vanguard Pass and twice as many Loyderidge soldiers. Despite it being a mere vanguard force, Honduria had sent an army of ten thousand. The only silver lining that she could take away from the disproportionate losses suffered during Vanguard Pass was that they took down two out of the twelve unaffiliated participants in this war.

Damned ScrubLord. She had shifted her base of operations to Caerheim to avoid the annoying fellow, but it seemed that he chased her all the way with his stupid guild on the coattails of a war. Just thinking about it gave her a migraine.

NPCs in general are hostile towards red-named PKers, and they did not have the sanction of the King. Even so, the Hondurian army will still tolerate the Qqers as long as their goals coincide.

Now that it had come down to a siege, things would no doubt be much more difficult. Qqers were built for sieging. Even without siege engines from Honduria, they had individuals who could siege a small fortress all by themselves. Fyrzen, for one, and Togepee another; those two were considered one person armies. Her old guild had significant trouble handling either of them and she was not sure if her new guild could do any better.

In fact, she doubted it. Even with their numerical superiority, they had been forced into a siege situation. It spoke volumes about their combat readiness and disparity between nations. In an area that had not been well-established yet, it was unsurprising that the local players focused more on the monster hunting aspect than player-versus-player combat.

The only three words she could use to describe the Joint Operation forces were,

Disorganised.

Unmotivated.

Underpowered.

Sure, she had the Militia as backup, but the addition of a thousand low leveled players and drafted civilians to the defense force was hardly comforting. The most she could have them do was to guard the low risk West Gate and stall time for reinforcements to arrive should the enemy decide to strike there. Of course, ScrubLord might send someone there as well. Knowing him, he probably would.

Thema help those poor souls. May they rest in peace knowing that they contributed to the greater good.

It was precisely because of the militia uselessness that she had a cavalry team ready to be mobilized at a moment’s notice. Also, she had deployed a contingent each to the North and South gate, leaving the bulk of her forces at the East. Judging by the terrain around Loyderidge, the enemy would be more inclined to concentrate on the East and South gates, leaving the North and West gates relatively untouched.

With her plans in place, the rest was up to luck now. There were simply too many variables that she could not account for. Rubbing her forehead to sooth the throbbing, Lifey sighed.

She needed some Tylenol.

Dong! Dong! The bells of the watchtowers suddenly sang of the enemy’s approach.

Lifey perked her head. Was it time?

A beautiful girl with locks of raven hair and holding an ornate oak staff entered the tent in a frenzy. Yunnie, real name Beatrice Chia, almost stumbled and fell from the rush but managed to keep her balance and deliver her report all the same.

“Lifey! They are attacking!”

Lifey stood up. “How many?”

“As you have predicted, most of the army is here at the East. Our watchers have reported that a smaller group have broken off and are encircling to the south. That would be all the information we have.” The two of them rushed out of the tent, just in time to witness a fireball descend on one of the North-western watchtowers like a shooting star and explode into a pillar of flames.

“Fyrzen.” Lifey’s eyes narrowed. She knew that attack, having seen it many times. It was Meteor, one of the strongest fire and earth elemental spell available to fusion magicians of the advanced class. Despite having an absurd amount of range, it had an equally long delay after casting giving ample time for targets to move away from the obvious impact area. Therefore, the spell did not see many uses and fell out of favor among the community of Agaia. In this kind of situation and weather however, it became the perfect spell for sieging.

“Yunnie, gather the magic division and head for the walls. Establish water shields for defense and command your men to concentrate fire on siege engines if any. Also…” Lifey paused. “… Take care of yourself.”

“Y-yes!” A fluttering of robes later, she was gone.

Yunnie was a nice girl, maybe a little too nice and passive. She would never refute orders, and will certainly carry them out to her best of her abilities. She was also a high caliber magician at the verge of crossing the level 100 threshold and thus could choose her second class advancement soon.

High Mage, Sorcerer, Fusion Mage, Summoner. It did not matter what she becomes. As long as there are more level 100s in her guild, Lifey would be satisfied.

Yunnie was also effective at controlling her legion of mage fanboys following her into battle. Being the sole reason why they have such a large number of magicians willing to fight and die in this war, it made her a valuable and useful asset to Lifey and the Joint Operation. To say that it would be a problem if she died was a massive understatement.

An abrupt whistling sound caught Lifey’s attention, although it came from nowhere in particular.

“This is?!”

Something came to her mind immediately, and instincts propelled her next action. “Steadfast Guard!” She yelled as she attempted to move away from her current position. A strengthening aura of defense and stability barely materialized around her body before a spiraling lance of wind bored through Lifey’s left lung.

-3485 HP (3485 mitigated)

You are bleeding!

-225 HP/ second

A bloodied shaft of wood struck the dirt ground, its fletching frayed by the violent air currents and shock from travelling through flesh.

“Gurhkh...” It took Lifey all her willpower not to collapse into the ground there and then as she knelt from the pain. She would have died without the 50% damage mitigation from Steadfast Guard.

“Bluelove!” Every breath she took was painful. Hands shaking, she hurriedly opened a personal message window.

Commander’s Tent. Now.

Pressing the send button, the cheery sound of a ‘pon’ indicated that the message was a success. Good, the cleric was close enough for the message to be sent. However, he would need to hurry the hell up.

Lifey might have been able to use magic, being a champion of the goddess Thema, but she could not mend wounds. Her case was fundamentally different from a Paladin and therefore she had to leave the job to a more suitable professional. With the damage over time affliction, it was a matter of time before she bleeds out and dies.

A stocky human cleric wearing full blue robes appeared into view and hurried over. Within a moment, his hands were glowing with magical energies and hovering over the gaping hole in her chest. After a short period of agonized breathing, Lifey felt the pain gradually fade.

“What the heck happened?” The cleric asked, his face bewildered at the extent of damage he had to repair.

“Ballista Shot. Charged Arrow. It is Oneshotakill.” At least that was what she thought it was. There was no one else other than that archer in Qqers who could dish out so much damage in one blow. Combined with Ballista Shot, a long-range high-arc shot that would easily bypass even the highest of city walls, he was in a position to literally kill every single defender in Loyderidge from the safety of wherever he was.

The only problem would be the amount of time needed to prepare and fine-tune the accuracy of the skill. Most likely, what had just transpired was an attack aimed specifically at the entrance of the Commander’s tent and was fired right after the watchtower bells tolled. Even if she was not there at that point of time, it was highly likely to have hit other key personnel such as Yunnie instead due to the expected high traffic.

Trust ScrubLord to come up with tactics to this extent.

“You are good to go.” Bluelove the cleric reported. “Do you still need help, boss?”

Lifey brushed off the dirt from her armour as she stood, wincing. The wound dully ached. “Thank you. Stay as per original orders. Please gather the cavalry division and prep them to move off at a moment’s notice. I will make my way to the wall myself.”

“Roger.”

The blue cleric disappeared as quickly as he arrived. Lifey looked at the direction of the East Gate and sighed. From that hotspot of chaos, frantic yells and painful cries were emanating as the Siege of Loyderidge started under the cool embrace of Agaia’s clouded night sky.

There was a grim battle ahead of her.

……………

The trebuchet fire was relentless. Streaks of red boulders arced across the sky and crashed onto the walls of Loyderidge, demolishing stone and crushing people. All of the four watchtowers situated on the east wall were already destroyed, their water shields giving way to the intensity of the attacks.

“Heads up, people! Bows ready! Fire!” EmiyaX readied his own bow and arrow while deftly avoiding a particularly large hole on the ground caused by a boulder, letting go at the command to shoot.

A rain of arrows accompanied the echoes of taut string retracting, flying down to the advancing Hondurian Army below. They were marching in phalanx formation, the vanguard holding their heavy shields up high in a moving wall of protection. Shafts of metallic arrowheads clashed against armoured steel, producing clanging sounds as they bounced off harmlessly. A few cries rang out, indicating that some of the arrows had found their mark. However, the phalanx showed no signs of slowing down. Even as the unfortunate ones were taken down in the arrow barrages, another Hondurian soldier would appear from behind to fill up the gap in the formation.

There was no stopping them.

“Again! They are almost upon us. We need to reduce their numbers!” There was panic evident in the lead archer’s voice. “Bows ready!”

Whistling.

“Fir- Ghrk!“

A shaft of wood too fast to follow penetrated through the light leather armour the lead archer was wearing. Even before he could say anything, he had already collapsed in a crumpled heap on the ground, dead.

Someone gasped. “S-sniper!”

Those with weaker hearts gave a muffled scream at the sight, while others instinctively cowered under the parapets for fear of being similarly sniped. Emiya on the other hand, had other plans. It was on the spur of the moment but he readied an attack in full view of the enemy force.

“Charge arrow!” As his heart pounded furiously at this foolish gamble, a white glow shimmered across the span of his bow, becoming stronger by the second. The moment he felt the nock of the arrow becoming too hot to handle, he let it loose at the approximate direction the sniper shot came from. The shot flew off into the distance and for three seconds, he observed.

A glint of white suddenly flickered at a cluster of trees beyond the Hondurian Army inside his peripheral vision, prompting Emiya to drop prone onto the ground just as a Charge Arrow shot chipped the edge of the stone wall he was standing at.

The bait was successful – The sniper was indeed where he thought he was. Now, all he needed was a way to flush the sniper out of his cover. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed a familiar face arrive at his portion of the wall with a group of people.

Just in time. They are classmates as well as guild mates so he turned to the magician he knew best.

“Yunnie! I need an AoE spell over at the cluster of trees!” He shouted over to the female mage clustered around by a bunch of at least fifty other robed guys.

“Not now!”

“Huh?”

Ignoring Emiya, Yunnie lifted her staff up high and began to chant.

“Under the light of the Heavens…”

More than half of the robed guys around her joined the incantation, causing a hovering magic circle easily a hundred meters wide to appear above them. It was Resonance, another special feature of the magician class where multiple magicians can combine their magic together to cast a single spell with massively increased power and range.

It also had a side effect of becoming a beacon for the Hondurian Siege engines to concentrate on. Multiple rocks flew and would have flattened the group if they had not impacted upon a hastily erected Aqua Front shield by the remaining mages who had not joined the group-cast. At the same time, a purple rune of power drew itself under the Hondurian siege engines, joining together with several other similar runes to encompass the entire artillery division of Honduria. It was then Emiya realized that there were other groups all spread out over the length of the wall casting the same spell.

“…Gates of Hell open your passage!”

A whistling sound was followed by a lance of wind, piercing through one of the magicians responsible for shielding a resonance group. He died instantly and the loss was significant enough to cause a disruption in the aqua shields protecting the group. A merciless stone projectile impacted upon the portion of the wall they were on, collapsing it instantly and swallowing them under the rubble.

“Surge forth, divine lightning!”

The trebuchets began to scatter from the danger zones but when it became obvious that they were not going to escape in time, the soldiers operating them abandoned the machines and fled.

“INDIGNATION!”

Several pulses of blinding pure energy split the sky open at the combined cries of the Loyderidge mage division, surging down at where the runes of power were. As the spells rend the ground asunder with the fury of the heavens, a roar of thunder deafened all those within their vicinity. All the Hondurian trebuchets and those unfortunate to be caught within were set alight and razed to ashes within seconds.

It was the first time Emiya saw a display of such power. It was the ultimate spell of the lightning magic tree, amplified ten-fold and interlaced together so densely to provide a killing zone so big that even the annihilation of one of the casting groups earlier did nothing to reduce the intensity.

Mages are scary, he thought.

“Watch out!” A warning rang out, prompting Emiya back to his senses. “Incoming!”

The phalanx formation that had been forgotten had given way to groups of soldiers carrying long wooden ladders and running forward from behind lines. The first man of each group skidded to a halt before grabbing hold onto one end of the ladder, allowing his buddies to simultaneously pivot the ladders onto the eastern walls using the momentum from the run. Before long, dozens of men were scaling up the footholds, making it too heavy to push the ladders off.

“Drop things on them!”

“Where is the oil?”

“Quick! The rocks from the trebuchets! Throw them down!”

Emiya readied his bow to fire arrows downwards as others began throwing all sorts of heavy objects down the ladders, ranging from stone debris to their old equipment they did not want to use anymore. With every object thrown, a Hondurian soldier fell off the ladder, sometimes causing the rest in the line to drop as well. That ladder was subsequently kicked off, causing it to become unusable.

However, it was futile. They might have succeeded in slowing down the Hondurian soldiers, but they ultimately could not prevent their onslaught. Soon enough, the Hondurian vanguard reached the top of the wall, propelling the siege into its next phase – a melee bloodbath.

Author's Notes:

A cookie to those who caught the reference!

As well as another to those who caught the foreshadowing.