Chapter 3

The next few days were hard days. Her stamina wasn’t increasing fast enough to let her make the run easy, only progressively less gruelling. Every point went into Stamina, and it worked out enough to get 20 by the end of the week. At the start of the new week, however, it was nice to survive the run without collapsing. Her armour had been repaired and had figured out a handy-dandy new system for selling things that she got from the random box. As was the case with the second care kit. Nearly the case with the second pistol, but she decided it was better to have a backup and a secondary for when she needed to pop a few rounds off, or couldn’t reload. The “Huntsman’s Rifle” that she got from the box, quite clearly the jackpot with all the fanfare, was more questionable. It might have a good price tag but rifles were rare and hard to come by in the world, so maybe it would do better with an in-world selling. And then it came. In the early morning, just as she was finishing up her Agility Daily and preparing for the Physical, the alarm bells were rung, and Middenhiem exploded into action. The Chaos Horde had been spotted. A few seconds after she heard the bells, she saw the pop-up, informing her about a new thing.

Horde Battles - dealt with differently to personal fights, Horde Battles are large armies pitted against each other where you play a part, rather than being the focal point as with Personal Fights. Exp is gained collectively, and then delivered to all participants. You gain 50% of the exp for things you kill, and 50% is delivered to a pot to be dispersed between all surviving participants at the end. Loss of the Horde Battle will half the total pot.

It sounded interesting - and opened another can of worms that people around her could gain experience, but that was a can for some time when she wasn’t about to deal with a crushing tide of bodies - and rewarding. With the crazy amount of numbers out there, even if she had to share it with everyone in Middenheim, Estaria would still be looking at a good harvest. If they won. If she survived. Looking up to the walls, seeing Cannons and Mortars prepped and readied, ammo barrels hauled and loaded. Seeing men rush to the armoury and retrieve handguns, which were checked and cleaned before taking up posts on the walls. Seeing grizzled veterans, devout followers of Ulric and men with years of combat experience behind them, gear up and get ready for the coming wave. It was easy to think that Middenheim was a nut too hard to crack. But that would just be a lie told to herself to ease her away from the harsh truth that this could be the end for so many of Sigmar’s Sons. And the end of the greatest Fortress in The Empire. Talabaheim could contest, but if Middenheim fell, it would lead the whole Nordland, Middenland and Ostland on the Middenheim-side of the great River Riek open for Chaos raiders.

Not entirely sure what to do with herself, her men were foreign to this city and so other captains were guiding them where they needed to be, she wandered into the Quartermaster to see if he needed anything. Her supply gathering abilities with her gold were limited, but a hundred bullets and powder could be the difference between another volley and running dry. And a good volley could shred a battle line.

“How are supplies looking?” she asked him, not quite dressed the part for her Captaincy, but this was not the situation where he could chase out helpful looking people.

“Well. I am still trying to figure out how you populate the firing range so prolifically every day and yet there is no shot or powder missing or signed out. The supplies you brought with you were loaded and reported on the day you arrived”

So it seemed that the game didn’t make people forget discrepancies with the logic of the game-to-real-world conversion. The idea of getting rich of trying to sell off stuff she bought in the shop went down in flames pretty quick. She had no idea what the conversion rate was anyway. Could be that she set herself to a loss, buying bullets from the shop and selling them in the world.

“Magic stuff and also things” She said vaguely, giggling softly to herself. The quartermaster just grunted and nodded to the rack of weapons.

“We are down a few rifles, but other than that we have enough to keep everything on its toes. We will grasp victory or defeat by our own merit, and not by a lack of equipment” he nodded and then got back to his paperwork. Estaria thought for a few moments and then bit her lip. One rifle in a horde wouldn’t make a great deal of difference, but at the same time, it just might. Better to be safe than sorry.

“One of our riflemen was hurt in the attack on the Norscans. He’s been trying to smooth out the damage, but eventually came to realize that it’s not happening anymore. So you can have this” Estaria lied, but what was she going to do? Tell him that a flowing box gave her a random item every day if she did a quest and that random item was this rifle? What an elaborate trick to play of a poor quartermaster.

“Ahh, poor guy. Stick the rifle on the rack and we’ll get it to a man who can use it” the Quartermaster ordered. Estaria did such and then left, to her barracks. It was filled with people who had the same idea as she did. Everyone who had some semblance of weapons training was gearing up for this one. The horde demanded nothing less, after all. Donning her armour, her sword and shield, and the two pistols, she went to the walls. Assisting menials in fetching and carrying until the preparations were complete. And, then, in the dusky glow, they came to see the Norscan horde in its full enormity.

She had no idea where so many people had come from, but it was a true showcase of the scale of the Invasion. This amount of Norscans would require a massive fleet of longboats to come across the Sea Of Claws...Or maybe the did not all come at once. Maybe this was a collection of all Norscans and all Trolls that had come to raid and pillage and take advantage of Kislev’s weakened state and The Empire’s distracted nature. Archeon was a definite distraction for most people. The throbbing chant of ten thousand voices in unison was an unnerving one, one that could easily put fear into the hearts of men were it not for these men being Ulric’s men. Men who manned the walls of Middenheim, the greatest city in The Empire. Many cities would claim the same, but Estaria would support Middenheim’s claim for that title.

Borrago strode the walls, his thunderous voice competing with the distant chants. He might lose out when they got closer, but for now, he was doing a grand job in competing with the initial conflict. Out of the gloom, she could see that they had been preparing for this attack, with troll-wielded rams, several dozen ladders and a ramshackle but functioning siege tower. That would have to go first. The others would deal damage to the gate and would allow Norscans to assault the walls, but the siege tower would disgorge a venerable horde and give them a boon that Middenheim could ill afford. So Estaria strode over to one of the mighty emplaced cannons - greater than field cannons for they did not have to be pulled - and took command. Even with her Powder Teen perk, they were out of range, but they would move in soon, and when they did, she would stick a ball in through the front of the tower and see it fall.

While waiting for the range, she saw a new box pop up. One that told her about a class of enemy called “Monster”.

Monsters have no luck bars or critical wounds but possess unique traits such as scales and fiery breath and regeneration, as well as considerable armour and great amounts of hitpoints. Care must be taken when engaging a Monster, for they are a superior foe to any human of equal level.

The Trolls having no luck bar would be nice, but they were Trolls, which meant she had to take them down quickly or they would regenerate. Fortunately, Estaria was witness to a new man climbing the stairs to get atop the walls. A man of orange hair and orange clothes, carrying a brazier staff and three sets of keys, he smelled of burned clothes and singed hair, but still, he seemed the most energetic and most elated person on the wall. Passion and Violence mingled closely to make this Bright Wizard a most spectacular sight. By his left, came a great man wielding a great axe. She had seen him when she went to the Temple of Ulric to pray, and this Warrior Priest was a grand match for the Warrior Priest that had been attached to Estaria’s own retinue. The pair of them would be as the Ghal Muraz against the invaders. Estaria just hoped their faith would hold to the end. Seeing one fall was never a good sign, nor was it ever taken easily.

A minute later, the army was close by, and Estaria was preparing the Cannon when a large patch of the field outside of Middenhiem caught fire. The entire army was lit up, as bright as day, and the gunners - less than she expected, but this was Middenhiem, it would show it’s value in the melee - had a clear line of sight to take shots. The Norscan horde also had a giant inferno to navigate around, hampering their effectiveness. Two birds with one giant flame. Gotta love the Bright Wizards. And with that, Estaria ranged the cannon, and then gave it an order to fire.

There was a second’s hesitation while the gunner thought about what was happening. She wasn’t his commander, but she was a Captain of The Empire. And so there was a boom of cannon fire. Maybe it was because she was aiming it and sighting it in or something and the gunner was just putting match to bangy-bit, but the cannon benefitted from her Precision, and the ball flew with great precision, smashing through the tower’s face and causing a great groaning of overburdened wood before it collapsed in on itself. A more well-crafted tower may have survived, but this was was knocked together by angry nomads. So quality was questionable.

Lack of siege tower didn’t mean the horde was harmless, however. There was still thousands of them, trolls and norscans both. There were enough ladders to cover every inch of the walls, and the rams could still shatter the gates, as solid as they were. Biggest problem solved didn’t immediately solve every problem. And so Estaria got up from the cannon and turned back to the walls themselves. It was going to be a hell of a fight.