18 days remain of contest A, Thursday.

Logging back in at the Fortress, I see it is busy. The sector announcement that alliance became air aspected is a huge boon for interest in our alliance and makes the choice to join up with our alliance a desireable one.

Being air aspected at lower levels is not exciting. For a basic level fifteen character you just get Wind Guard. It is an air-based shield around your body that helps deflect ranged attacks. As part of the aspect, the whole alliance gets slightly changed looks; our bodies are a lighter color and our eyes have a whitish glow. Additionally, our hair and clothes have new effects added, which make it looks like we are constantly standing in front of a fan in some shampoo commercial. Looking at the ‘Air Aspect’ section of the clan info shows what you look like at higher ranks, and the visual effects become much more pronounced. You get flying ribbons and dust whipping around behind you and new skills that allow you to push attackers back. Much later in the ranks you can summon Air Beasts—which resemble Chinese dragons—and can even fly for short periods at the very highest ranks.

I had not spent much time thinking about the element aspects. Air seemed to be the smartest choice. With air you can put out or feed fire, it can nullify water, and is only beaten by earth. With no public info on the skills available, air was our safest choice. I am really happy with it, and so are our members judging by the way they are bragging in the public channels. They keep posting about how it stacks with multiple defenders together.

I check on my new recruits and notice there is a small group of them who managed to complete the quests I had assigned the clan. They managed to secure the far outposts in our region—small military installations on the border, I had not given much thought to them—an impressive feat given their lower levels. They are calling their party ’Falling Knives’ and are all rogues. I like their style, and I have an option to apply the rewards to the party who completed the quest. Pressing the button, I see in the clan chat logs that they each gain several levels. I assign them a knife badge, a sign of my personal stamp of approval.

Quest: Yarrowland sabotage (chain 2) complete!

The completed notification is followed immediately with a new quest pop-up.

Quest: Yarrowland sabotage (chain 3)

The outposts of Yarrowland on the border with Rathe need to be reinforced. Escort the supply convoy forming in your fortress to each of the outposts and defend it from attack.

Success: Reinforce the outposts

Failure: Supply convoy destroyed.

Time remaining: 5:59:58

There is an option to broadcast to our clan and alliance, so I select that and begin the task of organizing the alliance event. This is going to take me at least six hours, but will be worth it for morale before this weekend. I create a raid group with twenty-four people, and Sauce creates another raid group with twenty-two, and we ride out as a massive escort force.

I can see that the alliance is in incredible spirits. Riding along, I observe as they all are playing with their new aspected skill and discussing new tactics to use as air warriors. Or, as the jokes fly—about being benders.

***

The event convoy had—of course—taken the worse possible route to each of the outposts. We are promptly attacked, at each stage, by an appropriate number of enemies for our defenders to not feel it was easy. At one point several huge ogres—which attacked as a group between the outposts—managed to damage the convoy pretty badly. That fight was our only issue with the event. We made it back to the fortress after verifying the outposts are stocked and manned with fresh NPC soldiers. The Wind Guard skill was extremely useful in large group tactics, repelling ranged attacks, and acting as an amazing group stacking buff.

I make my exit from the fortress and I take a quick run to The Old Man of the Mountain to get my new class skills. He charges me some money and I pick up Shadow Reflection and Feather Fall.

Bringing up my character sheet, I look at the changes.

NightFlower: Shadow runner

Level: 25

Hit Points: 191 ((4*25)+(5*25)) - ((225/100)*15)

Infamy: -440 (Tombstone

Damage: 27-49 +4-9 (PK) +25% (night) -25% (day)

Special: +80% chance (3-8 times) for 30/6s

Stats:

STR: 5 (6: -1 PK)

WIL: 1

DEX: 17 (18: -1 PK)

CON: 2

Abilities:

Hide: 20 (18+2)

Slash: 7

Throwing knife: 6

Alchemy: 1

Modifiers:

DEX bonus attack: +1

STR bonus damage: +5

Bonus: +25% damage at night. (Shadow)

Bonus: Attack speed +5 (Scout)

Bonus: Accuracy +5 ranged (Scout)

Negative: -25% damage during day. (Shadow)

Negative: -15% health, Scout

Hold breath: +60 seconds (gear)

Other Skills:

Shadow Net (Rank 2), +5-meter radius from player

per rank, all players and creatures slowed 50% for five-seconds.

Shadow reflection (Rank 2), shadow armor protects you and reflects damage back at an attacker. +5% Per rank

Teleport (Rank 2, +10-meter teleport line-of-sight per rank.

Feather fall (Rank 2), x2 times per day per rank.

Wind guard: (aspect: Rank 2)

* Familiar: Morrigan, Raven (Rank 3)

* PK=negatives and positives for player-killer infamy

Not bad.

I spend the rest of my day at the fortress getting to know our new recruits. I talk about the story instance and how we beat it, with Sauce asking a lot of questions. And I finally get the chance to speak with the stone giants whose home is deep in the mountains and not far from the fortress. They set up in a very secluded area, though I have no new quests with them yet.

Tomorrow morning, we will need to meet and discuss our plans for the other fortresses.

It’s time to take this whole region.

***

17 days remain of contest A, Friday.

Friday is a school day, and we have SAINT follow-upswhich are mind-numbing in every possible way. The day drags horribly as we all circle back on the data that we learned last week. In our minds it is no different from having spent weeks studying it intensely, so follow-ups to make it stick feel redundant.

Oddly, I have never had a follow-up course on my special SAINT for MMO history that Dr. Friend gave me before we started. I don’t feel as if I am losing any of that data. I wonder if the follow-up is one of those things that is just done as a preventative measure. Like how we have to have our teeth checked every year even though the nanobots that maintain them are some of the most stable ever developed. Even the doctors who check that our mouths are okay look bored. They say that occasionally there are issues, but they never mention what kind of issues arise or what happens to those people with issues.

I fall into my dorm room, exhausted, and after I use the bathroom I log into the game; I need to check with my spies on what [Art of War] has been doing. It’s time I took some measures against their expansion and solidify our hold on the region. We still potentially have two weeks, but after today I have a bad gut feeling I can’t shake.

***

Logging in I set up in the fortress and Simon appears giving me his report. Last night, the stone giant guardians discovered two spies from Leviathan Fortress and killed them. I knew we would have spies watching us the way we watch them, but now I am pretty concerned about what Josie knows and if our information is reliable.

I go over the reports and I send out more spies, including a few to the town to keep an eye on movements of the [Art of War]. They have taken up the tactic of leaving their clan house and splitting up, this leads the spy have to make a choice to follow only one group. We have also lost all the spies sent to keep tabs on the Leviathan fortress. I have no information on what kind of guardians they have, or if they have gained more resources.

I make my way to the clan house in Port Yarrow and speak with new recruits. I find that they are joining because we have the aspect and because they heard that we have special clan events, likely the escort mission. Lying—just a little—I say I will be doing more of these. I make a mental note to speak with Simon about if there is a possible way to add more through the fortress interface.

Kian and Briar had gone off to do another quest they had, and I get in touch with them and ask them to be available tomorrow. I have a special announcement for the whole alliance.

I have decided that this weekend we need to keep [Art of War] from taking Jade Fortress, and take it for ourselves.

***

16 days remain of contest A, Saturday.

“Finally!” Briar hoots.

“We need to go and soften them up before I tell the whole alliance; however, I have requested an all-hands meeting in the Fortress dining—err pool—room,” I say.

We make our way through Port Yarrow after appearing in crackles of electric color. Our appearance immediately will give us away as members of the alliance, we have turned our tags off, so we are not easily identified as the leaders. In the corner of my eye I spot a normal-looking street NPC. He is surrounded by a group of filthy street kids who scatter, and then he disappears into the shadows once he spots us.

I am known and it is noted that we have come to town

I nod to Briar and Kian and move through the city, and then to our clan house. At the clan house I dash to the roof and spot our followers with Morrigan from above. I drop down the back of the building, avoiding a couple of the kids, and maneuver to the alley behind where the adult NPC is crouching behind a barrel. He has a good view of our clan house. I dive forward and with a spinning slash I end his spying without a sound.

I climb the building once more and make my way to meet with Kian and Briar at the appointed location outside the city. We summon our mounts and begin the trek south on the narrow roads through rolling hills to the area of swamp in the region where the Jade Fortress is.

We need to move from the road to avoid a group of [Art of War] members as they patrol back to the south. I know they have a temporary travel stone, so this is a security patrol. It will be dark soon—the in-game day and night cycle is a six-hour one, so we will have tonight to sabotage [Art of War]. Afterwards we will return to gather and begin an attack. Hopefully the spies we still have in our alliance will be caught by surprise and won’t get out messages before we can make an attack.

From the trees we follow the group without being detected to their staging area for fortress assault. It is a place they use as a forward operating base to attack the fortress. The final unclaimed fortress in a region flips to active NPC defense as well as a normal straight dungeon run. Running the dungeon is the only way to claim the fortress.

Scanning the camp, I can see the travel options. I can see that [Art of War] has secured the ramparts of the fortress already and must have groups inside trying to beat the boss and claim this fortress.

Kian and Briar both dig into their bags and produce the alchemical wonders we will be using this evening. We each pick up our goodie-bags of mayhem.

Moving in closer, we have to take out a couple of NPC guards stationed around. We fan out from the shadows. At each fire we find we place one of the vials created from the alchemical workshop. The vials are a new concoction Kian came up with that he says will create a gas cloud which will incapacitate the entire camp.

Since the sun has set, my hide skill is far above the detection level of the guards and players in this area. I am able to place vials in fires with NPCs and players around them. The players around a campfire are easy, especially since they are paying attention to their character sheets and stats screens or chatting in the clan communications. I take a quick peek in the large tent near the stone which is empty, I had expected to see at least an NPC. I leave the summoned Sword Spider from my cloak in the tent and have it climb into the ceiling and wait.

Once through the camp we meet on the other side and wait. I pull out my new dice set, the Dice of the Dirty Summons. I will be taking a risk, but I am pretty sure this will at least cause chaos.

Dice of the Dirty Summons

Summon a random [Dangerous] undead creature to a visible location you specify within 100 yards. - Summon appears with random area of effect debuff(s).

I roll them and a red, ground-based targeting reticle for the area effect and the summons appears. I maneuver it to the center of the camp, just as I see a fog begin to settle and a group reappears after failing the dungeon. I select the area near them and put the dice away.

A vortex of swirling, inky smoke appears at the center of the camp. It is accompanied by a pulsating groundswell with vines which leap from the ground, ensnaring all the players and NPCs in the center 50% of the camp. As the summons completes, I see a huge undead dire-ape appear, already in an enraged state. I have my spider drop from its location and circle the camp to spin a silk barrier to slow any would-be escapees. We watch as the rooted players and NPCs are demolished by the massive dead ape. Just then, the portal stone comes alive as [Art of War] members come to the defense of the forward camp. Apparently, they were alerted by the rooted players in chat. They appear in cracks of static and light amidst the dense cloud of our alchemical soup with an enraged dead ape ripping heads off players.

My summoned spider returns to me, not useful where it was, and I attach a jar of special alchemical agents it. Sauce personally signed that jar like a World War II bomb with the words ‘Enjoy, bitches!’ The spider bounds toward the portal stones. I turn to Kian and Briar, who look happier than I have seen them in a while.

“This is the fun part,” I say through a grin.

“Your idea of softening is more like annihilation,” Briar says with a laugh

The spider reaches the portal stones and I have it move to the side, away from the crazed skeletal ape.

“I have it waiting until—”

A large group appears all around the portal stone and the spider curls and squeezes, breaking the glass jar. The camp erupts in the closest thing to a tactical nuke I have even heard of in an online game. It instantly vaporizes twenty players, the stone, the camp, and—of course—my spider.

“G-ging-a” Briar slowly says, his mouth open.

The blast flings the crazed skeletal ape to the side, and it charges into the woods dragging two NPCs with it. I don’t know if it will de-summon on its own, but this is our cue to leave. We jog through the underbrush and dense trees to a spot far enough way and activate a five-minute portal. With a crack of electricity and laughter we reappear back at the fortress with fifteen minutes to spare to get ready for the alliance announcement of our attack.

I had, of course, recorded the entire event. As soon as everyone is present, I introduce some new members and explainnot to mess with the stone giants. Then I play the recording, projecting it onto the entire wall of the dining—pool—room. The packed hall is in awe, laughing, and then erupts with a cheer as the explosion rocks the camp and vaporizes the large group.

Sauce stands, clapping, and does an elaborate bow before he turns to the group. “You air-beasts ready for some action?” he barks at the crowd, his personal air aspect appears almost as if a fan is blasting his robe.

Scanning the eager faces, I raise my skinny fist skyward and say, “Mount up, , we’re going to take another fortress!”