15 Day remain of contest A, a Sunday.

I lay awake after a fitful night of sleep, thinking about taking a shower, about food, about how I have been betrayed by my friends. All night I was turning everything over and over in my mind, trying to spot where I went wrong, what I missed. All the little quips and jabs that Kian made, I know he wasn’t happy with some decisions. I had an idea he was doing something, but this was a little over the top. And Briar too, that really hurts.

I go to the cafeteria early in my pajamas and get my personalize food; I return to my room and flop onto the bed. Picking up the headset, I consider quitting. Instead I log in.

REGION NOTIFICATION

Clan [Art of War] claims The Jade Fortress.

Appearing in the game, I walk around my fortress, morale is low among the alliance members I see. Based on the in-game alliance chat there are many people confused about what happened. There are rumors in the chats that [Nightfallers] leadership is failing. I see also that a large amount of the explosives made via alchemy had been removed from the alchemists hut by Kian and Briar.

I feel a plan taking shape; I type into the alliance chat.

Pool Party,

There is no need to fear. We will KEEP moving forward, and there is a plan. All YOUR leadership is still intact. Pool Party has had a small setback, but we are going to take this region.

I made a PROMISE and I will keep it for my alliance, my clan and my friends.

—Nightflower

I press send, knowing the spies will pass on that message. Then I cheer up a little. It’s time to show the alliance we are still in the game. I find Simon and we peruse the clan and alliance offerings. There is one alliance quest we can do with the Stone Giants which involves an invasion of the Eastern Outpost. There are multiple invasion-themed story quests which I can choose locations for. None of the location choices are near the fortress, but it’s going to be a blast. I make up my mind; I am going to use the alliance quests to create massive in-game events every day of this week. Partly to keep the players busy and happy and partly to help level them. There is even a subterranean open world quest which would attract a lot of people.

I check and the story instance is still up and running. It has changed, though, and is now a raging capture-point battlefield where the goblins are acting like Tusken Raiders. The goblins’ job there is taking potshots at the players while occasionally doing Worg raids. The ability to enter the instance has been extended to Port Yarrow and is open to anyone. So far has maintained control of the capture points. Control of those points means that our aspect skills and powers are given a boost, and this is going to be key moving forward. I make sure that Simon knows to keep those players happy and remind them of the schedule for the battlefield.

Alliance schedule:

Monday: Defend the Outpost—[story quest] a large-scale defense using siege weapons.

Tuesday: From Below—[story quest] earth dwellers from the depths surface in the plains.

Wednesday: Defend the Outpost (2)— [story quest] another wave of attacks.

Thursday: Offensive Action—[story quest] remove a large band of orcs who are raiding towns and villages.

Friday: Fortress preparedness (after school).

I run this by Sauce, and I ask him if he can help; we divvy up the tasks for the coming week with me leading on Monday and Thursday.

“Josie is going to attack us first thing Friday,” Sauce says, twirling an arrow in his fingers and looking over the fortress grounds. He is sitting on a rock above the fortress control room, legs dangling over idly. “She has been playing a long game in the chats and forums, they are trying to wear everyone down. And now that they have Jade, they are declaring victory all over the Internet.”

“We will be ready; I have a couple aces up my sleeve, and they don’t know everything.” I say.

“I know you do,” he says.

“Anyway, I picked a good one for today,” I say with a smile. “It’s called Rockclaw Redeemer and the alliance is going to help the Stone Giants redeem themselves—”

“Didn’t they eat a noble’s horse?”

“I don’t know for certain, but the noble who banished them has become a bad guy according to the alliance quest text. On his death, all proclamations are nullified, so we are going to go sack a fortified compound with a crazy horse-loving noble, then kill him.”

“What are we waiting for?” Sauce jumps down from his perch, smiling.

***

10 days remain of contest A, Friday.

Friday is here and our classes are done. I had seen Kian and Briar only briefly, and they had avoided me and quickly gone back to their rooms.

I had a busy week in the game, and even with the black feeling of being alone without Kian and Briar I had enjoyed myself.

Looking back, the week went as planned. The Stone Giants had to be redeemed to take part in . The alliance members were unsure about the giants until they saw them in action on the battlefield. Then they all wanted to hang out with the giants and talk with them. The noble was the typical arrogant spiteful man, holed up in his summer estate. We fought waves of fighters and even a stampede of wild horses when the noble opened the horse pens upon seeing the giants. We killed everything and in the end the giants offered to spare the noble’s life, but of course he declined. They just simply crushed him before he finished his high-pitched monologue.

Then, on Monday, with our newly redeemed stone giants we defended the outposts from an invasion force from the east. With me leading, we snuck out and sabotaged all their equipment with minor explosives. Then we caught them on fire during the battle. The siege engines all exploded and destroyed the attackers. Sending out a round-up crew we mopped up and killed the remainder of them. It was a quick job, and for finishing the quest we got a permanent portal stone at the outpost.

Sauce took over the following morning, and we opened up the alliance quest to be a region event, which made the experience and drops better and the monsters harder. Clans and alliances are ranked at the conclusion of the event with special rewards for the top slot. The event consisted of some evil dwarves, The Duergar, that had come up out of the ground and established a crude fortress that we had to attack. The quest was to eradicate them by collapsing four pillars within a tunnel to the depths. The tunnel of course was well guarded and if we were not careful planting bombs on the pillars we wouldn’t make it out. The tunnel collapse sealed the Duergar back into the earth—at least for a time. Sauce did this spectacularly and led the alliance to a decisive advantage over other clans in the rankings for the event.

The next day, Sauce again led us to a spectacular victory in the second part of the outpost defense. For the even the attackers, just normal-looking NPCs this time, had harnessed some truly massive war elephants and other boss-level creatures which had to be killed before they smashed the gates. The final killing blow of the fight was an explosive poison bomb Sauce had fashioned to an arrow. Throughout the fight, me and the . Our party had the second highest kill rate after Sauce, who was with the stone giants. We received another portal stone at the second outpost, as reward.

Thursday, I got my chance to lead again and attack the orc encampment. They had created themselves a full orc village in a slot-canyon, which made their defense easy. I took the Falling Knives again, and we went up and over to take out guards along the path. The final battle was fairly bloody for both sides because of the natural defenses, but we won.

Now, we need to prepare our fortress for attack.

***

“We know what’s coming. The spies have all reported back that [Art of War] clan is getting ready,” I say to Sauce, Dignity, Beards, and Roll. We all watch a berserker named Fatty spar with one of the stone giants, something nobody else had tried.

“Are the approach surprises ready?” He asks me. I notice Dignity and Roll tilt their heads, listening.

“Yes, we are all ready,” I say. I don’t want to proclaim out loud that we had set up a way to remote detonate pre-planted bombs along the approach which should implode the invaders. The idea was to stop them from attacking en masse and get them to trickle in, while the giants hurl giant bombs at them. If the attackers get in, we have an upgraded pool party of acidthey can deal with. We also had set up some large rolling boulders we can use to clear the approach.

This is going to be a rough weekend for everyone involved.

“Alright, I can light them with flame arrows. This is going to be hilarious.”

“Don’t underestimate them though,” I say, thinking of Kian and Briar.

We spend the next several hours going through preparations and stopping in town for equipment and potions. I check in with the clan house and have them reinforce the doors and windows in case of attack. Then I return to the fortress and stand on the ramparts over our gate, my cloak billowing in the wind behind me, shadows scratching at the stone. I see the line of riders, [Art of War] is on the move and heading our way. I check the public in-game chat channels and get confirmation that they are riding on us, a mass of players and NPCs with several unknown creatures in huge wagons.

“Bring in the runners and lock the gate!” I bark down at my man at arms.

Simon stands at my side, he asks “Are you ready, madam?”

“We are ready,” I say