The Pyrthet Arena, the one Elzio had painstakingly crafted and perfected over the last three years, had several obvious strengths, a few subtle ones, and a handful of hidden, if major, flaws.

“The terrain is simple.” Elzio pulled open a draft of the map from his notebook. He’d been gifted the notebook, enchanted with illusionary properties, from Master Riylers. It was one of his most treasured possessions, and lived inside his satchel at all times. Now its cover, usually immaculately kept, was stained by greasy fish.

The tarnish didn’t hurt its contents, however, which sprung open to show off the interior of the Pyrthet Nexus’ Arena.

Lots of trees, Echo noted. It looks much like this forest. The paths, the trails, the river are the same as the woods we sit in.

“They were mostly based after it.” A grin stretched across Elzio’s face. “I needed to keep it simple for the other heroes. Especially Kia whose directional memory is… questionable. But we all grew up here. We spent our childhoods running about the streams and hills and such. So I grabbed a place we spent a lot of time. By the waterfall just a mile out of city.”

I know the place well, Echo said. I have lived in these woods my whole life. Though I am not as old as you, I have spent far longer flitting among these trees. There has not been much else to do.

Elzio’s grin stayed on his face as he pinched the map to zoom in. “I know. We’ll know this place even better than they do. I made a few key changes, mostly to add hiding places for Kia here—” he made a red dot on the interior of the waterfall, which was close to the Southern Road “—and here.” The second one was a section of hollowed tree about halfway up a massive trunk. “She needs to stay in there and create arrows for Bereth. She could stay in the base, but we’d waste a lot of time running to and from, since he has a max number of arrows he can hold, and Base Recall is expensive.” He tapped Kia’s hiding place contemplatively. “It’s risky having her out of the base, but those arrows are going to be what makes Bereth relevant. We need to take her out first and fast, and that will essentially take them both out of the game.”

You will seek her out personally?

“No.” Elzio examined the map. “I need to send a doppel in. Nance is going to seek out enemies, Bereth will stay to guard Kia while she preps his arrows. If I go in, I risk being killed. An early death would be pretty detrimental. So I’m going to send in a doppel of Bereth first.”

Can you create a doppelganger of him without being in direct proximity? Echo asked.

“I should be able to.” This was a bit of a gamble, since there was an expensive nexus modifier that limited spells to line of sight. “They probably won’t take the LoS Limiter.”

Ought we take a counter to it, just in case?

Elzio grit his teeth. This was not a part of nexus construction that he liked. The fact that certain nexus mods could just be undone by other nexus mods meant that a cautious nexus might just load up with counter-modifiers and end up having none of them be relevant.

“They won’t have the points to do that,” he said. “They have 1500 points of nexus modifiers right now. LoS Limiter costs 1000. They won’t take it.” He waited another minute, but she didn’t fight him and instead nodded. “So I’m going to summon a copy of Bereth. It’ll confuse Kia, which gives us an advantage.”

I agree with your logic but not your conclusion.

Elzio blinked. No one had ever argued with his plans. His old Environments Master rarely even did. It was entirely new, having someone challenge him, someone with no experience, but Echo didn’t need battle experience to be shrewd, so he heard her out.

A doppelganger should be the first to launch an attack at the location Kia hides. It should, however, be a doppelganger of yourself. Bereth will know to expect you. He may even expect you to attack Kia. When he sees you, he will chase you, knowing an early death would cripple you.

Elzio drummed his fingers on his knee. “Okay. But—” He stopped. “No, you’re right. Bereth would chase. What are you proposing after that?”

The doppelganger of you should be a low level, cheap doppel with little fighting ability. Once Bereth leaves the hiding place, you create a doppel of Bereth to take out Kia. Once she is dead, use her hiding space.

Elzio’s heart began to race. It was a good plan. Gods it was a good plan. “Then I delete the other doppels, the Bereth and Elzio ones. Create one of Kia and use it to give Bereth the arrows she’d already created. He’ll go then, in search of me.”

Once you restore your mana, what will you do? Hunt down Nance?

“As soon as they know I’m messing around with doppels, their whole playstyle will change, so we need to hide that as long as we can.” Elzio zoomed over to the enemy spawn point. “They don’t have any boosts to death timers, so Kia will be out for five minutes at least. She’ll know something’s up, but won’t be able to communicate that until she’s alive again, so we have five minutes from there to take advantage of the situation.”

I have a suggestion. Echo didn’t give Elzio the chance to ask, even though he certainly would have. Early in the battle, before you first leave the spawn point, you have a chance to purchase simple items.

Elzio nodded. “Won’t be nearly as helpful without Kia.” The standard item shop allowed heroes to buy components. Mana or health regen charms, potions, wards, crystals that enhanced spells or attacks, items like that. Combining components was only possible with an artificer or armorsmithi.

I do not know what the typical early battle purchases look like. However, I think it may be wise for you to invest heavily in wards.

“That was my plan. Three wards is the standard to set up full vision in an area.” His eyes danced across the tree and waterfall hiding places, envisioning where he’d plant the wards. “Then a mana charm, for regen, and a health potion, for emergencies.”

I would recommend an additional ward purchase.

He shook his head. “Won’t have enough purchase points.”

Either find a way to afford it or only guard yourself with two wards. There is an important ward placement that I think you will want to make. There was a note in her words that made Elzio think she was holding back on saying something. Something that would rock his strategic mind.

“All right, spill.” He waved a hand. “You’ve got something in mind.”

Wards are small. Physically. They cover a good amount of space but they are, themselves, the size of an acorn.

“I’m a support hero, Echo. I know this.”

Her response was to beam, as best an entity of light can. Plant a ward on Bereth’s arrows when you have your Kia doppel hand over the arrows. Use the location tracking to summon a doppel of Nance closeby and have her take him out. You will have eliminated both Kia and Bereth early, giving you an advantage.

Elzio’s lips spread into a grin as he considered this. “Yes. Oh that’s wonderful. It’ll stick to him even when he dies, so I’ll keep vision on him when he respawns.” Wards weren’t invulnerable, but required a scryer to find. The team usually just relied on Elzio to handle vision management, so their odds of noticing the ward were miniscule. “I’ll be able to see wherever he goes from the safety of the hiding place.”

They will know where you are, Echo said. Once they respawn. They will either avoid the hiding point entirely, or they will target it.

Valid point. “They’ll target it. I know them.” Elzio’s fingers moved through the map as if perusing a catalog. “They’ll know it’s just me on the battlefield. Knowing how Bereth and Nance think, they’ll tunnel hard on taking me out. In their eyes, once I’m dead, they have my entire death timer to make advances on our half of the map. It’ll seem like the obvious win condition. Kia will probably know better but won’t be able to challenge them.”

What is our win condition? Thus far we have only laid out ways in which we can fight the enemy, but much of our planning relies on surprise, which will only last so long. She sounded tense, maybe worried that Elzio would miss the salvation of the forest for his admiration of the trees within.

“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten. Our win condition is map control. Look here.” He flipped the page in his notebook, hiding the Pyrthet half of the arena and revealing his draft for Echo’s. “We have 500 points to play with, which isn’t a lot but it’s enough. Simple map, not spending any points on terrain modifiers. Nance always takes the Southern Road to the lower tower. Most casters take that route because by default there are more minions, and magic works better on minions than structures. Bereth normally goes north because the upper tower is usually more fortified with fewer minions. As a physical fighter, that’s where he shines. That said, I’m not sure if he’s going to. I predict he’ll be the one to target me, forfeiting some top experience.”

Do you propose we switch the stats on the routes?

Elzio shook his head. “Like with surprise, that would only work for the first phase of the battle. Once they realize, they’ll just swap themselves. I propose something craftier. Nance is a fire mage, so we stat the southern tower and minions specifically against her. Ice Blocks guarding the tower and Ice Shields for the minions.”

Echo was quiet for a moment, as Elzio let her digest his plan. Perhaps, she said, Enforced Ice Walls for the tower? They are not as durable as an Ice Block, but Ice Block is a very visible spell. Once Nance realizes that the towers have a spell to soften her blows, she will swap with Bereth. Enforced Ice Walls are only detectable if you run a statistical analysis of the building. I think it will take her some time to realize the tower is harder to kill than she thinks.

Elzio wasted no time in circling the southern tower and dragging Enforced Ice Walls onto it. “Brilliant.” A little flutter sprung up in his stomach. Maybe it was all the time she’d spent roaming the woods, perhaps peering up at the students as they practiced in the tower. Maybe it was a quick wit coupled with desperation. Whatever it was that fired Echo’s mind, Elzio loved it. She was the kind of partner he’d almost despaired of finding.

Will the Northern Road be our route of attack, then?

“Pyrthet’s arena is decked out with buffs to towers and minions,” Elzio said, returning to their foe’s map. “The main idea being that the heroes can largely disregard passive minion pushing because their minions will eventually cut through enemy minions, allowing a slow but steady push.” He pulled up an illusionary diagram of a battle minion, the kind summoned by nexi to march towards towers, valiantly dying as the tower fired bolts at them. They acted as noble shields, absorbing tower defenses while heroes and any other minion not being actively targeted rained attacks against the structure. Pyrthet’s minions were armed with fire buffs, to help them cut through enemy minions and towers alike. Fire was the most destructive element that Pyrthet had access to.

— (part ½ split here)

More fire buffs, Echo noted, tone dry and unimpressed. So you were right in suggesting Ice Armor. That will partially negate the fire attacks.

Elzio nodded. “I think that’s particularly important for the southern tower. For the northern tower, I have a strategy.” He flicked back to the page showing Echo’s map. “Here—” he directed her attention to a stretch of road between the northern tower and the northern gate. “I want to put a slowing field. Without an ally inhibitor.”

So that allies are slowed by the field. Her voice was even drier now. Such a brilliant plan. I am speechless.

“I could only wish you were.” He waved a hand, dismissing her. “Let me finish. Fields themselves aren’t terribly expensive. What’s expensive is targeting the magic to enemies only. In this case, we want the field to primarily impact our own minions.”

Elzio paused, waiting for Echo to say something, to question him. If she could have, she would have crossed her arms right then and glared back at him.

He grinned. “I want to have a doppel of Nance in the Northern Road to fight off enemy minions. Level 4, enough to cast low level spells without much for stats, but if it’s moving and casting, it should be able to defend the tower. As long as my spell is killing enemy minions, I’ll earn experience for it, and keep growing in power. If, like I’m predicting, Bereth abandons the Northern Road to hunt me down, they won’t be paying much mind to the northern tower.” With a flick of his finger, he added a large question mark icon to the map. “This is where they’ll plant their fourth hero. I don’t know who it’ll be, but there aren’t any other heroes in the city higher than level 5, so it’ll be someone low. But they won’t have cross map communication. The new hero might question the absence of minions, but more likely will just stay and try to land shots on the Nance doppel, prevent her from pushing. They won’t chase their allies all over the map to ask what to do though. And they won’t have me to teach them strategy.” He grinned. “That’s why I was so valuable to them.”

I am glad that you were so integral to their strategizing that they will be helpless without you. Explain the slowing field.

“Right.” He wanted to refute her mildly scathing jab at his ego, but this wasn’t the time. Besides, he was about to earn his little gloat. “I’ll be earning experience while absorbing most enemy minion attacks with the doppel. We’ll let the slowing field down after several waves, letting our minions finally get through to the tower. We’ll arm these minions with nothing but structure damaging potential. No one on the enemy team will register anything off, just that the minions are staying largely deadlocked up there, with no pressure on the towers.” Elzio summoned an illusion of the eight waves of minions, a force of gremlins, 72 monsters strong. “At this point, I’ll move the Nance doppel between the enemy northern tower and northern gate.” The gates were the second structure in each lane, and allowed access to the base. “They’ll be able to see the doppel, but it doesn’t need to stay there very long. All I need it to do is clear a wave of enemy minions. Farm them before they get a chance to meet our minions in combat.”

To demonstrate, he manuevered the Nance doppel to take out the reinforcement minions coming from the enemy’s base. With them engaging her, the 72 structurally buffed allied minions, now freed from the slowing field, pushed forward into the enemy northern tower.

“It won’t stand a chance.” To simulate this, he waved a hand, and the northern tower dropped, forced down by dozens of little monsters.

One doppelganger and one well timed, inexpensive slowing field, and you take out an enemy structure and earn passive, free experience that your enemies miss out on. Echo’s tone held an appreciative note. Perhaps I do stand a chance after all.

“We are still spending some extra points on buffing those minions against structures.” He tapped a few points out of the little reservoir at the bottom. “But that gift will keep on giving. Nance and Bereth will have to respond, and fast. They won’t be as battle-experienced, so their stats will be lower than mine. And because they’re so used to just being able to out number and level their opponents, they have no tanky stats. Bereth is good at one on one combat, but his minion clear is atrocious. Nance is their only area-of-attack fighter, so she’ll have to be in charge of killing the minions while Bereth tanks their shots. Maybe they bring Kia and the new champion in to tank minion attacks too, but they’ll go down fast. All this just to keep the northern gate safe from the empowered minions.”

The minions and the Nance doppel, yes?

Elzio just let a grin spread across his face.

Ah. So the northern tower is not where we push to win.

“It is, actually.” He grinned. “It’s a double fake. By this point, I’ll have accumulated enough battle experience to build up a large mana pool and significant regen. Those are the only stats I need.” He tapped the southern gate. “Once they’re gone, I teleport low leveled Bereth and Nance doppels to the southern gate. Low leveled is important. I want the enemy to think this was my plan all along, so I need them to think I’m heavily committing. Once they defeat the massive minion wave up north, they’ll run south as fast as possible. I’ll keep the doppels close to the enemy’s tower, so they can see the two attacking. By the time the Pyrthet heroes reach the the Southern Road, I’ll drop the spell and use the rest of my mana to summon as high of leveled Bereth and Nance doppels as possible. With the northern tower gone, the copies will push straight through to the gate and make short work of it.”

Then we get Unleashed Minions. Echo seemed quite excited by the prospect. It was a funny thing that all nexi Elzio had encountered had in common. A giddy love of Unleashed Minions.

“Yes you do.”

She spun a little happy twirl in the air. Wonderful. Will you distract them to prevent them from stopping the Unleashed Minions?

Elzio drummed his fingers, looking at the simulation of the map. “I’m not quite sure yet.” With the northern gate down, they still needed to kill the Pyrthet Nexus, who lay exposed behind the now shattered gate, newly enlarged minions stomping towards it. “I don’t know what could really distract them from deafening their nexus at that point.”

You?

He wrinkled his nose at the suggestion. “ I’m not sure I’d be a tempting enough target at that point. Besides, they’d just assume another doppel.”

Can you take advantage of that assumption?

This was the game. The real game. Getting inside the enemy’s heads. Finding each potential assumption, the likely ones and the unlikely ones, and then figuring out how to abuse the intel. In the future, Elzio certainly wouldn’t have as good of an insight into the mind of his enemies, but this wasn’t the future. One battle at a time.

“Maybe.” The game path the two had crafted assumed a specific series of responses from Elzio’s old team. He knew that. There were lots of variables, such as the identity of their new fourth hero or how else they might spend their points. So they didn’t really have the whole battle mapped out. What they had were a series of plans.

Create a slowly mounting wave behind the northern tower.

Find Kia, kill and replace her, and use the Kia doppel to get a ward on Bereth.

Optimize minions against Nance to keep her occupied in the south and stop her from pushing down towers early.

Make himself enough of a nuisance to keep them away from the minion wave north.

Do you think they will investigate the hiding place in which you sit? Do you plan to move?

He shook his head, still deep in thought. “I’ll just turn invisible. They’ll think it’s empty, but won’t risk putting Kia back in it. They’ll also avoid the other hiding place, cause they’ll know I know about it, and they’ll know I plan on hunting her down.”

You should stay invisible, yes, but consider summoning a doppel of yourself to lead them on a chase? They do not know you can turn invisible, so they would probably think it was you. Echo was quiet for a second there, her light flickering as if also thinking. Do they know how powerful your doppelgangers are?

They didn’t. Elzio typically kept the true level of his powers a secret because, well, he was the one in charge of strategizing, and they didn’t need to know. Learning secrets and then keeping them were just things he enjoyed. Maybe it was the sign of insecurity, that he felt the need to be so much more informed than the other people in the room. But insecure about his own safety? Or insecure in his own intelligence.

It wasn’t really for Elzio to say. Not now. That wasn’t the question they were asking.

“No. They know I can summon physical entities that resemble people, but beyond that, nothing.” Elzio stared at the glowing illusion intently, asking the magical images of his old team, eyes piercing them as if he could see right into their brains and unspool their plans.

When you take out Kia using the Bereth doppel, do not make him speak. Likewise, when the Kia doppel hands off the arrows to Bereth, keep her silent. Echo sounded a bit mischievous, a new but delightful sound. They will realize, once Kia is back alive, that you are creating duplicates of them, but because they expect wordless entities, they will not expect them to speak.

“That way when they find the doppel of me in the hiding space, if it talks to them…” Elzio jotted this down in his notes section. “They’re not going to know what hits them. Echo, you’ll survive this yet.”