Shaya stood across the war table from Oraeus, studying the board state. Zaal’s Game Theory class took place in the cold, dark evenings as they moved into late autumn and an enormous fireplace crackled to help fight the chill in the cavernous room their class had moved to. As much as Shaya preferred the real fire and its life-like dance and hunger, she also appreciated the Rubycyte devices Zaal had brought in that projected artificial warmth through the room.

Something about the stillness of the Game Theory class made her feel colder than usual, rather than the sweat she worked up in her other, more physical – or even more magical – classes.

For the past month, Zaal had them playing the same game each week: a war game that simulated battles between opposing armies using miniatures one might find on a war table. The rules were complex and far less intuitive than those of the games they had played previously, and Shaya also found them grossly inaccurate and imbalanced. Despite how much luck hated her, she appreciated the role of chance in using dice to resolve actions and the many elements you had to keep hidden from your opponent, which added an element of bluffing which Shaya excelled at.

Today, she and Oraeus faced off in a historic scenario called The Last Stand of Leonix, where a small force of elite Zothirians held off a rampaging ‘barbaric horde’ from Kelahk led by Tolas ‘the Gore Reaver’. While destined to lose, the heavy losses inflicted on the Kelahkese army by Leonix stalled their advance and helped turn the tide of the First Celestial War of Succession in the south’s favour.

In their first match, she had commanded her people’s horde, biting back commentary on how inaccurate she felt the game and scenario portrayed them, and Oraeus had committed to the scenario whole heartedly as Leonix’ Zothirians. It was a brutal grind that resulted in Oraeus’ ‘defeat’, but the casualties he inflicted were greater than those captured in history. As per his usual personality, Oraeus took only a few calculated risks, sallying forth only a bit further than Leonix had done historically and only when Shaya’s forces were in disarray due to their poor bravery and leadership.

Now, the tables were turned, literally, and Shaya commanded the beleaguered forces of Leonix as they reset the board. However, she was less interested in repeating history and giving Leonix the fatalistic death he so desired. Rather than stick to the narrow choke point of the battlefield’s mountain pass, she had run the numbers and devised a different plan entirely.

She had played coy at first, simply playing to the scenario as well. Then escalated by sending out parts of her force to try and flank enemy units whenever they were forced to pull back. That put Oraeus on guard for future tricks and subterfuge, just as she wanted.

Then she simply attacked into the enemy army, widening her front-line as she continued to push them back and out of the mountain pass. Leonix was a famed Amber mage and she used all of his magical abilities to defend her army against enemy mages and strengthen its durability as she attacked. The casualties she inflicted were greater, but her losses mounted up faster than they had historically and would ultimately be lower than the scenario’s desired outcome for Leonix’s player. What the scenario didn’t account for was the disparity in the numbers between Leonix’s elite troops and the chaff they had turned Kelahk’s forces into. The sudden spike of outgoing damage meant that more and more of Oraeus’ forces crumbled and routed due to their poor bravery and leadership scores, which caused more chaos as those units fled through those behind them. Oraeus couldn’t adapt, too used to fighting conservatively and only taking actions that she estimated would have at a bare minimum a sixty percent chance of success.

That was the opening she needed. She had Leonix spearhead an advance straight for the enemy general, relying on his exaggerated stats to punch through the elite guard that stood between her and total victory. Oraeus ran the numbers and realized nothing less than his elite troops stood any chance of success against her spearhead, so he committed them immediately.

History had painted the barbarians of Kelahk as cowards that fought only out of fear of their warlord’s wrath, and the scenario inflated the Gore Reaver’s value in this. Despite the fear she caused, the Gore Reaver’s combat abilities were sub-par at best and, being a blood-thirsty Kelahk warlord that ruled through strength alone, she couldn’t deny challenges issued to her.

Shaya held back in the duel, waiting for Oraeus to push more troops into the immediate vicinity to try and kill her spearhead. Leonix suffered numerous injuries, but then she had him fight at full power, with all of his might and magic. Unleashed, he made short work of Tolas the Gore Reaver in the challenge. Her death caused all nearby Kelahk units to rout, which was most of them as Oraeus had thrown them all into the meat grinder. Their broken morale rippled quickly through the ranks, breaking the entire enemy army.

Leonix was denied his heroic last stand and at least ten percent of his forces had survived the encounter to chase down routing barbarians to ensure they would never rally and return to threaten the south’s lands again.

“Well done,” Oraeus said, surprised and a little hurt by the outcome. Regardless, he was the first to offer his hand across the table, “I was so focused on a unit’s abilities to deal or absorb damage, and the math behind those match ups, that I failed to account for the importance of the entire army’s bravery.”

“Thank you,” Shaya said, shaking his hand, “if it makes you feel any better, the outcome was quite unrealistic. Kelahk favoured heavy infantry and archers even back then, not lightly armoured hordes, and our discipline is iron in the heat of battle.”

One of the other students, a Zothirian, snickered as he overhead her talk. Shaya wondered if the six kingdoms failed to respect one another as much prior to the last War of Succession, or if the downward spiral only started after the current Archon ascended the Celestial Throne.

“I know,” Oraeus said, nodding, “historical accounts of the battle also paint Leonix’s forces as much larger, but the retellings often omit all of the allied forces he had at his disposal and that the bottleneck worked against him as much as for him.”

“Regardless,” Zaal said, stroking his trim beard as he looked down at the board state, “an impressive victory within the confines of the scenario and the game. Very well done, Shaya.”

“I’m guessing you don’t see this result very often?” Oraeus asked their professor.

Shaya shook her head before Zaal could answer, “I’d imagine at least one person every year figures out the possibility and goes for it. The chances of success are lower than that of the scenario’s casualty requirements, but they’re achievable under the right circumstances.”

“You overestimate your peers,” Zaal chided, “while you’re correct in assuming you’re far from the first to achieve this style of victory, it occurs only every other year this scenario is run. Most players,” he gestured to the rest of the room of students playing the same scenario, “think within the confines of the scenario and get killed just like Leonix, rather than look at the problem from a different perspective. Professors of Game Theory shuffle the scenarios constantly to prevent cohorts from sharing such strategies, hopefully encouraging our students to come up with their own.”

He shook his head, as if disgusted by the thought of students sharing notes, “but you are the first Amber mage I’ve heard of that denied the fool Leonix’s death wish.”

“Well then, uh, thank you for the compliment,” Shaya said, rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment. She noted the looks of jealousy others in the class shot her, even Oraeus unable to hold his back.

They exited the building and began their walk home in awkward silence, Oraeus brooding and closed off to her. Part of her felt bad for inflicting the defeat on her friend, especially since she knew part of her victory was based on abusing his intolerance for risk. Part of her was just mad at his reaction – shouldn't she take pride in what she was good at? He even acknowledged it was a game well played.

A third part of her knew that the world didn’t revolve around her, and his brooding was likely only tangentially related to her in the slightest. He had his own life to live, one that he kept close to his chest. She wished she could help him, but also knew that their relationship wouldn’t allow for it – their friendship was still tenuous at best, almost professional in its focus on shared growth.

“May I join you for the walk?” Zaal asked, striding to stand between them.

Shaya looked to Oraeus, who shrugged and said, “Not at all Professor. What can we do for you?”

“Just keep an old man company,” Zaal said, smiling.

Shaya sighed inwardly, her mind spinning up again and bracing for whatever test Zaal had for them.

“You are both excellent pupils,” he continued, “I was just wondering: what do you intend to do with the power you will wield once you graduate in four years’ time?”

Zaal turned to Shaya first, knowing that she would formulate her answer before Oraeus.