Adam Drake - Blackout

You Have Been Slain in Battle!

Then my screen went black.

Amara Frostwalker has killed Vivan Valesh. +1,000 Battle Points for Amara Frostwalker.

For several moments after my avatar’s death, I yelled a stream of profanities with Amara’s name attached to them, until I was blue in the face.

She’d hidden near the altar, probably under the platform itself, in Shadow Form. She knew that the approaching troll workers would probably distract me enough for her to sneak attack.

That’s the second time she’d caught me off guard.

A thirty second timer counted down against the blackness of my view-screen. It was all I could do but glower at it.

A new system message appeared:

Your Mount has been killed.

More profanities, more glowering.

The thirty seconds felt like hours as adrenaline pulsed through my system. There was no doubt now that Amara had played a Battle Field session before. Possibly several.

And I was the Battle Field noob she got to toy with.

The counter reached zero and my screen brightened.

Vivian Valesh has been reborn to the world. Let the Battle continue!

My avatar was no longer at the middle, but was looking up at a low ceiling. I sat up to find I was on a raised stone slab in a cramped room. Fire sconces on the floor were the only source of light. Cob webs hung from the beams above and murals of battles draped across the stone walls.

A crypt.

An ascending stairway could be seen through the crypt’s only door.

I stood and looked my avatar’s body over. There was no sword wound in my chest and my cloak and cloth armor were undamaged. The health indicator on my screen showed my hit points at 100%. Nothing was missing from my inventory either (not that I could access it anyway).

Other than finding myself transported from the platform, there appeared to be no obvious death penalty.

Still, this beats a newbie zone, hands down.

I took the narrow stairs up to emerge from a floor into a tall round room made of stone blocks.

The Keep.

Far above, the Lookout waved through the trap door then returned to his duties.

Welcome home, I thought. Death was a quick trip back to base.

I stepped outside and squinted from the sunlight.

The archery range was complete. Several targets were lined up along the end of the range with a small stone building for housing archers at one side.

I pulled up its menu.

Train Archer Unit: Cost 300 gold – Yes/No?

Yes.

Several archers appeared on the range and shot arrows at the line of targets. Others stood to the side, fletching new arrows.

Training time: five minutes.

By now, there was enough gold for another unit of footmen so I started their training.

I frowned at my status line. Resources were not being collected even close to fast enough. If I wanted to begin an assembly line of troops, I’d need more workers and for that, a Keep upgrade.

The current bottle-neck was stone. Maybe if I took workers from…

Enemy Contact!

What?! I spun around looking for an enemy army rushing toward the base. Then my eyes were drawn to the map.

The footmen unit I’d assigned to the center altar was close to arriving at their destination. Two enemy grunt icons were now at the middle and moving to meet my lone unit.

I slapped my virtual forehead. I had completely forgotten about them, and now they were marching straight into trouble.

Panicking, I ordered the unit to stop, which they immediately did. But what to do with them? If I had them engage the enemy, they would be killed by overwhelming numbers. Plus, there were other enemy unit icons appearing from their north and heading toward the center platform.

But having them retreat wasn’t an option either as they were now too close to the enemy and would be cut to pieces.

With little choice, I decided they would fight and maybe reduce the enemy’s unit strength. Selecting the unit again gave me a formation menu with a little diagram beside each.

Circle Formation

Staggered Formation

Square Formation

The square formation looked to be the most compact and gave them a small defensive boost. Or so I hoped.

Square Formation selected.

I watched, helpless, as the footmen unit assembled themselves just as the first of the two grunt units smashed into them.

Footmen Unit training Complete.

The new unit assembled outside the barracks.

Now what? I looked around at my base. There were the two footmen units here, one of which split in guard duty, with an archer unit to pop out soon.

Do I send the two footmen units out now and follow up with the archers? Or do I sit here and let my troops die because of my own stupidity?

The abandoned unit was in full engagement now. My combat log started to scroll.

+1 Battle points

+1 Battle points

+1 Battle points

What elation I felt from the damage they were dealing evaporated as I watched their unit icon get smaller and smaller.

It wouldn’t take long before they were destroyed. To their north, the other enemy icons kept coming but were generic. No telling what they could be.

Regardless of what they were it spelled trouble for me.

Suppressing my growing panic, I turned my attention to the two base units. I commanded the split unit to forgo their guard duties at the gold mine and the banner alter and reform next to the second unit.

As they moved into position, the third footmen unit finished training and I moved them to stand next to the others.

My gold was now too low to start training another footmen unit which made me more than a little angry.

Keep it together, Vee, I told myself. If I got ticked off every time a messed up, then I’d always be angry.

Archer Unit training Complete.

Twelve archers wearing red hooded cloaks appeared next to the range. Each had a short bow and a full quiver of arrows.

The sight of their bows did not give me confidence. They were for limited range which meant they’d be at risk of getting overrun. I would have to keep them to the rear of the footmen units.

Footmen Unit eliminated .

I looked to the map with dread.

The footmen icon vanished, and a moment after, all the enemy icons on the map blinked out of existence.

Fog of war. If a unit didn’t have line of sight on the enemy, it couldn’t be seen on the map.

Now I was blind.

A chat request appeared on my screen. Perplexed, I accepted it.

The scout’s smug grin greeted me. “In position, Commander. And I can report multiple enemies located.”

Right. I’d forgotten all about this guy. Instead of focusing on all my available assets I was letting the current crisis overwhelm me.

The scout’s path had taken him up the east side of the map which linked with the middle area, forming a big circle, just as I suspected. Now he was sitting within the tree line directly east of the center altar.

“Good work,” I said. Now I could see what was coming at me. “Let’s see what you got.”

The scout turned away and the camera view tilted up. Through the trees where he was hiding was the center platform area. The two grunt units that had just killed my footmen could be seen in the distance.

Other enemy units had arrived and were in the process of crossing the river via the altar platform. Two more footmen units and, behind them, two archery units.

Even more appeared in the distance to the north, but I couldn’t discern their unit type.

“Can you tell what those are?” I asked, feeling foolish as I squinted at the chat screen.