Adam Drake - Blackout

The scout turned to look at me. “Would you like me to move closer? No problem at all.”

“No problem, huh?” I found myself asking. This NPC has got some attitude, and I was intrigued despite myself. “Why is that?”

That crooked grin appeared on his face, again. “Because I’m the best scout you got.”

I laughed. “You’re the only scout I got!”

“Exactly!” he said, grin widening.

By the Gaming Gods. I thought. Was I actually flirting with this NPC? How stupid was that? Maybe I’ve been playing this game too long, if that was the case.

Over his shoulder, Amara dropped out of Shadow Form directly behind him. She raised her sword.

“Look out!” I yelled, surprised.

“I am looking out,” the scout said with mild confusion. “It’s my job to-.”

With a swing Amara cut his head off, and just as the chat view terminated I saw her grinning at the camera.

At me.

Now I swore. Curse words flowed like water from a roiling river.

I tried to calm down but only succeeded in making it worse. My hands were shaking with rage.

There was only one thing that could temper my anger.

I pointed at the archer unit. “Fall in behind us and stay close.” The archers nodded in unison and moved to stand behind the formation of footmen.

Smoke’s respawn timer still had five minutes on it, but that was fine. I’d hoof it with my troops for now.

I ran through the footmen ranks and stood before them. They made quite a sight, albeit a smaller one that I’d like.

“We’re heading out to meet the enemy!” I shouted.

All the men cheered, raising their weapons with scattered shouts of, “By Y’Godda!”

I turned and began running northwest, my troops behind me, one unit following the next. My heart was thudding at full speed.

So, Amara wanted a fight? I thought, ticked off.

Fine.

She was going to get one.

We marched as fast as I could push my army.

Within a few minutes we reached the midway point of the curve but there was no sign of the enemy. Could Amara be camped out at the altar, waiting for me?

My anger had subsided, and I started to think through my plan only to realize I had none. Find Amara and attack. Not very strategic, just a decision based off of emotion.

I looked back at my army. It made for an impressive sight to see them marching along with determined looks. It gave me a bit of a charge.

Thorm, my friend who I’d adventured with many times, went through a long phase where all he played were these Battle Fields. It had become an addiction to the point he even stopped questing in the outer gaming world all together. He attained a championship level and entered competitive ladders. But after a really bad defeat, where he suspected his opponent had cheated but couldn’t prove it, he quit Battle Fields all together.

He use to say he loved the charge of leading an army into battle so much he couldn’t stop himself from playing.

I’d dismissed that out of hand, until now. There was definitely a unique feeling you got with dozens of troops following you into battle.

Still, I worried these units would be enough. Amara had quite a few assembled before I lost sight of them.

As we marched I’d kept an impatient eye on my gold resource counter. Now it ticked over enough to train a new footmen unit.

“Halt!” I said raising my hand.

In unison, all four units stopped. Staring straight ahead, they quietly waited.

I needed to do some quick micro-managing before continuing on.

First, I put another footmen unit into training. The moment they popped out, I’d have them follow us.

Then I switched the worker unit at the quarry to the gold mine as well. This put all my workers on gold duty. The stone and lumber for buildings and the Keep upgrade could wait. Right now, troops were the priority and gold was desperately needed for them.

Maybe I should use what resources I had to build another barracks? Two units in training were better than one.

I could see how players could spend most of their time just waiting for things to happen. Waiting on resources, waiting on units to train, waiting on units moving.

“Enemy spotted!” shouted one of the footmen in the front unit, and pointed.

Marching quickly toward us from around the northern bend were Amara’s units.

Waiting on the enemy was one thing I didn’t have to worry about.

“Get ready!” I shouted. My troops tensed.

I surveyed the approaching army.

Two units of troll grunts marched side by side, followed by another grunt unit.

Trailing behind these were two units of troll archers. Even from this distance I saw their bows were the same short variety as my own archers.

As they fully emerged from around the bend, no other units appeared.

I allowed myself a slight sense of relief. Aside from an extra unit of archers, the armies were even. And they had the distinct disadvantage of lacking a commander. Where was Amara?

Turning to my troops I barked out orders, and they reacted quickly.

I brought forward all three of my footmen units and lined them up, side by side. Then, I moved my archer unit in close, but instead of keeping them in a square, I used their formation menu to spread them out in a single line.

The enemy units copied me, bringing their third grunt unit up to step between the other two. Their archer units positioned themselves directly behind the grunts, but did not change their square formations. All this was done without altering their speed.

In moments, they would be at my front lines.

Let them come, I thought with a smile.

Enemy spotted!

I blinked in surprise. Where did that come from? Looking past the approaching enemy I didn’t see another new unit.

Panicking, I looked behind us. Nothing was there but empty grass.

Then my eyes were drawn to a flashing icon on my map.

The Lookout at the Keep had sent the warning.

He had spotted an enemy unit approaching the base from the northeast. It was an icon I did not immediately recognize. Then cold dread washed over me.

Cavalry!

Amara had cavalry? So soon?

My thoughts were cut short as the first elements of the enemy grunts suddenly stepped up their advance as they got closer.

One of the trolls raised his spear and let out a war cry. The other grunts shouted in kind.

I looked to my footmen in confusion. Shouldn’t they be shouting, too?

Then all three grunt units slammed into my footmen’s front ranks.

Whoa. Things were happening fast. I looked from the fighting troops, with spears and swords flailing, to the icon of the enemy cavalry descending on my defenseless base.

Suddenly, there was the sound of two dozen enemy bows releasing their arrows.

I looked up at the cloud of death from above.

Oh, crap.

The arrows fell into the footmen’s ranks where men screamed. But when I looked to my archers, they simply stood with arrows nocked in their bows, doing nothing.

“What are you doing?” I yelled as I ran over to them. “Why aren’t you firing back?”

“You want us to fire back?” The archer leader asked.

“Yes!” I shouted, incredulous.

The archers then raised their bows and fired.

“And keep at it,” I said. “Don’t stop.”

“Yes, Commander!” the leader said. They loosed another volley.

What was with that delay?

On a hunch I checked the archer’s unit info screen and found an unchecked box at the bottom marked ‘Autonomous.’

I checked the box and the archer’s leader shouted, “Fire at will!”

If there were time, I would have smacked myself in the head. Under each of the footmen units info screens was the same unchecked box. Cursing to myself, I checked them all.