SS - Chapter 9 - Simulated Skirmish

Bonus chapter!?!?!? - Yeah, I finished my applications early today and I'm really enjoying SS right now. I'd like to get it to the point where Medea retrieves her stone before deciding which fiction to pick up (although I'm pretty sure I already know) :P

“This is some sort of test of my tactical skills,” I explained softly. “I don’t know the details, but I think it’s quite apparent that it involves defending our village from invaders.”

“Is that all? I think I can fix that!” Camille declared, reaching down and grabbing one of the red pieces. As soon as her hand closed around the little token her smile fell. She leaned back, putting a foot against the side of the table for extra leverage, but despite her best efforts the token didn’t come loose. “What gives?” 

“I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to solve this through strategy, not cheating or brute strength,” I muttered as I leaned forward and gently touched one of the town tokens. It didn’t move with a gentle push, and I wasn’t about to try and wrench the tokens from the table like Camille. 

“If I can’t move them, how are we supposed to organize and defend them?” I muttered frustratedly. 

“Maybe it has something to do with these?” Selena asked, easily lifting the little figure in front of her. “They do look like us after all.”

Leaning back, and grabbing my own token I was surprised to find a small system window opening up unprompted. 

Medea Ashborne

Swordswoman/Leader 

Rapier/Rifle

“Uhhhh… What?” I muttered quietly. 

“Mine’s telling me I’m a Bodyguard and assassin, rude!” Camille pouted. “I was your lady in waiting for most of my life!”

“Not important right now,” I growled. “We need to figure out how to manipulate this table before we fail this challenge.”

Turning the figure over in my hand, I once again leaned forward and did the only thing I could think of, place my figure in the middle of the village. A dozen windows opened up above the nearest pieces, displaying the names and positions of different villages. I reflexively pulled back, and tried to remove my piece from the board, but it was stuck to the board. All I could do now was nudge it back and forth slightly.

While I was experimenting with the figure Selena tapped me on the shoulder. I was so focused on what was happening on the table I didn’t immediately react. That’s when Camille grabbed my shoulder and yanked me back.

Even though she was speaking, ranting based upon how animatedly she was moving, I couldn’t hear a sound. When I turned to Selena she tilted her head to the side and said something. Nothing. I just shrugged.

Selena frowned for a minute, then picked up her figure and planted it into the middle of the village. “Can you hear me now?”

“Yes? What just happened?” I asked, slightly confused.

“It seems like this table is capable of a lot more than automatically moving tokens around,” Selena muttered. “I think it put some sort of silence magic on you when you placed your figure on the table.”

“Why? And how come we can talk now?” I growled.

“If my theory is correct, it’s because we’re within speaking distance now,” Selena explained, pointing at the two pieces sitting next to each other in the center of the tiny square.

I squinted at the tiny town, looking at the people around us, then leaned over and touched the ‘Siegward’ stone. “Sound the alarm and summon everyone to the square.” 

The little blue stone slowly moved towards the town hall, and the room filled with the tolling of a bell. 

“It’s not a game, it’s some sort of simulation,” I muttered.

“That’s great, but we might want to invite Camille to the party before you explain. She looks like she’s losing it.”

I glanced back at Camille and found the girl pacing back and forth, apparently ranting. When I grabbed her figure I quickly discovered that I couldn’t move it, so I waved my hands about until the girl stopped and looked at me.

It took a couple rounds of Selena and I pointing at the figure, then the center of the square for her to finally get the point.

“... don’t see how this is going to help. I’ve been trying to get your attention for the last couple minutes and you’ve acted like you couldn’t hear me. Moving the little token…” Camille ranted.

“Camille, shut up for a minute,” I snapped.

“Hey! I can hear you now!” the girl chirped, recovering instantly from her depressed rant.

“Good for you,” I muttered, “Listen. This table here, it’s not a game, it’s a simulation. We can’t forcefully move the pieces, or say anything to anyone that’s too far away from us, but we can order people around.”

“So I couldn’t hear what you two were saying, because I was technically ‘outside the village’,” Camille asked. “Why?”

“Realism? Challenge? Just trying to mess with us? I don’t know, this core has already done a ton of strange stuff, and we don’t have the time to sit around and figure out why right now,” replied. “The red stones are half way here, and we still haven’t organized a defense, or figured out what’s coming. We’re running out of time. Ideas?”

Selena hovered around the village, inspecting the tiny buildings. “What sort of defenses does the village have?” 

“Five former knights, two former ducal special forces, two dozen rifles, and us,” I said. 

“Ducal special forces?” Selena asked.

“Spies, scouts and assassins, like me!” Camille declared cheerfully. 

“Camille,” I snapped, “Too much information.”

“I know it was a secret back home, but does it matter now?” she pouted in reply.

I sighed. “We’ll discuss this later. For now I want you to take Madelyn and see if you can scout out that enemy force. I have some suspicions on what they might be, but we need confirmation.”

“How do I…?” Camille started, so I bent forward and touched Madelyn’s piece.

“Follow Camille, scout the enemy force and report back,” I instructed. The little token slowly skid across the table towards Camille’s figure.

“And how do I move?” Camille asked blankly.

“That, you’re going to have to figure that out yourself,” I grumbled.

The girl nodded, and started pulling the figure, nudging it, turning it in place, everything she could think of. Nothing worked until she tapped the top of the figure, then another point outside the city. Slowly the little figure began to move to the second point.

“I’ll find out and report back as soon as….” Camille’s voice quickly faded as her token quickly moved away. It was moving at a run, if the village scale was accurate.

“So what do we do?” Selena asked. “Do you have a plan?”

“This would have been much easier if our outer palisade,” I mumbled, “but I think we follow the defensive protocols to start. 

One by one I tapped the tokens for our fighters, “Equip full gear, muster next to the village hall.”

While they were doing that I tapped Siegward, “All civilians are to take cover in the village hall, those trained with rifles are to arm themselves.”

“Why do you have so many rifles anyways? I’ve heard that Nobles occasionally use them during hunts, but never in combat,” Selena asked quietly.

“Most nobles claim that rifles are nothing more than novelties, because magic is much better. The truth is most are afraid of letting black powder weapons propagate, because they’d give more power to the lower classes. They just don’t want to risk their positions,” I explained. “I, on the other hand, believe they have their place. That’s why we brought so many when we moved into this area.” 

Most of the blue tokens had disappeared into the town hall by this point, and Camille was heading back excitedly.

“Skylians!” she yelled, her voice echoing faintly like it was far away. “A patrol like we fought outside! Four constructs!”

I nodded, so Selena gently elbowed me. “You expected this?”

“Kind of… if the core had been monitoring the situation outside, it must have seen the fight. We haven’t fought anyone else, so I figured it would either be the Skylians, or something that the core was familiar with. I’m just glad it went with humans over monsters, easier to manipulate.”

When Camille’s figure finally arrived back at the town square she leaned forward, a crooked grin on her face. “So, what’s the plan?”

Leaning over the table, and looming over the village. “I don’t think this’ll be that difficult, if we play our cards right. Camille, I want you and Madelyn to engage the Skylian’s at the edge of the village and draw them past the long side of the village hall. Selena, I’d like you to take control of the nights, keep them hidden behind a building then emerge behind the Skylians when they get close to the side of the town hall.”

“And what are you going to do?” Selena asked curiously.

I grinded. “I’m going to show you what two dozen rifles can do to an enemy military force.”

The three of us split up, Camille disappeared to the outskirts of town to lure the ‘enemy force,’ while Selena and I took up our ambush positions. 

The enemy was getting close now, but even though I was only a foot or so away from the others, we couldn’t talk, all I could do was watch as the situation developed. 

It took about a minute for Camille to act, attracting the incoming red tokens, and retreating back into the village. As her token approached I her laughing, and taunting grew steadily louder. I didn’t know if her ranting was actually necessary, but it appeared to be effective. 

Her figure shot past the side of the model town hall, the red tokens not far behind. I watched as Selena reached out, and moved her force to block the enemy in before leaning forward and touching a random token. “Everyone, open fire.” 

Gunfire echoed around me, and within a second each of the red tokens shattered. The table went dark.