Chapter 36: The Struggle of the Stone Fields

  

  Inter Cohort Battle Report:

  Cohort 1: 701/924

  Cohort 2: 677/833

  Ongoing Rifts:

  1st River Tower Rift C1 21 : 1 C2 [Victory C1]

  2nd River Tower Rift C1 1 : 14 C2 [Victory C2]

  3rd River Tower Rift C1 5 : 4 C2 [Victory C2]

  4th RiverTower Rift C1 0 : 0 C2

  1st Middle Tower Rift C1 12 : 13 C2 [Victory C1]

  2nd Middle Tower Rift C1 18 : 2 C2 [Victory C1]

  1st Creek Tower Rift C1 13 : 23 C2 [Victory C2]

  2nd Creek Tower Rift C1 19 : 4 C2 [Victory C1]

  3rd Creek Tower Rift C1 4 : 4 C2

  1st Forest Tower Rift C1 - : - C2 [Seeding]

  Century Battle Status Report, II, VII:

  Location - Skirmishing around the River towers, currently engaging the 1st Century, 1st Cohort

  Strength - 59/74

  Incapacitated - 15

  Dead - 0

  Rift Teams -

  Fifth Decio - Full strength

  Sixth Decio (aka Team Palinus) - Full strength

  Seventh Decio - 3/5

  “It looks all clear.” Seline said as she urged the team towards the enemy rift. “Are you all ready to rift jump?”

  “Ready!” the rest of the team responded.

  They knew the seriousness of what they were about to do. It was something they had practiced but been warned repeatedly against.

  As he braced himself for the discomfort he knew they were going to experience, Palinus gulped. He lined up next to Vesuvia ready to support her if she collapsed in the run, she was focused on the rift lighting up the room in front of them.

  “3…2…1…” Half the team started running towards the rift.

  “...go?!” Seline and Palinus went on the last beat and despite the anticipation they all laughed at the awkwardness.

  As their sprint crossed past a line of tile with a swirling pattern their laughter was cut off abruptly by beams of piercing red that shot from calculii set around the portal room.

  They were each hit with their own beam which instantly began to drain their health points and stung quite a bit, burning a hole in their clothes where it hit and cooking their skin.

  A sharp grunt escaped Palinus’s lips and Vesuvia turned her head to smirk at him, she flicked essentia at him with a quick [Bolster] which instantly reduced the pain. He felt a flash of shame to be taking the ars while she seemed to be unaffected by the pain of the beam as she surged along without missing a step.

  The headlong sprint seemed to last for ages, though it would have been less than 5 seconds of torment.

  Palinus tried to check on his team as he ran and was pleased to note that no-one was taking too much damage. In their brief training on rift jumping they knew that there were risks, if there wasn’t enough essentia available to move their overworld bodies to the exit rift it might mean that they would not be able to go through the rift and would have to turn back. Or even worse, it would let them through and deposit them with only parts of their bodies, leaving pieces of their bodies under the rift seed they entered through.

  With an effort of will he pushed down that wave of anxiety, Vesuvia had good essentia sight and was sure there was enough essentia available in the rift. As he quashed one fear and accepted they were going to make it through the rift he began to worry about what they would find on the other side. They were following the 111s out and they were going to be extremely angry about losing.

  A few steps ahead his team plunged into the rift.

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  The hostile rift looked the same from outside, with a swirling edge of prismatic coloured light that moved continuously and blasted the area with light. But rather than the grasping tendrils of the seeds they had experienced before this rift seemed flat. Touching it looked like it was trying to resist their bodies as they pushed into it, but as though breaking the surface tension of a thick oil they forced themselves through with little effort.

  As Palinus ran in, his hand hitting the rift first, he felt a sense of relief from the throbbing pain of the rifts defences as his consciousness separated from his avatar and he was once again plunged into a bodiless state.

  The feeling of returning to the overworld this time was markedly different. Rather than gently waking up, the jump through the hostile portal felt more like plunging from a great height into the water in reverse - a splash of cold feeling as awareness of having a body hit with an uncomfortable whiplashing sense of movement.

  With an awkward stumble Palinus tried to stay on his feet and barely managed. Vesuvia, Bruchts and Rufian weren’t as agile and tripped over their feet as they emerged in the stone tower room.

  Lifting up his weapon and getting ready to fight, Palinus looked for a target. Ahead of them they could see the 111s lined up but It took him a few moments to understand what was going on. They weren’t ready for a fight.

  From their position on the ground with their hands being tied behind them the 111s must have sensed Palinus and his team arriving through the rift, but only Vel turned his head to acknowledge them with a scowl and a nod.

  “Bloody good job conscripts!” A young looking auxilia centurion greeted them as they gathered themselves. He was pacing excitedly as he watched over a group of unfamiliar conscripts capturing the 111s. “I am Centurion Austo, Magunnus suggested we come up to collect this lot and I am glad he did. With your win we might even have a shot to steal the battle if you get a wriggle on!”

  The centurion’s attitude was totally different to their own commanding officer’s and Palinus was taken aback by the casualness.

  “Oh, you're commanding the 9th Century!” Seline said.

  “That I am! We couldn’t convince Armiger to commit to a push up the hill….” The centurion sighed and looked out the door towards the middle of the hill. “That’s probably for the best. The 1st cohort are only defending with the 3rd and 7th centuries because they are pushing hard up through the middle. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have already started to attack the forest fort…”

  “I guess that means there is no point pushing then… They’ll probably win the next series pretty quickly.” Seline seemed deflated at the news that the overall battle might end soon.

  “Rubbish!” Austo replied, “The purpose of the battle is to distinguish yourselves, and with your unexpected win we are only a half dozen rift wins from snatching victory - you never know!”

  “We’d better run to the next rift then.” Bruchts tried to rally the team with the centurion’s excitement.

  “Haha, no need!” The centurion ushered them out of the tower and pointed down the hill to the rift already formed to capture the river tower they stood in. They could see a team from the 9th century already laying below it.

  The centurion led them around the tower and they could see up towards the defending seed forming between the Stone Fields Tower and where they stood. The rest of the 9th century stood at the ready defending it.

  “Oh, so it would be an uncontested rift! ” Rufian commented with a jealous gleam to his eye

  Centurion Austo laughed at the comment.

  “I sent in my second team, they wouldn’t hold a candle to a team like the 111s but they will do what they’re told and rush for the win rather than farm. So once we quickly capture this, are you ready to jump into another rift to contest the stone fields tower?”

  With the 111s captured and out of the picture, Palinus and the team were feeling pretty confident to win against whoever was left to defend the hill towers. Centurion Austo left the team to wait in the tower as he returned to his century.

  The team chatted excitedly as they waited for their rift to open.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Seline reminded them sternly. “The 111s are a lesson in hubris. If we try and rush for a victory we might fall into the same trap.”

  “Psh!” Rufian derided her stoicism, “We’ll dominate the scraps they left to defend the hill!”

  “We absolutely need to win this rift,” Seline continued. “Once we do, we will be cutting off the essentia to the 1st cohort centuries attacking the forest fort, it’ll slow them down significantly.”

  “Fiinnnee..” Rufian agreed to focus and they quickly discussed their strategy for the upcoming rift battles.

  They didn’t know exactly what they would be facing, none of the rift teams in the opposing century were particularly well known. They would likely be a variation of the standard Erulean rift teams which tended to be dominated by legion style bruisers - melee focused fighters who balanced damage with a shield or some capacity to take damage and red mages - mages who specialised in fire magic.

  With that in mind they refreshed themselves on some of their countering, lane rotation and ganking strategies. The rift team from the 9th century made quick work of the uncontested rift and the team were ready quickly to enter the rift that opened for them to attack the stone fields tower.

  True to his word Rufian was patient and remained focused on the ultimate victory. The bait and counter gank that was sprung expertly by the opposing team nearly caught him as he considered diving for the first blood kill in the top lane.

  Unable to secure an early lead with a kill the team were forced to stay patient as the opposing team used defensive tactics to stall the rift for as long as possible. It was through the use of both Palinus and Bruchts ars that the breakthrough finally came as they dove the middle tower with Rufian to secure a kill against their roamer, an unmemorable swordsman, and mid laner, a generic red mage. They somehow managed to escape without conceding a kill, though Bruchts was taken to single digits of health points by the tower and minions.

  With the advantage of essentia from the kills and dominating the lane the team were able to group up and push through the middle to secure the win in a respectably quick timeframe.

  Despite rushing through the rift, they all managed to hit level three by the time they reached the enemy nexus. The boys were showing off their empowered strength as they smashed through the nexus towers to finish off the rift.

  “Something feels different,” Palinus commented as he admired the power of his new ars as he lashed out at minions with his whip stick. He was doing significantly more damage as he spread out the smoke damage of his ars amongst the minions, causing them all to burn. The burning minions leaked a trickle of smoke which was pulled as if by a thread to feed the cloud of smoke that surged around Palinus’s body. The smoke flowed around him like a swirling cloud, but if he gave it direction he could keep it below his head and even tighten the cloud to a narrower band that orbited his body in a menacing loop.

  “About your ars?” Seline questioned.

  “No, this level… it feels different…” He tried to describe the feeling he had had since he levelled to level three a few minutes ago.

  “Yeah, me too. My body feels swollen.” Bruchts added.

  “Aw… the little boys are finally growing up!” Vesuvia teased and Seline joined her in their laughter.

  “What’s funny?” Palinus asked.

  “You have just finally hit tier two you sillies.” Vesuvia replied.

  As they finished off the rift and returned to the river tower in the overworld they found that it was true. Their bodies retained more of the empowered attributes of their avatars and Palinus was happy to find that this time there was less soreness involved.

  “Yeah!” he celebrated and jumped up and down a few times, enjoying the feeling of a bit more strength. He was joined by Rufian and Bruchts who had tiered up as well and were just as childishly enjoying the feeling.

  “Hurry up you clowns!” Seline snapped at Rufian who was doing handsprings. “ We need to get up to the next rift before the first wave!”

  As the boys followed Vesuvia and Seline they groaned. They were less sore than when they had formed, but they were still sore.

  Looking up the hill they could see why the tower they were attacking was called the Stone Fields tower. It was surrounded by enormous boulders that littered the slope around it as it stood on a spur of the hill.

  “Wait, Seline!” Rufian cried out urgently.

  The tinge of panic in his voice made them all turn around to look at him.

  “... carry me?!” he asked.