The ships sailing up the river made me smile. They probably shouldn’t have, I probably should be horrified or something, but honestly, they made me smile. Because the truth is that, no matter how sadistic, evil and monstrous a nation you are, the ocean does not care. You need to maintain your boat if you want it to float. Your aesthetically tattered sails aren’t doing a damn thing but flapping for vibes. Hell, just leaving the deck covered in blood and entrails will see half your crew in the sick bay while some Bosun struggles to explain why OSHA matters.

  So the boats were painted black, were square rigged, had absurdly high fronts and backs, and were stuffed to bursting with halberdiers and archers. Also wearing black armor, naturally, and the halberds looked very “Hot Topic Polearm” but they were clearly doing their best with the limitations imposed by what were essentially standard medieval boats.

  Boats that were exploding. Radz was firing a lot faster than the Genuda cannon team was managing, but they were both demolishing whatever they hit. That cannon was beastly. Never seen anything shoot cannonballs that size. Yet another failure by Fort Ticonderoga. No monster cannons.

  “Radz raining death.” And she was. My god. She was. I hadn’t seen it clearly when we were fighting down by the river bank, but from up high, I could see the devastation the plunging fire was wrecking on the boats. It had to be the game mechanics- Radz just didn’t miss. The mortar would drop right on the deck of the boats and smash a hole in them. I think it was actually blowing up in the air, but the difference was apparently academic. Everybody died, and by the second shot, the boat had enough holes in it to make the masts drop and the ship start sinking.

  “Abbattis.”

  “Pardon, Tower Master?”

  “It reminds me of those first few waves when we were using trees as Abbattis. All those masts falling over and getting tangled with the other ships and their masts, locking the ships together and blocking the river. And killing a whole bunch of monsters, of course.”

  Versai nodded at that. “I can see it.”

  The big Genuda cannon fired its balls in a long, flat arc. It was also striking from above, just because of the city’s elevation, but it was coming in at a shallow angle. The results were interesting. It wasn’t killing as many soldiers on the deck as Radz was, but it was punching long holes through the boats. It was scoring more one-hit-kills on them than she was. And the ships hadn’t even made it to the great chain yet.

  I tapped my leg and counted. The boats coming up the river stretched as far as I could see. They were spaced out, obviously, but the number was clearly intended to be more than anyone could stop. But between the still-functional cannon, the chain, and Radz, we were killing them before they could disembark. This could, theoretically, go on indefinitely.

  I tried to spot that river landing we had defended before. If the monsters had even a quarter of a brain, they would start landing their troops there and coming overland, but this may be another scripted event. Though, speaking of that, why was Othai so happy about winning that battle? Other than the obvious, I mean. If an unstoppable armada was rolling up anyway, why did it matter if a smaller armada was or wasn’t stopped earlier?

  Those frog-centaur things were pretty gnarly. I can imagine them wrecking things in the backfield. Especially… Oh GOD DAMN IT! THIS WAS THE OTHER PART OF THE MAYOR’S PLAN!

  “OTHAI! Who can order all those Genuda soldiers in the field back to the city?” The mayor had emptied the city of almost all the mercs who would usually defend it. They were all scattered in tiny garrisons across the villages. Those reinforcements from Wastet must have cut them off from any kind of retreat to the city last time, assuming they weren’t the force that picked them off individually.

  “You, my Lord. Look in that box next to the wall. There are flares.” Her voice was urgent. I didn’t need telling twice. I got the flares out and lit them off. They flew up and burst in the sky, bright, white and leaving big white clouds drifting. No chance of missing that.

  Othai sagged against her halberd. “Thank you, my Lord. Thank you.”

  It must have killed her not to say anything. Banging against the wall of the system. “Of course. We cleared out everyone we could before, and we will keep blowing up those ships. We’ve given them the best chance we can.”

  I kept my eye out on the field. The river battle seemed stalemated, so the next problem area was probably the cistern and all its tentacle monsters.

  “Versai, with me. Let’s see how they are managing the cistern. Wait.” I slapped my face. “The fountain! There is a damned fountain on this map. I NEED ONE HUNDRED PIKES AND FIFTY CROSSBOWS DOUBLE TIMING TO THE FOUNTAIN RIGHT DAMNED NOW!”

  “MOVE PEOPLE!” Othai bellowed, making the mercs jump to. My command voice still needed work. Hers had been polished to perfection decades ago.

  Would it make sense if a whole damn monster fit its way up a water pipe? No. But this is a game, so yes. Also, from what I can remember, octopuses can wedge themselves through really tiny holes, and that was an awful lot of tentacles by the cistern door.

  I didn’t make it but half way there before I met the mass of tentacle monsters coming the other way. No other word for them. Circular lamprey mouth on wet bulbs of rubbery flesh and a writhing mass of purple-black tentacles. Once they saw us, they started screeching. Just awful noise.

  “Pikes- CHARGE!” I didn’t wait for them to come to me. “Crossbows, if you can get a shot off or arc it over their heads, do it!”

  Wait, damn. I looked around. The fountain was at an intersection. “Othai, double time it back to Radz and the canon. Keep them safe. Deploy the soldiers on the wall if you need to. Rikka, scout. Is this the only place the monsters are coming out of? If not, where else?”

  Fingers crossed I didn’t just use up all my orders. Should be okay. I’m not sending them far.

  The pikes lowered their spears, ten ranks of ten, and at least the first forty of them were aimed to connect with the awful things twisting and crawling down the street towards us. What really impressed me, though, were the guys a little further back who had their spears up and aimed at the houses and walls on either side of the formation.

  They knew what octopuses were like here, too. With all those tentacles, you would be crazy to think they couldn’t climb.

  The pike line crashed into the enemy, and kept right on crashing. The octopus monster… things… tried to wrap up the pikes and dig into the cobblestones, but that just wasn’t going to work with all the spearheads ripping holes in them. Tentacles were torn away and smashed under hobnailed boots. The pikes of Genuda pressed forward. Ever forward. The nation was in retreat, but the pikes would advance.

  The tentacle monsters were trying to make a fight of it, but this really wasn't what they were for. They were weapons of infiltration. Of terror. I could imagine the absolute chaos they would cause in an enclosed area, or if there were screaming civilians running around. Once a pike formation got broken up, the individual soldiers would be all too easy to pick apart. The monsters were being forced to fight under the worst possible conditions.

  Good.

  I enjoyed my brief moment of vindictive satisfaction, then started shaking my head. Amature thinking, “the worst possible conditions.” Foolish thinking. The street wasn’t even a little bit on fire and coated in broken glass. I had a long, long way to go. Still no grapeshot or canister either. And the crossbows weren’t doing a damned thing. I could understand it. No way you could realistically manage arcing fire over that short a range.

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  If the pikes had to retreat with the crossbow unit behind them, it would be chaos. Then a slaughter. Can’t have that.

  “Crossbows, fall back to the last intersection and form a square. If something comes down a street and isn’t one of ours, shoot it.”

  When did my life devolve to the point where I had to consider the fighting retreat of pike units under the onslaught of non-fun tentacle monsters? Where did it all go wrong? Should I have Uber-ed to the maid cafe instead of taking the subway? Should I have told Mika-Chan that I couldn’t make it today? Or ever?

  But if we can’t enjoy members-only maid cafes, why live? Why struggle through this Hell World? Is not an omurice with “Love!” written on it in ketchup kanji the very sword we raise against nihility? Is not the thigh high stocking and ruffled black and white maid costume the armor of righteousness? The “Welcome Back Master!” cry the clarion bugle of humanity’s charge towards meaning?

  If the world is an illusion, if God is dead, if ultimately all our remnant dust will be consumed by an expanding sun, then let us make the sweetest illusions. We dream so briefly before we return to oblivion.

  One of the circular-mawed horrors did, in fact, try to climb its way along a wall and get over the pikes.

  “Case in damn point- you are not wanted in my dream sequence.” The pikes agreed with me, spearing it and just yeeting it out in front of the formation. Then those hobnailed boots stamped the bloody rags of flesh into the gaps between the cobblestones.

  “I don’t envy whoever has to clean that up. Hey, Versai, by any chance are power washers a thing in Gradden March?”

  “I have no idea what that is, so probably not, Tower Master.”

  “Probably not a thing here either then.” I briefly imagined Versai fighting the octopus monster. Blond, armored, definitely a Saber-Adjacent aesthetic with a good bit of Sophita from Soul Calibur- should have been an easy lift for my imagination. I just couldn’t. I could feel a powerful revulsion at even thinking of thinking about it. It wouldn’t be an H-scene. It would just be horrible. I shook my head hard and locked back in.

  “Rikka, report.” A moment later, a shadow stirred.

  “My Lord, there were a few monsters that went down the other streets. They appeared to search the buildings we already emptied, as though they were looking for something. They are still doing so, though they will reach the end of their streets soon. There are blocks of pikes waiting for them at the end of the streets, and musketeers are picking them off when they can. The bulk of the monsters are coming down this road.” She was crisp as always.

  “How many more of them are there?”

  “A few dozen, but more come up out of the fountain every minute.”

  “How is Truso doing holding the door to the cistern?”

  “It should be controlled at this point, my Lord. Your servant Truso built a solid earthen wall over the door, reinforced with timber and stone.”

  “He did what?”

  “He organized a team to nail the door shut, then ripped out cobblestones in front of the door and replaced them with tall wooden posts. He then filled the area between the door and the posts with baskets full of dirt and rocks, then added more dirt over the top. The whole arrangement is approximately six feet deep, and covers a fair amount of the wall on either side of the door as well as the door itself.”

  “In the… what, ten minutes since we sent him over? Twenty?”

  “I believe he did it almost immediately upon his arrival, once he saw the door was being held shut by the pikes, my Lord.”

  Yeah, Truso was officially someone I wanted inside the tent pissing out, not outside the tent pissing in. Just how smart is this… gentleman? And, maybe more to the point, how much initiative does he have? How much intellect is he holding on to?

  That thought rattled around inside my head for a while. “Othai…”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, my Lord.”

  She was damned smart too. It started clicking together. Othai generally went a lot deeper in her runs than Versai ever managed. If I was right about there being a link between the Awakened that got pulled and the nearby Relic Sites, her former Tower Masters must have tried to conquer Verton before. Which means that Truso would have been activated before.

  Unlike Sebastian or Jim, who only got comparatively brief windows of lucidity, this map was quite big. He would have ages and ages to pick apart the wrongness of the world. No wonder he seemed like a psychopath. He actually was one. But I’d bet he was like this before he got rounded up by the game. I had a feeling the game hadn’t been great for his mental health. So just what had he been up to? Because I don’t believe he was passively enduring the loops.

  I’d have to ask him. Just as soon as I figured out a way to stop up the fountain. Actually, why reinvent the wheel?

  “My respects to Mr. Truso, and ask him how he blocked the fountain up the last time.”

  “At once, my Lord.”

  Let’s see how he plays that. Would he go with “I don’t want to talk about it? Or would he have enough wiggle room to say something? Sebastian could talk more-or-less freely when he was monologing a villain speech and taking me hostage. Maybe this qualified for something on the ruthless mercenary contractor side.

  Oh, no wonder the lunatic was willing to take a ninety percent discount- he knew he wouldn’t be keeping any of it regardless. He just wanted to see how much he could shave off of me.

  Was the Mayor the same way? Forced to relive the same events over and over, constantly denied the greatness he believed he deserved? I wonder. I really wonder.

  “My Lord? Your servant Truso replied- “There is a crank at the bottom of the fountain. Clear the pipe and turn it.”

  “How did he react when you asked him?”

  “He raised an eyebrow, said ‘Interesting,’ and gave me the message I relayed to you, my Lord.”

  Clear the pipe- guessing that means run pikes up and down it to make sure no octopuses can block the valve or whatever.

  “Thank you Rikka. You can return to your scouting duties.”

  The troops pressed forward into the intersection. The octopuses tried to get around the formation and attack from the flanks, but we were overstrength as it was. I just widened the formation as we exited the street and swept them all up. The stink was horrendous. Like rotting seafood and mold. We closed the net around the fountain, Rikka and Versai keeping a sharp eye for any monsters doubling back on us.

  There was a big metal wheel at the bottom of the basin around the fountain. One of the pikemen turned it, as the rest kebabbed any monsters in the pipes. And that was that.

  “Shame. It was a pretty fountain. Simple, but pretty.”

  “Yes, Tower Master.”

  “So wild to me that this is where the locals got their water from.”

  “Tower Master?”

  “All these houses, and people came over with pitchers and buckets and whatever to collect the water for the house.”

  “Yes. I know. That’s how that works. How everything works. You have wells and fountains.”

  “Not us. We had indoor plumbing. The water came straight into the house. Fresh and clean.”

  “What, like a well in the house or something?” Versai looked doubting.

  “Well, something like that. More like a fountain plumbed in from reservoirs.” New York tap water is the best and I will fight you about that.

  “Huh. That’s nice. As far as I was aware, only the Royal Palace and one of the Dukes had that. Mostly to show off. We just used magic crystals in our castle. No need to go to the expense of making an aqueduct.”

  “Versai?”

  “Yes, Tower Master?”

  “Are you helping me show off and be smug, or are you being a hindrance?”

  “Sorry, Tower Master.”

  “Indoor plumbing is an incredible feat of engineering. Clean, safe, water delivered into cities, guaranteed free of octopus monsters, is an immense civilizational achievement.”

  “Yes, Tower Master.”

  “Just because some people can cheat with magic crystals does nothing to undercut that particular glory.”

  “You are ever so right, Tower Master.”

  “As long as you know.” I snorted. “I’m still hearing the cannon and Radz.”

  “Yes, Tower Master.”

  “Let’s see what’s going on, then.”

  When we got back to the wall, there was a glowing portal and a savagely grinning Othai. Truso was there too, but he was looking a lot more disaffected about everything.

  “Welcome back, My Lord.”

  “What’s the situation?”

  “All the monsters in the city are contained or dead, my Lord, and the enemy’s forces are dying in the river.” Othai sounded positively gleeful. “It seems that there was no one left to attack the fortifications holding the Great Chain in place. Since the cannon is working uninterrupted, to say nothing of a second artillery piece, dying in the river is all they can do.”

  “There does appear to be no end to them, however.”

  “That is true, my Lord. To a degree. Perhaps there is something else around here more worthy of your attention.”

  The giant blue portal hummed and crackled like an electrical transformer a half second from exploding. The hint was subtle, but to the keen intellect, sufficient. I walked over to the portal. A tool tip popped up.

  “Team Selection, additional support, Tokens of Valor, Medals of Supreme Valor, The option to buy Medals of Supreme Valor as they cannot be earned on the battlefield…” The number next to tokens of valor shot up by five hundred. We were already solidly on five digits and cruising steadily towards six.

  “Does this number go up by five hundred every time we sink one of the ships?”

  “I do believe that is how that works, my Lord.”

  “And I can leave a force here while taking recruited troops to the Wastet battlefield?”

  “Just so, my Lord. Including Awakened. Though that number cannot exceed five Awakened per map, I suspect.” Othai looked like all her Christmases were coming at once.

  “I exchange tokens of valor to bring troops over. A pike is worth five. Hmm.” I saw the number of tokens I owned go up by another five hundred. “Not that we are in a particular rush, I suppose.”

  “Not as such, my Lord.”

  “Be a shame not to bring… well not literally everyone. But nearly.”

  “As you say, my Lord.” I watched the number jump up again.

  “Did I mention today that I love Econ exploits?”

  “I don’t know what that means, my Lord, so probably not.”

  “It means, Othai, that I’ve never yet accepted a scripted loss. Let’s end it today. Today, we break Wastet, and save Verton. Just as it always should have been.”