It simply wasn’t possible to exist here and not be reminded that the enemy were monsters. It seemed almost insultingly simple to say- that the people here should have expected monsters to act like monsters. But this was notionally the work of a human empire. I could see boot marks still stomped into the hard hearth. Technically speaking, monsters didn’t do this.

  Perhaps the people of Wastet expected clemency for surrendering rather than fighting. Maybe they believed the monsters’ promises. But the monsters are monsters, act like monsters, think like monsters and have a monster’s morals. They lie- always. Once they submitted, their only possible end was a slow, humiliated death.

  Something that I had figured out day one. One conversation with Versai made that crystal clear. Was it because the monsters had a human empire fronting for them? Or were they just so scared and desperate, they wanted to believe the promises?

  Wouldn’t be unprecedented. Not at all. I kept thinking of the Mongols. Mongols knew perfectly well that horse archers were going to be useless against city walls. The walls were too big, too thick, and too heavily defended. The defenders had trebuchets and triple bow ballistae. They had so many crossbows it hurt the brain to contemplate them all. So the Mongols didn’t attack the cities, at least at first. They just cut off the cities from each other and rounded up every living human in the nearby villages. Then tortured them to death in front of the walls.

  That’s all. What else did they need to do? The cities had granaries, but so what? The damage to morale was constant, and only got worse with time. Sooner or later, they would crack. And once one city surrendered, you had engineers. You had siege weapons. You had expendable human waves you could drive ahead of your armies to absorb arrows, break up formations and stop charges.

  The Mongols had great military tactics, because they never forgot the human element. We talk about inhuman cruelty. What a joke. It was the people who really understood humanity that were cruel. Look at Tanya the Evil. There’s a person who understands the human heart and how to crush it.

  To surrender meant losing everything. But fighting back would see you hurt even worse. I can understand Wastet’s choice. I just despise it.

  “I suppose it would be stupid to bury everyone. Or burn this place down.” None of my Awakened said anything. Yeah, it would be foolish. A waste of time, and a display of weakness. Can’t afford either. This war will not be won with the power of friendship.

  “Scouts, head out and investigate the area around the city. Is it completely walled off, or is infiltration possible? Your number one concern is not to be spotted and to come back alive. If you are spotted and cannot silence them immediately, use Emergency Exit.”

  It would count as an order, I’m sure, but I am not leading a tiny group of awakened to the very door of a monster infested city. Not without more information. Because right now, I’m seeing what is essentially propaganda. The raiders are the most visible potential route in, but I don’t buy it. Looks like a red, murderous herring. The worst kind of herring. The raiders are all headed in one direction- away. The last place they want anything to do with is Wastet.

  The city itself looked dead. Twenty foot walls, crenelations, cannons, portcullises, a few little sheds outside by the gates and no people. Some people, some bodies, were hanging in cages near the gates. No animals. Not even any birds or rats.

  Now that I think about it, I don’t know that any of the maps had little animals. There were horses in Verton, but I don’t think there were rats anywhere. No pigeons either. Did they use messenger pigeons? It would make sense. It would have made sense. I can imagine the monsters making a point of eating every single thing that lived.

  Rache came racing back shaking her head. “Tighter than a duck’s back door, Boss. Not a sniff of ‘em outside their walls. Not a mousehole either.”

  I’ll wait until Rikka returns before I am completely convinced on “Not a mousehole.” I’m seeing a pattern here. Rikka returned a few minutes later.

  “The city isn’t impossible to infiltrate, my Lord, but I fear I am the only one who might manage it. There is one corner of the walls where the buttress juts out at a sharp angle and slopes very, very slightly inward. There is enough shadow there that I can climb up it unseen.”

  I shook my head. They might as well have hung a sign out saying “This is a trap.” I’d say the pattern was confirmed.

  “They are screwing with us. It’s another psychological attack.”

  “Tower Master?” Versai looked over at me. We all looked grim. I had a feeling that what we were seeing shocked only me. Depressed everyone, but I was the only one this was new for.

  “We have the Hosk raiders out front. Clearly this isn’t their home turf, they are just passing through on their way to Verton and ultimately, Genuda. Behind them is Wastet. A city the raiders don’t want to go to for any reason. BUT. Where are the soldiers? Where are the city’s scouts sent to keep an eye on the raiders? Where are the monsters waiting to race out and eat everyone alive?”

  My rhetorical question was met with silence, as I expected. Still, a little conversational involvement would have been nice.

  “We are supposed to think “Inside the City.” And that’s probably true, to some extent. But what we are mostly meant to do is be afraid. The scheme works in two parts- establish menace and then force us into decision paralysis. All we can see in the countryside is horror- empty villages and desecrated corpses. The city is silent. They left the Hosk Raiders hanging out on the beach like they wanted someone to attack them. It makes us wonder where the monster is hiding. Under our bed? In the closet? Is it actually a spider hiding in our shoes?”

  I could feel myself smiling. No. I could feel myself displaying my teeth. The primal chimp knocking at the door, reminding me that some things were more than gene deep, they lived in the soul.

  “And if we do nothing, then they can set the pace. We are literally just waiting for death. Of course if we act carelessly out of fear or desperation, that’s good for them too. It’s a head game. It’s all a head game.”

  I looked around. I had invested two orders into this expedition, and I reckoned my scouts had already used one of them. Wish there was a way to check.

  This map… Hmm.

  “Environmental storytelling. That’s what they are using here. Credit where it’s due, the Devs are pretty decent at that. Better than most mobile developers. Of course, that’s because they are cutting and pasting other people’s work, but let's not dwell.”

  I let my eyes roam over the former pasture land. Environmental storytelling. And what is the environment? Lots and lots of empty. The map was stupid huge, even compared to Hungry Moon Mountain. Even bigger when you included the land around Verton. Gradden March was a street and a few small attached buildings. A real, heh, starter dungeon. The rest of the Floating Quarter only became available after I conquered the site.

  Stolen story; please report.

  They only reproduced a couple of streets in Verton, but they reproduced an insane amount of land. Verton had a few decently sentient NPC’s, who would fit in GREAT when the relic site was added to the Sky Realm. Everyone else was roughly on the level of an animatronic doll.

  All that farmland around Verton would solve our food problem. There was already a warehouse built there, and a big merchant network. Heck, I even knew a farmhouse packed full of seed grain. It would be a great pick up. But they only reproduced a few streets, and a few people.

  So what was the story on this side of the map? Hosk raiders, but they were mindless NPC’s. And… that was it. Where are the other sentients? Behind the city walls? All this land was barren and empty. Tiny fishing villages, rough pasture land, no enemy to come to grips with. Gacha games want engagement. They want you lost in the maze of systems. So what am I supposed to engage with here?

  I racked my brains and didn’t come up with anything. Screw it, I’d invest my last order in scouting. “Rache, Rikka, get out there and really search. Focus on the area around the city, but give Wastet plenty of space. How are they getting food in there? Are they getting food in there? Are the roads overgrown? See if you can’t find any hidden camps or caches or… hidden anything, really.” There has to be something. It would be kind of weird if this whole place was only a battlefield for my troops to fight on after finishing up the storyline in Verton.

  I watched Rache go speeding off. Just letting the cold wind blow past.

  It’s exactly that, isn’t it? It’s a deliberately blank space. A big empty field to maneuver around on, because someone working on a phone with a potato brain isn’t going to do well fighting a ‘tactical’ battle on anything more complicated than a Plants Versus Zombies map. They butchered an entire village, humiliated their corpses, engineered a setting of immense dread, all to create ambiance.

  “Sorry, Boss. If there are banditos hiding, I can’t spot ‘em.”

  “The shadows loom, but I see nothing within them. Your servant apologizes for her incompetence.”

  “Damn them.” My voice came out in a whisper, almost absorbed by the plush microfiber of my throne. “It was a trap. One we walked straight into. It could have been worse, but we still took that L. Badly.”

  “Tower Master? Versai gave me a concerned look.

  “What is the most limited, yet most abundant, resource we have, Versai?”

  “Isn’t that a contradiction?”

  “Nope. Because it’s time. Everything runs off the order system. We routinely abuse the order system, and the ga…. The system of the world expects us to, to a certain extent. It wants us shopping at all the stores in the Tower, taking our time at the fishing hole, even going to that stupid hall. No rush then. No ticking forward of time.”

  I slouched backwards. It really was a very comfortable chair. “But we only get five of those orders. If we aren’t spending it on approved fun, every action costs us. That matters because after five orders there is no delay, it’s straight into the night’s wave. And that’s life and death.”

  “That is how everything works, yes.” Her voice was dry, but I could hear the concern. Then it clicked. “Time. We wasted, what, four orders in there?”

  “Over a few days, but yes. Makes you want to scream, doesn’t it?”

  “No, but it does make me highly irritated.”

  “Fair.” Versai had seen a lot. I can’t imagine she screamed for much these days.

  The worst thing was that old Rumsfeld line- the absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. Which might fly as formal logic, but is a lead brick in the world of common sense. There might be some crucial thing still to find there. Some brilliant 4-D chess move. Maybe I just needed to invest one more order. Maybe even two.

  Like hell. I checked my pouch. I had earned a good bit yesterday, and with the income from Gradden March, I was up to Three Thousand Runed Bones. It felt like a lot, but it would run like piss down a drain as soon as I started hiring troops. Still needed to do that job for Truso too.

  “Othai, take Mrs. Hungry’s place in the lineup. I’ll put two orders into this too. Next stop- Verton.”

  I didn’t waste any time. I got a wagon from our definitely-not-mafia friend and raced to the building site. My scouts were out in front. I figured it was a mortal lock that we would be running into trouble on the mission. Nothing on the way to the building site- it would be during the loading or return then. It was a big site, mostly just a hole in the ground and piles of rocks. It looked like there were five piles of hoes and shovels. Because of course there was.

  The earthworks were on top of a small hill. We would make do. “Miyuki, you stay up high and keep an eye out for raiders. Shoot first, ask questions later. To that end, try to pin a few, keep them alive as long as possible. Same if you see any monsters. Rikka, Rache, you are scouting. Let us know if anything is incoming. Versai, Othai, you are on close protection, aka guarding me. I’m going to load the shovels and things.”

  Everyone nodded and got moving. I slid Othai and Versai a touch of side-eye. Not even a courtesy protest. “Oh Tower Master, you are so strong, but it’s such hard work! Please sit in this comfortable chair we found with this inexplicably cool bottle of Boss Coffee that we just happen to have!”

  Ah, dreams. I got to hauling. Getting mad at people for doing what you asked them to is pretty stupid.

  I had loaded two of the five piles of tools when the Raiders attacked. I knew the timing was exact, just as soon as the hoe hit the wagon, because it was barely a second later when the horrible whistling of Miyuki’s arrow started. I kept working. Rache zipped in, looking flustered.

  “Twenty banditos, Boss. I don’t know how they got past me!”

  They probably spawned in behind you, triggered by the progress of loading the tools.

  “What kinds of raiders?”

  “Axe and shield, Boss.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes Boss.”

  “Alright. Keep scouting. Leave killing them to Miyuki and Rikka.”

  She zipped off again, her mouth in a grim line.

  “Mind you, I expect you two will be needed as well. Just stay near me. Rikka, you can pick them off if you have the opportunity, and please do set traps, but don’t try to go toe-to-toe.”

  Miyuki got another shot off. Then another. Then another.

  “They’re slow.” Othai sounded like she was watching the clouds.”

  “Switchback road.” Versai sounded equally casual. “Lots of time for Miuki to pick them off. Plus the fear effect makes moving around hard. I wonder if they are just scrambling straight up the side of the hill.”

  “It’s possible. The slope isn’t too bad. But trying to climb with a shield- well you know.”

  “Oh sure. I was crazy happy when they gave me the magic shield. Made everything so much more convenient.”

  “I’ll confess I’m envious.” Othai sounded it too. “We didn’t have magic, really. Some things were blessed, but that was it. They weren’t magical.”

  There was another pause. Then, “Whoops. Here they come.” Versai got there first. It wasn’t a fight. The raiders were already half dead from fear, some had lost their shields, and they weren’t in any kind of formation. Between my Six Stars, the battle took ten seconds.

  I held the last shovel of the third pile on my shoulder waiting until they were done. “Any more coming up?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. I think the ones pinned down there won’t last too much longer. They are thrashing around like crazy.” Versai said.

  I dropped the shovel in the bed of the wagon.

  “Oh hell! Sorry Tower Master. Looks like there were more of them hiding in a ditch. We have incoming.” She shouted.

  “Numbers, composition?”

  “Thirty- twenty pikes, ten crossbows.”

  Well that’s more annoying to deal with. “Do the crossbows have shields?”

  “No, Tower Master.”

  “Alright, Rache, Rikka, same as before. Traps, run down anyone trying to escape, but don’t directly engage until the pikes are on the road and committed. If you can get the crossbows alone, then you can take ‘em out. Miuki, just pin ‘em. Keep doing what you are doing.”

  Because pikes out of formation aren’t nearly the threat a pike block is. Not remotely on the same level, in fact.

  The second round went down about the same as the first, from my perspective. None of the crossbows made it to the top of the hill. I could see it. Rache had an absolute maneuverability advantage, able to move vertically up the hill as easily as she moved horizontally. Those heads would have gone flying. Especially with the pikes breaking up and scattering thanks to Miyuki’s arrows.

  “Ready for the next wave?” I asked, holding the last shovel of the fourth pile in the air.

  “Next wave? Tower Master, that should be all-”

  “Keep your eye on the bottom of the hill.” I dropped it into the wagon.

  “Nobody is coming.” Versai sniffed.

  “They are on this side. Damn, must be fifty of ‘em. Twenty pikes, twenty shield and axe men, and ten crossbowmen.” Othai yelled from the other side of the clearing.

  “Alright everyone, same program as last time.” I got back to loading. “Keep your eye out for anyone wearing a hat with a big, colorful feather in it. We want to take them alive.”

  “There is no one like that on the field, Tower Master.” Versai sounded a lot less confident now.

  “Huh. Maybe there will be a final wave. Oh who am I kidding, of course there will be.”

  “You don’t sound very worried about it.”

  “I’m not. We have the advantage of position, mobility and organization. They can’t hold a formation, which means you can get in the middle of them and shred them like barbecue.” Sometimes having a doll body was nice. I didn’t get tired schlepping the tools around. Didn’t pick up a splinter or tetanus. No need for a water break.

  Rache raced up in a blaze of dust. “Dogs, boss! There’s a couple of fellas coming over with a whole bunch of dogs on chains. Reckon they are gonna swarm us!”

  I looked up at the blue sky and sighed. They had been doing so well with environmental storytelling. Maybe they didn’t have any brain cells left. “Alright, let’s make them pay for being so damn stupid. Then it’s back off to Verton for shaved ice and cannolis. Let’s turn our collective frown upside down, everyone!”