Ray and I slide into the throne room, just on time. We've got only about thirty seconds to spare.
“Perfect timing, as always, darling.”
“Of course, someone as cute as you couldn't possibly be late to anything, ever.”
“Oh c’mon, stop trying to make me blush right before the big thing.”
“But darling, you're just so cute. Also it's fun, your face looks cool coated in red.”
Just as Ray is about to retort, a projection of The Gamekeeper appears in the center of the room.
Ray and I quickly hurry to sit on the throne. Thankfully, she gets there first, so I get to sit on her lap! Emil, Linda and Rigar stand off to the sides of the throne. All of them look somewhat menacing, almost as if they are preparing for the worst.
“Greeetings once again, contestant Kovon and Contestant Rayleigh. I trust that you two have settled into your new residence nicely.
I'm sure you two have a lot of questions about what this trial is. Well, allow me to explain the details to you. Do sit tight, this is going to be a fairly long speech.
As you have probably guessed, the basic premise of this trial is a ground battle between the three factions. Each faction has been given a near identical castle. Although, the terrain outside the castles varies quite heavily, as you will soon see.
If you look to your left, you have no doubt noticed the large door.”
To the left of the room is a very ornate and fancy looking door. I did wonder what was behind it, but I figured it would all be explained in due time. Looks like now is due time.
“Behind that door lies your flag room. You must protect it at all costs.
The core objective of this trial is to get inside your opponent's castle, steal their flag token and carry it back to your own. I believe back on Earth, this type of game was called ‘capture the flag.’
Inside the room, there is a rough map that will update as you explore the surrounding area. The only places that are given are the locations of the other castles. We decided we didn't want you running around in circles trying to find each other's locations. No one wants to watch that.
You can probably guess why this station is so massive.
This arena is a circle, with a rough diameter of 1750 kilometers. Don't worry, you will gain access to vehicles pretty quickly, we don't expect you to walk everywhere. Also, do note, the arena is set to a 24-hour day cycle. With eight hours of night and sixteen of day. So plan around the light accordingly.
However, your three factions are not the only entities within this arena.
Dotted about the arena are ‘forts’ as we are calling them. Each fort has some automated defenses, so be careful upon approaching them. If you choose to besiege these forts, and succeed. You can gain control of them by interfacing with the core of the fort. Here is a quick tip for you: for your first siege, you will likely need all your members to overcome the defenses.
Control of these forts is a secondary objective. You shall be awarded points for every fort your faction controls at the point where; either when you are the last standing, or when your flag is captured and you are kicked out of the arena.
In addition, every day that you control a fort, you will gain a certain amount of currency to spend, depending upon the location of the fort. The closer the fort is to an opponent, the more currency your faction will receive.
Additionally, each fort contains a WRN hub that covers the nearby area. This is important, because your com units have a limited range before they need to connect to a hub. Of course, the network in the arena is completely separated from the outside.
Do note, the WRN relays that are installed in each contestant's augmentation kit, have enough range such that they will always connect. So contestants can speak to each other – or those connected to their faction’s network –, no matter where they are, should they wish to do so of course.
You can then spend currency to acquire certain things that you shall require to compete. Like the aforementioned vehicles. Spare armor, weapons and such are also available.
Also of note, there are also various wild animals. Including some engineered threats, that should pose at least some challenge to defeat. Upon defeating one of these legendary beasts, you will be given a few points to spend.
In addition to materials, you can also employ manpower. This can be anything from soldiers, to logistics personnel. In the case of soldiers, you will be provided with vessels that warriors from your home colony can occupy. We have sent a station to your planet that will facilitate this. We trust that your leaders are able to select sufficiently skilled personnel. Do keep in mind, these vessels will be limited to around a physical skill level of medium only.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
As for logistics personnel, you shall be given drones that can serve any function that should be required of them in that regard.
Now, you might be wondering about death.
Your core members, that is, yourselves and those currently in the throne room. Will be protected. Should at any point lethal damage be detected, special measures shall kick in to prevent death. Then they will be transported back to your castle and face an eight hour recovery time before being allowed to operate again.
As for employed soldiers, their vessels will not be resurrected. But, their being will be sent back to their bodies, completely unharmed by the process. You will have to purchase more vessels to replace lost soldiers.
Well, that's most of the middle stuff out of the way. Don't worry, there are yet some surprises that you will discover. So look forward to those.
As for the end of this trial. The end condition occurs when there is only one faction left in the arena. The moment a faction’s flag token is returned to an opponents’ castle, that faction will be kicked out of the arena.
The last faction standing shall be awarded six points in the trial of ascension.
The faction that is defeated second will gain four points.
The first faction to be defeated will only get two points.
I dont think ive forgotten anything. So this is where I shall have to end it.
In the flag room, you will find a list of general guidelines, please don't abuse loopholes too much. Have some common decency. The IEC can't possibly out-think your lot of contestants, so take them with a bit of wiggle room for us, please? We wouldn't want to hand out any punishments.
The main gate of your castle shall open in twelve hours. This will mark 0:00 of day 1 of the trial. Spend some time to prepare yourselves and strategize.
May the stars be ever in your favor, contestants.”
With that quite long explanation over, The Gamekeeper’s hologram disappears.
They always seem to bring a bunch of important info. But, it's a bit dense, so let me summarize a bit.
Basically, we are in a giant arena, which has a 24-hour day cycle. Each faction has a castle. We are provided with a map that will update as we explore the arena and gain intel.
The goal of the trial is to capture your opponents flags and be the last one standing. Along the way, we will capture forts that give us currency to spend on resources and manpower. Also, for our core members, we are protected from death, at the cost of an 8 hour respawn time.
In addition, there are clearly a lot of hidden things that we are bound to discover in time.
I think that about sums it up.
A few seconds after The Gamekeeper disappears, the door to the flag room opens.
“Well, darling Ko. Whatdya say we go check out whats in there?”
“Sure thing, we gotta figure out how to work around the rules, of course.”
We all walked into the flag room. It's quite a large room, almost as large as the throne room.
Against the far wall is a tube. Inside the tube is a large circular token, with our emblem on it. Our ‘flag’ so to say. It's perhaps a meter in diameter, so they won't be the easiest thing to haul across the arena back to the capture point. Which should leave plenty of opportunity to recapture it, before we are knocked out.
Of course, we don't plan to ever have it stolen in the first place.
To the left wall is a gigantic map. It is about 10x10 meters, and the scale says it is ~1:175000. Meaning one meter of the map is equivalent to ~175km. Which is pretty good, for a map covering such a large area. At three equidistant points around the edge of the map, are each of the faction's emblems.
A snowflake, for Luna’s faction. The Quartet’s multi-colored circle emblem. And of course, right on top of us, our purple crescent moon surrounded by a silver circle.
The best part is, we can draw stuff and manipulate the map with various tools. Which is good for intelligence. It also seems that we can toggle on and off other information overlays, like faction member positions and terrain statistics. I'm sure that will come in handy for strategic reasons.
On the other wall, there is a list of rules, guidelines and stuff. They only seem to cover the extremest of cases. Like, don't try to override the resurrection system by killing your opponents. Don't commit war crimes, that kind of stuff. They are reasonably specific, but I doubt any of the contestants would try to break them in the first place, considering the consequences.
At the bottom of the list it says in very large and bold text. ‘Any attempt to break these rules, or skirt around them (at judgement of the board of the IEC) will result in that contestants immediate expulsion from the arena, and harsh penalties applied to any remaining faction members.”
“Woah Ko, they really aren't playing around with this. We are like, actually in a war.”
“Seems so, darling.”
“Oh wait, there is another rule below that one.”
“Hmm, ‘While this is not an enforceable rule, factions are highly discouraged from working together. The trial is not designed as such, and the systems are not designed to allow such teamwork. So, we suggest that you do not form alliances’.”
“I guess that makes sense. There are only three factions, so a 2v1 would be massively unfair. Plus, the teammates would have to fight each other eventually, so it doesn't even make sense to share that level of intel and such.”
“Alright, does everyone else understand our goals and what this trial is all about?”
Emil:”Sure thing, milord. Point and we shall move out!”
Rigar:”My hammer is at your command.”
Linda:”Sure, let's do this thing. Those other contestants don't stand a chance compared to you two!”
We've got twelve hours until the thing fully kicks off. So, naturally, Ray and I head off to do some very important work.
Lots of headrubs and general lazing about ensues.
What, did you think we would actually strategize and do that important stuff first? You obviously don't know anything about us, then.
I'm sure that whatever is to come in this trial, Ray and I shall overcome it, together. We've also got Rigar, Emil and Linda to help us out along the way. So, bring it on.
End of Chapter 82
Next: Chapter 83 | Exploration & Hunting
A/N: Hiya dear readers. Welcome back to the section where I, the author of this masterpiece, rambles a bit.
I hope you're enjoying the story up until this point. If you are, it'd be much appreciated if you left a rating, review, or even just a comment saying so. Do be sure to stay tuned, there is still lots to come!
This trial is definitely a bit of a different theme to previous ones. But dont worry, its not changing too much! Fluff, Flirting, and cool things are still to come. Plus, some super crazy tech, and some large-scale combat.
A bit of unfortunate news now, with the writathon coming to a close, this story will be moving back to a Monday-Friday update schedule. I can't believe I only got to try out 5 chapters a week for two weeks, then writathon hit, forcing it back into daily chapters.
This time, it should stay at 5 a week for the foreseeable future. I do hope. Writing a daily serial is a lot of work, y'know. At least for me, 5 chapters a week is far more manageable, plus I can put a lot more effort into each one.
Well, until next time, dear reader.
- Cathrix, maybe the best author on the planet
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