“It’s not what I expected. I thought it would be picking flowers, killing rats and carrying boxes to elderly widows at the start. I figured that the real game wouldn’t show up until we made it to the capital. Now I’m involved in army movements, sieges and I’m scheduling my life around making it to battles that I know I’ll be killed in. It’s intense. If the start is this serious, what will the rest of the game hold?
Excerpt from new player experience interviews.
Year 1, Month 1, Day 10, 22:00
Digger smiled in satisfaction at the interconnected line of trenches and bulwarks behind him. Streaker, the brand-new mole rat pet that Kate brought him lay across his neck resting. His new pet was tuckered out from all the digging they had done together. His dreams had finally come true. The stupid cancer was gone, and he could go out and play and dig all he wanted. His mother didn’t cry anymore, and she smiled all the time now. She even let him go dig out here all by himself, well, not by himself, but she was back at the base and didn’t have to watch him constantly.
Digger started placing the wooden stakes into the ground, hammering them down then sharpening the tips. The new fortification skill he picked up let him optimize the placement of the stakes to prevent those nasty orcs and goblins from making it through the lines easily. This new world treated him far better than the old world. He wanted to protect it. He had his crossbow inside his inventory, and he had been using his newfound skills to make places where everyone could fire those crossbows safely.
He dug faster than everyone else and finished more quests because of it. His skills sharpened even more when Streaker joined him. The little guy dug alongside him, using his little claws to clean the ground faster than anything his size should be able to. When he got tired, he would scamper up his clothes and lay across his neck just like now. Some people sang while they worked, keeping their shovels and picks working in time with the rhythm of the music. He just focused on the dirt and stone. He looked for the natural breaks and how the earth wanted to open to him. Digger thought it spoke to him, revealing its secrets.
He glanced around at the patrols. The monsters were coming, and the armed guards watched the tree line for any hint of their arrival. His guild master, Torgon, and the other leaders had arrived and taken up positions in the defenses that he helped build. He felt pride at that. He was useful, not a burden. He was digging. He was doing what he had always wanted to do, open the earth up and help it express the shapes that it wanted. Right now, the earth wanted to protect him and his new friends, and he was going to do everything in his power to grant the earth’s wishes.
Torgon stood on top of a wooden tower, letting his low-light vision scan the spaces between the trees. Night had just fallen and the need for vigilance would grow as morning approached. He reached level 5 during the dungeon exploration and allocated his attribute point to Endurance, bringing that boosted total to 10. The extra energy would come in very handy for his new double shot skill. All the players on watch had their heavy crossbows out and ready. The range of their weapons from the fortifications they added would let them reach within fifty yards of the tree line. The clear ground outside of the city had been expanded by more than four hundred yards during the day. All those workers were now resting or taking a turn on the new fortifications while the miners kept expanding the trench network.
They were planning for a long siege. These new lines were designed to be filled in easily when they had to retreat. There was no sense in leaving the enemy defensible locations. Each line of trenches had earthen walls and wooden palisades. Small flasks of oil were attached to help them burn if they were forced back. Each section of the outer works was designed to allow them to pull back in stages, all the way to the gates of the city. They had a plan and now they just needed to see how much of it would survive contact with the enemy.
Torgon paused as a notification from their scouts came in. The leading elements of the monster army had been sighted just three miles away from the city. He gripped the wooden stock of his crossbow tighter and sent a fresh message on the city defense channel, “Everyone, be alert. They’re close enough to start sending infiltration teams or attacks now. The scouts are reporting that large numbers of the enemy are moving in and clearing areas for camps. They might still try a massive rush, but it seems like it will be smaller attacks tonight.” The defenders were ready and Torgon prayed that it was enough.
The next hour crawled by. The acidic tension rose in the defenders as they could do nothing but watch and wait. The stillness was broken by a single message, “Contact”. Torgon eyed the trees in the distance, unsure if he was seeing movement or imagining it. No, there it was again. He spotted five small shapes creeping along the ground free from the tree line. He signaled to the others near him, and they all readied their crossbows. They watched as the goblins crept past their first pile of rocks, marking the extreme range on their crossbows. They waited patiently until they reached the next set, 20 yards closer. Torgon quietly issued the command to fire. The twang and snap of strings flinging bolts down range broke the stillness. The sneaky goblins sprouted feathers as the bolts impaled their forms. Four of the goblins died instantly and the survivor cried out piteously and tried to stand and run before he caught another bolt.
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The quiet shattered. Yells from the trees echoed as goblins and orcs in small groups began rushing the defense all around the city. Defenders took up cries of alarm and began firing as they approached. The players working on fortifications stored their tools and took their own weapons from their inventory and joined the others on the newly minted defenses. Here and there a monster advanced far enough to return fire, but it was sporadic and light. A few minutes of sharp engagement passed before the quiet returned. Several hundred monsters lay dead, scattered in the dirt. For the moment, no defenders had been lost, but there was no celebration. This was just the start of the battle.
Sir Malik, the Baron and the guild leaders had organized the outer defenders into four groups. Each group spent two hours on the wall and then two hours inside the city. Groups changed every hour, with one group rotating on and another moving back into the city. There were always nearly two thousand player defenders on the outer works with more city guards and militia besides. It would take a serious attack to push them back behind the walls of the town.
A team of players stood guard in the portal area of the city. There was a constant influx of new players joining the game and these guards brought them up to speed on what was occurring. Some of the newcomers noped out but most were thrilled to have instant action. The guilds received a constant trickle of new members. Instead of an empty city with little to do at night, players accepted and completed hundreds of quests for moving supplies, making repairs or gathering from housing or guild nodes.
At two in the morning, the first major incursion of monsters occurred. A company of wolf riders sped out of the woods towards the eastern section of the defenses. At the same time a squad of trolls pushed up from the south. Platoons of orcs and goblins left the woods all around the perimeter. The attacking forces closed in, and the defenders swapped from their crossbows to the faster firing long bows. The wolf riders hit the palisades and tried to swarm over the top. The orcs abandoned their mounts and climbed the wooden walls to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
The drop in ranged fire allowed more monsters to reach the walls untouched. Fierce fighting erupted and Ovarrix directed reserves to bolster the eastern line. The trolls were clearly visible now, having been set on fire with flasks of oil and fire bolts. Teams of orcs wheeled mantlets into position and began exchanging bow fire with the walls. The reserves stabilized the eastern defenses and the melee combat ceased. The damage had been done. The mantlets provided enough cover for goblin diggers to start putting up siege defenses of their own.
Spellcasters among the defenders marked the positions with phantom fire, an illusionary flame that showed a vivid green in the darkness. The trebuchets and catapults along the walls of Miller’s Crossing began to fire their weighty ammunition at the illuminated targets. Large rocks crashed through mantlets and crushed the workers setting up the encirclement. They kept working under fire and gradually they spread. Sorties of monsters would push into the defensive lines leaving slack for their builders to expand the safe areas outside the forest.
An hour before dawn, a dozen giants emerged. They wore wooden platforms secured to their chests with thick leather ropes. Orc archers fired from the platforms at targets of opportunity while the giants hurled boulders into the defensive lines. Living siege towers stalked the outworks, crushing barricades and players alike. Robed shamans clung to the backs of the monsters, healing them from the damage of incoming missile fire. A company of ogres crashed into the lines opposite the giant advance, wrecking a section more than 30 yards wide before pulling back.
Ovarrix watched the battle closely, reading reports from every section. They were bleeding the monsters, but their own forces were starting to suffer losses. They were stretched thin on the outermost line, and each fallen defender worsened their predicament. The appearance of another force of wolf riders and a ragged skirmish line of gnoll archers made up his mind.
“Everyone, fall back to the second line and set the first line ablaze, reserves, man the second line while they retreat.” Ovarrix watched as fires began springing up all around the city. Soon a towering ring of fire circled everything, the oil-soaked wooden beams on the earthen walls burning through and letting them fill the trenches they dug with treacherous loose dirt. The monster army recoiled from the blaze and the heavy fire from the siege engines atop the city walls. The light from the blazes clearly illuminated everything to the tree line.
The respite from the constant fighting cheered the defenders. They could breathe and wait for respawns and reinforcements. They took the time to eat, drink and shore up the second line while the fire and smoke obscured the area. They could hear the monsters working and watch the large stones flying overhead to crash into the no man’s land beyond. The tension had given way to an overwhelming sense of immense purpose. This wasn’t just a game anymore. They were living and breathing in the middle of a monster siege. They were the dam against the flood of evil.
The new day dawned, shedding light on the now destroyed defensive line and revealing the gargantuan beginnings of a circumvallation that stretched around the entire city. The line contained half complete wooden walls atop earthen revetments. The edge of the forest crawled with activity as defensive structures took shape. Flat pieces of earth held logs that were being fashioned into siege towers or engines of war by dozens of workers. The forest itself appeared to be shrinking as the army turned it against the people of Miller’s Crossing. Wisps of smoke rose into the air from hundreds of small encampments around the city.
There was no longer any way into or out of Miller’s Crossing. Every player was trapped here until they were victorious, or the city was destroyed. There would be no more dungeon runs, no more monster farming and any resources they gathered would come from their own houses or guild bases. Their quests were limited to what was inside the city and they could only craft with what materials they had on hand. The war with the monsters had overtaken them.
The Siege of Miller’s Crossing had begun.
