Mewi and I were in an apartment, one similar to the one we’d briefly had on Erkolls-13, but definitely not the same one. It was also very messy. Both of us were seated at monitors with holographic keyboards. However, I was outside of the scene, looking in on it.
The Lheticus in the dream groaned. “God,” he said, “3 months in this hellhole since we cleared the 4th Floor and we still haven’t found a team to clear the 5th with! Every time we find what looks like a proper channel to get ourselves in contact with prospective High difficulty teams, it’s either false promises or they demand we join the AFL Army as part of joining.”
“Do you still want to wait for the deadline to join a Medium mission team instead?”
“We have enough merits on top of the AP we’ve gotten from the Kinetice to extend the deadline at least 4 times...I don’t want to give up High difficulty team rewards.”
“Yeah, I see your point,” said Mewi, “from what we’ve found out about Area 2, we won’t have much easier a time of it there than here. We could definitely use the High difficulty rewards.”
Dream-me spun around to face Mewi. “What we need is a way to get ourselves out there. Maybe we’re not absolutely the strongest duo on this rock, but from what we’ve seen, we gotta be up there. We need to stop hiding, get our names out there...”
“Another one...” I murmured to myself, eyes wide, staring at the wall in view of the side that I slept on. I’d toyed with the idea of sleeping in Area 1 to try to get more of the visions to come, but after the second one, I started to have a strong feeling that they would only come to me on the Floors. Since I had over two dozen more nights to spend on the 4th, I hoped that what I just saw wouldn’t be the last I got here.
Although, I was starting to feel uneasy about having them. Clearly, things were going a lot worse for Mewi and I in the “certain future” the visions showed. I tried not to dwell on what might come next.
When I sat on the throne, the opening game screen displayed a timer until the next turn started. There wasn’t much time left, but it was enough to keep myself fed. At least with this being the finals, they’re not resorting to withholding good food and water for entertainment anymore. Of course, any challenger who got a Soldier mission instead would be sure to have crappy rations similar to the floors before.
The moment the 2nd turn started, I used 250 of my now 480 gold to purchase the upgrade to Viscount. With the 2nd tier of the tech tree unlocked, I spent another 200 to purchase 4 upgrades: Archers from the Military branch, allowing me to recruit the new unit type, Foraging and Extraction from the Production branch, increasing daily gain of of Food and Cloth, and Metal and Gold respectively both by 20, and finally, Leadership I in the Lord branch. By itself, it only gave another Morale bonus, but its true importance was as a prerequisite to a skill in the 4th tier that was one of the keys to my strategy.
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That was still 2 title upgrades away, so I needed to make the next upgrade to Earl as soon as I could. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be possible tomorrow. Even though I was planning on taking another two territories, I’d still be slightly short of the 1,000 coins I’d need at the start of the day. On top of that, with the resource point level cap upgraded to 5, I’d want to spend quite a bit on that.
I also intended to start buying Archer units tomorrow to send to the teammates most likely to crumble before I made Marquess. Archers were pretty much #JustBetter in this game. Shieldbearers could only defend an attacking force, while Archers could defend a keep or trade shots with defenders on walls. I’d already warned the others of this, not that they’d have access to them yet.
The enemy team on my border acted as I predicted, sending forces to take back the territories I’d taken. I was lying in wait for them at one of them, so only the soldier at the other one was lost.
I picked which one I’d lie in wait with totally at random. I might have been killing and killing and killing on the Tower’s Floors, but I had to hold on to my humanity at least to the extent I could within that framework. I wasn’t about to do something like have them play rock-paper-scissors then go with the winner. The moment that thought had flashed across my mind unbidden, I stamped it down with the force of a falling house.
The enemy team had actually committed more forces than I’d hoped to the retake. In taking back their retake, I eliminated 40 elite soldiers—almost half of what any team had at the start. If you wanted to recruit more, you had to get the Platemail upgrade in Military Tier 3, which I was way closer to than any player who was adopting the “turtle up” opening strategy. Their prospects were not looking good.
And by the time I’d finished occupying two more of their territories a few hours later, it was looking even worse for them. Even better, both of their former occupants had raised their gold mines to level 3, so I wouldn’t have to. The team I’d been attacking became too busy huddling on their thrones in fear to have another go, but someone on the other team decided to get cute while a few of his teammates descended on the weakened team’s territory. So, I gained 11 more points (2 territories, 3 crowns) that day. After that, they both wised up, meaning no more bullfighting for now.
That was okay. The tactic had done its job of enabling me to reach Earl quickly. The early rapid expansion was barely even the first part of Stage 1 of my master plan to “become one of the rulers of this world.”
When the 3rd turn started, I had 900 coins. The majority of them went to upgrading all five of my gold mines from Level 3 to Level 5. I spent the rest to recruit 80 archer units, sending all of them to my teammates’ territories to add to their defenders.
[Betty: Why don’t I get any archers?]
[Lheticus: Because you are in the exact center of our territory, and therefore at the least risk of being attacked. I sent twice as many to the territories on the corners furthest from mine because they’re at the most risk.]
[Barnett: As far as I’m concerned, they can bring it on.]
[Lheticus: That could be good for us, since you’re the strongest of us after me. Just think of it as insurance, if you want.]
[Darril: You’re still going out of your way to keep us alive, even though we’re refusing to help you win the game?]
[Lheticus: Yes.]
[Darril: ...Why?]
[Lheticus: I have my own reasons. You could say I’m using you guys as practice.]
[Caleb: Practice?]
[Darril: Practice?]
[Lheticus: Practice for protecting what I care about.]