The Arena of The Duchy of Australasia.
Six Villagers in battle dress stood in a huddle.
“Why are we huddling, Cathy?”
The face of the friend who’d gathered them was flushed, her double chin jiggling with a crazed energy that convulsed throughout her body, from her plump face to her chubby toes.
This was EXACTLY what Cathy'd envisioned when she’d suggested to the gang to buy the game, when she’d masterminded the scheme with Henry's co-worker to trick him into sailing here: all her best friends, together, building their comradery through the romance of The Slums and its daily group-bonding activities!
“EVERYONE!” she shrieked, “let’s celebrate this momentous occasion by brainstorming a team name that expresses our unique style! We’ll go around the circle proposing one suggestion each—don’t be greedy, one only—then we’ll vote for a winner!”
“Can we skip this?” asked Henry. “It’s too cheesy.”
“An essential component of Village life is participating in the democratic process. Team Friendship Forever!, that’s my choice, with an exclamation mark. Abby, go!”
“Team Hail Satan Our Lord And Master.”
“Absolutely not! Brian, a serious suggestion.”
“Team Friendship Forever...”
Cathy beamed.
“...In Subservience to Satan Our Lord And Master.”
“You two!”
“Donkey Reckoning,” said Donkey Bro, who’d poked its nose into the huddle.
“Andy, save us!”
“Vedara Ledara. An Ibanmothe silkseller taught me that the phrase means, ‘Through Adversity.’”
“That’s actually Sandtongue for, “You overpaid.” Team Turbonoobs, the perfect title.”
“I also vote for Team Turbonoobs.”
“Dan, if you’re seeking independence, you can’t always be parroting him. What’s your suggestion?”
“Since we’re Kiwis...The All Blacks?”
“Yeah, mate, let's rip off the national team and get sued for trademark infringement. Stupendous plan.”
“Dan’s suggestion is as valid as everyone else’s. Now, let’s cast our votes!”
A two-way tie resulted between Team Turbonoobs and Team Hail Satan Our Lord And Master, so the group resorted to The Slum’s classic method of dispute resolution, rolling a six-sided ‘Die of Democracy’.
The winner: Team Friendship Forever In Subservience to Satan Our Lord And Master.
"RE-ROLL!” screamed Cathy. “My hands were sweaty!"
The winner: Team Friendship Forever!
Henry clapped his hands to refocus them. “With that odd fluff scene out of the way, let’s get on to team practice. Since Dan is a total noob and whatever the rest of you’ve learned is presumably worthless, we’ll be restarting from the basics. Wipe your minds clean; you’re newborns, your pliable neurons ready to absorb my wisdom.”
“EVERYONE!” Cathy summoned a stack of A3-sized paper and a box of children’s pastels. “Team Friendship Forever! is incomplete until we have dazzling costumes, a wonderful motto, and a stirring group introduction!”
As she distributed the art supplies, Henry squinted at the tip of the baby-blue pastel he was given, his mouth tightening with the suppressed mutterings about how these kindergarten exercises were a humiliating juxtaposition against his world-traversing adventures.
In anger, he scribbled down the word ‘Turbnoob’ three times, then stuffed the paper into a bejewelled box for submissions that Cathy’d prepared.
“No more interruptions; I’m crafting a training regime.”
Disabling his character’s senses, he entered his Mental Library and accessed the in-game store. Amongst the videos on-sale were tens of thousands of instructional lecture series made by players on various topics, including on the creation of 6-man squads.
Back in his Cripple days, he’d been a part of a famous group of six called 'The Merry Band', alongside that peaceloveharmony Earthfriend hippy guy. However, this experience didn't automatically give him the ability to teach. The tragic case of Justian exemplified the pitfalls of believing otherwise; sometimes, one’s success stemmed from qualities that weren’t transferable, like freak motor skills.
Henry bulk purchased the lectures with the most favourable reviews, the gold cost being subtracted from his inventory. Skimming through their contents, he checked the veracity of their teachings against his personal experience, eliminating about a quarter on the spot made by know-nothing scammers.
Surprisingly, the best guide had been produced by a Suchi local, a Long-Term Villager from the Kingdom of Northern China. A retired teacher in real life, he’d used the insight from his job and an extended stay in The Slums, raising batch after batch of Villagers, to craft an immaculate evidence-based training program.
Henry was so impressed that he messaged Archdeacon Mohon to add the teacher to a list of talent about to be poached from The Slum Empire to weaken them.
After that, he copied down the teacher’s lesson plans, making some modifications in order to condense them within the two weeks left until the tournament.
Once his friends were finished, he immediately took control of the group to prevent further distraction.
“Abigail, what roles has Justinian been having you guys perform? I’ll adjust to fit.”
He directed the question to her because she seemed to be the least noob. Her username, Battered Daisy, indicated that she was either a fan or a member of the all-female assassination guild, The Garden of The Grotesque.
“Everyone plays standard for their class."
“Standard!” he chirped with a happy clap.
She continued in a whisper, “Sort of...”
Handsome Dan raised his hand. “Big Bro, what’s a role?”
“They’re analogous to positions on a sports team.”
“I play right-wing.”
“Great. So, for example, Cathy, a Miracleworker, is a ‘support’, who heals and shields. Abigail, a Cutthroat, mixes ‘scouting’ and ‘assassination’. Brian, an Arcanist, is a ‘mage’, who demolishes enemies with spells. Anderson, an Accompanist, is also a support, bolstering his teammates through magic-infused music; although, at Tier-0, due to having only one buff, he’s effectively a mage.”
“What’s my role?”
“You’ll be a ‘tank’, which in a PVP contexts means using the extra durability of your class to protect us, hold ground, and take ground.”
“Like a forward? I always wanted to try being a forward, but Coach Brown said I’m too light for the scrum.”
Henry was rugby illiterate. “Sure.”
Dan swept a handsome gaze across the people he'd be safeguarding. “Don’t worry, bros and sisses; I've got you.”
“As for me,” continued Henry, “to shore up the weaknesses in our composition, I’ll do both tanking and healing. Abigail, what formations has Justinian taught you guys?”
“We go wherever our hearts compel!” shouted Cathy.
“What she said...”
“So none,” he concluded. “Then, for simplicity’s sake, today, we’ll use a simple Nguyen Two-Tower-Defence. Dan will guard Anderson, I’ll guard Cathy, the four of us will stick within spitting distance. Brian and Abigail will stay loose, shifting about to enact our plays. Questions?”
“You can tank AND heal?” asked Abigail.
“Great observation!” said Henry with the genuine pleasure of hearing something non-idiotic.
Earthfriends, according to conventional wisdom, could switch between these roles but not do both simultaneously. In addition to the roles relying on different Energy Charge types, Flora spells were uncastable when shapeshifted yet dropping to the human form in close combat left the player vulnerable.
“I can, and here’s how.” He summoned a tower shield tall enough block sight of his body when crouched. “Tada, it’s The Bloodriver Stalling Shield!”
The shield martial art he'd learned in The Overdream!
None of his friends recognised the name.
“Well, that’s understandable; these days, its practice is limited to The Stone Wizards of The Omisun Mountains. It was popular a couple centuries ago, when King Ashiwere The Foolish of Qannozeni—yes, one of the starting zones in Aion Laisije—decreed that his army had to maintain large, regular units. As part of the initiative, the Spellcasters were forced to stand with interlocked shields as clunky as this. Since immobility is a disastrous mistake when magic and monsters exist, the Qannonzeni mages squeezed their brains together to devise techniques to increase their survival rate. Voila, The Bloodriver Stalling Shield, tailor-made for when you’re a stationary Spellcaster - either because the soon-to-be-poisoned King will execute you or your poorly-composed team lacks both a tank and a healer.”
“Ooo,” said Cathy. “Can you teach me? I want to tank!”
“Don’t bother. A shield this heavy is impractical in fast-paced, squad-based combat unless you’re drastically better than your opponent. Hence, the martial art fell into disuse.”
His reason for studying The Bloodriver Stalling Shield was that its training manuals were the most comprehensive for not only mage-shieldery but all shield-combat. It turned out that thousands of Spellcasters, seeing death on the horizon, were impeccable researchers.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Later, he would merge their collective wisdom with a more mobile shield-type.
“Let me test it.” Abigail unsheathed her dagger.
“Sure.”
He finished her off quick. While she was searching for an angle of attack, he lurched forward unexpectedly, cracked her jaw with the shield, used the cover to grab her arm with his free hand, before flipping her onto her back and pinning her down by the neck with the bottom rim.
She stared up in a daze at a
Looking at her noobs friends, she wrinkled her brow in incredulity.
They’d missed the remarkableness of that sequence...yet again.
Henry, helping her back to her feet, continued, “I’ve sectioned the 9 hours we have for today’s training as so: the first hour and a half will be devoted to map movements and building communication. After that, we’ll spend an hour with you all 1v5ing me so I can develop an intimate sense of your capabilities. Then, targeting the most glaring flaws identified during the 1v5, 2 hours will go to drills. Following—”
"No, no, no, no, NO!” interrupted Cathy in frustration. “Team Friendship Forever!'s members never fight each other!"
"We just did that, though."
"And it was wrong! Also, drills? We came to Suchi to have fun.”
He grumbled at her silliness. “Drills can be boring moment by moment, but they lead to rapid improvement, which creates a satisfaction/fulfilment whose reward far outstrips in the long term the meagre, ephemeral offerings of ‘fun’. The acceptance of this truth, the renunciation of aimless hedonism, is one of the first steps into true adulthood.”
“But we’re still teenagers! And what is the motto we voted on?”
“I refused to listen to that part.”
Brian snickered. “To cultivate the miracle of friendship through fun and more fun!"
"Exactly," said Cathy. "If you can’t lead in accordance with the team philosophy, we’re going to elect someone who can.”
She looked imploringly at the others, evidently wanting to be the leader herself. She was having the time of her life being assertive, bossy Cathy.
“Then what’s your grand alternative, Captain?”
Spinning dramatically, Cathy posed with her hands on her round waist. “There’s no better teacher than the battlefield! Pair up and shed your blood!”
“I’ve integrated regular sparring into the training program. It can be pushed forward if you’re impatient.”
Cathy turned to the others. “Team Friendship Forever!, do we want a training program or fun? Cast your votes!”
4-2 to fun, or 5-2 if a taunting donkey were counted.
Research, structured lesson plans? This was not how the people of The Slums rolled. They learned through battling again and again, and again, and then again.
And so, without preparation, Team Friendship Forever! sought out their first sparring partner.
Here, Henry was at least given the choice of whom. Rejecting a number of strange roleplaying-themed teams, he selected a group of guys in their late 40s that seemed normal, their team having a conventional two-tank, two-healer, two-other composition - Fighter, Crusader, Shaman, Miracleworker, Arcanist, and Bowman.
As the teams were heading out into the arena, Brian suddenly stopped and, with a perplexed expression, searched for something around his feet, then back in the direction from where they’d come.
“Forget something?” asked the opposing Arcanist.
Brian patted his pockets. "Our group introductions, we forgot to do them.”
“Skip this," said Henry. "These older guys won’t want to watch our nonsense.”
“Nah," refuted the Shaman. "Go ahead, kids.”
Brian lowered his butt into a Slav squat and dabbed. “Brain Flea!”
Abigail somersaulted over him, landing with her dagger drawn. “Battered Daisy!”
Anderson posed pretentiously with his Accompanist drum tucked under one arm and a paper fan in the other. “august rode in!”
Cathy hobbled to the front, activated a shield to give herself a golden glow, and stroked her chins smugly. “cathysong31!”
“Nope.”
Handsome Dan did a section of the pre-rugby-game haka dance, ending by poking out his tongue. “Danontherightwing!”
“Defeating!” shouted Brian.
“Evil!” continued Abigail.
“With!”
“Love!”
“Nope.”
“Friendship!”
Donkey Bro, chilling off to the side, hee-hawed ("Forever!").
Together: “Team Friendship Forever!”
Sigh.
In a normal setting, an awkward silence should have followed this embarrassing display, but, immediately afterwards, the opposing team’s Miracleworker started beatboxing, while his geriatric teammates break danced.
The Fighter stepped forward holding an invisible mic. “My name's steeeve02, and I'm here to spit; The Sydney B-Boyz are prepared to win. I wanna keep rapping, but I'm out of time, so I'm handing over the mic to my boy, Sublime.”
A Bowman spinning on his head stopped. “Sublime, I am, but sublime I ain't! I got no chill, love inflicting pain.”
...
Team Friendship Forever! and The Sydney B-Boyz went to opposite sides of Hamlet, an arena resembling a quaint British-countryside settlement. The Villagers already there were snapping their spines on imitation-stone walls and stabbing assailants clambering through the windows of faux-brick cottages.
Henry hid his team behind a replica tavern, inside of which another team were barring the doorways to fend off an assault. Dan, jumping about in front of Anderson, scanned every corner for any danger to his ward.
-steeeve02: We're ready!
Henry, inhaling and dipping his mind into a pre-battle zen state, replied back with the same, then addressed his teammates via group chat, his voice resonating in their ears.
-Henry Flower: We begin. Henceforth, communication remains in here. Abby, go up on the roof and report their movements.
While talking, he’d positioned himself under the overhang of the tavern and crouched in a leg-up position.
-Battered Daisy: Too high.
-Henry Flower: Try.
Abigail, stepping onto his palm, was startled by the takeoff, a touch of
-Henry Flower: Save your Stamina; taking off your helmet should be enough.
Abigail, who was about to stealth, removed her helmet and scrambled up to a chimney. Taking cover behind it, she peeked out and reported that The B-Boyz were roaming in search of them through an open lawn space in the hamlet’s centre.
-Henry Flower: Formation?
-Battered Daisy: Tri-Base. Fight, Cru - 3-head, tight. Bow – 10-loose.
-Danontherightwing: What does that mean?
-Henry Flower: Abby, have they detected our position?
-Battered Daisy: No.
-Henry Flower: Dan, she’s using The Ekrel Communication System. The Shaman, Miracleworker, and Arcanist are clustered in a triangle. The Fighter and Crusader are leading 3-metres ahead. The Bowman is on his own, scouting for positions to shoot us from. Everyone, here’s the play: since they’re acting so bold, we’ll wait for them to come to us and exploit The Defender’s Advantage.
-cathysong31: What’s The Defender’s Advantage?
Such a basic question...
-Henry Flower: Medium-to-high impact offensive spells require a setup time, so defenders can usually fire off a free spell volley while the attackers are moving into place.
-cathysong31: Justinian calls that ‘The Coward’s Advantage’.
-Henry Flower: Justinian has negative game knowledge. Dan, onto the roof you go as well.
He transformed into a Silverback, since he’d need
-Danontherightwing: What about Andy?
-Henry Flower: 6-man formations aren’t rigid; they’re constantly broken and remade to suit the circumstances.
-Brain Flea: Can I climb up?
-Henry Flower: No, but you can hide in that bush if you want.
While Gorilla Henry was boosting Dan up, Brian jumped in a bush.
-Henry Flower: Because the tavern’s occupied, there are two paths the enemy can take to reach us, either from the North-East side or the South-West—DAN, STOP, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!
In the centre of the arena, The B-Boyz froze. Silently, they followed the direction of the Bowman’s pointing finger to the top of the tavern, where the sun’s rays shimmered off of Dan’s Steel helmet.
Steeeve02 laughed. "Guess that's a wrap, boyz. Let's teach these kids old school style."
On the other side, Henry cancelled
-Henry Flower: Idiot!
-Danontherightwing: Oops!
-Battered Daisy: North-West entry. 11 seconds.
-cathysong31: Henry, Team Friendship Forever! abstains from worldly language!
Henry, maintaining his composure, plunked down his shield, began to gather 5 Elemental Charges, and reeled off his commands.
-Henry Flower: Brian, start casting
While the team carried out his orders, he closed his eyes and listened. Through thousands of battles, he’d refined his sensory focus, allowing his ears to pluck out, from the dense blanket of noise from the four ongoing skirmishes around them, the clatter of the enemy Fighter’s metal armour, the stamping of his footsteps on the grass bringing him in the range of his demise in 7.2 seconds, 7.1, 7.0...
-Danontherightwing: I’m stuck!
Henry snapped his head upwards, instantly wincing at a pair of flailing legs protruding from the tavern's chimney.
See...this is why he wanted to begin by practising map movements...
The 5v6 was winnable.
Henry Flower: Andy,
Anderson’s drum began to shake and emit a piercing squeal. In 3 seconds, the pressure growing inside would reach a critical point, exploding the instrument and stunning any shmuck within the blast radius.
The sole victims of this explosion should have been the opposing team’s tanks. However, some members of Team Friendship Forever!, noticing that Dan had been trapped, instinctually switched to the default Byzantine method for dealing with unexpected situations. Abandoning formation, they rushed the enemy to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
Boom!
The magical sound waves reverberated through the bones of Cathy, Brian, and Anderson, locking them in place out in the open.
-Henry Flower: Anderson, it was your own spell...
-august rode in: Mea culpa.
He and Abigail could 2v6...
Henry felt, however, that him going Super Saiyan just to save these fools would be an unearned reinforcement of their sloppy habits, akin to hiring history's greatest dental surgeon to replace the teeth of a child that’d fallen out after his refusal to brush.
"Toothless brats must be left to starve," he muttered, climbing up onto the tavern roof, sitting beside Dan's flailing legs, and slipping a hand into his monk robes to retrieve his flask.
Sipping away, ignoring the calls for help, he watched with indifference as the exposed three were hacked apart.
During the subsequent match, he was effortlessly fending off the Fighter and the Crusader when Cathy rolled through his legs with a sword drawn and got herself decapitated, leading to another loss.
Henry Flower: Thought process?
cathysong31: My spells were on cooldown, so I tried to help. A knight doesn’t let her companions shoulder the burden alone!
Henry Flower: For assistive damage, a spear is safer and quicker.
Battered Daisy: We don’t use spears...
Henry Flower: Thought process?
Brain Flea: The sword is the master of the battlefield!
The next match ended when Dan was apprehended by the opposing Fighter and thrown using
-Danontherightwing: Shoot!
-august rode in: Soaring with the grace of a swallow.
-Battered Daisy: Dan,
-Danontherightwing: Really? Thanks, Ninja Sis!
When their Stamina was exhausted, Henry led Team Friendship Forever! and the B-Boyz to a tent he’d arranged for by the arena's side to hasten recovery between matches. Inside, the air was cooled by enchanted ice-sculptures, a buffet had been set up with monster-meat dishes, craftsmen waited to patch their gear, and a gang of street urchins ran around swatting any blowflies that dared enter.
His friends were shocked.
“What the hell?"
Henry grabbed a Werebasilisk taco and threw himself into a cow-sized bean-bag. “Yes, even in hell, I refuse to be uncomfortable.”
“Can you afford this?”
“Of course. I’m filthy rich.”
Then, they went back out to suffer the next loss.
Dan smashed his face vaulting a fence...
Cathy stopped to heal a random friend from another team she’d made during her trip...
Anderson tripped on his silk robes...
Brian pranked Cathy by zapping her with a
The relentless losing to noobs could have been disheartening, but new teams were expected to fail at first since a high-level of teamwork was needed to coordinate spell timings while also swinging and dodging weapons. While an exception could be made for a squad composed of geniuses, Team Friendship Forever! wasn't that. Henry’s friends were regular folk, neither gifted nor stunted – talent-wise; their tactics were the worst he’d encountered ever.
They did have one redeeming quality, though, which was an imperviousness to the visceral humiliation of being beaten up, a trait developed by weeks under the misguidance of the Roleplaying Crusader.
It seemed that no matter how much they stuffed their belly with losses, they always thrust out their bowl afterwards and huffed, "Give us another loss!"
"But, Team Friendship Forever!, you've already eaten 43 losses. Why not change things up with a bite of quiet reflection on your top 3 most frequent errors to avoid them in the future? It'll strengthen your bones."
"No reflection; only loss!"
When the flavour of losing to The B-Boyz grew stale, it was sufficient merely to switch sparring partners. So they lost to crustpunks, Michael Jackson impersonators, Italian gangsters with thick Australian accents, an all-girl squad of zombie cheerleaders, club-wielding anarcho-primitivists...
On the bright side, Henry did manage to slip in the occasional word of advice to deprogram them of Justinian’s brainwashing. His efforts were somewhat counteracted by the Crusader himself marching up every now and then to give an explanation for their losses totally uncorrelated with how they’d lost. Nevertheless, the group did improve slowly. Very slowly.
Henry's final assessment. Despite their mediocrity, half the month having been wasted learning self-defeating tactics, and their total aversion to structured training, he was confident that he could manipulate and mould Team Friendship Forever! into semi-decent shape. A truly satisfactory level was beyond their grasp, but enough to beat the other Suchi scrubs and claim victory in the 6v6? That was certainly achievable, and it might make for a good laugh.