November 2, 2022

Day 13

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Three hawks dove in and swooped at Rahul, attacking him from as many directions.

Rahul dodged to his left, and the two hawks diving in from his front and right crashed into each other. The one attacking from his left rammed into his raised shield beak first.

Just as the dazed hawk started falling to the floor, Rahul's stabbed his knife into the hawk's chest, all the way to it's heart.

You have killed a Level 10 Hawaiian Hawk. 100 experience earned.

The two hawks that crashed into each other were an entangled mess, and never got a chance to free themselves. Rahul's knife slashed across their necks with practiced ease, and 2 more notifications greeted him.

You have killed a Level 10 Hawaiian Hawk. 100 experience earned.

You have killed a Level 10 Hawaiian Hawk. 100 experience earned.

In the meantime, a different hawk had carefully repositioned itself behind Rahul and dove into him in a fluid motion, launching a stealthy attack.

Or so it thought.

The motions, attack patterns and tactics of the hawks were predictable, choreographed and primitive. And every time Rahul was dealing with multiple enemies, some hawk will have the completely novel idea to try an unprecedented strategy - a strike from behind.

Rahul had faced that exact same attack so many times that he had gotten a bit cocky.

So, instead of dodging the blow or turning around and dealing with the attack head on, Rahul just sidestepped and moved his knife to stab at the spot where the nape of his neck was a moment before. He was rewarded with a notification as the hawk impaled itself on his knife.

You have killed a Level 11 Hawaiian Hawk. 110 experience earned.

Was it still cocky if it worked? It certainly felt very heroic. Rahul mused to himself, at the same time noticing that no more hawk attacks were forthcoming. That must have been the last of this swarm. Time to find another one.

So, he looked around to find another swarm of hawks to target. On finding one of appropriate size, he blasted them with half a dozen fireballs, and readied himself.

…

Three hours ago, the eight grieving warriors had charged at the hawks with a hundred sentinels following close behind. They wreaked havoc on the birds with their mindless fury, their strikes fueled by anger, their swings powerful enough to bisect the hawks into two.

However, the problem with that mindless fury soon became apparent. As much as the strikes were fueled by emotions, every blow still depleted stamina by 10 to 15 points, and soon they were running on empty.

Once that happened, it was the sentinels that slaughtered the hawks while the group watched. During that time, Daniel realised that the sentinels gained no experience from killing hawks, and they were letting a experience farming opportunity go to waste. Greed overcame their anger, and even Rahul admitted that while they didn’t need a strategy to defeat the hawks, they needed one to make the most of the opportunity.

So, Daniel ordered the sentinels to stand by within the hall in a defensive formation, protecting them while they recovered their stamina and came up with the best ways for the eight of them to exterminate the avian population on their own.

Once their stamina was recovered, the team experimented with various strategies. The one they finally settled on was one based on the principle of dynamite fishing, where an explosive is used to kill schools of fish to catch them easily and en-masse.

In this case, the hawks were the fishes, and fireballs did the job of dynamite. Unfortunately, the fireballs hurled by Rahul and his team weren’t powerful enough to kill the birds without concerted effort by the whole team. That didn't mean the fireballs were useless. A few fireballs striking a swarm was enough to cause panic and drive the birds into a frenzy.

In that frenzy, some hawks fled, but most attacked without thought or reservation. These attacks were exceptionally reckless, devoid of any coordination, and easily predictable. This was exactly what the team needed, as they could now easily kill the delirious birds without taking any substantial damage in return.

And so, Rahul and his team started an endless loop - choose a swarm of hawks, hurl fireballs at them, kill any birds that retaliate, repeat. Before long, depending on their melee proficiency, they were all taking on entire swarms of hawks either solo or in groups of two, raking in tons of experience.

…

After a few more hours, even that seemingly endless loop came to an end.

As Rahul cleaned up another swarm of hawks, he looked around and didn't find anything more than a few odd hawks flying about in isolation. He came to the regrettable realisation that they had killed almost all the hawks they could, and the fight would have to move beyond the courtyard now.

However, the wholesale slaughter of the hawks had done its job. In sharp contrast to what had happened within the hall just hours ago, this time Rahul’s mood had improved with every hawk he killed. He was feeling a whole lot better now that the population of hawks had been culled to almost nothing.

And there were other gains too. Rahul had advanced to level 9 and was more than halfway to level 10.

28330/50000 experience to the next level.

The longer the fight went on, the more Rahul felt that the albatrosses were the brains of the avian bastion and the hawks were just the brawn .

Perhaps calling any of those birds the brains of the operation was giving them too much credit. Still, Rahul was almost certain that the mental attack that had brought the entire settlement to a halt was because of some skill those albatrosses had.

So, when Rahul went to Daniel to discuss taking on the albatrosses, his impatience was obvious.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“We’ve hunted all the hawks we could. The albatrosses have been hovering outside the walls for hours now, waiting their turn. Why don't we oblige them. “

Daniel didn't need any convincing and readily agreed.

“Let’s gather everyone up and climb the wall. Pick up a bow on the way. And as many arrows as you can carry. We'll rest if anyone's stamina is too low, otherwise we attack immediately. “

An almost mischievous smile formed on Daniel’s face by the time he finished his last sentence.

Between the eight of them, they must have killed thousands of hawks. Rahul realised that the experience had been as cathartic for the others as it had been for him. Good.

Thinking of what was coming next, Rahul face twisted into a devilish grin of his own. The albatrosses owed Rahul a debt of blood, and he was coming to collect.

As the team regrouped and climbed their way up to the castle's outer walls, they casually dealt with the few remaining hawks, not even pausing their conversation. Their discussions focused mostly around experience and levels, and Rahul gathered that everyone had reached level 9.

Just as they reached the rooftop, Daniel's tone turned serious and he gave everyone a warning.

“The protection of the defense shield doesn’t extend beyond these walls. We all believe that the albatrosses were behind the mental attack. So, if you topple over the wall, you would likely survive the fall, but you might be susceptible to their mental attacks. The impact of the fall could potentially snap you out of it immediately, but we know too little about that attack. Please be careful... I can't lose anyone else."

That last part Daniel whispered to himself.

The warning however, proved unnecessary. As soon as the group took their positions on the wall and readied their bows, the albatrosses started retreating from the castle walls, moving in the direction of their own bastion.

“Kill as many as you can before they move out of range” Daniel shouted.

Rahul did not need to be told. Two of his arrows were already in the air before Daniel finished his sentence.

You have killed a Level 11 Laysan Albatross. 110 experience earned.

You have killed a Level 10 Laysan Albatross. 100 experience earned.

Apparently these albatrosses were a species native to the island and were even named after it, Rahul realised as he read the notification.

But he spared no further thought for that detail, sharpening his focus on thinning the albatross population.

First he fired his low stamina variant arrows at nearby albatrosses, as rapidly as he could manage.

When the birds flew too far, he switched to firing arrows with normal stamina usage.

Finally, when the albatrosses flew even further, he pushed extra stamina into his arrows and fired them with explosive strength. These arrows could pierce through multiple enemies before they came to a halt. Alternatively, they could fly over a long range and strike at distant targets. At present, Rahul was benefiting from this second application of firing arrows with extra stamina.

Last week, Claudie had managed to figure out the trick to increasing stamina use to further empower arrows, and Rahul had immediately learned the skill from her. As Rahul expected, it was neither a new skill nor an upgrade of the Stamina Control 1 skill. Instead, it was an expansion of the scope of the skill.

Stamina Control 1 : Restrict the stamina flowing into your muscles when executing your attacks. This weakens your attacks but reduces their stamina cost.

Specialisations (1/unknown)

Trance - Significantly reduced stamina use when attacking mechanically, relying only on muscle memory and abandoning any conscious thought

Changed to

Stamina Control 1 : Exercise control over the stamina flowing into your muscles when executing your attacks. This can weaken or empower your attacks while reducing or increasing stamina cost respectively.

Specialisations (1/unknown)

Cold Trance - Significantly reduced stamina use when attacking mechanically, relying only on muscle memory and abandoning any conscious thought.

The skill description had moved away from specific mention of 'restricting' stamina use, instead opting for more general wording, i.e. 'controlling' stamina use.

The specialisation had also changed from trance to cold trance. Rahul guessed that the trance state he had entered was just one type of trance, one strongly connected with reduced stamina usage. There must also be a separate trance which probably involved a short burst of increased stamina usage instead, and now that he could increase his stamina use, he had the potential to enter that trance too. The trance name must have changed to reflect that potential.

The memory of the skill expansion brought back the realisation that Claudie was dead. Jeanette and Anand too.

In fact, every single person who had trained Rahul, everyone who had helped him with his stats and skills, they were all gone.

Rahul felt his anger return.

And as these thoughts raged within Rahul's mind, some of that fury slipped into the arrows he fired at the butchers of his settlement. Somehow, the arrows flew a bit further, the aim was somewhat truer, and they impacted slightly harder.

But before long, the birds flew well out of range, and no arrow could reach them. The entire retreat had taken place in a matter of minutes, and despite their best effort, they had managed to kill only a fraction of the albatrosses.

At the same time, every one of them had given their all to the attacks, and were running low on stamina.

So they all went back to the hall to rest and decide their next course of action. Once they were all seated comfortably on the floor, surrounded by the sentinels, Daniel shared an important revelation with the team.

“Just when the albatrosses started retreating back to their bastion, I got a system message notifying me that we can now disengage and end the attack on the Laysan Rookery. "

"Laysan Rookery, that’s apparently the name of the bastion we have been referring to as the avian bastion so far. I'm sure Mark knew that too, but for some reason decided to keep that to himself too. ”

He let that sink in, and then continued.

“When I saw that notification, I wondered if there was a way to get more information about the battle and discovered it was indeed possible. Just think about battle overview”

Rahul did, and was instantly greeted with a prompt.

Battle Overview

Battle Name

Laysan Bastion conquest of Laysan Rookery Bastion

Casus Belli

Tutorial Quest : Consolidate Your Domain

Victory reward

Laysan Rookery Bastion becomes available to be claimed by Laysan settlement

Victory condition

Defender surrenders OR Defender retreats from the island OR Defender is annihilated

Defeat condition

Attacker is annihilated

Forfeit conditions

Defender and attacker both fallback to their bastions and agree to disengage

Battle Statistics

Attacker strength

108 (8 humans and 100 sentinels)

Attacker casualties

163 (157 humans and 6 sentinels)

Defender strength

unknown

Defender casualties

5831

Actions Available

Disengage - The defenders have retreated to their bastion and sent a proposal for disengagement.

Note : Only the bastion representative can accept the disengagement proposal and forfeit the attack

The team spent the next few minutes going over the prompt, and Daniel waited patiently.

It was Maya who spoke first.

“It appears that while the defender has an option to give up their bastion and make a run for their lives, the attackers on the other hand are committed. They can't flee. The only outcome for the attacker is to either outright win the battle, or get enough of an advantage to force the opponent to propose disengagement. Or fight till total annihilation."

"That explains a lot. “ Maya concluded after a pause.

Daniel nodded and continued that thought.

“When the frogs attacked our settlement, we were the defenders. Mark must have got the option to disengage from the battle at some point, but he chose not to. That left the attackers with no choice but to keep fighting to the last frog. That explains some things but there are still a lot of questions. "

"What actually prevents the attacker from running away once they’ve initiated the battle? Why did the frogs attack us in the first place? How did Mark get a notification of the impending attack well in advance? Was the attack forced on the frogs by the system, or was it just an opportunistic strike like ours? "

Daniel waited a bit to see if anyone wanted to throw out some guesses, but soon realised that his team was getting impatient.

"Well, I guess these questions can wait. Let me ask the one that matters to us now. “

“Do we disengage or do we fight“.

That question was rhetorical of course, as Daniel already knew everyone’s answer.

It was time for another round of pest control on Laysan Island.