Chapter 19 – The Front Lines
It was almost three weeks later that their trainer was satisfied with how the squad performed on their fights on the third floor. This didn’t mean that they could go on to the fourth floor, no, it meant that they were going on a road trip to the front lines. There they could see how the legions defended the continent from the undead hordes. They might even learn a thing or two about fighting against the odds.
Sam had improved a lot in those three weeks, managing to gain thirteen levels. She put the thirteen statpoints evenly across all her stats, as she still wanted to improve her foundation. Thus she gave every stat one point, except endurance and luck, which each got three points and charisma which got two. She had also gained a lot of levels in her skills, mostly due to the constant training and fighting.
Name: Samantha ‘Sam’ Bello
Age: 24
Statpoints: 0
Pending skills: 0
Class: Legionary recruit level 8
Skill: Shields level 8
Skill: Short Swords level 9
Skill: Discipline level 3
Skill: Practice makes perfect level 4
Skill: Physical training level 4
General Skills:
Language - level 1
Identify - level 2
Running - level 2
Knife – level 4
Grab - level 1
Slash - level 11
Stab - level 9
Acrobatics – level 3
Special Skills:
War Machine - lvl 1
Weapon Specialist - lvl 1
Natural Fighter - lvl 1
Status:
Str: 13 Int: 11
Agi: 13 Wis: 8
Vit: 13 Cha: 5
End: 13 Luc: 10
Health: 130/130
Stamina: 130/130
Mana: 110/110
This still only gave her a total of 81 statpoints, way lower than the others. Jasper even boasted that he had already managed to get over a hundred and fifty points. The others would only tell her that they were above the one hundred mark.
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The journey would take them about four days to get to the closest fortifications. During these four days their trainer kept teaching them about life on the front lines.
“So, what can you tell me about the situation of the front lines, Jasper?”
“Well, we have a big ass wall, which holds the undead at bay. Meanwhile the soldiers stationed on top will attack the undead to thin them out.”
“WRONG! The wall doesn’t do shit to hold back the undead. The legions are the real wall. The fortifications are only there to slow them down so our soldiers can kill them. Having the wall means that they can’t sneak past us to ravage the land. It’s all about having an advantageous position. Now tell me Erik, how do we station our troops on the wall?”
“Well, there are three different places where the undead can come south. These are separated by the lakes. Normally the undead can’t pass the water, so there are only some watchtowers on the south shore of the lakes.”
“Yes, but I want to know about de positions of our soldiers.”
“Okay, we have three legions stationed to hold back the undead, one at each land bridge. These are separated into cohorts and centuries. Each mile of the wall is defended by two centuries of the legion, with one on duty while the other is off duty. Behind the lines is a third century for every two miles of the wall, ready to either be reinforcements, or to take over the wall duty.”
“Right, Sam, state the nature of a century.”
“Each century is made up of one hundred and twenty soldiers who have a minimum of 200 statpoints. This is the minimum amount they need to be promoted, though most are higher. They are led by a centurion, who is at least level 50, and has at least a thousand statpoints.”
“Correct. Now then, continue your explanation Erik.”
“So, like I said, every two miles has five centuries. This means ten centuries for every four miles, which completes one cohort. These have a tribune to command them. Then there is the legate who commands from the fortress.”
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“Good enough. Tia, state the minimum requirements of the legates and tribunes.”
“A tribune has at least twenty five hundred statpoints, and the legates have even more. No one knows exactly how strong the commanders of the legions are.”
“Correct, but remember, these are the minimum requirements, but not the only ones. Not everyone who has a drive to improve his or her statpoints is qualified to lead, so it’s not always the strongest people who command. This is apparent in the recruit phase, as there are five levels of recruits, for every one hundred statpoints. Thus a recruit of the fifth level, could be just as strong as a weak centurion.”
They march on in silence for a while, until the trainer once more decides to add to their knowledge.
“As some of you know, the undead attack non-stop. This is the reason that even though our soldiers are way stronger individually, we need to rotate our troops quite often to keep them from being overwhelmed. The low leveled undead attack nonstop. Mid leveled undead attack four times a day. Strong undead attack twice, and elites attack once a day.
This is the normal way they attack. During winter the attacks are double the normal rate. Then every ten year there is an attack lead by a legendary undead. We surmise that this is due to the time it takes the necromancer to summon his more powerful minions.”
Having imparted all the knowledge he wants to share for now, the trainer stays silent. The rest of the trip he keeps offering advice tot the recruits, but only on individual basis.
Trainer Quincy has a lot to think about while marching towards the front lines. Nine years ago he was one of the centurions defending the walls. Then one of those big legendary undead attacked. Within moments half his command was just gone, and the rest were injured or dying. As the strongest combatant of his command, possibly of the entire cohort, he opted to attack the weaker undead to safe as many of his men as he could. Meanwhile the big undead left to attack the other centuries nearby. It took the others almost three hours to take down the undead monster, and it cost them hundreds of lives to do so.
Quincy managed to hold back most of the lower undead on his own for another hour after that, saving twenty one of his men in the process. When he had finally gotten reinforcements to hold the walls, he had spent all of his strength and collapsed for two days.
Eventually he was told that while he held back most of the undead, pockets of them managed to get through and ravaged the surrounding area. Five villages were lost before the legions managed to hunt all of them down. It was a disaster of epic proportions, and as the commanding officer of the century on duty he had gotten a lot of the blame. Add to that the fact that he might have killed the undead monster on his own, if he had let his men die, and his fate was sealed. The fact that some of his men survived and that he had managed to hold the line mostly on his own only did a little to improve the opinions of the higherups. He had been demoted to a soldier, with a permanent mark on his record that he would never command in the legions again. Nine years later he had only managed to get himself appointed as trainer for the new recruits, to hopefully make sure that they would be ready when the next one came.