Day 5
The West Gate
5:00 P.M.
Eska stepped into Tantalus’s office. She was holding a large accordion binder filled with papers which were, mercifully, written in English. To describe her physically, Eska had medium-length light brown hair, which she wore in a bun. She had the light blue eyes and the kind of facial structure that Tantalus thought made her look like she was from eastern Europe. Eska wasn’t dressed in her uniform. Instead, she wore a formal woman’s suit with a black blazer, a tight black skirt, and high heels. In accordance with a recent law unilaterally passed by the Duke, Eska also wore a blue armband pinned to the sleeve of her blazer. The “humans of Osiris” had a “vested interest in differentiating between Revenants and humans,” so Revenants out of uniform were now required to wear either a blue armband or scarf.
A small chair had been set up on the other side of Tantalus’s desk for Eska’s use. She spent much of her time sitting there, looking over the forms submitted by dozens of other soldiers within the Osirian Revenant Division. Eska had a lot of work in those first few days because there was a lot of work that Tantalus didn't want to do.
Eska spent much of her time acting as a liaison between Captain Tantalus and Colonel Dozok. Tantalus couldn’t be certain if this was because the Colonel hated Tantalus or liked Eska. Either way, Tantalus was happy to spend as much time as possible away from his nominal superior.
“Here are the final troop numbers on tomorrow’s assault,” Eska said, passing a stack of papers over the desk. “They’re about the best we could hope for.”
Tantalus reached over and took the papers from Eska. “They’re already in English,” he said. “Did you translate them?”
“Yes,” Eska said.
“Thank you,” Tantalus said genuinely. “I can’t begin to explain how much help you’ve been over these past few days.”
“Thank you, sir,” Eska smiled at the unexpected compliment.
“You’re free to go,” Tantalus said, looking down at the translated papers. “Sleep up and prepare for the operation tomorrow.”
“I think I will, Captain,” Eska said. “What are you going to do before tomorrow?”
“Read through this,” Tantalus gestured to the papers, “and visualize possible scenarios for the operation. The usual stuff.”
“Captain,” Eska looked concerned, “I don’t think you’ve had more than eight hours to yourself ever since the second day. You need a break much more than me.”
“Is that right?” Tantalus muttered, stroking the five days of stubble that had accumulated on his face.
“I won’t tell you to do anything. I just recommend that you take a long break once you’re done reading those papers.” Eska said this before turning her back and leaving the office.
“See you tomorrow, Captain,” Eska said just before she walked out the door.
“See ya, Lieutenant,” Tantalus said as she left.
Tantalus thought over what Eska had said and, more importantly, how she had said it. He really needed a break or, at least, a shave. Tantalus knew that his room at Hotel Acheron had shaving cream and a razor, but he had been much too tired to use it over the past few days. He had fallen into the habit of flopping into bed and immediately falling asleep after coming back from his sixteen-hour shifts.
Tantalus looked down at the papers at his desk. They had been organized in a sort of analogue Excel spreadsheet where all of the troop numbers had to be handwritten. In the back of Tantalus’s mind, he figured that this must have been the way it was done in the past. It seemed frightfully inefficient to him. The Revenants would have to invent computers as soon as possible. Sure, the BloodNet was fine, but it didn’t come with a phone, a calculator, a calendar, or a video editor. So many of the things Tantalus had taken for granted in the Old World were simply not present in Ferrum.
The document on Tantalus’s desk contained the following information:
Total active-duty Revenants (Major General Dogwood): 3,894.
Alpha Company (Captain Ashcroft): 190.
Mike Company (Captain Mander): 587.
Tango Company (Captain Tantalus): 324.
Militia (Captain Cordelia): 2,793.
It seemed that 39% had signed up to join the Osirian Revenant Division. This was slightly better than Tantalus had expected, even with the threat of the Mark of the Outlaw. Granted, about 75% of these were support positions, but Tantalus and the other Revenant officers had been clear that even support soldiers would be in danger. In the event of a counterattack, the support soldiers could very easily be forced to defend themselves.
The document then went on to list the squad leaders and support officers within each military unit. Cordelia’s group, the militia, took up the most space by far. There were ten people in each militia squad, so there were 279 squad leaders. The “militia” was created by Tantalus to hold all people who were willing to fight but weren’t necessary for the defense of the Gates.
Tantalus had planned out the attack, but he could never come up with a sufficient solution regarding what he would do with several thousand untrained gamers with rifles. It was very possible that people militia squads with zero valuable training could be forced to engage with Deluvians. If at all possible, he would like the soldiers under the direct command of himself, Ashcroft, or Mander to be the first to engage, but the troop movement would be so significant that he could not protect its vulnerable sides with so few trained soldiers.
It was a problem without a solution, Tantalus knew. After a few pointless minutes of worrying, he stood up from his seat and left his office.
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Hotel Acheron loomed above Tantalus as he parked his red pickup truck in its large, empty parking lot. A large neon sign declared the hotel’s name in Iron Script:
ꦫ’ꦑꦲ꦳’ꦦꦗ
Now that Tantalus knew the basics of Iron Script, he found the sign quite entertaining. If you were to translate the hotel’s name directly to English letters, you would get: A’kr’ahn. Tantalus supposed that this was technically a simpler way to write words, but he had difficulty getting his head around it.
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He stepped out of his car and entered the dark, gaslit lobby of his hotel. Inside, he was surprised to find all ten Revenants of Squads T1 and T2. The four support officers of Tango Company - Eska, Kuro, Cadmium, and Riemann - were also present.
“Hey Captain!” Redgrave was the first person to shout. His call was soon echoed by several other people in the room. “We were just about to head out to a bar in the north district, you wanna come?”
Tantalus could immediately tell that they had been waiting for him. Gator had probably sent out a message when he left the West Gate a few minutes earlier.
“We have a major military operation tomorrow,” Tantalus scolded. “I don’t want to be hungover when I’m supposed to be commanding thousands of soldiers.”
“You know how Riemann’s been working on anti-poison spells?” Redgrave asked.
“I don’t like where this is going,” Tantalus muttered.
“If you can believe it, he’s found a spell that completely negates the effects of alcohol and hangover,” Redgrave said, completely ignoring Tantalus’s sentence. “Finally, the magic system has a use."
“Aren’t half of you underage?” Tantalus muttered at a volume which almost no one could hear. Naturally, they ignored him.
Before he knew it, Tantalus was being pulled into a car by a bunch of excited young people. Most of them had never experienced, at least not legally, a night out drinking. Their anxiety before the battle only increased their excitement.
The excitement was contagious, and Tantalus could not stop himself from smiling in the back of that SUV.
Northern Osiris
Tantalus looked out the window of the SUV as the buildings they were driving passed became steadily more decrepit and rundown. They had already passed over the Chasm and were a few blocks into the northern district. This part of town was Ashcroft’s territory. There weren’t many opportunities for Tantalus to travel this far north. Just about all of the High Command meetings took place in the Ducal Palace or the Central Military Base. After the first day, most of these meetings were led by General Dogwood, the technical commanding officer of the ORD, and the General wanted to hold the meetings in places he was familiar with.
The SUV held all of Squad T1 with the addition of the Greycloak's Chief of Staff, Eska. Redgrave and Grim sat in the front seats, Eska and Tantalus sat in the middle seats, and Elias and Synth sat in the back seats.
“So,” Tantalus eyed Eska, “I suppose this is your idea of a break?”
“It’s not a crime to have a good time, now, is it?” Eska responded.
“I suppose not,” Tantalus said, deciding that agreeing would be easier than continuing to argue.
Soon, the SUV pulled into a parking lot that was very nearly at capacity. In the distance, Tantalus could see a wooden barricade that completely blocked the road. A steady stream of Revenants passed into and out of the cordoned-off area through small gaps in the wall just big enough to allow Revenants through.
The Revenants dismounted and soon joined a small trickle of other players who were heading toward the area within the barricade.
“What’s this?” Tantalus asked casually. Though his words did not seem to carry any particular significance, his mind was active. From where Tantalus stood, he could see a few Revenants standing atop the wooden barricade. High walls, long sight lines, narrow entrances. Tantalus was looking at a military fortification.
“It’s just a little place Ashcroft has been working on since he took command of the North Gate,” Redgrave said. “Apparently, this neighborhood was completely abandoned after the Deluge started a month ago. The Knights moved in, set up the barricades, and started fixing up the buildings inside. Ashcroft calls it ‘Elysium.’”
Tantalus considered the handiwork of the wooden barricade. It was essentially composed of a single thin wooden fence which had been reinforced with whatever furniture and debris that could be found within the surrounding area.
Once through the narrow entrance way, Tantalus saw the inside of the barricade. From the inside, a number of solid three-feet-long wooden boxes had been placed against the fence. One could fairly easily climb onto one of the boxes, and the fence would be at about shoulder-level. As such, one could then shoot over the fence. As far as a rudimentary fortification created in a short period of time, the Elysium barricade was okay.
The area within the barricade was significantly larger than Tantalus had expected. Contained within Elysium were eight large structures and a central stage much like the one back at the park. It was clear that the Revenants had taken significant efforts to repair all of the buildings contained within Elysium. They didn’t look pretty, but they certainly looked sturdy. The stage area had clearly once been a building which had since been completely demolished. Lighting and sound systems had been installed around the stage, and a band of some kind was setting up in the center of the stage. Tantalus could not make out the members at that distance, but he could see a drum set, a microphone, an electric guitar, and a bass guitar.
Redgrave led the group to one of the structures. This building seemed to contain the greatest number of Revenants. On the side of the repaired building was a sign that read “Six Shooter” in English. An image of a revolver’s cylinder with six shots was painted next to this sign.
The doors of the Six Shooter had been knocked off and replaced with saloon doors that remained in a perpetual swinging state as dozens of Revenants walked in and out of the establishment.
“Oh, I see the appeal now,” Tantalus said as he was ushered into the old-timey saloon.
The inside of the Six Shooter closely resembled a Wild West saloon. A single long bar stood at the far side of the interior, and about a dozen circular tables were scattered around the bar’s floorplan. An interior balcony area looked over the bar’s central seating area, though no one was up there at the moment.
Behind the bar, there was a man who was pouring whiskey into a glass. Once a generous serving of a golden-brown liquor had been dispensed, the bartender wrote something in a ledger. It must have been the tab of the man he was serving. The bartender wore a blue armband, marking him as an out-of-uniform Revenant. The armband was unnecessary, however, because the bartender carried a revolver in a holster at his hip.
The saloon had a kind of rustic quality that reminded Tantalus of his childhood home in Georgia. He figured that many of the Revenants felt the same way when walking into the saloon. The Six Shooter Bar harkened back to the Wild West, the very core of the American consciousness. In a city so thoroughly controlled by the NPCs, this bar was the only thing that was fully controlled by the players. At least, that’s how Tantalus felt.
They all found seats at the bar wherever they could. Redgrave was sitting to Tantalus’s left, and Eska was sitting to his right.
“What’s on tap?” Redgrave asked as he pulled out a hundred Ren bill.
“Don’t know,” the bartender grunted. “I can’t read the bottles. You can order vodka, bourbon, Scotch whiskey, or beer. None of it tastes exactly right, but pick one of those, and I’ll get ya something that resembles it.”
“A shot of vodka,” Tantalus said, sliding a hundred Ren to the bartender.
“You’re one of the captains, right?” the bartender asked as he poured.
Tantalus put a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. “I’m just here to get drunk like everybody else.”
Just as the bartender passed a shot glass filled with a clear liquid over to Tantalus, Squad T2 entered the saloon. The five girls looked around at the inside of the saloon with either interest or disappointment.
Tantalus took his drink and stood up from the bar. The now eleven-person party pushed three tables together to fit everyone in the same place. The newcomers all ordered their drinks and opened their tabs before sitting down.
Tantalus looked down at the clear liquid in front of him. He hadn’t yet drunk alcohol in his new one-hundred-and-forty-pound body. As far as he knew, this outing could very well be a short one.