10 days remain of contest A, Friday.

The boulder crashes down the narrow approach, flattening NPCs and a couple players. It misses the wagons with the creatures on them and thunders past the main column which managed to move to the side.

“Kian, why are you doing this?” I whisper as I watch one of our defenses fail thanks to his inside information. They had sent forward scouts up to kill the NPCs whose job it was to pry the boulders loose. Kian does not know about the explosives in the approach canyon, but I am sure he can guess. We had discussed the defense of the keep as one of its main selling points.

The attack column begins the hike up the narrow mountain pass. They are dragging two covered wagons with what look like the huge oxen from the plain. The oxen appear to be straining themselves, so whatever they are pulling in those wagons is heavy. I try to guess what they are pulling up the side of our mountain and cannot come up with even the slightest idea. I have a feeling that, no matter, I will not like whatever it is.

I make my rounds quickly and check on everyone, I see Sauce in the courtyard waving and make my way down to him. My tombstone backpiece makes me easy to spot.

I wonder why I haven’t seen anyone else with a backpiece?

“Is it time?” asks Sauce.

I nod and see him light an arrow on a brazier, pull back his bow, and silently loose the flaming projectile. It follows an arc that quickly carries it out of my line of sight, over the wall.

An explosion and shaking of the earth rock the fortress. Back up the stairs and at the top of the wall, I see a cloud of dust and fire below. However, we didn’t get the wagons—they were still too far down the mountain. The entire front lines of the army were buried and they will need to dig the approach out if they want to get those wagons up here. This buys us some time. Not much, but a little.

Walking back through the courtyard I notice my little crew of rogues, the Falling Knives, waiting for me near the portal stone. I motion with a finger to give me a minute.

“That’s what I am talking about!” Sauce yells and high-fives Dignity, clearly excited about something. He sees my confusion and says, “I just killed 32 players with one explosion.”

“Oh wow, you got the notifications for all of those—”

“Wait, didn’t you kill 50 people in the starting area all at the same time?”

“You got that tombstone on your back that keeps the story going. Everyone knows about it and thinks it is pretty awesome,” he says, laughing. “We don’t get the PK status in war zones though, so I don’t have to worry about being saddled with one.” He turns, looks, and fires an arrow and a figure falls from the wall. “Bam! Take that, spy.”

I leave Sauce to his raining death and see that we will have all the supplies needed for the defense. I check the alchemy station and pick up some packages I had made for me and the Falling Knives. We are still able to portal-stone out, which is a key point in why we want to get the attackers stuck in the mountain approach. I quickly purchase enough five-minute portal stones for each of us, and then go and hand out the stones and the alchemy packages as we form up the party.

“Be careful with those. If you drop one, it can blow up everything,” I say, spreading my hands wide. They nod and we all wrap cloaks tight and transfer to the Qeynos Catacombs portal.

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Arriving in the cave we immediately spread out. The location has not been found by our enemies and still has the NPC guards keeping watch. We exit the cave in darkness, into the valley on foot. Leaping through the shadows before summoning our mounts, dark windswept horses that step from deep shadows and shake light off. We thunder across the plains kicking up dust in our haste. Approaching the war zone we can see the torches of the [Art of War], far up on the side of the mountain, in the distance.

On the long ride, I keep my eye on the chats to see what is going on publicly. There are some people who are following the war party and keeping the public channels apprised of what is going on, but I don’t know how accurate it is. We need to get close enough that I can use Morrigan to fly over and check. Then we can take out whatever is in the wagons and mess up their efforts in general.

At the base of the approach, I spy one of the narrow cracks that the spies use as paths to move around on the mountain. I signal two of the Falling Knives to a crack on the other side. We split up and keep voice communications open. I am with one of the Falling Knives named McStabface. As we approach, I give him instructions for rigging up the lower entrance of the mountain approach.

We move farther up, and I pause and switch my vision to Morrigan from high above. Below her, I can see the war column on the approach and the two wagons. There is a large contingent that is working to clear the path, they are nearly done. We are going to have to move fast if we want to give them pause here. I can see the occasional flaming arrow land. Everyone watches as Sauce creatively taunts them in the local chat channel. Strangely, I don’t see Josie, Kian, or Briar anywhere here.

In the inky darkness I slide out from a narrow crack behind a bush. Slipping into the enemy ranks, stealing between the shadows, spooking mounts and brushing past the legs of NPCs, I move quickly to the wagons. I get to the far side where there are no players watching and I look under the cover of the nearest wagon. They are large tanks, which appear to be carrying water. I climb up farther to look into the tank. Peering in I am even more confused, it is just water. There is nothing else in it, just strange-smelling water.

Is this … swamp water?

I don’t know why they would want this to siege our fortress, but I am going to destroy it. I notice on my map overlay that one of the Falling Knives is on the other tank of water, attaching an explosive. I start to ask him if his tank is also only water, but I hear a commotion.

“Hey, what is that?” Then, much more loudly, “A spy over here!” And the war column boils with knives and torches, surging. I place my bomb and I scurry over to see a mob of players trying to squeeze into one of the cracks in the walls my rogue went safely into. But the jig is up—it’s time to turn this into a real war.

“Light em up!” I say in voice chat.

I light the bomb on the tank and then one of the bombs inside my pack. I throw the entire pack farther up the busy canyon and I move as fast as I can back to my crevasse. I see other packs flying, landing amidst the enemy. Once at the crevasse I move farther into the rock as the ground lifts with the explosions, the packs, the tanks, the whole side of the mountain shudders with each blast.

The water from the tanks begins pouring into the cracks in the mountain. I am forced to climb higher to not be swept away. I can hear the NPCs and the players screaming back in the canyon. I move to an outcropping of rock that has a decent view of the approach and climb to the top. I notice that the water is all over the side of the mountain, and in the dark of night it has made the air cold and smell like decay.

“Be careful, guys,” I say in voice chat. “Something is going on with this gross water.”

There is a wind that blows in, and with it a quiet fog that dampens sound. It feels magical—there was something about those tanks full of water. Then I see them—creatures of dirt, vine, and darkness climbing up out of the clefts and crevasse of the steep and rocky approach. Everywhere they touch is covered in slime and sprouts plants. I watch them attack the NPCs and the players as they are running down the hill. One player, a creature chasing him, runs into where we had placed some booby—

The explosion at the base of the mountain looks like a firework that half went off. It shoots flaming chunks of players and swamp goop all over, and then there is another explosion, and still another.

Not wanting to have that swamp water touch me, I move closer up the mountain to the fortress. We need to regroup and see what is going on, I set a point on the map for the Falling Knives to find me.

“Hey, guys, meet on my map point and let’s head back,” I say in party chat.

We lose two party members to the swamp, but the rest make it. I fire up a five-minute portal and appear back in the courtyard.

“Good job keeping that goop away from the fortress,” Sauce says with a half-smile. “But we have bigger problems now. I heard over chat that they wanted to let that stuff sit and rot the walls and gate over the next day. Then they could just come and walk into here Sunday. Apparently, they are still preparing the main invasion.”

… they are still preparing the main invasion.

“That stuff is still all over the mountain, but yea it is way too close to the gate for comfort. Well, I’m going to try to catch some sleep, but I’ll have my headset on so Simon can ping me if anything happens,” I say, trying not to let it show that I am rattled.

“I’ll do the same,” he says and we log off.