Allen let the night air carry her thoughts, birds and insects orchestrated an ambient symphony while she sat on the hard wood chair and thought about what happened not an hour earlier, with the gun talking while doing her job.
Placing it on her knees she caressed the grizzled stock and pooled her mana into it, finding a seemingly bottomless pit for mana storage she increased the push and met no resistance until she tried to cut the current and could almost feel the greedy teeth trying to force more mana out of her, "enough", she commanded and cut the flow completely.
"Whatcha got there Chess?", The baritone voice if a rider startled Allen from her reverie, "feels like you're tryin to summon some arch demon on us with all that mana raucous your causing"
"Ain't none o' yer business Yuda bugger off", came the gruff reply from her other side, "just minor cteachin some cantrips to the rookie here and she ain't got control for whack zinch"
"My shift, my problems you bastard", Allen made out a face in the dark as the person leaned closer, "stop that nonsense now and don't let the newbie cast spells in a skirmish if that's her level of control" vanishing back into the night.
"Yeah" Chess said after a while, "probably best if you don't do that again during the night", shrugging a chill, "we ain't wanna bring any more trouble than our share for this bit of road we got to cross".
Focusing on her one job, meaning only looking at the dim lit road between them and Mot's wagon was starting to take it's toll and Allen was resting her eyes when she heard "here they come" which startled her into crying "what", waking up Chess.
"What is it?" The blurry man replied, only to hear her say "I don't know" and staring at her, "you got some detection skills girl?" He enquired before turning back to the road.
"I just heard someone say 'here they come', probably just dreaming", trying to diffuse the tension, "though I probably shouldn't have told you that".
Laughing he slapped the back of her head, "probably shouldn't have", giving her another pat on her back, "but no shame in being human", scratching his beard he added, "though with this being a simulation we should probably listen to it", raising his head Chess called "heads up Yuda, got something brewing here, come get yer ales".
Shrill whistles cut through the quiet night and in seconds the sky bloomed with various fire and light spells, revealing the silhouettes of mounted ambushers against the darkness.
Caught off guard, the enemy rushed to engage. Taking the reigns in both hands Chess reminded Allen of her one job and she focused on her field of fire.
Out in the dark she could hear the clash of melee weapons and see flashes of light from spells and guns, casting strange shadows of men and women struggling ending in seconds, shifting all around, when the furst man entered her marked field she pulled the trigger and heard the soft "bang, reload, aim" hearing someone dropping to the ground just befor the whole wagon lurched and righted itself back on the road reminded her that just like her job was to watch Mot's back, someone was wathching over her, by the time they were back on the track there were already three people climbing the other cart, so she aimed to the one almost reaching the top and pulled the trigger.
"Bada boom bayey", the gun said and with a loud bang and a flash of fire all three characters were flung off at the same time to her exclamation of "what the hell?", but time was acting against her search for answers and a man charged right up to her with a drawn sword before a rider from their guards smashed into them throwing off their balance right under the wheels and bumping her up and down again.
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"ROUNDABOUT LEFT", Came a cry echoing down the line of wagons and repeated by Mot, then Chess and then farther away behind them, suddenly Mot veered off to the left and Chess did the same, "turn right girly, sorry I didn't drill you on this before but your field is now 180 off the wagon walls, don't worry though, plenty of overlap with Terry and Monk, also Nana has a full crew including a sniper and machine gun so just pick the ones in your main field and try to help where you can".
It was the longest sentence the man ever said but as Allen shifted her pose the green overlap changed and now covered the whole area in front of her with some deeper shades of green and a few dark green silhouettes marking her allies and overlaps.
Her first victim of the new post got hit with a "bang" when they tried to sneak on one of the guards, the steady motion of the wagon was disorienting as it didn't conform to the fighting figures around them, focusing on one skirmish just made her lean too far and almost fall when she tried to see behind the bend of the roundabout formation, pulling herself together she started to just randomly aim and fire at orange and red silhouettes crossing her line of sight.
Standing up to get a wider angle of motion she found herself prioritising the slower moving but far more numerous footmen when light flashed and she felt pain blossoming in her abdomen, almost throwing her off the front rail before Chess steadied her with his beefy arm.
Hearing "quarters inner backabout" being passed between the drivers meant nothing to her but Chess jerked the reigns in a swerving motion before another cart passed in front of them followed by another and another, pain shot through Allen crushing her distracted mind back to reality where an enemy just slashed her now useless arm to the bone, crying out her terror and frustration she smashed the gun on the smirking enemy's face and drove him off his precarious position.
"Healer" she heard Mot crying in her dazed state as she sat back down, a rider pulled over to their side with an entourage, casting a healing and refreshing spell before moving on, Allen fealt numb when she took her post again, detached from the input her virtual body sent to her virtual mind, "aim", "fire", "reload", she followed simple commands to do her one job with BoomBoy following each "fire" with a smarmy "bang".
Throat dry and hands numb, enemies kept pouring into her field of vision from the dark, all she could do was aim and pull the trigger leaning against the wagon post for support, when a rider was surrounded by too many enemies she picked them off one by one before the scene vanished with the motion of the carts noticing some of them falling before she could shoot them reminded her she was not alone, bolstering her hope, knowing the rider would still get help.
An endless stream of enemies, coming in and falling out of her highlighted area, she could never hit all of them so she prioritized, hitting those closest to the wagons, then those clambering at the riders, the constant movement didn't let her count them and it seemed like a never ending tide of baddies getting closer with every revolution of the roundabout.
A red flash caught her off guard appearing almost in melee range, forcing her to aim low and feeling her arms shaking when she tries to put the gun back in firing position, finally giving up on the posture and just shooting in a low post, hitting only one in three shots before giving up and slinging her gun to let her arms rest, eyes still scanning the scene but without the focus on aiming she spotted something peculiar, more than half of the attackers seemed to just pass through obstacles, riders and even other attackers, vanishing and emerging again in another spot.
"Illusions" she mumbled her stray thoughts and it took her almost a minute to find the difference between real enemies and fake, when a real enemy was hit a dozen illusionary one would rush to it or appear at the same place, letting them move away from danger and probably getting treatments by spells to join the battle once more.
The game marked the illusions with no distinction from the others, which meant she couldnt trust the marks at all unless someone took out the illusionist, it was a beautiful application of a none damaging spell in combat, but one she didn't have time to appreciate raising her gun, aiming, making sure the target was real and shooting it.