Jack’s explanation about Fate was more complete than what Tanya had heard before. The short version was that Fate didn’t have one overarching plan, but instead a series of small plans that frequently get tangled together. It wasn’t impossible to untangle them, but it was difficult.
The three Predictions that Jack had mentioned were: He was fated to lead a stack of eight other casters against a particular side alone, he was to be croaked by a unit with particular traits (he refused to elaborate, citing it as a combat-related order), and he was to be critical to ‘The End of Erf as we know it’. He had been recruiting an all-star list of casters for his attack for a while, and had been intending to recruit Tanya for it, as her signamancy was sufficiently murderous, apparently.
Tanya wanted to take offense to that, but she has croaked an awful lot of units personally… She rejected his offer nonetheless, as Underwhere was a side she recognized from talks with Janis about offensive date-a-mancy; the ruler was a hippiemancer, and it would likely compromise her relations with the Glade if she followed through on the offer.
Moving on, Fate was reasonably patient; free will and clever decision making can stave off Fate for a time, for thousands of turns even, but it will eventually have its due. Once Fate was done with you, you suddenly became at the mercy of Numbers, and as Kurt repeatedly emphasized: Zero always calls.
It was rather grim, when thought of in that way. It wasn’t enough for this world to encourage everyone to kill each other, it also had to have a guiding hand to stir the pot.
Still, despite everything, it’s still probably a step up from participating in World War I as a magic child. She can’t rest easy until Charlie’s out of the picture, because she represents a weapon Fate is wielding against him. It would, of course, be preferable to come to some sort of peaceable agreement, but…
Sparing a bit of juice, Tanya focused on the heartstring between her and Charlie. From there, she got an impression of not only their relationship, but his general emotional state. Hm, he was indulging in his addiction, she wasn’t picking up the usual pain and spite against the world that was his default. Jack didn’t really understand why the hero buds hurt then-Princess Jillian as they did, but it told Tanya enough to realize why Charlie always felt like garbage most of the time: it was withdrawal.
Charlie’s scheme to exile Tanya back to the Empire now made sense: if Fate had to conspire to pull Tanya back into Erf from outside the universe, and couldn’t bring anyone else to bear against him until Tanya had died, that buys him potentially years of life. It was just tragic that the enemy brought to fight him considered being returned to where they came from to be a worse option than remaining here: She imagines that if the Perfect Warlord was anyone else, a ticket home would have been a perfect solution. Which is why Fate plucked someone who wouldn’t be amenable to it.
Argh, free will and precognition is such a headache! On one hand, she hates feeling manipulated. On the other hand, all Fate really did in that case was just pick the right girl for the job. It’s even provided her the resources to compete with the man, backing her all the way. If she had been offered the job with eyes wide open, when the alternative was signing up for the Empire’s military… she’d likely have taken it.
…She’ll just blame Being X for putting her into a position where this life was an appealing alternative and be done with it.
With her existential crisis dealt with, it was time to sleep. They have a big day tomorrow…
---------------------------
Tanya had ordered a rebuild of the damaged parts of the city without Sizemore’s discount, as she had brought all those infantry into the city for a reason and she was damned if she was going to lose against a counterattack without making full use of her meat shields. In this case, by having their presence reinforce the walls, mostly.
But with three of their casters croaked and one more captured, even if Klein was the least critical to their operations, they couldn’t just not counterattack: the Dirtamancer von Spear led a force of Rubber Golems, looking pretty much exactly like the Mickeys, but instead of being giant mice that acted like tanks, they were tanks that were mocked up to look like the giant mice. Including the turret.
[Rubber Golem] x18
Combat: 64
Defense: 53
Hits: 24+12
Move: 14
Special: Golem (Dirtamancy), Golem (Dollamancy), Sapper (Cannon), Heavy 4, Gummi Block, Mount
Conditions: Esprit de corps, Reinforce Golem
Actually made a unit that had the special natively... Yeowch. Is that a +20 combat from the cannon?
[Zed von Tour, Level 11 Chief Warlord]
Conditions: Barrier (4/1), Archery (rifle)
[Albert von Spear, level 11 dirtamancer]
Conditions: Barrier (2/1), Archery (rifle)
[Knights, level 1-3] x64
Specials: Archery (bow), Knight
Conditions: Archery (rifle)
There were two more stacks led by lesser warlords, who didn’t have the very expensive date-a-mancy spell doubling their stack size. She’d ask how they got the juice to make that many golems… but she already knew about their usage of their towers as juice generators using their Frank. Who she has captured. Which they know.
Nevertheless, their barrage of cannons destroyed the walls quickly, croaking everyone on one section of the wall. The march of technology emerges victorious over fortifications once again.
This would be enough force to destroy pretty much any city that wasn’t prepared for guns; even if you had some big magic to counter the super-stack, the two other stacks still had the offensive power to shred anything resembling a normal garrison, and the Sapper special meant that enemy fortifications may as well not be there for those attacks.
But they were attacking her, which was a different story entirely. There were enough looted guns from their casualties and held by Yahtzee forces that Jim’s shovel knights all picked up one; even if they had less combat than normal or archery knights they still had some levels on them, which was good enough.
The thing about the gummi block special is that it is, in gaming nomenclature, a ‘win-more’ mechanic. It does mean you take far less damage from bullets, but Hard would do it to melee as well, for less resources invested, and it doesn’t provide any bonuses to your defense, which matters when even weak guns give a +10 to combat. It does reflect missed shots, but if the incoming attacks weren’t missing… Well, doing overkill amounts of damage with guns is hardly difficult. But if they were missing enough for the gummi block special to do work… you were probably going to win anyway, it just lets you do it with less losses. A special that boosted your combat based on how much your defense beat their combat would be just as useful, in many ways.
Further, while that ‘Reinforce Golem’ spell was smart, Analysis said it gave +5 defense on top of those extra hits, it had to be cast on each golem; the off-stacks don’t have it at all. It was a limitation that Tanya was well familiar with; making one super powerful stack was easy, but then you’d get swarmed and eventually taken out. In the worst case, you’ll be taken out because the enemy made a better super-stack than you did. But making more than that meant that you had weaker stacks, which took more losses than your super stack would.
Granted, as she mostly used foolamancy and mathamancy to protect her units, she could usually preserve the forces of two additional reinforced stacks without much issue, but once she was using more than the 48ish units she started off her knight battalion with, it took some serious levels of overkill to not lose at least a few units just from bad luck.
Of course, the strike force of Rubber Golems and knights didn’t attack alone: There was also ten stacks of Lyft-Waft combos, each also armed with a rifle. She still had around one hundred and fifty flying knights, albeit in ten incomplete stacks, which engaged them. Unfortunately, while Jack did use Halt Effort on all of the flight removal spells he cast, their hits, ammunition, and barrier specials were all still depleted, so Tanya expected severe losses.
Unlike last time, Maggie couldn’t just input false orders and expect that to work; the false orders spell relies on the orders in question being reasonable ones, and splitting up a stack enhanced by Esprit de Corps is quite unreasonable indeed. For the stack of uncroaked? Not a concern, they didn’t have enough thoughts in their heads to evaluate orders, they just obeyed them. For those very much living knights, caster, and warlord? Well, from the conversation they had about it in the debrief, Maggie could probably use a mental attack directly on the warlord or the caster, confusing them, but the presence of two commanders meant that doing so wouldn’t help much, and she wasn’t practiced enough in thinkamancy attacks to hit both of them.
But there was an alternative option: “Shotgun!” Maggie had declared as she settled in at Tanya’s side when they first noticed the invading force. Once more, the familiar feeling of a linkup expanded Tanya’s mind.
The world was made of strings. She knew this already, of course, but the implications of this… Well, they had long figured out that one of the thinkamancer’s greatest lies was that they could not croak anyone with their magic. As if scrambling someone’s brains to the point where you needed to pay another thinkamancer or a master-class healomancer to even try to reverse, which they did let people know they could do, was any better.
So when Tanya and Nero’s stacks turned towards the invaders, she sent some juice towards Zed von Tour, infesting his own strings. After two heartbeats, the juice exploded, echoing the implemented command throughout his stack on all bands, G-strings and H-strings both.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
You see, the reason the spell could be resisted at all is not because of the unit’s ability to resist being ordered in general, that made no sense. What it did was emulate orders from the Ruler, which can be overwritten with Duty for commanders, and the chain of command for non-commanders.
But when the orders come with the date-a-mancy signature of the Chief Warlord you were currently stacked with… Well, there wasn’t any higher authority than that. “Would you kindly?” And thus kindly, they scattered.
As before, the battle was quick and bloody, metaphorically, after that.
---------------------------
Once their turn began, with substantially fewer forces than they started last turn with, Elya was able to be brought in to turn the shockamancer. “Paperclip!” Elya cast, and in an instant the white-haired caster’s lab coat was bearing Tanya’s personal livery, the twin-headed dwagon.
“Ahem. Good evening, your majesty.” Klein Stein said, adjusting his bushy moustache. “I’m afraid I have no juice this turn, but I could draw some from the tower and begin animating a defense force from the turn’s casualties.”
“Already drained it. Take some.” Tanya said, “Friendship Unity Magic.” Her wand, ever so reliable, injected the juice into the croakamancer’s system. “I’ve had the infantry sorting the bodies for you, focus on the flying knights. They’ll make good chaff for our counterattack.” Fortunately, she didn’t bring all of her knights to this city for the attack, so she had some reserves to replenish their numbers.
“Ah, what is that spell you used? I’m familiar with it, but… why the different words?” Klein Stein asked.
“Artifact.” Tanya said bluntly. “Lets me cast a limited list of master-class shockamancy spells. Some of them are even context-sensitive.”
“That does explain why despite it being new, clear damage was not an obstacle to you.” Klein said, humming. “Well, off to work.”
“I do like your heavy knight uncroaked, but I’m sure it’s far more efficient to create ordinary uncroaked. Keep at that for now.” Tanya warned him.
Maggie, smiling at her new level, gestured to the map table. “I’ve already extracted everything our new caster knows about the forces of the Empire. Shall we plan?”
“Let’s.”
---------------------------
As it turned out, they had finally exhausted the Empire’s supply of guns and most of their leadership to boot. They definitely could make more, but it meant that Tanya’s forces finally had the initiative.
The Empire’s cities started falling easily to her knight blitzes, none of them able to muster substantial defenses that they couldn’t overcome with liberal applications of firepower. The only reason that she didn’t take all of them was the simple expedient of NordVPN popping up, interrupting her war by advertising their return, claiming their old cities and then some.
Still, they did have one last trick up their sleeve.
Attacking the capital city, named Scotplay for some asinine reason, was naturally difficfult. The tower just kept replenishing juice, to the point where Tanya had to rush to ger her stack out of the airspace, sacrificing a sizable amount of the ablative units.
She stormed towards the throne room, shooting down opposition with a stack of her knights at her back. Getting to the throne room was a simple matter; von Spear didn’t seem to be big on obfuscation when it came to his defensive architecture. She had to cut through a few siege doors with her wand’s vibration mode, but breaking down defenses is what that is for.
The throne’s door, on the other hand, was clearly unlocked and openable. How it managed to do this was a mystery (signamancy, probably), but why it was done was quite apparent.
Entering this room constitutes an agreement to a wartime resolution via duel between rulers, total isolation ruleset. All aggression outside of this duel will immediately cease, and to the victor goes the entirety of the assets of the loser’s side. Violations constitute surrender.
-Pax Romano, Chief Signamancer
-William Helmet, Emperor of Bethlefuck
Ah. Janis had warned her about this when they discussed what to expect from a master-class signamancer vis a vis defenses. Mostly, that ‘trap’ agreements like this had many complicated rules, they couldn’t be too one-sided. Ruler vs. ruler was fair, everything vs. everything as stakes were also fair, from a certain point of view.
[Queen Tanya von Degurechaff, level 9 Warlord]
Hits: 7
Except for that. Still, she was reasonably certain of victory, particularly with her Fate still helping out, so… She took out one of the scrolls Jack had prepared for her, and cast it on her armor. “Sweaterknit!” Her magical girl dress, which was fairly tattered from the expense of the Barrier special on the way in, restored itself to prime condition.
[Queen Tanya von Degurechaff, level 9 Warlord]
Hits: 7 (11)
Good. While she’s at it… She took out one of her healomancy wands. “Grannykiss.” The bleeding cut on her thigh from a minor spike wall trap, which seemed to disturb her stack immensely, sealed up and the loose blood vanished.
[Queen Tanya von Degurechaff, level 9 Warlord]
Hits: 11 (11)
Much better. After refilling her juice stores from her wand, and refilling her wand from her less useful wands, her own estimation as to what constituted a fair fight prevented her from doing more, so she opened the door with an assent, walking into the room as if she owned the place. She was about to, after all. She noted that her Chief Warlord bonus vanished, part of the ‘total isolation ruleset’.
There was a very distinctive musical accompaniment to her arrival, brassy notes building the suspense. William Helmet was massively tall, garbed in completely black armor, not a single speck of skin revealed. The man’s breathing was labored, his bulk presumably giving him little stamina.
[Emperor William Helmet, Dark Waiter, level 8 Heavy Warlord]
Combat: 32
Defense: 32
Hits: 38 (38)
Move: 6
Specials: Heavy, Leadership, Ruler, Royal
Conditions: Dark Lord, Barrier, Hard
Huh. Is that a title-based special? Janis never mentioned that… Analysis said it made him immune to critical hits and the bonus damage from beating his defense rating, plus certain specials that boosted damage, like Ambush. He also had a +1 stack bonus, because behind the Emperor was someone else, the power behind the throne.
[Emperor Pact Romano, Lord Palpitation, level 11 Signamancer]
Combat: 12
Defense: 20
Hits: 9 (9)
Move: 11
Specials: Caster (Signamancy, Date-a-mancy), Ruler, Royal
Conditions: Terrifying, Barrier, Tower Connection
Hm, the terrifying special apparently is foolamancy to confound opponents, but her senses are too good for it to have any effect. Tower connection just means he can direct the tower’s juice, which would be scary if he was a shockamancer, but it’s probably just him multitasking by keeping an eye out for further air forces.
“This is your last city, how do you have two Emperors?” Tanya asked, to break the ice.
“Signamancy is a pathway to many abilities that some would consider… unnatural.” Pact replied, chucking darkly. Hm.
[Queen Tanya von Degurechaff, level 9 Warlord]
Combat: 39
Defense: 39
Hits: 11 (11)
Move: 47/80
Specials: Tanya, Royal, Leadership, Caster, Ruler, Flight, Recon
Conditions: Shockamancy, Barrier, Mile-High, Inventory
…She’s got a good chance, depending on what kind of magic he’s planning on outputting.
“Welcome, young Tanya.” The blatant Darth Vader reference says. “I have been expecting you.”
“I’m looking forward to having you serve under me.” The equally blatant Emperor Palpatine reference adds. “In time, you will call me Master.” Eugh…
“You’re gravely mistaken.” Tanya replied, She had seen Star Wars, after all. “You won’t convert me as you have my counterpart over here.”
“Oh no, my young Queen.” Path said, grinning. “You will find it is you who are mistaken… about a great many things.”
“Your lightsaber.” Will Helmet commanded. Simultaneously, they activated their weapon accessories, blades of energy emerging from the wand-like hilts. Hers was silver, his was a blood red.
“Ah yes, once it was the most powerful weapon type imaginable.” Path said fondly. “No longer.”
“A more elegant weapon from a more civilized age.” Tanya joked.
Path laughed. “You really understand signamancy, don’t you?” He asked, “At a deeper level than even I, in some ways.”
“I believe your next line is: Strike me down, and I will return more powerful than you can imagine?” Tanya asked sarcastically.
“No.” Path said, still amused. “I believe this is where I show you my UNLIMITED POWER!” On cue, he unleashed a storm of shockamancy.
“Prism Crystal Armor.” Tanya said in Japanese, twisting her defense spell into a shell that absorbed the shockamancy, taking the form of crystal wings made of force fields that drew the lighting towards them. Her juice steadily depleted, but it did not otherwise do anything.
“The Fate is with you, young Degurechaff.” Will Helm said ominously, “But you are not an Empress yet.”
The fight began. Tanya decided to go all out, maximizing her advantages. “There's a moment in your bones when, when the fire takes over…” She sang, her wand’s lightsaber. automatically responding to her will and bursting into flames. “Blood is running, heart is pumping as the battle gets closer…” The wand started pulsing with deep base, adding sonic damage to the swing as she took the first swipe. Direct hit.
[Emperor William Helmet, Dark Waiter, level 8 Heavy Warlord]
Hits: 38 (21)
Hm. Below average, but not by much. Path’s lightning crackled around her, absorbed by the crystals. Tanya danced out of the way of Dark Waiter’s lightsaber, the dance-fighting both removing the +1 stack bonus he had and adding… looks like +3 to her. She needs more practice with Rhyme-o-mancy, those are novice numbers. Nevertheless, it’s turning her 7 point advantage into a 11 point one, which halves his chance to hit and her chance to miss. “They could say what they want now,” Tanya continued singing, invisible backup singers providing some a wordless notes in support. “Because we’ll be screaming out,” She lashed out again, hitting him again with a triple-damage hit that would really hurt if he wasn’t immune to critical hits.
[Emperor William Helmet, Dark Waiter, level 8 Heavy Warlord]
Hits: 38 (1)
Damn, better roll but the next one just doesn’t matter with that Barrier. “I can be a hero everywhere I go,” Tanya continued singing, “I can have all that I ever want.” As the backup choir continued with the music, Tanya barely deflected Dark Waiter’s attack. “Swinging like a hero, knocking out bodies, Standing on top like a champion.” Holding back the juice-augmented swing, Tanya practically tapped the enemy to remove the Barrier. “Keep your silver, give me that gold, you will remember when I say-” Tanya took a hit of her own, the lightsaber exploding with power as it struck and overwhelmed her barrier.
[Queen Tanya von Degurechaff, level 9 Warlord]
Hits: 11
Boop, he got a good enough damage roll to pop it in one swing. If she’s lucky, she can take one more hit. “I can be a hero everywhere I go,” Tanya continued singing, “keeping me down is impossible.” Another strike to her enemy, energy damage back so as to bypass his damage reduction.
[Emperor William Helmet, Dark Waiter, level 8 Heavy Warlord]
Hits: 14
“-because I’m unstoppable.” Tanya sang, noting that her juice reserves had already gone well past the halfway point. Emperor Will Helm took his last strike, only managing to tear away what was left of half of her skirt before Tanya struck him down. “Woah oh, I’m unstoppable.” She sang as she approached the near-helpless signamancer. “Woah oh, I’m unstoppable.” One strike, repeated via an exertion of dittomancy instead of enhanced with shockamancy, finished the job. “Woah oh, I’m unstoppable.” Tanya sang, finishing it.
Once more, a feeling of euphoria overtook her, simultaneous to the full takeover of the city.
[Empress Tanya von Degurechaff, level 10 Warlord]
Excellent. She looked herself over, using a drop of juice on mathamancy to assess her growth now that she was in a sixteen year old body. Ah, as she had always hoped, she was now tall. Well, for a girl. Locally, she was probably one of the tallest around, though, so that was good enough for her. Her other measurements were also quite satisfactory, any further growth would just be a bonus. With a satisfied hum, she took out her wand of repair accessory and used it to restore her outfit to its normal state. It could only store enough juice to bring her barrier to a single hit, though, which was pretty good, but restoring all of it didn’t cost that much more… She’ll need to get a bigger wand of this.
Still, taking the last city of the Empire was just the start. She still had plenty of other things she needed to do to secure the place. Before she left.
Hm… She wonders what’s spawned in that ruins hex since she’s last visited?