My body jerked as I sat up, my hearts racing. I’d only done it the one other time, but I don’t think I’d ever get used to respawning after death. Guinevere was sitting up nearby having just respawned herself. Exar’kun landed on the ground from above.
“Took you long enough,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Arthur and I had a long fight.”
“You lasted a long while against him,” Guinevere said. “We got the rest of them, how many of them are left you think?”
“Not many, but…” I said. “I’m down to my last life. Arthur has two left; I die one more time and we lose. We technically lost this battle too; Arthur was the only one left alive then.”
It doesn’t matter if you lose the battle, Ares said. So long as you win the war. What did you learn from this?
“We keep waiting for them to attack us,” I said, answering the question only I could hear. “That gives them the advantage to pick how they want to handle us. We stay here defending this spot because its our capture point and holds our standard and the captured one.”
And what will your enemy do now? Ares asked.
“Everyone but Arthur needed to respawn, if the time is the same for them as it is for us the last of them should have just respawned.” I reasoned. “They’ll need to regroup, they’re missing most of their numbers, so they’ll need to make a new plan, that means they won’t be planning on attacking us anytime soon.”
“What does that mean for us?” Guinevere asked.
“Give me a minute,” I said thinking.
My thoughts were interrupted by a blaring horn that echoed across the Proving-Grounds.
This is the end of the third day of the event, rewards will be distributed, and points gathered so far will be tallied and shown.
Points For:
Western Side: 2nd Place
Eastern Side: 3rd Place
The Warlord: 1st Place
Contestants Killed:
14
25
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98
Standard Captured:
0
0
0
Standard Rescued:
0
0
0
Standards Held:
0
0
20
Strategic Points Captured:
0
0
0
Strategic Points Defended:
0
0
0
They hadn’t attacked our base, so we got no points for defending. That didn’t matter though, even with everyone on our side dying the sheer number of kills Guinevere and Exar’kun got made up for it at the rate we were going we’d run out of people before we ran out days left in the Event. Dismissing the score board, I looked at the rewards we got for coming in first place again.
Distributing first round of rewards based on current points gathered.
3 (+3 for win streak) = 6
Ambrosia (boosts regen speed by +10 per second for one resource type.
3
Manna Wafers (boost your maximum for one resource by 50)
3 (+3 for win streak) = 6
Ability Tokens (Boost the max rank for a standard ability by 10 ranks)
1 (Bonus Loot
Celestial Gold Ingot (boots enchantments with buffs)
We were getting more rewards with each round of the event. I could only imagine what the rewards for getting to day seven with a straight win streak would be. First, I would have to win, one more death and I was out, and Arthur was ahead of me, at least in lives.
“What’s our plan?” Exar’kun asked.
“There was a man on my world who wrote a book called the art of war,” I said thinking over what Ares had been prompting me with. “He said to not repeat the tactics that gained you one victory but to let your methods be infinite. Today we did the same thing as the past two days, and it cost us all one of our lives. They expect us to defend, to wait for them to come again, so we go on the attack right now while they’re still recovering from respawning.”
I grabbed two vials of ambrosia, one manna wafer and two ability tokens. The tokens melted into my skin as soon as I made contact with them. There was no time to upgrade any abilities we needed to strike within the hour while they still had the illusion of safety and had yet to make any plans. Guinevere and Exar’kun grabbed their share of the loot, and I tossed the gold ingot into my storage for now.
“What your plan for Arthur?” Guinevere asked me. “You can’t get locked in another duel with him.”
“Without that mirror dome around him I’ll be able to use his allies against him,” I said. “But I’m going to need you or Exar’kun to help me put him down. We need to cut down on his lives.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Guinevere said. “I killed him last time, but he was suffering backlash that time.”
“Try to use the Assassin against him,” I said. “They’re sleeping with eachother use his emotions against him.”
“Of course, he is,” Guinevere growled out. “I’d be happy to.”