Chapter 26 - Analysing the Enemy

After spending the rest of the day doing research, under the watchful eye of Kassandra, and a good night’s sleep, I was starting to feel much better. Feeling refreshed, and with a head full of information, I headed down to the cafeteria where I found Chelsea and Charlotte sitting at one of the booths. I originally meant to make some small talk, but one offhand comment sent the conversation spinning off in another direction.

“We’re fighting against pirates? Really?” Chelsea asked.

“Yes, well, sort of… the theme is kind of a mix of pirates and tribal islanders. They actually have two different paths, similar to the Manor, one through the ‘pirate village’ and the other through the ‘wild’ parts of the island,” I replied, between bites of my omelette.

“What are their forces like? Do you think we can win?” I glanced over at Chelsea, who had completely stopped eating at this point, and was staring at me in rapt attention. Even Charlotte was looking in my direction.

“Of course we can win. It’s not going to be easy, but I think I know what we need to look out for.” I slipped a couple pieces of bacon down to George, so he’d behave for longer, and went into full strategist mode. “They have strong physical and magical forces, but not that many traps to slow us down. If I had to guess, they’ll try and wear us down with their restless dead, a type of undead that respawns while their spawn area hasn’t been conquered.”

“Isn’t that cheating?” Charlotte asked.

I shook my head, “Not really, there are rules for that. Instead of respawning if the floor is still intact, it’s based upon unit coherency. As long as at least one of the squad members survives, the other members can respawn at their location, after about half an hour. The entire squad needs to be on the same floor, but I can see them trying to hide one member, so they can escape if the rest of the squad falls. It’s something we’ll have to look out for.”

I shoveled another forkful of eggs into my mouth, giving me some time to think, before continuing. “They have quite the selection of floor bosses too. We’ll have to deal with the Captains first, and their Galleon-shaped stages. Each one has their own specialization, the merwoman is a swashbuckler, the vampire is a blood mage, and the troll is a warchief. They’re tough opponents, but I don’t expect too many surprises from them. The trouble will come from the last boss on the ‘village’ side, a troll soothsayer. I suspect she’s going to be directing our opponents' movements, because even though she has some faith magic, she seems to defeat most of her opponents by out-maneuvering them. We should probably try and make taking her out a priority.”

“What about the other wing?” Chelsea asked. The girl had completely forgotten her breakfast at this point, and was leaning forward in excitement.

“The wilderness? Well, there’s a giant sharkin berserker on the beach, a bone hag in the mangrove swamps, and a harpy storm-sage on the cliff edge. Although I wouldn’t consider them any stronger than the bosses from the ships or village, the change in terrain and completely different specializations would make it more difficult for us to advance consistently. I also suspect the harpy will be leading the early charge. A flying mage is versatile, and hard to deal with. I’ll have to move some solid ranged support onto Voss’s floor before the match starts. Maybe I’ll move some of the wraith archers from Sullivan’s wing over.” I made a mental note to add that to my notes after breakfast.

“You managed to pull up all their information, and perform a preliminary analysis on their tactics, and you’ve only been working on this since yesterday?” Charlotte asked, giving me a strange look.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Just since the announcement was made in the early afternoon,” I replied lightly.

“That’s a little scary,” Chelsea said sitting back in her seat, “I probably would have taken a couple days just to read through all the information, and then it would have taken me a week or so in order to do any analysis. Even then, I doubt I’d have the same level of insight that you do.”

I paused for a second, then shook my head. “You’re exaggerating, anyone could perform the same analysis I have.”

“Maybe,” Charlotte replied, “but very few people could have taken that information and identified both the most likely threats, and possible weaknesses, after just a couple hours. That takes a lot of skill to do.”

I blushed a little, and suddenly found myself much more interested in my breakfast than I had been a moment before.

Charlotte just laughed. “Well, it’s been interesting hearing your analysis, but Chelsea and I need to go. We have training scheduled and can’t be late.” As the two of them slid out of the booth, I noticed Chelsea didn’t look as excited for the practice as her mother was. “Thank you for joining us this morning, enjoy the rest of your day.”

As I watched the two go, George growled underneath the table. The greedy arachnid had already finished all his breakfast, along with my bacon, and was already feeling antsy. With a sigh I slipped him my last strip of bacon. “Enjoy that, it needs to last until I’m done.” He just gurgled in response.

After breakfast I moved towards my office, only to find Kass loitering around the entrance to the projection rooms. She looked quite concerned when I saw her, but she brightened up as I approached.

“How are you feeling today, better?” she asked while rushing in my direction.

“I’m much better today. I feel much better after an afternoon working, and a full night's sleep. Thank you for keeping an eye on me yesterday.”

“Are you sure?” I could see her eyeing me up and down, trying to figure out if I was hiding anything, which made me chuckle.

“Yes, absolutely.” I went over to a small bench that sat against the wall of the atrium, and sat down, waiting for Kass to join me. “As you know, I don’t exactly have the best relationship with my family. I wouldn’t exactly call my childhood traumatic, but it certainly wasn’t happy. My mother was cold, and detached, and my sisters bullied me relentlessly. I honestly didn’t expect that discovering that I’d have to face them in the league would come as much of a shock as it did. I guess I expected the next time I saw them it would be on my own terms, and finding out it was being forced really surprised me.” Kass was rubbing my back while I vented, which helped me feel a little better. I took a deep breath before continuing. “Thank you for supporting me yesterday. I would probably be in a much worse place if you weren’t around. I haven’t really had many friends prior to coming here, so I really appreciate your help.”

She smiled. “It’s no problem. I expect any of your friends would have done the same thing. Just promise me if you’re feeling down in the future you’ll let me know. Don’t hold it in, that almost always makes things worse.” She leaned in close, “You sure you’re alright?”

I laughed at her actions. “Yes, absolutely. You’ll be the first one to know when I’m not. If you don’t believe me you’re welcome to come with me, and help with the analysis,” I said with a grin.

“Oh no. I care about you, but I’ve already spent a full day watching you do nothing but stare at tablets. I’d go crazy if I had to do that twice in a row.” She quickly backed away from the bench, but still turned back towards me with a smile. “See you at dinner? You can go over all your results then. I think I can at least sit through a single meal full of analysis.”

I nodded. “Sounds good, see you then.” While Kass slithered off George danced back and forth on the spot, unsure of what was going on, or what to do. I stood up, brushed off my pants, and called out to him. “Come on fuzzy, we have work to do.”