Zombie Rebirth

As I had guessed, the round was a blowout. The gap was widening. What was different, though, was the fact that Branciforte’s castle was starting to show serious signs of damage. A health bar blinked in the sky over his gate. It showed he was down nearly to half health. Looking at the situation from his perspective, he was locked into a deadly spiral. Either he put everything he had into his soldiers and hoped he didn’t get attacked again, or he saved up to a hundred gold so he could get the ability to repair his castle. He was up the proverbial creek, but whether he had a paddle was to be seen.

“I propose a change,” Branciforte said over what I had come to think of as the game chat. His voice was strong and clear, though I could hear a hint of strain.

“What did you have in mind?” Coopman answered first, though Selvaggi was only a moment behind.

“Not again,” Selvaggi started to pace once more. “You do this every time, Roulette.”

“It makes it more interesting,” Branciforte said back.

“Uh, what’s going on?” I looked at each of the bosses in turn. Selvaggi scowled but said nothing, while Coopman smirked. He jerked his head toward Branciforte to indicate where I should direct my questions. I looked over at the frog. “What change?”

“He wants to do a mutator.” Selvaggi spat over the side of his castle.

I shook my head. “What is a mutator, and why do you look so upset?”

“I’m not upset about the mutator, it’s just annoying,” Selvaggi said.

“He’s upset because our friend here has a habit of calling for a mutator any time he falls behind.”

I looked from Coopman over to Branciforte, who shrugged. Coopman continued talking.

“The reason he’s called Roulette is not because he loves the game–”

“Though I do love roulette,” he interrupted. Coopman shot him a look and he raised his webbed hands in surrender.

“He’s called Roulette because when he calls for a mutator, even though it is randomly chosen, it seems to always favor him somehow.”

“It’s disgusting,” Selvaggi said. He shook his head. “Last time he called for a mutator, it came up ‘Ants’.” He made a sound of disgust and kicked at the battlement.

I looked around before asking the question they were clearly waiting for.

“Okay… what is ‘ants?’ And why does that make such a difference?”

“I’m sure you’ve noticed by now,” Coopman said. “Our friend likes to pad his numbers. Sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes, he gets overwhelmed anyway, because he doesn’t put much into other buffs.”

“Overwhelm them with bodies,” Branciforte said with a smirk.

“The Russian gambit,” Selvaggi snarled. “Throw meat at the grinder until the grinder breaks down.”

I blinked at Selvaggi. I still had no idea if he was from my Earth or not, and if he was, what he had been before becoming… this. But what they were describing was the Russian habit of throwing men at a problem until the problem was crushed under the weight of the dead. It worked in multiple wars. It was wasteful, but often successful if the leaders were absolute psychopaths.

“That still doesn’t answer my question,” I said.

“Just a moment! I was getting there,” Coopman said with a weary smile. “The Ants mutator changed all soldiers into giant ants. I don’t know if you understand how ant warfare works…”

“It’s all about the numbers. Soldiers are soldiers, and specialized units can be overwhelmed,” I said. I put a hand to my forehead. “And with all of his upgrades in numbers…”

“He overwhelmed us in two turns,” Selvaggi said.

“There may have been a lucky ace or two,” Branciforte said with a smile and shrug. “These things happen.”

“Luck always favors the house,” Coopman said, shaking his own head. “Playing this with Roulette and allowing him to call for a mutator changes it from chess to Russian Roulette.”

I nodded. “Well, it sounds interesting, at least. I’m up for it.”

Coopman looked to Selvaggi. They had a silent conversation, either on a private channel or one of those that happens with old friends through small gestures. I waited, unconsciously holding my breath. Finally, Selvaggi broke away. He kicked at the ground, waving his hands and raving at the sky. I couldn’t hear any of it.

“Don’t worry, he’ll calm down soon.”

I looked over at Coopman. He smiled. “He hasn’t won a game in a while. It can get grating.”

“I bet. But I’m guessing he’s pissed because you decided to vote for the mutator.”

He nodded. “I did.”

“Excellent,” Branciforte said with a clap. He rubbed his oversized webbed hands together in anticipation. “Let’s find out what we’re going to be dealing with.”

I glanced over at Selvaggi. He had his back to the field. He looked angry, resigned, but I could tell it was mostly an act. He was having fun. Perhaps he was just playing the foil. Sometimes, it helped having a straight-man. He was being the villain so the others could fight on a second battlefield. He looked at me and winked, then went back to brooding. I smirked. They were doing all this for my benefit.

“Alright, what do we do?”

Branciforte made a big gesture, waving from low and out into the field, almost like he was throwing a heavy frisbee. I waited, tracking an invisible something, waiting for whatever it was to go into effect. I was not disappointed.

The sky darkened and began to shake. Lightning gathered in clouds at the edges of the arena, which closed overhead so quickly, it was like magic. More lightning arced through the sky. It built, glowing white-hot, and that’s when I figured out what was going on. The lightning was going to spell out the mutator.

Asymmetrical Warfare

“Oh, damn.”

I looked across the field at Coopman. He was looking up at the menacing arrow hovering over his castle. I could no longer choose a target. The system was making that choice.

Branciforte shook his head. “I’m sorry, Owl.”

Selvaggi snorted. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. He’s at half health,” he said with a wave at Branciforte’s castle, “and now he just might outlast us.”

The cards started to fly out. I smiled when I drew a king first. A six, another six, then a king. I was grinning like an idiot. The final card flew out, and I nearly burst out laughing. A third six. I had a full house, and I didn’t even need to change out any cards. I accepted the hand and watched it fly to my gates.

The upgrade menu popped up next. I checked to see how much money I had to work with. I did the math and realized my forces had killed over half the men on the field last round. Forty-two gold. Another round or two and I could unlock the Knights or the Bears. I wasn’t sure what they did, but considering they were the same price, it didn’t likely matter much.

On the other hand, I had enough to drop a handful of upgrades. I could get another boost to speed for all three types of units. That had been a game-changer to start with. I had a feeling, however, that until I dropped a few more levels, the incremental changes wouldn’t have large results. Doubling speed is one thing, but adding only 50% wasn’t going to do a lot. On the other hand, a boost to damage would change things up significantly.

I could do two boost to soldier damage, one each to archer and mage. That would mean my soldiers could kill a base level soldier in two hits, instead of four. Archers would take down enhanced soldiers in two-to-three shots, and mages in two. I nodded to myself and allocated the money. Two damage levels for soldiers, one for archers, and one for mages. I finalized the changes, then closed the menu. The timer ticked down, and I could see Coopman brushing at his head with his feathered hands. He was obviously stressed out.

The horn blew. I looked over the battlement at my forces below while they marched into the field. My jaw dropped. It wasn’t the upgrades, though they were obvious. No, the number of soldiers that marched out was staggering. Rank after rank after rank marched through my gate. I counted fifty sword-wielding soldiers, and those swords had clearly been upgraded with longer, wider blades. They looked more like longswords, though it was clear they weren’t quite there yet. After the soldiers, an entire rank of archers walked out, five in total. They had stronger bows. At this point, I was jumping up and down in sheer excitement. After the archers came the mages. I thought I was going to faint. Two full ranks of mages. I had more soldiers than the three mobsters combined.

Branciforte had the most soldiers outside my own force. He had twenty-seven soldiers marching in staggered ranks. Selvaggi had upgraded his own again, and his twenty-two were marching in nearly full leather armor. They were impressive to behold. Finally, I saw Coopman’s soldiers. He had taken a break from upgrading their weapons- still at longswords- and each now sported bracers. With the change of player-chosen targets to three-on-one warfare, Coopman had altered his strategy to increase his defensive capabilities. With an archer behind his soldiers and two on his battlements, he looked to be in somewhat good shape. That was, until he saw my force approaching. Despite the fact that I was the farthest from him, my units covered the distance in less time. I could see him cursing up a storm and stomping around gesturing wildly. I couldn’t hear him, but I had a feeling I knew what he was saying, if not the exact words, then the sentiment for sure.

My sixty-five made short work of his twenty-one. Right about the time his archer fell, the other two forces arrived. They fell on my army with a vengeance, but that wasn’t enough. Even with Coopman’s battlement archers picking my men off, the other forces simply weren’t up to the fight. My soldiers cleaved through theirs, the archers drilled through weak spots in the armor, and the mages cast fireballs in the most devastating locations. In only two minutes, the three-on-one battle had been reduced to my twenty-eight, including five archers, nine mages, and fourteen soldiers, hammering on Coopman’s castle doors. I was once again disappointed that my ranged units did nothing to fight back against the battlement archers, but I could hardly be angry at that bit of balancing. My soldiers fell one-by-one, often taking multiple arrows to stop them for good.

By the time my last soldier fell, everything was silent. I couldn’t even hear the wind. Coopman stared blankly at the mess below his gates. The bodies turned to pixelated dust. That did nothing for the blood that coated absolutely everything. The approach to his castle was bathed in red. It even ran up the walls a surprising distance. His gate was ragged, with multiple holes through the thick wood exposing the courtyard beyond. It was hard to remember this was a real battle, even if it was fought with pseudo-immortals, when they were nearly a mile away.

Selvaggi finally spoke up. “What the hell did you draw for that freakin’ army?”

I shook my head. “Full house. Sixes full of kings.”

“Well damn,” Branciforte said. “We didn’t stand a chance.”

“I had an ace high,” Coopman said. We both looked at his health bar at the same time. “I’m down to twelve percent.”

The arrow moved then. It shot into the sky, then came thundering back down, complete with the rumbling roar of a large object moving far-too-quickly through atmosphere. It stopped above Selvaggi’s castle.

“What do you guys say to making it more interesting?”

I laughed. “What, like adding another mutator?”

All three of them looked at me. “Oh, you were serious.”