The Morning After
Nov. 23rd, 2008 09:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerOne thing about me: when I have a hangover I never oversleep. I woke up once in the night, was sick again, drank more water, went to bed properly and woke again when the alarm went off, which meant I could get washed and dressed, have something to eat and some painkillers and still catch the bus that got me in on time. The bus journey itself wasn't much fun, but then, I take the view that some forms of enjoyment have to be paid for, and you either pay cheerfully or settle down to a life of abstinence.
Steve the security guard looked sympathetic and didn't say anything, which was a mercy. Liliana was waiting for me to open the shutter as usual, looking a little pale and interesting herself. We smiled and good-morninged but didn't say anything else, and that was the end of that.
The second mission was simple, on the face of it—explore the map and claim the territory furthest away from me, which had another old machine in it. The hermit wanted to study it. Again, I had started out with a fairly grotty piece of land, but this one at least had some trees growing on it and a couple of herds of deer. Unfortunately, it appeared my friend in the red corner had caught up with me and wanted to get his hands on the machine first. If he succeeded, I would have to defeat him completely, and, as usual, he already had a fully functional walled city.
The hermit let something interesting slip. The reason the land was so poor in this region was something to do with the fall of the old empire, which had involved some sort of civil war, of which the machines were the last remaining relics. I wondered if something akin to radioactive fallout had been involved.
I went through the usual preliminary steps—woodcutters, hunters, a butcher's shop and a tannery. Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula sloped in, glanced over my shoulder but did not offer any advice this time. Everything was back to normal, sort of. As soon as I was able I slung a palisade around the settlement, and went forth to look for stone quarries, iron mines and a bit more fertile land.
I found all I needed in the immediately neighbouring territories, and began slapping down outposts. One of my new acquisitions was right next to one of red's, so I could probably expect periodic raiding parties from that direction. I stayed around till the outpost there was safely up, and put up a grain farm, some more woodcutters, and another hunting lodge.
Everything was going very smoothly. Too smoothly. The flag came up to promote the knight, and at the same moment a party of reds charged on to the scene, flinging torches at my newly built outpost. I sent the knight in to distract them, despite his whingeing about how richly he deserved to go back and be promoted, and he succeeded: the remaining reds turned tail and ran, with the outpost slighted but still standing. I put a palisade around it for good measure, and returned Sir Dinkus to the town to accept his elevation to the lofty rank of sheriff. Which meant I could build barracks and train soldiers, and they could go repair and man the outpost before the enemy arrived with more torches. They'd be swordsmen, of course, so not much use standing on the battlements, but maybe they had a neat line in insults.
I was practising some of them under my breath when Liliana came in.
“So, um--” she began, and stopped. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” I said, probably going interesting shades of red, “no, no, we're all fine here. Everything going very well.”
“I just wanted to, um--”
“No need,” I said quickly. “I understand.”
“I haven't said anything yet,” she pointed out, a little sharply.
“Right,” I said. “Sorry.”
“I was going to let you know that Jenny's all right, and they're letting her come home today, and to thank you for your company last night.”
“Oh, that's good,” I said, trying not to kick myself too obviously.
“Conversation works better if you don't fill in all the blanks yourself,” Liliana remarked, not unkindly.
“Yes. I'm sorry. I do normally know that. I hope Jenny gets well soon.”
A shadow came over Liliana's face. “That's unlikely,” she said, “but thank you anyway. She should be over the chicken pox in another few days. Oh my God.”
“What?” I spun round to look at the screen.
My settlement was in ruins, except for the storehouse, castle and church. The trees and game had gone. My entire home territory was grey and barren.
“It was that machine in the corner there,” Liliana said, pointing. “It just sort of flashed, and everything vanished. You'll need to--”
“Rebuild everything and find some more resources, yes,” I muttered, cursor flying over the screen. “How many more times is it going to do that?”
“Well, if it only does it to that territory, you should be all right, but if it's random--”
That blank I could fill in. If it was random, any territory I claimed could be laid waste in a moment, all the resources gone. The hermit was burbling on the screen, about how this was most exciting and he needed me to claim that territory urgently so that he could study the machine and see what had gone wrong with it.
“How the hell am I supposed to keep the shop stocked with this going on?”
“Redundancy,” Liliana said firmly.
“If I'm not bloody careful, yes—”
“No, you idiot, I mean backups. Use every single resource you can get hold of, don't hold anything in reserve. Once stuff is in the storehouse it's safe. I'm guessing, but I don't think it'll hit your home patch twice. That was just to get your attention.”
“Well, that certainly worked,” I muttered. Not only did I have to worry about red, I had a blasted doomsday machine running amok on my hands. “I don't suppose there's a chance any of his territories are going to get--”
“Well, if they don't, then maybe it's because stone walls are a protection, and maybe you could use that. Calm down and think about it.”
I tried to. “But if--”
Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula chose that moment to open his door, and even though we couldn't really see his eyebrows I could tell they were raised. Liliana beat a hasty retreat to the shop, and I focussed my full attention on the game.
If red had that much of an advantage already, then I didn't see any possible way I could succeed in this mission.
Steve the security guard looked sympathetic and didn't say anything, which was a mercy. Liliana was waiting for me to open the shutter as usual, looking a little pale and interesting herself. We smiled and good-morninged but didn't say anything else, and that was the end of that.
The second mission was simple, on the face of it—explore the map and claim the territory furthest away from me, which had another old machine in it. The hermit wanted to study it. Again, I had started out with a fairly grotty piece of land, but this one at least had some trees growing on it and a couple of herds of deer. Unfortunately, it appeared my friend in the red corner had caught up with me and wanted to get his hands on the machine first. If he succeeded, I would have to defeat him completely, and, as usual, he already had a fully functional walled city.
The hermit let something interesting slip. The reason the land was so poor in this region was something to do with the fall of the old empire, which had involved some sort of civil war, of which the machines were the last remaining relics. I wondered if something akin to radioactive fallout had been involved.
I went through the usual preliminary steps—woodcutters, hunters, a butcher's shop and a tannery. Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula sloped in, glanced over my shoulder but did not offer any advice this time. Everything was back to normal, sort of. As soon as I was able I slung a palisade around the settlement, and went forth to look for stone quarries, iron mines and a bit more fertile land.
I found all I needed in the immediately neighbouring territories, and began slapping down outposts. One of my new acquisitions was right next to one of red's, so I could probably expect periodic raiding parties from that direction. I stayed around till the outpost there was safely up, and put up a grain farm, some more woodcutters, and another hunting lodge.
Everything was going very smoothly. Too smoothly. The flag came up to promote the knight, and at the same moment a party of reds charged on to the scene, flinging torches at my newly built outpost. I sent the knight in to distract them, despite his whingeing about how richly he deserved to go back and be promoted, and he succeeded: the remaining reds turned tail and ran, with the outpost slighted but still standing. I put a palisade around it for good measure, and returned Sir Dinkus to the town to accept his elevation to the lofty rank of sheriff. Which meant I could build barracks and train soldiers, and they could go repair and man the outpost before the enemy arrived with more torches. They'd be swordsmen, of course, so not much use standing on the battlements, but maybe they had a neat line in insults.
I was practising some of them under my breath when Liliana came in.
“So, um--” she began, and stopped. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” I said, probably going interesting shades of red, “no, no, we're all fine here. Everything going very well.”
“I just wanted to, um--”
“No need,” I said quickly. “I understand.”
“I haven't said anything yet,” she pointed out, a little sharply.
“Right,” I said. “Sorry.”
“I was going to let you know that Jenny's all right, and they're letting her come home today, and to thank you for your company last night.”
“Oh, that's good,” I said, trying not to kick myself too obviously.
“Conversation works better if you don't fill in all the blanks yourself,” Liliana remarked, not unkindly.
“Yes. I'm sorry. I do normally know that. I hope Jenny gets well soon.”
A shadow came over Liliana's face. “That's unlikely,” she said, “but thank you anyway. She should be over the chicken pox in another few days. Oh my God.”
“What?” I spun round to look at the screen.
My settlement was in ruins, except for the storehouse, castle and church. The trees and game had gone. My entire home territory was grey and barren.
“It was that machine in the corner there,” Liliana said, pointing. “It just sort of flashed, and everything vanished. You'll need to--”
“Rebuild everything and find some more resources, yes,” I muttered, cursor flying over the screen. “How many more times is it going to do that?”
“Well, if it only does it to that territory, you should be all right, but if it's random--”
That blank I could fill in. If it was random, any territory I claimed could be laid waste in a moment, all the resources gone. The hermit was burbling on the screen, about how this was most exciting and he needed me to claim that territory urgently so that he could study the machine and see what had gone wrong with it.
“How the hell am I supposed to keep the shop stocked with this going on?”
“Redundancy,” Liliana said firmly.
“If I'm not bloody careful, yes—”
“No, you idiot, I mean backups. Use every single resource you can get hold of, don't hold anything in reserve. Once stuff is in the storehouse it's safe. I'm guessing, but I don't think it'll hit your home patch twice. That was just to get your attention.”
“Well, that certainly worked,” I muttered. Not only did I have to worry about red, I had a blasted doomsday machine running amok on my hands. “I don't suppose there's a chance any of his territories are going to get--”
“Well, if they don't, then maybe it's because stone walls are a protection, and maybe you could use that. Calm down and think about it.”
I tried to. “But if--”
Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula chose that moment to open his door, and even though we couldn't really see his eyebrows I could tell they were raised. Liliana beat a hasty retreat to the shop, and I focussed my full attention on the game.
If red had that much of an advantage already, then I didn't see any possible way I could succeed in this mission.