Wish upon the Stars chapter 1005

The Kingdom Siege pit was expansive, even if it wasn’t that big. Because we all had incredibly high Perception, they were able to pack a lot of detail into a very small area. Despite the pit being probably a hundred feet around tops, there was what looked like a scale of thousands of miles packed into it, and I was able to pick up the details of even singular blades of grass as the waved in phantom winds too faint for us to even notice outside the pit.

Peter, whose village we were watching, had already begun his construction. Vicky had said they were all supposed to be ministers of finance for a Kingdom, but from what I could tell, they were more like ministers in exile. They’d been placed in these obscure border villages, and this area in the center was neutral ground between these thirteen kingdoms. 

Each minister was given supplies to use, and was told to expand and claim land in the empty space to help build their Kingdom. After a certain time, the empty space would be locked in a detente when they all ran into each other, and the sieges would begin.

Each of them had, as Vicky mentioned, an avatar. It was fascinating to see this little miniature Peter interacting with the villagers from inside the town hall. He’d been set as the interim mayor, and as we watched, he did a quick inventory of the town’s assets, and then immediately started sending messengers to bring him different townsfolk.

“Oh, shit, he doesn’t have any coal,” Vicky cursed. “That’s going to delay his production speed by like two fold if he doesn’t seize someone else’s. At least unless he goes all in on something like steam tech.”

A girl standing next to us scoffed. “Please, were you even looking at that ledger? He has a Red Maple grove. The wood is nothing to sneeze at, but more importantly, bees LOVE Red Maples. Which means he almost definitely has hives, especially if he…yup. There he goes, he called the carpenter there and he’s mapping out plans for a bunch of ten frame beehive boxes. He’ll be drowning in honey within a month or two.”

“Shit, you’re right,” said Vicky excitedly. “And honey is priceless. Not only is it a nearly imperishable sweetening agent that can be used on almost anything, you can use it as a preservative.”

I blinked at her. “You’re FOLLOWING this?” I asked wryly. “Because I’m pretty lost.”

“It’s the buildup,” she explained. “The beginning is the hardest part of the game, because what you end up with is random. Some people spawn next to gold deposits, and they’re set, provided they ALSO have a blacksmith because how the hell are they going to mine it without picks. See what I mean? How you roll with the punches is key. Peter always hits the ground running.”

“It’s love of the game,” said the girl next to us proudly. “Pete does nothing but Kingdom Siege. Even when he’s not playing, he’s watching, or reviewing footage.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “I take it you know him?”

“Duh,” she said with a laugh. “He’s my husband. I’m Holly. You guys place any bets on my boy over there?”

“I told them not to,” Vicky said with a head shake. “The prop bets can get weirdly complicated and are almost always more involved than they seem. Like I bet there’s a bet on the number of months until he has a functioning honey economy already being laid.”

Holly grinned. “There is. I already placed mine on my scan ring.”

“That seems pretty straightforward though?” I said slowly. “Like you said only a month or two, right?”

Vicky snorted at that. “A month or two until he has FUNCTIONAL hives to trade with. That’s not the same as a stable economy. Especially because this map is the Mendari Highlands, which is on Drelden, and which has a notoriously harsh six month winter. It’s going to massively stagger the initial stages of his build, but the long term economic boost will be worth it. Like I said, honey is a preservative, and having preserved food for the winter is a HUGE boost in the early game.”

“Smart girl,” Holly said appreciatively. “You really ARE a KS nerd. Most people don’t know the maps on sight. Since there are about two hundred of them.”

My cousin flushed. “I just pay attention,” she said wryly. “Oh shit, they kicked up the timespeed.” We glanced back down, and as I watched, things began to change. Right before our eyes, plants grew and died, leaves fell from trees, wind, rain, snow, and even tornadoes ravaged the land. Through it all, the various champions continued their work undeterred.

Peter completed his hives, then harvested the honey. He traded it with a neighboring village for a modicum of coal, which he used to power his forge to create more complex infrastructure. After he built those steam generators, combined with a water wheel on the nearby river, he started training and outfitting military patrols, and then explorer teams. Within a year (about ten minutes real time), he had an outpost a few dozen miles into the highlands, and then from there he began construction on a new starter village.

“This is INSANE!” spat Vicky as she watched with bated breath. “How is he fielding that many rangers?”

“It was the seventeenth initiative from the last town meeting,” Holly said excitedly. “He’s borrowing against future growth to outfit the ranger regimens. It’s a risky policy, because if they run into anything too strong and get wiped out he’s sunk, but if he can…yup, see, they just discovered an opalite vein.”

Weirdly, I got why they were so excited. If I’d been playing this game I would have probably been mildly amused, and watching it in normal time would have bored me to tears. But because of the absurd timespeed, we were watching months pass in the span of minutes.”

“So…is there any Ascendant stuff in this?” I asked slowly. “Magic, abilities, that kind of thing?”

“Obviously not,” Holly scoffed. “Abilities are way too randomized. This is a contest of skill and intellect. There’s some small role for luck to play, as with anything, but the most important thing is brains.”

I glanced at the girl with amusement. I didn’t think she knew who I was. Not that I minded. I wasn’t looking forward to the fawning and trying to curry favor once my coronation was over. She was an imposing figure in her own way, despite her tiny size. Being all of five feet, her eyes were heavily shadowed and she had on black lipstick, her green hair pulled into a pair of pigtails and a dark metal ring in her nose.

She didn’t notice my appraisal, because my mask covered my face, but my wife did, raising her eyebrow at me in question. I just shrugged. Holly seemed smart and capable, and there was no rule I couldn’t recruit people OTHER than my cabinet members. She nodded approvingly, then slowly made her way over to stand beside the other girl opposite Vicky.

Shaking off the brief curiosity, I focused back on Peter, realizing I’d missed quite a bit. The started village was gone, replaced by a medium sized town a bit bigger than the original. In fact, looking closely, it looked like Peter had actually disassembled a lot of the original town buildings and moved them to the new city in wagons. Using premade parts had saved him months of construction and prep time, and within a few months he’d assembled a workable settlement.

Once that was done, he sent the rangers out to explore, and they identified several resource nodes to claim. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one. It was at this time that he finally ran across one of the other players.

Peter was cool as a cucumber. His previously completed military patrols, dispersed throughout his territory, were alerted immediately, and flocked to his aid, surrounding and destroying the single military unit that had attacked his one mining outpost. I was expecting them to send reinforcements, but to my immense shock, there was nothing.

Callie mentioned her confusion aloud, and Holly beamed. “It was the rangers. The bet he made back at the beginning, when he leveraged potential earnings against founding the ranger unit, paid off. The rangers don’t just scout, they also hunt and forage. They’ve been bringing back food to stockpile for the winter, but also keeping the town well fed. Well fed families have more children, which increased his town's population growth. He’s got about twice as many soldiers as his nearest neighbors.”

“And they’re better outfitted,” added Vicky with enthusiasm. “His coal boom at the beginning enabled him to forge the parts needed to create steam powered infrastructure. It massively increased his production output, which means he was able to arm and protect all his soldiers despite their numbers.”

The next few hours went by in a blur. Watching an entire kingdom get built in a short span of time was fascinating, and once the kingdom GOT built, the real impressive stuff began. When I thought about banking, I thought of boring audits and number transactions, but Peter was a fucking maestro. He balanced books like some of my friends balanced a blade.

In the first hour, Peter’s town was discovered by raiding parties. He drove them off with a mounted infantry he’d set up as a guard unit. By the time their reinforcements came, the troops had retreated. He left the gates open a LITTLE too long, and they barred them, following his forces inside triumphantly…and dying horrible deaths.

He’d lined the entire interior with huge pots he’d had filled with leftover grease and oil from food prep over the last few YEARS, and when they were coated, he had his archers light them up with fire arrows.

The entire interior of the walls, I realized, had been constructed with a special area designed to contain the flames and prevent the spread of the roaring fire.

Even as he did that, his own forces were riding out the back gate of the town, having headed straight through and looped around to bypass the army and strike directly at their home base, a town that the rangers had identified months before.

After stripping the city for parts and using them to expand his own town, he slowly grew his empire, absorbing other forces. Some he absorbed through violence, some through diplomacy, and he even bought a few out. I assumed those players had prop bets tied to specific thresholds and stood to profit even if they lost, which underscored what Vicky had said earlier. There was a whole other set of rules and wisdom involved in the prop bets.

Within another two hours, Peter’s endless series of small advantages began to pile up. He seemed to have predicted every single expenditure his enemies would make just from small interactions. He’d trade with a town, identify its imports, exports, and supplies, and then deduce the exact composition and size of their army.

Early on, he just seemed competent and skilled, but as the game progressed, he slowly began to overtake the other players, snowballing his forces and territory until he was an unstoppable wave of efficient consumption and perfectly balanced logistics.

I’d expected to measure the capability of all the players to find my Master of Banking, but Peter was so overwhelmingly superior in terms of skill that I couldn’t be bothered to even watch the others. They were basically just set pieces to make him look good. Holly was gloating. “Ok, I have to admit, he hit a bunch of really lucky starting conditions there. But still, that was probably the cleanest sweep I’ve seen in years.” She turned to grin at me. “So…what did you think? This is your first KS game right?”

I laughed and nodded. “It was, and it was a good one. As for what I think…well, I’ll answer your question with a question. Do you think Peter would be interested in a job? Because I have just a position available I think would be perfect for him.” Her eyes narrowed contemplatively, and she turned to wave the man himself over to talk to us. I had a feeling he was going to be a hell of a negotiator.