Chapter 29: Faithlock

Chapter 29: Faithlock The dilapidated and empty room had a simple table and two chairs. On Lucen’s right was an open door leading to the patio, which let the silvery light and chill wind of the night sky flow in. On his left were three people: Aya’s nervous guard and Liam. Aya sat across the table in one chair, black-haired with beautiful grey eyes like liquid silver. As Aya arranged the board, Lucen considered the game of Highcraft. The board was a twenty-by-twenty monolith of a game board. Made to simulate strategies of war and group combat for young Knights, Warren had trained him in the game since he was ten years old. The game was complex when he first encountered it, but he played a lot of chess in his first life—he sucked, but he did play. Highcraft was like chess, but with more limitations in style and two more ways to win. Aya shared the box of game pieces with him and kept another for herself. It was a Gold vs Black set. "You gave me Gold?" asked Lucen, raising an eyebrow. The game normally started with them blindly picking a piece, Gold started the game "I don’t mind you starting," Aya replied casually. "Do you mind playing for thirty minutes?" "I certainly don’t mind." The game started by picking a commander, the king piece, but this determined what types of troops you would get in the game and ultimately what strategy you’d play. Yes, the game was more limiting than chess, but that made it easier to understand. Master your style and understand your opponents, and you’re halfway to unbeatable. Both of them dropped a commander piece on the board at the same time. Lucen chose the Steel commander as he always did; he had nearly mastered the art of irritating his opponent till they gave up with it—his style of play was commonly called Attrition. While Aya chose the Farrow commander, a style Lucen knew was weaker against attrition, called Skirmish. The first advantage had been set, now he picked his pieces to start the game, placing them around the commander. There were five normal pieces. Vanguard, Sentinel, Channeler and Psalm-singer. Vanguards, like Knights, dashed across the board. Sentinel was slower and more limited in speed, but controlled the area. Channeler was like a rook, but it could strike once you entered its line of attack, even outside the owner’s turn. And Psalm-singer could revive lost troops in one of the four tiles around it—if it reached the tile, the troop died. Then there were four structure pieces. Castle, Army camp, Trenches and shrines. Castles allowed you to take two turns in its range—useful with Sentinels. Army camp boosted the mobility of your troops—useful for Vanguard to quickly strike and retreat. Trenches limited Vanguard’s speed and Channeler’s ability to snipe pieces across the board by setting dead zones where they could only move one tile at a time. But they also limited your movements. Shrines were very important because they had to be in range of your Psalm-singers to allow you to return pieces to the board. By moving the Shrine across the board, you could determine where troops revive to set a blistering counterattack. Choosing the Steel commander gave Lucen a majority of Sentinels and Psalm-singers, while he had much less Vanguard and Channelers than Aya. His structures were mostly Trenches, shrines and two castles. This was the backbone of his strategy to gain fifty percent of the board and hold it. Meanwhile, Aya had more Army camps and trenches with very few shrines and castles; she wasn’t going to wait for board control. There were three ways to win Highcraft. Commander capture, Field domination, and Attrition. Attacking hard and taking Aya’s Farrow commander. Fighting for 60% of the board. Or you could be patient like Lucen. Attrition only required him to defend his half of the board for thirty minutes. He would win if he had more living troops on the board. It was an infuriating tactic. One which Lucen loved. In his classes, Warren always set the game time to be one hour. So once Lucen learnt how to properly defend with Attrition, he merely sat back and played for one hour. His opponent would try to break through and take the commander or bait him into a move that made him lose control of the board. But his plan was simple: a war of attrition. No risky plays, just wait and defend. Aya, on the other hand, was playing Skirmish. A fast play style that looked for gaps in the opponent’s defense. She would push her Vanguard hard into him with her Psalmsingers behind and protect the Psalmsingers with her Channelers, which would stay back. If she failed to break through and lost too many pieces, she would retreat and revive them, then try again. Skirmish had a lot of different tactics, but all Lucen had to do was take fifty percent of the map and play defense. He smirked lightly. "Already so confident?" Aya mused, "But I do expect your skill may fit that confidence." Lucen normally kept a poker face during games, not to let his opponents know he could see their plans, but this wasn’t a game between students. "I have thousands of lives on my back," said Lucen, "while you... have your ethereal gains." "Does one truly care about such abstract numbers?" Aya answered, placing her last pieces on the board. "Let us start." Lucen made the first move without hesitation. He moved two Sentinels beside his Castle at once. He would quickly move up to the halfway point of the board and set up his Trenches. Aya started the attack. Vanguard crossing the board in great leaps, while she prepared to move her army camps forward. "So their lives are as valuable as a game between two people?" he asked as he moved forward, hoping to distract her as he prepared for her disruptions to him, setting up. "All things are only as valuable as people decide they are. Like the giants. Castaway’s elite decided that they were animals—and animals they have been since." His hand froze, a frown crept onto his face, and a distant memory returned. He blinked and returned to the game. She was planning to get behind his lines and prevent him from truly having fifty percent, but Lucen always left some Castles and Sentinels behind during Skirmish matchups. They played silently for a couple of moments, each trying to decipher the other’s intentions. Aya stopped, looking up to Lucen. "Why did you pause?" Lucen kept his eyes on the board, avoiding her gaze. "No reason." They continued playing. She was very passive for a Skirmish player, and she was rather slow to place her Channelers. Lucen played as usual and finally set up his Trenches. Once his Sentinels got into position, he would be unstoppable. "Did I upset you, Lord Lucen?" said Aya, "If I did, I must apologise." There it was again, her voice. It strangely caught him. Magic? He first thought, but he sensed nothing. Her voice was just frustratingly pleasant. "A bad memory," he said simply, "Of people I once knew who didn’t care." The night of his highschool graduation came to him. The cold that seeped, warm blood and the sharp pain. That day, he was leaving the school behind to become someone new. They changed that. He became someone new, but it was someone weaker and more pathetic. He frowned as violent thoughts filled him, a wish to meet them one more time. But underneath that, he understood something that had bothered him since that day. They didn’t see him as human. As something worthy of their regret or morality. It had plagued him for so many years, but it now seemed so simple. He placed a Sentinel and looked up. "I don’t know why, but I was disappointed that you, of all people, thought like that." Aya grimaced, a frown finally overtaking her constant smile. She lowered her head to the board and made a very strange move. "I apologise for offending you, Lucen, but I have learned the hard way that all decisions can be made right if they serve you." Lucen glanced over the board. It was a strange move. What was her plan? She would just run right into his defence. Her Channelers couldn’t take out his Sentinels behind a Trench. She spread her Vanguard into three points of attack, moving Psalm-singers behind to recover lost pieces. Lucen didn’t have many Channelers, so he didn’t bother trying to take her Psalm-singers out, instead focusing on pushing her out and reviving his losses. He would win in the end. He’d allow some revives, but he blocked others; she would have less troops than him in thirty minutes. He didn’t want to waste one hour playing, so he was glad she chose such an advantageous time. The longer he spent playing, the more chances for a mistake to— What the hell? Aya suddenly began moving her Channelers beside her Castle. Her army camps also began to move with her Psalm-singers higher up the board. Is she trying to create a gap with a rush there? There weren’t enough Sentinels to defend that position, but he had time. Before they got there, he would set up. But was that all she was planning? That couldn’t be it. They continued their back and forth, and suddenly Aya stopped on her turn. "I admire you," she said out of nowhere, "your strength, your poise, your grace. When I heard a halfblood of the Lightcloak family was given the name Lucen, I thought, ’He really could be one worthy of the title, hero.’ And when I heard the prophecy, I became even more sure." She picked a Channeler close to an Army camp and moved it forward suddenly. "I want to believe you could break the dark clouds that come for us, but revealing I know to the Lightcloaks will get me executed. Though I know what is right, and I want to believe in you, I falter." Lucen, only half listening, was frozen. He could see what she planned now, and he had already moved his Sentinels for her. She wasn’t simply playing Skirmish. She had included another style—Faithlock. Faithlock relied on winning by Field domination, attacking hard and getting their Psalm-singers into position and then reviving dead troops beside the Psalm-singer in an advantageous position. She already had Psalm-singers in front of his trenches at very subtle positions. She would revive her Vanguard, break through and then set places Lucen couldn’t move into with her Channelers that she had already moved forward. There were only five minutes left. Lucen cursed. It was essentially checkmate.