8 days remain of contest A, Sunday.

“We have six hours left of this weekend,” I say among the rubble of the courtyard. The repairs already paid for are underway, but will take time. “Frostcracker will be re-enabled as well, I set that up with Simon.”

I cannot help but notice that all members of the Falling Knives party now have a small snowbird insignia embroidered on their cloaks. Briar told them about me turning into one. I kind of feel dumb about staying as a bird during that fight, but I didn’t have many options there. I was just trying to keep her busy long enough for something to happen.

“She threw everything she had at you,” Briar says, tripping over a rock while looking up at the tree. “The Jade fortress has no guardian right now. If you want to take it, now is the time.”

“I’m down. They just got beat and have bad morale, two fortresses to defend with grumpy people is a lot,” Sauce says. He turns as if he is daring anyone to contradict him.

“Any objections? If not, I’ll purchase the siege gear and the NPC soldiers and let’s go take it from them,” I say.

I am met with determined stares from the alliance.

I open the interface and start spending money.

***

We roll with the siege gear under the cover of night from the closest outpost. Luckily, we stay completely undetected until we are close enough to rush into position.

I gather Briar and the Falling Knives; Briar has decided that they are his shock troops after watching them work during the defense of the fortress. We make our way to the side of the Jade Fortress and its twisted green towers. Scaling the walls, we begin a silent NPC murder spree across the grounds until we are at the front and raise the gate.

“Welcome to Jade Fortress,” I say over the voice chat to my alliance. I hear the crackle of the Portal Stone, and then an explosion. The Falling Knives’ explosives trap on the portal stone blew up. They are there to keep doing the same to anyone coming in. Nobody will pass while they are on watch.

I allow myself a little chuckle at how vicious they are.

The tower ballista come alive and I have to dive out of the way. I dash through the dark to the side of one tower and quickly ascend. Somehow, I find purchase in the stones for my fingers and continue my climb. At the top I leap over the edge swiftly dispatching a lower-level player character. I take over the ballista, seeing players on another tower of the fortress I take them by surprise with a ballista bolt. I destroy the other ballista, but do not see a kill for the player I had seen there. Then I see him thrown over the side of the tower, screaming all the way to a sickening crunch. Dignity and Beards poke their heads over the wall and wave at me saying, “Don’t shoot!”

I use one of my air aspect feather-falls for the day and leap off the tower. I settle to the ground with little dust-devils swirling around the base of my cloak.

Having learned the trick from Josie, I use the explosives to breach the main castle. As the front explodes out, there are two massive lizards with thick scales that climb out. Following the lizards are about 20 of the swamp creatures we fought in front of our own fortress.

“Firebombs!” I say.

We throw the firebombs all around the defenders, losing several players and a couple dozen NPCs in the process. The fire bombs seem to be doubly effective against the native creatures of this zone. Once the last of the defenders falls still, we enter and I use the shadows to leap ahead. There are a few lower-level players we quickly dispatch. I make my way to the Heartstone room. The room is similar to the one in the Air Fortress, but the stone is made of jade and pulses. I slap my hand on the stone as the timer begins the countdown. I look at the clock, we made it here with five minutes to spare.

Sauce comes in and also puts his hand on the stone. “This is gonna piss them off so bad. I have some ideas for how we take the last one,” He says with a mischievous chuckle.

“Good,” I say.

***

REGION NOTIFICATION

Clan [Nightfallers] claims The Jade Fortress.

We walk out of the Heartroom together and look around at our alliance, all of whom are beaming with the sure knowledge that we will win the region.

One more to go.

I find a set of stone steps and climb it so all can see. Turning around to survey the rubble field we just took, I wait for Sauce to join me. Then, with a whistle, I get the attention of all nearby.

All eyes turn to us.

“We have taken this fortress from [Art of War], and they have only onemore thing left that belongs to us,” I say, still a little unsure how I ended up a general. “They are going to have five days to prepare for us unless we keep them busy, and they will fight us tooth and nail. Every trick, every skill and relic they have, they will throw at us to keep us from winning. We are going to win anyway.” I look to Sauce and smile as he steps forward.

“We need to cook up some real treats for those guys in Leviathan fortress,” Sauce says. “We need to hound them all week and not let up for a second. We have to keep them from consolidating their power. It will be a war of attrition, trickery, and nastiness. In other words, our kind of war.” He nods at the Falling Knives. "If you have any ideas, let us know privately. We have some plans already—you guys are going to love it.”

The members of cheer the news. Their week will be work, but we can do this as long as we don’t let up—we have to keep the pressure on.

I see in the public chat my troops are already taunting the enemy, but that is just step one.