Chương 82: Chapter 81: Learning the game

Every other training exercise of that century tested one attribute at a time. Okoro's tested all four at once. That is why it spread, and eventually became the most popular sport. People could choose which role they wanted based on their attribute allocation - Isiah Forelough, fifty-eighth Head of the First Brain's Faction The practice pitches ran in a strip behind the stadium, and Vixen had booked the one at the far end because nobody else wanted the walk. Kara had never had a reason to come out this far.

Past the stadium wall the ground opened into two full-size pitches lying end to end, both empty, and past those a row of six at half the scale with thirty feet of scrub between each. Four of them had people on. The lights on their poles were coming up as the water darkened overhead, and under the lights the painted zones showed properly. Deep blue across one end, deep red across the other, and the whole middle third - the Contested zone, left bare and pale.

On the practice pitches the colour had worn through in patches. Kara noticed that before he noticed the guy standing on the blue Anchor zone. He looked familiar.

"I believe you've already met - right, Kara?" Vixen looked between them. Kara had. The orientation, with Kado asking about the project and then asking about it again, and this guy was the reason things hadn't gotten too awkward. Afterwards he had given Kara a quick smile before turning away.

"You looked like you wanted the floor to open and swallow you whole," Piston said with a smile. Kara laughed, embarrassed.

"Thanks for that... It was starting to get a little uncomfortable to be honest."

"Kado means well. But he hasn't quite worked out where questions end. It's none of our business what kind of project you're all working on." He put out a hand. He was built wide through the chest and shoulders, and his grip was firm, but not testing.

"Anyway, glad to meet the both of you. As for why I'm here, Vixen mentioned she needed some help in teaching Gridfall. Wouldn't say I'm a veteran, but I've played the game enough to know how it works, so I'm happy to help."

"This guy's a sucker for anyone who needs help. He just can't say no," Vixen whispered conspiratorially to Kara and Glasses.

"I heard that," Piston said wryly.

"Doesn't change the fact that it's true. Anyway, we're all here now, so might as well get started." Waggy had stayed behind, along with Vitaly and Pip. Partners were allowed on some pitches in some leagues, Vixen had said on the walk over, but not in the University. Not that any of them had cared - it was their sleepy time. Glasses had already walked away from them, down the length of the blue, and stopped at the flag standing at its centre.

"This is where I'm supposed to be right?" he asked.

"Assuming I'm the Anchor."

"Yep. You're tall so you should be able to see the field and direct us, which your IQ will help with. It will also help with the trap puzzles and their ideal placement," Vixen agreed. He turned a slow circle on the spot, taking in the pitch from the middle of his own zone.

"Only thing is I'm not particularly strong. While it's not my weakest stat, I'm not going to stop a Striker who's decided to go through me."

"That's where the traps come into play. If you place them right, they'll get one tag from running into that and another from when you tag them if they get close enough. That would leave them with just one tag left," Piston added.

"Hmm, I'll need to read up on the ideal trap placements. I suppose it would differ based on the opponent's patterns as well, so for important matches I'll check if I have information about the opponents." Glasses went deep into thought. Meanwhile, Kara had come to a stop in the middle of the blue zone and was looking at the far end. From the upper tier last year the arena had been a diagram, three bands of colour with everything visible at once.

From inside, even at half the size, the red end was still a long way off, and the pale middle might as well have been the middle of a war zone anyone would have to cross to get to the other end.

"I'm the Solver, right?" he asked.

"Well, you're definitely not a Striker with your Strength nor a Veil with your EQ," Vixen quipped. Kara gave her a look.

"Your IQ and your Dexterity on the other hand are both high. So yes, you're a Solver," Vixen confirmed.

"And you're the Veil?"

"That's who you're looking at." It was Kara's turn to dig.

"And here I thought a Veil needed to be fast."

"A Veil's role is deception and herding. I'll show you soon enough. Starting the game now. This is a practice match, so it's pretty much one phase with no timers," Vixen said, doing something in her interface. His locks came up in his interface as four entries under his own name, and all four were live for him to use. That was the first thing that surprised him. He had assumed that the locks would be physical objects. He looked at the instructions.

He simply had to touch the ground where he wanted to place the lock, solve a puzzle, and the lock would be placed. He walked across the blue zone first. He put one lock eight feet from the flag on the right, and a second a little behind and to the left of the flag. Both settled into the ground as a low shimmer, a disk of surface that was visible enough if you were looking for it, but easily missable if you were distracted.

He crossed into the white and put down a third near the blue plant point, and started walking toward the red zone to place one on the left side. He touched the ground, but nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing. He looked at Vixen.

"Umm..." This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Vixen looked at him touching the ground in the red zone.

"That won't work. You can place two locks in your own Anchor zone and two in the Contested zone. You can't place any in the opposite Anchor zone, you can just disable any locks placed there."

"Ah, I see." Kara turned round and walked back to the Contested zone, and touched the ground near the blue plant point opposite to where he had placed the other one. The puzzle opened in his interface and it wasn't particularly difficult. It had needed around twenty seconds, during his three previous tries. At fourteen, a hand landed flat between his shoulder blades. His interface sounded a single low tone. 1.

"Tag," Piston said, from directly behind him. The puzzle went away and he had to open it again.

"Do it with your eyes up," Vixen said.

"In an actual match, no one's going to allow you all the time in the world to solve the puzzle and once you're tagged, as you just discovered, the puzzle resets." He did it with his eyes up this time. He avoided Piston once. When he touched the ground again, the puzzle came back in the same state he had left it. It took him almost a minute while dodging Piston, and he still got a tag for his trouble in the end, but it was after he had finished the puzzle. 2.

Piston was out of the lock zone before it activated, and Kara tried touching him to give him a tag, but Piston avoided it easily. Kara had never claimed to be the fastest. He was good at dodging thanks to his dexterity, but speed came from strength.

"Third one and you're out for the phase," Vixen said.

"Wait, how do the tags work exactly? I know an opponent touching you counts as a tag, but can someone simply tap me thrice continuously and I'm out?" Piston answered, "Nope, there can only be one tag per "encounter". What counts as an encounter is a little subjective, but two people can't just stand next to each other and give each other three tags. Only one tag each can be given during the encounter, post which there has to be a minimum distance between the players before another tag can be exchanged between them.

It's the interfaces that decide what counts as an encounter and while people always complain, it is generally fair." Vixen started walking toward the red end.

"Right. Let's do a practice match, one on one, Kara and me. Kara attacks. I'll defend the red side. Glasses can help me set up the pressure locks where I want them. No traps." Glasses armed four locks, two across the red end and two in the Contested zone. Kara stood at the edge of the white Contested zone, watched each one settle, and marked all four. There was a lane up the right-hand side that nothing covered. There was a second one straight through the middle that was tighter and shorter.

Vixen came out to meet him about ten feet inside the white. He started running toward the right and before he had gone more than ten strides, she was already standing at an angle close enough that he would not be able to avoid her while running past. He changed direction to the middle. Again, before he could get much further in, she was there. She wasn't fast, far from it, but somehow she knew exactly where he was going. Then there was her constant talk.

Kara tried to ignore it, the passive component of Fluid State doing its work, but before he could get two more thoughts in, he was distracted again. There was something she was doing that made it almost impossible to ignore her. His eyes and ears seemed to almost move toward her of their own accord, before Fluid State reset them. 3. He looked down. He had somehow stepped back and landed on a pressure lock. He felt a faint pressure on his shin, confirming it. Huh, so that's why it's called a pressure lock.

This time, the tone went out across the whole pitch - Glasses turned at the flag on the Blue end, and Piston looked up from the sideline.

"You're out," Vixen announced. Kara stood on the left side of the red zone and reconstructed it and could not figure out how she had moved him. She had never been close enough to touch him, and yet she had somehow herded him simply through her movements and talking.

"See now why I'm the Veil?" Vixen raised an eyebrow.

"You just did that to a newbie and someone who isn't particularly fast to begin with." Kara decided that stubbornness was his chosen weapon of war today. They kept bickering while Piston and Glasses started their one-on-one. Piston was fast - faster than anyone Kara had seen around his level, and he had picked his route before he started. Every one of Kara's locks was visible from thirty feet away and Piston did not go near a single one.

He came up the Contested zone on the left, avoided the two locks in the blue Anchor Zone with room to spare, and was fifteen feet from the flag before Glasses had finished turning. He faltered on the next step, and Kara noticed he was up a tag now. He must have landed on a trap. Kara had not seen Glasses place it. He had watched Glasses crouch twice in the last ten minutes and had assumed both times it was the trap node, and neither time had anything appeared. So traps were invisible.

Kara had been wondering what was the difference between the lock and the trap since both gave a tag to opponents within range. He could see it now. Traps were invisible, which meant unless someone had seen the Anchor place it and registered the exact location, they wouldn't be able to avoid it unless they had a related skill. Another difference was the shape. Unlike the pressure lock which covered a disk shaped area, traps could be disk shaped or square shaped of the same area as the locks.

And unlike locks, only one trap was available at the start, with one coming in every five minutes. Piston went through the trap and out the other side and took the flag. Glasses got a hand flat on his back as he turned around, and Piston gave one back before launching off for the far end. Glasses went after him. He had been standing more or less next to him, and was ten feet behind by the time Piston reached the Contested zone and thirty by the time he reached the red Anchor zone and did not get any closer.

Piston crossed his own line with the blue flag and stopped and put his hands on his knees.

"Again," Vixen said, thinking through something.

"Same thing. Take it again." He took it again. Glasses had placed one more trap. Piston did not know where it had gone, and this time he went wider to be safe which cost him a few seconds. Glasses used those seconds to position himself close enough to the flag to give Piston a tag as he took the flag. The third tone went out across the pitch. Piston came back breathing hard.

"Yeah, that's the problem," he said.

"I'm the fastest thing on any pitch I've been on in a straight line and I can read the player and pitch well enough to plan a route, but as you can see, Dexterity is my weakest so I'm not great at dodging or maneuvering while I'm moving."

"You took the flag both times," Kara said.

"I took the flag both times against one man on half a pitch." Piston straightened up.

"Do that against five of them on a full one and I'm out of the phase before the flag gets home. Then it's minute nine and my team is a player down." Vixen had gone quiet.

"You're not the Striker," she said, after a while.

"I know."

"You're the Wildcard. Strength and EQ." She was working it out on her feet.

"With your speed and read of the players, you can disrupt the opponents."

"True enough. We still need a Striker though," Glasses said.

"So what are we looking for, strength and dexterity right?" Kara asked.

"That's right, someone who has invested heavily in the physical side of things." Vixen had her hands in her pockets.

"Fast, and able to change their mind while they're already moving. Somebody who can take a flag off a defended point and still be going the right way two seconds later." Glasses had his interface open.

"I'm sure there would be plenty with a focus on the physical side of things in our batch. The only question is how many of them would be willing to join us?"

"For a chance to be on the same team as the SDC head and the DC Vice-Head? We'll probably have to conduct a selection trial. Wait, Piston, you're in right?," Vixen looked at Piston.

"You forgot to mention the chance to connect with our batch's social butterfly. And yes, I'm in, if nothing else so that you don't pester me everyday asking for help," Piston confirmed.