The Stator Rebellion Part 6

"Alchemy is such a delicate art."

"It can be used to save lives."

"It can be used to take lives."

"But no poison or cure is simple in a profession where 1+1 does not always equal 2."

"Sometimes doubling the dose of something does nothing more than double its effects."

"Sometimes doubling the dose of something leads to side effects one cannot expect."

"As the hand the gives life."

"Can at times be the hand that gives death."

Chuik Blord, General of The Kingdom of Oovere, known as 'The Black Death of Oovere.'

….

Balslin was a player loyal to Stator who had managed to join The Lethal Legion as a cook. Despite being unable to be a soldier, he thought he might be able to help even a little bit by being in the army camp instead of outside, like many of the other players were. This decision had led to him taking on the most critical role in Stator's scheme to eliminate this army, which would be the biggest obstacle to his goal, as was his job to ensure that as many goblins as possible ate food laced with poison that would, at worst, kill them and, at best, incapacitate them.

As soon as the toxic outbreak got bad enough, Stator would then lead the players who had not eaten the poisoned food to take over the gates to allow the hundreds of thousands of players waiting outside to storm in while also taking over the armoury to enable them to grab weapons that were far more effective against the armoured goblins they would be facing.

Balslin looked around and, seeing that the goblins were busy and not paying attention to him, took out and opened the bottle containing a green liquid that had been given to him by Stator only a few minutes before, putting two drops into the large pot of meat broth that he was cooking for the starving goblins.

It was a shame that they only had one small bottle of the poison, and so could only take out some and not all of the goblin soldiers around the large camp. After all, the cook could not go around every single simmering pot in the camp and poison it, but every little bit would help Stator, and it was better than only relying on surprise to win, but it had to be timed well, happening only a minute or two before the attack, or the goblin generals would get suspicious and begin to make preparations Balslin had heard that some players had already been captured for interrogation as it appeared that finding hundreds of groups of travellers had begun to plant to seeds of suspicion into the minds of the army leadership.

Balslin waited, counting the minutes as they went by. There was a reason why he put two drops of poison instead of one into each of the cooking pots that he could get to, and that was to speed up the effects of the poison, wanting symptoms to appear not in 30 minutes when Stator's attack started but 15 before it so that the camp would be in turmoil trying to deal with the mass poisoning while also dealing with Stators attack opening the way for Stators victory over this crucial army.

If they won, they might even be able to acquire some skilled surrendered soldiers, which would massively increase the lack of combat and army management experience in their current army and the player base as a whole.

Not every player could be like Railius, who had a passing interest in military affairs, politics, and philosophy, having read many accounts of how the generals and kings of the past, both in the ancient and medieval world, managed and kept the loyalty of their armies combining that with his own morales to create the loyal Aurellion army that was legendary throughout the southern continent for its integrity and ability to fight to the bitter end. 

To top this passing interest, he played many medieval strategy games where he would be in control of a medieval army and looked up many strategies that the great generals and strategists of the past used to win battles, from Hannibal to Alexander The Great to the theory behind the hoplite wall and phalanx there was no part of ancient warfare that he was not interested in.

He even took inspiration using the guerrilla tactics that were commonly used in more modern wars like the Vietnam War during the Battle of Brunag, using his side's superior weaponry, technology and amount of horse archers to deal massive damage to both his enemy's troops and supplies forcing them to attack him instead of surround and starve him on his hill as he had more supplies than they did.

He remembered the story of Ma Su, the Shu strategist during the Three Kingdoms period of China, who got himself trapped on a hill with no water, leading to dexterous losses. He made sure that such a situation would never happen to him, which is just another example of his love of history, helping him to avoid pitfalls by relying on the wisdom of the past.

After all, those who forget about history are doomed to repeat it, and Railius was not a man who would look forward to falling into the same pitfalls of those generals and lords of the past.

It is for these reasons that Railius was able to do so well in The Battle of Brunag, being able to beat even a skilled NPC war veteran with his strategies. However, this was due more to his political acumen and ability to deceive his opponents and the other player general in control of the majority of the enemy troops than anything else, turning the two against each other while he watched and took advantage of the aftermath to clean both his enemies up with only a few managing to get away and ensuring the rise of Chavarian Empire.

Balslin looked on the camp with glee as he saw that 15 minutes had passed, expecting the poison to take effect any minute, but it didn't, and none of the goblins seemed to be affected in the slightest. Then 16 minutes passed, 17,18,19,20 until even 25 minutes had passed with seemingly no change or sign of any effects on the goblins. By now, Balslin's face, which was once smiling with glee, showed a rage-filled scowl, and confusion was etched onto it.

'Why doesn't a double dose double the effectiveness and speed of the poison?'

Balslin thought, wondering why this poison that Stator had spent $10,000 on didn't seem to work as intended and began sweating as he only had 5 minutes left until Stator and his army of players attacked the army camp. At this rate, instead of finding a mainly weakened army trying to figure out how so many of their soldiers were ill, creating chaos in the army camp and an opportunity for Stator to attack a confused army, he would find a veteran NPC army ready to respond to orders the moment their superiors gave them. 

Balslins thought process then turned to blaming the one player who was responsible for his current situation who was really living up to his player name of Greedy Green Little Shit.

'Didn't he say that one drop was all that was needed for the symptoms to start showing quickly, leading to death? Why was nothing happening?

'Had they been scammed by the cunning goblin alchemist player?'

Balslins mind continued spiralling as he blamed the cunning goblins for scamming them and giving him what he saw as a defective product, not knowing all the trouble the goblin alchemist player had to go through even to be able to smuggle out what little he did out to them or of the stringent security that he even would have been unable to get his hands on such a potent poison in the first place if he did not go through the Dynasty History Event to get to his position having a clear understanding of just how terrifying The Lethal Legion was and how futile this attempt by the players was.

What Balslin didn't know was that they were not lied to by the cunning goblin who, despite using the opportunity to extort as any good stereotypical fantasy goblin would, had the integrity not to give them a defective as being known as opportunistic was one thing but a scammer was an entirely different game entirely that could tank his reputation after all he wanted to use his skills of alchemy in the game to sell potions of any kind to the players to make a living.

And considering he had already made $10,000 within a week of the game opening it could be said that his plan to get rich was working relatively well.

But the reason why the effects of the poison seemed to be lessened was that The Lethal Legions soldiers were just as eccentric as their commander, who forced them to go through special training which was unknown to Stator, who did not have any players in his army that had been around since before the servers were around going through the Dynasty History System with The Black Deaths army as the hooded goblin alchemist did. 

Apart from strictly guarding his poison supply, which was one of the best in the entire world of Dynasties Online, the intelligent black-skinned goblin general did one more thing to protect his soldiers from the many poisons that could kill them in seconds if an accident occurred for any reason on the battlefield or if the enemy tried to fight fire with fire and attempt to use The Black Death's tactics against him.

After all, nothing is more embarrassing than dying from your own poison because you cut yourself by accident! 

This crucial thing was vaccinating his men against poison to build up their resistance to the many toxins they may be exposed to in the world.

That's right. Every single NPC soldier within The Lethal Legion had been forced to consume low-level, relatively harmless Poisons with similar effects to the much more deadly ones to help train their bodies to defend themselves against the many different toxins they may encounter during battle.

This had increased their poison resistance and acted like a vaccine would in the modern world against deadly diseases, helping to lower the effects of the illness/poison and give the body the antibodies it needed to help fight off these pathogens before they can do too much damage.

Some of the veterans and officers higher up in the chain of command were fully immunised to many of the poisons the lethal legion used, not even needing the antidote at times to fight the poison off successfully. 

This program, made personally by The Black Death himself, helped build up resistance against many different types of poisons and is why Balslin hadn't found the symptoms he had been looking for.

One may ask, if all the NPC soldiers within the army seemed to have this sort of skill, why didn't any of the new player soldiers or logistical personnel have it, too?

The answer to that question is simple, it was to allow the newly joined players to have as much control and as many customisation options for their characters as possible.

If there was one thing that DO had of in endless amounts, it was options and choices.

Even the game's most ardent haters and detractors being, mainly those who had their interests harmed or got pissed at the business's less than conciliatory tone, could not deny that Dynasties Online was a very open game with an enormous amount of player freedom allowing players to create their own adventures or be whatever they wanted to be.

Want to be a farmer? Great, go farm! Want to be a priest or monk? Great, join one of the many religions in the game and work your way up the ranks. You may even eventually get your own bishopric to look after, making money from the donations of your flock.

The options open to the players were endless, as they could take up any position available in a medieval fantasy world. All they had to do was take the initiative to go down the path they desired and work within the framework of the world.

Just as the 30th minute passed and Balslin had lost all hope, the first signs of the poison's effects could finally be seen on some of the newer goblin soldiers as their bodies crumpled to the ground devoid of strength, each vomiting black blood onto the floor as their comrades put them in the recovery position to prevent them from chocking on their own blood as their green skin began to shrivel their bodies desperately trying to fight the toxins that had managed to infiltrate their bodies somehow.

It was a good job that Balslin used to double the poison; otherwise, it would have taken an hour for the effects of this debilitating poison to appear, giving these sick soldiers 30 minutes to help fight off the incoming player army before collapsing potentially being able to ensure that it was crushed as the players had no chance against the combat skill of the NPCs which was currently far superior to theirs only those who were ex-military or currently serving would have a chance against them in a 1v1.

'At least that cunning bastard is not a complete hack, but $10,000 for this is a complete scam!'

Balslin thought once again, cursing at the goblin alchemist, but calmed herself down as he looked over the camp as more goblins began collapsing and the camp turned into complete chaos, hoping that Stator would be able to take the gatehouse in the chaos and let the army of players waiting outside in.

'So it begins.'