Chapter Five

Lunch was clearly a major social gathering; not that the food was bad either.

"Look, it's the reaper girl."
Petra ignored him.
"Oh and she's a grim reaper. Something got you down?"
Petra continued ignoring him, she'd seen movies and watched all the shows this was just an initiation rite. She had drawn attention to herself and this was the consequence.
"Oh please Miss grim reaper, don't eat my soul."
"I got something she can eat, Whoo!"

Chesi looked at her sympatheticlly as she sat down.
"Don't mind them, deep down they just feel threatened. Subconsciously, they think making fun of you reaffirms their superiority."
"We'll see about that."
Petra stood up and faced the offender. He was short for a Nielda, he may actually have been human. Brown hair, brown eyes, light tan nothing extraordinary about him. He looked strong though, he picked fights often most likely. He had lackeys, and the black shield broach marked him as a part of the so-called 'evil house' branch of the student body. It seemed safe to assume that this was a bully, and a succesful one at that.
"What, are you going to harvest me kid?"
"Not here I wouldn't. If you have a problem with me; TacSim after lunch, bring a few friends it would be a shame to embarass you in private."
"It's on reaper. How about you all come down and watch me teach this first year how things are done around here?"
"I look forward to watching my virtual soldiers cush your pathetic virtual soldiers under foot."

Petra sat back down and continued eating.
"I was never much of a games person, what exactly did you just challenge him to?"
"TacSim, or Tactical Simulator, is the most popular game in the empire. I'm surprised you don't know about it yet, Chesi."
"I've heard of it of course, I've just never played. How does it work?"
"Well, It's usually played with a team of ten. Each player builds their army using four basic units, and any units they can buy or train or develop on their own. Spearmen are good against cavalry, but move slowly and are vulnerable to archers or to a lesser extent swordsmen. Swordsmen have shields to protect themselves against archers, but still don't move quickly. Their best use is against spearmen, or cavalry once its lost momentum. Archers have range, slower moving infantry like spearmen and swordsmen are vulnerable to them but cavalry slaughters them. Cavalry is fast and hits hard, they're great against archers or swordsmen. Most custom armies will also include some sort of artillery, catapults or scorpions of some sort.
A map is randomly generated by the computer and the two teams, or players in this case, deploy their armies on it. There are three ways to win; convince the opponent to surrender, capture his supplies and hold them for a set period of time, or kill or capture all of their soldiers. It's intended to mimic battlefield command as close as possible, there's all kinds of variables to consider. It might be raining, making fields mudy and slowing movement as well as damaging your bows. You could be operating on low supplies, which makes your men slower and less willing to obey orders. The more you fight with an army the better it gets, so most people will build an army and use it for a lifetime. Others will build armies for specific fights and research their opponents to know what to expect. It's very individualized."
"Sounds complicated, do you play much?"

Petra did, constantly. She played against the generals when they were at the palace on buisness, she played against the guards when they were off-duty, and when no one was around she even played against herself. She won probably eighty percent of the time. It had always been one of her better skills. General Hasbr had offered her a position as his tactical aid if she ever joined the army. But saying how much experience she had, and how good she already was, would change this from an opportunity to shame him for losing to a first year to being watching a professional level commander teabag a blind child.

"Every now and then when I have nothing else to do."
"My dad plays all the time. He even played the princess once."
"Really? Did he win?"
"No, but it lasted nearly six hours."

Petra had fought several such matches. It stilled narrowed down her father's identity to about four people. General Hasbr, King Pinn of Rhinsla, Admiral Stone(her own father), and Captain Spielgan of the Imperial Guards; all four of them were on the national team. Since she knew both of the Captain's daughters it was safe to asume it wasn't him, and her own father wasn't nearly daring enough to cross his wife like that she probably wasn't a half-sister either. General Hasbr was, well the Daniellandish usually just refered to it as 'He keeps a bird', but the safe asumption was that he had no children. Otan had refered to her as a Rhinslader, and while Petra was no linguist that honrific he'd used towards her sounded familiar. But if she didn't want people to know then Petra could keep a secret.