Frostbound

Tracy Strong

Tracy sat in her study and read over the reports she had been given. Damien lost his pylon and was retreating into her territory with what was left of his faction. She would have to go see what he was up to. If he thought that he was going to take over one of her pylons then he was surely mistaken. If he came to join, then that was a different matter. She smirked thinking about all of the points she could confiscate off of him.

She had Kathy keep a close eye on what The Mindbreaker was up to and he was moving back up north. He already had the northeastern corner under his control and now he was working his way west to take over all of the north. He left some of his army behind and was still expanding in the east as well, but without his presence, it wasn't going well. The minions weren't smart enough without his input and acted little better than wave beasts. It was slow going and it was taking him a lot of time to continue his conquest which was the only good news. Damien actually put a decent dent into his army of freaks. The more territory he took the longer it took to take more.

Damien's lightning was a weakness that Tracy was eager to replicate. She saw through scrying pools and Kathy's birds that the lightning had a unique effect on the minions it hit. She would have to adjust the element of her traps if it was true.

The Mindbreaker had been getting better with every camp he took over and his armies only grew. He transitioned from humans to animals now and his ranks swelled with that addition. Most of his army was keeping his pylons from being overrun but with every new addition his power grew. One of the reasons he didn't have more pylons under his control was he stopped taking them. He would walk in after a wave, weave his magic on everyone there, then leave before the wave came.

Tracy sighed as she looked over the map that she had bought. It showed all of the pylon positions with notes about their state on the side. Kathy had been working night and day to scout out everything and make sure there were no surprises.

Over half of the groups that started the tutorial had fallen and more were close. Out of 50 pylons, only 25 were still held. She had 4, The Mindbreaker had 9, a man to the south had 6, and the rest were independents. Only 6 independent groups still held onto their original pylon. Damien used to hold 5 himself before he was forced to flee.

The rest were either wandering the wild or joined up with another settlement. She had taken a few in but only the ones that were worth it. They had to have something that would add to the camp otherwise, it would only make it harder.

She thought back to the people she took in. She could have taken in more but decided against it. Still, some good warriors came out of letting people join and gave her enough people to hold 4 pylons. She chose the ones that surrounded the pylon she started with so she would have a buffer pylon if anyone wanted to attack. The one in the East was where Damien's lands started and she didn't have that one.

She had the pylon to the north, west, and south of her original pylon, but not the east. She could go and take it now that Damien was retreating but it wouldn't be worth it. On the off chance that the Mindbreaker wanted it, she didn't want to give him a reason to attack. Tracy did not doubt that he would eventually, but she didn't want to expedite the process.

She didn't have a lot of information on who held the 6 pylons in the south. The birds that Kathy used for scouts couldn't handle the desert area very well and giant vultures would prey upon them, making scouting harder. The scrying spell some of the mages learned didn't reach that far either. She heard tales from people who came through her camp that he had a very powerful body somehow and that he was immune to most poisons.

There was an outlandish tale of being poisoned for a week and surviving that gave him power but Tracy thought that was horseshit. It didn't make any sense that nearly dying to the venom of a scorpion would somehow make him stronger.