Skylair Online

Prologue

Ben sat on his sofa, his feet up on the coffee table in front of him. While the television played an advertisement, he was busy scrolling through websites on his phone.

He briefly looked up as his older sister, Nina, walked into the room with a box of cookies.

“What are you watching?” she asked as she sat down next to him, taking a bite out of a cookie.

“The Skylair world finals,” Ben replied.

“Oh,” she said, finishing the cookie and taking another, “What’s that?”

“It’s a five verses five team game, the idea is that there is a massive giant at the top of a mountain, first team to beat it wins. But there is also other things you have to do first in order to get strong enough to beat it.”

“Like what?”

“Like capture shrines and defeat smaller monsters…”

He trailed off as the advertisements ended.

“And welcome back ladies and gentleman,” the television said, “For those of you just joining us, I’m Smiles and this is my analyst Spooks. Right now, we are about to head into game three of the Skylair Season 8 World Championship grand finals between the defending champions Dragonrush Gaming and a team that literally formed for this season, known as Divine Arts. And what is even more surprising, the new kids on the block are absolutely destroying Dragonrush, these games haven’t even been close. If Divine Arts can win this game they are going to be taking home the trophy and a prize pool of ten million dollars. Spooks, tell me, is there anything Dragonrush can do right now?”

“I don’t know Smiles, it does seem pretty bleak. Divine Arts’ scout, SINS… he’s got Dragonrush read like a book, it really is almost scary to watch. Every single move Dragonrush have made, SINS has been on them almost instantly, it’s like he’s actually in their heads. If it wasn’t been played on stage right now, I’d say that he was listening in on their voice coms. Dragonrush have got to rethink their strategies, they need something new and they need it fast, they have to throw SINS off their trail.”

“If Divine Arts do win this, would it be fair to say it was solely down to SINS?”

“I don’t know about that, there is no doubt SINS is one of the best players to touch the game, but there has to be a team behind him to execute on his calls. That, and I can tell you now, just from watching how he and their assassin, Luminous, play together, their coordination and understanding between the two of them is some of the best work we’ve ever seen on the pro stage. At the end of the tournament, when we get access to what they are saying to each other, analysts and pros are really going to have to study up on how those two are communicating and learn from it.”

“Well, thanks Spooks but I’m going to have to cut you short there as the teams have all finished selecting their loadouts and we are ready to get into what could be the last game of the season 8 world championship.”

The screen cut away from the two commentators and was filled with a view over a mountain range surrounded by grassy plains on its east and west sides and desert on its north and south sides. The camera then panned around to show five people wearing different variations on a set of red armour.

The first was a giant of a man, wielding a shield the size of a truck and a massive mace that looked as though the remains of whatever it hit would be completely unrecognisable. The second, standing just behind the first was a caped figure with a bandana over his nose and mouth and spinning a bow in his hand. As he drew the bow experimentally, a silver arrow formed on the string. Third was young woman with blonde hair down to her waist. She wore much less armour than the rest, only having plates on her shoulders and forearms, the rest of her was covered by a red robe and in her hands she cradled a book. The fourth and fifth players stood side by side, at the edge of the stone dias that marked their starting area. They wore red leather armour, one wielding a pair of daggers and one turning over a lightly glowing blue orb in his hand.

A countdown appeared on screen in bright orange letters.

“Three seconds until the scouts are released and… here they go.”

The leather clad warriors sprinted out onto the grassy plains, one heading north and one heading south.

“And we see again that both SINS and Luminous have opted to go for the Scout perk, allowing them to get that extra thirty seconds on the map,” Smiles said as the camera panned out so that both players were visible at the same time.

“Before the tournament, if someone told me that a team in the finals would be running a double scout composition I’d have called them an i***t,” Spook said, “But here we are. Divine Arts just use the extra information so well that it’s completely worth it for them to sacrifice some of the damage potential that Luminous could put out for that extra 30 seconds of time to prepare vision around the map.”

“Hold on there Spooks, have a look at this,” Smiles cut in and the camera then switched to a view of the blue team, all of whom were still stood on their starting position, “It seems like Dragonrush have opted to go for a scoutless line-up. What is going on here?”

“No way…” Spooks breathed, “They are going for a Titan rush composition. Zenheim has switched from scout to another guardian and Oser has switched from assassin to another artillery. This is crazy. Now, normally teams have to move about the map, collecting resources so that they can take down the Titan even if it is contested by the enemy team, but with two guardians, two artillery and a mage, they can take on the titan immediately without any resources from the map. The idea is that they can take the Titan and win the game before Divine Arts has a chance to collect the resources their low-damage composition needs to win. However, this is if Divine Arts don’t realise what is going on. Dragonrush must be desperate, they are gambling everything on SINS not realising what they are up to.”

 “But surely, this is such an insane strategy that not even SINS would guess it.”