Chapter 92: Tactical Briefing
Chapter 92: Tactical Briefing
The sailors laughed. "Just what we needed, a crayon eater giving us a tactical briefing."
"Well, you’re on land now, so until you build a new boat, you’re all mine. Alright, here is how it goes. The quests that you are going to get are either personal improvement sorts, or they’re going to be in five and ten-person groups.
Going out without a healer attached to the group is suicide for the noble ladies and gentlemen of the floating artillery. So, you will need at least one warrior, preferably two, who can stand at the front and block the enemy. Then you need two damage dealers and a healer.
Because we’re always short on healers, ten-person groups replace the second healer with another damage dealer.
I recommend that you either have someone who can handle a rifle or a mage with an area damage spell. It’s the best way to deal with the boars. You can fight the Swineherd Demons up close, but the boars will just run you down.
That’s not optimal if you’ve also got to fight the Swineherd Demons that are handling them.
Now, do you have any questions? Need someone to hold your hand?"
The heroes from the bunker were watching the scene with a sort of morbid fascination. Was this how the branches of the military always treated each other? It was almost like sibling rivalry.
For her part, Kalli just let them go at it.
That sort of rivalry would keep them competing hard, and her old employer had loved to pit coding teams on parallel projects against each other, with performance metrics and customer product satisfaction as the scorecard.
Even though their projects had nothing to do with each other, they could still brag about coming in on budget and on schedule, or on having a higher customer satisfaction rate.
It actually worked better than giving the teams bonuses for meeting the metrics.
The compensation package was always pretty solid anyhow. But they had tried a number of methods of motivating people.
Some of them less ethical than others.
Kalli knew that for certain because she had been the one to scrub the servers and erase the paper trail when the police came looking. And then she was also the one who had to stop the hack when the federal agents didn’t believe that the police found nothing.
Now that she thought harder about it, she really shouldn’t have been surprised that her previous life ended with an interstellar enforcement fleet simply hitting them with an orbital strike.
"Alright, we’re going to have to do something about these new arrivals. None of them have enough gear to actually go out and fight. So, we’re either going to have to take up a collection, or we’re all going to have to suffer a bit, and I’ll front them enough equipment to get them going.
That will put them behind on their skill growth, assuming that they’ve even got more than their base skill.
But it’s unavoidable. Skills are great to have, and they become far more important to make progress in later. But only if you’re not dead."
The newly arrived heroes let out a unified noise of emotional pain that could only come from those who have suddenly found themselves in debt.
"How long does it take to pay off the equipment that we’re going to need?" The officer who had been explaining events to Kalli asked.
"If you do the two quests for the Armoured Boars and the Swineherd Demons, that’s four points a day, so you’ll have it paid off in two days. Then you can start saving for skills and repairs.
Did you happen to have any heroes with repair skills?"
Both groups shook their heads.
"The ones with those sorts of skills all got sorted and sent somewhere else."
"They’re doing this just to mess with me, aren’t they? There is no way that this level of annoyance can be accidental," Kalli asked nobody in particular.
"Fear not, Coordinator. This level of annoyance is only introductory level annoyance. I can assure you that with true bureaucratic efficiency, they can, in fact, increase it to many times its current rate," Sanchez informed her in a crisp tone, as if giving a military report.
"What do we do for equipment, then? Is there some super secret military armoury at the Academy?" One of the heroes asked with heavy sarcasm.
He was a university student, and he had lived here most of his life. He knew what the Academy did and didn’t have.
"If you would like to take a moment to admire the physique of Sergeant Sanchez here, you will note that the {Light Composite Battle Armour} is both fashionable and form fitting. Compatible with a variety of webbing and equipment hard mounting options, it is bullet resistant, durable, and even dampens the impacts of blunt weapons.
Then, displayed on our lovely fashion model Burt, you will see the heavy composite armour.
It is twice the cost, and will take three days of maximum quest rewards to pay off all your gear, but the armour level that it provides is far superior for those in need of serious protection.
Bert, give the ladies a twirl, let them see what you’re working with."
The hefty warrior, with his build now more closely resembling a strongman competitor, gave the sailor lady a wink and a wiggle as he did a slow spin for the crowd.
"You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?" The Naval officer asked.
"Very much so, yes."
"Alright, big man, leave some of the ladies for everyone else. Now, those of you who fight with a shield, I recommend that you get heavy armour. Everyone else can generally get away with light armour.
However, if you want the extra protection, I can front you the difference. I just need a few more teams to go out and complete the quests so that I actually have the points to give out that much expensive armour."
The students who had been at the Academy for the trials laughed. A hundred sets of armour was already far more expensive than what any of them would dare to offer, even if they pooled their resources, and Kalli would have to give them weapons to go with it.