The cold pragmatism of the tactician vanished. Ray felt the familiar, hydraulic pull of Full Immersion. His consciousness stepped backward, as his consciousness arrived in the humming space of his Ambient Presence.

He walked over to the row of chairs. Ray sank into the Scheming Courtier's vacated chair, sitting next to the Grizzled Commander, who was watching Ray’s viewpoint with a critical scowl.

In the illusionary world, when Ray opened his eyes, his posture had entirely shifted. He stood effortlessly elegant, his shoulders relaxed, his chin tilted up with an aura of dripping, condescending authority. The Scheming Courtier had taken the wheel.

"Captain of the Garrison!"

Ray's voice rang out, carrying perfectly over the terrifying silence of his massive (fake) army.

"Show yourself!"

A gruff, heavily scarred mercenary captain slowly peered over the battlements, his face pale, his eyes darting frantically over the sea of five hundred armored soldiers waiting to slaughter his starving men.

"I am the Captain of this Garrison, state your business!"

The Captain yelled back, trying and failing to keep his voice from trembling.

"This tollhouse belongs to the Black Iron Company!"

Ray let out a soft, pitying laugh. It was a perfectly calculated sound, utilizing the Courtier's Psychological Parry to instantly belittle the man's bravado.

"It's going to belong to the dead, Captain."

Ray called back, his tone dripping with aristocratic boredom. Using Leveraged Negotiation, Ray mentally dissected the man's desperate position.

"I see your rusted iron. I can hear your men’s stomachs growling from here. You are holding a ruined wall for a master who hasn't paid you in months. I have five hundred elite shock troops behind me who haven't eaten a good meal since breakfast, and they are looking at your gates like a silver platter."

Conman: "Oh, he's good. He's squeezing the mark right where it hurts."

The Charismatic Conman said as he leaned forward, grinning.

The Garrison Captain swallowed hard, looking back at his own terrified, starving men. They were already backing away from the walls.

"Fighting us is certain death."

Ray continued, his voice turning smooth, reasonable, and intoxicatingly persuasive.

"But surrendering to me? That is a promotion."

Ray reached into his cloak, pulled out the heavy leather satchel of Eldorian Gold Sovereigns, and casually tossed it underhand. With Ray’s hidden strength, the heavy bag flew through the air, clearing the battlements and landing with a massive, heavy clink at the Garrison Captain's boots.

The Garrison Captain knelt, untying the string. The brilliant gleam of fresh, heavy gold illuminated his scarred face.

"I estimate that should be more than your contract, paid in advance, open the gates, Captain. Change your banner. You work for me now."

Ray purred, delivering the final, crushing blow of political leverage.

Faced with an overwhelming, terrifying army that promised death, and a heavy purse of gold that promised salvation, the Garrison Captain's morale broke entirely. He didn't even consult his lieutenants.

"Open the gates!"

The Garrison Captain roared down to the courtyard.

"Lower the barricades!" 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

The heavy iron doors groaned open.

In the ambient presence, the Scheming Courtier arrived back. Ray was instantly pulled forward, slamming back into the driver's seat of his physical body. As Ray took control, blinking against the harsh light of the Shattered Citadel, he felt the Scheming Courtier's lingering presence in his mind. The aristocratic persona turned to the other archetypes seated in their chairs, swept his arm out in a grand flourish, and executed a deep, mocking bow.

"And that, gentlemen, is how you conquer a castle without dulling a single blade."

The Scheming Courtier purred as he walked back to his chair.

The Grizzled Commander just grunted, though a reluctant smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Outside in the grand arena. up in the spectator box, the College of Statecraft professors watching the broadcast sat in stunned, absolute silence. Ray hadn't just captured a stronghold. He had recruited two hundred troops without a single drop of blood being spilled. He had bought them.

Back in the Illusionary world of the Shattered Citadel, inside the walls, the newly recruited mercenaries fell into line, looking with absolute awe and terror at the massive five-hundred-man legion that had spared their lives.

Ray knew the Phantasmal Battalion couldn't hold its form forever, and if the real mercenaries bumped into the Aether-constructs, the deception would be ruined. He needed to clear the board.

"Captain!"

Ray ordered, sitting upon the command chair in the courtyard.

"Integrate your men with my quartermasters. Eat, re-arm, and prepare for a siege."

Ray then turned to his four hundred phantom constructs. He raised his voice so every soldier could hear.

"Vanguard! You are to march ahead!"

Ray commanded the illusionary legion.

"Scout the Medium Strongholds! Crush any resistance on the road, and wait for my signal to strike the Keep!"

The four hundred phantasmal constructs turned in perfect unison. The heavy, kinetic crunch of their boots hitting the cobblestones echoed like thunder as the fake army marched out the opposite gates, their terrifying footsteps echoing into the distance.

They were off to terrify the neighboring territories, cementing Ray's reputation as a commander of a massive, unstoppable legion, while keeping his newly bought real army safely insulated from the truth.

Ray leaned back in his chair, a satisfied smirk on his face. The snowball had been pushed off the edge of the cliff. Now, it was time to watch it become an avalanche.

The Illusionary world of the Shattered Citadel was terrifyingly real. The bitter wind smells of ozone and blood, and the agonizing arithmetic of survival.

Luke Herrington stood in the center of a muddy, blood-slicked courtyard. He wiped his crimson-stained longsword on the cloak of a fallen mercenary and sheathed it. All around him, the remaining defenders of the Small Stronghold were throwing down their weapons, yielding to the brutal efficiency of his Heavy Vanguard.

It had been a tactically flawless assault. Luke had utilized a perfect hammer-and-anvil strike, using his heavy infantry to pin the two hundred neutral mercenaries at the gate while his shock cavalry flanked them through a breached wall.

But flawless tactics did not mean bloodless execution.

"Commander, the stronghold is secured. The enemy has routed or surrendered."

His lieutenant gasped, limping forward with a heavily dented breastplate.

"Casualties?"

Luke asked, his voice tight.

"A total of twenty-five dead and critically wounded, sir."

Luke felt the color drain from his face. He stepped over a fallen body and unrolled a heavy, weathered parchment map of the Shattered Citadel on a wooden crate.

He looked at the concentric rings of the city's defenses. He had started with one hundred elite troops. He had just lost twenty-five to secure a minor outer wall. That left him with seventy-five men. To establish a garrison and officially hold this Small Stronghold, the rules of the event required him to leave fifty men behind.

If he did that, he would only have twenty-five soldiers left to march on to other strongholds which would be suicide.

He was mathematically paralyzed. He had won the battle, but looking at the blood pooling in the cobblestones, Luke realized with a sinking horror that he had already lost the campaign.

Outside the illusionary world of the Shattered Citadel, up in the Grand Arena, Bruce Doyle’s voice echoed with solemn pity.

"A magnificent tactical breach by Luke Herrington... but the Preservation Protocol shows no mercy. He spent a quarter of his army for a single inch of ground. He is bleeding out."

Miles away, on the western edge of the ruined city, Eliza Vance was running a ghost campaign.

She had realized instantly that a frontal assault with her fragile unit of Arcane Rogues and Shadow-Rangers was suicide. Instead, she had waited for nightfall. Under the cover of localized magical darkness, her assassins had scaled the walls of a small stronghold, slipped past the sentries, and executed a flawless, silent decapitation strike on the mercenary captain in his sleep.

Without a leader to command the garrison troops, the fragile morale of the two hundred defending troops instantly shattered. Panic erupted in the courtyard. Within minutes, the garrison broke formation, abandoning the stronghold and scattering into the dark, ruined alleyways of the city.

Eliza walked into the empty keep, her boots echoing in the quiet halls. She commanded her rangers to pry open the stronghold's iron vault.

Inside were heavy wooden chests brimming with Eldorian Gold Sovereigns.

Eliza stared at the gold, her brilliant mind spinning like a geared astrolabe. She instantly turned to her own troops.

"Open your supply satchels. Now."

Her troops obeyed. Some of the troops had identical pouches of gold. Eliza closed her eyes, cursing herself. She had been so focused on drafting stealth units that she hadn't inspected her own logistical supplies. She realized the secret protocol of the Grand Finals wasn't just survival; it was recruitment.

But the realization came with a bitter pill. She had the gold, but she lacked the leverage. You couldn't walk up to a fortified garrison of two hundred armed men with a handful of assassins and offer them a bribe; they would simply laugh, kill you, and take the coin.

However, Eliza was a Tier-1 Scribe of Statecraft. She adapted.

"Those mercenaries who just fled,"

Eliza ordered, turning to her Shadow-Rangers.

"They are currently leaderless, terrified, and wandering the ruins. They are vulnerable. Fan out and track them down, corner them in small groups, and offer them this gold. We are going to build an army in the shadows."

While Luke bled and Eliza hid, Ray Croft was building an empire.

His combined force of three hundred men, his original hundred perfectly integrated with his newly bought mercenaries and marched openly down the main thoroughfares of the Shattered Citadel.

Their next target was another small stronghold, but Ray’s scouts had warned him this one was different. The garrison was well-supplied, their armor was maintained, and their perimeter watch was disciplined. Throwing a bag of gold at a comfortable soldier wouldn't work; they needed to be broken first.

Ray halted his troops just out of bow range. He closed his eyes.

System, initiate Full Immersion: Grizzled Commander.

Ray mentally commanded

Once again, the world shifted. Ray stepped back into his mind's ambient presence, taking a seat in the Grizzled Commander’s chair.

Ray’s shoulders broadened, his posture settling into the heavy, grounded stance of a man who had survived a hundred hopeless sieges. His eyes grew cold, pragmatic, and ruthlessly calculating.

Time to go to work.

The Grizzled Commander thought.