User:Fish/Damon Magica Roma

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Note: This page descends from a branching story called Dreams Incorporated. Follow the link to start at the beginning.

Start over from the beginning

Go back one and select a new character for Damon

Empires At War (Magica Roma)

When Damon makes his selection, the world seems to stutter and go dark. There is nothing in existence, nothing anywhere, but a sound: a clicking, humming sussuration just below the edge of hearing. It drops down through the subsonic register. If Damon still had a body — and he doesn't feel as if he does, because he is part of the nonexistent nothing of Void — he would feel a disturbing nausea and disorientation. After a moment or two as the Dreams computer adjusts its sensory timing to Damon's own human brain, the world of Magica Roma starts to flicker into existence, at first choppy and accelerated like a hand-cranked silent movie, and then more steadily. In an almost-physical assault of scent, light, sound, and the rush of air, the world appears.

All around Damon, the rugged, Mediterranean hills of central Italy coalesce. The folded terrain, dry in the summer heat, spans the skyline on three sides: north, east, and south. Somewhere to the east and south, a road pierces the hills, a gray span of stone two chariots wide, winding south toward Brundisium and ending far to the southeast on the heel of Italy's boot, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea. To the west, the road wends its way down from here, cut through limestone and earth with all the methodical and bloody-minded determination of three centuries of Roman engineering, down the valley toward the city of Neapolis. Forests of pine and oak and beech lie scattered about the hills of the Apennines, obscuring the nearby fortified town of Beneventum, shading the cobbled stones. This is the Queen of Roads, the carrier of Roman troops in antiquity: the Via Appia, also known as the Appian Way.

Damon and Seth are standing together by the road, with the rest of the Century nearby, taking a midmorning rest from their strenuous uphill march. The Century is in full battle gear, and their segmented iron armor gleams in the sunlight as they gather one by one to drink their fill at a roadside stream. Damon's horse grazes on the dry grass, close at hand.

Neither one of them can explain how they know, because the Dreams computer can expertly insert knowledge and memories and understanding into the human mind, but nevertheless they understand that they are soldiers of the Sixth Century, First Foward Triarii. Damon is the centurion in command; Seth is his optio. Both also know, without knowing how: Rome is at war, and Rome is losing.

It is a scene from a history that never existed, in a fantasy version of Rome that never was. In this history, the myths of the Greeks and Romans, the capricious gods and their magic, the sorcery of Ovid and Homer, are very real. In this history, Greece never fell to Rome at the Battle of Corinth, was never sold into slavery or entered the Roman empire as a subjugated state. This Greece defended itself with magic and turned aside Achaicus and his army and even now, to the north and west, Greek quinqueremes sail up the Tiber River to a retributive assualt on Rome itself.

And somewhere along the Appian Way, or very close beside it, a second column of Greeks, a wave of reinforcements, are marching north to follow up the attack on land.

"So this is Rome," Seth says, looking up and down the Appian Way. "It's a lot newer than I figured."

"It's Rome, before it was Ancient Rome," Damon murmurs. He watches the legionnaires take turns kneeling beside the road. There is a ladle hanging from the branch of a dogwood tree, and each soldier dips the ladle into the stream, then drinks deeply from it. Damon has an uneasy feeling, a deep-seated guilt that seemed to come from nowhere, and he was keenly aware that although the bit players of the Dream were mere electronic constructs, they represented men, mortals, those not to reason why. In this adventure scenario, if Damon is unable to command them properly, the men may die, and die horribly.

Seth and Damon are equipped in dissimilar armor, consisting of smooth curves of shaped iron that overlap. Bands of iron around the torso latch together in a line of rings at the front and back. In the body of his character, the second-in-command Optio Marcius, Seth is a man of medium height in his late twenties with dark skin, very short black hair, and a well-trimmed beard. Seth's frame is broad, and solid with muscle. His nose bears the characteristic twist of having been broken at least once. Damon, in his turn, wears the armor of a centurion: chain mail with iron greaves and pauldrons. His gladius is belted at his left side, and his helmet is plumed. He, too, is well-tanned from the bright summer sun of Southern Europe, but he is older — thirty at least — and has no beard. His face is scarred from many battles and his head is shaven bald.

"The Greeks are attacking Rome?" Seth asks, puzzled. He is frowning, because the Dreams computer has seamlessly been inserting knowledge into his head, and he is surprised to discover it there. "With sorcery? How are we going to stop that?"

Damon takes a moment to answer. "We aren't. Those aren't my orders."

The optio is incredulous. "You mean we're not marching toward Rome?"

"No." Damon hesitates again. He suspects that the information he knows about the Greek attack is slightly more comprehensive than that of his second-in-command, and he wonders how much he should reveal.

Even though Damon is wearing a new face, the face of a Roman centurion, Seth detects the hesitation. "What?" he asks. "If we're not marching in support of Rome, where are we heading?"

"We're the First Forward Triarii," Damon says, searching his newly-installed memories. "That means we're — we're the fallback position. If the front line retreats, and the second line retreats, everything falls to us. We're the emergency backup."

"Then what are we doing here?"

Damon glances again at the legionnaires. They are still taking a well-earned rest. "Don't tell the men," Damon says, "but there's a Greek column out there on the road. It might be on the Appian Way itself, but I doubt it. There are too many towns along that road, too many fortifications. They couldn't march all that way, at speed. All we know is that they sacked the town of Brundisium and left it burning. Our scouts say they marched from the city a week ago, heading northwest along an older road called the Via Traiana."

"That's not a road, that's a trail."

Damon nods. "Not a road by our standards — or by Roman standards. But it won't slow them down much. The Via Traiana is faster than the Via Appia. It goes northwest along the plains of the coast and then turns sharply into the mountains, and connects at Beneventum. Right here," he adds. Damon points to the east, at the bend where the Appian Way bends southward. At the turn in the road, another path punches through the trees, barely wider than a single chariot, unpaved and grown with weeds and brush. "That's where the Via Traiana comes through."

"If they follow the road."

"Yes."

"They might not. They might turn west somewhere else, and connect up to the Via Appia somewhere south of us, not east. Not everybody is like you," he says with mock disdain. "Not everybody likes to stay on the public roads, the safe roads."

"Oh, please," Damon says, rolling his eyes. "You're not going to make everything about that again, are you? This isn't about being gay."

"Being gay? No, it isn't — and too bad, really," Seth sighs, looking back at the legionnaires. "I was right, this is like that movie 300. I don't think I could choose."

"Choose?" Damon says, nettled. "Choose whoever you want. We don't have time to dally in these hills while you seduce a few legionnaires."

Seth gives his commanding officer a withering look. "I'd choose you, Mr. Centurion, but you picked a straight character. Again. I sometimes don't know why I bother trying to enter your fantasies. They're just like real life."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Secrets," Seth says bluntly. "Keeping secrets. I didn't know about the Greek column until just now. I thought our orders were to march in support of the garrison at Beneventum. But apparently we're not doing that, are we?" He looks shrewdly at Damon's new face, trying to read its expression. "Even here, you keep secrets. What are we really doing?"

Damon shrugs. "Fine. If you must know, I'll tell you."

The optio's unfamiliar face breaks into Seth's wicked grin. "Now that's the spirit."

"The Greeks are out there," Damon says in a low voice. "They burned the town of Herdoniae yesterday. They're marching with Greek sorcerers, and they are headed this way. They have enough magic, and enough manpower, that they could take Beneventum, and if they do that, we'll never dislodge them out of these hills. You wanted to play 300? You might get your chance. To the east of us the Via Traiana narrows down to a small valley."

"Right," Seth says, dredging his computer-installed knowledge. "The Celone River."

"That'll be their path," the centurion says confidently. "It's narrow, yes, and it's difficult ground. The Greeks like to fight in close formation, and they'll be looking to make good time up the river valley, not to stand and fight. The phalanx is virtually unbeatable from the front, when they get to choose the time and place of the battle. The whole idea is not to let them choose."

"And if we try to take them, in the river valley, then we get to choose," Seth concludes. "We can make them fight on unfavorable ground, where it isn't level. If a phalanx had to fight in a river valley like that, it'd break up their formations, and we'd take them." The optio considers this a moment. "So what's the catch?"

Again Damon looks over at the Century, to be sure the legionnaires are otherwise occupied, and that none is listening. "The catch is," Damon says, "it's just us."

Seth's eyes widen, and his new olive-skinned features take on a look of shock and surprise. "Wow. Just us against...?"

"A Greek column. Maybe six thousand men. And sorcerers."

"And our sorcerers?"

Damon shakes his head. "None. The rest of the cohort, including our own sorcerers, is marching to Beneventum to reinforce the garrison. Our job is to slow down the Greek column just long enough, to allow them time to arrive. The Greeks can't be allowed to dig in up here. From the Apennines they can strike west, to Neapolis, and beyond that, to Rome. You wanted to relive the Battle of Thermopylae? I think the computer overheard you in the booth, because that's what we're getting." He smiles, ironically. "So you see? I can reveal secrets, sometimes."

"Still my beating heart."

"No," Damon retorts. "That's the Greeks' plan."

"And what's yours? We're to be a glorified speed bump? Stand in the way of a column of six thousand men with... what, a hundred?"

"Possibly. Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori, and all that."

"Inspiring. You might have to read that poem to the Century to get their spirits up. What a stirring rally speech that would make. Your orders were lies, soldiers, and we're off to get turned into paste by the Greeks in order that the rest of the army gets safely into the bunker. Oh, and here's a poem about Flanders Field to stiffen your spines." Seth grins his devilish grin again, but there is a touch of bravado in it.

"Seth, I know these soldiers are just computer constructs. But they look like people, they act like people. If we want to win in this scenario then I may have to rally them. I don't want them poisoned by your cynicism. I'd rather find another way."

"Like what?"

"There is a temple in Beneventum," Damon explains. "There I might ask the gods to intercede on our behalf. We are at war; the Greeks are at the doorstep. The gods might save us."

"The gods might save you from having to tell the soldiers an uncomfortable truth, you mean. The truth is, we've been set up to fight a battle we can't win."

Let the Century believe they are marching to reinforce the garrison, and pray to the gods at the Temple of Beneventum for help.

Inform the Century of the dire circumstances facing them, and the consequences of failing to hold the Via Traiana.