Wednesday’s Wafers: weekly series in which I share some of my own recent writing

Return next week for Chapter 4 in my short story.

I’m not a gamer. I never play World of Warcraft. I don’t own any consoles or first person shooter games. I used to love watching my son play Halo and Elder Scrolls, etc., but I never spent time playing any of them myself. I do like to play a word game and a puzzle game on my phone occasionally because I feel it helps keep my mind sharp. Well – then I discovered Empires & Allies, a strategy, resource gathering, base building, base raiding game. I’m so hooked lol. I joined an alliance and laid low for awhile because my base and troops were so weak. But I made friends with several alliance members, and now I’ve followed them from one alliance to another and then another. I like being one of the guys, so to speak. I love building and gathering types of games and I’m pretty competitive at times. I’ve just never played any for very long, until now. This is what I do when I have a spare moment, or I’m taking a break from work. So, thought I’d write about it. Hope you like it. Thoughts?

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Gang’s All Here  by Karolyn H

Melody of beeps, increasingly louder…
The alarm drags me out of my slumber.
I fumble for my phone and swipe it off.
It’s quiet, no one’s up. Dark. Why am I….?
Oh yeah. E&A Alliance War.
Sitting up, I check Messenger.
4a in the alliance group chat wreaking havoc. Someone must be drunk, lol.
Ricky sending hearts and Sandan telling us to attack early.
‘Yarrrr!’ I text, before leaving Messenger and opening the game app.
While the game takes foreeeveeeerrrrr to load,
I put on my robe and slipper socks and sit in my office chair.
Game loads. X out the annoying ad.
First things first: check time remaining until alliance war begins.
15 minutes. Good, plenty of time.
Tap alliance war shield.
Apply Strike Force to base defensive buildings.
Request additional defensive troops from alliance members.
Back to my base. Tap tap tap to collect fuel, steel, tech, resources.
Damn, attacked 3 times overnight? Revive Colossus in the Robotics Bay.
Open War Factory, collect Command Points bonus that’s finished building.
Purchase elite cache with Advance Materials, get a construction boost, resource boost, and 30 gold.
Tap on fuel stockpile, tap on speedup icon to request help from alliance.
Check Call to Arms mission. Nevermind, I’ll worry about that after I use my AW attacks.
Guess I’ll wait to finish Killswitch after the war too.
Need a couple more uplink modules so I can build another Ion Cannon.
Tap on Alliance chat. Gang’s all here. I smile.
Swarm: wzup dragon!
Gen Dragon (me): thanks for the troops. Ready to kick some ass
Swarm: Everyone pick your targets, claim them.
Steveo: I’ll take nomad, 72xp
Dragon: I’m fine with my recommended target for first attack
Illbreed: Ready to nuke something. I’ll go for bitbit, 71xp
Spos: I’m on my way to work guys, I’ll attack when I can
4a: Fuck you all!
Dragon: lol
Hard Target: I finally upgraded HQ to 20
Ricky: hey, way to go buddy
ANNOUNCEMENT: War’s about to start. Load strike force. Attack early. Don’t waste attacks
Sandan: Dragon, switch to squad deployment, instead of individual.
Dragon: roger that.
X out of chat. Tap on HQ, switch to squad deployment.
Apply auto repair boost to Colossus from Inventory.
Apply bonus command points boost to Weapons Command.
Apply strike force to 3 troop tarmacs.
Banner pops up on the screen. Alliance War has begun.
Tap on alliance war shield.
Screen freezes, then…
World map zooms in. There’s my base.
Recommended target is identified. Tap on Scout.
Adrenaline rush.
Here we go!

-5/16/17-