A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

He had a small saddle bag leaning against the side of the desk, and after their latest line of conversation, he began to thoughtfully rifle through it. It didn't take him long to find a familiar bit of wood, and he soon enough set it on the middle of the desk, before emptying two pouches worth of pieces on top of it.

Piece by piece, he set the Battle board into its starting position, and Oliver began to do the same.

"So? Are you going to tell me what you so disapprove of with Lord Blackwell?" Skullic said.

"Have you not heard yourself?" Oliver asked.

"Nothing that would serve as an answer to the way you are acting," Skullic said. "There's a faint whiff of resentment to you, and it's an unbecoming odour. Speak."

"…I have been waiting to ask your opinion on it. You are a General yourself," Oliver said.

Skullic made his first move on the Battle board, leading with a cavalry advancement designed to take up space. Oliver copied with a mirror cavalry advancement of his own, and bit by bit, he began to tell Skullic the story of Karstly's plan. How he was sure Blackwell and Khan would come to amiable terms.

And then how the change had suddenly come, and the civilians and soldiers had been led to that pit, how they were thrown down, in a breaking of bones, and how when they could fit no more in the pit, they began to toss earth on them and bury them alive.

He told of how he'd drawn his sword, with the rest of the men, ready to put an end to it, but had found a sword at his throat instead, belonging to Karstly.

"Was that not out of line?" Oliver fumed.

"It was," Skullic said. "You drawing your sword there was a fool's errand. I'm sure you know quite well that you would have been able to change nothing – and that it would only result in your death."

Skullic didn't look at him as they spoke. He focused entirely on the Battle board instead. The position was transforming into something familiar. It was a highly aggressive game from Skullic. He'd taken over the centre of the board entirely with his infantry, having his archers and cavalry reinforce them. Oliver had been unable to contest.

He didn't dare, with how well Skullic was capable of playing such a position. Instead, he did his usual strategy of defence, with a slightly advanced infantry line protecting his main camp.

"But still I had to do something…" Oliver said.

"Morally, perhaps," Skullic said. "But if you know, by the same token, that your supposed moral action will bring no results, then is it not just self satisfaction?"

"…" Oliver had no response to that. Nor did he have any response to the most recent aggressive thrust of Skullic's infantry advance – a single spear unit, ahead of the rest, now making contact with Oliver's own. It was a question of whether to attack, or let himself be attacked.

"The look of discontentment on your face says already that you already know it well enough. You were helpless, because you are weak. If you wished for your opinion to carry weight, then you ought to make it a weighty opinion. You cannot lash out at the world for your own lack of preplanning," Skullic said. "That is one thing I can praise you on.

You have ever been good at acknowledging your own weaknesses. Perhaps you're even hyper aware of them. Psychologically, that is an advantage you hold over others you age… However…"

Skullic pushed his spearman forward, shattering Oliver's line, as Oliver tried to defend. It gobbled up his piece, whilst remaining untouched in the process. Oliver gritted his teeth. Once more, Skullic was easily charging through him.

"Your strategy is far behind your body," Skullic said. "Perhaps this is what one would call a distortion created by talent.

As quickly as your physicality might progress, and as quickly as you break through the Boundaries, you cannot deny your age, and the lack of experience that comes with that age… Volguard supposes that you have a talent for the Battle board, if you were to push with it, and I suppose that is true – but there is too much to learn. You cannot overwhelm by brute force.

You need practice, years upon years of it… The progress that you have come to expect is not applicable here, and I see your expectations weakening you."

Oliver studied the board, biting his thumbnail. It could hardly be called a lost hope. He'd survived many fearsome attacks against Skullic and Volguard in the past – and he wanted to prove a point by doing so again. However… It was difficult. There were questions to be asked in terms of his target. He was expected to attack the highly advanced spearman, yet dare he deviate from that course of action?

In the end, he was forced to use his archers to take the piece, and he plucked it from the board with his fingers. Skullic showed no reaction.

"What's your opinion on what Karstly did, Skullic?" Oliver asked.

"It was cruel, without a doubt. A merciless bit of strategy. It will have its own sort of hell to pay in the years to come, I have no doubt. But still, no one could call it a pure play. We are the most advanced we have been in the Verna likely in the entirety of our long history.

Stormfront, a nation that many are convinced is dying, is in a position to conquer the Verna once and for all – a feat we have not managed in the past," Skullic said.

"Would you do it, in his position?" Oliver asked. He feared that Skullic would spend a long time thinking about his reply. But the General thrust another spearman forward on the Battle board, and replied in the same instant.

"No," Skullic said. "Even if I wanted to perform a cruel strategy like that, I am not Karstly. He is an unorthodox General. That sort of creativity is not something that I am capable of. I only know how to grind stone again stone, until I chip away a piece of my enemy, and expose his heart."