EPIC STORY TIME: The Human Centipede

It was pretty close to looking at this, actually

       Remember a story I told you about a 'Doctor' game back before the Week of Valken where there was a hand grenade? Which blew up in some guys faces when they ripped the wrong end? And the title warranted not one, but two epics in it? If I had a way of working it in, this one's title would have three. This tale might actually be the most epic story time post yet on the blog yet if for no other reason than the feelings of dread it fostered in us very early in the game. This story also involves the very same game of Doctor, and for those just joining the blog now, I'll post my fields rules for the game type again for you to understand what's going on.

       The rules of 'Doctor' go as follows: the game is elimination with a twist, each team has a doctor, more than one depending on how many other players the doctor has to tend to, usually one doctor to every 9 or 10 normal combatants. When a player is shot, they put their arms up and call for the doctor to come revive them, the only means of removing a doctor from the game is with a headshot and the doctor can choose to bring his marker into combat with him if he so chooses. Hypothetically, a player could have unlimited lives if the doctor were beside them to constantly tag them back to life and progression of the game usually involves making the doctors the first priority targets, killing them, and then systematically taking out the rest of the players when they have no means of re-entering play.

       Myself and a young lady were the doctors for my team, two other regular renters were the doctors for the opposition. Things started well, the team splits in half, no one really occupying the middle of the field, a few of my guys get smacked by lucky shots early on but I revive them with no problems. The young renter lady is a little nervous about having to take a headshot to die but seems to be managing her side alright. Sometimes I see a guy call for a doc but she gets to them before I do a double take; very nice, we're making good progress.

       I run around making sure my side is alive and go over to the middle to scope out whats happening on the lady's side. Coincidentally, I look over just in time to see every single one of them sprinting as fast as they can back toward our base and we lose well over 100 feet in a matter of seconds. I check to see what they're running from. Their side had a few nice, lucrative bunkers to capture, but not too much to hide behind and I can't see anything over there in spite of the very little cover. Why'd they dash away? Is there a bear? If it's the enemy team they just need to retreat back up the hill our base sits on and wait for the them to wander into the open at the bottom and then let some paint fly, we should do fine...

A full 5 seconds pass.

       I see something sliding out from around a small rise which had been blocking my view of some of other side. There is no discernible texture to the thing which is wondering out from behind the hill, no variation in color, all I can tell is that it has a human outline but is solid orange. I start thinking that it's a guy who didn't clean his hits after last game, or any before that and maybe he took quite a few this game but then more comes out from around the rise. It was one guy in front, a doctor huddled behind with his hands on the guy, and another person in back wrapped around the doctor to protect him. I realized at that point that all the paint on this guy had to have been from this one game, there was no way to count all the hits on his body there were just that many. He was alive thanks to the doctor and he kept moving closer. My team had dumped everything they had into this guy and the doctor behind him but he'd kept coming, so close to them that they had to fall back to the base.

       The man in front had a TM-15 and the trio in the conga line were next to unstoppable. All the front man had to do was depress the trigger and let out a burst of auto and we had to duck down. They kept trundling forward. Their doctor's head was barely visible but it could be hit with a lucky shot. Usually during a game of doctor I run out without a gun in order to lighten my load and run faster, this time I'd left a mini with one hopper-full of ammo in our base just in case. I grabbed it, went prone on the rise our bases sat on and snuck up to the ledge. The conga line was 50 feet away down an incline and I worked my lethargic fingers as fast as I could to dump more than half a hopper down at them. I was lucky enough to be using to very nice paint that day and it looked like a brilliant fireworks display the way the balls were enthusiastically exploding on their targets. I was not fortunate enough to hit the doctor but I did slow down the advancing conga line, enough so that a well hidden team mate who'd previously been retreating could fire a few good shots and drop the doctor, the other two fell quickly resulting in that entire flank being open for half my team to storm up. The other doctor on the opfor was hiding in their base and we never did manage to get that far up the field resulting in a draw that round. The tactic was so effective and terrifying that they tried it again en mass in game two, but most other players who participated in that team's antics didn't have the same pain tolerance as the guy in front of the first conga line, as a result we out manoeuvred and beat them for round two. By the end of both rounds, this one man had probably taken 1000 direct hits to himself and his gun (gun hits don't count at my field), and he just kept walking toward us.

       Some who I've told this story to have said the tactic should be banned or prevented for a host of reasons: make head shots mean a player is totally removed from the game, gun hits should count in this one, the tactic is kind of cheating, risk of grievous bodily harm to the person who managed to pull it off. I don't think I'll ever see someone do this one again so I don't see the need to take too many preventative measures so it won't happen again. I'm just about 100% sure the gentleman who did had some kind of analgesic condition (does not register pain like the rest of us), and the odds of encountering someone on the field during this game again, with an equivalent pain tolerance I might add, is super small. Frankly, it was an exhilarating battle, like fighting a tank, and the guy thought outside the box to try and go for the win. We didn't expressly prohibit this and he exploited a loop hole valiantly. I salute him, but wholly discourage anyone from trying the tactic. If it's something I wouldn't subject myself to, I certainly wouldn't advise others to try it.