Thank you for the compliment 
I’m actually half afraid to continue my story, as sequels are rarely as good as the original. I was going to wait for my muse to awaken from her mid-morning nap before continuing, but it appears as though she has consumed a few too many mugs of mead and may not regain consciousness for several hours. So I will attempt to continue my pathetic tale without her inspiration.
Part 2
Now, here I was, part of a grand Alliance. I had purchased a VIP package which allowed me to upgrade my village at a much faster rate. My crops were blooming beautifully, my villagers smiled and waved at me. I had a new pet dragon who sat perched atop my beautiful castle, bestowing me with a bounty of gems on a daily basis. Times were good.
My alliance leader was a man of great wisdom but few words. I was excited when I pulled Hawkmoon for the first time. “Master, I finally have a 3* healer! Now I can get rid of Sha Ji,” I exclaimed with glee. “Good,” he replied. “Now hit the titan.”
When I reached level 12, I was told that I was now eligible to participate in wars. I was nervous, I had never participated in wars before. How did it all work? I did the tutorial and set up a defense team, the best of whatever I had at the moment. “It’s like raids,” a fellow soldier told me, “but with all of us against all of them.” Okay, I thought to myself. Now I’m going to have to do raids… but my results are going to be open for all the alliance to see. If I do poorly, they’ll all laugh at me, I thought to myself. “Just do your best,” the leader told me. “And use all your flags. You need 30 heroes.”
30 heroes??? Was he insane? I didn’t have 30 heroes. “Why do I need 30 heroes?” I asked. “You get 6 flags. You can only use each hero once.” I spent the next 24 hours of the preparation phase frantically collecting every Brogan, Layla, Needler, Sharan, Sha Ji, etc. that I could muster from my TCs. The next day, I went into the war. I used my first 3 flags. I was informed that I wouldn’t get the next 3 until the halfway point. I spent the next 12 hours leveling up my remaining heroes as high as I could. I think I scored 12 points in the entire war.
“I’m sorry,” I told my leader after the war was over. “Why are you sorry?” he asked. “Because I only got 12 points.”
“It was your first war. You used all of your flags. You have nothing to apologize for,” he assured me. “Keep leveling your teams, you will get better.” And then he logged off.
It took several wars before I got better. I leveled up a virtual army of Laylas and Raghnilds and Needlers and whatever else I could get my hands on. Meanwhile, my teammates were pulling Aegirs and Rigards and Vivicas left and right. My team was pathetic by comparison. I had one of the lowest TP defense teams on the board.
“TGW,” the leader addressed me before the next war. “Yes?” I replied. “Your Isshtak,” he said. “What about him?” I asked. “His special isn’t maxed,” he pointed out the obvious. I had managed to get Issh to 3/50, but his special was still stuck at 6. “I know, I’m trying, but I have all these other greens I’m trying to level,” I explained. “Issh is good, but only when his special is maxed,” he said. Then he logged off.
Here I was leveling all of my lower teams, while neglecting my main team and allowing everyone else to pass me. Players who joined the alliance at the same time as me now had 4* and 5* heroes, every war their defense teams seemed to leave me further and further in the dust. I didn’t understand, I was playing every day, constantly leveling up my teams. Was I doing it wrong?
Then came the day of the war. During the preparation, the leader addressed us. “Be careful,” he said. “This team uses curved swords,” he explained. “Um… what?” I asked, to which he replied, “curved… swords.” He then explained that he used to be an adventurer like me until he took an arrow to the knee.
Okay, so that didn’t happen. What actually happened is that we went into the war. As usual, my high flying teammates got great hits early on, putting our score up high initially. Then the second half came and our scores started to wane, and the opponent got the upper hand. Many on our team didn’t even use all of their flags. “I can’t possibly take out that team with these junk heroes I have left,” they huffed before logging off. One by one, my allies used their last flags for 1 or 0 points, or didn’t use them at all, until I was the only one left.
We weren’t that far behind. No one was left to help me, but I wasn’t about to give up. I have to try, I told myself. So I gathered up all my Laylas and Sha Jis and Brogans and Needlers, Raghnilds and Olafs and Shaarkots and Jennehs, all the Farids and Zudaks and Jennehs, and all the Juliuses and Hous in Houville, and I told them all:
" I’m not going to lie to you, it looks pretty bad. We’re probably going to lose. Most of you are going to die today. But, you will die with honor. The odds are stacked against us, but we cannot give up. Today is the day of reckoning. Today is the day when we find out what we’re made of. Would you rather live as slaves, or die as free men? When you meet your maker, do you want to tell him that you died a coward’s death, or the death of a hero, fighting until your last breath, one who is worthy of holding an eternal place in the halls of Valhalla? I for one, am not going to surrender! And neither will any of you! If you have any ounce of courage in you, now is the time to stand up for what you believe in! Now is the time to take the fight to our enemies! To show them what we’re made of! Never give up, never surrender! This… is… SPARTA!!!"
On that day, a thousand 2* heroes rushed the battlefield, donning wooden swords and tattered leather armor, and they felled a hundred of the enemy’s elite plate armored warriors and battlemages, barely squeaking out a victory for the underpowered team in the final minutes of the battle.
And on that day, the underdog alliance celebrated victory, and I was carried through the glorious halls of our guild as all of my teammates cheered, “TGW! TGW! TGW!”
Okay so that last part didn’t happen. But I did get promoted to elder, and from that day forward I came to be known as the 2* hero.
.
whilst I put my toys back in my cot 
