Mission 6 - What the Winter Left

What the Winter Left

Story mission
Mission	6
Chapter	2: The Age of Ash
Played	6th
Map	Forest, Medium
In the demo	No
Estimated time	20-35 min (estimate)
Starting resources	600 Wood, 400 Food, 200 Stone, 200 Gold
Teaches	Repairing buildings, reading a building's damage, choosing what to fix first
Objectives
Story spoilers: Mission 6 Look over the damage. Repair the training grounds. Repair every damaged building.
Campaign
Previous	Mission 5 - The Day of Ruin
Next	Mission 8 - The Summons

What the Winter Left is the sixth mission of the Story campaign and opens Chapter 2, The Age of Ash. It is a quiet mission set on the morning after a battle: the town is standing but hurt, and your villagers repair it while the story plays out in the conversations around them.

Overview

• The mission has no scripted attacks, and Corvane's army is held back from your units and buildings.
• Repair is the new skill. Villagers repair a damaged building by right-clicking it; a repair costs resources as it goes. See Buildings#Damage and repair.
• Mage buildings and units are still hidden.
• In the game, the next mission played is The Summons.

Story

Story spoilers: Mission 6

This box is closed until you open it.

It is the morning after the Day of Ruin, and the town is still there. The stone is gone, sunk into the ground, and Corvane is gone with it. Roofs are burned through, the wall is battered, and the training ground has lost its roof entirely. Hale walks the Captain round the damage, then sets the villagers to work: the soldiers' training ground first, then the rest in whatever order the Captain judges best.

While the villagers work, the scholars argue, and anyone nearby can hear them. One says the stone is a weapon: something made it and aimed it. Another says it is a wound in the world, because it burned both lines and then sank. The third says it is a door, and the real question is what came through it. A villager carrying timber asks whether it matters what it is called, since it burned the square either way. The scholars cannot agree, and none of them can say whether it will rise again. The game does not say which of them, if any, is right.

The mission ends with every roof back on. Hale has stopped listening to the scholars: he means to raise the wall higher before the snow, and a letter from the king lies unopened.

"Three scholars, three names, and not one of them can tell me whether the thing will rise again." (Commander Hale)

Objectives

Story spoilers: Mission 6

This box is closed until you open it.

1. Survey. The camera shows the damage, and a marker points at the burned Infantry Training Grounds. The step completes on its own after about 45 seconds.
2. First repair. Select villagers and right-click the Infantry Training Grounds to repair it. More villagers repair faster, and each repair draws on your stores.
3. Repair the rest. A checkpoint is saved. Repair every damaged building, in any order: two Houses and the Farmers Camp. The step completes when every building is back to full health and the scholars' three conversations have played, the last about two minutes in.

At the start, the training grounds are at about a third of their health, the Farmers Camp at 40%, and the two Houses at half and at 70%.

Characters met

Story spoilers: Mission 6

This box is closed until you open it.

• Commander Aldric Hale.
• Three scholars, overheard arguing.
• A villager who has had enough of the argument.

Notes

Story spoilers: Mission 6

This box is closed until you open it.

• A building shows its damage in stages, most clearly on its roof. Hale teaches you to judge how badly a building is hurt by looking at it. See Buildings#Damage and repair.
• No Pillar stands on this map.
• Four Swordsmen stand with the town.

Campaign

← Previous: Mission 5 - The Day of Ruin · Next (as played): Mission 8 - The Summons →