The Adventures of Dora The Exploder

By "Brithound"

According to the crews of World Of Tanks, their religion sometimes granted them visions of Angels, beings of amazing power and unbelievable majesty that came down to Earth to watch over the faithful – or alternatively sneaked out of Heaven to go slumming in mortal dens of vice, depending on how devout the particular crewman was. To the simple metal killing-machines who carried the crews, apart from being automatically reincarnated they had no such consolations. Tanks didn't qualify to get angels.

"Or at least," Stumpy the Sturmpanzer II muttered to himself as he splashed across the now-reintroduced Swamp map, "I didn't think so."

It was two minutes into the game and the low lighting levels made him wish he could turn his headlamps on – though that would have been rather a giveaway and done severe things to his camo score. Stumpy had trundled out alongside a fellow artillery piece of a sort he had never seen before – evidently a new arrival that Patch that he had not heard about.

"Stop – here." Seraphael, the new arty, suddenly announced. More in shock than anything else, Stumpy slithered to a halt –there was no obvious reason to do so, they were still in deep undergrowth and no enemy scouts were about. Just then a large gold-ammunition shell plunged into the soft ground ten metres in front of them – exactly where they would have been had they kept on course. A deluge of swamp spattered everything within fifty metres.

"How did you know that?" Stumpy shook the worst of the mud off his hull. "Eww. I'm plastered with the stuff. That should give me a camo bonus – but it doesn't."

"The game engine doesn't work that way. Not internally." Seraphael nonchalantly raised his howitzer towards the empty horizon and fired. Three seconds later the chat rang with anguished enemy cries of "Hacker!" as the apparently unaimed shell one-shot killed an apparently perfectly hidden tank-destroyer on the far side of the map.

"How do you know how the game engine works? I thought that was information Mortal Tanks were Not Meant To Know." Stumpy scanned the horizon carefully. Just then a target appeared on his mini-map, a nice big fragile T-28 hiding behind a house not particularly well with his engine deck exposed. With a whoop of joy Stumpy let fly a 150 mm round and scored a direct hit – with zero points damage. T-28 crews were known to put a layer of empty ration tins on top of their engine decks, which tripled their armour thickness.

"And how did that happen?" Stumpy rocked back on his tracks in amazement – or at least, he would have been amazed if the same thing had not happened to him hundreds of times before.

"Your shell scored a direct hit on his radio, and that absorbed all the damage," Seraphael replied smoothly, one-shotting an unseen heavy on the far side of the map. "Working as intended. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll have to be off." With that, he headed out across the middle of a lake, which seemed to be far shallower than Stumpy remembered it.

"Hmm. They must have revised this map since the last patch." Stumpy took careful note of exactly where Seraphael had gone – and followed him. And drowned.

"That water was four metres deep!" Stumpy complained, as he reincarnated in the Sacred Garage of Rebirth. "He just drove out on it as if it was a puddle!"

"The Swamp's modelled on a real one in the Pripet Marshes, I'm told," Tetrarch declared. "Brave, skilled Russian engineers specialised in building submerged bridges and causeways through them, back in the Great Patriotic War. Evidently the new, revised map's got one. Of course, German vehicles like you would miss them by metres. That was half the point."

"I was following his wake exactly." Stumpy brooded. As he thought back, something else came to mind. Seraphael had been alongside him when the enemy Gold Ammunition had spread several tons of swamp around everything within ten chassis-lengths and more. Yet not a drop of it had stuck to the mysterious stranger. Stumpy's loaders were still moaning about having to clean the muck off his ready rack of ammunition. Otherwise, when he fired his howitzer, someone might get hurt.

He swivelled on his tracks to look round at GW-Panther, his biggest and wisest sibling. "Back when I was stock," he started hesitantly "I remember you told me a maintenance-time story. About how the Developers sometimes take on mortal metal shape and manoeuvre alongside us, to see how we like their Creation."

"That's the story, yes," GW-Panther nodded her turret sagely. "But nobody's ever proved it. I mean, how could you? Of course, there are the tanks you see that "somehow" survive impossible hits without a scratch – but there's probably just good programming reasons. Best not to think too much about it. It's bad luck." For artillery whose shells depended more on luck than science half the time, Fortune was an important part of their lives, and not to be trifled with.

"Hmm." Stumpy yawned. The lights were dimming, and the last of his friends returned to the garage for maintenance and crew rest. There would be no more matches tonight. Sleepily, he sent out a prayer to the mystical Developers in the East. They had answered his prayer about ammunition supply, after all. He dipped his suspension humbly. Oh great and powerful Developers, he prayed, give me a sign – that you really care, and watch over us. He thought for a few seconds before adding although that Seraphael was a bit of a giveaway, wasn't he? I mean, driving on water? Just a little bit… textbook?

That night, a red glow from the East lit Stumpy's humble, oil-stained non-premium account garage. He felt the familiar sensation of being picked for a match – though oddly enough, none of his friends or even Tetrarch woke up. There was a steady sound of snoring from the crew barracks outside.

"Where am I?" Stumpy looked around himself, evidently on a new map. "Whoa! The scale!" Looking at the mini-map, he counted squares. This was a ten by twenty grid, hugely bigger than anything he had seen before – and he noticed his clock was counting down from thirty, not fifteen minutes.

"Exactly where you asked to be. Being shown how much we watch over you." He swivelled round at the sound of Seraphael's voice. It was hard to describe exactly what the strange arty looked like – to him, it appeared of definitely German engineering – though he had the uncomfortable feeling that any nationality of tank would recognise their nation in him. "I thought you might like a look at the Future. It can't hurt. After all, nobody's going to believe you. Oh, and you'll find your Save and match Replay functions won't work right now. It's a Beta Software thing, I expect." Seraphael winked a headlight.

Stumpy blinked, looking around. On the huge landscape there was not a vehicle to be seen, except the reassuring green dots on his mini-map. He looked at the list of team-mates, and gasped. At the top was what must be the big green octagon – a Tier Nine VVS.

The little Sturmpanzer felt his suspension go weak at the sight. "A Tier Nine Very Very Silly? But… if a Paris Cannon was only a Tier One – what IS it?"

"Why not go and introduce yourself?" Seraphael asked smoothly. "I'm sure you'll be friends. Just follow the railway tracks."

Stumpy nodded his trunnions, and as soon as he was free to move, rolled down through the hill onto the plains – an Northern English map, the Thirsk Salient, apparently. Looking at the remainder of his team, he noted they were all light scouts and low-tier snipers – evidently the Matchmaker had spent all the points on the Tier Nine VVS.

"Hmmm. Must be somewhere on the far side of this cliff…" Stumpy looked round. Then he noticed something strange about the cliff. It had wheels on it, and was sitting on not one but two sets of railway tracks. A cheerful giggle came from it.

"!Hola! I am, Dora!" The cliff resolved itself into a vehicle about the size of a light cruiser (the naval type). A colossal cannon that some Tier One tanks could fit their turrets inside waved happily.

"What ARE you?" Stumpy gasped in shock and awe.

Dora gave the impression of a grin, though to a non-tank it would be difficult to explain exactly how. "Yo soy Dora! Yo soy feliz - I am pleased to meet you. I am the explorer. We capture enemy base, yes?"

Stumpy's crankshaft shivered at the prospect. "We're artillery. We've got thirteen friends who are... better qualified to do that. We sit back and help them."

"Si! Dora helps her amigos! I will ask my map where to go." Evidently the thousand tonnes of railway-mounted 800 mm cannon had not considered she was on parallel rail lines, and basically had a choice of forward or back, assuming she had to move anywhere. There were no rail junctions in sight, which was perhaps just as well - the prospect of a vehicle that size negotiating points was terrifying. "Dora only shoots once every fifteen games!"

"You seem strangely happy, considering that's about once a week, game time," Stumpy found a convenient bush to hide in as their team's scouts raced out towards the distant horizon. With a map that size, getting there would take a while.

"Si! For today is the day!" The landscape shook as a seven tonne shell streaked out of the barrel. It cleared the atmosphere of the World of Tanks, performed a fractional orbital bombardment and re-entered over the El Haluf map, where it scored 750,000 points damage against a T1 Cunningham who had been writing uncomplimentary things about the Developers in the forum.

"Working as intended…." Stumpy heard Seraphael's voice drift across the landscape.

"Impressive … I think." Stumpy lobbed two shells in the same direction, that affected the local game rather more. "But now what are you going to do for the rest of the match?"

"Dora loves exploring. Maybe I meet my brother Gustav or my cousin Karl. I go and scout!" Despite the anguished cries of her two hundred-strong crew who grabbed hold of the structure desperately, the thousand tonnes of steel began to roll forward. "They no see me. I have camouflage netting , si! And #47 Loader he take evening class in camo skill. Nearly 20 percent now!"

Stumpy ground his gears in frustration as he saw the Tier Nine VVS head out scouting. "Their snipers will see you four maps away! They'll hear you coming on the Arctic Landscape map!"

"No hay problema. I say to them – Sniper, no snipe. Sniper, no snipe. Sniper, no snipe. Then we capture the base!" Dora waved her cannon happily, and at a rate of one and a half kilometres an hour, sprinted across the map.

Stumpy gritted his gears and got on with the job he was designed for. But he kept track of Dora's progress – in five minutes she was near the enemy's base, the only other survivor of their team – without a VVS on their side using up all the points, the Matchmaker had supplied the enemy team with a dozen Tier Ten heavy tanks covered in Dark Matter applique armour, and a trio of Tier Eight artillery illegally converted to full automatic fire. All fifteen vehicles were surrounding Dora at point-blank range, and probably few of them were missing.

"Sniper, no snipe…." Came Dora's passionate plea. Just then, that side of the map vanished in a fireball as her ammunition rack exploded. Everything within two map squares took two thousand points instant damage and returned to the Garage of Rebirth immediately. Dora's last words before fading were, oddly enough, "We did it! We did it!"

Seraphael appeared by Stumpy's side while the little Sturmpanzer's suspension was still shaking with the blast wave. He smiled pleasantly. "Before I take you back to your own time – you may ask one question. Choose wisely."

Stumpy's armour shook as thousands of tons of debris began to hit the map around him. "How … HOW can you think a Tier Nine VVS is a good thing to have in the game?"

But Seraphael simply smiled again. And as Stumpy found himself back in his familiar garage once more, the voice drifted past him…

"Working as intended…."

The End