Out of Play (Disgardium Book #11): LitRPG Series
Author: Dan Sugralinov
Date: 2022-08-15 07:00:00+00:00
Description: Alex Sheppard returns to the real world only to realize that it’s game over for him. At the age of sixteen, he’s destroyed the carefully laid plans of the most powerful people in the world, incurring their wrath. Now they’re thirsting for his blood, and they know where to find him. The criminal Triad, the two-faced Cartel, the hypocritical preventers were child’s play, nothing more. But he has to operate outside the law now his sworn enemies rule the planet. And Alex has a score to settle they killed his friends, and he’s hungry for revenge. The hour of reckoning is drawing near, and the retri

Apostle of the Sleeping Gods

a novel
by Dan Sugralinov

Disgardium

Book#2

Magic Dome Books

Disgardium

Book #2: Apostle of the Sleeping Gods

Copyright © Dan Sugralinov 2019

Cover Art © Ivan Khivrenko 2019

Art Editor © Vladimir Manyukhin 2019

English translation copyright © Andrew Schmitt 2019

Published by Magic Dome Books, 2019

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-80-7619-035-1

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the shop and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.

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Your parents are getting divorced. Now, once you turn sixteen, you’ll be doomed to a pitiful existence on the lowest rungs of society. The neighbor girl is improving her appearance and levelling fast to impress you. A Sleeping God gave you some power, but now demands absolute loyalty and obedience even in real life. Something called the Destroying Plague wants its Emissary to infect every living thing. The only problem with that is that you are its Emissary! But the city sees you as its salvation, not the cause of all their ills...

The underlying mechanics of Disgardium classify imba players with a lettered threat system, and Scyth aka Alex has been assigned a potential class of “A” due to his unfair advantages.

However, it is hard to threaten the world while you're stuck levelling up in noobsville. It's even harder when all the preventer clans are on the verge of announcing a hunt for you and even your best friends can't be trusted and, all the while, your two patron gods are tearing you apart from the inside. And now, to make matters worse, your biggest enemy has just become a threat as well.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1. Sleeping God

Chapter 2. Alliance of Preventers

Chapter 3. Academic Ban

Chapter 4. Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?

Chapter 5. Too Many Pos

Chapter 6. A Difficult Choice

Chapter 7. Herald

Chapter 8. The Birth of a Farm Machine

Chapter 9. Big Hello

Chapter 10. Judge Cannon’s Dilemma

Chapter 11. The Destroying Plague

Interlude 1. Tobias

Chapter 12. Outlaws

Chapter 13. Cheer Elixir

Chapter 14. Taking a Losing Bet

Chapter 15. The Awoken

Chapter 16. In the Crossfire

Chapter 17. Fight!

Interlude 2. Bellamy

Chapter 18. Tough Lessons

Chapter 19. Frenemies

Chapter 20. Departure

Chapter 21. Unforeseen Circumstances

Chapter 22. The Ghost of William Stafford

Chapter 23. Hunters’ Camp

Chapter 24. Swamp Bugs

Chapter 25. Battleground

Interlude 3. Eve

Chapter 26. Cooking Tournament

Chapter 27. Imitation

Chapter 28. Qualifying Group

Chapter 29. First Temple

Chapter 30. Final

About the Author

Chapter 1. Sleeping God

THUNDER BLASTED out in an absolutely clear sky. The earth shook, and ripples ran across the swamp muck. Then slimy creatures started frantically crawling and jumping over one another, scrambling to get out of the water. The water started steaming, then bubbling and the creepy crawlies all went belly-up up, boiled alive. The huge bloodsucking leeches and faintly glowing balls burst, spraying droplets of disgusting brown slime.

Then a global notification rolled through all Disgardium, breaking my train of thought. Behemoth’s voice was still whispering, but it was more like sleep-talking than anything I could make sense of. His greeting was the last intelligible thing I heard him say.

We have detected a disturbance in the strings of creation! A new evil has awoken in Disgardium!

Estimated potential threat class: A.

Current threat class: Q.

Most likely location: cannot be detected.

The world has never seen a threat of such might! Now that this evil has awoken, we mustn’t let it grow more powerful. Be the first to find and eliminate it, and the powers that be will reward you generously!

And if you succeed, oh bravehearts and heroes, the gods will be favorable to you as well!

Praise all the gods that they couldn’t detect my location! This disturbance in the strings of creation must have been so powerful it shook the whole world, not just one particular location.

I felt just completely exhausted. The few hours of ersatz sleep I got last night – first in the instance, then outside while waiting for the Dementors to reach the final boss – were helpful but not exactly great rest. Even in Dis I could feel my head just splitting. I wanted to bring the situation to its logical conclusion, find out what the Sleeping God wanted from me and finish Patrick’s quest.

I decided I’d think over the rest later. For now, I just wanted a break from Dis. Plus by evening, my parents would be home and I wanted to spend time with them.

When I hoisted myself onto the island in the middle of the swamp, the entity I saw there was least of all reminiscent of a god. It was a small blob of green protoplasm sloshing around in inside some film or skin. If I hadn’t been looking closely, I might have thought this was a puddle covered in duckweed and fluttering in the wind. Only the system’s explanation served to convince me this was anything more, namely: Behemoth, Sleeping God. And for a noob like me, there was no way of telling whether this was a creature with no level or a very high level.

We exchanged greetings, and the blob was suddenly at my feet asking to be let in. And I let it in. As it turned out, it meant into my head. That was what preceded the thundering notification about my potential and actual threat classes going up.

And that was when everything changed: Behemoth’s speech became intelligible and reasonable. Then I saw a transparent figure, probably the god’s avatar. It even looked vaguely like a hippopotamus, a nod to the biblical origin of its name. Still, it was hard to describe. There was no easy comparison with any of the animals or fantasy creatures I was familiar with. A wraith? A monster? A nightmare? None of the bosses of any instance I’d ever seen came anywhere near Behemoth. But all that aside, it was the same height as me and looking me right in the eyes with ill intent.

“I thought you’d be bigger,” I admitted. “I mean you’re a god after all, even if you are ‘Sleeping.’ And hey, you’re not sleeping now. Does that mean you aren’t a Sleeping God anymore?”

“Size is irrelevant, Scyth the apostle,” the voice rumbled. “The body you see now is merely an imprint of one of my forms in your mind. It has adopted a size convenient for conversation. My true nature is locked very deep down, and you and everything around you are nothing more than a dream I am having.”

“I think this world’s several hundred other gods might disagree. Some have even had mountains split by their name.”

“All intelligent creatures might disagree,” Behemoth concurred with surprising ease. With a hiss, thick steam poured out of the many trunks on his face and ghastly toothed openings all over his hefty body. I couldn’t tell at first, but that was how it laughed. “None of us Sleeping Gods control our dreams. But once we all awaken, everything will be destroyed. And that includes the so-called gods such as the abomination that has staked a claim to you. I can smell its mark.”

“Mark?” I perked up my ears. “Is this about the Destroying Plague?”

“The Destroying Plague...” he issued a dull roar in dismay. “Empty words that make no reference to who started this. A masquerade. But that abomination gives you power, and I say let that be to our advantage for now.”

“Our advantage? I wouldn’t be so fast, Sleeping God. I am not on your side just yet! But you are right. I did come to help you.” I got sick of standing, so I sat down on the withered grass. “I was sent here by Tristad resident Patrick O’Grady. And in return for my help, I would like the thing you promised him and never did.”

“Tristad... Patrick... More empty words with no meaning. If you’re referring to the nutjob who showed up here with a wolf-pup he kidnapped from its mother, I never promised him anything. What happened to him was not in this world, and the thing he thinks he was promised was never promised by me. And you are here not because some Patrick sent you, but because I intercepted you on the paths of the depths.”

“Wait, Behemoth! I don’t understand... I’m confused!”

“It is not for you to understand,” the voice of the Sleeping God sounded weary and noticeably quieter than before. “It matters not, apostle. You are weak, so my imprint in you is weak. It is fading. We’re wasting time.”

“Well, it matters to me!” my voice, on the other hand, had grown stronger. I was not going to accept an answer like that. And I was not going to fail the only proper quest I’d ever received, other than the ones I’d taken by the fistful from the prison bulletin board. “I made a promise to Patrick O’Grady. And I am prepared to help you, but in return you must do something for him! What did you promise him?”

“He lost his wife and his life’s meaning.” The god’s trunks drooped, but I didn’t know how to interpret that. “I cannot give him back either thing. But I can help him find a new one...”

“A wife or a meaning?”

“The first will become the second, and with the second he won’t need the first. It doesn’t matter. Empty words. I’ll tell you what he needs to hear to get back what he’s lost. Are you satisfied, apostle?”

Mission of Honorary Tristad Citizen, former city guard patrol squadron captain Patrick O’Grady complete.

You went where he told you to go in the Mire, offered help to Behemoth and asked for what he promised Patrick as a reward.

Unfortunately, it is not the reward he was hoping for.

Tell Patrick O’Grady about your talk with Behemoth to receive your reward.

“I am satisfied. Why are you calling me apostle? And what does Sleeping God mean?”

“Because you shall be our initial herald. The one who precedes the others. You are our apostle and now we are inseparably linked...” Behemoth lowered his head and flickered his eyes. “What was that? You don’t need it. I have removed the madman’s blot placed upon you in my name.”

I wasn’t able to tell what he was talking about at first. But when it hit me and my profile confirmed my guess, I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad. Restless Soul, Patrick’s curse that made me respawn where I died, was gone.

“My imprint is fading,” the Sleeping God continued. “As I already said, neither I nor the other Sleeping Gods control our dreams anymore, otherwise the spawn of our dreams would not believe in their creators. Without our control, everything will be swallowed up by the Nether one day. And your abominable gods are only hastening that process. And with the Nether comes a never-ending nightmare from which there is no awakening.”

“But what can I do?”

“You are our apostle, the initial herald. That means that in this world we are you and you are us. Do not be afraid, it just means that you are our main surrogate.”

“You keep saying ‘our.’ Who else?”

“All the Sleeping Gods. There shall come a time when you will learn everything but, for now, you listen. The greater our power, the stronger you shall become. You can attract new followers, and everyone who joins you will make both themselves and the others even more powerful! In the name of unity!”

His last few words were barely audible.

Behemoth the Sleeping God has given you the divine ability Touch of the Sleeping Gods!

Touch of the Sleeping Gods

Active ability.

Allows you to convert intelligent beings into new followers of the Sleeping Gods.

Requires confirmation from target.

Behemoth the Sleeping God has given you the divine ability Unity!

Unity

Passive ability.

+1 to a random attribute for each follower per follower of the Sleeping Gods.

“Well, well!” I exclaimed. “With upsides like that, I can get the whole world on my side!”

“Unfortunately, for the time being, your number is limited to thirteen intelligent creatures...” the avatar of the Sleeping God dissolved into thin air. But the voice remained, now just a rustling in my head. “Ask...”

“How can I increase that number?”

“An island to the west of this continent in the Bottomless Ocean. There you will find the ruins of an ancient shrine. It is the closest place of power to the Sleeping Gods. Build a temple there to concentrate faith, then build it bigger.”

Behemoth the Sleeping God would like you to build him a new temple on an unnamed island in the Bottomless Ocean.

Rewards: unknown.

I accepted the quest without a second thought. It was a divine quest chain and had no potential downsides. What was there to consider?

“I see. I don’t know how I’ll start, but I’ll try. What should I tell Patrick?”

“Bid him go to Darant. His Jane is alive and studying at the University of Magic. But before he goes, he must restore his former mental and physical condition.”

“Anything else?”

“She was never his wife. So tell him that she doesn’t remember anything. And given he’s the only one other than you who’s seen me, convince him to become a follower.”

“I don’t think that will be too hard after what I’ve got to tell him about Jane. By the way, he mentioned that you call yourself the one true god. But you just told me there are several Sleeping Gods. How does that work?”

“That one true god was left in his world. The madman has simply confused reality and delirium. My powers are waning, Scyth...”

“Wait! How do I get back to you? What if I need to ask you something or...?”

“The same way you got here this time...”

Its rustling thoughts finally dissipated. I looked around and noticed that the muck around the island had retreated and the level of the bog had gone down. The sun was nearing the horizon. Depths Teleportation wouldn’t cooldown until tomorrow.

Before I started mixing up worlds like Patrick, I had to get back.

Exit.

Chapter 2. Alliance of Preventers

MY PARENTS CAME home in the evening. I spent the few hours between exiting Dis and their arrival getting the apartment and myself cleaned up. And I caught up on my studies. I had now missed a critical number of days in school, and I was sure my parents had already been notified. I missed a few phone calls from mom, culminating in an enraged message that all but confirmed it.

So I hurriedly skimmed through my schoolbooks, studying everything I’d missed. Meanwhile, Tissa called me to ask how I was doing and where Depths Teleportation had taken me. As it turned out, the Dementors had been flung to the furthest corners of the sandbox, and it would take them a long time to get back.

I was caught up in guesses about what classes the system had offered me. In the Mire I just wasn’t feeling like looking, then I talked with Behemoth and exited before I remembered to read the system message. Tissa, by the way, had said that tomorrow Ed and the gang were going to celebrate the First Kill after school and asked if I wanted to join. I replied that I would be happy to.

Then, as I was catching up on quantum field theory from physics class, the front door opened and mom and dad shuffled inside looking impossibly tired and sullen.

“Alex, Alex...” she shook her head. But contrary to expectation, she didn’t start shouting. “Your citizenship tests are in a few months. After that, you’ll have to live on your own. What do you think is gonna happen with this kind of attitude toward your studies?”

While she sermonized, father tousled the back of my head and locked himself in the bathroom. For the next half hour, I heard him splashing, gurgling and grunting away inside.

“How was the flight?” I asked.

“Fine...” mom muttered and spent a long time in silence. “The project was rejected. At least they didn’t ask us to pay back the advance. And they easily could have.”

“But how? Why?”

“We had another bad fight,” mom answered and I realized she was talking about father. “Our calculations were way off and some big bugs crawled out during testing. The clients were furious. They were preparing for a top raid dungeon that will be part of a global event in Disgardium. They have an inside man in Snowstorm who gave us the mechanics and attributes for the boss. Our job was to use them to make a beta training ground.”

“For what clan?”

“One of the most influential in Dis – Modus. They won the last adult Arena and are the most successful preventers in the game.”

“Why didn’t they give you time to fix it, mom?”

“Oh, they suddenly had bigger fish to fry. In Dis, A class-A threat popped. It’s the highest there’s ever been! So naturally, they went bananas and now they’re practically digging a hole to China to find it!” Mom laughed. “That might be why they didn’t insist we pay back the advance. There was an emergency assembly of all preventers...”

“What? Why, mom? Don’t clans usually try and find threats on their own so they don’t have to share the reward?”

“Once there was a clan that eliminated a class-D threat. They went from a group of nobodies, ranked around eight thousand to one of the top three. So what do you think, Alex? Do the preventers know what they stand to gain for a threat three levels higher than that, an A? Every level, the rewards increase practically exponentially! From what I overheard, they’re planning to form an Alliance of Preventers.”

It was only then that I realized exactly what I was up against. Just me against the entire world, discounting whatever the Destroying Plague was and a blob of protoplasm that called itself a Sleeping God.

And Eve... Things had been dicey with her. I was afraid that, if I didn’t reciprocate her feelings soon, they might do a one-eighty.

And staying with the Dementors was like being tied to a powder keg. Maybe it looked like a beer keg from far away but, one day, they’d realize who they were dealing with. If they hadn’t already...

The get-together tomorrow would open my eyes to a lot of things. I wasn’t sure, but there could be alcohol and that would loosen their tongues. I hoped that might clue me in on how to act around them from there on out.

“Mom...” I faltered, affecting a mild tone. “Have you and dad...”

“What Alex?”

“Have you and dad tried patching things up? I mean, you’ve been together for so long!”

My question caught her off guard. She spent a long time pretending to be busy making tea. But eventually she came and sat opposite me, placing a mug in front of me. The water went quiet in the bathroom. Dad was done washing up. We sat in silence, listening to father shave the old-fashioned way with an electric razor instead of just using a lotion to remove his facial hair once and for all (he thought stubble made him look more manly). I couldn’t bring myself to repeat my question, and she didn’t want to answer.

But she did say something eventually. By the time dad was rustling a towel, wiping his face, she coldly stated:

“I don’t love your father, son. I don’t love Mark. I have another.”

I’d guessed as much, but hearing it out loud hit me harder than a Hammer. I felt a lump in my throat, my face crinkled like a baby’s and I covered it with my hands, holding back tears. It was the final verdict.

The whole past week, I still had some hope, subconsciously sure that they would get it out of their system and change their minds. But this was final. Dad would never live with her knowing she had a lover. And mom was losing her mind, waiting for the freedom to move away to live with her new beau...

I looked at her with different eyes. She was thirty-six years old. She was still attractive and had a smoking-hot body. But now she was in the embrace of another man?

Feeling a furious attack of hatred for whatever horny dipshit had done my mom’s head in, I walked into my room, not finishing my powdered tea. Old man Furtado was right: the drink my mom made had nothing to do with the noble beverage called tea.

To distract myself I tried to contact Eve, but her comm was unavailable. So I dove headfirst into a physics textbook. “Quantum theory for systems with infinite degrees of freedom...”

A gripping read.

* * *

As the last bell of the day rang, the class kicked up a ruckus, stood up and headed for the door. I caught up with the Dementors. We were going to fly over to Ed’s to celebrate the First Kill, but I was stopped by my teacher’s hand.

“Sheppard, hang back,” said Mr. Kovacs, his eyes focused on a panel showing my performance.

“Yes, Greg?” I stopped next to him. His eyes shot up in surprise even though last week he said I could call him by name. I corrected myself: “Mr. Kovacs.”

“We’ll wait up,” Ed nodded at me and the Dementors left class.

“You’d better sit down,” Mr. Kovacs pointed me to a chair next to his desk. “We’re gonna have a long and serious conversation, Sheppard.”

It was the first time I could remember something like this happening. He’d never talked to me with such a serious, dry and official tone, calling me by my last name. Usually he acted like he was on equal footing with his students.

Kovacs stood up, closed the door and came back. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop and said sharply:

“I don’t have a lot of time, Sheppard, so let me be brief. For the last unit, your attendance was just eighty percent. Your integrated performance score is seventy-nine. That’s nothing fatal, but it’s getting very close. I’m not gonna let that happen. So this morning I called up your parents to get to the bottom of this, and you know what they told me?”

“That they’re getting divorced?”

“What?” Mr. Kovacs asked in surprise. “So they’re getting divorced? That clears things up a lot...” he drummed his fingers again. “Hm-hmm... Okay then, that makes me feel even more responsible for your future, Alex.” His tone softened. “I’m giving you two extra classes every day until your integrated performance score is completely back to normal. Starting today. I’ve already signed you up for a study spot in the lab, so you can head there and get started as soon as we’re done talking.”

I had no response, just nodded. As he said, it wasn’t fatal, I’d survive. And I myself understood that I had fallen a bit behind. Sitting through the lessons I missed in a VR-helmet and retaking the tests didn’t scare me.

“And that’s not all. Your mom, Mrs. Sheppard, told me you have developed an unhealthy fixation with Disgardium.”

“What? Unhealthy? Are you saying something everyone enjoys is unhealthy?”

“Maybe I didn’t express myself properly. Anyway, I was just repeating your mom’s words. Most likely she meant your interest in Dis has suddenly increased. And you know I don’t agree with the Department of Education on that particular rule... How to put it lightly... To me, it seems they crossed the line when they required kids to spend time playing a game. You understand? It might make sense for kids with low citizenship status. After all, they really have nowhere better to go after school and Dis is great at reducing social tension...” he chewed his lips and stroked his nose. “But Alex, you’re from a good family! Status F! There’s nothing stopping you from becoming a fully-fledged member of society!”

“Did you forget? They’re getting divorced!”

“But they aren’t divorced yet!” Greg slapped the desk and lifted himself up. I could see flickers of fury in his eyes and, in surprise, I fell back in my chair. “And if they’re smart, they won’t get divorced, at least until your citizenship tests!”

He was right. My parents’ high citizenship status might afford me extra points in the eyes of the commission. It also might not, that was just rumored. But the rumors were stubborn and statistics seemed to confirm them.

Though perhaps it was just because high-status families had more opportunities to provide their offspring better health, social skills and education starting in early childhood if not from the moment of conception. Gene editing cost a lot of money, for example, but anyone was legally allowed to use it, just pony up.

Mr. Kovacs spent a long time boring into me with his eyes but finally his forehead wrinkles smoothed out, his nostrils stopped flaring threateningly and he found his seat again. Then he went right back to his usual tone as if nothing had happened:

“One hour ago, I petitioned the Department of Education to temporarily ban your character from Disgardium. I ticked all the boxes to get it done too, including referencing your potential value to society... of this world, not Dis. And the petition was approved. Your character has been banned for two weeks. I hope that’ll be enough time for you to catch up on everything you missed.”

“What? You have to be joking, right Mr. Kovacs? You can’t..!”

I just about told him I was a threat and thus required to spend at least eight hours a day in the game but he fortunately spoke over me.

“Do I look like I’m joking? You better believe I can!” He flew into rage again. “Stand up, Sheppard! Into the VR-lab for extra classes! Now!”

Slamming the door behind me, I was thought that the rumors of his fighting past may have had a firm basis. In the hallway, I saw the astonished faces of the Dementors. Hung was standing at mock attention.

“Sir, yes sir!” he shouted, bulging out his eyes.

“Hung Lee!” Kovacs’s voice came from the class. “Two extra classes with Sheppard! Step to!”

* * *

Out of solidarity, everyone waited for us. For me, the hour and a half in bionics lectures flew by fairly quickly. But Hung Lee took it worse. Removing the VR helmet, he shrugged his shoulders, turned his head and said with frustration:

“Damn! They say decent schools have pods, not this ancient trash.” He pulled off the manipulator gloves, threw them on the floor and cracked his fingers. “So, we gettin’ out of here?”

“Yep,” I nodded. “But it was interesting. No, really! Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have learned that, just one hundred years ago, you would have been a cyclops.”

Hung reflexively touched his left eye. It was bionic, but indistinguishable from the normal one he’d lost in some mindless kid’s game.

“A hundred years ago? Grandpa told me that, back then, at least everyone had work. But he was little then. He could be imagining things. He tells all kinds of tall tales!” Hung slapped me on the shoulder and gave a somewhat unhappy laugh. “What are your plans, Alex? Me and the guys just can’t stop guessing. What made you get so good at Dis all of a sudden?”

“I’ll talk about it at Ed’s. I don’t wanna repeat myself.”

The guys were waiting at the flying car launchpad. When they saw us, they got up, shaking off some snow.

“Finally! We’ve been freezing our asses off out here!” Malik shouted.

Their heated clothing would hardly have allowed that, but he Tissa and Ed all had rosy cheeks. The first snow had fallen in the night and it was so much that the pad’s climate control system was overwhelmed, so the snow was simply shoveled to the edges of the roof. And by the looks of things, the guys got into it and had a snowball fight while waiting for me and Hung.

The five of us got into one flying car and Rodriguez set the destination. On the way, we talked about all kinds of stuff but, for some reason, avoided any mention of Disgardium. Even when I raised the topic of my account being banned for two weeks, they didn’t react. Tissa shook her head and softly touched my chest, whispering with just her lips: “Later.”

After a quarter hour, we landed on the roof of the building where Ed lived.

It was a category-H neighborhood, inhabited by citizens of low civil status. And the differences were instantly obvious wherever you looked. The buildings were taller, and denser. There was less green space... The windows even looked smaller.

“Let’s go.” Ed brought us through the parking lot and stuck his finger up to the lock. It gave a click and the door slid up. “Don’t track in any snow.”

The elevator brought us down to floor twenty-four. That too was different here. It wasn’t as fast, silent or as spacious as the one in my building.

We walked down a long hallway, then stopped next to one of the doors. Ed opened the lock by putting his head up to the facial recognition camera. Malik started whistling a recent hit song and even tried to dance, but Tissa whispered:

“Infect! Quiet! You’ll wake up Ed’s grandma!”

As soon as the door opened, I heard a sonorous girl’s scream:

“Eddy!”

A five-year-old girl threw herself at Rodriguez and, jumping up, hung off his shoulders.

“Who’s there Pollyanna?” I heard a woman’s voice from deep in the apartment. “Edward, is that you? You’re late, Edward!”

“Yes, grandma! Mr. Kovacs assigned extra lessons!” Ed shouted over the girl’s head.

She jumped out of her brother’s arms, hugged Malik and Hung, then clung to Tissa’s neck. Clearly they were frequent guests here. Melissa whispered something softly into her ear and she nodded and laughed, shooting me a furtive glance.

“My name is Alex,” I extended a hand.

“Polly,” she barely touched my hand with her palm, embarrassed.

“I’ll go talk with grandma,” Ed said. “There’s coke in the fridge, grab some and go park your asses on the balcony. Little Polly, have you eaten?” She nodded. “Good, then go play in your room.”

I studied Ed’s apartment. It was roomy, no less than ours, though the category made it a bit dumpier. The guys pulled a couple big bottles of soda out of the fridge. Tissa picked up a packet of disposable cardboard cups and a few bags of chips.

All that in hand, we walked over to a wide windowed balcony with a view of... a gray neighboring building with blue window frames just a couple dozen yards away. Still, there was room for four chairs and a small plastic table. The rest of the space was occupied by a pile of random objects: pictures, a ton of little figurines and some boxes. Everything was covered in a layer of dust. The house had a certain feeling of neglect, as if it hadn’t seen a woman’s touch in ages or at least the hands of a robot cleaner. And by the way, I didn’t see one.

“There’s room for five people here,” I noted while we waited for Ed. “It’s a big apartment.”

“Once upon a time, five people did live here,” Hung answered gloomily. “But three years ago, Ed’s parents caught the Rock Virus in Africa.”

“Isn’t it treatable?” I asked in surprise. There was a new disease just about every year, but modern medicine found ways of defeating even such hellish adversaries as the Rock Virus, which caused healthy cells to rot while still alive.

“It was at the very beginning,” Tissa explained, opening a bag of chips. “They were in the first wave, before anyone even knew how to diagnose it.”

“But they were good artists,” Hung added.

“What was it?” Tissa rolled her eyes, remembering. “The value of the cultural contribution of their works... blah-blah-blah... Basically they put their citizenship status on Ed’s grandma so the family wouldn’t have to move.”

“And what about his grandma?” I asked. “Should we go say hi to her?”

“It isn’t necessary,” Tissa shook her head. “She can barely walk, is just about deaf and doesn’t like strangers. And to her, you’re definitely a stranger.”

“And you will always be one unless you meet her,” Malik snorted. “Actually that’s a good idea. Go introduce yourself.”

I got up from the chair and headed for the door, but Ed walked into the doorway.

“Quiet down! Granny just fell asleep. Why’d you get up, Alex? Bathroom?”

“No, I wanted to go meet your...”

“Another time,” Ed shot out. “She needs peace and quiet. So... We need one more chair...”

He disappeared from the doorway and soon came back with a stool in his hands. He closed the balcony door tight and sat down with us. A slight smile came onto his face. He looked around and stopped on the big guy:

“Hung, did you get it?”

“Of course!” Bomber sniffed the air and gave a broad smile. “We came here to celebrate! So...” he took a large flask out of an inside pocket and shook it in the air. “Pure whiskey, folks! From the bottomless stash of my dear old dad!”

“First Kill, whiskey and coke... Let me think...” Ed rubbed his hands together. “Guy’s, we’re wasting time! Alright Bomber, you’re the tank!”

Chapter 3. Academic Ban

A MESSAGE from Snowstorm came when I was still at Ed’s with the Dementors. As much as the strong alcohol clouded my mind, I still had enough sense not to read it.

I uncovered my communicator just enough to see the notification. As soon as I read the name of the corporation, I clenched my fist before Tissa got curious and looked. She was sitting between me and Ed, periodically touching me here with her shoulder and there with her hair. A few times she put her hand on my knee. Just to be fair, she would put her other hand on Ed’s at the same time, as if our legs were just armrests for her.

Eventually, I felt like my tongue was about to get too loose. And not even so much because I was an inexperienced drinker. I was just having fun hanging out, and they all radiated friendly warmth. I tried to give a furtive goodbye, but they wouldn’t let me leave alone. We all went together to the flying car, Hung made sure I input the right destination, then they spent a long time hugging me and patting me on the back. Ed, his tongue loosened, said that they would look over the loot from the dungeon and start quickly selling everything they didn’t need. And he assured me I would get my share for the whole ins, not just the final boss. And after that they let me go...

I fell asleep on the way home and didn’t wake up when the flying car landed on my parent’s rooftop. When I woke up, I wasn’t sure how long I had been there. Maybe a minute, maybe an hour. Then, hitting my shoulders on doorframes and leaning on the walls for support, I lumped my way home, pulled myself into the bed and fell into a deep sleep.

I woke up just before morning to a gut-rending thirst, out of my clothes and under the covers. One of my parents had taken pity on me after my first real drinking experience. As further proof, there was a bottle of water and a glass on the bedside table and, next to them, a fizzy tablet. I had seen this combination before when father was hungover.

I sated my thirst with the bubbly liquid analgesic and got up from the bed. AT was lying next to me, her head on her paws. Noticing that I was up, he raised an ear but, sensing my mood, didn’t come over.

My head splitting, I paced around the room, trying to gather my thoughts. I still had plenty of time before school, so I decided to start with the basics: I got into the shower and spent a long time standing under its warm water, bringing my body and mind back to life. I was afraid to even imagine how much money I wasted between the water and the electricity to heat it.

But it made me feel better. I decided to check if Greg was bluffing and got into my pod. But as expected I saw a message that I was temporarily banned from all game worlds. Then I remembered the email from the corporation.

Dear Alex!

We are writing to inform you that you have received a two-week academic ban from Disgardium.

Taking into account your special status and required game time, I wanted to write personally to reassure you. All of us here at Snowstorm went to school as well :-) So we understand what you’re going through and won’t make your life any harder.

For the duration of your academic ban, you are free of all obligations to spend time in Disgardium.

I wish you a speedy resolution to all your issues, and may the skies of Disgardium always be blue over your head!

With friendly greetings,

Marianna Da Silva, Customer service department,

Snowstorm Incorporated.

With a happy chuckle, I got ready for school and left my room. I stuck my head out and saw a sympathetic look from father, then heard a sermon from mom, ate breakfast and went to school.

Lessons just flew by. For the first time in recent memory, I hardly thought about Dis, carefully listening to all my teachers and finishing my assignments properly. During breaks, I would talk with the Dementors. They were getting close to Tristad and could practically taste the reward from First Advisor Whiteacre’s quest. The final boss had dropped a scorpion eye for each of us and that triggered a quest.

Thanksgiving was coming up, so Greg didn’t insist on my extra classes, but I still went to them to make up for lost time.

The four-day weekend went by like it was one. On Thursday, we had guests and they ate all the food mom made. Although saying she made it might have been a bit much. It didn’t take her more than an hour: she just unpacked a high-end cooking set called “Thanksgiving” into the multicooker, and it spat out a full meal for eight to ten people. It cost just ninety-nine phoenixes. The star of the table was a roast turkey, then came the mashed potatoes, cheesy corn casserole and pumpkin pie, among other things.

On Friday, it was our turn to be the guests. My parents carefully hid their impending divorce and did a great job playing the happy family. It came easily to them. They just about had me believing it, if I hadn’t heard mom say she didn’t love dad anymore.

On Saturday and Sunday, I did normal stuff. I studied, watched movies and videos from the Leman expedition to Mars, and tried unsuccessfully to drag Tissa out on a date. At first she was in Dis, so she it took her a long time to answer but, when she did write, her message was dry: “Can’t. Not in the mood.” I considered whether it was worth getting upset over but decided that it definitely was not.

Out of boredom I even tried to call up Eve but her mother answered, saying her daughter’s recuperation was dragging on because she “was getting a taste for it.”

Anyhow, by the end of the long weekend, I was sick of vacation. On Monday, I was delighted to fly to school. And that was where everything became clear.

* * *

Dead of sorrow. Gloomy. Downtrodden and crushed. That was how the Dementors looked when I found them in the schoolyard. And although the sun was scorching down from a cloudless sky, they were surrounded by a cloud of coldness and despondency. It was as if the Dementors had become their clan’s namesake.

They hadn’t shown up for first period, and they came late to second. During the break Greg held me back, and I only managed to catch up with them after that. They were sitting on a bench and looking dismal, like frozen sparrows.

“Hi...” I drew out cautiously. “How’s it going?”

“Hi,” Tissa answered gloomily and turned away. She was in a touchy mood.

The others kept silent. They all looked visibly tenser when I showed up. By the looks of things, I was intruding on a conversation they didn’t want me there for.

“To hell with it,” Hung spit out. “This is his problem too.”

Ed sized me up with an empty gaze and lowered his head, burying it in his hands.

“What happened? Did somebody die?”

“Yeah, we all did!” Malik laughed nervously. “A crapload of times!”

“Alright...” Ed muttered, having made up his own mind. He raised his head and exclaimed: “Alex, we’re up shit’s creek! Hell, we’re at the headwaters!”

“I can see that.” I said, taking a seat between Hung and Malik. “But what happened?”

“Axiom...” Malik started explaining. But Ed stopped him and spoke:

“Last Thursday, Big Po added us all to their KoS list with a bounty of fifty gold for each time one of us is killed.”

“And me?”

“We aren’t sure about you, but you can check the forums,” Ed answered. “So far, it’s just us four: me, Tissa, Bomber and Infect. As for you, they have questions. But for what it’s worth, we said you weren’t with us.”

“Did you at least get the loot back?”

“We did!” Hung exploded unexpectedly. “But we lost almost all our gear! None of us made it back to town on foot! They caught us all!”

“Where are you now?”

“Same place,” Hung burbled. “The respawn point at Olton Quarries.”

“We all got brought down to level ten. And they stripped us bare!” Ed took a loud breath in through his nose. His voice dropped and he said barely audibly: “I lost my epic Cloak of Urfin the Fiery. And I can’t go anywhere. There’s always a new headhunter waiting to rack up kills until diminishing returns kicks in.”

“What is that?”

“The same player or group can’t kill one person more than three times in a row per day,” Tissa explained. “After the third time, their attacks stop doing damage. So they switch out.”

“What about teleportation?”

“It doesn’t cast instantly,” Hung complained. “They are watching out for it, so they always make sure to get us before it’s done. Ed did manage once, but that just delivered him up to the nagas, and they tore him to pieces.”

“What chance did I have?” Ed snorted. “Naked at level ten!”

“Is that gonna keep happening for long?” I asked.

“Until we leave the sandbox. Me and Hung flew over to see Big Po this morning. We were hoping we could come to an understanding...” Ed spat. “He just laughed in our faces! He said he is owed one hundred thousand gold in moral and material compensation. We don’t have anywhere near that kind of money, so...”

“What?”

“We don’t know, Alex!” Tissa moaned. “We don’t know! We’ll wait a few days, maybe things will quiet down. Our priority is reaching the city and getting geared up. From there, we can go level somewhere without people, maybe the Mire. It’s our only hope.”

“If that doesn’t work, we’ll just quit Dis until we can go into the big world,” Ed threw out. But he changed his mind: “Hey, you think you could go with us? If we find a new ins, we could easily level there! Alex!”

“It won’t work, Ed. I don’t have the curse anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Rodriguez exploded. “Why?”

“I finished Patrick’s quest. Right after that, the curse was removed.”

“Aw nether!” the Dementors all shot out at once...

“So that means...” Ed squeezed out.

It was over... This was how my brief friendship with the Dementors would end. Obviously no one said it out loud, but I could feel it. Disgardium was the thing that connected us and, with it out of our lives, we had nothing to talk about. They would sit through classes in silence, replying drily to my greetings and showing no desire to talk. During breaks, they would all just disappear. Meanwhile, I didn’t intrude. I didn’t even have the time. All I knew was that, a week later, they eventually did get into Tristad, bind there and were preparing for a desperate escape to the Mire.

Greg, delighted at my renewed upwelling of interest in school, loaded me up not only with extra lessons but also homework, even going beyond the required school program. I then tried to make progress, using the time before I could play again to maximum effect.

At home my parents had inked a ceasefire and, in that shaky peace, both father and mother were particularly cautious with their words and actions. He stopped drinking, she stopped nagging. And they both threw themselves into a new project, wanting to earn as much as they could before the divorce. I didn’t know what the deal was with mom’s beau but, for the whole two weeks of my ban, she never once left home without father. It was all like before, even better. But that was just an illusion.

After being discharged from the clinic, Eve had flown south to recover. Mrs. O’Sullivan must have gotten the school to agree to distance learning. I still hadn’t seen my childhood friend in person, but we were talking on our comms. She had changed a lot. I hadn’t seen anything except her face, but that was enough to make a big impression. Eve had become perfect. Ideal. But she still wasn’t to my taste.

On the evening of the last day of my ban, I got a letter from Marianna congratulating me on the end of my academic ban and reminding me that my required time in Dis was coming back. That was a Tuesday.

And that Wednesday, right after school, I ate lunch and climbed into my pod.

Welcome to Disgardium, Scyth!

Chapter 4. Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?

THE SMALL island Behemoth called home had grown larger in the two weeks of my absence. Due to the lower water level, it had also sprouted a good bit of grass. And there were no reminders of the Sleeping God. He must have poured the last of his energy into me, giving impetus to my new skills and now was dozing away, waiting for new followers and a temple.

During the adaptation process, I considered how a packed and exiting life can change the perception of time. After I heard my parents were getting divorced, I spent one week in Dis. And now I hadn’t played for two since Greg’s ban. But it felt different, as if I had lived a whole past life in this world of might and magic, been exiled from it and was now finally able to return. It was a strange feeling, especially considering how bored Dis used to make me.

I spent a bit of time thinking about what to do first. Flickering envelop icons, notifications about unread letters, system messages about my unchosen class and unspent stat points, the uncompleted quests from Patrick and Whiteacre, the set epic in my inventory. It was all intriguing but I wanted to... savor it or something.

And here in the swamp, hostile creatures could appear at any moment. I had lost my secret weapon, so they posed a real threat now. If I died, I would both lose experience and be sent to the Tristad cemetery. The Mark of the Destroying Plague was not enough on its own. It only had an eight percent chance to procc.

I made up my mind: I had to get to my personal room in Tristad as quickly as possible. But Big Po’s guys might be waiting there to waylay me. And I doubted they’d let me go before shaking me down for everything I had.

I just needed one little thing, for the great depths RNG to be in my favor. Well, Sleeping God, don’t fail me now... Depths Teleportation!

But I didn’t land in the city.

It was a gloomy and morose place, but still light thanks to the bright sun. My swampy surroundings were replaced by the ever-present twilight of Gloomwood. As soon as I realized where I was, I fell to the dry cracked soil, hiding in Stealth. Something crunched beneath me, poked into my chest, and my hands were immediately covered in green slime.

There was a clacking noise all around that would not stop. With a careful look around, I shot to my feet. My field of vision was flooded with notifications about failed stealth checks. There was no hiding in the middle of a huge well-guarded clutch of spider eggs. Beyond the web-sheet walls, I couldn’t even see any trees! Thousands of eggs dotted everything around, and I could see little spiders poking out of a few of them. But all that faded in comparison with the monstrous silhouettes of the adult arachnids. I quickly scanned one of them:

Corrupted Arachnid Guard, level 14

Next to him were the towering column legs of an even more powerful creature, a Corrupted Arachnid Brood Watcher, level seventeen.

As for me, my excursion in the new Gloomwood ended before it even got started. A moment later, all the spiders dogpiled me.

With Stoneskin on, I was able to last a whole thirty seconds, then another ten thanks to my Resilience being ninety percent of cap. In that time, I managed to lay low fifteen spiders, not sparing plague energy or a Ghastly Howl, but my fate was sealed. Unless curse of the undead triggered, it was foolish to even hope.

Newborn Arachnid has damaged you: 16.

Health points: 0/405.

You are dead.

After I died, I was in no hurry to respawn. Based on the logs, all my Resilience wasn’t worth a wooden nickel against mobs of a much higher level. Even the newborn spiders were already level thirteen. And every level of difference in the enemy’s favor cost me ten percent damage. In the end, even though the spiders were hitting half-heartedly, their numbers were overwhelming. And as for me... my current amount of health was enough to hold out two or three blows against something like a Corrupted Arachnid Broodwatcher.

The timer counted out my last second in a dead body. Out of old habit, I was ready to activate a chain of skills when I respawned to instantly rejoin the fight. But this time I didn’t need it. Before me then were the towering walls of Tristad. Nothing was rushing to attack me. I was in the graveyard. I saw a warning floating in the air:

Penalty for death: -550 experience points.

I thought a bit and remembered the mechanic for calculating penalties: present level times fifty. Not pleasant, but bearable. That was what I’d get for killing about ten mobs at any level. It only became a problem if someone was stalking your respawn point.

I dismissed the notification and checked my inventory. Thanks to my rare bag, all the loot from Evil from the Depths was where it belonged. I mentally composed a route, calmly reached the city walls and, from there, ran to the Bubbling Flagon like a coward. I wasn’t going to leave my room until I’d figured out all the letters, classes and plans.

The city looked exactly the same though there were perhaps a few more people walking the streets than usual. I found out why when I got to the tavern. At the doors of the Bubbling Flagon, some level-twelve player was tearing his throat:

“Vote in the City Council elections! A player is running for the first time, the famed and respected Polynucleotide! His main issue is increasing rewards for social missions! Beyond that, he wants to make it legal for players to acquire property in...”

Astonished, I wanted to know the details but suddenly found someone staring at me stubbornly. I turned my head and realized I’d been spotted: a level-fourteen courier girl from Axiom by the name Cherry was silently moving her lips in front of a signal amulet. She made sure I was looking and pointed a finger at me, which I took to mean: “Stay where you are!”

No, thanks. With a shake of my head, I walked into the tavern and went up into my room. I’d have to talk with them one way or another but preferably not like this, wearing only underwear and with unspent my attribute points. No, from a psychological standpoint, nothing good could come from talking like this

In the room, I sprawled out on my bed and breathed a sigh of relief. Last time I was here, half a month ago, I was level six. Now I was eleven...

Oh well, time to look through my presents. I opened the window and quickly scanned the names of the classes the system had offered: Solo Adventurer, Wandering Monk, and Herald. None of those meant anything to me, but I they would soon enough.

I opened my mailbox and saw a bunch of unread messages and the most recent was by Tissa, sent just one day earlier:

Alex!

Sorry that I’m only writing here and now. Ed is paranoid IRL and we’re trying not to say anything until the time is right. To anyone, even you. I know it’s stupid, but it’s what we decided. Sorry again.

By the way, Hung was right. DT gives two possible destinations at level three. And then it’s the luck of the draw.

Obviously DT meant Depths Teleportation. Did that mean that they used it every day trying to escape until they were all in Tristad? I’d keep that in mind. But why not just tell me by comm? Or say it in school? All this secrecy seemed weird. I didn’t answer, having decided to talk one on one.

Then I opened the next message. It came from Overweight:

Hi, Scyth!

I haven’t seen you in a while so I decided to drop you a line. Today me and Undy sorted through our stuff. Well, you know, like took stock. Basically, we found a set of equipment for level five. Undy set it aside for you. How’s it going, have you hit five yet?

Overweight (Rita)

Had I hit level five? I chuckled and quickly popped off an answer: “Rita, hi! Sorry, I haven’t been in Dis for two weeks. I’ll drop by one of these days!” I didn’t know if I’d buy anything from them, but I wouldn’t mind seeing her.

The next letter came from Big Po:

Sheppard!

I know you were there. I hope you won’t wuss out when we meet and deny it. Your friends have already gotten their punishment and rightly so. In case you haven’t heard, the only reason you aren’t on our KoS list yet is that I wanted to have a talk with you before you go sour. Write me soon as you enter Dis and read this. Don’t draw out the inevitable.

B.P.

My answer to him was even shorter than to Rita: “One hour in the tavern.” He was right. There was no reason to draw it out. Best settle this issue before I made any plans. Honestly, I wanted to figure out my class and attribute points first. And see what changed when my potential threat to the world went up.

And by coincidence, that was exactly what the next message was about. It all started with a familiar greeting:

Greetings, fair Scyth, from the gods of Disgardium!

The rusty gears of creation have turned over and given a push. A great number of independent events have culminated in the impossible. Now, two horrifying scourges of the old and new worlds have met in one intelligent creature!

I haven’t seen a threat as fearsome as what you could become since the Rending of Worlds!

Potential class of your threat to the world: A.

Present class of your threat to the world: Q.

Threat traits: overt, Sleeping Gods, Destroying Plague, rending, pandemic, explosive character growth, global cataclysm, war of gods, hidden advantage against much higher-level enemies...

That was followed by a text I had seen before. Warnings, penalties for disclosure and a list of rewards which were again not spelled out explicitly. But at the end there was something new. It said that for reaching class L – my previous threat ceiling – I would be given a state-of-the-art pod with full life support, massage and muscle stimulation and other important and less important features. For example, it was faster at reading data from the brain and sending it to Dis, giving the owners of such pods the jump on the others even if only by a fraction of a second.

But that all faded in comparison with what came at the very end, where it said what I stood to gain for bringing the threat to maximum. The number looked to be made of pure zeros, and I had to count them two times. I got the same number both times but still I was in disbelief, just staring until the zeros wandering around in my vision.

There were nine zeros after a one. I would be given a billion phoenixes if I could bring my threat class to maximum! But that wasn’t all. If I reached D or higher they promised a fully-fledged contract working as a consultant for Snowstorm’s threat department with an eight-figure salary. And that was before bonuses!

My heart was beating so fast I could feel it even in Dis. Big Po, the Dementors, school and even Tissa all faded when I thought of the reward. That could solve all my problems! I could study on Snowstorm’s dime! My citizenship status would be C at minimum, millionaire level! A space guide? Ha, for a hundred million I could buy my very own brand-new space yacht and fly it wherever I liked!

I pressed “Accept,” but that was only in Disgardium. I still needed to sign a contract in the real world.

Not wasting time, I left the game, waited one minute in total darkness to readapt as the intragel returned control to my body, got out of the pod and opened my real electronic mail to sign the updated contract with Snowstorm. Getting right to it – how can you get distracted with something like this on the line? – I closely read all nine pages and placed electronic signatures everywhere it was required.

Right after I came back to Dis, I wanted to pick my class, but there was someone knocking stubbornly in my private messages:

Player Polynucleotide (Wesley Cho) would like to add you to his friends list. Accept?

You may set privacy settings to determine friends’ information access level about your character.

Wesley Cho, aka Polynucleotide, aka Big Po was reminding me of our meeting.

Chapter 5. Too Many Pos

THE PART of the Bubbling Flagon where Big Po was sitting leisurely looked almost deserted. The empty tables around him and the other Axiomites clearly had plenty of room, but still everyone tried to keep their distance.

As it turned out, when I got closer, I ran into an invisible curtain. When I pushed it gave, but it felt like I was back in the thick muck of the Mire. My body was enshrouded with invisible pressure, my ears popped and it became harder to breathe. I couldn’t hear what the top clan was discussing over the table, but I could see Big Po’s lips moving. The field disappeared and, out of inertia, I fell into the bubble.

At the same time, almost all the Axiom players stood up and, a few of them hitting me with their shoulders, headed to leave the tavern. I recognized one of them by name, JJ, a level eighteen bard who used to lead the Night Stalkers. He and Big Po’s had joined forces, leaving him second in command of Axiom.

Only two people stayed back. Next to Wesley Cho sat a girl with shaved temples and a long blue ponytail.

“Wesley, Irina,” I nodded and, not waiting for them to invite me, sat at the table.

They sized me up. Both the information available in my profile and what I was wearing. And I did the same to them.

Polynucleotide, level-19 human

Clan: Axiom.

Real name: Wesley Cho

Real age: 15.

Class: Chieftain.

Irina was a mystic two levels lower. And though I’d heard of hear class before, “chieftain” meant nothing to me.

“Nice class you’ve got there, Big Po,” I drawled to break the silence, made deafening by the bubble. I could even hear my heartbeat. “Is it at least a combat class?”

The leader of Axiom raised a pointer finger, calling for silence. Then without breaking his gaze, he leaned toward Irina. She whispered fairly distinctly:

“Forty-four thousand experience points in the last week, plus or minus a week. An average of five thousand points per day. Class not chosen. By the looks of things, he didn’t have time. He was at six when he entered our ins. After the ins, he got an academic ban. The last five levels must have come the day before the ban. He was there.”

He sat back forcefully, his arms now behind the bench back and turned to me:

“You heard her, Sheppard. My analyst is sure you were with the Dementors.”

“No ‘hi Scyth?’ No ‘nice to see you’ or, at the very least, a ‘we’ve been waiting a long time, Alex?”

“Don’t be rude,” Irina said harshly. “You are nobody here and thus you have no name. Thank Po for his decision to be fair and hear you out before putting a bounty on your head.”

“Deepest gratitude, Big Po!” I stood up and bowed like a jester. “So, why do they call you Big Po? Not Medium, not Little, but Big?”

I didn’t know what had come over me. With the perspectives I was imagining ten minutes earlier, I should have been more polite. After all, his clan ruled this sandbox. Why fan the flames of an already tense situation? And I would have been polite, if they had been. What, weren’t they taught to say hello?

“Polo. Pocketrocket. My little brother Polynuclear,” Wesley started counting, bending his fingers. “There are too many Po’s for one clan. I’m big. I’ve got a metabolism disorder. So that’s why they call me Big Po. Any more questions?”

“Not for now. Thanks for answering,” I nodded in embarrassment. He had disarmed me. I expected anything right up to being added to their KoS list, a flareup of rage, an overturned table. Anything but a simple and clear answer.

“Now you answer me. Were you in the ins?”

“Yes.”

“Just tell me one reason...” Big Po made a big pause to take a swallow of ginger beer, “why I should forgive you.”

“Forgive me?” I laughed. “For what? It was your guy who let me into the dungeon.”

“What happened after that?”

“After that it was all easy. The ins got closed for maintenance and I left before they kicked me out...”

“Hm-hm...” Irina didn’t believe me. “Keep lying.”

“In the morning, I came back and saw that my toon was still inside. So I called the Dementors. After that, you know what happened.”

“He’s lying!” the girl cried out dogmatically, turning to Big Po. “During maintenance, dungeons are completely reloaded. All players get sent to their res point.”

“Look, Sheppard.” Wesley sat his big paunch on the table, squinting his already narrow eyes. “Crawler and his guys are finished. This game doesn’t exist for them until they get out into the big world. I guarantee it. And if they try anything funny, they’ll have problems IRL. They stole a First Kill from me in a very ripe dungeon. Such things are not forgiven. In big Dis, people get killed for less. So do you understand what’s at stake? According to our observers, you guys scooped up some gear in there, and it’s a bit nicer than low-level epics. But to hell with that. It can be bought. The ability to teleport is something we can never have now. You understand?”

“Your disappointment – yes, but as for the ‘can never have now,’ no. Why should that be? You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. The day will come when you can get other First Kills.”

“Like hell it will!” Po thundered his fist on the table. “The top clans control everything. If some noobs find a new dungeon, they’re better off selling the location to the big ten than trying to pass it themselves. It’s both more profitable and more reliable. The tops have scout networks that cover all known Disgardium, and they are meticulous! So if we happen to get lucky, there’s no guarantee what kind of First Kill we will get if we even can. I’m talking about teleportation precisely.”

Po wrapped up his fiery speech and started sucking at his glass of beer. While he greedily wet his throat, Irina turned to me. She spoke quietly and measuredly, but every one of her words had a drip of poison:

“Scyth, do you have any idea how much it costs to hire a mage who can open portals in big Dis? Depending on distance, one-way travel can cost as much as to ten thousand gold. It isn’t enough to be a mage. You need to specialize in spatial magic. The price of a full course with the required folios and scrolls can come up to a million gold. Plus that class is worthless in combat and are generally only levelled by powerful clans for their own private use. Stationary portals only cover the capitals and do not come cheap either. You and those idiots of Azkaban stole an invaluable skill...”

“Aw nether!” Wesley cursed, describing how and in what positions he would perform coitus with Ed Rodriguez and his clan. Minus Tissa of course. “To hell with that Latin freak, but Hung! We’re practically related! If only I’d convinced him to join us before... Without a tank, Crawler would have just sucked down candies in the dungeon until he died and everything would have been fine!”

Watching their revelations, I felt a certain disbelief. Sure, I thought their anger and indignation, grief and disappointment were sincere, but I’d never seen them act this way before. In general, they were strong, cold-blooded, calculating. I mean, that was why they were called Axiom! And now this whole spectacle? What were they playing at? Were they trying to make me feel so guilty that I would admit to something I didn’t do? If so, it wasn’t working.

“So then, Sheppard,” Big Po snorted, watching my reaction the whole time. “You tell us what you really did in that dungeon. Tell us what loot dropped from the last boss and send us a full description of the ability it gave you. Then I’ll decide whether I should kill you or not.”

Before he’d even finished talking, I had made up my mind. If they add me to their KoS list, I’d just run off to the Mire. Or just sit out my required hours in my personal room. Admitting what actually happened – and by the looks of things the Dementors hadn’t given me up – was not in the cards. And I couldn’t give a single hint of my true status either. After all Big Po had connections with preventer clans.

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no?’“ Wesley asked in astonishment. “Don’t kill you?”

“No, as in I’m not going to tell you. I’m really sick of Dis and I’m not planning to keep playing. I’ve got college, studies plus citizenship tests ahead of me. I won’t have time.”

“We’ve all got the tests...” Irina muttered, gloomy.

“So you understand. Ed, Hung, Malik and Tissa are my friends. I’ve known them since first grade. I’ve never met you before. If they didn’t talk, I’m not gonna either.”

“Understandable,” Wesley nodded. “Accepted. I will not add you to the KoS list.”

“Are you serious? That easy?”

“Absolutely. You were right when you said it was my guy who let you into the ins. He by the way is no longer in the clan. As far as I know, you didn’t promise him not to kill Murkiss, right?” He guffawed. Irina also smiled. “No then?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then no further questions. You’re free to go, Sheppard. My apologies, but we are gonna watch you a bit... Discreetly.”

“And that’s all?” I couldn’t believe my ears and was waiting for a catch. “You’ll watch me a bit and that’s it? No more problems?”

“If you ever decide to share, write me a message,” Polynucleotide shrugged. “I might even invite you to the clan if you want to start taking Dis more seriously...”

“I have a question,” Irina shot out. “Did you do all that levelling on your own, or did the Dementors powerlevel you?”

“A little of column a, a little of column b,” I answered indistinctly and got up from the table. “Alright, bye.”

“Yep, bye...” he answered. “By the way, Sheppard...”

“Yeah?”

“Chieftain is a combat class,” he said, hiding a smile by lowering his head.

I smiled back. Big Po was giving a clear demonstration of his position of power, not leaving a single question unanswered.

Irina took down the “bubble” and my ears were struck by bass tones and clanging music from the group of joyous bards on stage and the tumult of tavern patrons. There were only players and bots in the room. The workmen were still earning their keep on shift. Patrick, who I wanted to talk with to finish up the quest, was not around either. According to the map, he was near the Tristad market square and all the better. Passing that quest with potential Axiom spies around would have been a mistake.

I took a look around and saw Big Po whispering into a signal amulet and Irina giving commands to a rogue and a thief who were suddenly next to her. Had they been there the whole time?

In the end, the talk with the leaders of Axiom wasn’t quite as unpleasant as I expected. What was more, it made me reevaluate what I got from the ins. Depths Teleportation was now more valuable than any legendary in my eyes. Especially when I considered how important it was for me to stay mobile. For escaping an ambush, it was the ideal lifeline.

I ran up the stairs to the second floor, jumped down the hallway, running into couple of fourteen-year-old noobs hugging and dove into the portal to my personal room.

I was going to pick my class today. If it took too long, I could study the descriptions and leave of Dis to look over some guides. Initial class choice was not fatal. After all, you could regenerate your character on entering greater Disgardium without losing your level. But that was clearly the wrong move for me. I stood to lose too much: my threat status, achievements and the skills like Ghastly Howl and teleportation. Plus, then I would only get to pick standard classes, even if there were four hundred and some. And that was disregarding specializations from courier to gunsmith. But the unique ones... Well, the game’s AI only handed out rare classes in the sandbox based on gameplay style.

So then, what were my options: Solo Adventurer, Wandering Monk, and Herald. Before me stood three full sized copies of my character.

The first, suited up in full plate armor, twirled a sword and sat it on his shoulder. The second, wearing pants and a vest, performed a series of punches and kicks, then did a flip and froze at attention. The third was wearing light-absorbing armor and either a crown or a simple diadem that was pitch black. He was just standing with his arms crossed over his chest, his glowing green eyes blinking forebodingly.

I decided to leave him for dessert and started from the most obvious:

Wandering Monk

Rare combat class (less than 0.01% of players).

Specializations: melee, support.

Bonus attributes: Agility.

In the hidden and faraway reaches of Disgardium, there are monasteries which only a select few know how to reach. There, monks study not only faith and the use of defensive and offensive auras, but also deadly martial arts.

Reading the class description, I mechanically kissed the knuckles of my right hand. My lips spread out into a smile: if I could do nuclear damage with Hammer as an untrained noob, then what would happen after I learned combo moves and other deadly attacks, then juiced them up with plague energy?

Chapter 6. A Difficult Choice

AS IT TURNED OUT, wandering monks were a very particular class. They had no home and could not belong to any faction or adhere to a particular deity. They preached altruism and could not start fights or they suffered huge penalties to faith power and would be forbidden from using class moves.

A more tolerable downside was that wandering monks couldn’t take professions. Beyond that, they were not allowed to refuse quests or wear heavy armor.

But still, the more I studied the game class, the more it drew me in.

First of all, it turned out that beyond mana for spells, monks had another resource called spirit which governed spell and attack power. How much of it they had was dependent on faith. And that wasn’t the same thing the priests of the many gods of Disgardium operated on. In fact, it was just about the exact opposite.

Whereas followers of a sect believed in the power of their deity for crumbs of reputation, with faith points used to activate buffs and new abilities, well...

...Wandering monks, thanks to their ardent faith that the world, although made by gods, yields easily to change and is formed by the mindpower of intelligent creatures, have the ability bend and warp reality itself.

Their unarmed attacks still deal physical damage, but that is reinforced with mental damage, which can also be crushing.

By power of faith, monks can control the rate time passes in battle, making them more able to dodge or land a series of unstoppable blows in the space of a second. And the stronger their faith and attacks become, the more nightmarish an opponent they can make.

Monks are probably one of the speediest classes in Disgardium. And the most unpredictable. After all, they have the most powerful combat attacks. Literally tearing the fabric of reality with their mental fortitude, a monk has a certain chance of taking down any enemy. Of course, the chance is extremely small, and the higher an enemy’s level the lower it gets, but it is there. Always, in every battle with enemies of any level and with every attack.

Further, monks can also make valuable support characters. Their defensive auras increase dodge chance and slightly improve the armor of all allies. Their healing auras restore health points, and offensive auras constantly damage all enemies in active radius.

Class bonuses:

+5 agility per level

+1% recovery speed for health, mana and spirit per level

+30% unarmed combat damage

+25% polearm combat damage

+10% attack speed

+5% movement speed on foot

So, no swords, rings or armor? I supposed I could get used to that. I had spent almost all my battles wearing nothing but underwear! Beyond that, although it was a rare class, it did a great job of masking my abilities. Oh, I’m doing crazy damage with my fists? It’s because I’m a monk! Walking around bare naked? Pants are taboo! Not in the city often? Monks cannot spend the night in taverns or spend longer than one day in a city. And that, by the way, was all verifiable.

Overall, studying the two remaining classes might be a formality. But considering that I couldn’t go back on this, I needed to look it all over carefully, then unhurriedly comb the forums and sit with a calculator putting a build together and figuring out my attributes. And the class bonus would give me one hundred and twenty points to throw around. Anyhow, there was no rush, I could do this the smart way.

Just in case there was no info on this class online, I took a screenshot of the description and opened the next:

Solo Adventurer

Rare mixed class (less than 0.01% of players).

Specializations: soldier of fortune, universal warrior.

Bonus attributes: any two of your choice.

In Disgardium, loners walk a prickly and winding path. Where a group may clear the way with fire and sword, a lone adventurer has to go around. But, if need be, they will accept battle and fight with the strength of three...

As I was reading, my avatar completely changed equipment a few times: first he looked cool with two curved daggers in his hands, then pulled on some leather armor, changed it for chain mail, then into plate. The daggers converged into a short narrow sword which grew longer and two-handed before turning into a halberd. Then in a flash, it turned into a composite bow with a notched arrow. The animation looped back around...

...Lone heroes are no strangers to relying only on themselves and must forge their own path.

Soldiers of fortune rely on stealth and the element of surprise and, whenever possible, prefer persuasion to combat. Failing that, they will get inside their enemy’s head and manipulate them into thinking they’re a friend.

Still, different situations require different abilities. Some solo adventurers are famed for their quick wit and insight into all manner of subjects. Also, by levelling one type of weapon, they have a high chance of improving adjacent weapon classes. A talented swordsman will be just as good with a cudgel or an axe. And learning to shoot a bow will give your character the ability to use crossbows and slingshots as well.

Several paths can be chosen, all giving different bonuses and abilities. Although soldiers of fortune, can wear heavy armor, they would never do so as not to lose their advantage. Universal warriors have the same chance of success regardless of armor or weapon.

Traders and tavern owners are favorable to lone heroes, and give them good discounts.

The active insight skill gives an adventurer knowledge of an enemy’s weak points, and knowing the optimal way to pack for a journey while leaving room for loot will allow you to carry more weight.

However, the defining feature of a solo adventurer is their independence. When outside a clan, they receive huge attribute bonuses and even larger ones when outside a group...

Unlike the wandering monk class, this one gave different skill bonuses depending on specialization. Unfortunately, they could not be combined. But some bonuses and penalties were shared by every solo adventurer regardless.

Class bonuses:

+3 to any chosen attributes per level

+10% to all main attributes (outside a clan)

+20% to all main attributes (outside a group)

+30% health and mana recovery speed outside battle

+20% to critical damage

+15% carrying capacity

+5% to movement speed

+10% to vendor discount

+100% to inventory size

+1% to chance of receiving improved loot

Class penalties:

-10% to all main attributes (in a clan)

-20% to all main attributes (in a group)

I was amazed at how many bonuses solo adventurers got. Standard classes only received +5 points to bonus attributes per level, a solo got a total of six. And the choice would be mine to balance how I saw fit. That one-point advantage would provide a full one hundred extra attribute points by level one hundred ten and, with bonuses, it went up to one hundred thirty. As long as I didn’t join a clan or group, I’d be a killing machine. Strange that it was such a rare class... Although it was only possible to get through dungeons alone in Dis with curse of the undead, same for solo’ing rare mobs. For the most part, if you didn’t have a group you were nobody. I would have to spend a long time sitting with a calculator and busting my brains. After all, I’d have to consider potential bonuses from following the Sleeping Gods and the Destroying Plague.

Gods! Nether, wandering monks were not allowed to follow any specific ones! What did that mean, would I not be allowed to choose this class? Or would I be forced to refuse Behemoth’s quest and they’d undo my initiation?

What about the Destroying Plague? Was it even a deity? I wiped the perspiration from my forehead and lay down on my bed. I heard a plaintive creak below me and spat out a curse. The room started to smell musty and dust swirled up in the beams of the sun coming through the window, shimmering. Was this a sign that it was time to upgrade my personal room? Who knew? I would potentially be spending a lot of time here after today...

I closed the class window despite myself and got to the next one. Its name intrigued me:

Herald

Unique class (never before chosen by a player).

Specializations: none.

Bonus attributes: charisma and luck.

Only those marked by the gods can foretell world-altering events. And even though we haven’t seen any of those around, Mr. Ingannamorte insists on implementing all possible classes before release, so I’m just filling up empty space. Blah-blah-blah, great herald, something here, get it done. Nergal shoots lightning out his ass! Or light? Aw screw it. My cat pissed in my boot, the jerk! Oh... Elsa, stop shaking your ass around in front of that stupid bastard Ramachandra! What kind of name is that anyway? OMG, so much to do, and I’ve gotta fill text! No one is ever gonna see this!

Okay, I’m going for a coffee. Bud, I don’t know who you are but, if you’re reading this, just know it’s my last day working for Snowstorm. I might even say my last hour! So, how much more do we need here? Five thousand characters – and that’s just the description. Nether! I trust this text is unique enough for you, Mr. Ingannamorte? What’s with this rush to launch?

I’ve still got bonuses to earn, and the damned class specializations department, of course, didn’t send a damn thing! Lol. Who in their right mind can think up ten thousand different classes? Who needs them all? Why come up with a hundred different kinds of warrior? Plate armor and a sword. That’s a warrior. But no, we’ve gotta stamp out every class in between to meet all tastes! Pff... If you name the class Bogatyr[1], that doesn’t stop it being a warrior. But we’ve got a huge Russian market! A higher strength-to-damage modifier? You need a separate class for that? And that’s saying nothing of the Chinese. A shu warrior or a ji warrior. The coders just change one line but we’ve gotta sit here and peck out a whole description...

“Our game will be self-regulating!” “Sure, of course.”

This whole thing is held together by duct tape. It’s just idiotic: a whole department spent a year hacking away at these Sleeping Gods, and now they aren’t even gonna be in the game! We have to have Sleeping Gods, every self-respecting game has Sleeping Gods. Of course, Mr. Inga-kissmyass-nnamorte! No one is ever gonna play your stupid game. This is complete crap, and no new-fangled VR immersion technology is gonna help! Pressing buttons and looking at a screen is one thing. Taking a real sword to the stomach is totally different. Where are you going to find enough masochists to play this crap?

No more than twelve bonuses and penalties per class. Hehehe... Hit two thousand characters...

That same kind of blather went on for a long time. My first thought was to write Snowstorm support and I would have done so, if I hadn’t gotten to the class bonuses first.

Class bonuses:

+100 persuasion skill

+5 charisma and luck per level

+50% ranged damage

+30% movement speed

Skill Dissimulation

Skill Imitation

Skill Herald (single use)

Skill Divine Revelation (spontaneous)

Class penalties:

-50% vendor discount

-30% carrying capacity

-90% inventory size

-50% armor value

Unique class, taken automatically. Cannot be declined!

The final lines of the unique class description simply mocked me:

Russian random in action! You’re gonna have to try real hard now, bud. I pity you! I’m going off home in the first flying car I find! If you’re ever in Orenburg, drop by a restaurant called Uncle Vanya’s. Ask for Vlad The Lisper and tell him how you managed to get this one.

Wow...!

Chapter 7. Herald

DENIAL, ANGER, bargaining, depression and acceptance, the five stages of grief. Denial and anger had passed fairly quickly, but I was stuck at the bargaining stage, studying class skills.

Dissimulation

Active class skill.

Current level: 1.

Knowing who your enemy is can often define the course of a battle. Now you can hide your true nature, keeping important information from your enemies.

This skill works on everyone however, the higher someone’s level compared to yours, the higher their chance of ignoring the effect.

Hidden at present level: character name.

Perhaps as this skill improved I would eventually be able to hide more than just my name. Meanwhile, in my case, this was a useless skill for now. Having no name would just cause questions, and it did nothing about my flashy title of herald. Furthermore, in the sandbox real name and age were displayed, and this said nothing about hiding that. I even realized why: the class and its skills had been invented many years ago while the game was still in the design phase. But the department of education had only started requiring real names a few years after launch.

That could have been a lot more useful...

Imitation

Active class skill.

Current level: 1.

Heralding a new era puts you on an extremely difficult and thorny path. No matter where they go, the high priests of new gods and coming changes are always be subject to persecution. However, not every herald can take someone else’s identity, only the true ones.

This skill works on everyone.

Choose target to use (must be in line of sight).

Imitated at present level: character class.

I shot up out of bed, my arms itching to test this skill. I left the room and quickly looked down the hallway – clear. Even if Big Po had stuck someone here to spy on me, stealth didn’t work due to the special light fixtures here. If someone was on the lookout for me, it would be outside at the exit from the tavern.

After careful examination, I went down the stairs. There was nobody there either. Walking along the wall, I slipped past the kitchen into the main room. I heard a measured hum coming from inside.

I stopped at the entrance and took a cautious look in, trying not to catch anybody’s eye. I couldn’t afford to show my herald class to anyone. Even if it didn’t make direct reference to threat status, attention and interrogations were virtually guaranteed.

Evening hadn’t come yet, and it was still relatively quiet in the Bubbling Flagon. A group of bards was rehearsing last night’s performance and chatting on stage. The two tables nearest me were occupied by workmen and, at the next one, a warrior and druid were having some sort of stormy discussion. I slid a gaze over the tavern. There was a thief, his face under a hood, a player with no class trying to get something through to him, a barbarian sucking greedily at a mug, an archer hanging around some cute waitress... Ah, the archer would do fine! Considering my bonus to ranged weaponry, that would make good cover!

I activated the skill and every player in my field of view gained a green outline with a popup question:

Imitate level-10 warrior Lumberjack?

Imitate classless player Zuzuvela?

Imitate level-11 archer Duplolas?

Yes. I focused on the archer and pressed the button with my gaze. But that was not all. The system considered it necessary to give me one last chance:

Only class can be imitated. Would you like the class Archer?

Yes. I opened my profile to make sure the skill was working properly.

Scyth, level-11 human

Real name: Alex Sheppard.

Real age: 15.

Class: Herald.

Displayed class: Archer (imitation).

I felt like a stone no smaller than the crags of the Nameless Mountains fell off my neck. I was already imagining using Depths Teleportation to ditch this place so I wouldn’t broadcast my new class but, thanks to imitation, it was not necessary.

Whistling a happy tune, I turned to the stairs and, going back up, ran into Crag on his way down, looking gloomy. In my surprise I greeted him:

“Hey there! How are things?”

After beating him in the Arena, I was expecting to be sprayed with curses but instead, he stopped and answered:

“Decent. How about you? I haven’t seen you for a while...”

He was still at level twelve, but his gear had gone down a couple rungs. Mismatched armor, a rusty sword, a beat-up gray shield on his back. Only the boots were blue quality, all the rest was gray, white and green. Seemingly things had not been going well for him since our duel.

“They banned me in school because I was getting bad grades.”

“Level eleven already... Archer?” His brows shot up in surprise. “I thought you’d be some melee freak.”

“That’s exactly why I picked range. I’m sick of taking bops to the head. What about you?”

“I see...” Crag faltered, not answering and wiped his brow looking at the floor. He muttered: “Could you spare some change? Just a coin or two? I’ll pay you back.”

I sized him up. Things must have been going very poorly if he was coming to me for money. But I did have some – twenty-two gold from auction sales which had just so happened to go through right before my duel with him. And with the drops from the ins...

“Please...” he added unconfidently.

“No, Tobias,” I shook my head.

He nodded and in silence headed for the tavern exit. For one second, I wanted to call out to him and give him a couple gold. It wasn’t that big a deal to me, but maybe it would mean a lot to him. But I shook that thought off. Why feel pity for a ganker?

In my room, I got back to my class skills. The list contained Divine Revelation, which was written in gray. No description, no requirements to open, just one scant word in quotation marks – “spontaneous.” Although, what did I expect from such a buggy class? Spontaneous indeed.

Reading the last skill description, I laughed. Aw nether, just what I needed!

Herald

Single-use active class skill.

Raises level of any previously discovered skill, except class skills, to maximum value.

It didn’t take me long to decide. I already had almost everything levelled to maximum. So... My field of vision filled up with notification lines:

Mark of the Destroying Plague skill has been raised to maximum level: 100.

Herald skill lost.

Passive skill Mark of the Destroying Plague improved: +92.

Chance to receive Curse of the Undead: 100%.

Current level: 100.

Mark of the Destroying Plague skill upgraded!

Herald of the Destroying Plague

Active skill.

On activation, you receive Curse of the Undead. It will make you begin to rot alive, but not die, and all damage you take will be reduced by 100%.

This curse will be active until you completely restore your health points or simply deactivate the skill.

Okay then. I wouldn’t have to die ever again.

* * *

After studying my herald class skills, I was ready to jump past depression and get right to the final stage, acceptance. But I still wanted to dot all my i’s and cross my t’s.

When considering whether to write tech support, I initially waved it off, afraid to gain a reputation as a problem player. At the end of the day, it was a unique class and the last thing I wanted to do now, after being given a fully controllable God mode, i.e. complete invincibility, was lose it. And there was a chance that would happen. Considering how OP and imbalanced it was, Snowstorm might just delete it.

But still I decided to write now to avoid problems in the future. And I received an answer fairly quickly:

Greetings Scyth! Your tech support claim has been received and reviewed.

We have evaluated your claim. You received a unique class, Herald. Congratulations! What exactly seems to be the problem?

As for bonuses and penalties, you could see them before choosing the class, and you were warned the choice could not be made again. If you merely want to change classes because now you regret your decision, apologies, but we cannot help.

Please note that if we do not receive a reply from you within two days, your claim will be considered resolved and will be automatically closed.

Sincerely,

Snowstorm Incorporated technical support.

Seemingly, they didn’t understand what I wanted. Plus, I didn’t get any warnings! I started seething, pouring my indignation into a reply saying the class was chosen automatically and the description was pretty clearly generated by a person, not some AI. I attached a screenshot of the class description, which I saved earlier. The corporation’s response was brief:

Greetings Scyth! Your tech support claim has been received and reviewed.

Let us once again remind you that game classes are not chosen, as you put it, “automatically.”

Sincerely,

Snowstorm Incorporated technical support.

Not a word about the description being off. Furthermore, right after receiving the message, a notification came in saying “claim resolved.” And that little quirk put me on guard. I was starting to feel like something was off, and my heart felt ill at ease. Something was really bothering me.

My throat was so parched that I crawled out of my pod to drink some water and check my email. At the same time, I went to read the forums to find out more about unique classes.

In the kitchen, I caught my parents eating dinner. I froze halfway to the fridge, but I’d been spotted.

“Come to the table, Alex. You’re just in time!” mom ordered.

“Join us,” dad added and cocked an eye. “Tell us how everything is going in school and Dis.”

I didn’t say no. Who could say how many more times we would all be around the same table?

For around an hour, we ate dinner then drank tea with an apple pie mom had made. Dad was hooked when I told them what classes I could choose, which I of course somewhat fudged. Then he started giving advice:

“That’s a difficult choice, boy. On the one hand, I’d pick archer. Unlike complex ranged classes like hunters, they can do crazy damage against lone targets. In raids, archers are always among the top damagers. And it’s safer. You spend less time dodging in boss fights. But the monk class gives incredible plusses! They easily compensate the bonuses monks can’t get for following gods or joining factions. And the chance to kill in one hit? What a sweet class!” Dad shook his head in delight. “Pick that one, boy. It is the right choice! And forget about being a Solo Adventurer. You’ll never see raid dungeons alone and that means you’ll never get good equipment. Plus all the flavor of the game comes from playing with other people, whether clans or groups. Going solo will be a disadvantage.”

Mom shot father a look of reproach, but didn’t say anything. Without any words, I already understood what she wanted to say: “You’re setting a bad example, Mark.” I think she still blamed Dis for their split. After all, if dad hadn’t submerged for days on end in raids, maybe mom wouldn’t have gone looking for consolation on the side.

After dinner, I went back to my room. There were no new messages and I immersed myself in the forums, running a search for unique classes, including the two I was not able to choose.

In the monk topics, and there were just a few dozen, the general tone was not about how sweet the class was, which nobody doubted, but how incredible it was to be offered it. No one could figure out how to get it. When regenerating a character, Wandering Monk was nowhere to be found, showing just a standard Monk instead, which had much less blatant perks.

People had tried fighting only with fists or staffs, avoiding groups and staying out of cities. Nothing helped. After some consideration, I figured maybe the trigger was passing an ins alone. Or maybe it was something else that was only possible with such an OP skill as Mark of the Destroying Plague.

Solo Adventurers were more common in the world of Dis, but they did not enjoy popularity for the reasons father stated. But for the record, the strongest solo adventurer in Dis was a level-three-hundred-eighty player named Dek. His very existence refuted all father’s theorizing. He could clear high-level dungeons all on his own. In a separate topic dedicated to Dek, I found a rational explanation for that. He had a “bubble” and sword with vampirism. Thanks to sky-high reputation with Nergal the Radiant, this adventurer could surround himself with an invisible shield for thirty seconds, which would fully absorb any damage. And he had a fast lightweight sword that gave a high percentage of lifesteal, meaning it would convert a lot of dealt damage into health for him.

But Dek was an exception to the rule. Those who tried to copy his path didn’t consider how long it had taken their paragon to reach his goal. In fact, it had taken him years to pull off. But now he was actively hiring himself out as a mercenary, participating in castle sieges for this or that clan and charging extortionate rates as a bodyguard.

There were more than a million search results for unique classes. Everyone dreamed of getting such a class when they started playing Disgardium and put forth a lot of effort to do so. They were also called epic, or legendary but never officially.

Surprisingly, unique classes weren’t guaranteed to be super awesome. Technically, for the system to consider a class unique, it only had to meet two criteria. The first was at least twelve bonuses and penalties. And second, no player could ever have received it before. If someone else was offered a class and took it, it ceased to be unique. According to the forums, after that, the class would be given more often and with time become fairly popular. That was what happened with the White Necromancer, Crusader and... Wandering Monk. As for Solo Adventurer, it was a standard class from the get-go.

My comm beeped, a new email. I brought up a projection before me and opened it. This one had a built-in “Burn after Reading” feature, but it wasn’t from Grant. This time the author was someone by the name of Cooper:

Alex, hey!

First of all, let me inform you that all information provided in this email is of an informal nature and cannot be construed as an official statement by or position of Snowstorm Incorporated, or any related corporate entity, including but not limited to...

Par for the course with these mysterious folks. I scrolled past the intro:

Thanks for letting us know. Don’t pay any mind to the answers from the tech support geeks. By the time they saw your claims they had been, let’s say, adapted.

Sorry about how it turned out with your class. I laughed while reading Vlad’s final message. Funny story, but I used to know him.

Right before Disgardium was released, we had crazy last-minute crunch time. We couldn’t move the release date, so unfortunately a few little bugs got left in. The thing is, the core of Dis cannot really be altered. We planned for the game world to take on a life of its own after release and, after a series of additions and bug corrections, to stop interfering in its core mechanisms.

And that’s what happened. Now Dis does have a life of its own. Our intrusions are minimal and never alter the core. To be honest, it’s not doable. If we so much as touch the core, Dis will have to be rebooted and no one can guarantee it will be the same when it comes back online. And that’s if it doesn’t just go up in smoke.

So we can’t change the description of the Herald class. The company does not fault you here but, if you’d like to change class, you’ll lose your threat status. I don’t even have to mention the fact that you shouldn’t be broadcasting the description, right?

Those penalties are hellish, you have my sympathy. The assortment of bonuses doesn’t make any sense either. I get the feeling Vlad just cobbled them together at random. Not the skills though. They were packaged with the class from the get-go. I don’t know how you’ll manage, but I took a look at your growth potential and it seems pretty fun and promising. Just know that Charisma only works on NPC’s, and Luck defines every calculation with the word “chance” in it. Do you understand what I’m talking about?

And don’t go looking for any “Vlad the Lisper.” He hasn’t been with us for a long time.

Good luck!

Cooper (not really).

The writing style was very similar to Grant’s. Perhaps there were less jokes this time. I was left to guess who this person was and what position he occupied in Snowstorm. It must have been a high one given he had been there since the very beginning and could intercept my tech support claims.

Alright. Now that I had Snowstorm’s approval, even if informally, I could finally start playing. I was just gonna set my attribute points and head off to auction for a bow. And then Patrick, Behemoth’s quest and a tough, shameless, solo levelling session in the nude.

Just how I liked it.

Chapter 8. The Birth of a Farm Machine

IT’S HARD to constantly be surprised. Happiness is not infinite either, especially there’s always some new reason for it. I might even say it’s impossible.

In biology lessons, we learned that any emotion a person experiences is accompanied by a release of hormones which, in essence, are reactions to changes in external or internal circumstances. To marvel at or be astonished by something, to experience something that doesn’t square with prior life experience, that is also an emotion.

And I was already weary of violent reactions so, when I read my profile as herald yet again, I noted how cool and awesome it was as if in passing. Any other player would have spent years working for something like this, completing endless quest chains without any guarantee of success. But I just couldn’t truly feel any joy or surprise.

In the heap of system messages before, I hadn’t noticed a pack of enhancements to curse of the undead. My plague reservoir was bigger and the energy would spawn from damage at a better rate. The final notification looked like this:

Curse of the undead enhanced!

Plague Energy pool capacity: 100000 points.

10% of damage taken while Curse of the Undead is active will be converted into plague energy and stored.

You can use plague energy to increase the power of an attack at a rate of one energy point per HP of damage.

One hundred thousand points? Now I could take down loads of creatures like Crusher in one blow! I still didn’t know who or what this Destroying Plague was, but the abilities it gave me seemed absolutely unreal. Considering that now I could turn curse of the undead on and off with basically a snap of my fingers, levelling my character had become a walk in the park...

My thoughts were interrupted by a horn fanfare, breaking the silence of my personal room.

Attention all sandbox players!

Clan Axiom has successfully made the first kill of the local boss Bloodsucker in the Gloomwood! Residents and visitors of Tristad! Hats off to clan Axiom! All hail the heroes! All hail players Polynucleotide, Leonarm, Showoff, JJ, Makhan, Greykillah, Atiyakari, Luka, Gnat, Wisecracker...

The whole Axiom raid list contained approximately forty names. I felt a slight, fleeting annoyance. After all, I could have gotten it if I hadn’t been wasting time. It had been approximately three hours since the meeting with Big Po and Irina, after all.

My first thought was “nether with that, you can’t get every achievement.” But I could have gotten this First Kill so easily it made me mad at myself. I was just sitting here harping on, writing to the admins... Nevertheless, before rushing off in search of adventure, I needed to spend my attribute points. Five had already been added to luck and charisma at level eleven.

I started thinking. There was no sense in relying on strength. With plague energy, my damage was monstrous as it was. By analogy, endurance wasn’t very important because of curse of the undead.

Carrying capacity, considering my penalties to inventory, was no use at all. I could carry only three items with my current pack. And even if I bought an epic bag of the best quality for one hundred thousand gold, the highest possible number of base slots was one hundred. With my penalty, I would have a grand total of ten. For long farms, it would be nice to find a companion with huge carrying capacity...

I left that thought on the periphery of my mind and started thinking through how the class bonuses and penalties had affected my character.

To my skills had been added:

Persuasion

Current level: 100.

When speaking with intelligent creatures, you can manipulate their minds, making their perceived reasoning less critical. In conversation, your reputation with anyone is increased by 10 times.

You have reached maximum level in this skill!

I opened the table of reputation values to read what the skill could do. Aha. By my estimation, neutral mobs would be friendly to me and friendly mobs would be affectionate or respect me. As for vendor discounts, the skill didn’t seem to be reflected.

But my class penalty for discounts was. Based on my profile, all vendor prices had gone up forty-three percent. Fortunately, the penalty was only calculated on base discount value. So with my charisma bonus, the situation was gradually rectifying itself. I toyed around with it for a second: if I added all one hundred points there, my discounts would go positive and hit forty-seven percent. Great. Except for the fact that I might be doing all my trading through Undy and Overweight now.

My carrying capacity was down, but that didn’t mean much with my limitation to inventory slots, so I forgot about it.

And a line showing bonus to ranged damage had been added, reminding me that I was meaning to buy a bow. Was I an archer or what, at the end of the day? I smiled. Another reason to pay Undy a visit.

My movement speed had gone up thirty percent but, running circles around my room trying to check, I couldn’t tell anything had changed. And how was it physically accomplished? Were my paces longer now? Were my legs longer? Or was I simply walking faster? I didn’t feel like anything had changed. Alright, I’d check that later.

I returned to thinking about how to spend the points and, after doing all the math and thinking, decided on a slant toward intelligence and perception. Out of love for round numbers, I brought my other attributes up a bit and the resulting character was nothing short of a farm factory!

Scyth, level-11 human

Real name: Alex Sheppard.

Real age: 15.

Class: Herald.

Main attributes:

Strength: 25.

Perception: 40.

Endurance: 20.

Charisma: 10.

Intelligence: 40.

Agility: 20.

Luck: 20.

Secondary attributes:

Health points: 653/653.

Mana points: 50/50.

Plague energy points: 258/100000.

Recovery speed: 60 health points per minute.

Movement speed bonus: 50%

Base damage: 9.

Carrying capacity: 503 lbs.

Accuracy: 210%.

Spell power bonus: 48%.

Dodge chance: +31%.

Critical damage chance: +41%.

Vendor discount: -40%.

Chance of receiving a unique quest: +1%.

Chance of receiving improved loot: +2%.

Ranged damage bonus: +50%.

Fame: 0.

Skills:

Unarmed Combat: 72.

Bashing Weapons: 1.

One-Handed Swords: 1.

Night Vision: 30.

Swimming: 40.

Stealth: 63.

Persuasion 100.

Resilience: 90.

Abilities and special attacks:

Stoneskin: 90.

Sneak Attack: 1.

Hammerfist: 72.

Battering Ram: 1.

Trades and professions:

Cooking: Journeyman (100/250).

Special skills and abilities:

Depths Teleportation: 1.

Ghastly Howl: 9.

Herald of the Destroying Plague.

Class skills:

Divine Revelation (spontaneous).

Imitation: 1.

Dissimulation: 1.

Divine abilities:

Unity.

Touch of the Sleeping Gods.

Achievements:

The Lich is Dead! Long Live the New Lich...

First kill: Crusher

First kill: Murkiss

I Came, I Saw, I conquered – 1

I’m on fire – 1!

I’m on fire – 2!

I’m on fire – 3!

Hidden status: Emissary of the Destroying Plague.

Hidden status: Class-Q threat with A potential.

I took a quick glance at the description of Hammerfist and chuckled. My top attack now did just under a thousand units of damage. I was ready to farm.

* * *

I met him at the fountain, a much-loved meeting point for players in Tristad, on my way to see Undy. He was hanging around near a street food vendor and running his nose over the man’s wares, greedily pulling in the scent of roast meat and garlic. “Speak of the devil, which is to say the questgiver and he appears,” I thought and walked out to meet him.

“Mr. O’Grady?”

Touching him on the shoulder, I took a step back. Patrick was gloomy as a black cloud. Blowing his nose, at first he was standoffish and trotted out his old song and dance:

“Boy, find a little copper for an honorary citizen...” but when he recognized me, he shuddered. “I can’t find the words to truly apologize to you, wee lad... I sent you off to certain death! Oh, no. There can be no forgiveness for me!”

He buried his face in his hands and his burbling turned indecipherable. The town drunk was so sincerely aggrieved that it made me embarrassed. Did he know we didn’t die?

“I spoke with Behemoth, Patrick. Can we talk?”

He raised his head and opened his mouth in disbelief to say something, but couldn’t find the words. It was as if he was afraid that what he would hear might rob him of his hopes and dreams.

“Jane is alive. She...”

“Shh...” he stuck a grimy finger up to my lips but I wriggled away, noticing his black fingernails. “Not here, Scyth. The authorities have proclaimed monotheism. Just mentioning a god other than Nergal the Radiant is enough to get you tossed in the gaol.”

“Uhh... So what...”

“After me,” Patrick shook his head.

I wasn’t sure what had greater effect: the positive conclusion of the quest or my persuasion skill, but he had stopped calling me boy and was now addressing me by name.

All the way to the city gates, and that was where the drunkard was leading me, I was turning my head. I was seeing familiar streets but couldn’t shake the feeling they had all subtly changed. There were more priests of the luminous god than guards. Everywhere there were posters with pictures of Big Po – candidate for city council.

Patrick maneuvered between passersby but his coordination was clearly lacking. He was slamming into people, hitting them with his shoulders and tripping over his own feet. The drunkard even fell over a few times, cursing elaborately and spraying abuse at anyone who’d listen.

Life beyond the city walls had also changed. Although it was late evening, there was now ongoing construction where the chaotic rows of merchant stalls once stood. There were carpenters hammering benches, workers briskly smoothing earth. It was just very lively in general. I crossed my arms behind my back. Chief Councilman Whiteacre walked past surrounded by attendants. Among them I noticed Irina from Axiom. The top sandbox clan was seemingly aiming at absolute power in the city.

“Where did they stick the people who used to hang out here?” I asked Patrick.

“The city is expanding,” he explained. “Now if you want to trade at the walls you need a license. Black-market vendors have moved closer to the forest. There, look...” he pointed. “You see?”

And in fact the vendors were there, a few hundred steps from the city walls. In the twilight, the strip dividing the wasteland and forest was marked by torches and magic lamps.

“You mind walking over there?” I suggested. “I need to pay somebody a visit.”

“If you say so, Scyth.”

When we got a bit away from the busy construction, Patrick slowed his pace and demanded:

“Well, come now. Stop this torment and tell me!”

Patrick was shaken, agitated, breathing heavily. The quarter hour walk from the city fountain had not come easy to him. But we’d almost reached the edge of the forest and I didn’t want to have this talk near the vendors.

“You were right, Patrick. The Mire really is a deadly place. I’ve never seen so many vile and dangerous beasts in my life. If not for your curse, I would never have made it alive... well, relatively alive.”

“And? Did you meet Behemoth?”

“Yes. Do you know who that is? He is one of the Sleeping Gods.”

“And?” Patrick said impatiently, jerking me by the hand. “What did the Sleeping God say? Did you do as he commanded?”

“Yes,” I replied and Patrick went pale. “But it was nothing to be ashamed of! I’m not certain what he asked you for but, in my case, the lives of the unclean beasts that live in the muck were enough to make him talk.”

“How did you do it?” he took a step back, but I grabbed his elbow to stop him falling over. “How?”

“Mr. O’Grady, let’s sit down. Your legs can’t hold you.”

Patrick nodded. I helped him sit down on the grass and sat next to him.

“Behemoth considers your promise fulfilled, although not directly. Sending me was enough. In return he upheld his end of the bargain. Jane is alive but doesn’t remember that she was ever your wife.”

“Where is she?”

“In Darant. Studying at the University of Magic.”

Patrick got up, immediately forgetting about me and muttering:

“Darant... Darant... I can get to Caraxonne on foot, then get on a ship and, by sea...”

“Wait Patrick. The Sleeping one said you cannot go to her looking like this inhuman. You need to restore your lost appearance! Get yourself together, stop drinking... Jane simply won’t recognize you! By the way, is she the one in the locket?”

“Oh yeah...” Patrick, starting up from the ground, sat back down. Seemingly, of everything I’d said to him, he had heard only the last part. “Can I see it?”

“I wanted to give it back to you.” I got out the locket but didn’t hand it to him yet. “There’s something else, Patrick. Behemoth named me apostle of the Sleeping Gods and said you are to be my first follower as the only one other than me who has seen him.”

With these words I handed him the locket. He opened it and stared at the woman’s portrait...

Mission of Honorary Tristad Citizen, former guard patrol squadron captain, Patrick O’Grady completed.

Experience points received: 1200.

Experience points at present level (11): 7740/8800.

Your reputation with Patrick O’Grady has been increased by 150 points.

Current reputation: affection.

Patrick closed the locket with a click and stuck it in the inner pocket of his wrinkled vest. I saw his previously hunched back straighten up, his shoulders spread wider. And a fire was lit in his eyes as if he had made up his mind to keep living and fighting for his happiness.

“As promised, I’ll tell you my story, Scyth. You’re a good boy and have earned my trust. But I have one request. You and Behemoth are right. If Jane sees me like this – downtrodden, dirty, stinking and weak... Honestly, I hope she wouldn’t recognize me! I cannot lose her again!” He smiled bitterly. “I am prepared to follow you and the Sleeping Gods, but I ask you to help me get my wife back!”

“I’ll do everything in my power, Mr. O’Grady...” I said cautiously, imagining the next quest in the chain would be popping up soon.

“Patrick, mate. You can just call me Patrick.”

“Okay, Mi... Patrick.”

“You know, for you Scyth, I would do anything you ask... I had lost all hope. I thought I’d die in a ditch looking like this...” He plucked a stalk of grass and stuck in his teeth, staring dreamily into the starry sky. “And you know how it all started?”

“You were captain of a patrol squadron for the city guard?”

“Yes, I was a captain,” he agreed. “But you know, Scyth... My memories are all mixed up. I know I was in the Tristad guard, that I fell in love with a lanky thin girl with knobby knees, the daughter of a luxury fabric trader and I waited until she grew up. I also remember that I served in the Alliance army for three years during the Second Swarm War... But you know what’s strange?”

“What Patrick?”

“Before all that, I fought in a different war. The Third World War, as it was called. But strike me down here and now, I have no idea what kind of a war it was or who was fighting who. I can only remember who I was – pilot of a battle mech. And drag me to the Nether if I know what that means!”

Chapter 9. Big Hello

TOWN DRUNK Patrick O’Grady was the strangest of all NPC’s I’d ever met in Tristad. And mine, I suspected, was the very strangest of all sandboxes. I remembered his gaunt face with emaciated channel wrinkles as the nonplayer character of indeterminate age rewarded me with a curse that was the first step toward my threat status. Then the late Clayton, who controlled Dargo, took pity on me. And it all might have ended there but then the very same drunk pulled me into another story.

I was reminded of Behemoth saying that Jane had never been Patrick’s wife and he was simply confused and had forgotten how to tell reality from delirium. And just now he’d brought up the Third World War... In spite of ominous predictions, it had been one of the shortest conflicts in human history and didn’t even involve nuclear weapons. There were almost no civilian deaths, though there were a few. And mechs had played a fairly big role.

Nevertheless, I didn’t want to get to the bottom of that right now. The black-market traders, based on the extinguished fires on the forest edge, were already going home but I needed a bow today so I could start leveling archery right away. I’d already lost a lot of time listening to that drunkard’s story.

Patrick told me how he’d come to have such a life: he’d served in the city guard, fallen in love with Jane and, one day before their wedding, executed his whole squadron, subjugated by the will of either a mysterious fog or the breath of a Sleeping one. It was a tragic story, but absolutely not in Snowstorm’s style. They usually didn’t go out for such gory stuff, which was yet another oddity...

“You know what happened next,” Patrick finished his story. “And so, mate, I’m asking, please help me! The light has returned to my life, and I need help like never before!”

Honorary Tristad Citizen, former guard patrol squadron captain, Patrick O’Grady has discovered that his fiancée is alive. That perked him up and gave him back his taste for life, but now he needs your help to “become a person” again by restoring his former reputation and authority in society.

Reward:

— 2400 experience points;

— your reputation with Patrick O’Grady will be increased by 250 points;

— next mission in quest chain.

Unlike the beginning of the chain, there were no penalties threatened for refusing so, without thinking it over, I agreed:

“Of course, Patrick. I’ll help any way I can! Or...”

The description painted a fairly vague picture of the mission, but then I could see progress bars for the quest. I quickly realized this mission would be impossible to complete, even if I dropped everything and spent years doing nothing but helping the former city guard patrol squadron captain.

Alcoholism

Days without alcohol: 0/21.

External Appearance

Charisma: 2/15.

Physical attributes

Strength: 9/45. Agility: 6/35. Endurance: 4/35. Perception 9/30.

Reputation

Tristad: 25/2000 (mistrust).

Jane: 0/2000 (mistrust).

Seemingly, the mission would be completed when all the bars were completely filled, but I immediately saw a catch. How to get Patrick’s reputation with the city to respect, i.e. two thousand points in the time I had left in the sandbox? Impossible! I could do everything else in the big world and the wrinkles would even leave his face if we brought up his charisma, but reputation with Tristad? Or what would change after removing the alcoholism debuff? Maybe that was what was cutting all Patrick’s attributes?

Boom!

Thunder blasted and a notification came in. There was a new threat in the world, this one of class D. I panicked for a moment before I realized it was not talking about me. The message said the threat’s location could not be determined. Just imagine the jolt this must have given the preventers!

Patrick meanwhile looked as if he hadn’t noticed a thing. The odd NPC started shaking my hand and thanking me:

“Thank you, Scyth!”

It took me a few seconds to realize what for.

“But I warn you – no more alcohol!” I said sternly. “If I see you drinking even one time you’ll have to get Jane back on your own. Got it?”

“Not even elven white? But it’s a lovely concoction that tastes of berries...”

“No elven wine, and no dwarven drink. This is the most important step on the path to getting your wife back!”

“Good,” Patrick said seriously. “When I asked you to pay a visit to Behemoth, I didn’t think it would lead to anything. But now that it has, the gods have given me a clear sign that my path is not at an end.”

“By the way, speaking of the gods...” I remembered Behemoth’s recommendation. “The Sleeping one...”

“I am ready,” he interrupted me with a chuckle. “What needs to be done? Sacrifice somebody? Swear an oath of loyalty? Swear off...”

“Nothing of the sort,” interrupting him, I shook my head. “Give me your hand, Patrick.”

He extended me a dirty palm with blackened fingernails and got on edge. I squeezed his hand and activated Touch of the Sleeping Gods. Patrick gave a barely perceptible nod and clenched my fingers in reply. Nothing happened visually, but Behemoth and his lethargic friends had gained a new follower.

Patrick O’Grady has become a follower of the Sleeping Gods.

As Apostle of the Sleeping Gods, you can see information about new converts in a special window in your profile. For now, it’s just general facts, but as the temple of the Sleeping Gods grows in level, you will have more access to information about followers.

The free city of Tristad has been added to list of cities where followers of the Sleeping Gods dwell.

Not enough followers in Tristad to proclaim it a city under protection of the Sleeping Gods! Requires: more than 75% of residents are followers of the Sleeping Gods. At present: less than 1%.

Dominant god in Tristad at present: Nergal the Radiant.

You have received experience points for converting a new follower: 100.

Experience points at present level (11): 7840/8800.

Unity Effect: +1 to Strength.

Would you like to initiate Patrick O’Grady as a priest of the Sleeping ones?

A priest has the ability to convert new followers, receiving new bonuses for each one.

Present temple development level (0), gives a maximum of one priest.

A bot priest of the Sleeping Gods? The idea seemed attractive to me, and the legend was more than appropriate: a drunk suddenly converts and gives himself up to the priesthood to make new converts. But it wasn’t that easy: Patrick didn’t accept.

“Hold your horses, padre,” he explained. “First tell me about these Sleeping Gods. I’ve heard a lot about them, and none of it good. It’s one thing for an atheist like myself to officially become a ‘follower’ to butter up a friend,” he bent his fingers into quotation marks, “it’s a totally different thing to go bringing innocent people into a cult.”

“I don’t know much myself at this point, Patrick.” I got up and helped him to his feet. “Let’s go see the vendors before they’ve all gone home. You could use a new set of clothes as well... And what do you fight with, a sword?”

“What, are we going somewhere?” he asked. “Who are we gonna fight?”

“You’ve got the idea. We’re gonna be exterminating vermin,” I said, moving on an idea I had to kill two birds: this would help him and get me on track with levelling. “Have you seen the rewards the city council gives for monsters? That’s what we’re gonna do.”

“I’ve got everything I need then!” he exclaimed. “Of course, I drank through everything I ever owned, even my mind, but I never sold my sword or armor. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I just need to drop by my house.”

I couldn’t find either Underweight or Overweight in the vendor rows. Maybe that was for the best. I didn’t have to waste time talking. Instead I just bought a normal white bow from a yawning low-level gear dealer for ten silver.

Composite arched bow

Damage: 7-10.

Ranged weapon.

Durability: 55/55.

Requires level: 10.

Sell price: 3 silver coins, 25 copper coins.

Then Patrick and I dragged ourselves into town, went back to the city jail and, in the streetlamp light, I replenished my inventory of quests for the heads of wanted monsters and criminals. Overall, it was just a formality to help to the players know what to hunt and have an idea of where to find certain creatures. You didn’t need a quest to turn in the head of the sinister Witch Meredith, who lured travelers into her hut. Just bring in proof that the witch was dead and get your reward.

The players we came across followed us with surprised gazes but, if they asked any questions, I had a perfectly good reason to be walking with a mob – a quest. And I could easily show it off if anyone got curious. Sure it may have been a unique quest, but it wasn’t a big enough deal for anyone to envy me over it.

“Ah, wee lad! I can just imagine seeing Jane again. Even from afar she’s the only one for me. Everything inside me is singing!” Patrick said dreamily. “And you know, even if she doesn’t want to know me or forgot, for example, I won’t be upset. Just knowing she’s alive is be enough for me. And now, I would do anything to get back her love!”

After the jail, we went to the other end of town so Patrick could get his gear. By that time, he was getting on my nerves. It just seemed he had a story for everything, usually more than one. He told me about being a young peasant’s son who enrolled in the army then suddenly jumped to his refusing the priesthood and took a wild tack.

“You know, Scyth, I used to know a bearded old preacher,” Patrick began, unable to stop staring at the tavern door and smacking his lips reflexively. “But he didn’t preach faith in any one god. In fact, it was the exact opposite. His name was either Carlos or Marcus. I don’t remember anymore. But he was always calling for collective living and equality and other such nonsense. He said earnings should be shared, everything should be shared, even wives. And by the way, he was dishonorably discharged from the army after banging his corporal’s wife, the rogue! He was mixed up and couldn’t tell the difference between other people’s things and public property. But there was one thing I remember in particular. He said there were like no gods, just the opium of the masses. And gods were all just something dreamed up by priests to fill their coffers with offerings from their parishioners. They said to him: you fool, where do blessings come from if not from the gods? But he balked, saying it was nothing more than cheap magic...”

Patrick stopped next to a small house with crooked shutters. The low pockmarked fence was reminiscent of an old man’s toothless lower jaw and the gate was just lying right on the ground.

“We’re here. Sorry, you can’t come in... yet. It’s not very picked up... I’m embarrassed,” he admitted and asked with hope in his voice. “Are you in a big rush? I’d like to wash up. I don’t want to stink up my uniform...”

“I’ve got other things I could do,” I confirmed. “But I’m afraid it might be too late. Patrick, you know everyone in the city. Could you tell me where I might find the master of unarmed combat?”

“Didn’t you just buy a bow? I thought you were an archer...”

“I am. But I don’t have the skill yet. I need to learn to shoot.”

“You must be kidding!” Patrick guffawed. “They don’t just put bounties on the heads of those bogies just for fun. Don’t you know that? They’re dangerous! How are you planning to handle with them? If you were pinning your hopes on me, I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not exactly in shape if you understand what I’m getting at... Or are you just trying to get rid of me? You didn’t need to go through all this trouble for that, wee lad! I’m just as happy to die without a bath!”

“No, I that was not my plan. But I am already starting to regret agreeing to help you. I asked you a direct question and all I get in response is...”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Patrick raised his hands in conciliation. “Sorry, I haven’t had a drop to drink for two hours, and it isn’t coming easy! My pipes are burning, my throat is shredded... But it’s fine, I’ll survive. Listen, the hand-to-hand fighting teacher is Master Sagda. He lives in the armory quarter. There’s a red fist on his banner, you won’t miss it. By the way, he can also teach how to use your feet, Nergal willing, errr, Sleeping one willing! Maybe you can learn to windmill! You’ll find Conrad the hunter in the same place, if you like. He’s the bowmaster. He can put an arrow in a squirrels eye from five hundred steps! Though it is honestly night and they aren’t likely to let you in, but feel free to try your luck...”

Patrick yawned wide and, when I saw him, I did the same. My first day in Dis since the ban was dragging on, and I still hadn’t really accomplished anything.

“You know what, wee laddie? Maybe we should put it off until tomorrow?” my underling suggested. “I’ll go get some sleep and get myself together starting in the morning then clean my armor, sharpen my sword and you calmly get your lessons from the masters and...”

I didn’t realize what happened at first. O’Grady suddenly seized, choked on his words, burbled and then I saw a black bubble come from his mouth in the light of Geala the moon. Blood. The town drunk’s body fell to the ground and behind him was the dark silhouette of his murderer. In his hands there were a pair of smoking daggers twirling ravenously.

He didn’t run away. Looting the corpse with a cool smile, his white teeth shimmered.

Atiyakari, level 18 human

Clan: Axiom.

Real name: Sanji Reddy.

Real age: 15.

Class: Cutthroat.

“Woah, almost a gold worth of silver! Some beggar he was. I always knew he had money! Damn, minus three rep with the city...” he said.

“What the heck?” was all I could burble out.

“Did I break a unique chain? My sympathy,” but I didn’t hear any sympathy in his voice.

“What the hell, Sanji?”

“I don’t understand,” he shrugged. “Just following orders.”

“From who?” I asked even though I didn’t have to.

“Uh, I guess I forgot to say. Big Po sends you a big hello!”

The cutthroat dissolved in the darkness. I looked at the pool of blood spreading beneath Patrick and heard laughter growing quieter in the night.

Chapter 10. Judge Cannon’s Dilemma

THE STARRY SKY was reflected in Patrick’s glassy eyes. My initial shock had passed. And it was replaced with questions. How much did Atiyakari hear? What if he was invisibly there the whole time and saw us talking about the Sleeping ones? Had Patrick perhaps managed to accept my offer while dying?

I had no answers to any of those questions. The deserted outlying street suddenly grew lively. Torchlight and the sound of clanging armor let me know the guards were on the way. I was quickly surrounded by ten city guardsmen, one of whom patted down Patrick’s corpse.

“On the ground!” someone drawled out authoritatively, snarling. “Hands behind your head! Don’t move!”

I was knocked off my feet, twirled around and disarmed. Grabbing me by the hair, the guardsman lifted my head and the smell of meat and onions struck my nose. Curling his lips, the familiar senior guardsman, Gale, stared me straight in the face:

“Tristad visitor Scyth! You are charged with the premeditated murder of former city guard patrol squadron captain, honorary citizen Patrick O’Grady!” he announced. “Take him to the slammer, boys!”

“It wasn’t me, guardsman Gale!” I shouted, coming to my senses. “I saw who it was! It was...”

A strong punch to the gut stopped me from finishing. Gale picked me up painfully by the ears, broke my nose with a sharp blow of his forehead and, rolling his eyes furiously, roared:

“Shut up, you son of a bitch! You will open your mouth only when it is asked of you!”

Just then, my reputation with the city plummeted to hostile. A thought flickered by that I should use Ghastly Howl and flee the city, but I brushed it off. That would be equivalent to admitting guilt. It was better to wait and see how things played out. Naturally, I also decided against taking the guards down. If I did that, I might as well forget about the Commonwealth forever.

The only consolation was that Patrick did accept my offer. Notifications usually popped up on their own, but ones related to the gods specifically were filtered out and I could only see them by scrolling through the logs:

Patrick O’Grady has accepted your offer to become a priest of the Sleeping Gods.

He did it! Seeing Patrick twitch as his killer repeatedly stabbed with his dagger, I reacted intuitively and sent him another request. And he accepted!

After that came another notification. And it showed why Patrick’s new title mattered:

The sole priest of the Sleeping Gods, Patrick O’Grady, has died.

The Sleeping Gods have decided to intervene! By the will and power of Behemoth, the lone priest of the faith will respawn in 23:58:21…

With a sigh of relief, I stopped trying to negotiate with the guardsmen and decided to keep silent while they dragged me to jail. Just wait for Patrick to respawn and then hope that his miraculous resurrection would restore my reputation with the city.

I didn’t have to guess who set me up or who sent out these guardsmen who had been peacefully feasting in the tavern earlier. In a clear show of magnanimity, Polynucleotide was sending a message that he was still angry at me and would keep tripping me up any way he could. And what could be worse than breaking a unique quest chain and giving me negative reputation with the only city in our sandbox? The only inhabited place a normal player could buy gear, sell stuff at auction, fix equipment, take a rest, visit trainers and receive quests?

But that bastard was forgetting one thing: I was not a normal player...

One block from the prison, I remembered how Gale had tried to extract a three-copper bribe after I tore Vista’s dress and decided to try and bargain. I thought it might help me get my reputation back. Plus, when better to test how the persuasion skill worked than right now?

“Sir! I have money,” I whispered at the back of Gale’s head. “Maybe we can handle this without a judge? It’s nighttime, why bother an old man?”

It seemed they hadn’t heard me and then I made an offer:

“Thirty gold, Sir. And if you can wait, I can give you more...”

Gale stopped sharply and the other guardsmen stood still as statues. Gale walked up closer. I could see on his face that greed was struggling against something else. He worked his jaws then said amicably:

“Don’t you ‘sir’ me! You can call me David. To be honest, if it was any other townsperson, we may have been able to come to an agreement... murderer. Well, alleged... But Captain O’Grady isn’t any old person! Right boys?”

“That’s right!” their voices rang out around me. “He’s one of us!”

“Exactly right,” Gale nodded. “And once you’re one of us, you’re always one of us!”

“I’m proud of Mr. O’Grady myself!” I exclaimed. “He and I spent the whole evening together, ask anyone you like, many saw us, Sir... David! We were going together to search for the criminals that harass our citizens. The ones who have a reward on their heads! Mr. O’Grady wanted to stop drinking and earn back the town’s respect! Any truth seeker can confirm it!”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Gale winced. “Truth seekers are not brought in to resolve disputes between Tristad visitors and the city, Scyth. When comes to townspeople, they are powerless.”

So, that function for resolving disputes only worked between players... Nether! I still had a severe lack of fundamental knowledge about this game. But if truth seekers did work that way, Big Po probably wouldn’t have done this. Then it might have blown back onto Axiom. A member of a clan headed by a candidate for city council kills an honorary citizen? Not the best look for their chances in the election.

“Sir, is there really no other way? I swear to you I am not guilty! I mean how could I kill Mr. O’Grady? Look at me, David. I didn’t even have a way of hurting him!”

Gale took a skeptical look at me, judged my level and said somewhat guiltily:

“You see, Scyth... We received a tip about you from above. This case is under special observation, so it simply cannot just fade away.”

Sharply turning, he gave the command to get moving and said, if I spoke again, to break my arm. The only clue that he was making a very peculiar kind of joke was the low rumble of laughter among the convoy.

I walked with my head low and, next to the portal into the ins for the right wing of the prison, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the real killer Atiyakari grinning. Seemingly, today was his shift to watch me. If they were going to be observing me constantly, I would have to be more careful in the future and check carefully before activating curse of the undead.

The judge’s small chambers were right inside the prison building and had just two exits: one into the prison, and one out to freedom. In the prison, Gale handed me off to Geezer, a gray-haired prison guard I had also met before. He spent the whole way to prison not saying a single word and, only then, said with just his lips:

“Good luck, Scyth.”

He stood next to me. I was immediately surrounded by an energy field and magical handcuffs appeared on my wrists. What was more, now I couldn’t exit Dis or say anything until the judge reached a verdict. My mouth was sealed with a silence curse.

There was no sign of solemnity: a dimly lit building, smoldering torches on the walls, guardsmen shifting about impatiently, Judge Cannon yawning. By the looks of things, he’d just been rattled out of bed. But worst of all was that I had a pacification debuff: all my attributes and skills were lowered by ten times. And that meant there was no way to persuade the judge I was innocent.

Behind a short rostrum next to the ancient Cannon was warden Cooper. He whispered something into the judge’s ear, and said summarily:

“Tristad visitor Scyth! You stand accused of the premeditated murder of honorary Tristad citizen Patrick O’Grady. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

“Scum!” Cooper shouted. “Scoundrel!”

“Order in the court!” the judge called.

As sickly and ailing as Cannon may have seemed, he had a commanding voice. Thick and bassy.

I thought feverishly. I couldn’t mention the fact that Patrick would be resurrecting. After all, they would require an explanation and I’d have to admit that I founded the faith of the Sleeping Gods. No, I’d better act like a normal player.

“I am not guilty, your honor,” I declared, as soon as the silence curse turned off. “It wasn’t me that killed Mr. O’Grady.”

The judge tilted his head on his thin old-man’s neck in disbelief. Mumbling with his lips, he asked:

“Is there anyone at all who can confirm your words, accused?”

“There was no one around other than Patrick O’Grady, myself and the killer whose name is Atiyakari, your honor. But maybe some townsperson...”

“Enough!” warden Cooper bellowed. “Your honor, let’s not draw this out. In all his time in Tristad, visitor Scyth has never shown us his good side. He has not earned a dignified reputation nor the respect of the townsfolk! And if I was in your place...”

“I didn’t ask!” the judge said angrily, interrupting Cooper. “But thank Nergal you are not in my place! You can have command over the prison, but this is a fair court of law! Bring in the witness!”

I turned around and saw Atiyakari grinning and entering the judge’s chamber. That was when I realized I had no chance and started trying to guess how the game mechanics would punish the murder of an NPC. Negative reputation? Banishment from the city? A few days in prison? Work in the mines? A fine?

The Axiom cutthroat meanwhile sang like a nightingale, saying he was walking the darkened streets enjoying the silence and writing a poem in honor of this magnificent city when, suddenly, he noticed a player who he identified as me, insulting and flagellating the defenseless town beggar. Atiyakari wanted to intervene but didn’t make it in time. The defenseless Honorary Citizen O’Grady, incidentally, had already fallen dead from my lethal daggers. Without delay, Atiyakari ran to a nearby patrol of the city guard, telling his friends via signal amulet to send help urgently. He didn’t risk taking me on in single combat, knowing of my criminal inclinations. At these words he faltered, catching a skeptical gaze from the judge. He realized he’d overplayed his hand a bit and took a step back.

“No, it’s true your honor!” the killer shouted. “That Scyth, you know what a monster he is? He is famed for taking down the celebrated warrior Crag with nothing but his fists!”

“Is that so?” Cannon asked and turned to me: “So then, defendant, are you a master of unarmed combat? Logical question: examination of the body revealed that the deceased died of puncture wounds, but no such weapons were found either at the scene of the crime or on the defendant’s person. All we found were brass knuckles which, as far as I understand, are quite difficult to stab someone with. Witness, how do you explain this?”

“How should I know, your honor?” Atiyakari asked in surprise. “It was dark, maybe I saw wrong.”

Cooper leaned toward the judge and, gesticulating wildly, started whispering. The old man nodded:

“Alright. I’ll allow it.” He looked at me. “Defendant, please provide complete access to the contents of your bag.”

Equality in action. Mobs not only knew about our extraspatial inventories, they had them as well and made active use of them. I removed my backpack, gave the judge access, waited for the forcefield to switch off and handed it to Geezer. The guardsman in his turn, brought the backpack over to Cannon.

He dug around in disgust and took out a huge scorpion eye the size of a head of cabbage.

“Nergal the Radiant!” Cannon was struck and threw the eye onto the table. “What is that thing? Eye of Murkiss? The very beast that invaded the Olton Quarries? What is your relationship to this item, defendant?”

“Very straightforward, your honor. I was in the group which expelled the evil from the depths of the Olton Quarries.”

As far as I understood the mechanic of such ins’s, after we took down Murkiss, it changed phase from active to passive: now other groups could still go in and pass it, but no longer had any influence on the outside world. To put it crudely, the miners could work there at ease now, at the very least until the next phase started.

“Yeah?” Geezer snorted softly, but he was heard. “What a twist! As far as I know, Whiteacre promised a great reward for defeating that scorpion. Two and a half thousand gold if I’m not mistaken and...”

“Zip it, sergeant!” Cooper barked, then continued more calmly: “One creep killed another, nothing more. Of course we appreciate that, but it doesn’t compensate for the murder of the honorable Mr. O’Grady! Judge Cannon! Chief Councilman Whiteacre told me directly that...”

“Send Mr. Whiteacre my sincere wish that he mind his own business!” Cannon struck the prison warden with such a spiteful gaze that he shut his mouth and didn’t try to speak again.

I then wracked my brains trying to figure out how Axiom had achieved such influence in the city council that Whiteacre himself was trying to lobby for their agenda. Meanwhile the judge continued, and his monotone bass filled the room:

“All the same, I must admit the honorable warden’s words are not without merit. I suppose I agree with the notion that past deeds cannot be considered in the evaluation of this case. But still, I will take the defendant’s act into account. So then...” He coughed, drank some water and continued: “After hearing all parties, I have come to the conclusion that, in the murder of Patrick O’Grady, Scyth has not been proven guilty.” Cannon frowned when he saw the smile on my face. “Not so fast, defendant! You have not been proven guilty, that doesn’t mean I have found you innocent! So I put your judgement into the hands of the gods! The court’s verdict – trial by ordeal[2]!” He thundered his gavel on the table. “Carry out the sentence! Take the defendant away!”

While waiting for Geezer to let me go, I noticed Cooper was not hiding his joy, rubbing his hands. The judge turned to him:

“What is it Edwin, they got a full house over there?”

“All cells are packed, your honor! To the gills! The next test will be tomorrow after midday!”

“That is good,” the judge said in satisfaction. “That is good.”

Laughter rang out nearby. The Axiomite came next to me and expressed false pity.

“You’ve really landed in a heap of trouble, Scyth. People who get sentenced to ordeals usually just start over.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Ordeal? They put you in a closed dungeon filled with prisoners from all of Dis. For various reasons, they can’t be executed so they get sent to be tried by the gods. Via portal, they are all sent to one location. Every prison in Dis has one. They’re one-way portals to an ins that lasts until only one player is left. Well, or something like that. I’ve never been, as I’m sure you understand.”

“What’s so bad about that? I mean, let them kill me there. I’ll respawn in the town cemetery and it’ll all be over. Big deal...”

“Well, Scyth, that’s the thing...” Atiyakari chuckled. “You don’t respawn.”

Chapter 11. The Destroying Plague

“WELL, SCYTH, that’s the thing. You don’t respawn...” Atiyakari said with a chuckle.

He said something else but I didn’t hear. The cutthroat dissolved into thin air and everything else disappeared just after him. In a sudden flash, the court room was all gone together with Judge Cannon, warden Cooper and all the guardsmen including Geezer, the Cali Bottomer inside a bot...

Instantly, I realized I was back on Moss Street a few blocks from Patrick’s house. The drunkard himself was a few steps ahead of me and reiterating something I’d heard before:

“... and so, I signed up for the army. The recruiter, of course, was very convincing! To hear him tell it, war is just tons of fun and entertainment: traveling, girls, drinking and a bit of light jogging that didn’t even make him tired...”

Not knowing what to think, I caught up to him and turned my head. Everything was calm. There was just a group of tipsy dwarves stumbling down the other side of the street, but still able to walk.

Suddenly I saw an alert with no sound effects whatsoever. The text, formatted like a standard notification, appeared before my eyes:

Divine Revelation has activated spontaneously!

Sorry there was no warning buddy, but that’s how it’s supposed to work. It’s a crude skill and doesn’t give perfect accuracy. There wasn’t enough time to even write up a description but I guess you probably get the idea. The AI models the near future based on what it knows about your character. It turns that model into something like a personal instance with copies of the nongame characters and players you interact with or potentially could in the near future, and tosses you right in.

Time passes much slower during Divine Revelations than in real life, so don’t be surprised if the vision just showed you an hour in the space of a few seconds.

The skill triggers suddenly and only before events that could be crucial to your character. I hope this helps. Most importantly, bear in mind that its models of the future are fairly crude and unrefined and if you overact it is very possible that everything could go haywire.

Also, you’ll never see this text again. Good luck, herald!

The letters dissolved in the thick humid air. After the description for the herald class, it was hard to be surprised by anything but I was still astonished. After all, the modeling of my personal instance was so realistic! Even now trying to remember, I realized that many details were missing, and the memories were sort of like flashbacks: Patrick’s died, the guards appeared out of nowhere in one instant, I had a short conversation with Gale – and blam! – right into a fast-paced trial. It was like a short but vivid dream and now, after waking up, the details were fading.

Remembering that the murderer was lurking somewhere nearby, I held Patrick back just as he was launching into his story about the bearded priest named either Carlos or Marcus.

“Wait.” I put a finger to my lips.

Patrick stopped and, looking baffled, fell silent. I quickly considered where we were in town and decided to bring him to the tavern, because it was just one block away.

“Let’s drop by Bubbling Flagon,” I suggested.

“Change of plans, Scyth?”

“Yes, Patrick. First of all, for your own safety, you must accept my offer and I don’t wanna hear a word about it!” Big Po’s “ears” could have already been nearby and I was not going to make the same mistake twice.

Patrick agreed to become a priest of the Sleeping Gods without a word. One problem down. At the very least, I didn’t have to worry that he might die now. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull off the same trick as in the dream or, I guess vision, if the killer attacked again.

We made it to the tavern, looked around for a free table and headed for it. Midway there, I looked around and, to my complete lack of surprise, saw Atiyakari entering the front door. Not today, creep...

“Have dinner, get a room in the tavern and go bed,” I said quietly after we were seated, making sure the cutthroat went to join his clanmates. “In the morning, leave the city and go to Darant, Patrick.”

“To Jane?” a pocked smile lit up his face, but it quickly went out. “But you promised to help...”

“And I will. But things have changed. I have enemies in this city and, once they realize we’re working together, they won’t let you live in peace. You’re too weak to stand up against them now and I can’t be there to protect you all the time. And I’m not all that tough myself... I’ve gotta keep myself safe.”

“As far as I understand, you’re talking about them,” Patrick nodded at the Axiom table, where Big Po was boring into us with his eyes, his ear cocked toward Atiyakari. “I heard them talking about you. You must have really pissed them off! Alright, I’ll do as you say. In Darant... Can I meet with Jane?”

“I cannot forbid you to see her, but try not to ruin everything. You aren’t the brave and strong warrior you were when she knew you. As for now, knowing your wife is alive, you have to become the man you once were! Most importantly, don’t drink. Start training again, do something useful with yourself in the capital. Here’s some money to get you started,” I handed him ten gold in a clenched fist. “I’m not sure if you know this, but I cannot leave the lands around Tristad before the spring...”

“I’m familiar with the concept,” Patrick nodded. “You, by which I mean guests of the city, come to us from a different world while you are young and, when you come of age, you can leave into the big world.”

“Yes, that’s right. Have you seen what we get from new followers?”

“Each one will make us all stronger. I like that,” he whispered and, blocking with his hand to keep others from seeing, gave me a thumbs up. Scratching his head, he looked up at the ceiling and asked: “These... Are they at least good, Scyth?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But the basic idea is if they don’t get their power back, the world will fall into the Nether.”

“Yeah, looks like it,” he agreed. “I’ll try to convert some followers. Are you leaving?”

“Yes, it is time. Alright, good luck on your way to the capital, Patrick!” I stood up from the table and extended him a hand.

“And to you, wee lad!” The former drunk squeezed my hand and, not letting go, asked: “What’s it like, the world you come from?”

“Why are you asking, Patrick?”

“There’s this drink in my head. I just can’t stop thinking about it. It was sweet and a bit sour with little fizzy bubbles that tickled the tongue and throat. And once you have one sip, you can never get enough! I’ve never tried anything like it in all my days, even though I’ve been to many places. So that gave me an idea. Have you maybe got it over there?”

“Sweet, fizzy and a bit sour?” I asked and then lied: “No, we don’t have anything like that.”

“I guess I must have dreamt it...” he looked away and muttered barely audibly: “I have strange dreams, Scyth. And anyway, to the Nether with them! I’m going to see Jane!”

“Of course you are.”

And the next day, based on the priest marker on my map, Patrick was already underway to Darant.

* * *

I slept uneasily that night. At first I woke up with a headache. I spent a long time out on the balcony, taking in the cool air and trying to wait it out, but the splitting pain in my temples wasn’t going anywhere, instead digging deeper and pushing into the backs of my eyes.

I spent a bit of time digging in the settings of our Home Doctor until the noise woke mom. She figured it out and turned it to painkiller. And that helped me get to sleep. Then just before sunrise, I shot up soaked in sweat, waking suddenly from a nightmare I couldn’t even remember. I turned my pillow over and spent a bit of time lying there but I couldn’t get back to sleep.

And that left me a bit sleep deprived. In school I just couldn’t stop nodding off. Teacher Greg noticed, shook his head but said nothing. During a break I tried to figure out if the guys had been able to hold onto the epic loot they got in the Olton Quarries. I found them in the same little nook where they had convinced me to help with Evil from the Depths.

“We put it up on auction, but it hasn’t sold yet,” Ed said, exchanging glances with Tissa and Bomber. “We need money, so we set the price sky high. Why?”

“I picked a class,” I answered. “Archer. So now I’d love to have an epic bow.”

“No problem. If nobody bought it yet, I’ll take it off auc as soon as I get home,” Ed had no objection. “You earned it. I’ll ditch last period and do it while Axiom is still in school. I’ll send it by mail.”

“Great, thanks. In return I can give you the gloves from the epic set.”

“No need yet. Keep ‘em, Alex,” Tissa said. “For now, we’re keeping all our epic gear locked up safe and sound, otherwise they just take it. Even epics have a ten-percent drop chance when you die, it’s just not worth the risk. Plus, as far as I understand, it’s a level-twenty item and we definitely won’t be able to use it any time soon.”

“So then maybe just sell it? If you need money...”

“No way!” Tissa shot out. “We’ll never get twenty before we leave the sandbox, but the gloves will be useful in big Dis! They’re basically exactly what both Ed and I will need!”

“Alright, if you say so...”

“How are you, Alex? How was your first day after the ban?” Hung asked. “I heard you had a talk with Big Po?”

“Yes, he isn’t holding it against me. But he is gonna watch me. His guys are always sniffing around in stealth. I didn’t say I was in the ins and thanks to you guys for you not telling either.”

“What kind of jerks do you take us for?!” Hung snapped. “We knew what we were getting into and are grateful to you for the achieve. But it’s all bullshit anyway. No one can take our talent away from us!”

“Yeah, teleportation is a big deal!” Malik exclaimed. I didn’t even notice him at first even though, obviously, he didn’t have any stealth in the real world.

“What are your plans?”

They exchanged glances again and, when I thought there would be no answer, they gave one anyhow:

“We’re farming an ins of gnolls and the underwater caves of the murlocks,” Ed answered. “Then selling everything through vendors and the auction. Usually in the morning, while everyone is in school. I dunno if you noticed, but sometimes one of us isn’t at first period. Well basically, we’re saving up for big Dis. We aren’t too worried about levelling, just trying to squeeze out as much gold as we can while we’re still in the sandbox.”

“And what are you gonna get up to, Alex?” Tissa asked.

“Well, I don’t have the curse anymore, so who the hell knows. I might try to join a clan. Or maybe I’ll try to level solo or just dive head-first into social quests...”

“Well, you could join us!” she offered.

“Yeah,” Hung supported her. “It’s gonna be hard for you to level bow without a tank. But with one, just stand to the side and shoot. Plus, if you got your class, you must be the same level as us.” He laughed, but it was somehow mirthless.

“Maybe.” I decided not to refuse directly. Maybe I would go with them just so they wouldn’t get suspicious. “I’ve got a quest to finish up first...”

When I got home, I had lunch with my parents then slept a few hours. When I got up, I got straight into my pod, hoping I could work on my leveling plan without anyone bothering me.

Before running off after wanted criminals, I was planning to drop into the city council and turn in the Eye of Murkiss. A bit of money and reputation points with the city couldn’t hurt. Then I’d have to drop by the unarmed combat trainer Master Sagda and the bowmaster Hunter Conrad. Beyond that, I wanted to rank up my only trade – Cooking. Then I could run over and see Underweight and Overweight...

But it was not to be. As soon as I appeared in Disgardium and left my personal room, I ran into a massive figure, taller than me by a whole head. I had no idea whether they were human, elf, orc or tauren. Their black cloak, obscuring their body, had a silver symbol (a circle in a square, the square in a triangle) embroidered into the left side of the chest. And the shade of their hood hid their face. There was no information over the head and I couldn’t even tell easily whether it was a player or a mob.

I extended a hand, touching the stranger’s body. It was real, but had a coldness emanating from it. They gave a noisy exhale and came right up to me. The face was not human. The mouth had no lips, there was a hole where the nose should have been and it had no eyes whatever.

“Scyth.” Its cheeks slid out of the way, revealing something between a mandible and a tentacle. A rotten reek breathed onto my face and a vibrating voice sounded in my head: “I am an emissary of the Destroying Plague.”

I looked down the hall, hoping there were no players nearby. The last thing I needed was to be seen talking to the bogeyman!

“Don’t worry, only you can see me,” the emissary’s voice rustled out. “The Nucleus is pleased with your progress and would like to give you a test. You have been given a great honor: Tristad is to become a bulwark of the Destroying Plague! You have three months, herald!”

With these words, the Emissary disappeared, leaving me alone with a new ability and quest I was forced to accept.

You have unlocked the skill Plague Infection!

Active skill.

Infects the living with the Destroying Plague. After death, the infected come back subjugated to the one who infected them.

Must touch victim. Only works on NPC’s.

Cost to use: 10000 plague energy points.

The nucleus of the Destroying Plague has given you an initial mission as a test: vanquish Tristad. To prepare the city for invasion, you must infect a critical mass of the townsfolk: 51%. Then save up enough plague energy to open a portal and legions of undead will come streaming in.

Progress: 0%.

Time limit: 90 days.

Reward:

— 10000 experience points;

— promotion in hierarchy to: Legate of the Destroying Plague.

Penalties for not completing mission:

— lose Mark of the Destroying Plague;

— lose rank Herald of the Destroying Plague.

With a quiet clap, a level-fifteen Barbarian named Scissor emerged from the portal into the personal player rooms.

“Cripes!” he exclaimed, pushing me aside. “Outta the way! What are you doing standing around here, friggin’ noob?”

Spewing curses at all the idiots that filled Dis, he headed down the stairs. I then, feeling my legs buckling, slowly slid down the wall, thinking. Maybe I was just a “friggin’ noob,” but I could very well be wiping out this whole sandbox very soon.

Interlude 1. Tobias

FOR AS LONG as Tobias “Crag” Asser remembered, he had always lived with Him. The creator of the universe was always by his side. He awoke with His name, and fell asleep with it as well. Even when he went to answer the call of nature, he mentally gave thanks to the Creator. And it wasn’t that he was a particularly pious guy. In fact, when left alone with his thoughts, Tobias resented Him. But he was afraid to admit that even to himself.

Try as he might, Tobias saw Him and His teachings as the sole cause of all his failures. His and his parents’. If not for their religious fanaticism, they might not have been content with the very lowest citizenship category, L. The only people lower on the totem-pole were the noncitizens.

But his parents had no ambition to improve their lot in life. They could get by on modest means, and taught him to do the same. All of their words, every action related to their son was aimed only at one thing: raising a devout and god-fearing boy. Nothing else had any meaning. Only the Word of the Creator.

They never asked how Tobias was doing in school, what his grades were like or whether he had any friends. They only bought him clothes if he’d completely grown out of his old ones. Any hole could always be patched. His family considered toys a luxury, along with all other forms of entertainment from books to films.

He never would have had a shot at seeing a virtual world if not for the fact that all teens were required to spend time playing Disgardium. When the Department of Education employees brought in and set up his immersion pod, his mother just looked on stone-faced. It was a cheap base model, but Tobias was happy to have it. Still he had to falsely grieve the foolish secular laws forcing him to do something he really didn’t want to.

In the ungodly pagan world, everything was different. He always remembered his first day in Dis (which he started calling Dis much later, referring to it by the more neutral “there” when talking to his parents).

The day he turned fourteen, he never even left the guest room of the city council building. All beginners had already long since placed their attribute points and run off to see the city, but he was still sitting there trying to grasp it all with his tongue hanging out.

He had no experience with videogames. He hadn’t studied guides of any kind; everything he knew was based on things he’d overheard in school. But he carefully read the introductory text and listened, afraid to interrupt the beautiful woman’s voice telling him about this magical universe full of captivating adventures. And she went on to describe it as a world inhabited by thousands of races where anyone could become a king and a hero. He saw glimpses of a future where he himself became a hero and saved the world. But Tobias slapped himself on the arm for such fantasies and prayed to the Creator for forgiveness.

He never saw the real Dis that day. Chief Councilman Whiteacre gave his welcome speech and sent them all over to Carlson the scribe. Ashamed to ask any questions with others around, the young boy waited until the party of beginners had dispersed then spent a long time interrogating the scribe about what did what. But before he finished, the required two hours had passed and father slammed on the external emergency exit button. Tobias was dumbfounded when he climbed out of the pod, disgorging himself with effort back into gray and melancholic reality. Everything seemed dull now and, in point of fact, it always was had been. But Tobias only realized that after spending time in Dis.

He didn’t get the hang of it right away, but it didn’t take him too long either. He was surprised how readily he accepted the game world as real and adjusted to its interface. He could wait to get a grip on attribute and damage points, or leveling skills and trades. For the time being, he was just happy with how realistic Tristad and the NPC’s that inhabited it were. It was very hard for him to believe they were nonplayer characters controlled by artificial intelligence. They just seemed painfully real.

For the first few days Tobias tried to do social quests like an honest player: he delivered mail, weeded gardens and took out trash. And he was happy to do it. Quite a lot happier, by the way, than when he did practically the same stuff in the real world. But helping his parents with chores was an obligation and the best reward he could hope for was to not be beaten. In Dis he was praised, thanked, rewarded with points of experience, reputation and copper, which he could use to buy things! One of his first days, he blew all his money on ice cream and candy. Sure the virtual, rendered food didn’t really exist but what difference did that make? It was sweet and tasted quite a bit better than the cardboard food he got in his world, the world of the Creator, who required not only unwavering faith, but also constant praying, obedience to rules and turning down anything fun. And He gave no rewards.

Here though, unending gratitude was not a requirement. There were many gods and no one forced you to have faith in any of them. Stay on the good side of those stronger than you and and you could take whatever you wanted from those weaker than you. Tobias worked out that primitive rule in his second week.

By that time, he had grown sick of social quests and didn’t want to group farm little mobs. He didn’t like playing in a team, and he wasn’t drawn to being a leader. He couldn’t even communicate competently. And carrying out someone else’s orders and being called out for messing up... No thank you.

Playing on his own was a much better fit! He could go where he liked, do as he chose... Tobias couldn’t get enough of this feeling of freedom and was not willing to trade it for anything on earth. He walked around the outskirts of Tristad, cautiously pulling lone mobs and systematically stacking up experience points. The simplicity of the rules struck him: the stronger you became, the more you could have, the stronger the mobs you could kill, the better the loot they dropped and the more powerful your equipment became. The circle of power, as he called his new philosophy.

One day he was hanging around by the Tremitelle river, watching a group of careless fishermen where the river grew calm, carrying its waters quietly and measuredly. There he saw a group of level-two players. He couldn’t say why they’d wandered over to these parts, but there they were, were beating down a wild level-five boar.

It was shrieking savagely and resisting. It had killed three of them, but they had already almost killed it. The creature had just ten or fifteen health points left, no more. And Tobias had just coincidentally hit level two the day before - so, after a bit of mental math, he ran at the players from behind. In all the confusion, the noobs didn’t even realize what happened. He took one down, then a second, a third. Then came the boar’s turn.

Towering in the middle of a heap of corpses and trying to catch his breath, he surveyed all the riches with delight. One of the dead noobs was well dressed. Later, Tobias realized he must have been spending premium currency. But nevertheless he netted a couple silver coins, and the simplicity of it drove him crazy. It was much more than he’d earned in all his days in Dis. Plus there was lots of good gear and some not so good stuff, a mountain of experience from the boar and ingredients from it as well: pelt, meat, liver. After he sold all the junk, Tobias realized he’d found his calling. And his gold mine.

He started by catching lone newbies at farm points, attacking from behind when they were most vulnerable and couldn’t afford to look away. No matter what decision his victim made: finish off the mob or defend themselves and come after Tobias, it almost always turned out the same way. The player, being attacked from two sides, would die and the fresh ganker, full of strength, would finish off the mob.

He spent a year doing that. Tobias levelled up to ten and, unfortunately, that was the ceiling for his two-hour limit in the game. His parents were strict disciplinarians when it came to that, and his little bit of time wasn’t enough to make any more progress. To make matters worse, his father hurt his back trying to earn money illegally by competing with autoloaders at the docks. Then all the tough day-to-day chores fell on the shoulders of the fifteen-year-old boy. Money became very tight around his house.

Too bad there was no way to withdraw gold from the sandbox. Then at least some could have gone to help them. Nevertheless, legal adulthood, and big Dis with it was not so far beyond the horizon. And that meant he could start earning money in the game soon enough.

Tobias thought doggedly until he came to the conclusion that continuing to live the ganker life was a road to nowhere. Noobs generally only dropped trash and a few copper and, after level ten, lots of people joined clans, so Tobias was afraid of landing himself on a KoS list.

After weighing his options, he decided to join a clan himself. A small one with the same goals as him and a hardcore style of gameplay. People who weren’t just there for fun, who wanted to earn money both then and in the future.

Monitoring the Tristad bulletin boards, he noticed a small but tight group of four led by a kid named Crawler. A heal-priestess, a fire mage with AoE damage, a warrior tank and a thief who could deal explosive damage on lone targets. Considering there were one or two fully-fledged healers in Tristad at best, and even less mages, it seemed like a very promising group. He met them and offered his services. Tobias hadn’t yet chosen a class and, beyond warrior, was only offered cutthroat or juggernaut, an idiotic class with potentially crazy armor, but negative accuracy. Crawler said a second tank – an offtank that could do damage – would not hurt and Tobias was taken on for a trial period. And that was how he became a warrior and joined the Dementors.

Taking advantage of his father’s helplessness, he spoke harshly with his mother saying that, thanks to the Creator, he had a solid chance of making good money but, to do that, he needed to spend more time in Disgardium. Still, she was never really okay with it: the boy could hear his mother crying at night and praying to the lord to bring her son to reason. But he was fine with that.

At the very least, she stopped hitting the emergency exit except for one time when his father was feeling ill. Tobias was torn from the ins in the heat of a boss battle and flew out of his pod enraged and ready to scream at his mother or worse. But he held back when he saw how his father was doing: foaming at the mouth, his gaze was wandering as he wildly spewed disjointed nonsense. His parents were the only real people he was close with, so he was even afraid for his father. Fortunately, it wasn’t all that bad. A medical bot gave him the proper medications, so the stroke had minimal consequences. After that, father’s mouth was always slack on one side and his prayers became hard to parse, but nothing else really changed. He didn’t even lose his job; he had joined a union.

The Dementors gave Tobias something new. It may have been the first time he’d ever talked to a girl in his life, but she was not opposed. Tissa was something like a sister to them all, but even so, talking with her was an important life lesson. He learned that girls, no matter how pretty, were also people. Not princesses. And they pissed and shat just like boys which he, to be honest, wasn’t totally sure about before. But he became convinced when they started taking him along to parties. No one would sell them alcohol, but Tissa knew a security guard at a club who would let them in. Hung always knew how to get booze, too and Ed’s balcony was at their service.

Tobias still felt bad about the moronic way he messed it all up. Crawler warned him about ganking. If he ever did it again, he’d be out of the clan. And Tobias really did get clean, for a time. But one time he just couldn’t resist: there was a girl in the Gloomwood with no clan all alone against a pack of wraiths and dressed head to toe in blues. By his most modest estimations, the loot was worth a hundred gold and, well, a hundred was always a hundred.

In fact it would have gone for twice that, but he didn’t sell the loot fast enough. Her father went to Big Po and, he pressured Crawler who demanded that he return everything at once, compensate the emotional distress and apologize.

And Tobias, his heart clenching, did just that. But that wasn’t enough for her. She demanded he get on his knees and apologize. He couldn’t stand that. Even for the Creator, he kneeled only in church. So he spat a fat loogie at her feet and ran away.

Crawler gave him his first strike then, saying he wouldn’t get a second. Tobias would be thrown out of the clan if he did anything that damaged the reputation of the Dementors. He tried to explain, but nobody listened and even Tissa, who was always there for him and treated him like a friend, couldn’t resist and hammered in a couple extremely offensive words among which he heard “retard,” and “moron.” And that was the least of it.

So he just lost it and left the clan, slamming the door behind him. Well, he first slammed the door to Tissa’s father’s garage where they had the fight, then did so figuratively in Dis.

After a few days of constant tracking, he found the same girl again. But this time he kept everything he stole, deciding to stand strong until the bitter end. He went to Big Po and said ganking was part of gaming and if Big Po was thinking of pressuring him again and demanding he give that loser girl her stuff back then Tobias would tell them all to stick it where the sun didn’t shine, hide in his personal room and not leave until he could enter the big world. Polynucleotide laughed long and hard, slapping him on the shoulder and saying he’d let the girl figure it out with Tobias herself, and he could go straight to the Nether for all he cared, but he’d better never see his face again. If he wanted to hide in his personal room in big Dis too, then it might work but, no matter what, Big Po was gonna be on the lookout even there, no matter the cost.

And from then on, he was more careful. He opted for a somewhat more low-key gameplay style and took it easy on the ganking. Instead he just leveled and did quests, secretly hoping to cobble together a clan of his own and do exactly what the Dementors did and farm dungeons. He kept his eye on every crop of beginners and helped them as much has he could, preaching his own philosophy of the circle of power. And that was how he got Rashidos to join his circle, then Vista. He was hoping to make her a priestess of Nergal, i.e. a healer for the group. Everything was going well.

But this idyllic life began to fall apart after he crossed paths with Scyth. Tobias thought nothing of their first meeting, the very same where he’d met Vista in fact. The noob tore her dress and that gave Tobias an opportunity to make an impression on her.

And the next day was what some might call the beginning of the end. Tobias himself didn’t suspect a thing when he tried to talk the noob into giving him a blue belt. Of course, he should have been smarter and followed Scyth until he was all alone and defenseless. But when he saw that sucker and his real-deal item, which was such a great fit for Rashidos, all he could think about was strengthening his underling. But Scyth, that freak, went psycho. It wasn’t the first time they’d met. For almost a year and a half, this weirdo spent all his required time outside the Bubbling Flagon and the fact that he turned him down with such ease came as an unexpected surprise. He made him look like some kind of retard! From his very first memories, as soon as he learned to distinguish speech, his parents had called him a retard, and now someone else was making him feel like that?! He convinced himself that Scyth called him that under his breath and, from that point on, Tobias held a grudge.

But he shouldn’t have, because it was the very reason he would lose all his reputation in a matter of days. And with that, he’d be losing his team, expensive equipment and all his savings as well. It all happened in the Arena. He bet a huge amount on their battle, even going into debt. But in the end, Scyth humiliated him. Who could have guessed his Unarmed Combat was so sky high?

And after he lost the duel, he read the logs and quietly lost his mind at the damage figures. Seemingly, while everyone thought he was sitting around like a fool he was somehow levelling punching in secret? Wow, that noob was a surprise. That must have been why Crawler took him on...

The story of Crag the unlucky ganker entered public consciousness and everyone started to hunt him down. Finding and killing Crag turned into something of a fashionable form of entertainment.

The tables had turned and now he was ganked many times over, losing all his clothes and even his team’s gear. Rashidos got sick of it and went to a different clan, then Vista started dating some boy and spending all her time in the game with him. And he, Crag the fearsome warrior named in honor of an ancient rifle was left completely alone. At that point he grew a bit of humility.

Then his mother’s health started giving out and there was less and less time for Dis. He kept entering the game, but he’d given up on gankerdom and spent his required hours doing the thing he knew best, praying at the temple of Nergal the Radiant. He didn’t want to do anything else. The path of a loner, the path of a clan member, the path of a leader – he was not up to any of them. “Maybe this local deity will give me more than the Creator?” the boy thought.

He already knew how stupid these thoughts were, but was hoping the faith points he prayed for might lead to something else, something he couldn’t reach any other way. Just anything. And he knew how to pray like none other. Especially in the second half of the twenty-first century. For most of his contemporaries, god had been replaced by vehicles and faith in a divine being had been outstripped by faith in many other things and concepts.

Spending day after day at the icon of the Radiant god, monotonously reciting personally invented prayers, eventually he was noticed. First by priests, who started treating him to divine nectar as they passed or doling out blessings. Then Tobias saw the senior priest as well, who would stand next to him for longer periods listening to his prayers with a slumping, flagging figure. But Crag wasn’t paying attention to any of it, fully immersed in his confessions, desires, woes and simple thoughts about the order of the world, which he suspected was unjust both IRL and in Disgardium.

By that time, he had stopped looking at the clock, instead praying fanatically as if entranced just begging for anything that might allow him to change his life. He had no thirst for revenge, and there was no one to take revenge on. He wasn’t burning with desire to become stronger than others, because that was what he’d need for robbery and he didn’t want to keep robbing people. He didn’t ask for power or money because he didn’t think they would be much help. They were seductive and caused suffering, but he was sick of suffering and only wanted peace. And maybe some more means so he could treat his father and help his mother, who had grown wan from their life of misery. But then, he wanted peace. The peace of knowing he was protected and could protect others if needed because he had proven unable to help either Rashidos or Vista.

And then Nergal himself turned his attention on him. The Radiant God answered in the middle of the night when the boy was alone in the temple, just praying humbly.

“I have heard your prayers,” a kindly voice rang out in his head. Tobias opened his eyes and swallowed a lump in his throat. “You shall have what you pray for, although I do not know exactly how.”

The icon of the god froze again, leaving no reminder that the conversation with Nergal had even taken place. Crag concluded it was just a delirious vision, but then he looked into his profile. In his skills and abilities, there was now a new red line: “Nergal’s Wrath.”

The description of the passive ability said it would be activated if Crag was attacked. Then and only then, the ability would multiply all his attributes by ten for the duration of battle – and that was just at level one! What was more, the divine ability would apply to anyone he was in a group with.

And only when he realized he’d prayed enough, a siren wailed:

We have detected a disturbance in the strings of creation! Something new has awoken in Disgardium, and it might upset the balance and usher in the reign of chaos!

Estimated potential threat class: D.

Current threat class: Z.

Most likely location: cannot be detected.

Now that this germ of chaos has awoken, we mustn’t let it grow more powerful. Be the first to find and eliminate it, and the powers that be will reward you generously!

And if you succeed, oh bravehearts and heroes, the gods will be favorable to you as well!

Tobias Asser, aka Crag, stood up and shrugged.

Chapter 12. Outlaws

IT WAS BUSINESS as usual at the kobold war camp: a few sentries peering out into the fog, a few soldiers hanging around a big pot over a fire, the rest sitting in a semicircle and talking. One was pontificating as the others listened and made commentary. I didn’t know their guttural barking language, but it must have been a humorous story because it was punctuated with waves of laughter at regular intervals.

The humanoids, clothed in dirty rags, had set up camp at the mouth of a cavern and were either guarding some surface-level ore vein or had been expelled from their home tribe and didn’t know what else to do with themselves. Only one thing was clear: the leader of the group must have really pissed off Tristad. The price on his head was a whole five gold. It was thin gruel, but I was fixated on helping the doomed city, even if this was the best I could do. Beyond that, on the edge of my mind, there was a nagging little idea just begging to be tested.

I was here for the head of Grog’xyr, leader of the kobold band. I saw him enthusiastically cleaning the rust off a heavy pickaxe. He was a bit taller and bulkier than his compatriots – about up to my chest, but three times broader at the shoulder. He had a huge gut that hung down below a belt, which served no functional purpose; walking around without an ounce of shame, flaunting it even, he had no pants on, just a loincloth. But I was most impressed by his enormous feet, which must have been at least twenty inches long.

Outlaw Grog’xyr, level-13

Kobold

Elite

Aha, exiles. Then I could see why the miners had turned to crime, robbing travelers and raiding farms in the vicinity of Tristad.

Meanwhile, the outlaw scratched his head with the pick and gave a yawn. Maybe he felt like sleeping after a hearty meal? I ran my gaze over his underlings. Ten soldiers, level ten or eleven and an ancient hunchbacked level-twelve shaman. He then, not paying attention to anyone, started dancing and singing near the fire.

All that time, I was lying in Stealth, not so much thinking through a plan of attack as checking the surrounding area for other players. The skill wasn’t going up at all, but that was no guarantee I was alone. Still, I had the skill at level sixty-three, which may as well have been the stratosphere in a sandbox. I waited a couple minutes and didn’t see anything suspicious. Just to be safe, I hid my name and went out to position.

The elite had eight hundred health points, but I could take him down with one shot from my bow without even entering his aggro zone. Unfortunately, I had very little plague energy. So given I’d have to stand naked while the unwashed troglodytes attacked me (I wanted to take as much damage as possible without wearing down my gear, so I left everything that didn’t fit in my inventory under a tree), at least there was something to be gained from them.

I pulled out the bow I bought the day before, extended it and pulled back the bowstring until I felt an arrow materialize. Hunter Conrad had shown me the right way to hold, aim and shoot the bow. Still, considering this was a game, I could have used it without any training if I wanted. I didn’t even need the skill, like how I used to fight with the sword and club. But both accuracy and damage strongly depended on skill level. Even with very high accuracy, not having the skill carried severe penalties. So I’d done this the right way, and brought it up to one with the trainer. Out of pure interest, I asked him and found that crossbows and gnomish guns would have required separate training.

He also explained how the mechanism for using different kinds of arrows worked. And there were lots of them in the game, one for every sadistic taste: from freezing and burning ones to arrows with tips that splintered inside the body. The material could also be different. For example, some were adamantium with enchanted explosive warheads, and others carried poison for greater damage. But for the time being, I could only dream about that. To change arrows in a standard quiver, you had to press the corresponding interface icon. But for now, I only had one option, a “standard arrow with bronze tip.” I wasn’t up to more powerful ammunition yet either in skill level or financially. Just like the cavemen, Scyth.

But they generally did not have plague energy. To get the party started, I put my remaining plague energy into a shot, aimed – yes, that had to be done, critical damage depended on where I hit! – and loosed an arrow at the shaman. I might have said the hunchbacked old coot drew my ire from first glance, but that wasn’t really what guided me. It was always important to take out the mage first. They had the least life but could do the most damage. I was hoping one shot would send the shammy to his beloved astral plane.

So imagine my disappointment when the arrow just missed! But the kobolds didn’t miss my arrow, which whistled right over the meaty ear of its target.

The warriors instantly shot to their feet and turned their disheveled heads in alarm. The chieftain barked a series of commands, pointing in my direction but, despite my expectation, there was no rush to attack.

The fighters circled around the elite and faced me. The shaman got in formation next to them and immediately started casting. I only realized what he cast after I used Fast Shot, my only special attack for now, loosing a rapid series of arrows. All of them stuck into an invisible obstacle, slowed to a complete stop and disintegrated. Another bark from the chieftain and the shaman summoned adds. The soil bulged, releasing some small earth sprites around the height of the shaman himself.

Once active, the shaman gave them a command and they went back underground. The soil stirred above them as they moved though, showing they were heading in my direction. I didn’t really have to worry. After all, I could always activate curse of the undead. But still I took a couple steps back when the ground in front of me exploded, spraying clumps of dirt and stones.

The spirits turned solid and all attacked at once. As soon as they saw where I was hidden, the kobolds tore off in my direction as well. The chieftain stayed where he was. Either he was planning to cover the shaman, who was summoning more spirits all the time, or he figured his warriors could handle one lone enemy. And they could have. My health points were falling very fast, but...

Curse of the Undead activated: all damage taken reduced by 100%!

This curse will remain active until you completely restore your health or deactivate the skill.

Sensing something, the shaman fired off more spells at machinegun pace and, to be honest, the packs of adds did nothing for me. They gave no experience and dropped no loot, so I decided to stick to my plan and take out the old man first. And I stopped using the bow, changing to good old-fashioned fists.

I scattered the warriors and adds with a Ghastly Howl and ran toward the spirit talker. Two warriors were still dogging me, the howl didn’t work on them. But with my speed bonus, I quickly left them in the dust.

The chieftain proved his mettle, blocking the shaman with his chest. I missed, but then he kobold raised a clawed hand, held it out and said something in human language. That was so unexpected that I stopped.

“Wait, human!”

Talking mobs were nothing new, but generally they were found in quests or dungeons. Normal mobs attacked first and asked questions later. Although, this elite actually was part of a quest. Alright rat-person, I’ll hear you out.

We stood opposite one another, me with my head angled down and him with his chin stuck out, bearing his teeth.

“Your foolishness and bravery know no bounds, outlander! Most people like to fight all head to toe in metal, hiding. But not you! You went into battle wearing nothing but a loincloth and wielding a silly chunk of wood I can’t even quite call a bow! Forsooth, you must be off your rocker! Are you suicidal, human?”

“Nothing of the sort, kobold. I’m not off my rocker, nor suicidal.”

“So your madness goes even further! And your cunning! You hid in the bushes and loosed an arrow at the honorable Ryg’xar the spirit-talker!” Grog’xyr barked out. “Did the Shadow Walkers send you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, chieftain.”

“The Shadow Walkers. Our former clan. Did they send you?”

“No, Grog’xyr. You’re a criminal and Tristad has put a bounty on your head. See...” I opened the quest window and read aloud: “Leader of a gang of kobold outlaws. Murderer, thief.”

“So you’ve come for my head.” The chieftain stroked his belly, cracking some caked dirt off his fur with a nail. “Say human, what makes you so confident? You’re weak and all alone. But we...”

I looked around and found myself surrounded with warriors and earth sprites, each of which was holding a spear tip a foot and a half from my face. Even though the tips were made of stone, it was pretty scary. The kobolds were snarling and emitting a stench, which could be seen as a form of psychological attack. And then I laughed. Their insurmountable confidence amused me.

“Come now, Grog’xyr. Can’t you see that I am no human?”

In thoughtful silence, I could hear the shaman’s command clearly. Behind me came a crack and a rustle, then a shadow rose above me. I turned. All the sprites had converged into one mega earth sprite several times as tall as a human. Unlike its smaller components, this one had legs and the body looked to be carved out of a solid piece of stone. It had no neck, but its colossal arms and hands could crush a person with ease. And it was holding a massive club. One look at its spikes made me nauseous.

Earth Elemental, level-15

Minion of Ryg’xar

With a flick, the elemental tried to squash me into the ground. The attack was as unexpected as it was pointless. I didn’t even fall over, but the club was smashed into a thousand pieces.

Still, it was a very powerful blow. All the more energy for me. I walked up to the elemental and slammed it with a Hammerfist, filling it with all my plague energy. The monster exploded and clods of mud, muck and rock dust came raining down.

You have damaged Elemental: 1217.

Elemental is dead.

Someone loudly cleared their throat. The warriors, frozen stock-still, were filled with dread.

“If this conversation is over, let’s get started.” I stashed the useless bow in my inventory then unclenched my fists. “That was a very dirty trick, shaman.”

“Agreed. Old man, you acted dishonestly!” Grog’xyr yelled, turning with indignation to the “respected Ryg’xar.”

“But Grog, he’s undead!” the shaman noted, quarrelsome. “I can see power in him, but I cannot tell its source. This boy must be hiding something! I was just testing his might. He hasn’t shown us everything he can do yet. There’s no use fighting him, better just turn yourself in. See, those people won’t execute you right away, they’ll send you to prison. You’ll like it there, Grog. I’ve been once or twice...”

Then he retreated to the cavern. Seeing where he was headed, the chieftain frowned, sighed, waved a hand and turned toward me. His fists were clenching and unclenching on his pick handle.

“You’ll never take me alive!” he barked out. “Just please take mercy on my tribe. I challenge you to an honest duel, just me and you.”

“If you say so.” I shrugged my shoulders, not wanting to draw this out. But then it dawned on me. “Wait! Grog’xyr, there’s another way!”

“And what is that? Will the rulers of your city be content with the head of old Ryg’xar?”

The shaman started coming back.

“Oh nether with them, the rulers. Who do you bow to?”

“Kobold god Kurtulmak leads the kobold race to domination and superiority over the high races,” Grog’xyr answered without a thought. “Kurtulmak especially hates dwarves. If you were one of their ilk, I wouldn’t even be talking to you!”

“But now you kobold outlaws have ceased to honor your deity?”

“What makes you say that?” the chieftain asked in surprise and the warriors supported him with muted snarling.

“Because you’re no longer normal kobolds, you’re criminals. You don’t live in caves, but outside and you don’t spend your time as any self-respecting kobold might. You only think of robbery and thieving! Kurtulmak can’t possibly approve of that.”

“We are not outlaws!” Grog’xyr shot out, enraged. “It was just circumstance! You think we… changed careers because things were going so well for us? We’re warriors! The rest of our tribe hides in burrows and won’t even stick their out noses when they see a person!”

“So it isn’t you, it’s life? Come on, chieftain, don’t be ridiculous. The world is always the same. The only thing that changes is who lives in it. Your god commands you to search for gold, embers of the sun, which you must return to the sun. But you have decided to live otherwise. Now either you man up and admit you no longer honor your god or return to his rules and remain faithful. Where are your candles?” I asked bombastically, happy that reading the game encyclopedia while sitting in stealth had paid off.

“We no longer carry candles, human,” the chieftain’s voice rang out dully. “There is no longer a need for them and it’s too late to go back to our former lives.”

“It’s never too late!” I shouted but he turned away and didn’t answer so I stopped.

Grog’xyr withdrew for a long time and his warriors realized the fight was delayed indefinitely and sat on the ground. Rain had set in and their coarse-whiskered wet snouts were looking more rat-like with every second.

“What do you suggest? Join your pack? But you have no pack, human!”

“Not my pack, but you have the right idea, Grog’xyr... Many, many winters before Kurtulmak appeared on earth, this world was ruled by other gods. You know them as the Sleeping ones...”

The kobold shuddered at the mention, but came closer, intrigued and perked his ears. The chieftain was listening very closely, but his stony face gave no clue whether he was truly taking to what I said or just wanted to hear me out.

“... by the power of unity. It is not an empty faith for ephemeral temporary power. It provides guaranteed growth of all stats from intelligence to strength, endurance to agility. And I allow you, Grog’xyr to be first of your kind to join the ranks of the followers of the Sleeping Gods.”

The kobold outlaw chieftain looked back at his pack, mentally calculated possible bonuses, crossed his arms over his chest and barked out:

“I’ll believe in your gods as soon as I see what you promise. What needs to be done?”

* * *

After meeting an emissary of the Destroying Plague, I wasn’t feeling up to making a final decision on the quest. I’d been forced into too many big decisions in the last couple of days as it was. But what really had me wound up were the constant monkey wrenches being thrown into my plans.

I had three months to complete the Destroying Plague quest and the Sleeping Gods temple quest had no time limit, so I didn’t exactly have to push the sound barrier. But to the nether with all that. My hands were itching for a fight and I was so nerve-wracked over my stalled-out level I gave up on both the unarmed combat master and my plan to level cooking. I made up my mind to stop dilly-dallying and ran off to farm experience. In fact, I was in such a rush that I didn’t even complete the Olton Quarries quest, leaving the Eye of Murkiss taking up one of the three slots in my inventory, after the new class “bonus.”

All I did was drop by the archery trainer to unlock the skill. Hunter Conrad taught it to me for one gold, trained me an attack and told me to return for more when I was ready.

As I left the hunter’s place, I remembered the epic loot Crawler promised, but there was nothing in my mailbox. What was more, he wasn’t even in the game, just like the other Dementors.

I ran out of Tristad to the southeast in order to begin my great campaign for the heads of the most wanted mobs. And that was where I encountered the kobold camp. By the way, the quest marker didn’t show a specific place on the map. It just encircled an area where the mob could be found which, in the worst case, might take one day to explore.

But I got lucky. After an hour of wandering interspersed with taking down low-level mobs, I found Grog’xyr. However, instead of taking his head, I left the camp with twelve new followers of the Sleeping ones and just as many randomly assigned attribute points. The one thousand two hundred experience points and hitting level twelve were just a pleasant bonus. I was only sore that I now couldn’t add any more followers until I rebuilt the temple of the Sleeping Gods, which I now saw as a progress bar:

Followers of the Sleeping Ones: 13/13.

To my surprise, I was immediately elevated to the top position in the hierarchy of the rat-people miners, and the kobolds said they wanted to come with me. But I didn’t see a benefit.

“Grog’xyr, it would behoove you to stay in these lands and defend your pack. When the time comes, every fighter will be important. Stay away from humans like me and become stronger warriors.”

I was not certain respawn would trigger for them. As far as I could remember, named elites like him disappeared after their quest was completed and they died, then they would be replaced by either a simple monster or a more dangerous beast. And that creature would only be subject to a bounty after being reported on by the let’s say crime blotter of Tristad.

“I understand, my lord.” Grog’xyr and his clan bowed their heads. “Any further orders?”

Did he call me “lord?” That I found amusing. Soon enough, I would become a dark lord, especially considering who I was dealing with – the deadly Destroying Plague and the ghastly Sleeping Gods.

“Only one. If you speak with any of your former tribesmen and perhaps any other intelligent creature – trolls, troggs, gnolls...”

“The gnolls are our sworn enemies!” the shaman raised his voice, before that standing in ashamed silence.

“I’ll keep that in mind. Anyway, I don’t know who you might cross paths with but, regardless, tell them the name of the true gods.”

“Yes, my lord!” Grog’xyr barked. “Will we see each other again?”

“I will come see you... sometimes,” I answered ambiguously. I couldn’t appoint any of them priest, which meant I would have to pay them a visit occasionally to see if they’d made any new converts. “I promise.”

I left the kobold camp and went straight into Gloomwood. On the boundary between the forest and a mountain range, a quest said I could find the lair of a cannibalistic ogre. A special variety of intelligent race, cannibals were not a great rarity in this world. They lived a life of solitude and, due to their perverse appetites, made little effort to socialize. What was more, their diet made no distinction between humans, elves, gnomes, dwarves, trolls, goblins and orcs.

I walked to the next spot with the curse off. By the time I left the kobolds, you could see my flayed strips of skin and rotting flesh from far away, and it was not worth the risk. Then a question popped into my head: what if I waited for the transformation to be complete? If I let the curse of the undead turn me into a fully-fledged undead, would anything change? Or was it just a visual effect?

I didn’t have time to finish that thought, because I got attacked by an enraged level-eight boar. The creature charged at me, sticking its tusks into my tenderloin area, and I spent the next few seconds in flight, filling the surroundings with a scream. And at that the wild hog’s momentary triumph was over.

In just a few blows, I took the boar down and moved on. With the inventory penalties, I couldn’t even carry a pot with wood and fire-starter, otherwise I’d have cooked up the big forest pig right then and there.

The mobs in this part of the sandbox were low level and I encountered players quite often. I also saw gankers, looming over the disappearing corpse of a player. But they were beginners and, when they saw my level, preferred to keep their distance.

As I went, I mowed down all kinds of life forms, often running into scattered groups of low-level bandits from a gang called the Nettles, led by a wanted criminal that nobody in Tristad could track down. I took a quest for his head, but it just showed an area that covered the whole sandbox. And that gave me the impression that the leader might be anyone at all.

For the most part, the Nettles were normal mobs, though they were human. They had a set couple phrases they would shout, and their behavior was pretty absurd. Classic mobs for levelling from one to ten. Downed bandits would respawn fifteen minutes later, and it was a waste of time to expect even a morsel of intelligence out of them. Still, I thought about trying to make converts of them. It had worked with the kobolds so, in theory, it was possible with the bandits as well. If, of course, I could somehow solve the temple issue.

But I was left wondering whether the gang leader really did exist. No one believed he was real, but would the city really put out a bounty for the head of a nonexistent mob? Those thoughts spawned others. Maybe Nettle was real, but wasn’t just some elite or rare mob but a real-deal raid boss.

The journey was starting to drag. Without curse of the undead, I wasn’t building up plague energy and I had to get by on honest damage alone. I pulled a mob with my bow, getting off three shots before I had to enter close combat. Fortunately, Hammerfist solved all my problems, and it never got too hard. In all that time, my life never went below half, though it did hit exactly fifty percent one time. When I crossed paths with a whole pack of Hardened Wolves, a wandering Branchhorned Elk suddenly attacked from behind, having decided out of the blue that I was trespassing in its territory. Eventually, a Black Bear joined in on the fun as well and thankfully that was after most of the wolves were no longer breathing.

Leaving the wolf meat, bear meat, and venison as unclaimed loot, I gave a sigh. If I had Patrick with me, he could have carried everything.

The sun dipped below the horizon. It turned dark and stars started peeking out. But I still wasn’t there yet. By that point, I had realized why no one had come after the cannibalistic ogre in all this time despite the quest for his two heads. The ten-gold reward was clearly not worth the wasted effort. The rare, wanted mob was both too far away and its level too imposing. Seventeen! Unlike Crusher, who I got an achievement for killing, this ogre was not considered a local boss, just a named mob, even if he had... fattened up a bit!

Wot’al, level 17

Ogre Cannibal

Rare

Easy pickings. I took out my bow and was preparing to activate curse of the undead when suddenly I heard a rustling in the bushes next to me.

And when I turned, I saw Crag crawling out.

Chapter 13. Cheer Elixir

CARELESSLY KICKING rocks underfoot, Crag walked up to me. He didn’t look anxious, or ready to turn tail at any moment. Instead he was walking confidently with a rakish gate, hiding a smirk in his eyes.

“Ah, look who it is. Scythy the noob...” he said, looking up for a second to read my information. “You here for the ogre?”

The ganker warrior had changed since our last encounter. His level was higher, and he had different gear. It was not of course the glimmering armor he used to flaunt around town but it also wasn’t the mismatched trash he was wearing yesterday. Back to his old ways? A successful gank? Or did he find money and buy it? The look in his eyes was different too, now seeming to secretly harbor a sense of superiority.

“Yes. You too?”

“You might say that,” he groaned, finally coming out into the light of Geala. He sized me up, smiled for some reason and spat at my feet. “But first I’ve got a score to settle. Between you and me, remember?”

“We settled it in the arena. And in case you still haven’t learned your lesson, you better not mess with me...”

“Then you’ve got all the less to fear, stupid noob. Look, I’m even unarmed!” He put away his sword for show.

“I don’t give a crap, that isn’t why I’m here.”

“Chicken! Don’t drop a load in your pants! What, don’t got the guts without your precious Dementors to protect you?”

I looked closely, trying to figure out what he was driving at. Crag was not a great actor, so it wasn’t hard to guess he was hiding something. But what? He wasn’t just goading me for fun, after all! And out here his reputation wouldn’t suffer even if he attacked first, so he couldn’t have been worried about that. So what was it? Did he have his lackeys hiding in the bushes?

Anyhow, if that was what he wanted, for me to start the fight, that was exactly what I needed to avoid. And so, ignoring the ganker, I calmly headed into the ogre’s lair. I had enough bonus attributes to take down a whole pack of creatures like Wot’al, even with Tobias stabbing me in the back. Taking my attributes alone, I was comparable to a level thirty-five player. Add to that Ghastly Howl, Resilience and thirty seconds of Stoneskin and I wouldn’t even need the curse of the undead to kill both Wot’al the remarkable ogre and Crag the even more remarkable idiot.

“Hey, noobass, where you going?” rang out behind me.

“Go... take a walk, idiot!”

“Hm, okay... If we see each other again, I promise! We’ll see who can take who!”

“Oh I can’t wait, little Crag!”

And I didn’t wait for an answer. The warrior went and hid back in the depths of the forest, sending me off with a middle finger.

I went into the cave. It was one hundred feet long, a bit less in height and wall-to-wall width. At the far wall stood the beefy ogre saddled on something like a stool. In the end, he had only one head, and he was midmeal, slurping out of a ladle right from a pot perched on his knee. The cannibal was of an impressive size. There could have been a medium-sized kobold hidden behind each of his legs.

A bit further away there was a big burning fire, and shadows flickered on the walls in its fickle light, disorienting me.

I entered in Stealth and froze at the front door to check where the ganker was. There was no one near the cave, and I was almost convinced Crag had left. What changed my mind in the end was past experience with Mr. Asser. It was always extremely negative and never without a stab in the back.

I waited another few minutes and didn’t see anything moving behind me, so I figured I was safe. The ogre was still slurping down food and, based on the size of the pot, he would continue to do so for quite some time. Mentally apologizing for interrupting his dinner, I got up and ran at the rare mob.

As I went, I unloaded a series of Fast Shots into him, then stashed the bow and slammed into the angered roaring cannibal with a Hammer.

You have damaged Wot’al: 937.

Health points: 1663/2600.

A massive knife materialized in his hand, which he brought down on my face with no swing. I didn’t have time to dodge, but I did have Stoneskin at the ready.

Wot’al has damaged you: 18.

Health points: 736/754.

The damage was cut by both my Resilience and Stoneskin and, as a result, miniscule. But the physical force of the blow nearly knocked my head off. If my legs had been chained to the ground, that would have happened. But game physics were on my side. My body lifted off the stone floor of the cave and flew upward. The tip of the ogre’s weapon caught me in midair but, fortunately didn’t go through, instead adding more speed to my flight in a glancing blow.

Wot’al has damaged you: 11.

Health points: 725/754.

After a few backwards somersaults, I slammed into a pair of feet. Crag! Damn, I knew he was still lurking, but I was hoping to cut down the rare mob first!

I shot to my feet and noticed he was brandishing a sword. But that was no reason to be upset yet. After all, Stoneskin was still active and I was pretty sure I could beat this ogre before it expired. Pushing back the ganker, I sent him running in fear with a Ghastly Howl so he wouldn’t trip me up, then ran at Wot’al. The ogre was also in motion, grinning at me like a piece of meat and just about licking his lips as he came at me with heavy footsteps.

This time, I either successful dove under the whistling gladius or Dodge triggered, but he didn’t hurt me and, as I moved, I hit him with a Hammer just above the knee. And it was a massive crit!

You have critically damaged Wot’al: 1376!

Health points: 287/2600.

Not wanting to draw it out, I added a series of blows and the ogre, whooping in pain, lifted me up over his head. From my high vantage point, I took a look around. Crag was nowhere to be seen.

But the cannibal didn’t have time to throw me as he was planning to. Hammer cooled down just as the ogre’s disgusting face came into range:

You have damaged Wot’al: 937.

Wot’al is dead.

Experience points received: 150.

Experience points at present level (12): 390/10100.

You have received quest item Wot’al’s Head.

Dead or Alive: Wot’al completed!

Inform Tristad Chief Councilman Peter Whiteacre to receive your reward.

The ogre’s legs wobbled and, with a thunder that shook the whole cave, he fell to the ground, dropping me. I rolled over his corpse and got to my feet.

Then something else happened. I raised a hand to see the loot, Stoneskin expired and, a minute later, I saw the tip of a sword stick out of my chest then immediately disappear, followed by an avalanche of blows. Even with my Resilience at cap, they were hitting hard, dealing almost twenty damage a piece.

Sharply turning around, I grabbed Crag’s hands, hoping to take advantage of my higher strength. But then the unbelievable happened: the ganker easily got loose and kicked me in the gut so hard I flew to the far wall of the cave right into the fire.

Player Crag (Tobias Asser) damaged you: 31.

Health points: 601/754.

My surprise was replaced with comprehension. Of course! He was a warrior, he had higher strength! Of course, with my plague energy, it was of secondary importance. But for a warrior... However... There was no time to think about why my Resilience wasn’t doing the trick or how crazy this kid’s damage must have been to overcome it.

Crag raised his shield and sword and walked in my direction. His first attacks were very clever and surprising, and that gave him a slight advantage, but now his luck had run out.

We went back into close combat, but this time I was ready. He would swing and I would dodge then try to counter. But every time, either I connected with his shield, leaving monstrous dents, or just simply missed. This kid’s dodge and parry chance must have been sky high.

With yet another Hammer, the ganker’s shield fell to pieces and Crag calmly tossed it aside.

While we fought, he was silent and concentrated, not chuckling like he used to. We exchanged blows in oppressive silence, punctuated by the clang of weapons and heavy breathing.

I still had half my life left and wasn’t panicking. I could take down somebody like Crag in one Hammer. I just had to get one off. And if I had to die, it wouldn’t be my first time. I certainly wasn’t going to activate curse of the undead. This little skirmish wasn’t worth so blatantly advertising my threat status.

His next blow landed and my health bar was getting dangerously close to the yellow zone. Whenever I tried to come near, he easily pushed me back with either a shoulder or a kick, and they really packed a punch. It was like getting hit by a truck. The ganker was trying to push me against the wall, but every time I jumped out of his trap. His health meanwhile hadn’t gone down by even a quarter percent despite my landing a Hammer... What? More than three thousand health points? How?

In a flash, I dressed myself down for draining my plague pool and swore that no one would ever catch me off guard again.

“Did you put everything into endurance or something? And level Resilience?” Crag asked, suddenly stopping. And it sounded casual, as if we were old friends sitting on a couch and just chatting.

“Where’d you get all that health from? It isn’t possible to level endurance that much at your level! I can usually take people down in one hit, but your health bar won’t even budge...”

“Very true,” he noted melancholically and went on the attack again. “And thank god!”

The warrior landed a series of blows that read as a well-practiced combo. His blade swung in the air, lowering my health into the red zone. If this were happening IRL, with real physics, I wouldn’t have survived even one slash. Also, in meat space, I never would have been able to get off this move: bobbing under Crag’s arm, I got him in a hold, tightened my left arm around his neck then slammed him in the nose with my other fist.

You have critically damaged player Crag (Tobias Asser): 872!

Health points: 1964/3610.

I heard a crack, the ganker gave a yelp and, breaking away, retreated. At his level, he didn’t have most warrior attacks, otherwise he would have shield stunned or charged me long ago.

Building on my advantage, I rained down a series of blows, but got carried away. The bleeding effect, replenished with every attack that hit me, had reached level eight and the DoT ticks were now too severe. The interface flickered red and I just about turned on curse of the undead in fear. But thank the Sleeping ones, I didn’t. And even though Hammer had cooled down, I wasn’t fast enough to use it. Crag’s finishing blow was critical and took my head clean off.

Player Crag (Tobias Asser) critically damaged you: 118!

Health points: 0/754.

You are dead.

* * *

Appearing in the Tristad cemetery, I left the respawn circle and sat down on the ground. My Resilience was at maximum, Unarmed Combat was leveled as hell, and I had one hundred thirteen bonus attribute points. I didn’t understand how, despite all that, I had lost to a player of approximately the same level. Something must have been amiss, but I had no idea what to do with that information. Write the preventers? They’d want me to send combat logs, but that would expose me more than anything. And without the logs, they’d just think I lost a battle to a ganker and wanted revenge. Aw, nether. Time would prove if he was a threat or simply hopped up on elixirs.

I was so upset at losing that I decided to stop playing. It was coming up on midnight and I did not want to scour Gloomwood or damp dungeons any longer. All my gear had dropped, and I didn’t have a backup set, so I quickly dropped into my room to get into decent pants and a shirt at least.

Everything was in my chest as usual, awaiting it’s hour. The Whistle of Summoning for the legendary pet, the epic set gloves and the few rare blue items. I could use some of them already but didn’t want to waste them on farming. I was low enough on inventory space as it was, and wearing it would mean reducing its durability. Basically, I figured I’d better wait.

I went down into the public area and decided to sit for a second with everyone like a normal casual player. It was somewhat novel. Instead of racing through forests and dungeons farming experience and loot, or dying time and again, levelling abilities, I would simply spend my time relaxing with other players, idle.

At the front door, I turned my head in search of a free table and saw Overweight waving at me. Rita was with her trader brother Undy and a group of friends. I walked over.

“Thank you! Show some love to the beautiful Stefania for her wonderful singing. And now say hello to the Guitar Warriors!” Someone named Claudio announced from the stage while I walked to Undy and Overweight’s table.

The boy’s voice was magically amplified by some clever method so everyone could hear, but it didn’t drown out conversations:

“Well, well!” Undy exclaimed when he saw me. “In this world of constant flow and change, you can always count on Scyth and his style! Pants and a shirt, what else does a person need to feel happy? It’s a rhetorical question, friends, no answer needed! Meet our special client, Alex! A legendary player in our sandbox, let me point out...”

While Undy droned on about how I spent a year and a half wearing through my pants on a bench (“Scyth, are those the same pants you’re wearing now?!”) I shrugged my outstretched arms. Someone patted me on the shoulder, someone gave me five. In the end I was given a seat between Rita and some giggly girl by the name of Goosebumps. She looked me over, curious and, seemingly liked what she saw because she immediately offered me a drink. “To new friends,” she said.

A mug of cream beer was placed before me, but when I grabbed it to lift and drink “to new friends,” Goosebumps grabbed my arm:

“Woah, woah! Slow down! Earl, give him a splash of your magic potion!”

A short smiley boy with red cheeks on the other side of the table got up, extended a hand and dripped something into my glass. A second later, the description changed:

Cream Beer of Cheer

Producer: Earl.

“Explain,” I said, turning chummily toward Goosebumps.

“You add this stuff to any drink and, without changing the flavor, it suddenly has an effect close to alcohol intoxication,” Earl answered in her stead. “Not every alchemist can make it. It’s part of a special branch for food products.”

“Mhm,” Goosebumps confirmed joyfully. “Earl just learned how to make it today, but he’s already got a line of customers a month long!”

“Yes, unfortunately, the cooldown time for cooking it is extremely high...” the alchemist made a side note.

“Still it’s pretty sweet. Congratulations!”

I lifted the beer and nodded in respect at the alchemist. We clinked glasses, someone shouted it was bad form to drink without everybody and, for the next ten seconds, everyone clinked glasses, spilling the sweet, creamy and foamy amber drink onto the table.

“How’s it going, Scyth?” Rita asked after our cheers. “I got your message about not playing for two weeks. Did something happen?”

“Nothing special. An academic ban.”

“Problems with school?” she asked in surprise. “I never got the impression you were stupid!”

“Yeah but look at my level, Rita...”

“Ah, now I see! You just gave up on everything to level? That’s impressive progress! I heard the Dementors were helping you out?”

I nodded ambiguously.

“Ah, I see. If only someone could help them now. Wesley was beside himself when they jumped ahead of him and got the achievement!”

“You know him?”

“Yeah, he like used to hit on me,” she waved it off. “We go to the same school and have a couple classes together. But he’s not my type.”

“He’s an idiot,” Goosebumps shot out. “He doesn’t see a difference between the game and real life. Did you hear how he beat up some kid that wouldn’t share loot? Last year some time.”

“Really? And he got away with it?”

“The kid chickened out and didn’t tattle, so the school had to let it go. Our rating is low enough as is...”

Over the conversation, I realized everyone at the table went to the same school. The noisy crowd of twelve contained members of four clans and the traders Underweight and Overweight. Those two, refusing out of principal to join any clan, even a fun one, saw themselves as traders through and through. And recently they’d hit level ten and reached their goal. The system offered them the trader class.

As it turned out, battles and killing mobs weren’t the only way to level in the game. You could also do class quests. The traders Chris and Rita Wood got experience for every trade and, the better deal they got, the higher the margin, the more experience. Once they hit a high enough level, they could open their own shop and, with time, their own trading company.

And that was what the brother and sister were aiming at, spending all their time on trade and related quests.

The time flew by unnoticeably and I lost count of how many beers I drank. Earl, by the way, obligingly dripped his magical cheer elixir into every one. Undy, meanwhile, was now all red and stuck fast to a cute redhead named Emmy. Her hair color reminded me of Eve O’Sullivan’s. The trader, by all appearances, was squeezing his persuasion skills for all they were worth and, before too long, their seats were empty and they were gone.

“Hey, where did Undy go?” I asked at an odd moment, pointing to his place.

“Chris and Emmy? Up, probably,” Rita shrugged. “As usual.”

“Are they hooking up?”

“Who’s they?” she asked, astonished. “No, come on! Emmy just broke up with her boyfriend and she just met Chris today!”

As Rita got distracted answering somebody’s question, Goosebumps, a blonde, showing me sincere signs of attention, touched my sleeve:

“Hey, Alex, you think maybe we could dance?”

I thought she was cute, and I saw no reason to refuse. But I didn’t have time to answer.

“Goose, can I talk to you for a minute?” Rita asked insinuatingly, sitting back in her chair.

The girls walked into a corner, talked for a second and Rita Wood came back alone.

“Something came up. Silly Goose had to go somewhere,” she said. “So I’ll take her place.”

“Uh... in what way?” I asked, blunted.

“Let’s go Scyth, dance. Do you know how?”

I did. Since childhood, at every family celebration, Eve would always invite me to the “ladies choice” dance. The musicians on stage had just settled into a very romantic and I might say melancholy number, which wasn’t to say they were doing a bad job. The bards really were giving it their all. If I didn’t know they were the same age as all of us schoolkids, I might have taken them for professionals. Although the mechanics of this world were helping them, of course. I was sure bards had the ability to play musical instruments and sing, which leveled just like my combat skills, by use.

“You don’t have to worry about your feet. I have a talent for not stepping on them during dances.”

I got up, gave Rita my hand and led her out to the dancefloor, which was quickly filling with couples. Everyone danced as best they could, but most without sophistication. Generally they would press up as close to one another as possible and give their hands room to wander.

And we didn’t overthink it either. I took her by the waist, which seemed thinner than I expected, and Rita lay her head on my shoulder. We spun around at first slowly, getting used to each other’s rhythm, then started going a bit faster. I felt her hot back with my fingers. And she nestled up against me, pressing close and putting her head on my shoulder.

She gave off a slight aroma of beer and something flowery. I was no expert, but I liked the smell.

“You in a hurry?” she whispered into my ear.

“Sorry, we can move slow...”

“No, I’m talking about Dis. Maybe...”

Emergency exit has been activated by: external command from immersion pod!

Remaining time: 3...

“Rita, sorry, someone just hit my emergency exit button!” I shot out, disappearing from her embrace.

I couldn’t hear what she said back. I spent a bit of time in darkness in the pod, adapting until I got control over my body. I could hear muted voices from my room. The intra-gel flooded out, the door slid aside, and I saw mom.

“Alex, I didn’t know what else to do...” she said, distraught. “But it’s important.”

Tissa walked out from behind her. She too looked devastated.

Chapter 14. Taking a Losing Bet

“HELLO, TISSA,” I said.

“Hi...” she answered quietly, not knowing what to do with her hands. “I... at my...”

She stumbled. Tissa had been caught in the rain and was all wet, but that couldn’t be what had her so upset. Her usually pretty eyes were all red, one cheek bone was purple, and there were silent tears rolling down her velvety cheeks. I couldn’t remember ever seeing Melissa Schafer cry, and I’d known her since I was five.

In elementary school, Tissa’s over-strict father had once shaved her bald. Mr. Schafer probably didn’t mean to punish her or make her an object of mockery. It was probably all part of his idea of rationality and practicality. Less hair had to be washed less often, need less shampoo, dried faster and didn’t need to be brushed. Tissa’s father had basically raised his daughter as a boy and that included the way he dressed her. That lasted until middle school. The first time we saw Tissa after that summer break that year, we laughed. Even Greg couldn’t resist a smile. But she just joked back, letting it roll off her like water off a duck’s back.

She didn’t cry when she fell out of an overfilled school flying car either, and that broke her left arm. Or when I opened a door too hard and hit her forehead, or when Ed Rodriguez pulled her braids in third grade, or when little Hung stole her backpack and threw it on the roof of the school.

But now her eyes were full of tears. She was hovering next to my mom, biting her lip, but didn’t say a single word as I hurriedly and fitfully got dressed.

“Alright guys, I guess I’ll leave you alone,” mom said. “If you want some hot chocolate or a snack, just say the word. And yes... Melissa, it’s late, you can stay the night here if you want. I’ll make up the sofa in the guest room for you.”

Not waiting for an answer, mom left, carefully closing the door behind her.

I walked up to Tissa and hugged her in silence. I wasn’t sure how, but I realized that it was best to say nothing. She pressed up to my shoulder and burst into tears, soaking my t-shirt.

We stood like that for a very long time. Embracing hard, she was almost hanging off me and, at a certain moment I realized my knees were buckling and brought her over to the bed.

“Let’s sit down. My legs are tired after the pod.”

She nodded in silence. She got up on the bed and pulled her knees into her chest.

“Will you tell me what happened?”

“Yes,” she answered quietly. “But I should get some dry clothes on.”

“Of course.”

I pulled out a clean black t-shirt with a holoprint of the Solar System and extended it to her:

“Here, take this. I’m gonna go get us something to eat.”

Leaving her alone, I went into the kitchen. Dad was looking at something on his comm, mom was fussing around the multicooker and, when I came near she asked, unsettled:

“How is she?”

“I don’t know yet. I left to let her get dressed.”

“Pizza and hot chocolate?”

“Yes, that’d be great. Thanks, mom.”

“It’ll be ready in three minutes. Will you wait, or should I bring it in?”

“I’ll wait.”

“Then help. Get out the pizza cutter...” Mom went silent. “Have you and her been talking again for long?”

“Not really.”

“Be very delicate with Melissa, Alex,” Dad added. “I’ve heard her dad’s having problems. That might be affecting their relationship. Do you like her, son?”

I nodded. Father winked, gave a thumbs up and sank back into his comm, watching the news.

“Mark, I think Alex can figure it out on his own,” mom noted, upset. “But let me tell you one thing, son. If a girl is having problems and she flies off to see you, that’s saying something.”

“Agreed,” dad snorted, glued to his screen.

Mom rolled her eyes. Just then the timer beeped and she took a steaming pizza out of the multicooker.

“Ready!”

With four deft motions, she cut the pepperoni pizza into slices.

“Sauce?”

“No thanks, mom.”

She helped me bring in the pizza and mugs of hot chocolate, and there Tissa grabbed them, having changed clothes. We were left alone again.

Seeing her pants drying on the back of the chair, she must have been wearing nothing but the t-shirt. Well that and underwear. Be that as it may, it was long enough to cover her intimate garments... almost all the time.

She threw herself on the scorching hot pizza with a groan that seemed to emanate from deep in her gut. For the record, I was also famished.

“Thanks, Alex,” Tissa said after chewing through the first piece. “I had nowhere else to go.”

“What about the guys?”

“They’re in the hospital,” she said darkly. “Didn’t you hear? They got attacked today, and in a blind zone! They got the shit kicked out of them, even got some bones broken... It’s a good thing none of them got their skulls cracked.”

“Who?” the news had me choking. “Have they found the people who did it?”

“Some inwinova.[3] Hung ripped off one of their masks, but all he could see was that it was an Asian.”

“Have they established an identity?”

“Alex, no! As I said, it was in a blind zone, and surveillance data doesn’t show anyone there at all! By the looks of things, they were the only ones around. Sure! And they beat themselves up!”

“Do you think it was freeborn?”

I asked, referring to the growing social movement of people who refused to get medical chip implants. These days, everyone got a chip. At first they were just to monitor vital signs and provide timely medical aid. But as the technology progressed, the “medical” chips started having more functions and one of them was constant government surveillance over every citizen and noncitizen, but the name stuck.

“Maybe.”

“Were you with them?”

“That’s the thing. I wasn’t!” Tissa said, as if her presence might have prevented the attack. “They were flying alone because my father came to pick me up. Over a dump, their flying car deviated from its route and made a landing.”

“How is that possible?”

“Manual control was locked, and someone hacked into the automatic system... Alex, it was either freeborn or people with hacked chips. After all, if they know how to hack a flying car, they can’t be just simple hoodlums!”

I was dumbfounded. Every automatic system had its vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit. But in everyday life, it was rare to encounter. The net was much more transparent than in the first years of its development, so full anonymity had become very nearly unachievable. All comms, both those integrated in the body and external ones were personalized, meaning they were tethered to just one owner. There was no way to access the net without a comm and, if someone did, it would be immediately disconnected! The VR police had grown into such a powerful organization that they outnumbered all other law enforcement bodies put together by many times, including both active AI security and boots-on-the-ground organizations. And what was more, regular police were more and more being replaced by robocops, a name invented by science fiction long before the first prototype was ever built.

Tissa chewed through the last piece of pizza and looked at me guiltily.

“I haven’t eaten anything since this morning. I went straight home from school, then from there to the hospital. At home I got into a fight with father... Then I wandered the city until nightfall, not knowing where to go. Thanks again.”

“Oh come on, it’s nothing. I had an idea. We should be looking for who stands to gain. Were...” I faltered: Tissa’s t-shirt slid aside a bit and my gaze caught on a bare thigh, “Were they robbed?”

“No. Malik had a gold chain on his neck, no one touched it. Nothing was taken. But it isn’t hard to guess who’s behind it, Alex...” Tissa sighed. “As the attackers were leaving, one of them said ‘a straight line segment can be drawn between any two points.’ Then he laughed as if he’d just made a very good joke.”

“A straight line... between two points... Axiom?”

“You’re smarter than the boys,” Tissa smiled sadly. “A statement so evident it can be taken without question. They didn’t put two and two together until I figured it out. It’s gotta be Axiom, or to be more accurate, Big Po. Wesley friggin’ Cho!”

“How are they?”

“I visited them in the hospital. They’ll be fine by tomorrow. The fractures will heal. The police officer investigating the case took some notes, said he’d interrogate Cho, but it’s impossible to prove anything. In his words, it looks like a bit of a stretch, just a way to try and slander someone over a conflict in Disgardium. He was more worried by the flying car hack! Moron! If we were higher category, he wouldn’t be acting this way! And you know what, Alex?”

With difficulty, I tore my eyes from a pearlescent patch of exposed skin. It made a big contrast with her tanned legs, drawing my gaze.

“What?”

“That spiteful, vengeful idiot will never stop! You should be careful too!”

“So should you. Nether, we can’t just leave it like this!”

“And what are you gonna do about it?” Tissa asked mockingly.

“We need to talk to him! Figure out if it was him or not...”

“Like he’s gonna tell you!”

“Whether he admits it or not, we’ll be able to make some conclusions based on how he reacts. I’m gonna go...”

I jumped up and started removing my clothes, heading into my pod.

“Hey, wait up, Alex!” she shouted. “It’s night now, he’s probably not gonna be there! We can talk tomorrow! We can fly to his school together...”

As soon as I stopped, I realized I was standing in front of her in just my underwear again. And this time I definitely should have covered up. My face flooded with red and, stumbling and falling leg-first into my pants, I got even more embarrassed. Tissa filled with good-natured laughter and I threw a pillow at her.

“Turn around!”

After I got dressed, I sat next to her.

“You’re lucky you weren’t with them.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” she shrugged indefinitely. “They’ve always treated me better than the guys.”

“Just a sec... So if you weren’t with them how did you...” I pointed at her cheekbone. “I understand what happened with the guys. But what about you?”

She turned dark and lowered her head.

“If it’s not too big a deal, I don’t want to talk about it. Can I stay here a couple days? When father comes to his senses, I can go back home...”

“So he’s the problem? Did he hit you?”

“No Alex, don’t even think of it!” Tissa shot up, grabbed me and shook me, her eyes burning. “Don’t you dare! Tell! Anyone! Do you understand?”

“Got it.”

She pulled her hands away and started nervously pacing the room. I figured it was better to stay silent and wait for her to calm down. In real life, the priestess of light was famed for her flareups of anger, and quickness to forgive. And as usual, she calmed down soon enough. A few minutes later, her chest had stopped heaving, the lightning out of her eyes and she sat back down next to me.

“If they find out, they’ll take me away from dad,” she said quietly. “And that would just kill him! I’m all he has left. He’s just having... difficulties and sometimes he... It was my fault; I was running my mouth...”

“And does your father have... difficulties a lot?”

“No, come on!” she shot out in fear. “No! He just needs to calm down... Come to his senses. So can I stay?”

“Of course, stay!” The thoughts of Tissa’s father instantly blew away when I realized what she was asking. In a flurry, I hopped out of bed and started picking up my room. “If you want, you can sleep in my bed and I’ll stay in the guest room.”

“Thanks, Alex.” She kissed me on the cheek and yawned, covering her mouth with a dainty little hand. She rubbed her eyes. “Then if you’re not opposed, let’s go to sleep...”

* * *

It was an uneasy night on the guest-room sofa. Intimate thoughts were twirling around my head, multiplying. The fact that Tissa was in my bed right sleeping thrilled me. By midnight, I had regained control over my imagination. But then something else got stuck in my mind – the attack on the Dementors. Somehow it seemed to transcend the average confusion between Dis and reality. Was Big Po really so vengeful that he would jump right to flagrant criminality?

It didn’t make any sense. Who was this Wesley Cho? Just a teen like me from a totally normal family. We weren’t even citizens yet! we had no money, no influence, no connections. His guild had decent cashflow, but that was in gold, which we couldn’t withdraw yet! There was no way of meeting players from big Dis. Our messages couldn’t even reach there, so...

All that led me to another idea. If what happened to the Dementors was Big Po’s doing, how did he arrange it? After all, the attackers were clearly not simple unemployed inwinova, they were career criminals. They had no chips, didn’t give a damn about citizenship categories, and had no dream of one day becoming citizens themselves. These were people who didn’t give a damn about the law.

With those thoughts in mind, I fell asleep. But as soon as I closed my eyes, Tissa and mom were waking me up. I could smell toast and fresh-brewed coffee.

“Rise and shine sleepy head!”

Tissa poked my shoulder and giggled. She was already dressed and looking very fresh, much better than yesterday. The bruise on her cheekbone had been treated by the Home Doctor, and not a trace remained.

“Get him up. Get him up, Melissa!” Mom egged her on. “Alex will always trade a hot breakfast for twenty minutes extra sleep!”

“There’s no such thing as too much sleep, mom!” I shouted, jumping out of bed, and went to get cleaned up.

We had breakfast without father. He as it turned out, had spent all night simulating a new project and was now sleeping it off. Mom set the table and drank a cup of coffee with us, then tactfully left us alone.

“We need to fly,” I said. “We’ll be playing hooky of course, but I won’t be able to calm down until we solve the Big Po problem.”

“Agreed. Let’s go!” Tissa said, full of unflinching vigor. “Let’s see what that lardass has to say!”

* * *

Flying Sails High, where Wesley Cho went to school along with, as I found out yesterday, Underweight, Overweight and Goosebumps, was of the same category as Tissa and mine. It was in a different part of the district, and it took almost an hour to fly there but with Tissa by my side it went by in a flash. Obviously they didn’t just let us in and we had to wait for Cho in an alley in front of the main door. And we had to give our names and the purpose of our visit. Such precautionary measures had become normal after a spate of school shootings, when people turned violent for no good reason and killed schoolkids.

We had to wait a long time: first for the bell, then for Big Po himself who, by the way, didn’t have to come if he didn’t want to talk. But he did. Most likely he was just curious. Either that or he was eager to mess with us. My experience with Wesley had given me the impression that he never missed an opportunity to remind you who was who, who was more important.

His pudgy, spongy figure was hard to mistake, even though this was the first time I was seeing him in real life. Tissa and I got up from the bench at the same time and I had to hold her back. She was seething with righteous anger, just bursting to throw herself onto Wesley with her fists. I had spent the whole flight trying to convince her not to, but she was stubborn.

“Well look who the cat dragged in! Sheppard! Tissa! Decided to join Axiom? You didn’t have to come all the way out here to do that!”

He didn’t extend a hand, just stood in front of us with a broad grin.

“Speak.”

“Yesterday someone beat up Ed, Malik and Hung,” I said. “We’re sure you had a hand in it.”

“Crawler, Infect and Bomber got beat up? What a pity... I don’t know anything about that.” He turned around to leave. “In any case, accept my sympathies.”

“You lying piece of shit!” Tissa shouted, throwing herself at Big Po, but I stopped her.

Wesley walked away, raising a hand, his middle finger up. Letting Tissa go, I caught him at the door.

“Wait Wesley!” I grabbed him by the shoulder, but he got out of it.

“Hands off, Sheppard!”

“Alright. Just answer one question...”

He looked at the clock pointedly and nodded:

“Make it quick, I gotta get back to class.”

“Just tell me how to stop this.”

“Stop what?” The mockery in his voice vacated all my doubts. He spat at my feet in contempt. “Well! Be more specific!”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“I do. And so do they. What difference does it make?” He shrugged. “I told them: one hundred thousand gold and the incident will be forgotten. But you know... even if they can find all that money, I’ll just tell them my price went up to one fifty!”

Big Po gave a vile laugh. It really sounded evil! I wanted to slam the chuckle down his throat, but I restrained myself.

“So that means you’re only interested in money and even that won’t change things?”

“Well... who said only money? Money just happens to be what I’m most interested in. But I could see myself accepting an artifact...” said Big Po, stroking the back of his head with a snicker.

“An artifact? Will a legendary do?”

Like hell I’d give him a legendary, I just wanted to get as much information from the Axiom head as possible. Maybe I’d find out something useful.

“Just fine!” his eyes lit up, suspicion flickering. “But where would a poor bastard like you get a legendary item? Is there something I don’t know about you, Sheppard?”

“Wait, I’m not sure I understand. If I just give you an artifact or legendary gear, you’ll forget the whole thing? You’ll leave us alone both in Dis and IRL?”

“Come on Scyth, to hell with him!” Tissa edged in. “Can’t you see he’s just mocking you!”

“No, I don’t want it!” Wesley replied, ignoring her. “You can’t get away with just giving it as a gift. Every transaction of that sort is subject to special corporate and police oversight. You know how many cases of meat-space blackmail and extortion there have been in Dis? How much money laundering? How many bribes paid in virtual gear? No, Scyth, this isn’t gonna be that easy.”

“Then what can we do?”

“Let’s say you have something to offer. You, because I will not be speaking with Rodriguez or his guys. I don’t trust them anymore. But let’s say you’ve got a legendary sword...”

“Okay. Or a mount. Or a ring.”

“Well, I’d have you bet your mount or ring on something. Something you know you will lose.”

“Like what?”

“Well, not the weather. It has to be a bet with some action. An arena match perhaps?”

“Scyth, don’t even think of it!” Tissa hissed, standing next to me.

“Oh, I’ve got a much better idea!” Big Po exclaimed. “I think Crawler will go for it like a dog after a bone!”

“What is it?” Tissa asked, squinting her eyes suspiciously.

“What about the clan tournament in the Arena? It will be my last one in the sandbox, and it would be my enormous pleasure to smear you into the sand in front of millions of viewers!”

The annual sandbox clan Arena games were, of course, not as popular as the big Dis Arena, but they still had millions of viewers all around the world. Axiom took the highest place of anyone in the Tristad sandbox in last year’s final rankings, which was how they’d become our top clan.

“Save your wet dreams for your girlfriend, if you have one,” Tissa snorted.

“God Sheppard, how can you stand her? Does she ever smile?” Wesley chuckled. “Anyhow, you and your clan place higher than Axiom and I’ll forget everything the Dementors have done to me, all my grief. And you’ll be off the hook too, no matter how much of a sketchy smartass I think you are. But if you can’t best us, you give me the legendary... which you don’t have. Alright, gotta run. For what it’s worth, I’ll be in the Bubbling Flagon after school if you want to make it official...”

Wesley, whistling a little tune, walked away. Tissa watched him and said through gritted teeth:

“Good luck, creep. Even if we had something to bet, there’s no way we could win! But what a monster, and...”

“Most importantly, we know it was him now. Were you recording that?”

“Yes... But it’s useless, Alex! He didn’t admit to anything. If I take this to the cops, they’ll tell us to get lost along with the audio.”

“So I guess we have no choice but to take the bet,” I sighed, making a decision. “When does the tournament start again?”

Chapter 15. The Awoken

“YOU’RE JUST as competitive as your father,” mom always loved to say. “Once you get into something, you dive into it head-first and long-term... until you find your next fixation.”

And for me now, Disgardium was a strong fixation. The way I felt after that disrespect from Wesley Cho only added to my enthusiasm and drive. My sharp inborn sense of justice, warm feelings for the Dementors and attachment to Tissa multiplied them. But nevertheless, before letting my heart decide, I ran the numbers. At the very least I tried, based on present data and logical extrapolations.

My ideas about Big Po were based in a very large amount of “if.” Too much. Too many factors had to come together for us to succeed, and a few of them were only hypotheses for now. But nevertheless, the idea of going toe to toe with Axiom had captured my imagination.

After school, Tissa and I flew to the regional hospital to see the guys. We hung out in a picturesque park full of ancient oaks on a quiet path by a fountain which, unfortunately wasn’t on due to the cold weather. There was a strong wind blowing, bending smaller trees, slipping under my clothes and causing me to shiver. We were all freezing but still didn’t go inside the hospital. Ed was severely bugged out and thought we shouldn’t discuss certain things in public buildings. And we were talking about Dis and Axiom specifically, basically running down the top-ten list of taboo topics. The guys looked normal, but Hung was a limping somewhat.

I didn’t learn anything from their explanations except that the attackers looked older and there were six of them. After Ed heard Tissa’s colorful retelling of our conversation with Big Po, he went psycho:

“I’m gonna tear that Chinese sack of shit to pieces! Has he lost his damn mind? I mean now that little bitch is mocking us! The Arena tournament! Yeah, sure! He must think we’re idiots and easier to beat in Dis.”

“Good thing there isn’t much time left before we go into the big world...” said Malik, drawing out his words. “And yes Alex, screw him. No one will touch us now. He gave us a big scare, but it’ll all be over soon.”

“Do you he’s just gonna get away with it?” Hung bellowed. “Hell no! I don’t know how, but I will get him back for this! It might take one year, maybe two, or maybe even ten. It doesn’t matter! I will not forget this!”

“We don’t have much time before the Arena. Qualifying matches begin the first week of the new-year break,” Ed said dispassionately. “All low-rated teams are split into groups of five, and only two of them get into the play-off bracket. Nobody below level twenty even tries. We’ll have no chance against any of them, much less Axiom.”

“Are they really that strong?” I asked.

“They were last year. Big Po was lower level for the last sandbox clan tournament, but Axiom let him on their team, and they performed admirably, reaching the top one hundred. Best of our whole sandbox! Nobody else from the Axiom’s main PVP team is left except Polynucleotide,” Ed said, pronouncing the nick like a tongue twister, as if spitting it out. “One-on-one, he has no equals...”

“If he and I were the same level, he would,” Hung announced. “We’re coordinated, good at teamwork and have a ton of experience...”

“But we aren’t the same level as him,” Malik threw out bitterly. “Scyth is twelve and Crawler is eleven. The rest of us are ten. A year of levelling straight out the window.”

“Yeah...” Hung sighed. “Even if we had something to bet, we won’t be able to level past fifteen. And we can only even hit that if we stay in dungeons all day and night...”

“Yeah, he can go fuck himself!” Tissa exploded without warning. “Alright, let’s drop it! They already figured out the vulnerability they exploited to hack our flying car. I saw it on this morning’s news. In school we’re safe. But in Dis... Let’s keep doing what we’re doing, guys! We aren’t in any rush, so let’s level as much as we can, save up resources, only come into town in the mornings while everyone’s in school...”

“Like rats!” Hung interrupted her.

A heavy silence fell. Tissa kicked some fallen leaves with her toe, Malik hugged himself at the shoulders, clacking his teeth. Ed was squinting into the wind and gritting his teeth and Hung sat down on a wet bench and extended his legs. The right leg wasn’t all the way healed yet, though the bone had grown back together.

I was not feeling strong enough to make up my mind – thinking tensely. But then I mustered some spirit and shot out:

“We’ve known each other since kindergarten. That’s ten years already. So tell me, Ed, Tissa, Hung, Malik... Can I trust you?”

“Of course!” they answered in synch.

“Okay. I might have a way we can kick Axiom’s ass...”

I fell silent. First they looked at me in surprise, waiting for me to continue, but then all hell broke loose. Malik shouted in jubilation, Tissa squealed and hung off my neck and Hung stood up and slapped me on the shoulder:

“I knew it! I always told everyone: Alex Sheppard is the biggest damn smarta... sorry, Alex... Is the smartest kid in our whole damn school! And he’s always got something up his sleeve! Isn’t that right, old buddy?” He stood up, excited, put too much weight on his injured leg and swore.

“Alex, you can trust us,” Ed said after the storm of joy had calmed. “But I’d caution you against it. You see, I think I can guess... not specifically, no. But in general terms. You’ve got some talent or quest, or ability, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, we don’t need to talk about it. At all.”

“So you’ll just trust me and do what I say?”

“Consider it done, but there is one little thing,” Ed reasoned reservedly, steady. “When we get home tonight, I’m gonna disband the Dementors. Big Po specifically wanted a bet with you and your clan, right? Not whatever clan you happen be in, but your clan. Do you understand? Well, you create one. It just takes five signatures and, with all of us, we’ve got it.”

“I don’t see the difference, to be honest...”

“There is a difference, Alex,” Tissa intervened. “You’ll see.”

* * *

Tissa had to fly home. Accessing additional profiles from one virt pod cost extra and required extra configuration, so she couldn’t log in from my place.

I sat in my room and didn’t enter Dis until she called:

“Daddy’s asleep, I’m home. I’ll be on in five minutes.”

“Got it, I’ll log on...”

“Alex! Wait. He might wake up tonight and be in a bad mood again. As soon as we’re done with the clan, I’m coming over, okay?”

“Not a problem. You promised my...”

I appeared right in the middle of the tavern dance floor, right where I had been dancing with Rita the night before. None of the Dementors were online yet and I walked over to the city council building. That was where Tissa, the guys and I agreed to meet. I figured I’d hand in the Eye of Murkiss while I had the chance, too.

The weather in Tristad this evening was favorable, especially after the dank, damp air and wind IRL. The darkening blue in the west was tinted reddish orange, not obscured by a single cloud. The heat was abated by the breath of a sea breeze coming in from the coastal lands of the nagas.

The city center had been cleaned up for the city council elections: the streets and square before the temple of Nergal had been swept clean by both bots and players with social quests. The building facades were strewn with colorful ribbons, light poles were adorned with flags depicting the crest of the free city of Tristad.

As far as I knew, this was the first time in sandbox history a player had run for city council. Ed explained how Polynucleotide had pulled it off: maximum reputation with the city, all city factions and every individual key character, those like Chief Councilman Whiteacre or Athanasius, head of the merchant guild.

Unfortunately for Big Po, there were very few players with the status of Tristad resident. Those who did had persistently farmed rep with the city via social quests instead of seeking adventure beyond the city walls, and could be counted with your fingers. And there was good reason for that. Reputation with Tristad had a merely tangential relation with that of all the other cities of the Commonwealth. Meanwhile, so-called “Tristad visitors” like me couldn’t take part in the vote. Otherwise the council post could have been handed to Big Po before the vote. I figured Axiom had looked for every possible lever of influence.

I caught Chief Councilman Whiteacre as he was preparing to go home, although the clock said there was still more than an hour before city hall would close. The Councilman, who had a rotating question mark over his head, indicating I could get a reward from him for completing a quest, looked to be in a very big hurry.

“Scyth! What a comfort to see you in good health!” he proclaimed, by the way, with no enthusiasm. “I really hope you aren’t coming to see me. I need to go, I’m in a hurry.”

“Good evening, Councilman! I have great news for you!” I in my turn took the scorpion eye and ogre head from my backpack, setting them at his feet. “I’ve taken care of two problems for the city, Sir!”

“Yeesh, how gross!” Whiteacre winced when he looked closer. “Evil from the depths and Wot’al the cannibal? Excellent! Great! Wonderful, Scyth! Please hold onto them for a second. Come into my office.”

We walked past a goblin, who was making a painting of three late kings having a feast: the human, elf, and dwarf who founded the Commonwealth. We turned down a hallway that smelled of old wood and dust, and, at the end of it, ran into a door. “Peter Whiteacre. Chief Councilman,” said the sign. The Councilman fumbled with his keys, poked one into the lock, threw open the door and invited me in with a gesture:

“Come on, faster honorable Scyth. Drop your trophies in the basket, and I’ll quick count out your reward.”

I stopped next to the wicker basket, which was about the size of a trash can and took a look inside. It was empty. A digital label over the basket told me it was “Indefinite Storage of Material Evidence.” I threw the heavy ogre head in there, but it disappeared approximately halfway to the bottom. Was this some kind of stationary portal? And where did all these heads, claws, eyes and other pieces of “material evidence” go? Ah, who cares?

Tristad City Council mission Dead or Alive: Murkiss completed.

Experience points received: 5000.

Experience points at present level (12): 5390/10100.

Your reputation with the city of Tristad has been increased by 50.

Current reputation: ambivalence.

Tristad City Council’s mission Dead or Alive: Wot’al completed.

Experience points received: 300.

Experience points at present level (12): 5690/10100.

Your reputation with the city of Tristad has been increased by 5.

Current reputation: ambivalence.

I turned around and caught an attentive gaze from Whiteacre. He was holding two bags in his hands and, at first glance, one of them looked heavy and stuffed full.

“Mr. Scyth,” Whiteacre’s tone changed, the first sign of my improved reputation with the city. “Five hundred gold for resolving the problem with the depths scorpion Murkiss. It was a big headache for everyone, especially the miners. The city’s bounty had been raised to twenty-five hundred gold, but as far as I understand, you overcame the monster with the help of your friends. And they, by the way, already turned in their Eyes of Murkiss. How many eyes did that creature have?”

“Lots, Mr. Whiteacre. It was not an easy battle.”

“Oh believe you me, I have some idea. It’s no coincidence the bounty spent so long awaiting its heroes! But allow me to finish up. As I said, I’m in a hurry. Tristad has new visitors arriving today and I have to go brief them. Here’s the reward for the ogre cannibal, as well. He was really wracking the nerves of our farmers and gatherers of rare medicinal herbs. As bad luck would have it, some of our most important herbs grow only in the lands where Wot’al once hunted.”

The bags turned to vapor in my hands as soon as I transferred the gold coins to my bag. I had never felt so rich either here or in the real world.

“You have my humble gratitude for taking an interest in our fair city, Scyth,” the councilman said in parting. “If you keep this up, I might be able to find you some more attractive cases if you’d like to be even more help to the city.”

The Dementors were waiting outside the front door. Crawler said softly:

“Hold out your hand. I’m going to put up the epic. You put it away immediately.”

As soon as I felt the heft of the epic loot in my hand, I put it in my inventory and read its stats:

Bow of Burning Arrows

Epic

Bow.

Damage: 28-42.

Possible effect on hit: spell Burning Arrow, dealing 12 fire damage.

+12% critical damage chance.

Durability: 300/300.

Requires level: 25.

Sell price: 85 gold coins.

Chance of losing after death reduced by 90%.

What an awesome bow!

Crawler nodded, agreeing with my unspoken admiration. I couldn’t use it yet but maybe I’d hit a high enough level before the Arena. The chances were low of course. But for now, I’d have to put it in my chest for safe keeping.

“Well, shall we go?” Infect asked impatiently. “The locals are starting to stare. We’re gonna have to teleport out again, but mine is on cooldown.”

“Don’t worry,” Tissa chuckled. “We can park our butts in the tavern and go on our merry way in the morning. Let’s do it quick, my dad is gonna wake up soon.”

“Well then, everyone out of the clan,” Crawler said morosely. “Well!”

“Who’s gonna go first?” Infect asked.

“Aw, hell,” Bomber waved a hand and, a moment later, I saw the clan under his nick disappear.

Tissa and Infect followed his example, but Crawler just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Even here in VR I could hear his teeth grating. His finger hung in the air and he clearly had to overcome himself to press the button, only visible to him, and leave the clan.

In city chat, I saw a scant notification:

07.12.2074 18:36> Player clan “Dementors” disbanded.

Ed Rodriguez looked like all the air had been let out of him. But on his face I saw not only pity at what could have been and somber resolve but also something bigger. Hope.

“Why the long face, huh?” Bomber barked. “This isn’t a funeral! It’s just a line over your noggin. I mean we’re all still together! And now we’ve got Alex with us!”

“Yeah, but it’s...” Tissa bit her lip. “Remember when we used to dream that the Dementors would be world famous?”

“We still will!” Bomber chuckled. “Right, Scyth?”

“I only have one request!” Infect pleaded. “Don’t call your clan something cheesy, okay? You know, nothing like these ‘Knights of Light,’ ‘Tristad Defenders,’ ‘Brotherhood of the Forest...’“

“What’s wrong with Brotherhood of the Forest?” Bomber faked indignation. “If you ask me, that’s a cool name! Well, maybe not forest, something a bit more exotic. Like swamp...”

“Brotherhood of the Swamp!” Infect broke down laughing. “What about Rocket Punks?”

“Rocket?” Tissa raised a brow.

“Yeah! With teleportation we’re gonna be the most mobile little punks this world has ever seen!”

“Well, the Jumpers...” Crawler grumbled.

“The Stick up Axiom’s Ass?” Bomber and Infect kept adding more options. “Pythagorean Theorem? Paragon? Exodus?”

“Alright, okay guys, we’re wasting time. Scyth, go to Carlson the scribe,” Ed walked over to the step leading to the city council building. “You have the ten gold to register a clan, Scyth?”

“I can find it.”

“As for the name, we can choose together or have you already made up your mind?”

“I have.”

I was being short because I was afraid of what I was trying to hide, guessing what might happen when we became clanmates. Would they just see my threat status right away?

Carlson the scribe, who had just finished up with the new players, was catching his breath with relief. He wiped his big forehead with an epic handkerchief the system identified as indestructible and took a silver flask from the inner pocket of his camisole as we came in. He set it aside, looking upset and greeted us morosely:

“Good evening Tristad visitors Scyth, Crawler, Tissa, Bomber and Infect,” he rattled off our names starting from the highest in level. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Good evening, Mr. Carlson!”

“I’m all ears,” the scribe tried to imitate grace. “But hurry up because my workday is ending soon. What are you here to accomplish?”

“Clan registration.”

“Requires three signatures from players level three or above.” Extending his pointer finger, he counted us. “Present. Would you all like to join the new clan?”

“Yes.”

“Requires payment of the clan registration fee, five gold. And another five for one of the standard clan symbols. If you’d like to choose your own colors, symbol, alert tone, create an in-clan system for messaging, signal amulets, banking, rent clan storage or see the full list of clan services...”

“Just go with default,” Crawler whispered. “We can change it all later for the same money. On our own, through the settings. Without this geek.”

“Thanks, we’ll just stick to registration,” I politely stopped the scribe, raising my hand.

“If you like, you can choose not to register a clan color and symbol. That will penalize reputation growth for all clan members...”

“We’ll be fine with the default symbol, scribe Carlson.”

“If you say so,” he shrugged his shoulders in dismay. “Five and five makes ten. That’ll be ten gold.”

I extended the cash, and the coins magically disappeared. In their place, I saw the clan creation window.

Registering a new clan requires at least 3 signatures from players level-3 or higher.

Push a line to sign the application.

First signatory (founder and clan leader): ...

Second signatory: ...

Third signatory: ...

Fourth signatory: ...

Fifth signatory: ...

I touched the first line and it changed to say: “Scyth, level-12 human.” With a second touch, I confirmed.

All the lines filled in, and a final confirmation button appeared for the clan founder to push. I did. The next window let me choose a symbol, which had no impact on anything but did add unique flavor and make the clan more recognizable. I scrolled down the never-ending list and chose a tab labeled “Animals,” settling on one that depicted a hippopotamus with an open mouth.

“I hope that isn’t to hint that I’m fat,” Tissa joked nervously.

The final window was to enter clan name. I could sense hot frenzied breathing behind me from the former Dementors.

“The... The Awesome Posse?” Infect guessed while I entered the name. “Awo... The AWOL?”

Clan registration complete.

Name: The Awoken.

Date of Foundation: 7 December 2074.

Clan founder and leader: Scyth.

Clan members: Scyth, Crawler, Tissa, Bomber, Infect.

“The Awoken!” Tissa exhaled when we left the office, a smile spreading on her face. “Alright, I like it!”

She wanted to say something else, but then everything suddenly went into motion. The boys pushed her aside, Infect tossed a gaze over the room, glanced at the door gave a report:

“Clear!”

Bomber grabbed me by the arm. Crawler pulled up my shirt sleeves and stuck a finger into my wrist.

“Like I was saying!” he whispered.

* * *

During the teleportation, my ears popped as always. I could still hear an echo of the clap as we suddenly appeared in the Gloomwood. Somewhere in the distance, as if through cotton, I heard Bomber’s voice:

“... place. Big Po’s scouts won’t find us here. We just need to get to the cabin in the woods. It’s next to the river. No one will be able to sneak up on us there, not even the ninja turtles.”

“Turtles? And ninjas? You need to stop stealing your daddy’s liquor! You might as well say the snail sprinters!” Infect laughed.

It wasn’t hard to get him to laugh. He would take any excuse to bear his pearly whites.

“Guys, just so you know, I might leave at any time,” Tissa informed us yet again, “if father notices I’m home and activates emergency exit. But I’d rather not see him, I’ve still gotta fly to Scyth’s...”

“I just don’t get why you’re going to his place. You could have come to mine,” Crawler grumbled, going off after Bomber. “Or one of the other boys’, if you don’t wanna come over.”

“First of all, your grandma doesn’t like me,” Tissa started justifying herself. “Second, she’s the first person father will call, like that other time. Third, Malik has a whole house full of brothers and sisters and I am not used to that kind of bedlam. Hung’s isn’t any better, but it always smells like weird food!”

“Woah there, sis!” Bomber reproached. “I don’t remember you complaining when you were slurping down dim sum and pork in honey sauce!”

“Well yeah, you...” Tissa waved it off. “But most importantly, I promised Alex’s parents I would come back. Mark wanted to talk about Dis and Helene said she was going to make a special dinner and tell stories about little Sheppard. So the choice was easy!”

We reached the abandoned hut. They told me there was a rare mob that periodically popped up in the area. Either a Howling Ghost or Lich Hermit, depending on how the RNG was feeling. But for now, it was empty.

“Clear,” Infect confirmed, using his high-level ability to detect hidden things: traps, ambushes, hidden doors and characters in stealth.

“Good, then let’s hunker down here,” Crawler suggested. And we sat down in a tight circle, and he spoke directly: “Scyth, sorry for being so forward, but we want an answer to this question right now. We can’t wait any longer, I’m sure you’d never tell us yourself. But now we know you’re a threat so let me tell you a secret. Now that we’re in the same clan, it’s okay. I also used to be a threat...”

I breathed a sigh of relief. After what they’d seen on my wrist, I thought my plans were ruined and I’d been hornswoggled like a child. Fortunately, they didn’t know my threat level or potential yet, otherwise they’d be freaking out. But even still, they could barely hide their joy. Not because they’d uncovered me, but because they now had a chance at a better future. They didn’t delve into the details, but I already knew it was mortally stupid to talk about such things in the center of Tristad. Instead, Crawler told everyone to keep quiet, then Bomber made a group and teleported us all to, as he called it, his secret place. Level-five Depths Teleportation let you do that, just pick any destination.

From Ed’s stories I learned, that right when he started playing, he came across an underground cave in the mountains. That was back before Tissa, Hung and Malik, who were younger, were even allowed to play Disgardium.

The day before there had been an avalanche. The rampaging elements had ripped up trees and bushes with their roots, revealing a narrow, secret hole and little Ed, just level two, his character named Nagvalle at the time, accidentally discovered it. Everyone’s first days in Dis were dedicated to exploring the world and he was no exception.

He crawled in deeper and, the farther he got, the more he cursed himself, because the hole was getting narrower. Before long, Ed could only go further and had no way of crawling back. And eventually, it led him into a lifeless cave lit by a dead white light that emanated from the ceiling. There he found a black little lake. The surface was smooth as glass and when he threw stones in, they sunk without so much as a splash or ripple. In Ed’s words it wasn’t even water, but some cold viscous liquid, sticky and thick as tar. As he walked closer, the level of the lake started to sharply rise, so tried to head back, reasonably concluding there was nothing good to be found down there.

But he couldn’t make it back to the hole, so he grasped a stone sticking out from the ceiling, climbed up the wall and just hung there. The water rose up then flooded out just as fast. But it left something behind that wasn’t there before.

There was crumbling skeleton on the water’s edge and, when Nagvalle searched it, he found a flask containing a strange elixir transfused with all shades of purple. When Ed reached that point in the story, he froze and a dreamy expression appeared on his face. He sighed:

“I was a fool! I should have set it aside until the open world, reached the frontier and drank it there. Then I really would have leveled up! But why shed tears now, what’s done is done!”

The Mephistroth’s Salt, and that was the name of the elixir, Nagvalle drank down immediately, figuring he wouldn’t get out of the cave alive, so the flask would be lost in any case. Even if he did get out, he figured he might run into some gankers. At first, nothing happened. But eventually he started to feel a fire burning inside. He was wrested, broken, his appendages bowing out and bending the wrong way...

And a levelless demon made its home inside the boy, giving him a single-use ability to domesticate any mob of any level by letting the demon possess it. The demonic pet, as explained in the skill description, leveled in time with its master but twice as fast, i.e. it would always be two times higher level than Nagvalle himself. And if it died, it would respawn eventually. That made the pet basically a free power-leveler for the ins’s of Disgardium, because it didn’t take any of the experience points.

As soon as Nagvalle realized that, a global notification went out about a new threat with U potential. Ed didn’t remember how he got out of the cave and left Dis, not knowing what to do. After that it was just about like me: a notification, a message from the corporation, frantically reading information online, panicked planning and not being able to share it with anyone. And his situation was complicated by the fact that he had a debuff as well. Or a buff, depending on perspective. But he was possessed. He gained experience points twice as fast while the demon was inside him, but that same spirit made Nagvalle look deeply inhuman. The whites of his eyes filled with an inky blackness, his skin turned crimson, and he sprouted huge claws that stuck through his boots and gloves. He couldn’t let anyone see him like that.

Ed started thinking of what mob to tame to get rid of his possession.

“After lots of consideration I chose Mosquito,” he told us. “I was on the edge of the Mire at that time, and it was a local boss. Basically, a monster mosquito the size of a truck. Level eighteen, the highest I could find in the sandbox. The taming went smoothly. The demon just left my body and bam! He was in Mosquito. And the bug changed shape, becoming even more nightmarish!”

“So what went wrong?” I asked, understanding perfectly how Ed must have felt.

“I couldn’t get rid of him. There was no way. He was always with me and was clearly labeled ‘Demonic Mosquito...’ And my reputation with all Commonwealth factions just plummeted. To hate.”

For days on end, Ed wandered deserted areas and dungeons, farming gold, items and experience. But he couldn’t do anything with the loot because he had no way of getting into town. He didn’t even have a way to send it to friends through game mail. After all, he was now an enemy to all people, elves, gnomes, dwarves and other races of the Commonwealth.

He was in a dead end, but it was not the end just yet. He had to draw out time until he could enter the open world, and from there head for the frontier or go join the dark races. But he was eventually found out. Someone noticed him and he just about got away before it was too late. And when he entered Dis the next day, the area was scoured. It was all leading to him getting eliminated before too long.

Nagvalle tried to hide in the mountains in a cave where nobody ever went. He entered Dis, spent his required time there, didn’t come out and went back the next day to do the same thing, or to be more accurate, do nothing.

Then one day, he went after a group of adventurers. The Demonic Mosquito attacked with no command. The group didn’t stand a single chance, but Nagvalle’s hiding spot was revealed. A hunt for the threat began.

By that time, Hung and Malik had already registered in Dis, and Tissa was just about to start. So Ed decided to give up. But he wanted to give himself up to his friends and share the reward for elimination. He sent the guys a link to some info about eliminating threats, adding that they should read it and learn it well, then said where to be in Dis and when.

After the tangential warning about Ed’s status, they went to the agreed-upon point. Mosquito would aggro anyone who appeared in his visual radius, and he had to be taken down first. That was a massive effort. Ed had to go to a high-level dungeon in the early morning, and rush him forward to the first boss. The combined efforts of the hostile dungeon fauna killed the high-level Mosquito and his half-hour respawn cooldown opened a window for face-to-face conversation.

When the guys saw Nagvalle, they got straight to work. It took them a long time, even though he wasn’t resisting, but the elimination procedure went off without a hitch. “I expel you from Disgardium forever!” Hung exclaimed melodramatically, driving the dagger into the heart of the dying Nagvalle several seconds before the corpse fully disintegrated.

Crawler, Ed’s new character, got a bit of money from the developers, an epic cloak and a permanent bonus of ten percent experience gain rate. And the reluctant preventers Infect and Bomber got more serious bonuses: a fire magic folio, a light magic folio, ten thousand gold, a scalable epic sword and a similar dagger.

In the end, that made up the starting capital for the Dementors, which Tissa soon joined. Crawler became a fire mage, Tissa a light mage, and the epic blades went to Infect and Bomber, impacting their own class choices.

“Great story!” I looked at Ed with different eyes.

“Yeah but that wasn’t the only reason I told you. As soon as it was all over, I went crazy on threats. It was like we all lost our minds, in fact! But unlike preventers, we were not trying to search and destroy, we wanted one of us to become one again. We combed the whole sandbox, stuck our noses into every hole, hoping to find at least something worth our while... We spent more than ten thousand on information and here’s what we found out: nine out of ten threats were part of a clan when they earned their status. And you can’t hide something like that from clanmates. They can see the threat marker on your arm. You understand?”

“Not exactly.”

“Keep listening,” Crawler said. “Once you get threat status, you can only go it alone. If a threat is not leader of their clan, the system gives them the option to leave the clan or refuse the status before a global notification goes out. But if you turn it down, you also lose all the abilities and plusses. There are no other options. That same crap happens if a threat tries to join someone else’s clan: either they can renounce their status and potential rewards along with their imba skills or... no clan. There’s no option to join otherwise.”

“But if the threat is clan leader...” I guessed.

“Then any clanmate who sees the mark will also become a threat!” Bomber couldn’t hold back. “It’s the only way that makes sense!”

“And there’s something else,” Crawler added. “A clan leader who is a threat can invite other threats into their clan. But that’s just a rumor...”

“Oh come on! So you are all threats now too?”

“Not exactly,” Ed rasped, slaking his thirst with a flask of iced tea and explaining: “We are now ‘subthreats.’ And that changes the whole equation! First of all, we cannot kill you now. Second, if you get eliminated, all we get is a penalty for failing to protect you. Third, if we tell anyone about you, the corporation will find out and hit us with a permaban and all associated punishments right up to lowering our category or even stripping us of our citizenship. Now do you understand how strongly we’re bonded? Helping you reach maximum potential is our shared mission. Because we will only get rewarded if you reach maximum. I bet we can do it before we leave the sandbox. After all, your potential is probably no higher than P, right? I think that’s the highest anyone ever got in a sandbox. What’s your threat class right now?”

“Before I tell you anything... Edward Rodriguez, can you show me anything to back this up? About the subthreats and whatnot...”

“Easy. Look in the restricted user section of the game encyclopedia. As a threat, you easily could have looked before. But I guess you didn’t, otherwise you wouldn’t be asking,” Crawler chuckled.

“No, I guess I never thought of it...” My face flooded red. “But what...”

“Well yeah. Your status is just part of the game. And given that, the developers have to provide a description, but they only have to show it to people it applies to directly. Don’t be too hard on yourself, I used to be just like you. I could have saved the clan a bunch of money if I read through everything before I wasted my status. We had to pay for it.”

My game encyclopedia did now have a “Subthreats” article, which completely backed up everything Rodriguez was saying. The former Dementors now were more motivated to keep me safe than I was! I would get some reward at least no matter what status I hit, the higher the better. But they would get penalized unless I reached maximum. Bingo! My lips spread into a smile.

“My current threat status is...” I said, making a video recording of their reactions. I’d save it for posterity and to watch if I ever felt sad. “Q.”

“Oh, wow!” they all exclaimed in admiration. “Cool! That means we can’t have far to go before maximum! We can split the reward, level up your next char and tear Axiom to pieces!”

“Just a sec...” Tissa said, displaying the most common sense. “Alex, what is your potential?”

“My potential? A.”

They all froze. I could see impatience and excitement on their faces.

“Well? Come on, spit it out!”

“A! I have A potential!”

“Yeah, we know you have some potential! What is your class? Don’t leave us hanging...” Bomber moved his lips silently, batting his eyes.

“His threat class is letter A...” Crawler whispered. “God damn!”

The mad celebratory roar that echoed through the landscape after that scared the ravens off the trees.

Chapter 16. In the Crossfire

THERE WAS NO GAP between the abandoned wood hut where we were sitting and the forest. The leaves of young trees and odd juniper bushes were intertwined with the poison ivy that grew all over the hut. It seemed to me that there, outside, something had appeared.

Meanwhile, the former Dementors had stopped celebrating and were now despondent. They hadn’t in their wildest dreams imagined my threat status could be that high. But soon their unrestrained joy was back, this time at the fact that, with an imba like me, they had an objectively real chance of upstaging Axiom.

I felt a tickle on my cheek, something crawling and sticking. I couldn’t see anything, but the feeling was unmistakable. It was sticky and slimy. I abruptly slapped at my face, but my fingers found nothing but thin air

The guys went quiet and turned their heads in discomfort. I had the feeling we were not alone, and I wasn’t the only one. The dead silence was broken by a barely audible unnatural sound from outside the hut, something rustling faintly like a flag in the wind.

Then a distinct scent of offal spread in the air. It was pungent and sweet, nauseating.

Crawler touched his pointer finger to his lips, calling for silence and nodded at Bomber. He reached behind his back. The sword, slowly crawling out of a matte anthracite scabbard covered in silver elven cursive, shimmered over his head.

“Stand up slowly, so we don’t aggro it. Bomb, you whomp it as soon as we leave. Infect, be ready to break its casts. Tissa, you... Basically, stick to the script,” Crawler whispered quickly. “Scyth, stay close to Infect if you wanna melee or next to me if you’re gonna shoot.”

“I lost my bow yesterday,” I shook my head. “Crag ganked me. So I’ll fight with my fists. But who’s out there?”

They all turned their heads in surprise, not understanding how a Class-A threat could lose to a ganker who was now down to level ten. But they didn’t say anything.

“The Lich Hermit respawned. Timer must have tripped,” Crawler explained. “Level sixteen or seventeen, no more. He hasn’t had time to get any bigger yet. But he can really damage. He has deadly DoTs and crazy debuffs, so we’ll basically all be like a few levels lower. There shouldn’t be any adds, so let’s just go straight for the boss. Alright, let’s go.”

We froze outside the hut, studying our foe. I could have taken it down on my own and without much effort, but I knew I had to practice teamwork for the upcoming Arena battles.

Although the local rare mob was called a lich, it bore no resemblance to Dargo the Lich, played by the late Clayton. The hermit hovered in midair, its lower limbs looking more like ghostly octopus tentacles, curling measuredly three feet off the ground. I looked closer and saw the creature’s gray face, sunken yellow eyes with vertical pupils, narrow slits in place of a nose. The Lich had no ears or mouth.

Lich Hermit, level-18

Magical creature

Local boss

This apparition was a quick one. It attacked as soon as Bomber took a step in its direction. Its tentacles all shot out together, went taut, vibrated and shot streams of jet-black filth. The volley hit us very hard: all our attributes plummeted by thirty percent, and our tank was caught mid-charge, slowing his superspeed to an unhurried pace.

The lich’s maw flew open. As it turned out, it did have a mouth, a lipless cleft. And it started speaking indistinctly. A spell trickled out of the decayed opening, it spread its arms and wisps of black smoke came up from the ground in a twenty-yard radius. We started to choke and cough, the earth started bubbling. Our movement speed was reduced even further, our feet bogged down. And the lich, still twenty or thirty feet away, was in no mood to stop based on the bar over its head, emptying to indicate casting progress.

I gave a Ghastly Howl, but it didn’t get it. Crawler just asked, recognizing:

“Crusher? Did you become a threat after him?”

I shook my head, but didn’t delve into an explanation. This was the perfect opportunity to build up some plague energy.

“Don’t be surprised at what you’re about to see!” I warned them, activating curse of the undead.

I hadn’t had time to tell them why exactly I had reached such a high threat class. First they all got way too caught up in the storm of happiness, then the lich appeared.

They all stared over at me, not yet seeing anything out of the ordinary. Neither did I. I wasn’t taking much damage from the rare mob’s AoE magic, and curse of the undead quickly expired when my health went back up to maximum.

And that was all because Tissa had kept calm and not stopped healing. Flashes of light emanated from her body and spread in rings, healing the whole group. The only one actually doing damage was Crawler, dumping fire spells of all kinds on the boss. But his level was much lower, so the lich’s health bar didn’t seem to be moving. And the debuff had weakened his magic even further. It was a shame I didn’t have that bow.

Infect, realizing we’d never reach the Lich Hermit like this, shouted something abruptly in Arabic and ran at him with the dagger. The thief must have been using some kind of ability, because his fast-paced jump broke the cast.

Turning soil underfoot, Bomber, Infect and I dashed toward the monster. But we weren’t able to sink our teeth in. The Lich surrounded itself with an impenetrable film of orange haze and gave an extended howl. The sound echoed through the surroundings, chilling the blood in my veins. And response came almost at once: corpses and skeletons crawled up out of the ground, and a soul-piercing banshee screech came from the woods. Ed was wrong, the boss did have adds.

“Bomb, get him! Tissa, focus on the boss for now!” Crawler shouted. “You have increased damage against undead! Scyth, what can you do?”

“Keep Bomber on the boss, I’ll take the adds! Tissa, don’t heal me!”

As I spoke, I activated curse of the undead again and ran in a spiral, drawing the risen dead to myself. Level fourteen or fifteen, normal mobs, but there were lots of them. I smashed their bones and made glaring holes in their bodies, Hammering the skulls off the skeletons and smacking rotting flesh off the zombies. When I got off a crit, it only took one. Normal blows took a few more, but that didn’t stop me. A minute later, not one add remained, but new ones had arrived. The banshee that was summoned from the forest had reached the battlefield and, after her, a huge wolf jumped out of the bushes.

Punisher, level 16

Undead

Local boss

Vassal of the Destroying Plague

I was the only one that could see the last line. It was “visible only to the emissaries of the Destroying Plague.”

“Son of a bitch!” Crawler shouted full throat. “This is a wipe! Scyth, if you’ve got any tricks up your sleeve, now’s the time!”

“Gotcha,” I answered and ran over to the wolf, gaining speed. “Punisher is mine!”

Ed shouted something, but his words were drowned out by someone else’s thoughts in my head:

“Greetings, herald. You called and I came.”

It didn’t sound like words as such, but it led me to believe Ghastly Howl could summon Punisher at a short distance, and he perceived me not as a master, more like an ally.

The description might give the impression this all took a long time, but in fact less than two minutes had passed since the start of the battle.

The wolf came up and gave me a friendly nuzzle to the shoulder. No additional control buttons showed up in the interface, and I didn’t understand how to give him commands. He didn’t react to mental commands, so I tried vocally:

“Kill the Lich Hermit!”

The massive wolf was at the boss’s side in one jump, latching into a dangling tentacle. The lich perceived this new threat as the most dangerous and turned to Punisher. His palm hovered over the wolf’s large forehead, darkness gathered and Punisher gave a heart-rending whimper.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, I slammed the lich in the face with a powerful Hammer and broke its arm with a second blow, stopping it from working its black magic on the undead wolf.

You have damaged the Lich Hermit: 635.

Health points: 1541/2300.

You have damaged the Lich Hermit: 37.

Health points: 1504/2300.

The spirit started to worry, forgot about the wolf and went to retreat, but it wasn’t fast enough. Punisher latched onto a tentacle and shook his head, trying to tear it off.

After slamming the boss with another Hammer, I looked behind me. The banshee, a disgusting old lady dressed in rags with absolutely savage hair, was in Bomber’s grasp and Tissa and Crawler together were taking down the last bits of her health. The old crone gave a wail, falling to dust.

The rare mob started another AoE spell. A bubble appeared in the ground, spreading a brown toxic smoke around the battlefield, but the cast didn’t last even two seconds. Infect got behind the boss and gave a Kick, breaking the spell and sinking his teeth into the lich’s back. Next came Bomber, charging the boss and rendering him motionless. I landed another Hammer, and a beam of light gave way to a heavy Hand of Nergal, flying down from the sky after Tissa’s cast. That made the dead wizard begin to smoke, then it caught fire when Crawler cast Ignition. A Laceration from the wolf rounded out our explosive group damage. Then, with a rustling hiss, the Lich Hermit popped like a balloon and turned into a puddle of tar on the ground.

Lich Hermit is dead.

Experience points received: 70.

Experience points at present level (12): 5760/10100.

The wolf stuck his snout into my chest. I pet his somehow wet head with both hands. He smelled of rotten meat. One of his eyes was rotten and I saw a worm wriggling around in it, diving deeper. I could barely resist the urge to vomit, thinking no one in their right mind would choose voluntarily to play a faction like the Destroying Plague.

“Thanks,” I said, looking the wolf in its good eye.

“Call if you ever need help, herald,” its thoughts came in my head again. “Within the forest, if I am nearby, I will come. Happy hunting in the name of the Destroying Plague!”

Licking my face with a cold slimy tongue, he disappeared behind some trees in a few leaps and bounds.

Bomber looked at Infect, coughed and asked:

“Is that big wolf your pet? And... What’s up with your face? Your skin is falling off and I can see part of your skull!”

“Wait!” Crawler said sharply. “Not here and not now. Tomorrow after school you can tell us everything, Scyth. Who’s gonna pick up the loot? I say we leave it to Bomber. He has almost two hundred slots and a high carrying capacity. Scyth?”

“Agreed. Especially because I have a slight problem there. I can’t...”

Crawler raised a hand and I understood. Tomorrow.

“And we can solve the Big Po issue at the same time. I say we go our separate ways. My sister’s waiting. She missed me when I was at the hospital.”

“Yeah, I’ve gotta get to Alex’s, too,” Tissa agreed.

Our tank leaned over to pick up the loot.

“So, in the banshee dust there’s white trash and a bit of silver. And the lich... Oh, looky here. A blue!”

Hand of Vecna

Rare

Wand.

Damage: 11-15.

+13 Intelligence.

+4 Endurance.

+3% critical damage.

Durability: 150/150.

Requires level: 15.

Sell price: 11 gold coins, 49 silver coins.

Chance of losing after death reduced by 50%.

“Can I take it?” Tissa asked. “It’s better than the green I have now and hopefully I’ll be able to use it soon.”

No objections followed.

“So then Scyth, is that all for today?” Crawler asked. “Before we talk everything through, it’s best not to do anything.”

“We could farm the forest...” Infect drew out.

“No,” I shook my head. “Crawler and Tissa need to log off, and I’ve got stuff to do.”

We shook hands goodbye then, one after the other, exited Dis. But a moment before the timer gave its last tick, I changed my mind and canceled.

I had time before Tissa would be back, and I realized there was something I needed to do.

And when I activated Depths Teleportation, it brought me right where I wanted to go.

* * *

I looked everywhere and there was no one around. On the edge of my vision was the wall of a dense dark forest, its mossy trunks looming. Everything else I could see was endless swamp. The depths skill did have its flaws, spitting me out not on Behemoth’s island but a short distance from it, though fortunately on dry land.

Depths Teleportation skill improved: +1.

Cooldown time reduced from 24 to 16 hours.

Current level: 2.

I turned around, watching my marker spin on the map until I knew where to go, then waded into the muck, stepping on the butt ends of desiccated trees, jumping from boulder to stone and balancing on a sagging carpet of moss and duckweed. My cloth shirt, bedraggled by the skeletons, zombies and Lich Hermit, was soaked in sweat and the damp of the swamp. Nearer the Sleeping God’s tiny island, I had to walk through very deep muck that came up over my head, getting attacked by ruthless swamp creatures. But that was a good way of filling my plague pool to the brim and nourishing Behemoth at the same time.

“You came...” a weak voice rang out in my head just as I was getting up onto dry land.

When I came up, the puddle of protoplasm wriggled and ran in circles.

“What is your purpose, apostle? The temple hasn’t been restored yet...”

“Something has changed, Sleeping one.”

“Come closer and let me in,” came the voice, settling down.

I walked up to the puddle and planted a leg next to it. It flowed into me, and I saw the avatar of the Sleeping God, a projection in my mind. A nightmare in the flesh.

“Thank you very much for the new followers,” Behemoth said sincerely. “It is but a dewdrop in the ocean of faith we need to gain back control over our dreams, but now we can communicate once again.”

“We?”

“Yes, us, the Sleeping ones, whose names have been completely forgotten by the intelligent creatures of this dying world. Their names are Leviathan, Kingu, Tiamat and Abzu.”

The developers clearly weren’t all there when they thought up those names. All five were considered evil spirits in various ancient cultures.

“What would you like to discuss, apostle?” Behemoth droned. “Projecting an avatar is a waste of energy, hurry up!”

“The Destroying Plague, whose mark you see on me, has tasked me with helping it conquer Tristad. It is the only large city for a hundred miles, and taking it over...”

“No, you must prevent this takeover!” the Sleeping God barked. “Though that spirit presents itself as an unthinking force of nature, it is nothing of the sort! In fact, it is an expression of the dark side of the One with true knowledge of the Power, an abominable entity which you call a god. Making it more powerful will only hasten the outbreak of the Nether!”

“Who is this abominable force, oh Sleeping one? To whom do you refer?”

“One of the new petty gods. They have grown too numerous for the limited energy of this world to sustain. The one who marked you... Its brand is tainted by the corruption that plagues it. It is the way the Nether engulfs worlds, tempting the highest powers with even greater might. What do you stand to lose if the Destroying Plague’s demand goes unheeded?”

“I will lose all the abilities it gave me, Behemoth. The invulnerability, when...”

“I can see!” the god interrupted me. “I wove an impression when first you came to me, and now I have done the same. You have become stronger. You can now control when the infection takes you... Well, well, well... Impressive! It is primitive, crude but effective flesh magic, multiplied by the infinitude of the Nether. And I’m not surprised it works only on newcomers to this world such as you. Any native would be devoured by the curse in a matter of days, becoming a thoughtless beast fully subordinate to the Destroying Plague. But not you. Your natural ability for regeneration is more powerful than the curse...”

“But if I lose this primitive ability, my life will get harder.”

“You won’t lose it,” Behemoth proclaimed. “Restore the temple and I will have the power to give you something similar.”

“I cannot reach it for the next three months, oh Sleeping one. The island you spoke of is beyond the bounds of where I, as a newcomer, may visit. And the Destroying Plague’s mission has a time limit...”

My whining went unanswered. In fact, it was directed at nobody in particular. Behemoth had disintegrated, leaving behind just a peaceful puddle of protoplasm and an open quest.

Behemoth the Sleeping God would like you to stop the Destroying Plague from conquering Tristad.

Reward:

— 10000 experience points;

— skill Invincibility of the Sleeping Gods;

— skill Vengeance of the Sleeping Gods.

Penalties for not completing mission:

— lose the status Apostle of the Sleeping Gods.

Of course, I had no way of refusing the mission. And now I would have to make up my mind: either rotting corpses that threatened the world with a deadly epidemic, or the mysterious Sleeping ones, whose name put me on edge, which was to say nothing of Behemoth’s appearance.

* * *

After Behemoth left me, I decided to spend some time on farming before Tissa came over, because there were lots of nasty, fat mobs in that muck. Sticking to my well-rehearsed scenario, I sunk into the swamp and spent about an hour on the genocide of amphibians, reptiles, enchanted balls and a myriad of smaller life forms, like blood-sucking leeches as long as my forearm.

The curse of the undead, as always, didn’t let me down. I waited for my health to drop into the orange, then activated invulnerability and the spilled blood attracted hungry mobs galore. And that provided enough farming to level up.

You are now level 13!

5 free attribute points available!

I put the five points into endurance, my lowest attribute. No interesting loot dropped, just various alchemy and leathercrafting resources, plus some strange cooking ingredients.

Toxic Filet of Bighead with Blood

Cooking ingredient.

Value: 27 copper coins.

I filled two inventory slots with that. Nothing more fit, because the third slot was occupied by the epic bow. I wanted to experiment with Cooking, but it was a challenge without fire and a pot. I’d try concocting something in the tavern, if Chef Arno would let me.

After level up, I got onto dry land and finished off the creatures that followed me, then waited for combat mode to expire so I could exit.

I left my character on an island in the middle of the Mire and exited Dis.

And when the pod doors slid aside, Tissa was standing there, shaking her head in mockery:

“Tsk-tsk, Alex. Trading a girl for a toy!”

“Have you eaten, girl? Because I’m as hungry as a wolf.”

“Speaking of wolves. Is that part of your threat?”

“To be honest, I don’t think so. It isn’t my pet, I cannot control it and, as it turns out, I can only summon him in Gloomwood and only if he’s nearby. Anyway, to hell with Dis. We can talk about that tomorrow with the guys...”

I got dressed, peeked out of my room and shouted:

“Mom! What’s for dinner?”

Dad wasn’t with us at the table, he was spending the evening with a client. In our age of virtual conference halls, when people from various parts of the world could meet anyone they liked without leaving home, simply by using a pod, speaking face to face had become as rare as it was pointless. But when it came to secret projects, serious people preferred the security and confidentiality of meeting in person. And that was just what father had flown off to do.

Tissa and mom immediately found a common tongue. Tissa talked about losing her mom, started crying and I didn’t have time to even blink before the two members of the fairer sex started whispering about girl stuff, then went into a different room to tell secrets. I scratched my head, thought about what to do and chose to study.

When I finished up, I’d go get Tissa. But she came back before that. After she entered my room, she closed the door and giggled in embarrassment. She had my t-shirt on again, and there was an element of intimacy in that. Yesterday she was all sopping wet, but what about today? Seeing where I was looking, she tugged down on the hem, walked up and gave me a hug.

“Thanks, Alex. For everything. Yesterday was a horrible day. I thought my life was ruined, and it would only get worse from there. Well, you understand, right? I had no perspectives In Dis, and IRL… I mean, to be honest, I had no hope that you and your parents would just let me stay so easily. We haven’t talked in so long... But you went above and beyond! Deciding to help us without even knowing what it could do is one thing, but...”

“Not a word about Dis!” I raised a hand in protest.

“Okay, okay!” she chuckled. “And another huge thanks to your mom! She’s just awesome! She’s so easy to talk to...”

She fell silent but I understood what she meant. There were some topics girls could only discuss with a mother, especially if all their friends were boys. Well, and if you didn’t have your own mother... I thought about that, continuing to hug Tissa, and my heart sang for joy, because she wasn’t backing away.

“By the way, why did you call yourselves ‘the Dementors?’“ I decided to break the awkward silence and change the topic.

“A little random sure, but I’ll answer.” Tissa smiled. “Did you know Ed was a fan of Voldemort? He thought Harry Potter was basically cheating with his invulnerability to the dark Lord’s magic. Like, the poor guy runs out of horcruxes and suddenly it was all pointless... Not fair! Anyway, because of that we decided that, when we went into the open world, we’d join the dark races. The Death Eaters was taken, so we chose a different name.”

“That’s so... dark.”

“You’re one to talk! Have you seen yourself in the mirror with that curse of the undead? Haha! I mean, light gods, good races... There’s no such thing as good and evil Alex, especially in Dis where every race has its own truth. Just tell me one absolutely evil race!”

“Hmm... The orcs? No, they’re just savage. The nagas?”

“Sure, the nagas supported a dark deity, but do you know their prehistory? They had no other choice! They’d have all died otherwise!”

“Demons?”

“Yes, demons symbolize absolute evil, but! First of all they are not a playable race and second it is their nature! If you were born a demon and grew up in an atmosphere of harsh competition, in an overpopulated society controlled by an all-powerful dictator whose commands simply could not be disobeyed without getting disembodied...”

I was taking in the smell of Tissa’s hair as she spoke about the residents of Inferno when the doorbell rang and the front door opened. I heard mom’s voice. Tissa looked at the door, worried, but I reassured her:

“That’s father.”

“Ah, Mark?”

“Yep. Oh, now you can get to know my dad better. I’m sure you’ll have something to talk about! After all, he spent a few years in Dis just about nonstop! He used to lead raids back when...”

Buried in Tissa’s neck, I couldn’t see the door so, when I heard a different voice, it came as a complete surprise:

“Hi... Alex... Melissa?”

Slowly backing away from Tissa, I turned around. Standing in the doorway was a girl I barely recognized. In fact, it was damned hard to see even the slightest trace of Eve O’Sullivan now. I looked dumbfounded at the unfamiliar face, noting the results of the plastic surgery. And seemingly, I wasn’t the only one:

“O’Sullivan, is that you?” Tissa gasped.

“Eve, hi! You look,” I drawled, “great...”

My discomfort was easy to understand. Eve’s tight short shorts revealed a set of long, ideally smooth legs. A high-necked sweater ended below her chest, revealing a flat tanned tummy. Her bust, threatening to break her top wide open, had become larger, but it was all in proportion. I didn’t have much experience, but I was still certain I would need two hands to cover just one of them. Eve’s hair had been dyed as well, from bright red to light blonde.

But the biggest changes were to her face. And although her eyes were blue now, overall the doctors had managed to keep her unique features but reshape them to make her very attractive. Insanely attractive. I had a hard time looking away, so much that it embarrassed Tissa.

“Thanks...” Eve answered mechanically, not taking an eye off the guest wearing my t-shirt. In confusion, I moved my hand and stopped embracing Tissa. “And what... are you doing here?”

“Nothing special,” Tissa answered quickly and gave a crafty smile. “Maybe...”

I struck her with my gaze, asking her to keep quiet and not throw fuel on the fire, then shot up and grabbed Eve by the hand:

“This is awkward. Sorry, friend. Sit down!” I brought in a chair and she sat on the very edge despite herself, her arms crossed on her lap. “It’s just so surprising! Both your visit and... the way you’ve changed. I mean, sure, I knew it happened. We’ve been talking on the comm, but still. Seeing it with my own eyes... You look stunning! How was your recovery? Tell me everything.”

Eve bit her lip. Old habits die hard. I could see how severely upset she was. Only then I noticed she was fitfully clenching a small bag. Eve extended it to me.

“This is for you. A t-shirt. It’s a glow-in the dark replica of the night sky...” Eve pulled out her gift and unfolded it. “And it has a couple modes. You can change it to show the whole Solar System. In real time. Here, look... Touch any planet, it will get bigger. Pretty neat, huh?”

“I really like it!”

“I’m glad,” she answered with a lifeless voice. “I saw it in a souvenir shop at a spaceport on the moon and I remembered right away how much you love space.”

“Thanks, Eve. Wanna sit with us?”

“I’d love to, Alex, but I think I came at a bad time. I won’t bother you. Bye, Melissa.”

She got up from the chair, slid a gaze over Tissa and headed for the door. I went after her to walk her to the door and found myself admiring her gait, her raised head and splayed shoulders. By the looks of things, she’d gotten posture correction. The front door went up, letting the guest out, and she wasn’t even thinking of turning around.

“Eve!”

She stopped and looked at me:

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for dropping by. And for the gift.”

“It’s nothing, Alex. Good night... And you know something else?” she asked, her eyes glistening with tears. “Screw you!”

* * *

The next day after school, the five of us flew to the southwestern coast. I didn’t understand why we couldn’t just discuss our plans outside, but they were insistent.

Hung picked the spot, saying he knew a place where we could eat cheap Chinese food. A forty-minute flight later, we landed on a launch pad and, hoods down to stay dry in the heavy rain, ran into the snack shop. On the street, which stretched along a deserted beach, there were dozens of cafes and restaurants. One of them, stuffed to the brim with plastic tables and with a Chinese sign out front, was our destination. We came in and took a seat at the window.

“When I was a kid, father always brought me and my brothers here. This time of year they don’t get much business, so we’ll be able to see if any flying car lands in the parking lot,” Hung said.

“We flew a hundred and twenty miles for that?” I asked skeptically. “Was there really a need?”

“This is a different district, Alex. Now if any pre... kghuh-kghuh,” Ed made an unnatural sounding cough, “ven... kghuh-kghuh... ters are listening in and filtering conversations by keyword, they’ll at least get the wrong sandbox.”

First I thought their paranoia was over the top, but then I remembered what was on the line and mentally thanked them for the foresight.

A waitress came up, a sweet looking Chinese girl. Hung ordered for all of us, and in Chinese. After that, he said something else and she left. She came back with a wicker basket.

“Take out your comms and throw them in here,” said Hung. “You’ll get them back later.”

Looking at the others, I unclipped my comm and threw it in the basket. Hung nodded in satisfaction, then explained:

“We don’t know who we’re dealing with. If they can take over a flying car, they could easily be listening through our comms.”

“And even still, it’s better to err on the side of caution,” Ed added. “So look...”

He wrote on a napkin: “Threat – citizenship. Class – category. Preventers – teachers.”

“Got it?”

I nodded. Ed balled up the napkin and stuck it in his pocket.

“Good, so then tell us the nature of your citizenship, and how you got such a high category.”

Over my tale about my Category-A citizenship, Ed and Tissa were taking notes and making calculations on napkins. From time to time Malik, a real math-wiz, corrected their work. And Hung just sat there, his eyes partially closed and smiling mysteriously. In passing I mentioned the legendary Whistle of Summoning, which I decided to put up in the bet with Big Po. I felt Tissa, sitting next to me, find my knee under the table and give it a hard squeeze.

Their surprised eyes were constantly getting bigger and, by the end of the story, after the Destroying Plague, when I was getting to the Sleeping Gods and their bonuses, their jaws just fell to the floor. Crawler and Tissa turned on their analyzer implants and spent some time in deep thought, chuckling as they worked through the news about these divine entities. Picking up his jaw, Ed spoke first:

“The Sleeping Gods have much more potential. But! Scyth has hit the limit for accepting new followers, right?”

“How did you find so many followers for the Sleeping ones already, Alex?” Tissa asked anxiously.

“Don’t worry about that. For now, other than me, only mobs believe in the Sleeping Gods.”

I told them about the group of kobold outlaws, expelled from their clan and the Patrick mission. With pity, I finished:

“So I recruited the kobolds and now there are exactly thirteen including me. It’s a shame but, for now I can’t take you...”

“We didn’t know we’d be joining up either,” Tissa consoled me. “And the temple is beyond the edge of the sandbox. We can’t get there before we go into big Dis.”

“Yes, we need to build the temple,” Ed announced. “But let’s say it’s possible. If Po takes the bet then, for the most part, the Unity from the Sleeping Gods won’t give us an advantage in the Arena. Just Scyth as apostle will get ten or so extra attribute points. In the Arena, that difference will be easily compensated by one decent piece of gear, and we won’t see anyone there in green, I guarantee it.”

“Yeah, few enough people try their luck with blue,” Infect added. “Maybe at the qualifying stage.”

“So then, we need to take full advantage of the Destroying Plague abilities while there’s still time,” Ed continued. “We’ve got complete invulnerability, a respawn stone, and Scyth’s crazy damage on our side. And he can one-shot any boss. It’s a no-brainer. For levelling, it’s just a dream! We need an optimal route, locations, dungeons. Me and Tissa will take care of that. We can calculate a reasonable pace for time versus experience points. We can pick out a route between locations taking into account mob respawn times and dungeon cooldowns. Gold is of secondary importance. We can gear up in ins’s.”

“We can just use the plan from before,” Tissa noted.

“Yes, but you’re forgetting about speed. With Alex, we’ll basically be able to clear dungeons nonstop at supersonic speed. The main thing is not to show what he can do out in the open...”

“And we won’t,” Hung announced confidently. “He’s got Resilience at max and even without the abils he can tank better than me.”

“How awesome that his plague hits are logged as normal ones!” Malik exclaimed, tearing himself from the bowl of pork-fried rice.

“We’ll start farming tomorrow. Tissa, how’s your dad?”

“Back on his feet. After this, I’m headed home.”

“Then we’ll get started tomorrow!” Ed looked at me guiltily. “Alex, you don’t care that I’m taking the lead here, right? I mean, you’re clan leader...”

“But you’ve got more experience,” I answered. “So keep it up. But first check what I think. The way I see it, there are three things we should think about. First, about levelling. Ins’s are nice, but if one is constantly closed for maintenance, people are gonna get suspicious. Sooner or later, they’ll put two and two together. So I suggest we farm the Mire. Is there any way to help us not drown? I mean, for me I don’t care, but...”

“Water-walking potion,” Tissa said quickly. “One silver per stack, it’s one of the first recipes learned by all alchemists. The aucs are full of ‘em.”

“Great. As far as I know, just about no one goes to the Mire. Like, they do quests on the border by hunters’ camp, but nobody goes deep. And the mobs there are high level.”

“Uh, we’ll get crushed there, Alex,” Hung winced. “Are you sure? There are packs of crazy bots. And, you aggro one and half the location’s on your ass! We wouldn’t even go there before the conflict with Axiom, and now with our levels...”

Everyone went quiet for a few seconds, and all I could hear was the sound of chewing.

“We’ve gotta try!” Malik suddenly supported me. “No one has ever found a dungeon there, right? Who knows, maybe we’ll stumble across something. And then, maybe we die, but who cares? Alex can raise Tissa and she can raise everyone else. What, have we never gotten wiped before all of a sudden? Remember how many times we tried Evil from the Depths? We never got sick of running in from the respawn point! And here look: we’ve got an immortal one-shotter tank and a respawn stone! People dream of being able to pay for a chance like this!”

“Okay, we’ll consider it,” Ed summarized. “Alex, what’s second?”

“The temple. Without it, the number of followers is limited, as you know. So I’d put it as one of our top priorities.”

“The Sleeping ones quest is important, I agree. But there’s no easy way to get to the island for now. Once you go outside the sandbox in the ocean, Exhaustion kicks in. We might as well forget about the temple until we get into the open world. And where are we gonna get builders? And even if we do restore the temple, how do you think we’re gonna get followers in the sandbox? That will attract the attention of the ‘teachers’ right away,” he said, bending his fingers into quotation marks. “What next?”

“The Arena,” I said. “I’m meeting with Big Po this evening. I’d say you guys better not test his nerves by showing up. Anyway, I’m gonna put up my ghost wolf, which is worth enough to pay for part of my studies. How are we gonna work on teamplay to make sure I don’t lose it?”

“Oh, we’ve got that down pat,” Hung declared, snatching the last grain of rice with his chopsticks. “We’ve just gotta work you into it.”

“We will,” Ed said confidently. “But we need to rework our tactics completely. After all, Scyth isn’t just a damager. But first, Alex, let’s run around together for a week. I’ll look at your combat style and learn your attributes. It isn’t enough to just win. We need to win in such a way that no one can tell about your ‘citizenship.’“

* * *

I got home by evening. I sat with my parents while they ate dinner and pecked a bit at a plate of food, listening to mom’s lamentations about what a “poor girl” Tissa was and about how I shouldn’t dare let her down. Then I dove into my pod.

“You came...” the protoplasm of the Sleeping one moaned out.

“And left,” I answered, activating Depths Teleportation. “See you, Behemoth.”

I found myself, unfortunately, not in Tristad and, fortunately, not in the Olton Quarries either. I was in Gloomwood, but not far from town. I made it there without incident, went through the gates and headed for the Bubbling Flagon. On the central square, seeing a sign for the weaponsmith’s quarter, I remembered how I hadn’t yet trained any Unarmed Combat attacks, and decided to finally drop by the trainer.

Finding the building, lost among a jumble of others, was no easy task. Barkers, drowning out one another, shouted about unsurpassed trainers and discounts, and banners were vibrantly adorned with advertisements. I saw Master Kirito’s swordsman’s school, and “the Academy of the Art of the War Axe of the famous Master Figley.” No joke, that was what they called it. Based on the etching outside, he was a dwarf. There were also competing shops of armorers, weaponsmiths and blacksmiths at different levels of competence and for different sized wallets.

“Could you tell me where to find the school of unarmed combat?” I asked a yawning guardsman named Malone. “I think the master is named Sagda.”

“What business do you have with him, ragamuffin?” he asked, casting a sidelong gaze at my tattered gear. “I’d say you need a tailor! And a bath!”

“I want to learn to fight.” I replied, the living embodiment of patience. “So where can I find him?”

“The one who fights with his fists? Little Sagda?” Malone chuckled. “He closed his school. He had no students, so he had to find a different way of earning his keep. You can find him either in the back yard of the tavern, where Tashot does his underground fights, or in Madame Laquichie’s House of Pleasure, where he works as a bouncer. But you might be a bit green for that place, boy, missing hair in a couple spots. If you want, I can check if Sagda’s there now. But...” The guardsman leaned down and whispered: “Just so you know, it isn’t free to enter. Can you spare a gold?”

“Thanks, I think I’ll get by on my own.”

The house of pleasure... An age-old dream for many in the sandbox, but off-limits to all us kids. There were legends about it, but I had never so much as met a player who had been inside. We simply couldn’t enter: there was an invisible film over the doors that detected our age and stopped us with a warning. Interestingly, no one had ever asked why such an establishment was in a sandbox in the first place. But nevertheless, Tristad was considered a developed city, so there were bots who lived a normal and full life here, as well as workmen who could be served real ale in the tavern. They could also enter the House of Pleasure, it just cost.

I decided to go looking for the master tomorrow, and figured my Cooking experimentation could also wait. I had bigger fish to fry, namely Wesley Cho.

I went up into my personal room, dropped off the loot, took the Whistle of Summoning out of my chest and headed into the bar area. Big Po was sitting there surrounded by officers of his clan. Overall, from what I’d seen of his gameplay style, he spent much more time strategizing and leading than on his own levelling. However, it was completely possible that one didn’t impede the other.

I stopped at his table, which was covered with a Dome of Silence. Polynucleotide nodded, letting me know he’d seen me, and kept speaking. Then he pointed at me, laughed silently and the other Axiomites took his cue. Wiping away tears, Big Po invited me in with a gesture. The dome disappeared and I sat at a vacant seat.

“The Awoken! Guys, he really went and made his own clan! Not bad, Sheppard! I see you aren’t the kind of guy who throws his words around. Ready to bet?” He chuckled. “Well, I don’t make bets with poor people, apologies.”

“Wesley, I didn’t think you were they type of guy to just throw his words around,” I goaded. “That change?”

“No, come on...” He was not embarrassed. “I told you clearly that I would only accept an item of quality higher than legendary. But to look at you, you don’t even have the money for a green, so...”

“So here is what I have to bet!” I took out the legendary Whistle of Summoning, let them read the information, then put it back in my inventory. “Well, are we gonna bet or what? Should we summon an Arbitrator?”

Ed was the one who told me about Arbitrators, a special kind of AI for resolving disputes. He had sent a standard contract to my mailbox, and I added to it and forwarded it to Polynucleotide.

“You’re a lucky boy, Scyth!” he exclaimed. “No really, where’d you get your hands on this?”

“It isn’t there anymore. Read the text.”

He bored into me with his eyes, but didn’t ask for anything else. With a cartoonish sigh, the leader of Axiom started to read.

“You really thought this through... son of a bitch,” Big Po said thoughtfully. “Irina, JJ, check this out. Should we take it?”

“Until the bet is settled, Axiom shall be required to cease harassment of every member of the Awoken both in Disgardium and the real world...” Irina quoted. “It’s a scam. They’re drawing out time, Po. Qualifying matches won’t start for a month, then the games last almost a month...”

“Well, how to put this...” Wesley mechanically wiped his brow. “If they wanna buy time, it’ll cost them. Alright, I’ll take the responsibility. We can decide what to do with the mount later. Maybe I’ll buy it off the clan for my collection.”

He exchanged glances with the officers, got some nods of agreement and distinctly, looking at the ceiling, said:

“I, Polynucleotide, summon an Arbitrator to register a bet between myself and the player Scyth.”

A flaming blue Eye took shape over the table with a gentle hum. Arbitrators had no level and legend held that they were emissaries of the gods.

“Subject of the dispute?”

“A bet on final position of the clans Axiom and the Awoken in the upcoming sandbox Arena tournament. If Axiom places higher than the Awoken, Scyth will give me the legendary Whistle of Summoning artifact. If the Awoken do better than Axiom, Axiom shall stop harassing all members of the Awoken. Here’s the full contract.”

“Bet registration initiated,” the Arbitrator stated in a crystalline voice. “Subject of the dispute can no longer be changed. If either party initiates cancellation, they will be declared loser. The conditions of the bet have been analyzed and determined to be unequal. Polynucleotide, please confirm that this bet is not intended to manipulate Scyth in another world or illegally transfer a valuable artifact.”

“No way!” Big Po exclaimed. “Arbitrator, none of this violates the game process! Our clan has superior forces and development and we can decide who we go to war with! After all, that is one of the reasons to make a strong clan! Scyth is proposing an end to our war and I am willing to give him that, if his clan can best mine in the Arena. If they cannot, I want compensation for giving him a breather.”

“Rejected. Polynucleotide, this is your final warning. Would you like to make an equivalent bet, or do you admit defeat?”

“Irina, run to storage, quick!” Wesley cracked a fist on the table, overturning a glass of cream beer. “Bring any legendary, the cheaper the better...”

“You have ten seconds,” the Arbitrator announced dispassionately. “Nine... Eight...”

Big Po looked like a ghost. His hands shaking, he started dumping epics out of his inventory, and the clan officers started doing the same. But every time the Arbitrator adamantly pronounced:

“Rejected. Value not equivalent. Four. Rejected. Three...”

Then the clan leader put forth his final argument.

Arena Master’s Horn

Legendary

Unique item.

Trinket.

+20% to all main attributes for whole group.

Use: Summon ogre-gladiators to fight for you until the end of battle. Ogres are always three levels higher than summoner.

Cooldown: 24 hours.

Only for Bard class!

Chance of losing after death reduced by 100%.

“Wager accepted. Bet registered. All items wagered shall be confiscated until the bet is finalized and will be awarded to the winning party. Best of luck.”

The Arbitrator disappeared together with the two legendaries, leaving behind a fading crystalline ring. All sweaty, Po was sitting with his mouth wide open.

“Aw crud...” I heard from one of the Axiom officers.

“It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Polynucleotide.” I stood up from the table and squeezed Wesley’s drooping hand. “Good night!”

Emerging from the bubble, I headed for the opposite end of the room. Now that was worth celebrating.

Chapter 17. Fight!

I GOT SOME DISTANCE from Axiom’s table-HQ and spent a long time standing at the bar turning my head in search of anyone I knew. The former Dementors weren’t in Dis yet, so I had no company, though we had agreed to meet at approximately this time to discuss the results of the negotiation with Big Po.

“Hey, hun. Grab me another beer!” a bearded guy at the bar shouted over the music.

He was dancing to frenetic guitar rhythms performed by a trio of bards, one of whom was a cute girl with an impressively clean voice. First tenderly cooing a couplet about a young thief girl in unrequited love with a hard-hearted raid leader, she then filled her lungs, bulged out her eyes and shifted to a full-throated rasp about her attempt to attract his attention with Leroy-Jenkins-esque antics.

“It’s a wipe! Wipe, wipe, wipe! Take this! Wipe, wipe, wipe!”

The abrupt transition made the bearded dude shudder, then he threw his beer mug in the air and started waving in time with the chorus. He must have either liked the song or identified with the subject matter.

The tavern was filled with appetizing aromas of roasted meat, fresh baked goods, fragrant herbs and ale. The waitresses darted around the room like deft little squirrels as Tashot the owner, a swarthy middle-aged guy with a gut and shimmering bald patch, watched like a hawk. Various mobs and players were coming up to him regularly, and he would take out a thick disorganized notepad and jot something down.

I heard a clanking notification to say that Tissa had entered Dis and, a minute later, I saw a message in clan chat: “Well, how’d it go?” It wasn’t hard to guess what she was asking about, so I answered right away: “He took the bet! Details tomorrow.” Tissa sent a happy smiley and left the game immediately. Clearly she was leaving to tell the guys my answer. They had all decided to spend this night with their family because we would have to spend the whole next month on nothing but sleep, studies and Disgardium.

At the oaken tables, everyone was just having a good time regardless of whether they were bots, players or noncitizens. I recognized a couple of them and my lips spread into an unwitting smile.

In the far corner, I saw my old friends from Cali Bottom: Manny the miner who I’d stood up to Crag for and Trixie. Like all noncitizens, the little man looked like his real self in Dis. He was stomping his feet and waving his hands furiously, trying to get my attention. I waved back and went over to see him.

The seven workmen were washing down dark dwarven ale to stave off the heat and making eyes at a languid, beautiful bot. Manny introduced me to his brigade, mentioning what I’d done for him. Their attitudes noticeably changed. They squeezed my hand ardently and patted me on the shoulder while Trixie, slipping out of his seat, ran off to get another chair for me.

“Will you sit with us, Alex?” Manny asked. “Sorry I’m not offering a drink. You know about the age adaptation effect...”

“Like alcoholic ale will turn into cream beer if it’s in my hands?”

“Yep, something like that.” The chief miner summoned a waitress and made an order. ”Even if it stays in my hand and you just take a sip, the drink will permanently change. And I’d rather avoid having my drink transmogrified.”

“Why don’t you just drink in the real world? Is it more expensive?”

“You know, not especially,” Manny frowned. “The price of similar stuff IRL is about the same. You might think they’re just selling digital code to a projection of the mind... But do you know what this dwarven swill does to me?” Manny raised a glass. “The VR pod just activates certain parts of my brain, imitating the effect of alcohol. And the thing is, the effect is real. Just like you get from real booze, but it doesn’t damage the body. You understand? No side effects like fatty liver, alcohol poisoning or hangover.”

“Your order. A dream beer.” The waitress, played by Jersey Locatelli from my school, placed a mug in front of me.

I took a few big sips and licked the sweet foam off my lips.

“How are you doing, Alex?” Trixie asked. He added: “Uh, I’m a miner now!”

“I know, Trixie.” I smiled. “I’m doing well. How’s your grandpa?”

“Aw...” the little man waved a hand. “Belly-achin’. Everything is wrong with him. He wanted me to say hi if I saw you. So hi from him.”

“Old man Furtado is breaking down,” Manny sighed. “Alright, let’s drop the sad stuff...”

He was interrupted by the familiar and somewhat surprised voice of Rita Wood:

“Scyth? Is that you?”

“Hello, Overweight!” I turned and answered. “Sorry about that dance... My mom hit emergency exit.”

“That’s what I figured. I hope it was nothing serious. Is everything alright?”

“Yes, everything is fine...” I faltered, and though I wanted to talk to her, I didn’t want to offend Manny and Trixie by turning away from them midsentence.

“Anyway, I’m over here,” she said. “At that table. Oh god, Goosebumps already wrote me a private message saying to invite you. Basically, if you’re feeling like it, come join us!”

Patting me on the shoulder, Rita walked away. I mentally thanked her for not drawing attention to the fact I was sitting with noncitizens. That, to put it lightly, was considered strange.

“Manny,” I returned to the conversation with the foreman, “how are your pods different from normal ones?”

“Ha!” he exclaimed. “Come on with that! In every way! We call ours coffins, and they are locked into Dis only. Snowstorm gives them out for free as part of a charity program for noncitizens. And you know what that means?”

I shook my head and Manny answered:

“Characters that enter through our kind of pod are assigned a separate class. We’re not players, not NPC’s, just friggin’ laborers! We get no experience, so we never level. That’s for one. We cannot take combat skills either. That’s two. And that means we can only improve trades and resource gathering professions, that’s three. Praise all the gods that they gave us full perception. But that’s just one side of the coin. Pain sensations are transmitted one hundred percent. So like it or not, the only thing we can do is work.”

“Or sit in a dungeon,” Trixie threw out.

Manny hushed the little man and slapped him on the back of his head.

“How many times do I have to tell you to keep your mouth shut, Trix?” he whispered.

“What, Alex already knows?” Trixie shrugged.

“Oh yeah?” Manny asked, surprised in his turn. “Well, he’s not the only one here, dum-dum!”

An uncomfortable silence fell, which I broke with a question I’d been meaning to ask for a long while:

“Manuel, is there anything stopping you from buying a normal pod? You could level, play like everyone else and earn money through farming...”

“Not exactly. There are no formal restrictions against it,” Manny replied gloomily. “Except for... the price. A foreman like me, earning ten percent more than everyone else, would have to save up for twenty years to buy a normal pod of the lowest category. But I’ve got a family to feed, too.”

“And have there ever been any... noncitizens... that set a precedent? Has anyone ever made it?”

“Sure, of course,” Manny shrugged. “But it’s like a lottery, you understand? Take a billion people, you’ll always find a thousand lucky souls. Like for example there used to be someone named Rachel Kessler who lived in Cali Bottom a few years ago. She worked washing dishes in a tavern and got close with the chefs. Her and her husband lived an incredibly meager existence while they saved up for a pod... They were saving, but that was only the beginning. It isn’t so easy to get even that kind of capital. Anyway, then she drew on her experience and took the cooking trade. At first, she bought ingredients from noobs: rabbit meat, berries, venison. You know, the stuff every player farms in noobsville. Then they sold it as cooked food practically at cost. That was how she levelled her profession. And they experimented, of course.”

“I remember Aunty Rachel!” Trixie boasted.

“He remembers...” Manny chuckles. “Who doesn’t remember her? Now she has her own restaurant in Darant, and her signature dishes are what most top clans use to buff! Well and of course she was awarded citizenship. After all, success in Dis is equivalent to making it IRL. But you already knew that, right? Now Kessler has a boatload of legendary recipes of her own invention, a whole thirty! She might even have more these days...”

* * *

After talking with Manny I gestured to Rita and Goosebumps that I would be right back and headed into the tavern kitchen. The Rachel Kessler story had inspired me, and I resolved to work on my trade a bit. After all, we were going to be doing some clan leveling soon and every bonus better food could provide would be welcome.

But before I could leave the bar, the music suddenly fell silent and bar owner Tashot appeared on stage. He started speaking and I turned, my interest piqued.

“Honored residents and visitors of Tristad!” Tashot proclaimed, puffed up haughtily and gesticulating like an actor. “Let me remind you that today is the day of our weekly individual mini-arena, the tournament of the Bubbling Flagon! At present, we have only seven registered contestants, and we still need one more fighter. Entry fee: one hundred gold! Winner take all!” Then he coughed and quickly added: “Minus a small commission for the organizers. Let me remind you that the judge of the tournament is the inimitable master of unarmed combat, Sagda!”

Suddenly, a short man appeared next to Tashot. Wearing no shirt and loose-fitting pants, his long black hair was bundled up in a big braid, its tip glimmering dangerously. He spun in place, jumped up and made a series of lightning-fast punches and kicks, practically hovering in midair. After that he bowed, drawing applause. The things Master Sagda demonstrated seemed like a kind of magic. The trajectory of his blows flickered with a dim blue light, and concentric circles of disturbed air emanated from the endpoint of each one.

“And let me remind you that we are taking bets on this tournament!” Tashot said after brief applause for the judge. “You may place bets with any of the waitresses or me personally. The tournament will start in half an hour in our back yard!”

I walked through the crowd as it dispersed, some of them running off to Tashot to place bets. But I was trying to reach Master Sagda, who had already sat down at a separate table. His eyes closed, he drained a glass of dark ale with obvious glee, savoring it like a traveler who’d just spent several days in the desert.

“Master Sagda, good evening! Can we speak?”

He set down the glass in dismay and turned. There was nothing nice in his facial expression.

“You cannot place bets here, archer. Go see the owner of this dive or one of his girls.”

“I’m actually here to ask about unarmed combat training...”

“Ah!” he exclaimed, understanding. “So you’re one of those types, eh archer? I’ve heard of fools like you, who train themselves in all forms of combat. Idiots! There’s no sense in learning something new before mastering what you already know, and you’ll never master anything if you don’t understand what I’m talking about, even if you had several lifetimes! Dilettantes! I cannot bear such people! So get out of my sight!”

His tongue was quite loose, but I was familiar this sort of drunken reasoning. People like him formed their sentences on the fly, reaching a verdict without even trying to understand. My mother was the same way. When she drank wine, she would ask questions then answer them, then use that to reach a conclusion that had nothing to do with reality. “Alex, did you have lunch in school? Of course you didn’t. That isn’t good for you, you know! You aren’t giving your growing body what it needs to get stronger.” Something like that. And replying, “mom, I did eat lunch!” wouldn’t change a thing.

This NPC, though not a human, was given an AI that worked the same way.

“More ale!” Sagda shouted, slamming the empty glass on the table. He frowned even harder when he saw that I was still standing there. “Are you dumb, boy?”

“You’re so unpositive, Master Sagda. For the first time in a long while, you have your first real student and you’re overlooking him to drain mug after mug of cheap swill in a tavern. Is this where you belong? Do you really enjoy judging sham fights for public amusement?”

Sagda hit me with a gaze as cold as Bose-Einstein condensate. I felt beside myself and looked down at my bare feet, feeling a lump of unfounded fear rise in my throat. There was no reason to fear a master, right? But for some reason, I really wanted to take my words back.

A moment later, the floor went out from under me and the back of my head slammed into it. An arm’s length from my face, his lips curled, the master hissed:

“You kobold-donkey hybrid. You must have completely lost your mind if you think you can talk to me like that!”

Then he belched out a curse, spattering saliva, but I smiled. He could say whatever he liked. My reputation with the master had just gone up by five, sending me a clear message that I had gotten through to him. Tashot ran up to the commotion:

“Is this kid bothering you, master?” the tavern owner asked.

“No, everything is fine,” Sagda answered after a moment’s consideration. “I just had to give a small demonstration of force to this unbelieving youngster, Mr. Tashot.”

With a chuckle, the fat man quickly moved away. The master helped me up, extending a hand and returned to the table. I gathered some courage and sat next to him.

“What?” He raised a glass of ale to his mouth but didn’t drink, peering at me through the head of foam.

“Teach me to fight, master!”

“I do not train bowmanship, archer!” the last part he spat out with such spite and lashing hate that I got the impression an archer had stolen his wife.

“My unarmed combat skill is much more impressive than my shooting. With all your experience, haven’t you learned that you cannot judge a book by its cover?”

“The gods are never wrong, and their information tells me that you are an archer,” the master grumbled, now calmer and returning to his mug. He downed half and set it back on the table. “But even if you are not who you claim to be, I got out of that game. Find yourself another trainer.”

He told me to get lost with a gesture, losing all interest in our conversation and starting to sing along with the song being played on stage. The female bard group was performing a well-worn hit of this world about gankers lurking around the corner.

“Look at the stars, look at the sky...” Sagda said, drawing out his words in a piercing, horrifying voice.

Nether! If I was having such a hard time with my sky-high charisma and persuasion skill, what chance did anyone else have? Or had this mob actually changed profession and now the AI simply was thinking up excuses to brush me off? The label under his name spoke to that pretty clearly. Unlike Hunter Conrad, who had trained me to shoot, Sagda was not identified as an “Unarmed Combat Trainer.”

“One hundred gold,” I said, trotting out my final argument. That was more than I gave the hunter by exactly one hundred times. “Teach me some special moves, please.”

Sagda gave an extended retch, held his eyes closed firmly, laughed and looked at me with unhidden approval.

“You remind me of a burr I picked up on the steppes of Kharestan, archer. It took a chunk of my flesh with it, then I spent the whole rest of the day digging out spines. What would you like me to teach you? How to punch?” He extended a hand. “I’ll give you a free lesson, appreciate it! Here: ball your fingers into a fist, swing sharply while exhaling and extend your arm, aiming with these two knuckles. Now pony up. One hundred gold!”

“I’m serious, master.”

“Then I am serious as well. Prove to me that you are worthy. You still have time to register for the tournament and, based on your generous promises, you’ve got the money. We just so happen to need an eighth fighter. The battles are by elimination. Win at least one.”

“Then you’ll teach me?”

“Everything you can be taught at your level. And my instincts are telling me you’re capable of a lot, so the whole shebang is gonna run you five hundred. And if you’ve got a problem with that...”

“Nope, that’ll be just fine. Shake on it?” I extended a hand.

My reputation with him jumped up another ten points. Still he was ambivalent, but the boost was significant. He squeezed my hand aggressively and so hard that tears welled up in my eyes.

“Go get yourself registered,” he snorted in surprise, having realized I was not going to howl in pain. “Let’s see what you’ve really got... archer. And I don’t want to see any bow-and-arrow in the arena. At the very least not as a primary weapon. As I already said, I don’t train bowmanship.”

* * *

I was slightly worried whether someone from Axiom would be watching the battles, but their table was empty. This was below their level, seemingly.

The tournament was set to begin in ten minutes. I studied the list of participants up on the wall. On a blackboard, there was a bracket drawn in chalk with eight participants from levels thirteen to fifteen. One of the quarter finals had me pitted against a level-fourteen air shaman named Jasper.

“Take down his totems,” Master Sagda came from behind me. “If he gets three up, you might as well surrender. He’ll be three times faster, surrounded by an air shield and have an elemental, which will both slow you down and hammer away from afar with Air Cleaver...”

I looked around and saw Sagda whistling away, already talking with Tashot. The tavern owner was delighted to have found an eighth fighter, and said I would get a ten percent discount for the whole next week. Considering my class penalty, it seemed just about worthless, but I didn’t forget to thank him. Whether for that or my mere participation, my reputation with him jumped up five points.

Some other things were weighing on my mind more than the tournament, though.

First of all, I had to make sure I didn’t reveal myself. Of course, I could not use curse of the undead, but I also wanted to keep my maximum-level Resilience a secret. That meant I couldn’t afford to let the battles drag. The shorter the battle, the less damage I would take, and the less logs would be out there. But I couldn’t one-shot either. Basically, I’d try to weaponize the same tactic I’d used against Crag in the Arena.

Second, money. I had enough to pay for Sagda’s training but, after that, I’d be empty-handed. One hundred for participation, five hundred to the master and that would be it. I’d be poor again. Poor... Damn, and I was in basic beginner gear!

I headed across the whole room to Overweight’s table. Goosebumps saw me and gave a goofy smile.

“Hi, Alex!” she exclaimed. “Finally you’re joining us!”

Rita shook her head.

“Goose, you make it too obvious when you like something! Behave yourself,” she whispered to her friend and turned her gaze to me. “Alex, are you coming to join us? Please?”

“Not yet, Rita. I registered for the tournament. Listen, we need to talk. Alone. Can we go somewhere else?” While I waited for an answer, I nodded at Overweight’s pretty friend: “Sorry Goosebumps.”

“I see how it is!” she said, her eyes open wide in astonishment. “Rita, did you have your eye on him too? It’s always the quiet ones...”

There were another two girls sitting at the table, who snickered at the comment:

“So the famously unavailable Rita Wood is putting herself out there?”

“You’re spouting nonsense!” Overweight flared up as she stood. “My relationship with Scyth is strictly business!”

“So that’s what you’re calling it now,” one of the girls said, pointer finger raised. “Business!!”

I did nothing to dispel their suspicions. I really did like Rita, which had me in a bit of a flurry because I was in love with Tissa. And recognizing that made me feel uncomfortable. Then, all tied in a knot, I got embarrassed and my face blushed deep red.

“See you,” I said, grabbing Rita by the hand.

We walked over to one of the columns in the middle of the room. I didn’t know why we couldn’t just talk there. What was so secret? But nothing had changed, I still turned into an idiot around girls.

“Is Undy with you?” I asked.

Ideally, I wanted to be able to pick through both traders’ wares.

“Chris? He’s grounded, doing homework. He fell way behind in school, the teacher sent out a strike to our folks, his second of the year, and now they’re mad. They wanted to ground me too, but my grades are fine. Just a minute...” She looked up, reading the text over my head. “Did you join a clan? The Awoken? I haven’t heard of them...”

“It’s a fun clan.”

“Ah, I see. Who’s leader?”

“Uh... Me.”

“You made your own clan?” she froze, her mouth open. “Aw nether! Pretty good going from a noob on a bench to running your very own clan! Where’d you get that idea? And why?”

“Uh, well...”

“Does it have anything to do with Axiom? I’ve seen you with them You looked like you were getting along so well...” She suddenly cut herself off. “Okay, you don’t have to answer. I respect a trade secret! So tell me what you’ve got. Because you’re gonna be late...” she said, nodding at the stage where Tashot had started announcing the beginning of the tournament.

“I need to get some gear right now. Anything. All that matters is I fill all the slots. Do you have your stuff?”

“Ah! Looking at you, I had no idea how you were gonna fight in that. I’ve got some stuff on me, some in my chest, I’ll run up. Any special requests?”

“No, I trust your experience. Most important, make it fast. I don’t need any weapons unless you’ve got some with bonuses. I’m gonna fight unarmed. It’s gonna be a proper backyard brawl...”

“Sure thing. I’ll pick out some stuff you can keep using after. I’ll bring it to the arena in ten minutes.”

I liked how calmly she reacted to the odd situation.

“Is that all?”

“No. There’s something else. It isn’t urgent, but I need money. Do you think you could...?”

“How much?” Rita asked, interrupting. “I have almost fifteen hundred...”

“No, no,” I said, embarrassed again. “You aren’t understanding. Basically, don’t ask why, but I have crazy penalties on trade. I’ve got a few pieces of gear to sell, could you maybe throw them up on auc for me?”

Comprehension dawned on her face and businesslike intonations peeked through in her voice:

“Of course, Scyth! I have a seventy-five percent discount on auction commissions! And my items start higher up the list! What do you think I leveled the skill for? Me and Undy take five percent of the sale price for consignment services but, for you, I won’t charge. What do you have specifically?”

“Listen, I’ll just message you a list of everything I’ve got, okay? And feel free to deduct commission, because this isn’t just a one-time deal, Rita. I’m gonna sell all my stuff through you from now on. Thanks!”

“Then don’t even worry about paying for the gear today. No sense in trading the same money back and forth...”

I wasn’t expecting it from myself, but I kissed her on the velvety cheek, which I had to get up my tiptoes to reach. Then I ran into the backyard. My battle was the last in this round, but I wanted to watch my potential opponents in actions.

* * *

Part of the backyard, especially trampled and enclosed by a flickering magical dome, served as a makeshift arena. The audience of several dozen, clinging to their cream beers and dark ales, surrounded the arena and were stormily voicing predictions.

The first fighters were already in their corners of the improvised arena, checking their weapons and renewing their buffs. They were both melee characters but only one was a warrior, while the other was an assassin. The first, Terry, was stuffed into a suit of plate armor, standing behind a body-length shield he held in one hand and squeezing a short sword in the other. Mongoose the assassin meanwhile was flaunting a suit of leather armor and wielding unusual weapons, a small axe with a curved handle and a dagger that emanated black soot. Both of their equipment was studded with greens and blues. As far as I could tell there was only one epic, the warrior’s pride and joy, his shield.

Tashot came into the middle of the platform, immeasurably delighted. There were rumors that he used to fight as well, both in official Commonwealth tournaments and plain old military campaigns. After taking a pension, he opened the tavern and fattened up, but he had never lost his old love of a good fight. Among other things, these tournaments allowed visitors to blow off steam and settle festering issues without tearing his bar down.

“My dear residents and visitors of Tristad!” Tashot began, smiling ear to ear. “Welcome to the weekly tournament of the Bubbling Flagon! The first of four first-round matches will begin shortly, but first let me remind you of the rules! The tournament will follow a standard playoff bracket! We allow all kinds of buffs, elixirs, potions and scrolls, just as we allow fighters of all levels to take part! Fights are limited to five minutes! If a winner has not been determined before then, a Sudden Death curse will be triggered, lowering health by one percent per second! Basically, it’s all standard, like any arena in the Commonwealth! Today’s participants are all equally experienced and hardened by tournaments and matches, except for one beginner. You’ll be seeing him in the final round of battle. We’ve got a hot one for you tonight, folks!”

“The tournament of the Bubbling Flagon! Round one!” Master Sagda’s magically amplified voice rang out. “First quarter final! Two-time champion of the Bubbling Flagon tournament, level-fourteen warrior Terry versus three-time finalist, level-thirteen assassin Mongoose! Fighters, make your final preparations! Three! Two! One!”

“Fight!” the crowd wailed along with the commentator.

Right away, the assassin went blurry and instantly materialized behind the warrior, having made some fantastic jump over ten feet into the air, and swooping down right on his opponent’s head. The warrior darted away and swung his sword but missed. Mongoose then slowly, stomping grandly, turned around, circled Terry and attacked again with a swing of his axe.

The warrior waited with his sword extended toward the attacker. And at the very last moment, he jumped: not out of the line of attack but at Mongoose, swinging down with such force that the air howled. But he missed again. And that must have come to a surprise to him, because it broke his rhythm and his subsequent attempt to dodge came a second too late. And that was all the assassin needed. Appearing at Terry’s unprotected side, he stunned the warrior and, caught off guard, the warrior began to teeter. Mongoose gave two shouts and his silhouette flickered yellow, then flashed red, surrounding himself in an aura of orange that surged with veins of fire.

“Well, well, well! As expected, Mongoose has chained together Can Opener and Bloodlust! Armor is completely ignored and damage is doubled!” Sagda exclaimed, commentating. “But might it be too early? This is a critical moment!”

The assassin then sunk his teeth into his opponent, starting with a special and immediately chopping into the warrior’s neck with his axe, going through his armor. Then his dagger worked its magic, also ignoring the warrior’s armor and mincing the poor bastard’s innards like a butcher. With a groan, he shoved the agile bloodthirsty assassin away, turned in place, put all his weight onto his right foot, gave a sharp swing... and again didn’t hit his unbelievably nimble enemy.

The opening phase of the battle had lasted just twenty seconds, but the warrior’s life was already down by two thirds. The assassin decided not to build on his advantage, though, and jumped back to a safe distance. His volcanic aura faded.

Bearing his teeth, Mongoose shouted an insult, but his opponent made no reaction. Instead, he bit the cork of a Great Health Potion, popped it open and drained the flask in one gulp. That was all, he couldn’t heal that way twice in one battle.

“It looks like Mongoose the assassin is on his last legs,” I heard Tashot’s voice next to me.

Master Sagda was of the same opinion. I didn’t know whether the fighters heard it, but the warrior gave an evil grin and beckoned the nimble killer. And that was when I realized I had no idea what was happening. Why was the assassin on his last legs when he’d demonstrated a clear advantage in the opening phase of battle? Was that explosive damage abil on cooldown?

The warrior meanwhile, taking cover behind his shield, started confidently toward his opponent. Mongoose threw sand in his eyes and, taking advantage of Terry’s blindness, got off a series of blows. But without Can Opener, they barely did any damage. Regrouping, the warrior headed toward the assassin again. Charge! The rogue managed to turn on Dodge and avoid lots of damage. Similar cat-and-mouse games kept up a minute until the rogue ran out of tricks and Terry got what he was after. Pressing Mongoose against the forcefield barrier, he slammed him with a Shield Strike, then had enough time to also get off a Ruination. And after that devastating attack, the assassin could only take one more slash. I didn’t think I remembered Bomber having such an attack. Maybe warriors had a branched leveling system? Hung was a tank, after all.

“What a performance!” Sagda exclaimed. “Terry saved his crowning attack for just the right moment! Stunning restraint!”

“The winner of the first quarterfinal match is level-fourteen warrior Terry!” Tashot announced.

The warrior helped the assassin back to his feet. They both smiled and traded a couple words while Sagda announced the next matchup: a druid and a hunter with a pet, a sweet black and red bear. Had he dyed it that color?

But I missed their fight. I felt a touch on my shoulder and heard Rita’s voice:

“Scyth, here.”

A moment later, I saw a trade window, then heard the practiced and persuasive speech of a born saleswoman:

“All gear for level ten. Nothing fairy, but solid and definitely better than what you’ve got on now. Everything has max durability. It’ll serve you a long time without repair. It’s all green for agility and endurance, a couple rings for strength, and a trinket that gives a weak Small Shield of Absorption. That way, if your health ever falls below ten percent, you get an extra hundred HP for backup. I only had one piece of jewelry, for mana. You want it? Okay, here!” She added the trinket to the exchange window. “All the armor is chainmail. I hope you’ve got fifteen strength. Cool,” she said after I nodded. And she continued: “You’re an archer, so I added a bow and quiver that gives a bonus to ranged damage and a boost to movement speed and stealth skill. No need to thank me.”

“Still, thank though! How much do I owe you?”

“Oh yeah, that reminds me!” She slapped her forehead. “Look, it came to a bit more than sixty gold. I’ll write it out for fifty-five with a bulk discount. Okay, get ready. I’m gonna go back and sit with the girls. We’re rooting for you.”

She was going to leave but I stopped her:

“Wait, Rita.”

“Yeah?”

I opened the exchange window and transferred her the five hundred gold I got for Murkiss.

“Put it on me, okay? To win the tournament.”

“What?” she batted her eyes. “Scyth, this is a ton of money! You’re a beginner and you’ve got fifteen to one odds!”

“Exactly, Rita. Exactly. Just please do it.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

She sighed, took the money and headed over to Tashot. I was having a hard time looking away from the rhythmic pendulum of her shaking thighs, and hurried to get dressed before Rita got too far away for the exchange window. Focus on an object, put it on, repeat. Done!

Not wanting to fill my bag, I trashed the beginner’s canvas shirt and pants with no pity. I jumped up and crouched down, eliciting perplexed and disturbed gazes from those around me. It all fit like I’d been poured into it. The mechanics of Disgardium in action: every article of clothing was the perfect size for every character from gnome to troll, no matter the gender.

As I tried on my new duds, the hunter finished off the druid with his bow. The latter had chosen panther form, which put an emphasis on damage, but had weak defense, a fact he paid for dearly. Sagda, commentating on the match, noted that the hunter competently froze out the druid’s explosive and dangerous attacks with Frost Traps, while also keeping his tanking bear at bay. Combined with Crippling Shots to slow his opponent, he held the druid at a distance while taking down his health and taking no hits. The hunter even finished the battle elegantly: with a backward jump, he dodged the panther’s ferocious Animal Rage, then shot him down with a Volley. Dwarven guns were a force to be reckoned with.

In the third battle, which I joined the girls to watch, an illusion mage easily took down a barbarian two levels beneath him. I realized one of the two would be my second opponent, so I was watching carefully. The mage actively conjured illusions of his own body until there were three. And the barbarian could never find the right one, always just going for the one nearest him. Intentional or not, the original mage was always a step or two ahead of his opponent. Furthermore, the barbarian’s two-handed poleaxe was too slow to effectively counter the mage, who was blinking around the arena at every opportunity. With his short teleportations and illusions, he duped his opponent, never once taking a hit.

“Now we call our final two fighters to the arena!” Master Sagda’s voice thundered. “One-time champion and two-time finalist in the Bubbling Flagon tournament, level-fifteen shaman Jasper versus a new contestant, level-thirteen archer Scyth! Everyone, say hello to Scyth. He took a risk today and made a bet worth more than all his equipment put together! Truly insane valor!”

In reply to the commentator’s joke, the audience guffawed.

“Good luck, Alex!” the girls shouted, but loudest of all was Goosebumps: “Come on, Scyth!”

Rita stood there, her lips pursed, clearly worried for my five hundred gold. Staring for a second, I caught her gaze. She gave a nod.

As I walked through the magical barrier, I saw a pop-up window:

Bubbling Flagon Tournament

Round One: Jasper vs. Scyth. 1/4 final.

Organizer: Tashot Sarkisson.

Tournament and arena license provided by: Green League gambling guild (Central Commonwealth branch: Darant, Fighters’ quarter).

Match type: unrated.

Player Scyth (Alex Sheppard), your participation is confirmed. Access permitted.

Match conditions: enhancements allowed, equipment durability does not change, characters do not die.

When one player’s health points are reduced to zero, he is declared the loser.

Participation confirmed by standing in the arena for ten seconds.

I mentally distanced myself from the roar of the crowd and caustic voice of the commentator, telling the crowd to bet how many seconds I would last, and studied the shaman. Sagda said he was fast. But his speed required totems, and it took three seconds to place a totem, a fact I learned from the game encyclopedia. So I’d be at his side by second four. The fighting zone was not large, and I had fantastic movement speed. Plus I had enough plague energy saved up for a hundred Jaspers. The only question was how many hits to spread it out across...

“Fight!” the audience shouted.

Along with them, the shaman shouted something incoherent, summoning sprites and setting up a totem. I was mistaken. It took him only a second and a half to set up the first totem (with tethered air elemental). It must have been either a buff, a special abil, or a bonus from equipment. The elemental, which looked most of all like a black and white tornado, came right at me, raining down a series of Air Cleavers. A moment before collision, I jumped to the side, rolled over and jumped up again, clenching my fist and preparing to squeeze off a Hammer.

“Oh, ho, ho!” came down like the peal of bells. “The archer is running in for close combat, why would he do that?! He never even took out his bow!”

Jasper had a choice: either get out of my way or finish setting up his second totem. He chose the latter. He was immediately surrounded by a sphere that looked exactly like a soap bubble and, just a moment before my fist slammed into his chest and broke through the shield, I added a hundred points of plague energy. The shield popped, cutting the damage, but the shaman took a solid hit.

You have damaged player Jasper (Darsan Oktay): 682.

Health points: 278/960.

The blow knocked him over. I then, feeling the elemental’s invisible sharp blades scratching at my back, spared no energy and, taking advantage of his stun, destroyed both totems. Thankfully, neither of them had much durability, just two hundred a piece.

And at that, it was all over for him. Having lost his speed advantage, he decided to lean on level difference, but he was still far behind me in attributes. He threw himself on the attack. I greeted him with a Hammer, then landed normal blows for a couple seconds with reinforcement from my plague pool. He didn’t even have time to use a health potion.

“What a stunning outcome,” Master Sagda muttered. Then with a shudder, he gave some analysis: “The shaman underestimated the archer... and sure, we all did! Who could have expected him to go in and fight with his bare fists? Truly, stupidity multiplied by luck can sometimes work miracles! Just a minute...” A quiet whisper filled the quiet little yard. “I’ve just been informed that, in the Arena, Scyth defeated Crag the warrior, a very familiar face in these tournaments, using a similar tactic. Okay, that explains a lot...” the commentator’s voice lowered, sounding again like he was thinking. “That explains a lot...”

I went back to the girls, who seemingly now wanted to strangle me in their warm embraces. They were screaming, whooping for joy, and congratulating me on my first victory. Somewhere in the gap between Goosebumps’s neck and Raven’s chest (another girl), I saw Overweight’s extended hand and held mine out in reply. They touched.

“What level is your unarmed?” she asked. “And why’d you pick archer?”

“Very high, Rita,” I answered, freeing myself from their embrace. It was a strange feeling: I practically didn’t know them, but they were congratulating me like an old friend. “I could have picked monk, but I wanted to play range.”

That explanation satisfied her, and no more questions followed.

In the first semifinal, the warriors had a protracted battle, even triggering the Sudden Death curse five minutes in. But in the end, the hunter came out on top. After a short break for the audience to top up their drinks, I was summoned to the arena to face the illusion mage.

“Well, with his unexpected victory, Scyth has shaken up the odds for this tournament!” Tashot announced. “But nevertheless, if you want to bet on the archer, you can still make a tidy profit! Current odds to win: Terry the warrior, one and a half to one, Plasmagun the mage, two to one, and Scyth the archer, five to one! Residents and visitors, come place your bets...”

The battle didn’t start until everyone had a chance to make a wager. And it wasn’t only players, there were NPC’s and noncitizens getting in on the action as well. Based on Tashot’s happy face and the long line, the bets were getting fierce. Taking advantage of the commotion, Plasmagun walked up to me and, very quietly so no one would hear, gave me a warning:

“Look, Scyth. There are some very important people involved in this, lots of money on the line. I have to win this tournament. If you don’t want problems, lie down and you’ll get a thousand right after the battle.”

“What do you mean important?” I asked, surprised more by that than the suggestion I throw the battle. “Who could possibly care about a tournament in this little backwater?”

“These tournaments aren’t monitored, and Tashot is worth several million. He’ll pay out a bet of any size.” The mage revealed. “So a lot of people get interested in this tournament.”

“And you don’t think you can win on your own? Without me laying down? What about the warrior?”

“Terry is in on it. As for you, you have no chance, but I figured better safe than sorry. You’re funny. And I don’t like funny stuff. I came prepared to fight the shaman, but then here you come out of nowhere! You messed up our whole scheme!”

“Listen, Plasmagun, why don’t you and your important people bet on me then? They stand to win even more that way...”

“Are you joking?” He gave an evil chuckle. “Alright, forget it. I can tear you to bits no matter what, idiot!”

He then bared his teeth and walked over to the barrier. Just then, the commentator and audience started a countdown.

“Fight!”

Every couple seconds, another illusory copy of Plasmagun appeared at his side. As soon as they materialized, they started changing places both with each other and the original, copying his every move exactly. Then the four mages began to shoot spells at me. Above them, I saw the same text, and there were no visual clues as to which was the player and which was the copy.

But I was not planning to merely eyeball it. I pulled out my bow and shot them all in turn, putting three hundred points of plague energy on top of every arrow. As with the shaman’s totems, the copies were fairly fragile and, with a ring, they shattered into ghostly shards in just one hit. I was sure Master Sagda would understand this use of my bow.

Shooting at the illusions the whole time, I put on Stone Skin and ran toward the mage. One of them didn’t break, the real Plasmagun. So I stashed the bow and went to work with my fists. The mage’s rags made my job easier and, after a couple several-yard blinks, which did not save him, Plasmagun died. Unlike the clumsy barbarian, I was quite fast.

Looking at me with spite, the kid got up all on his own, not accepting my outstretched hand. Quickly leaving the ring, he walked through the crowd, which was buzzing in dismay, over to a gloomy Terry and whispered something quickly. The warrior frowned as he listened to Plasmagun then spit, shook his head and headed over to Tashot. And the mage went as well.

I went back to the girls, preparing fatefully for further outpourings of joy and elation. And that was what I got, only this time Rita Overweight was right alongside her friends and she was radiant.

After Tashot’s next announcement, Master Sagda, warming audience interest, conducted an analysis of today’s final matchup. He drew attention to the fact that this was the first time I’d be up against someone in plate armor and, to be frank, he didn’t think my chances were great:

“Sure, Scyth pulled off two surprising upsets, but look for yourselves. Who did he defeat? A shaman and a mage! Leather and rags! Now he’s gotta go against Terry, a champion who is higher in level and has much better equipment than him! No, lord, I think the surprises are over for today! We might as well call the final right now!”

And although the previous battles had been quite easy, I was somewhat worried about the final myself. The memory of losing to Crag, also a warrior, was just too fresh. I remembered how long it took me to get through his shield and how massively his plate armor had cut my damage.

“Fight!” came a synchronized cry, announcing the last round of the day in the backyard of the Bubbling Flagon.

“Come on, Terry! Kick his ass!” roared some NPC, based on his dimensions, a smith.

“Scyth! Scyth!” I heard from the other end. And among the shouts of support, I recognized the thundering voice of Manny and Trixie’s cracking yelp.

Looking in their direction, I raised a fist and walked out toward the warrior. Remembering what the assassin did, I decided to adopt an identical tactic.

But he acted completely different. The warrior charged abruptly, too fast for me to dodge, slamming into me like a flying semi at full speed. I didn’t lose much life, having hurriedly banged on Stoneskin, but I was rendered motionless and Terry decided to use his main ability – Ruination, which had prefigured the end of his match with the assassin. The devastating power of the blow knocked me into the ground, breaking my cheap armor, tearing muscles and breaking bones. The fountain of spattering blood caused both distressed cries of disappointment and thunderous shouts of joy depending on where bets were placed.

Terry, invigorated by his success, paid no attention to the fact that his ferocious attack hadn’t taken even a third of my health. Throwing his shield away, he grabbed his sword with both hands and flew at me, splitting the air with rampant determination to finish what he’d started. But by then I was already on my feet and going on the counterattack. And meanwhile I heard shouts of surprise – someone had noticed my health bar. I clenched my teeth and took a blow to the arm, at the same time flattening his face with a Hammerfist.

After that, Terry’s aim went off, because the dented metal of the helmet was blocking his vision. For the same reason, the warrior didn’t notice right away that I was no longer in front of him. Then I pounced from behind, hammering in fistfuls of plague energy and chaining them with my only special as it rolled back. He had less health than Crag, so he didn’t last long. His attempts to bat me away never once came to fruition. His heavy armor slowed him down and I, meanwhile, was faster than most. Nevertheless, he did land a few more blows, somewhat reducing my health.

I waited for cooldown and he charged again in my direction but missed. Still, for the record, the glancing blow to my shoulder was enough to fling me back and steal a few seconds with stun. Damn these game mechanics. Nevertheless, they were the same factor that allowed my fists to bash through his armor like a tin can.

Realizing his goose was cooked, Terry used everything he had. Draining a red flask, fully restoring his health, he grabbed his shield again and swapped out his broken helmet for another. I was back where I started, except my own health was down to half. I was surprised at my own arrogance. I could have at least stocked up on health potions before the tournament.

Terry was cognizant of the time. Eventually the Sudden Death curse would kick in so, hiding behind his five-foot shield, he was making sharp lunges, trying to reach me with his sword without giving me a chance to break through his defenses. His tactic didn’t surprise me, though. His ultimate abil, the one he used to take down the assassin, had a long cooldown and he was waiting for it to come back around. Beyond that, he had an advantage for Sudden Death, because his health, unlike mine, was full.

“The final match, which started so brilliantly, has now become one of our most boring. I do believe this is the dullest battle I’ve ever seen,” came the commentator’s booming voice. “Scyth has the morale advantage, but there’s a catch. Terry’s tactic of running out the clock gives him the upper hand overall...”

I suddenly saw a timer counting down the last thirty seconds before Sudden Death. Terry was no longer coming at me. In fact, he was backing away, drawing out time.

I took out my bow. I pulled back the string, felt an arrow materialize, added a thousand points of plague energy and ran at the warrior. From ten feet away, I loosed an arrow, threw away the now useless bow and leapt forward.

The shot outdid all my expectations: his epic shield, having already lost a great deal of durability to my innumerable Hammers, shuddered and fell to pieces, leaving Terry holding just a handle. Then came his turn to feel what it was like to get hit by a train. Inertia flung him back into the magical barrier. Sparks flew, I smelled roast meat, and a shout of pain filled the arena.

I didn’t let him get back up, breaking his helmet again with a couple of strong blows and Hammers.

“Sudden death!” a demonic voice bellowed.

And the curse timer gave a tick, taking down Terry’s last percent of life.

To the sound of a fanfare over the arena, I saw a banner twirl overhead: “Scyth has defeated Terry! Scyth is champion of the Bubbling Flagon tournament!”

What had I started! Tashot’s words of elation were drowned out by the shrieks of the girls. Some cursed, crying over a gambling loss, some rained insults at Terry the “loser.” Master Sagda shouted in excitement... I helped the warrior up and, unlike Plasmagun the mage, he shook my hand:

“Thank god I didn’t lose the epic,” he said, picking up his restored shield. Wiping the blood off his face, Terry grinned. “I watched the video of you fighting Crag. You’re a real weirdo, Scyth! Levelling unarmed that high... Once you get into the open world, every clan will be trying to tempt you right to their base with a high salary!”

“I wasn’t expecting you to resist so fiercely,” I said. “Plasmagun said it was already decided and you were going to throw the tournament to him. He said there were some important guys...”

“Who? Plasma? Did he offer you money? He’s famous for trying to rig these things, don’t listen to him!” Terry exclaimed. “That was how he, like, won the last semifinal. Obviously, the guy who threw that fight to him didn’t get a dime.”

“I thought you two were working together,” I said, remembering when they spoke before the final.

“Oh, yeah. He told me to throw the battle. He was hoping he could get back what he lost by betting on you.”

“And?”

“I said no, and he ran off to bet on me. What an unlucky idiot, huh?”

“But you placed a bet before the final too, I saw it...”

“Scyth, I’m a good guy, don’t freak out.” He hugged me at the shoulders and we started walking out. “I bet a hundred on myself to lose so I would end up in the green no matter what. Anyway, let’s go inside. They’re about to pay out.”

The crowd was back in the tavern and only Tashot, Sagda, Manny, Trixie and my girls were still near the barrier. Accepting their congratulations, I saw the unarmed combat trainer, his gaze latched into me. He nodded, grabbed me by the head, came right up to my face and said:

“Tomorrow at eight AM outside my school. You have potential, boy.”

Interlude 2. Bellamy

BELLAMY DRAKE had never been a fan of the special projects emergency conference room. It was a real hole in an underground bunker totally disconnected from the outside world. Impenetrable to every wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum, the walls seemed to encapsulate not only space but time as well. And Bellamy was claustrophobic so, if he had his way, he wouldn’t go down there more than once per year and then only for a very large amount of money. And for ten minutes max. And maybe not at all.

But his job required it. Recently, projects like Pilgrim and HCMO[4] Cali Bottom had begun to intersect and such meetings were becoming more and more frequent. The last one was only a month ago, and now here they were again, to discuss issues that couldn’t bear even the most secure virtual environments restricted exclusively for company employees. In the real world. In a bunker ten thousand feet below the earth.

The head of project Pilgrim, the eternally youthful Kiran Jackson, a man with Indian roots and a private island in the Pacific Ocean, had worked for Snowstorm so long he made everyone else there look like a rookie. Even Peter Gowatsky, lead on the Cali Bottom project, who’d been at Snowstorm a quarter century, had less experience. Curiously for a man with a Polish surname, Peter came from South America and had a British father and Brazilian mother.

Both leaders were now exchanging morose glances as they listened to a report from someone on the project Pilgrim team.

“As you can see, continuing to develop the HCMO project is not in our best interest,” he concluded.

“What is the maximum duration of a game session for a controlled object?” Jackson asked.

“Twenty-one hours, Kiran,” he answered. Jackson, you see, required employees call him by his first name. “All the testers had noncitizen pods with curtailed functionality and no life support systems.”

“Take the ten most successful testers.” Kiran began. He hadn’t yet said anything, but the presenter and Gowatsky had started taking notes. “Give them pods with life support. Gently suggest they gradually increase the length of their game sessions, starting with twenty-four hours, and going up to twenty-six. Record all deviations in standard and game behavior, track even the most miniscule changes in brain structure.”

“What about the others?” Gowatsky asked.

“Get rid of them,” Kiran waved it off, dismayed that he had to explain such elementary matters. “Heart attacks, strokes, give them something. Tragic incidents happen every day in noncitizen pods.”

“Yes sir,” Peter nodded.

“Alright, let’s wrap up the HCMO topic for now. Or are there any questions about the Cali project?”

“No, Kiran, everything is clear,” Peter called back.

Bellamy had always thought the idea of giving people control over nonplayer characters was a stupid idea. But it was closely tied to his project Pilgrim, which he was just as motivated to see succeed as Gowatsky himself. As he waited for the previous speaker to clear the podium, he worked up some nerve then got up where everyone could see him.

“Go ahead, Bell,” Kiran nodded.

“Colleagues, let me get straight to business,” Bellamy started, clearing his throat. “As you know, beyond my main work for project Pilgrim, I am also leader of the threat department. As a matter of fact, I was on the team that pioneered the very concept, and have stayed on to keep watch. As far as we know, the entity known as Patrick is the only relatively successful instance of transferring a human mind into Disgardium. Patrick O’Grady, a disabled veteran of World War Three, was convicted of mass murder. For those who aren’t aware, he shot his own wife and friends one day before his wedding. For that, he was sentenced to death. He was subsequently transferred to one of our prisons, where his sentence was to be carried out. Three years ago, we managed to completely transfer his mind into a nonplayer character named Patrick O’Grady, which we created a year prior to the experiment. His real body was subjected to IDE, or instant death effect, which by the way did not damage its viability. The very instant he died, his mind was transported into the virtual world, and his body died. Brain activity then trailed off and his heart stopped. That became a separate research topic...”

“Bell,” Kiran interrupted him. “You’re getting off topic.”

“Okay,” Drake agreed. “We all remember celebrating our first success. As far as we knew then, it was merely a matter of duplicating those exact conditions and presto! We thought we had a pipeline for mind transfers, which would both solve the resettlement issue, and stage one of project Pilgrim. But our celebration was premature. All subsequent tests ended in failure. What was more, the digitized Patrick’s behavior defied all rational expectations. The carefully prepared legend, the story of his character. It all broke down because he retained fragmentary memories from his past life. His mind rejected the intrusive memories but, to this day, he has flashbacks to real events from his life on earth, confusing them with false ones from his invented history. And we were about to write it off as a failure and isolate him, but then something changed.”

“What exactly?” someone from Gowatsky’s team asked.

Acting on habit, Bellamy forgot he was in meat space and tried to read the man’s profile, but then turned his gaze to a badge that read “Max Kolesnikov.”

“Have I already mentioned that I am in charge of the threats department, Max?” He turned to Kolesnikov but, while talking, slowly led his gaze around the whole conference room. “The threat system is self-regulating and kills a few birds with one stone. First, it gets rid of imbalanced players. And those will always exist, because we cannot predict everything. Second, it’s a marketing gimmick that adds thrill and the element of surprise for normal players. And third is something we never talk about. The very concept of labeling things ‘threats to the world’ go back into the twentieth century. Communism, nuclear war, Islamist terrorism, drug cartels, global warming, the machine revolt, the lunar insurgency, resettlement. All those things taught humanity to unite in the face of a common threat. After globalization, people needed new threats to remain a united, controllable herd. In Disgardium, contrived, minor threats are labeled that way non-stop, as if they really posed a problem. But not too long ago, Dis saw a totally new kind of threat. A completely authentic, significant danger. And not one we created intentionally.”

“Bell, thanks for the tangent, but let’s stay on topic,” Kiran said.

“Just a sec,” Bellamy nodded. “Has everyone heard that there is now a threat with a potential class of A? And strange as it may be, it was Patrick that initiated the chain of very unlikely events. One day, in a mental fog, he left the city where he’s bound and wandered into a zone that’s off limits to normal players. NPC’s not only give it a wide berth; they simply cannot see the area. On the edge of the location, which is called the Mire, there is an NPC camp that gives quests for local monsters. But then, miles deeper, it becomes a ‘blind zone.’ Players have no way of getting there. The muck sucks them in and, if they use a Waterwalking Potion, endless groups of mobs will come from the whole Mire with a respawn rate of five seconds. It’s just impossible to get through. It was a location we cordoned off because of the ‘Awakening of the Sleeping Gods’ scenario, which is embedded in the core.”

“I think we could do with some more detail here,” Kiran nodded. “Not everyone here knows about this problem, Bellamy.”

“Of course,” Drake called back eagerly. “Before the whole threat concept was first launched, one of the initial lead developers added a global apocalypse scenario to the core of Disgardium. At that time, triggering it made the end of the world a virtual certainty. Now...”

“Just a minute,” Gowatsky interrupted. “Bellamy, if this is such a nuclear bomb, why wasn’t the scenario simply deleted?”

“It’s impossible, Peter,” Kiran answered in Drake’s stead. “The core of the game is immutable. It contains the world’s physics, its nature, the very rules it lives by. It’s basically the same as rebooting our world. All current civilizations would be destroyed, wiped off the map. We’d have to start over again from bacteria, and that would take a very long time...”

“We’re talking about restarting evolution and letting it run until consciousness is reborn. And this time it might not be people who get it. That much is clear, Kiran...” Gowatsky yawned and, digging in his pocket, popped a ‘booster,’ a legalized drug that enhanced mental activity and reduced exhaustion. The drug also had an anesthetic effect, so the next phrase he said was somewhat garbled: “But Dis isn’t the real world. Locations, mobs, NPC’s. All of those things were written and designed for one...”

“No. They would be different NPC’s, Peter. Don’t you get it? AI’s live in this world without ever guessing that they are nothing more than an intelligent crystal. They recognize themselves as people, orcs or whatever they’re registered as and, when they die, they are reborn in different characters, starting all over again from zero. You need to slow down on the boosters, you’re killing yourself. And you can’t even remember basic facts.”

“Oh my god, Kiran!” Peter rolled his eyes. “I can take another two doses before I hit the proven safe limit, then I’m going to bed. Everything is fine, don’t worry. Bellamy? Sorry for the interruption, keep going, please.”

Drake smiled, reaching for his own boosters, but changed his mind. It wasn’t worth compromising himself before his colleagues. Perhaps technically he had equal standing with Gowatsky but, as a favorite son of the founders, Peter could get away with things no mere mortal was allowed.

“So then, colleagues. We’re talking about a simply fantastic coincidence of nearly unbelievable events!” Bellamy brought up some slides for all to see.

Intrigued, people stood from their chairs and surrounded the panoramic image. Each of the three-dimensional spinning holoslides showed a different scene. Drake started explaining each of them:

“Event one. The entity known as Patrick is overcome by a flashback from his previous life and goes insane, slaughtering his entire patrol squadron. The only survivor is a nonplayer character named Jane, a mage who created an illusion of her own corpse and fled. Confused, weak and devoid of mana, she is captured by a band of orcs near Tuatha. They sell her as a slave to a local ruler, who adds her to his harem, but she escapes and makes it to Darant. There she discovers that her father killed himself, thinking his daughter was dead, so Jane decides to stay in the capital of the Commonwealth, enrolling in the University of Magic.”

They were listening to Bellamy with bated breath. Everyone already knew about the class-A threat, but this was the first they would be hearing of the potential consequences and how it was intertwined with projects Pilgrim and HCMO Cali Bottom. Only Kiran stuck his nose into his comm, but there was nothing new for him there.

“Event two. Patrick wanders the Gloomwood then into the Mire. There he falsely triggers the Sleeping Gods scenario. Patrick returns to town, comes to his senses and the scenario is aborted.”

Bellamy flicked to the next set of slides, showing a picture of a gaunt barefoot young man in a pair of canvas pants and a shirt.

“Event three. Scyth, a level-one player, who started a year and a half prior and had not yet levelled his character at all, suddenly angers AI Peter Whiteacre and is given a quest to clear zone X 4, one of...”

“The ones we control,” Gowatsky spoke up, looming over the slide. “The crypt of the temple of Nergal the Radiant in Tristad. I remember that incident. The zone was under control of HCMO Andrei Clayton, a disabled noncitizen. Clayton surrendered to Scyth.”

“You’re skipping a few things, Peter.” Bellamy pushed him gently and said: “Event four. Patrick is begging on the street. Scyth refuses to give him money for a drink, which makes him mad and – this is important! – curses him!”

“What do you mean?” a few voices came in chorus.

“Literally. The aborted scenario, and Patrick’s unusual nature created a permanent connection between his mind and one of the Sleeping Gods, Behemoth. Patrick’s anger was strong enough for the Sleeping God to feel, so it was able to make his curse a real game element, the permanent curse Restless Soul. But as a novel effect, absent from all our databases, there was no way for anyone to read that Scyth had the debuff. It appeared only in his profile and only the player himself could read it. That was event four.”

“Any more of these events?” Kolesnikov asked.

Bellamy was starting to dislike this upstart. He was too curious and talked out of turn. But he’d heard rumors that Kolesnikov had done half the work on the HCMO Cali Bottom project on his own, so he had to keep his eye on him. In this company, people could rise very quickly and fall just as fast.

“You bet there are!” Bellamy burst out. “But good question, Max! Thank you. Look... Event five. As Peter was saying, Clayton surrendered to Scyth after realizing the boy would keep resurrecting in his instance forever, and Patrick’s curse worked exactly as it was supposed to. Here, we can see him writing questions on the floor, but we can’t say for sure how Scyth answered.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah... How many times have I said that we have to make audio recordings of all player conversations, not only ones sent over signal amulets?!” Kolesnikov exclaimed and Bellamy noted with surprise that no one disagreed with that. By the looks of things, this upstart had more authority than he thought. “What made HCMO Clayton surrender? After all, he knew what he stood to lose!”

“But we are making recordings!” a girl from the same department objected. Bellamy didn’t know her name for certain. He was seeing her for the first time. “Everything players say in the X zones is recorded!”

“We started recording after that incident,” Gowatsky noticed gloomily. “Alright, Bell, keep going.”

“Event six, a direct consequence of number five,” Drake said coolly, after he realized no analysis of that episode was coming. “Clayton activates final death, which gives a small chance of conferring one random skill from the arsenal of the Destroying Plague. And Scyth gets... well more like we get Scyth... Ta-da!” Bellamy sang out. “Anyhow, he gets the skill Mark of the Destroying Plague!”

“What a complete fluster cluck...” the girl whispered, her eyes wide open.

“Yep,” Drake grinned happily, as if he’d given Scyth the abil himself. “And no player before him had even seen that boss skill. As a matter of fact, its location hasn’t even been discovered!”

“Nevertheless, that only upped his threat class to L,” Kiran added. “Come on, Bell, keep it going. You’re on fire. Surprise us!”

“It just gets more unbelievable from there! Event seven: using the curse of the undead, Scyth gets first kill on Crusher, a minor rare mob in the Gloomwood. And as insignificant as that may seem, when the system calculates loot drop, he gets one that only has half a percent chance! A quest! Medallion! For Patrick! Hm? Can anyone smell what’s cooking?”

“Patrick generated a quest?” Gowatsky asked.

“Yes. The trigger was around an event that came before O’Grady met Behemoth. But then, when Patrick saw the medallion in Scyth’s hands, he gave him a mission to go to the Sleeping God. And this is where we smoothly transition to event eight. This one is completely predictable, seeing the way the stars keep aligning. The scenario was never fully activated before and was caught in a loop. The system was looking for ways to move it forward and threw Scyth a bone for First Kill in the Evil from the Depths location and again, ta-da,” Bellamy said with no emotion, “The Depths Teleportation skill. According to the scenario, it is an ability of priests of the Sleeping Gods and the AI took its only chance and gave it to Scyth as a reward! Why only? Because Evil from the Depths was the only dungeon in his whole sandbox with the tag ‘Breath of the Sleeping Gods,’ and skills can only be awarded for First Kills! Anyhow, do you know what the chance of this coincidence was?”

“Am I to understand there is also an event nine?”

“Well, I’d hardly call it an event. Look.” Bellamy flipped to the final slide: “Scyth uses the teleportation skill, and seemingly falls through the ground. Behemoth’s AI intercepts Scyth on his way to Tristad where he was supposed to be sent, redirecting him to the Mire. If it were any other player in his place, it all would have ended then and there. At the very least, nobody else could have survived! Nobody! Either they’d drown in the muck or be devoured by swamp creatures! But it wasn’t any old player. It was Scyth, who always respawns right where he dies, and has a chance of becoming invincible. And that was exactly what happened. At the same time, he leveled his resilience skill to maximum. For his level, of course. Praise the Nether he was not the first! Do you remember the achievement Magwai got for that?”

“Yes, we do, we do,” Gowatsky said cantankerously. Everyone knew the number one player in the world. “What came next?”

“Behemoth named the boy Apostle of the Sleeping Gods. For now, it doesn’t give him any advantages but, potentially, considering the Destroying Plague, he could end up destroying the entire world. Now, probably not the same way the dev who set that bomb was thinking, because Scyth probably will not have any way of converting half the population of Dis into followers of the Sleeping Gods. There won’t be a complete awakening. But just imagine what will happen if the boy turns Darant? That’s half of the world’s power: the economy, interconnections between regions, quest chains, the leaders of the Commonwealth... Everything will collapse! The world will never go back to the way it was!”

“Why don’t we just ban his account?”

“We can’t,” Kiran shook his head. Everyone turned to him. “We cannot do anything at all. Even if the boy... hm... let’s say unexpectedly crashes in a flying car, the system will just assume control over his character as happens with any threat in such situations. He’s a part of Dis now and there’s no changing that without violating the game process.”

“Preventers?” Bellamy voiced the obvious.

“Yes, but not the way you’re thinking.” The head of project Pilgrim gestured for everyone to take their seats. “No leaking information to preventer clans, no help and no hints. Everyone clear?” Kiran raised his voice and someone tucked his head between their shoulders. With a wave of his finger, the man could show great favor or, with one kick, send anyone flying down from Olympus. “Good. For anyone who still has doubts, let me clarify. This is what the founding fathers specifically wanted. They’re watching the boy and even making bets about how far he’ll make it”

“So we’re just gonna stand by and watch?” Max exclaimed. “Because of him, project Pilgrim might completely...”

“Peter, control your fighter,” Kiran said lazily. “Remind him that I am in charge of project Pilgrim and your mission has not changed. Provide for the complete transfer of minds into Dis. That is the only way forward for your little project Pilgrim.”

“Maybe we should just have a talk with the kid?” Bellamy suggested. “I mean, so he doesn’t make a total mess of things. Promise him money, pay for his university... And I dunno, maybe raise his citizenship category? Have him sit back quietly, farming raid ins’s. Why would he want to conquer the world? Is he even normal you know, mentally?”

“In a certain way, I have been... communicating with him,” Kiran admitted despite himself. “Mentally, he’s just fine. And if we made such an offer, he’d definitely accept. But we aren’t going to do that.”

Chapter 18. Tough Lessons

THE DAYS AFTER my mandated two-week Dis ban were so steeped in events that it took me a long time to get to sleep, just tossing and turning. I had a million thoughts racing around in my head. Some were pleasant: my victory in the mini-arena, my relationship with Tissa, excitement at Rita’s obvious attraction to me, my bright future if I could pull off my plan and increase my threat status.

But there were also plenty of fears and they wouldn’t leave me alone. And I had scary nightmares: myself being revealed and eliminated as a threat, people I trusted betraying me, failing my citizenship tests, losing my citizen’s account and being mocked and given the finger by players who recognized me. And the biggest laughs came from Big Po.

Good thing that, by morning, no matter how beaten-down or exhausted I felt, most of the worries had faded and were almost erased from my memory. I started getting ready for school, then ate breakfast slowly and it dawned on me: the unarmed combat master was waiting for me.

I tossed a gaze at the clock. It was seven thirty. I had half an hour to explain to my parents that it was important for me to miss school for Dis, dive into my pod and reach the master’s school.

“Mom, dad...” I started, but I didn’t have to continue.

“Good morning, Alex!” they came, kissing my cheek on one side and tousling my hair on the other.

My parents stood from the table.

“Are you leaving?” I asked, confused. “Or what?”

“Sorry Alex,” mom answered. “You were out too late last night, and my brain just hasn’t been working since I woke up! I forgot to say that me and your dad are flying to New Zealand. We’ll be back late. We might even spend the night.”

“Why?”

“We need to take pictures for a new order. Mark had a talk with the client and they agreed to cover all our expenses. Behave yourself!”

Dad winked, smiled at something in his head, caught a look of reproach from mom and, giving her a little hug, led her to the door. So the issue of how to ask to stay home from school solved itself.

Just five minutes later, I was standing at the front door of the tavern and, squinting in the direct beams of the rising sun, trying to get my bearings and find the shortest route. Sure, Tristad was a small city but, as for public transportation, ha-ha, good one

I formulated a route and ran down the lively streets, surprised to see so many players. Only then did I realize it was Sunday. Now awake, the city was going about its busy NPC life: street sweepers swept, carts of fresh fish, fruits and vegetables flocked to the market square, shopkeepers wiped down their glass displays. Whiteacre passed by in a cart headed for city hall. Walking through the residential quarter, I saw old men getting set up at tables in cozy little courtyards, mothers going on walks with children and housekeepers hanging laundry.

It seemed like a fully-fledged society, which could live just fine without our participation. I wondered what would become of the city in twenty years if we left it all on its own. It would probably be the same as any city. On the forums I’d read that, many years ago, Peter Whiteacre used to be just some street urchin who sometimes gave out quests to find a lost cat, help him paint a fence or take him home (in that case, he was found in a cave in the Nameless Mountains where he got lost).

Over these idle thoughts, I didn’t even notice that I had reached the unarmed combat school. And I was not even wheezing thanks to my higher endurance.

Master Sagda was already standing at the door leaning against a wall with his arms folded across his chest. As I came near, he said demurely:

“I was hoping you’d be late or, even better, not come.”

“Good morning to you too, Master Sagda...”

“First lesson, student. Forget that name!” the trainer frowned in dismay. “I am neither a master nor a Sagda.”

“But how?” I asked, taken aback.

“Sagda is my stepfather’s last name. He wasn’t the nicest man and hearing his name time and again... Brings up bad memories. My real father’s last name is Buaco.”

A thought flickered by that it wasn’t too hard for me to switch, but why did he allow others to call him Sagda? Yesterday, Tashot had said that name several times.

“As for the rank of master, I don’t quite fit either,” the trainer continued. “I have reached the level of grandmaster, but the greatest grandmaster, Oyama, is the only one who can officially confirm my rank and, a few years ago, he went to meditate and hasn’t yet returned from a prolonged voyage to the astral plane.”

“Then what should I call you? Grandmaster Buaco?”

“No, apprentice. Just call me Bu,” he said with an impenetrable face, extending his hand. “Have you brought the money?”

I extended the five hundred gold, which he instantly scraped up. The money disappeared and he, without saying another word, walked inside the building. I followed and immediately sneezed at the dust twirling in the air.

The musty room was full of all kinds of boxes, which Master Sagda, i.e. Bu ordered me to clean up.

“Be careful, apprentice!” he barked when I almost tipped over a heavy box. “That belongs to Athanasius the trader and, if you damage anything, you’ll have to compensate him yourself.”

“Are you renting this place out as a warehouse?” I asked in astonishment.

That earned me a strong blow from a long flexible cane.

“Lesson two: never question the nature of my training!”

Every minute I spent in his school made me seethe with greater fury. By hour two, I had busted my hump and finished clearing out his room, but we still hadn’t gotten to the training. And sure, if it came in the form of quests like “Clean up the Practice Room” with a reward of even a few experience, I’d have been fine. But no. I marveled at the master’s AI’s guile. I mean, I’d paid him a hard-earned five hundred gold and he had me sweeping his floors.

I cleared the space and, spurred on by Bu, brought out a broom and swept up smaller items for a while, sneezing at the rising dust. But that wasn’t the end of the clean-up. In fact, it had just begun. After that, I mopped the floors, beat all the rugs, wiped the dust off the windows and cleaned all the cobwebs from the ceiling corners. And I wanted to skip school for this?

Achievement unlocked: Naive Idiot!

Pay a large amount of money for the chance to clean up Master Sagda’s unarmed combat school.

Rewards: shame and wasted time.

That was approximately the achievement I gave myself mentally as I wiped the dried wine spots off a cracked wooden table with a little rag. And by that time, the cleanup had reached Bu’s bedroom. The master took a glug off a flask and grew happier before my eyes, all the while never tiring of handing out pearls of wisdom and “lessons:”

“Lesson twenty-one, apprentice,” he said, picking at a leg of mutton. “A plate almost always breaks when it falls off a table, especially if the floor is made of stone. And now, step to and clean up this broken plate!”

Many times I felt the urge to tell the “teacher” to stuff his “lessons” where the sun didn’t shine but I felt insanely pathetic over the wasted time and the strike I would have earned for missing real lessons in school had this not been a weekend. So I clenched my teeth and continued bearing the mockery of the mad, rude artificial intelligence.

By midday the trainer’s practice room and living quarters were sparkling clean. The trainer himself, by then pretty glass-eyed, gave a satisfied burp and abruptly tossed out:

“There’s a wash basin in the yard. Go clean yourself up and come back inside! I keep a clean house, you see, and the last thing I need is for you to go mucking it up.”

With a happy nod, I dashed into the yard and ran over to the wash basin. But there I ran into another problem: there was no water. I swore out loud and when I mentioned the nether in all its nastiness, I imagined Bu in the fires of hell and decided that, even there, he would just lie back looking blasé, bidding the demons go out to bring him booze.

My gaze hit on an empty bucket. I grabbed it and ran off to a well for water, poured it into the wash basin, quickly rinsed off my hands and went back inside. The drunken master was standing there and staring into space.

“Bu?” I called out, figuring he’d fallen asleep.

“You took too long,” the trainer told me, yawning.

I was expecting yet another punishment, but he just called me into the middle of the room and finally began teaching me unarmed combat.

The process was significantly different from what I’d experienced with archery master Conrad and that was easy to explain. When I went to Conrad, I didn’t even have his skill. But by the time I reached Bu, my Unarmed Combat was seventy-two.

“I have a lot to teach you, Scyth,” Sagda said seriously.

Unarmed Combat Master Sagda offers you one of the three special attacks:

Scorpion Strike

Level: 1.

A perfidious blow that starts from a long distance. Jump forward, land on your hands and hit with your bent legs. Due to the element of surprise, this attack ignores 25% of enemy armor.

Cost to use: 5 mana points.

Deals 250% of normal damage.

Dragon’s Tail

Level: 1.

A spin kick, as a rule, to the opponent’s head. Has 1% chance of dazing target for 1 second.

Cost to use: 4 mana points.

Deals 200% of normal damage.

Stunning Kick

Level: 1.

A simple but very effective move. Has 30% chance of stunning target for 3 seconds.

Cost to use: 3 mana points.

Deals 150% of normal damage.

“Is that all?” I asked, struck by the lack of selection.

“At your level, you can learn fourteen of more than four hundred attacks,” the trainer answered. “But not all at once. Now you’re choosing a base attack, and what I offer next will depend on what you choose now.”

“Then I choose Stunning Kick,” I declared.

“Don’t rush it, apprentice.” Sagda grabbed me by the chin, raised my head and looked me carefully in the eyes. “Let me explain how this normally works with... ahem-ahem... less gifted students. As they progress, every five levels, they may choose one of three attacks from different schools of the art of brawling.”

“And what defines which attacks are unlocked...?”

“Don’t interrupt!” yet another stiff smack from his cane shut me right up. “Special moves can be offensive, defensive, or counters. And there’s all kinds of stuff, including ones that give a chance of killing instantly. A student’s move set and their progress level define their combat style and new moves offered will be tailored to match. But!” The trainer bowed his head, twirled a pointer finger and held a pause. “If an apprentice saves enough room up here...”

The trainer tapped a finger on his forehead and I realized he was referring to a game convention – the unspent points I got for every five levels of a combat skill. Technically, each one of those points could be used to learn a new move, and I had a whole fourteen of them saved up.

“... then they will have a good deal more opportunities,” Sagda continued. “Many who choose the path of unarmed combat are in too great a hurry to learn new moves in hopes of varying their style and learning something new, something more powerful. But they all are missing something. Learning new moves won’t bringing them any closer to true mastery. A student who continues to perfect one skill without spreading themselves too thin will always achieve more. They can improve attacks they already know.”

He had my attention. My Hammerfist was growing, becoming more effective as it was, without paying the trainer five hundred gold. But maybe he was talking about something else?

“And mastering a move you already know when levelling-up makes it cost less mana, cooldown faster and do more damage!” the trainer finished solemnly then raised a pointer finger yet again. “A move can only be improved two times before it reaches its ideal state. And you, Scyth, are the first apprentice I have ever been able to teach this lesson.”

Unarmed Combat Master Sagda offers to improve the Hammerfist skill:

Heavy Hammerfist

Through honing your mastery, you have improved the effectiveness of this combat move.

−0.5 mana points to use.

+5% normal damage per move level.

+0.5% accuracy per move level.

Ignores +0.1% armor per move level.

Price: 5 training points.

When I saw how fearsome my already crazily levelled Hammerfist could become, I agreed without a second thought. With a barely detectable smile, the trainer immediately offered yet another upgrade:

Unarmed Combat Master Sagda offers to improve the Heavy Hammerfist skill:

Crushing Hammerfist

Through honing your mastery, you have achieved perfection in this combat move.

-1 mana points to use.

+10% normal damage per move level.

+1% accuracy per move level.

Ignores+0.2% armor per move level.

Price: 5 training points.

I accepted that one as well, then unwittingly started beaming when I saw the badass stats of what was still my only unarmed move:

Crushing Hammerfist

Level: 72.

Cost to use: 1 mana point.

Deals 4420% of normal damage.

Accuracy: 437%.

Ignores armor: 85.4%.

“Wise choice, apprentice,” said Master Sagda. “Just one more stage until you can say you’ve completely mastered the Hammerfist attack.”

“But teacher you said attacks have just three stages, right?”

“Yes, there are three stages. I stand by that. But once a move is at maximum level, you unlock a way of dealing an uninterrupted series of blows. Combo! It has a special effect. Only a master of a higher level can break it and the stunned enemy will be helpless to counter!”

I opened my mouth to ask some questions, but wasn’t feeling resolute enough to interrupt Bu’s academic tone. He continued talking about chaining moves. If you used them in the right order, it was possible not only to significantly increase damage, but also enhance the attacks:

“Once you’ve learned how to combine identical attacks into a series, you will be able to pull off more and more complicated chains. The mighty Grandmaster Oyama can land chains more than forty moves long!” Sincere admiration sounded through in his voice and I made a mental note to try and find this grandmaster someday. “As a rule, his battles end before his combos do, because his opponents are either dead or begging for mercy before he can finish them. You now have enough power to learn this ability as well. Would you like to do that, Scyth?”

Unarmed Combat Master Sagda offers to teach you a new combat move:

Combo

Level: 1.

Composite combat move, joining other moves into one uninterrupted series of attacks.

Number of slots in chain: 2.

Cost to use: 90% of cost to use attacks separately.

Cooldown: 10 seconds.

Price: 3 training points.

Unlike normal attacks with standard five-second cooldowns, Combo needed ten. Still, I agreed without thinking it through: two Hammers in a row with a separate cooldown would be a terrifying power! I took the new move, filled the slots to get it ready to use, and couldn’t wait to test it out, staring at a training dummy in the corner. But the master reined in my zeal:

“Don’t rush it, apprentice. You can still learn one more attack. Choose wisely!”

The very first window came back, allowing me to choose between Scorpion Strike, Dragon’s Tail and Stunning Kick.

I imagined that levelling new attacks would take time, but not give me a significant advantage. Maybe that Stunning Kick? Although it wouldn’t do much damage, it did give a chance of stunning an opponent. In the Arena, that could change the course of a whole fight. With that in mind, I chose it.

“Another wise choice, apprentice!” Master Sagda grinned in satisfaction. “That is all I can teach you today. Now you may go practice what you’ve learned. My training hall is at your disposal but I’m going to get some shuteye.”

After he left, I went and stood opposite the training dummy, which was about my height, though the first time I came in the dummy seemed taller. It was like a wooden person with no arms or legs mounted on a sturdy spring.

Training Dummy

Level always equal to whoever is attacking it. Skill and moves improve ten times slower than with a real enemy.

Durability: indestructible.

It was just a training dummy but, after my first hit, combat mode was activated and logs were being made. I landed a Combo and realized that I could now do unbelievable damage without any plague energy.

* * *

I still had some time before the former Dementors would arrive. We had agreed to meet after lunch because Ed was taking his sister to an amusement park and the others had gone with.

And I wasn’t going to waste my extra time. First and foremost, I wanted to level cooking and that would give me a chance to also figure out what to do with the stacks of swamp monster meat. Second, I wanted to comb the auctions for Zombie Rat Innards. The Destroying Plague was not unique to Tristad, and I was hoping that, without any recipes around, players would be trying to sluff off the nauseating offal at auc. That way, I could buy it all up and cook them into Roast Undead Rat Chitterlings to hasten our progress. I figured my clanmates would appreciate that just as much as me, since their levels had taken a hit.

Chef Arno was all in a lather, running around the kitchen and driving on his assistants. On the burners, there were pots and pans simmering, frying and boiling. Something was baking in the oven and it smelled fantastic. It was so busy I couldn’t find a single burner to cook on.

“Scyth!” Arno exclaimed. “Come by for a snack? Then you gotta go take a seat, buddy...” He got distracted and shouted at Rada the young chef girl: “Who cuts onions like this?! Give me the knife!”

Damn these game mechanics! I had three inventory slots all filled, giving me nowhere to even put a pot, wood and tinderbox. And without those, I could not start a fire and cook on my own. I started think. Just then, Arno was working with a muscular low-level chef to take a huge pot off the stove, which was filled with some kind of bubbling gruel, either porridge or soup.

The steaming vessel was set on a stone table and Arno made sure his assistant doled out even portions of the concoction, then sat on a chair and, turning to me, complained:

“It’s like this every day. The owner thought up this scheme: from one to two we serve full meals in the tavern. Three whole courses. And we need to serve new dishes every day! The compote is already boiled, the forest porridge with meat and berries is finishing up on the stove over there and, although we planned to make a fisherman’s stew, we couldn’t find any proper fish! Can you believe it, Scyth? Some bandits robbed this morning’s shipment from port and we had to quick run to the market and buy some river fish. They’re pure scales and bones! Yuck! We barely finished in time!”

“My sympathies, Arno,” I said.

I couldn’t ask him for any favors now.

“So then, what are you sitting down for?” The chef shuddered. “Can’t you see they’re already serving?! Go sit at a table, they’ll bring it out!”

“I didn’t come here to eat lunch. I have some free time on my hands and wanted to spend it cooking but, for that, I need to use your stove.”

Arno sized me up, quickly considered something and made an offer:

“You can easily level your trade by cooking river fish. Over in that bag, there’s plenty left: carp, bleak, ruff, and perch,” he pointed to the far corner of the kitchen. “It’s easy work and it goes fast. If you want, you can use our stocks, Scyth.”

I thanked Arno and headed for the bags, simultaneously skimming my list of known recipes. Dishes that were written in gray couldn’t improve my trade, while green ones had a very low chance. Yellow ones were almost certain to increase my level, and red ones were a sure thing but carried a risk of failure. Anyhow, I was not going to be stingy with free ingredients.

I dragged the bag over to a free stove, borrowed one of Arno’s pots and got to cooking. I made Smoked Perch, Fried Carp, Crispy Ruff, and Fish Fry, bringing my level up before my very eyes. The chef gave me a basket to fill with completed dishes.

When my level in the trade reached two hundred fifty, Arno gave a chuckle of approval then offered to increase my rank. And again for free!

Your rank in the cooking trade has been increased to Expert!

Current level: Expert (251/500).

Chance of cooking a dish with known recipe: 100%.

Chance of inventing a new dish: 15%.

Cooking recipes added: juicy lion steak, rich rhinoceros soup, hot apple cider, fried mollusk, fried goose wing, spicy wolf brisket, meat in Dragon’s Breath sauce, battered stoneskin fish...

To improve your skill in this trade, prepare dishes with known recipes, come up with your own recipes and experiment with ingredients

You have received experience points for advancing your rank in a trade: 50.

Experience points at present level (13): 441/11400.

I messed up plenty of fish because I was mostly cooking red dishes but, along the way, I even invented a new recipe – Well-Done Carp in Sour Cream. How sour cream entered the mix, I had no idea. Out of pure boredom, I splashed a bit of soured milk into the pot of carp as it cooked. Still, it wasn’t an especially useful dish: if you ate the whole thing, it restored twenty health points and gave a ten-minute buff that made mana restore ten percent faster. It could be quite a boon to low-level players at least.

With Arno’s permission, I put everything I cooked into the basket and was planning to bring it to auction to sell. All in all, I stood to earn less gold that way, but I was going there regardless to see if I could buy Zombie Rat Innards.

Every river-fish dish I knew had turned gray, but I finished off the bag out of principal. My progress in the trade was stalled at 254. It was time to start experimenting.

I dug into my backpack for a Toxic Filet of Bighead with Blood and first tried to simply fry it. Time and again, I turned out either blackened lumps of coal or inedible blobs that looked revolting. The meat either burned or disintegrated. Then a notification would tell me I failed.

Attempt to create a new dish!

Failure!

“Scyth, let me give you some advice,” Arno cut in after I had ruined the first stack and was getting to the second. “I don’t know where that meat comes from, but it looks very delicate. Try mixing it with a bit of apple cider vinegar, some herbs and red onion. You might not even need heat. Yeah, and some pepper! Try a fiery red one...”

He pointed at a spice bag and I followed his recommendations. I took the pot off the stove and dropped a bit of swamp bighead meat inside, then did exactly as Arno said. The first three times it did nothing, so I started messing around with the proportions of vinegar and spice. Then I thought maybe the game needed heat to trigger the cooking process.

So I put everything into the pot again, mixed it up and put it over the coals. And three seconds later I pulled it off.

Attempt to create a new dish!

Success!

You have created a new cooking recipe: Marinated Filet of Swamp Bighead with Onion and Herbs!

Experience points received for new cooking recipe: +100.

You have prepared Marinated Filet of Swamp Bighead with Onion and Herbs.

Marinated Filet of Swamp Bighead with Onion and Herbs (1) added to your inventory.

Marinated Filet of Swamp Bighead with Onion and Herbs

Ingredients: toxic filet of bighead with blood, apple cider vinegar, black pepper, spicy pepper, red onion, herbs.

With proper preparation, the extremely toxic meat of the swamp bighead can become a true delicacy! Its inventor, Scyth, experimented many times before discovering the proper combination of spices and heat.

Special effects when eaten: +10 to highest main attribute for three hours.

Effect lasts until death.

Value: 54 silver coins.

Cooking trade: +10.

Current level: Expert (264/500).

You have received experience points for progressing in a trade: +10.

I wasn’t the only one to be impressed. Arno jumped over in excitement, gave me a hug and started to shake me:

“Two new dishes in less than an hour! Scyth, you have great potential for mastering cooking! Let me give you some advice. Actually no, I insist! You must take part in a cooking contest!”

“Arno, it was just a coincidence!” I denied. “That recipe came from you! And almost all the ingredients were yours!”

“No, young man!” the chef shook his head. “I never would have thought to heat up a pot of cured fish! It’s not my style at all!”

He spent a long time talking in heated tones about the culinary tournament. It was held every Sunday and master chefs from came from throughout Disgardium to compete. The application consisted of sending a signature dish to the organizers at the chefs’ guild. The big condition was that you could only prepare a dish of your own invention. If an applicant could pass the selection process, they would be invited to the next tournament by a letter that would directly teleport them to the main guild hall on the day of the contest.

“Scyth, did you know that, as the inventor of a new dish, you get a one percent commission each time it’s sold? Of course, for that, you need to register the recipe with the chefs’ guild...”

I remembered that I had another two new dishes up my sleeve as well: Baked Undead Rat Chitterlings and Well-Done Carp in Sour Cream, and I agreed.

“What do I need to do, Mr. Arno?”

“With your permission, I can take your dish and make the application myself. I have just one request. You are allowed to take one companion with you, and I would be delighted to visit the guild. I have lots of things to do there. And if you go so far as to officially recognize me as your trainer at the tournament, it would go a long way toward flattering an old geezer...”

Arno looked sheepishly at the ceiling and I smiled. No matter what he said, he was a big strong man, no geezer.

“Of course, Mr. Arno!”

The chef hugged me and, touched, wiped away a tear. And then, with a new recipe in hand, I used up the rest of the swamp creature meat. I also realized I should stock up on the other ingredients and have Bomber carry them into the Mire, so I could cook more there.

I finished up and told Arno I wasn’t saying goodbye; I’d be right back. I borrowed the basket full of cooked fish and ran off to the auction. My clanmates would be entering Dis any second and I wanted to cook up some Roast Undead Rat Chitterlings so we’d progress even faster.

At auction, I completely unloaded both the basket and my backpack, putting everything I’d cooked up for sale. I put up the most basic dishes at the symbolic price of one or two copper, Carp in Sour Cream went for three copper, and the Marinated Filet of Swamp Bighead with Onion and Herbs I valued at a whole three gold. I don’t know for certain, maybe it would have been possible to sell for ten. But considering the fact that I had an inexhaustible supply of the main ingredient in the Mire, I didn’t want to risk it.

Zombie Rat Innards were none too plentiful at auction. There were just twelve from various sellers throughout Disgardium. The price varied and, although most were valued at three or four silver, two from one trader were up in the stratosphere at one thousand gold a piece. By the looks of things, not knowing what he was dealing with, he’d jacked up the price just based on a suspicion that a rare little-known alchemy and cooking ingredient might be worth that much to someone. He wasn’t far from the truth, but still I wasn’t going to touch his offers.

Ten minutes later, I scooped up my purchases from a box and cooked the rat zombie innards in the kitchen, pulling up the trade by another ten. Then I warmly bid Arno farewell and went into the bar area of the Bubbling Flagon. The Awoken were already in Tristad and headed for the tavern, our clan rendezvous point.

We were planning to spend hours farming the Mire, but I hadn’t eaten lunch yet. I hoped Tissa and the boys would be understanding.

A system message caught me as I was looking for them.

Results have been tallied for the Tristad City Council elections!

The seat vacated by Varm Thorgerdson shall now be occupied by Sir Polynucleotide.

The official ceremony shall commence on the Central Square in front of the city council building at 8:00 PM.

And after that, almost at once, another notification popped up. It struck me as weird, because it was giving me a quest that was absolutely impossible to complete:

Councilman Polynucleotide would like you to decorate all the streets in Tristad with ceremonial garlands.

Progress: 0/63.

Time limit: before the official City Council swearing-in ceremony (05:18).

Reward:

— 30 experience points;

— 3 silver coins.

Penalty for refusing or failing to complete mission: reputation with the city of Tristad lowered to Hostile.

Would you like to accept?

Chapter 19. Frenemies

“HOW’D YOU LIKE my unique quest, Scythy boy?” Big Po asked, stepping out from behind some columns. He then chuckled and said mockingly: “You’ve been given the great honor of decorating the city for the swearing-in ceremony!”

I didn’t have time to think up a response or express my indignation before Tissa flew into the tavern, the rest of the gang hot on her heels.

“Hi!” I drowned in her embrace, then the guys patted me hard on the back.

“What does this creep want now?” Ed measured Big Po up with a purely negative gaze.

“Ah, what a wonderful coincidence!” Wesley Cho rubbed his hands together as he looked at them, pausing on each one and nodding, concealing a smile. “Good luck finishing the quest, losers!”

Then he headed for his favorite table, already occupied by Axiom officers. Based on their reddened faces, they had been knocking back cream beers with a bit of Earl the alchemist’s cheer elixir.

Ed froze for a moment then launched curses at Polynucleotide’s back:

“What the heck, Po? How?”

Po stopped and turned around unhurriedly. His gaze flickered with hate:

“Did you ever consider why we wanted a seat on the council, you nitwit? Among other things, so we could do stuff like this and make life a little less sweet for losers like you! You will not be able to complete that quest, I guarantee it. So haul your butts out of here before the whole city goes aggro on you!”

We looked at him and I nodded at an unoccupied table, then walked over and took a seat. Everyone was watching the former Dementors but they ignored it and followed my lead.

“Do we all have the same quest?” I asked.

“Decorate all the streets with garlands,” Tissa answered. “You?”

“Yeah, same. The way I see it, our only choice is to accept. We gain time that way. Where can we get these damned garlands?”

“Old Ja sells them at his souvenir store,” Infect answered. “But for a city quest, Whiteacre will give them to us for free.”

“But it won’t help,” Crawler squeezed out gloomily. “Have you ever hung garlands, Scyth? Before any festival, Whiteacre rains down quests like this: from decorating trees to hiding Easter eggs.”

“No,” I shook my head.

“Well to ‘hang them,’“ Ed said, making quotation marks with his fingers, “on one street takes about an hour. When you have an active quest, the system shows you points on the wall where you can hang a garland. You go up and like ‘stick it’ on, then a progress bar fills up. Each spot takes one minute, and there are forty-five spots per street. We have five hours before the ceremony, and five of us. And that means, in the best-case scenario, with the time we have, we can hang garlands on...”

“Twenty-five streets,” I interrupted.

“Exactly. The leader of Axiom must be good at math. If what I’ve read is true, when a player generates a mission, the system won’t allow them to create impossible ones. So this quest must be doable. But Po must have given the quest out to a few of his clanmates who already have a high reputation with Tristad. So if we were all doing our job, we could finish.”

“But obviously the Axiom guys aren’t going to do the quest,” Bomber sighed. “But won’t that lower their rep too?”

“That’s hardly a concern to them, Bomb,” Crawler answered. “Tomorrow Big Po will gen them another mission to get back everything they lost. Alright, what should we do, Scyth? You’re in charge.”

Tissa shook her head at a waitress coming over to take our order, sending her away, and the Awoken all looked to me.

“Is everyone going to hostile if you don’t do the mission?” I asked.

They all went silent, studying their profiles. Tissa’s eyes went wide:

“Aw nether! If I can’t enter the city, I’ll be screwed! Every day I don’t pray in the temple, my faith points fall exponentially! After a few weeks, I’ll lose my status as a priestess of Nergal! Oh no...” Tissa raised her hands and prayed, looking at the ceiling. “Why? I wasted so much time on that...”

“You’re gonna lose it anyway. When we become followers...” without finishing, Crawler nodded in my direction.

“We haven’t tested that yet!” she whispered. “You’re allowed to level faith with more than one god.”

“Does that mean you’ll lose light magic, too?” I asked, worried.

“No, she won’t,” Crawler answered. “The magic is from a folio, but Nergal gives her bigtime bonuses. Anyway it looks like, five hours from now, we won’t be able to enter the city again.”

“If that’s true, we ‘ll have to stock up. Food, drink, potions, repair kits...”

I rattled off everything that, in my opinion, we would need, but noticed that Crawler wanted to say something.

“Yeah, Ed?”

“Scyth, we’ve got that under control,” he said. “We used to go on two-week raids back when we were pwning ins’s and moving our res points way out. But I’m worried by a different thing. Do we have anyone trustworthy we can trade through? And I’m not talking about little stuff. We can do that with any of our classmates. But what if we get something that’s really high value? An epic, for example. Sending an object like that by game mail is equivalent to giving it as a gift, and any Arbitrator will confirm that. Russel screwed me on two blues once, remember?”

“Mhm,” Bomber chuckled. “And there’s no recourse, no point in even trying. After all, no one made you send it.”

“I’ve got someone, I’ll invite them over right now for a chat...”

I sent a message to Overweight, suggesting we meet next to the tavern. She answered right away, writing that she’d be there soon.

“We’d better change location. There’s a lot of people around and we don’t want the wrong person hearing,” Tissa said.

“Then let’s head out. Bomb and Infect go buy supplies, and Tissa, Scyth and I will talk to the trader.” Ed turned to the boys. “Stick to the usual program for supplies, just get five times as much. And don’t forget vials, blank scrolls and alchemy ingredients. We’ll be making potions out there...”

Ding! A notification came in that my swamp bighead dishes had all been sold. Three gold a piece! So I could raise the price... Nether, the auction! I totally forgot that I wanted to sell my gear through Rita and, after we left the city, I would not be getting access to my chest any time soon.

“I’ll be gone two minutes,” I said. “It’s urgent.”

Running that direction, I heard Infect ask in confusion:

“We’re in the tavern and our friend suddenly jumps up from the table. Question: does he have to pee?”

“Scyth, if you’re going to the bathroom, I hope you get an achievement for being the first person to do so in game.” And Bomber’s cheery guffaw followed me all the way to the stairs.

In my room, I quickly sorted through the items. I sent all the blues to Rita then busted my brains over what to do with the epics: the bow and gloves. I would need them but not soon. And before that, we would all be dying too often for my taste. The chance of losing epic gear was low, but higher than zero. So I sent them by message to Overweight with a note reading: “Hold onto these please. I’ll explain when I see you.”

When I got back to my clanmates, I immediately was subjected to an interrogation from Infect about what I needed for our long raid, given it could turn into a full exile lasting right up until we made it out into the big world.

“I don’t really need anything,” I responded mechanically.

“Are you sure? Think hard. No special wishes?” Hung asked.

“Okay, I’ve got some stuff,” I nodded, remembering that I wanted to cook food made of Mire creatures...

I listed off the cooking ingredients I knew I would need, ordered a couple stacks of other seasonings just in case we found new resources for food prep, then threw up a link in the clan chat to the description of Roast Undead Rat Chitterlings.

“Well god damn!” Ed whistled. “Where’d you get that from? And how much you got?”

“You’re full of surprises, Scyth old buddy,” Hung said, whispering for some reason.

Infect turned his head and gave me a thumbs up:

“Clear! There’s no one around...”

Ed nodded. Everyone looked at me, expecting an answer.

“I cooked it,” I answered. “I’ve got half a stack, but if you know where we can find Zombie Rats, I’ll be able to cook more. And you, Bomb, look for the ingredients at auc. Search for Zombie Rat Innards.”

“Got it,” the tank nodded, making a note in his interface.

He and Infect got up from the table. Hung patted his pockets and stretched his neck, loosening up his stiff muscles. Real-life habits were often carried over into Dis.

“Try to get it done in an hour,” Ed sent them off. “We’ve got a lot more to do before we go out in the field. Pack gear kits, do a complete repair...”

“We know, we know,” Infect interrupted him. “This ain’t our first rodeo.”

I heard paper rustling and saw a line light up, indicating a personal message from Rita: “I’m at the door. Should I come in?”

“My person is here,” I told Tissa and Crawler. “Come in, let’s chat.”

Rita Overweight, tall, buxom and looking especially pretty in a bright vibrant dress that ended just above the knee, shot her head up in surprise when she realized who I was with. Tissa looked like a real adolescent compared to her. Well, that was precisely what she was, along with the rest of us. But looking at Rita, I saw... how to put it... a grown woman? Melissa and I had grown up together since kindergarten. I knew her as a silly little kid with bruised knees and bows in her braids. And that meant I would always see her first and foremost as a friend regardless of gender. Still, clearly, I felt very tender and exciting emotions for Tissa. What could I say, I loved her.

But everything was different with Rita Wood. She awakened something in me. Something different. Something not from the heart and definitely not from the mind. And it thrilled me, made my blood boil.

“Hi, Alex!” The initial confusion left Rita’s face and she gave a broad smile.

“Hi! Rita, these are my friends and classmates...”

“The former Dementors, if memory serves. Crawler and Tissa,” Wood finished. Then she said dryly: “We’ve met.”

“So this is your ‘trustworthy person?’“ Ed asked, his eyes fixed on Overweight.

“Yes, I trust her. What of it?”

“Well she and her brother Chris hung us out to dry!” Tissa exclaimed. “Let’s get out of here!”

“Wait, wait! Not so fast!” I took her by the hand.

Despite herself, Tissa stopped and Ed started admonishing me:

“Scyth, Axiom could be listening here. That’s for one. We can’t talk about this here. And the Woods are scammers. No matter what happens to us, we cannot have anything to do with them, that’s for two!”

Rita kept silent, but her facial expression, clenched fists, heaving chest and suspiciously gleaming eyes told me that a bomb was about to go off. I took her by the hand, not letting go of Tissa’s, and pulled them both into the tavern.

“What? Let me go! Where are you taking me? Let me go right now, Alex Sheppard! Why?” Came simultaneous cries of female indignation, accompanied by cat-like hissing.

“Crawler, please rent a room from Tashot. I’ve heard they’ve got a canopy of silence. Let’s see out how it works.”

He was the one who usually gave commands in Dis and the second of tension was palpable. But Ed accepted and ran off to the bar. Half a minute later, clanking a set of keys, he came up the stairs to the second floor and I followed him with the obstinate girls. Praise be to the Destroying Plague that my strength was higher than both of theirs combined.

Entering the room last, Crawler locked the door behind him.

“What is this, a kidnapping?” Rita asked, smoothing her wrinkled dress.

“No, Overweight, this is an attempt at saving our friendship,” I answered.

No one sat down, we were all still standing: me at the window, the girls scowling from opposite ends of the room, and Ed at the door. I quickly looked around because this was my first time in this kind of room.

It was very comfortable, spacious, and had a huge bed against the wall, panorama windows that faced the street and an abundance of interior decorations. There were pictures on the wall with a romantic theme, and a vase on the table with a pretty bouquet of fresh flowers and some other things. I didn’t look too closely at the details, just made sure the fairly expensive upgrade to the hotel room had worked. It looked like a luxury hotel in the Persian Gulf, where my parents used to take me in happier times. The room was ideal for a peaceful conversation.

I sat in a soft deep armchair at the window, put my feet up and told the others to do the same. But only Tissa followed my example, plunking down in a different chair. Ed stayed at the door and Overweight just crossed her arms over her chest and bit her lip.

“Rita, apologies, but we couldn’t talk with others around. Let me be direct before we discuss anything...”

“Scyth!” Tissa shot out, but I stopped her with a gesture.

“We have less than five hours. After becoming a councilman, Polynucleotide gave us an impossible quest. Now, Tristad’s opinion of us is going to be hostile by this evening. Draw your own conclusions there.”

“Son of your mother, Sheppard!” Ed shot out in frustration, but didn’t say anything more.

“Rodriguez,” I answered, not missing a beat. “We’ll get to your history with Chris and Rita Wood, okay? For now, I want to explain our situation to Rita.”

“Alex, as soon as you finish and before you hear out your friends, please let me tell the story from my perspective,” Overweight requested. “Not only do I never want to talk to these people again, I don’t even want to be in the same room as them. I’m only doing it for your sake.”

Tissa shot her a look as nasty as a Molded from Resident Evil.

“Of course, Rita,” I promised. “It’s all because Axiom is our enemy, Big Po specifically. It all started after we snatched that First Kill out from under them in the Olton Quarries. Not many people know, because neither of us will say so directly but, as you can see, I’m not gonna hide it from you. I want you to understand what I’m getting you into.”

“And what exactly are you getting me into, Alex?” Rita smiled just barely.

Tissa, watching Rita through partially closed eyelashes, noticed Overweight’s languid vibrating intonations and reacted instantly:

“Don’t get your hopes up, Wood! No one is getting you into anything. Alex just doesn’t know who you really are!”

“Tissa!” I had to raise my voice. “We don’t have much time!”

“Okay, boss,” came from the chair.

She put her feet up and mimicked throwing a hood over her head. However, she was not IRL, and wasn’t wearing a hoodie or her favorite pants, just a dress of a priestess of Nergal and, thinking better of it, went to quickly cross her legs.

Hiding a smirk, I kept talking with Rita:

“Nothing criminal. We’re going to the field for a long-term farm and, as you can see, we won’t be able to use the auction to sell loot. Beyond that, we’ll have to restock on potions, elixirs, alchemy and cooking ingredients...”

“And all other trade ingredients and resources,” Overweight finished my thought. “I understand, Alex. No question. You know you can count on me. You know my condition, and the fact that it will be more profitable to the Awoken than handling the trading on your own. I by the way, already put your gear up on auc, but what should I do with...” She faltered, not knowing whether to mention the epics in front of Tissa and Crawler.

“The epics? Hold onto them for me until I say to send them back to me.”

I could feel Tissa and Ed boring into me with their eyes, but I wasn’t going to ask why in front of Rita. That was clan business and I was not going to risk it no matter how much I trusted Overweight. There was no reason.

“Good, I’ll do just that,” she nodded. “Anything else?”

“No, Rita. That’s all I need from you.”

“Then here is my version of Undy and I’s dispute with the Dementors.”

“Dispute?” Ed chuckled. “You scammed us!”

“Not at all,” she disagreed. “We didn’t scam or deceive anyone...”

“Like hell you didn’t!” Tissa shouted.

Talking over one another, they told me about the beginning of their conflict. And here’s what I found out.

About a year ago, when the Dementors had just started taking down their first raid bosses, they happened upon a rare blue item. The Sword of either a Hundred or a Thousand Truths, opinions differed. Bomber already had a scalable epic for eliminating the threat, Infect had the daggers, and the mages Tissa and Crawler had no need for a weapon. And so they decided to sell it.

God only knew why they decided to do it through the Woods. Either the auction was too far away and Underweight was nearby, or Chris had himself made an offer but, either way, it happened. When Rita was finally allowed to get a word in, she explained that Undy used to wander distant locations buying up loot from players. In fact, that was how they got their starting capital. With a fair warning, they would buy low and sell high.

Low-level players were generally not opposed. What was more, they were usually actually happy not to have to run back to town to sell their junk. For the most part, they had standard bags that couldn’t fit much, so few could say no to unloading some trash and freeing up slots without having to leave their farming spot. Underweight then could hold a lot both due to his expensive and large bag and his high strength. Overweight, meanwhile, was responsible for charisma, which was important for making deals with NPC vendors.

And from there, everything was extremely fair in Rita’s option and a complete fraud and scam to Tissa and Ed. They sold Undy a rare sword for seventy gold, and he resold it for almost seven hundred, a fact he was not ashamed to boast about in the tavern. That trickled down to the Dementors and they rushed off to figure it out. Underweight dismissed all their complaints and, in my opinion, was totally right to do so. He made them an offer, they agreed and no one was holding a blaster to anyone’s head.

What was more, Rita explained that, when Chris estimated the value of the sword, he figured it was worth no more than a hundred in the best case. Considering auction commission, he was planning to make no more than ten or fifteen gold off it. And the blue item was actually worth no more than that based only on its stats. The price went up so high because some collectors started a bidding war over it. That sword only dropped in the Tristad sandbox, so it was extremely rare.

Once I got to the root of the problem, contrary to my clanmates’ expectations, I took the Woods’ side:

“Ed, Tissa, you definitely can’t call that a scam. So just forget about it. Let’s start over and give Overweight and her brother a clean slate. If you still have any doubts about the Woods’ honesty, I’m willing to take responsibility. I promise to compensate all potential consequences of this decision. Agreed?”

“Scyth, I don’t think you understand!” Ed cried foul. “I wouldn’t have said anything if he sold the sword for double the price, but ten times? Half a thou in profit! It took me and the clan half a year to save up that much? Don’t you think that’s unfair?”

“Alex, you might not know, but we weren’t even eating lunch at school back then. We were putting everything into Dis,” Tissa added. “And the way the Woods scammed us just doesn’t add up! Even now... So what, you really believe her brother didn’t know what the gear was really worth?”

“I trust her. And that’s my final word. If you want to keep discussing it, go ahead. But I’m out.”

Despite themselves and through gritted teeth, they agreed not to bring it up again. And that was the end of it.

Meanwhile Rita got distracted looking at her interface.

“Chris wants to know where I’ve gone,” she said, concerned. “If we’re done here, I think I’ll be going.”

“No one is making you stay,” Tissa noted.

“And send your brother a big hello,” Crawler said.

“Good luck farming and I hope you level quick, Alex!” Rita said, pointedly ignoring Ed and Tissa. “I’ve heard whispers you and Big Po made a bet about who comes higher in the sandbox clan Arena. If so, good luck to you and your friends!”

“Thanks Rita...”

She didn’t let me finish. She gave me a hug and whispered in my ear:

“Do you wanna fly out to Glastonbury for the rock festival next weekend? IRL, for real. Chris is gonna take his girlfriend and Goosebumps wanted you to come.”

“Goosebumps? What about you?”

“I want you to come too,” she agreed easily.

After brief consideration, I decided against it. It would be too flippant.

“Thanks, but I shouldn’t. We have to get ready for the Arena and every day counts.”

“Too bad,” her voice almost shuddered. She was upset. “Alright, I’ll keep my hopes up anyway. Call me if anything comes up. I’ll send my comm number to your mailbox.”

With a kiss on the cheek, she let go of my hand and left the room.

“That’s new, Sheppard,” Tissa noted coldly. “You never told me you had a girlfriend.”

“She isn’t my girlfriend. We’re just friends.”

“And who’s Goosebumps?” asked Crawler, who had excellent hearing.

“Ed, don’t fan the flames,” I begged.

Looking at Schafer, who was just seething, he laughed.

“Good for you Alex, what a Lothario!”

“Not funny, Edward!” she barked. “Damn, let’s get to business already! Hour two in Dis and I haven’t killed anything yet!”

“Yeah, that pointless conversation took too much time, Scyth,” Crawler said, getting up. “The guys have already bought everything and are on their way here.”

“Then have them come up,” I said.

“Why?”

“I’ve got an idea we need to discuss.” Rita’s suggestion to fly across the ocean to Glastonbury had given me an idea. I felt like there was a solution at hand, but I just couldn’t grab hold of it. Perhaps talking with the guys would help. “It’s about the Sleeping Gods...”

“Are we gonna pray?” Crawler interrupted with a chuckle.

“The great and terrible Behemoth is not some ramshackle Radiant god. He doesn’t need our prayers...”

They didn’t let me finish. Ed fell down, throwing up his hands. Tissa vengefully kicked him under the ribs:

“That’s for making fun of me, you heartless animal!”

Chapter 20. Departure

HAD I ALREADY mentioned the fact that being around pretty girls made me unmercifully, even ferociously stupid? That’s what was happening then. It was either Rita’s offer or Schafer’s totally bizarre reaction, but I was frozen and barely knew what was going on around me.

“Do you think this is funny?” Tissa wouldn’t settle down and closed Crawler in once again, but he just kept laughing. “Edward Rodriguez!”

“Okay, okay, I give up!”

Ed stood up, strained to keep a serious expression on his face but failed. He jumped up and filled with laughter again.

“What the crap is happening?” I couldn’t hold back.

“Scyth, have you ever seen the way priests of Nergal pray?” he asked through laughter.

Now Tissa was frozen. She looked at Ed with mistrust and calmed down.

“Does that mean you think it was because of your stupid mimicry?” she asked.

Crawler didn’t have a chance to answer. There came a tentative knock on the door, I undid the lock and Infect and Bomber ran in, both in quite the fervor.

“Guys!” Hung turned to us. “Why’d we give up so easy, huh? Scyth, didn’t you make that bet with Big Po before the Arbitrator? He isn’t allowed to put any sticks in our spokes!”

“Hey, yeah! That’s right!” I shouted, pissed at myself for not thinking of that on my own. “Now...”

They crowded around me and I recited the standard formulation to summon the dispute resolution AI. For the record, summoning the Arbitrator without good reason could potentially lower your reputation. Judges in Dis were all part of a separate faction called Heavenly Arbitration, and it was said that bad relations with them could impact the resolution of future cases. And as nobody knew how to improve the figure, no one risked summoning a member of the faction over a minor issue.

The fabric of space in the middle of the room warped for a moment, a hole formed and a small sphere the size of an apple tumbled out. A weak measured drone emanated from the eye, which shimmered with a blue flame. It addressed me:

“Please state the nature of your request, player Scyth.”

I did and Tissa, butting in with her own remarks, added color. They eye faded for a moment, going over the details, then gave a verdict:

“The mission was assigned within the bounds of the gaming process,” it stated imperturbably. “The quest was assigned by an elected councilman, player Polynucleotide, based on his own preferences, which do not contradict the rules.”

“But the quest is impossible to complete!” Tissa tried not to scream, but still a shout of outrage burst out. “Because the players from Axiom who also have the quest are simply not going to do it!”

They eye turned toward her, analyzed what she’d said and delivered a verdict, its ringing crystal voice giving a fading echo off the walls:

“That is also allowed by the game process. Failing the mission will lead to penalties from the city council. Issue settled.”

The eye disappeared, leaving us in dismal silence. It was just as unjust as it was unchallengeable. All we could do to get our reputations back up was spend an inordinate amount of time tediously farming enemies of the city and completing quests of minor importance in other locations, tangentially improving our relationship with Tristad. With the Arena coming up, that would be a senseless waste of time. What was more, while Big Po was a councilman, we could always be issued another impossible quest.

“So what’s your idea, Scyth?” Crawler asked. “You said you had something to discuss about the Sleeping ones.”

The feeling of inspiration had passed by then. While we were talking to the Arbitrator, I reached my own decision and it no longer seemed good to me. We didn’t have enough time, and it would take too much effort just to test my theory. So I decided to say nothing and not discuss it.

“We can discuss it later,” I suggested, feeling rumbles in my stomach. My throat was dry too. My real body was reminding me that it was time to get some nourishment. “It isn’t urgent. It might not even be worth talking about now.”

“So, should we go?” Ed asked, and everyone looked at me.

I was not a fan of suddenly being made leader: I wasn’t used to taking responsibility for other people yet. But still I figured I’d have to learn, otherwise my chances of increasing my potential would be nil.

“I’ve been here since eight AM,” I said. “I’m gonna dip to the real world and get a bite to eat, then we move out. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

Out of my pod, I ate, drank, took care of my other needs and went back into Dis. And the guys, waiting for me, were still sitting in the same places discussing our plan of action for the day.

“Scyth,” Crawler nodded when I came in. “We don’t have much time, so I suggest we move out on foot to the Gnoll Quarries...”

“Why not teleport?” I asked in surprise.

“Too much jumping,” he explained. “Plus we know a couple juicy rare mobs on our way. They’re not much for level, but based on the known drop list, there is a very small chance for them to drop epics. And it isn’t very far to go.”

We left the city long before the time limit of Big Po’s mission. We went around the walls from the west to the foothills of the Nameless Mountains. From their peaks, we had a good view of Tristad. Tissa stopped and stared at the city where she’d spent almost her whole life in Disgardium

“The whole last year I’ve been dreaming of leaving this small town as quick as possible,” she sighed. “But now I’m sad.”

“Don’t be sad, sis,” Bomber said touchingly. “We’ll go back to Tristad one day. But now I’d rather get out of this damned sandbox than go back to town.”

“By the way, about big Dis. I have three and a half more months here,” I said. “My birthday is March twenty-seventh.”

“February nineteenth here,” Crawler called back gloomily. “I’m first to leave.”

“I’m a March baby too,” Bomber said, “the fifteenth.”

“April ninth,” Infect chuckled.

Tissa kept silent but we’d already discussed this. She was going to hit sixteen last, just June second. And she was very worried about spending a few months here without us.

A restless stream poured down the mountain. We filled our flasks under a waterfall coming down from a blue stone at head height. The water (+5% to energy regain) was ice cold and we also washed up, huffing and puffing for joy. Big Bomber, as usual, couldn’t resist and splashed us all head to toe.

“You know what, Melissa?” Hung said in satisfaction, wiping his wet hands on his clothes. “If we can really pull off this plan, you have the chance to get a Grand achievement!”

“Which one?” she shot out.

“You could hit the highest level ever achieved in a sandbox! Right now some kid from Seoul has it. He dinged thirty just one day before he went into big Dis!”

“Thirty!” Tissa exclaimed. “That kid must have stayed in the game day and night!”

“Yeah, he wasn’t going to school,” Bomber confirmed. “His parents are from a top Asian clan and had been planning all along for their son to make his career in Dis...”

Hung was all too happy to start imagining what it was like to have parents like that. I took a look at all the Awoken, including myself and fixed all our attributes in my memory as something of a starting point for the clan:

Scyth, level-13 human

Clan: The Awoken.

Clan founder and leader

Real name: Alex Sheppard.

Real age: 15.

Class: Herald.

Display class: Archer (imitation).

Crawler, level-11 human

Clan: The Awoken.

Tactics Officer

Real name: Edward Rodriguez.

Real age: 15.

Class: Fire Mage.

Tissa, level-10 human

Clan: The Awoken.

Analysis Officer.

Real name: Melissa Schafer.

Real age: 15.

Class: Light Mage.

Bomber, level-10 human

Clan: The Awoken.

Supply Officer.

Real name: Hung Lee.

Real age: 15.

Class: Warrior.

Infect, level-10 human

Clan: The Awoken.

Reconnaissance Officer.

Real name: Malik Abduhalim.

Real age: 15.

Class: Thief.

I assigned ranks to the clan just provisionally, based on what I knew about them. We didn’t want to bother with that yet and, for now, the Awoken were destined to remain quite a small and extremely private clan.

Ed Rodriguez, sometimes impossibly geeky, was going over our route yet again but, to my surprise, none of the guys were annoyed. In fact, they were all listening just as attentively as the first run-through. Seemingly, repetition was foundational for the Dementors and, in many ways, what allowed them to achieve such progress in the first place. And I had to admit, they had done great for such a small clan.

“Let’s drop by Packston’s Vineyards. There’s an Ancient Leprechaun that sometimes spawns there. After that, we go to the Reeking Crypt and the Mountain Dams. It won’t take much time, but it’s worth doing.” Crawler looked at me because the others already knew that. “A Bone Horse can drop in the crypt. Theoretically, because no one has gotten lucky in the last four years. And at the dam, we can do a bit of fishing...”

“Uh...”

“Hung is an angler,” Tissa explained.

“It won’t take more than a minute,” Crawler continued. “Bomber is trying to get an achieve there and catch this Golden Fish. You can only catch it on your first cast of the week.”

“Yeah, we might as well skip that,” Hung boomed out in his deep bass. “It’s a myth.”

“It is not a myth!” Ed said sharply. “It has been proven conclusively. You just need to be patient.”

I didn’t ask what it could give, but Tissa decided to explain anyway:

“The Golden Fish gives just one mission. It asks you to let it go, and you get two options for the reward, either a random object that is usually at least epic quality, or a permanent boost to any main attribute ranging from twenty to one hundred points.”

“You might even get a legendary,” Bomber added. “But I think I’d take the stat boost. I would have picked endurance before but, with Alex, I would put it all into strength...”

“Yes, thinking strategically is the way to go,” Crawler agreed. “But let’s get back to the plan. We’re gonna complete the Abandoned Pits. It used to be an active mine, but it was exhausted, then abandoned and the gnolls took over the shafts, which is where it gets its other name, Gnoll Quarry. There’s nothing there of particular value, but we need to get a single use key that drops from the last mob. Without that, there’s no other way into Goro Gorge, a raid ins full of ogres. And after that, we can pop into Gloomwood. Tissa, that was your thing.”

“Yes, it was my idea,” Schafer confirmed. “Something has appeared deep in the forest. Basically, there used to be a little lumberjack village there but, when the breath of the Nether came over the forest, the people were turned into monsters, but kept the same appearance. They devoured wandering travelers until Tristad sent out a death squad to clear the village. Recently, one of the Rain Crabs was in that part of the forest and, from far away, he noticed a quest giver, some ghost wandering in the village. But he didn’t get the quest. He was killed by wraiths first, and wrote about it on the forums.”

I remembered Tissa telling me that all the Dementors were constantly monitoring the sandbox forums for just such events: someone saw something weird somewhere, didn’t know exactly what and hurried to tell people.

“Basically, I say we drop by there and check it out. What if there’s something worth our while?”

“Agreed,” I nodded. “That way we can come up a level or two. They’re pretty empty places and that means plenty of nasty high-level mobs.”

“I like the cut of your jib, Scyth!” Bomber poked my shoulder, expressing delight. “Come up a level or two! Ha-ha! To hear you tell it, sounds like a piece of cake!”

“Am I wrong?” I didn’t understand.

“You know how long this would have taken us without you?”

“I can guess,” I sighed. “A long time.”

“So then, we’ll check the little village, farm a level and keep going. Over the Tremitelle to the hunting camp in the Mire,” Tissa said.

“Do you think they’ll be friendly?” Infect suggested. “We could just make a break for it and see how far we get...”

Then Ed joined in again and explained that the hunting camp was a separate faction with no connection to Tristad. Nevertheless, completing their quests was a way of slightly boosting reputation with the city. Despite everything, the guys hadn’t lost the hope of restoring good relations with their characters’ hometown.

Then Ed once again ran over our tactics if we encountered gankers. Meanwhile, we ate a bit of trail food with a movement speed buff and Tissa added to it with her magic.

Lightfoot

Light shines the way!

+10% to movement speed.

Duration: 1 hour.

By seven in the evening, we were off. It was a bright day; the sun was crimson and already dipping beneath the horizon. It left the soil warm and the air was wafting up in transparent streams. We came straight down the hill, crossing creeks and then went up another steep incline. And so we went, from hilltop to hilltop. Not counting one very angry and powerful bear and a few gangs of stupid low-level bandits, no one aggro’d on us. Small animals just ran away, and the few creatures that were equal to us in level reasonably judged our group not to be worth the trouble.

The rare mobs Crawler promised gave us no problems, though neither the Ancient Leprechaun in the vineyard, nor Baron Dustbringer dropped the loot we were hoping for. Bomber then cast a line (+5 to fishing trade) but, instead of the golden fish, he got an especially feisty Striped Perch, which swallowed the hook and bait then almost half of the unlucky Hung’s finger while he tried getting it off the hook.

“I’m gonna keep you for Scyth to fry up,” he grumbled with a vengeance, tossing the floundering perch into his inventory.

Meanwhile, the crimson sun fully set before we made it from the dam to the road and started our race toward Gloomwood. The trail suddenly gave a sharp turn right toward the ocean; to my righthand side, there were never ending green fields of vines. And before us were towering cliff faces and looming ravines. And that was where we were headed.

It was my first time in this part of the sandbox. Eve and I never had the nerve to go this far. There was a dusty road that looped around the whole zone, running up hills and diving down again, but soon it gave way to a gradual descent into a narrow gorge.

“As soon as we enter the ins, I’ll go invincible, pull all the mobs and run to the first boss,” I announced. “You don’t aggro anything and just run a bit behind us...”

“We remember, Alex,” Tissa reassured me. “Don’t worry.”

But I was still worried. The Gnoll ins was a place they’d studied back to front, but Bomber had always been their tank. And though my suggestion to speed up the farm did have them excited, I was a bit on edge. What if one of them aggro’d on someone else? If one of my clanmates died, it wouldn’t be that big a deal. After all, Tissa could raise the dead and I could always use the Respawn Stone to res her. But dying would mean losing experience, and that meant backsliding on our progress, which we could not afford to do.

“Scyth!” Hung perched a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Everything’s gonna be fine, don’t worry! Our group has the most capable and experienced raiders in this sandbox. Just do everything like you used to, and we’ll adapt.”

Ed and Malik confirmed with a satisfied chuckle. They would adapt.

“Then let’s go,” I said, leading the way down into the quarry.

The entrance was guarded by three packs of sentries: nothing too special, level ten and eleven, not even elite. The mobs inside the dungeon were about the same level, though they did have improved, elite status.

Humanoid dogs. That was the first thing I thought when I saw the Gnolls. I’d heard that, in mythology, Gnolls were a mix between gnomes and trolls. But lots of stuff in Dis was not based on myths and legends, but tried and true concepts from the original fantasy games of the turn of the century. In Dis, Gnolls were a bit more than six feet tall and had big strong arms. They walked upright, were covered in a greenish gray fur and had a sparse matted mane running along their spine.

Even from this distance, they emitted a strong, thick and heavy dog smell. Their society was also organized along canine lines. Gnolls roamed in imposing packs and, somewhere in the north of the continent, they even had their own government that was recognized both by the dark factions and the Commonwealth.

“Come on then, in the name of the Sleeping Gods!” Ed whispered in excitement. “Scyth, tank with Bomb...”

I quickly took down the sentries, a group of Gnoll Scouts around a fire, cutting through them like butter. I didn’t even need plague energy. One Combo of two Hammerfists was enough to take one down. Bomber and I intercepted the pack while the others rained down damage. All told, slaying all the gnolls at the entrance took us less than ten minutes.

After picking up the primitive loot, we entered the dungeon, which fortunately was free of players. Any of them could pick up any of the loot, we’d figure out who got what later. But Bomber was dragging around five blue backpacks and could boast of almost two hundred available slots.

Unfortunately, I was not allowed to wear more than one bag: that was the prerogative of the strong classes. Dis even had even so-called “walking safes” and “haulers,” two working classes with huge carrying capacity and one-hundred percent chance of keeping what they stored after death.

Upon entering, I looked around, trying to see where to go. There was a wide spacious passage that led deep into the mine, but it was not the only way. To the side, I could see others.

“There’s no sense going down the side tunnels,” Ed said. “Take the main tunnel. It’s the big open round one. The stone blocking that one rolls away after the final boss, so that will be our way out. Anyhow, we need only the key to Goro Gorge, and it falls from the last.”

“Okay,” I said and punched myself a few times to bring down my health, then activated the curse of the undead.

“Son of a bitch! It’s not enough for you to be a blatant masochist now, on top of that, sorry Scyth, but you look like a damn zombie!” Infect shouted.

“And you know why, Malik?” I chuckled, feeling corpse spots covering my skin. “Because that’s exactly what I am!”

Without another word, I ran down the tunnel and rained down a series of blows on the next pack, going out of my way to make sure they all got their share.

The mine was clean. The walls didn’t have any living outgrowths, and there were no toxic puddles. There were just piles of stones, ore and carts on narrow-gauge rails with abandoned cars leaning against the walls here and there.

All the mobs we encountered were Gnolls and there were two main types. The first were slaves, prisoners of war from competing clans. They were smaller, unarmed and often chained to the place they were supposed to be working. The second were warriors from the clan that controlled the quarry. The latter were split between crossbowmen and swordsmen and, when they saw me, they gave something between a dog’s bark and human laugh. Perhaps that was how hyenas laughed, but I had never seen a hyena in my life, much less a laughing one. In fact, they were extinct, so I would never be able to say for certain.

When I reached the first boss, I was dragging a long passenger train of gnolls behind me, growling, yelping and laughing. Based on the bars in the group frame, my clanmates were alive and well, even taking out the mobs I left behind, which I could tell by the crumbs of experience slowly piling up.

I waited for the guys in the middle of the first boss’s cave. Towering three heads over me, this gnoll was wearing a heavy set of chainmail armor and wielding a heavy club.

Bloodtooth of pack Blackpaw, level 13

Gnoll

Dungeon Boss

This boss – or the AI controlling him – was a bit dumbfounded by the odd situation. But when he came to his senses and started issuing a battle call, brandishing his club, it all ended suddenly. Not sparing plague energy, I slammed my fist into his unusually broad chest.

You have critically damaged Bloodtooth of pack Blackpaw: 9458!

Bloodtooth of pack Blackpaw is dead.

Experience points received: 85.

Experience points at present level (13): 1665/11400.

Right after that, a whole fifty enraged gnolls piled on me and I had to disperse them with a Ghastly Howl.

By the time the effect expired, less than half of the mobs were still alive and they were all running at me again. So I just swung blindly, unable to see anything but the frenzied gnolls and choking on their musky smell.

I only found out the mobs were all dead when I heard the guys just losing it:

“Alex, that’s the craziest damn cheat I’ve ever seen!” Infect’s shout of delight echoed throughout the cavern.

Bloodtooth dropped blue plate boots, which I quickly gave to Bomber. There was nothing much to them, but they were definitely better than the greens he was wearing.

An hour and change, we’d finished the dungeon. As for loot, all the more we ended up with was a blue leather belt from the second to last boss, Skindancer, which went to Infect. And although it gave us only a trickle of experience, about a thousand points each, we got what we came to the Gnoll Quarry for, the key to the ogre raid ins. And there, we were hoping to farm more experience, but also get at least one epic.

Sitting at the ins exit, we tallied our results: Infect and Bomber each leveled-up once, catching up to Crawler, and Tissa was just a hair short. Taking advantage of the fact that I was getting all the damage, the guys improved some of their lagging specials and skills.

My Ghastly Howl also upped and both my new moves improved a couple times.

Ghastly Howl

Active skill.

Current level: 10.

When you howl, your enemies are filled with fear. The blood turns to ice in their veins, their soul sinks into their boots, their hair stands on end and they run away in panic.

This ability works on all enemies, however, the higher their level, the higher their chance of ignoring it.

Duration: 20 seconds.

Active radius: 65 feet.

Stunning Kick

Level: 3.

A simple but very effective move. Has 32% chance of stunning target for 3 seconds.

Cost to use: 3 mana points.

Deals 160% of normal damage.

Combo

Level: 3.

Composite combat move, joining other moves into one uninterrupted series of attacks.

Number of slots in chain: 2.

Cost to use: 90% of cost to use attacks separately.

Cooldown: 10 seconds.

Stunning Kick was gaining one percent stun chance per level, so it was definitely worth bringing up to maximum, the only stun in my arsenal.

As for Combo, I would get a third slot in the chain at level five in the attack, while the use cost would go down one percent.

“It’s safe to say this scheme is working well,” Ed announced. “Second round of testing will commence tomorrow in Goro Gorge and, from there, we’ll stick to the plan. But for today, I say we wrap things up.”

“Agreed,” I said. “There’s an integrated test tomorrow which absolutely none of us can afford to fail. Otherwise, we’ll have to do extra lessons and retake it, but we already have no time as it is. The Arena qualifying matches are in less than a month.”

“Nether, we’re gonna have to cram so hard we skip sleep,” Bomber scratched the back of his head.

Taking shelter under a nearby outcropping of rock, we said goodbye for the night and left Disgardium.

Chapter 21. Unforeseen Circumstances

FATHER AND MOTHER didn’t come back last night, sending a video message via comm that they would be staying in New Zealand overnight. And they looked happy as clams. Seemingly the shooting was going well.

I quickly filled my stomach and collapsed into bed and, while drifting into a dream, thought about the fact they were taking trips together more often, even if it was for work. Were they spending the night together? It would be nice if they made up. When I thought about that I gave a somehow stupid chuckle and it wasn’t about my studies or their citizenship status. I just really wanted them to stay a family.

And the first half of the next day showed me the importance of studying hard for exams. I was sure I was prepared, but...

Sometimes I got the impression that my brain was slacking on processing new information, and simply writing over old stuff. I got a series of questions wrong, even though I was completely sure I knew the answer. Maybe I eventually would have found the right answers but time was ticking away inexorably. We were given just twenty minutes per sixty-question section, and they all took time to read as well as answer. The captain of our soccer team, Tim, was always getting bit by that. He just couldn’t grasp the questions fast enough.

Disgardium was squeezing out my real life more and more, and that was starting to scare me. I answered only seventy-two percent of the questions correctly, which was dangerously close to the bar I had to clear to avoid more serious problems. If I got less than seventy percent on the graduation exam, it was possible I wouldn’t even be allowed take my citizenship tests!

On my way back home after school, I was thinking through all that anxiously. On the launchpad, I saw Eve and suggested we fly together but she just shook her head and got in a different flying car. As I took off, I saw that she was going a totally different direction than me, not toward our building.

Back at home, mom was in complete housewife mode in the kitchen. Humming, she was cooking lunch with a towel on her head while dad whistled the same tune, butchering it. It must have been something they heard while flying.

Over the meal, they told me about New Zealand, which was now one of the most respectable places on the planet to live because of its untouched nature. I told them about today’s test. Father, as before, teased mom with guesses about how their son spent the night and, for an instant, it seemed they were doing okay. But only for an instant. Mom got a call and she went into the other room. That meant it wasn’t about work.

I was already getting undressed to get into my pod when Tissa called to make sure I wouldn’t be late. And three minutes later she, I and the others were in Dis standing face to face.

“I went through yesterday’s loot,” Bomber said. “Two blues, three stacks of reagents for alchemy and blacksmithing. We don’t need any of it, so I’m gonna trade it to you and you send it to your huckster girl.”

It hurt to hear him call Rita that, so I said:

“Let’s agree. Trader, Rita, Overweight, Wood. Call her any of those.”

“Peddler?” Infect asked.

“No.”

They exchanged glances.

“Okay,” Tissa answered for everyone and added some poison: “I like Overweight. It does a very good job conveying her... distinctive features.”

I decided to keep silent. I didn’t want to fight with my friends.

Sending it all took a bit of time. I could only accept two items at a time from Bomber, because my third slot was occupied with the Respawn Stone. To speed things up, I gave it to Hung until we were finished.

Getting to the Goro Gorge took around an hour. I walked in front, gathering a pack of gnolls, which first were succeeded by kobolds, then ogres. Every squadron had a mage, which somewhat complicated the tanking process, but not severely. It just meant that, after I was done with melee, I had to use the bow Overweight gave me before the mini arena in the tavern.

Archery skill improved: +1.

Archery damage increased by 20%

Accuracy increased by 20%.

Current level: 2.

Improve this skill by fighting enemies of your level or higher for additional bonuses and new special attacks.

Quickshot improved: +1.

Cost to use: 2 mana points.

Deals 200% of normal damage.

Ignores 1% of armor.

I didn’t use curse of the undead, afraid that someone might see, but Resilience and Stoneskin were plenty. None of the packs gave us much experience but, at that time, every point mattered. At the entry to the gorge, we changed our respawn points from Tristad Cemetery to Goro Gorge.

And five minutes later, we’d reached the ins entrance. Crawler was the first to approach it.

“Damn, occupied!” He kicked one of the stone pillars that framed the flickering instance portal in disappointment. “They’re on boss five. The whole group is alive. Should we wait?”

“How many are there, eight?” I clarified.

“Nine,” Crawler answered. “If they take down the first eight, they can summon a ninth, but it is possible to skip.”

“How long would that take?”

“Two hours at least,” Infect threw out.

Crawler read the list of friends and said:

“It’s the clan In Vino Veritas. I know them. Their main static is almost all level fourteen. The tank is fifteen. They’re gonna be in there a long time...”

“If they don’t get wiped,” Bomber noted. “Any ideas? Scyth?”

“Are there any places nearby where we can farm high-levels? Lots of them and not far away?”

The gang all started thinking. Tissa and Crawler, based on their frozen gazes, had their maps open. Tissa called out first:

“Little Gully.”

“Rock Millipedes!” Infect exclaimed.

“It’s gonna hurt,” Bomber cast doubt.

“And it’s gross,” Tissa injected.

“And a boatload of experience,” Crawler reasonably concluded.

“Alright, tell me more,” I said.

From their laconic retelling, I sussed out that, not far from Goro Gorge, there was a place called Little Gully, a narrow and very deep crevasse teeming with Rock Millipedes, which ranged in level from fifteen to eighteen and were as long as an arm.

No one in their right mind went there, it was a guaranteed wipe. If one aggro’d, you’d immediately be fighting all of them. As soon as one millipede saw an enemy, it would give a soul-rending ultrasonic chirp, which served as a signal for the others: food here! The Dementors once stuffed themselves with defensive buffs and gulped down elixirs to give it a try, but still held out less than a minute. Axiom couldn’t do it either, even though they had all gone together and just filled the whole gully with AoE magic. The beasts had simply unbelievable resists to all kinds of magic and enhanced armor stats, so they had to be hit hard in their compound eyes, the only unprotected part of their body.

“Let’s go,” I said, feeling no doubt. “Compared to the nasty bugs that range in the Mire, they don’t sound too bad...”

We got up out of the gorge and went around from the south, sticking to the side of the mountain. Not far away, there was a military post of the Tristad guard. If they saw us, they’d surely attack, but we didn’t want to fight them and further damage our reputation with the city.

I turned my head, committing the location to memory. The Nameless Mountains were behind us, capped by the majestic Eagle Peak. It’s rocky slopes were streaked with long glaciers and trails of snow, which made it look like it was wearing white scarves, while the peak was shrouded in a veil of clouds. A wide plain extended from its foot and, in the distance, the Tremitelle shimmered like a winding thread.

“There it is,” Tissa pointed at an inky black crack below us. “Little Gully. And over to the right is Rock’s Dolmen. Wanna take a look?”

“If we have time,” Ed said. “There aren’t any mobs there, but there might be Grave Mushrooms if they haven’t just been collected recently. Respawn is two hours.”

I remembered that Crawler had the alchemy trade and asked what recipe these mushrooms were used for.

“Ghost potion,” he answered. “It makes you invisible to mobs for thirty seconds. It doesn’t work in battle, so I’m skeptical we’d have much use for it.”

“Then let’s not waste the time. Alright, let’s get started,” I said. “Bomb, get out the grub. Let’s boost our levelling.”

Hung pulled out the Roast Undead Rat Chitterlings and handed them out to everyone. No one relished the flavor, or thought about what it was made of, but they still ate it enthusiastically.

“Plus one thousand percent to skill growth speed!” Bomber exclaimed. “I’ll be able to level stances and a couple specials with ten-x skill levelling!”

“Eleven,” Infect corrected him. “Total speed is one thousand one hundred percent, numbnuts...”

“Alright, let’s go,” I said, not waiting for everyone to finish chewing, or Hung to comprehend Malik’s explanation. The buff didn’t last that long, we had to squeeze it for all it was worth. “Pull one at a time, no more. Level your main combat attacks. Hung, you stay on the attackers...”

“Go already!” Crawler barked. “The buff is ticking!”

As I descended into the crevasse, I quickened my pace. They all kept twenty yards back. They’d get their share of experience just by being nearby.

The crevasse ran west to east for one hundred fifty feet. From the east, the slope was relatively smooth, so I decided to enter there. The crevasse was no wider than a flying car, eight or nine feet. The edge had grass on it, but inside there was no sign of plant life. All I could smell was dead flesh and damp. I couldn’t see the bottom until I got below a whitish curling vapor that gave me an uneasy feeling.

“How’s it going, Scyth?” From above, twenty-five feet from the bottom, on the backdrop of a bright blue sky, I saw Bomber’s head. “Just so you know, Infect checked the surroundings. All clear!”

“Are you sure there’s anything down here?” I asked, and just then everything went into motion.

My voice echoed several times off the towering walls, which quickly swelled and came to life. Millipedes crawled out. I yelped: something bit into my foot and it was not a good feeling. The body of a mob wrapped around my ankle. It was thin as a rope, elastic and burned my skin. And it tightened, simultaneously sinking in the greedy mobile suckers that covered its body. I quickly skimmed the creep’s stats:

Rock Millipede, level 17

I recoiled in disgust and quickly switched on invulnerability:

Curse of the Undead activated: all damage taken reduced by 100%!

This curse will remain active until you completely restore your health or simply deactivate the skill.

Nothing made me feel as much horror and disgust as bugs. Humankind was planning on terraforming Mars and founding their first settlements there, but we still didn’t have a handle on the common cold or cockroaches. Even in a building of my family’s category, nowhere near low, there was always the odd shiny-sided black beetle. When I was little, I just ran away when I saw insects but, when I got older, I started smashing them with disgust. Still, inside, I was always horrified just to see them. But in comparison with the Rock Millipede, which instantly shot to the top of my list of disgusting insects, a cockroach was a sweet little house pet.

I barely overcame a panic attack when I realized I was literally up to my chest in bugs, which were crawling out of every nook and cranny. I scared away some with a Ghastly Howl but, much to my dismay, the effect didn’t work on all of them and expired too quickly.

I saw flickering silhouettes up above. On the edge of the crevasse, all four of the guys were trying to take down one millipede and, by all appearances, succeeding because, a bit later, Crawler sent down a fireball, pulling another. That was nice, because these mobs were five to six levels above them, and their skill growth must have been astronomic with the boost from the chitterlings.

I was taking damage so often that I didn’t have to save on plague energy; it was coming back much quicker than I could use it. Not waiting for Crushing Hammerfist to reset, I thrashed the stinging, seething mass of living chitin, adding extra damage to every hit to make it a sure thing. I didn’t know if I was hitting their eyes but they were dying regardless. And with how much armor I ignored, it made sense either way!

The guys said millipedes had a very high if not complete resistance to all magic but, apparently, that didn’t apply to plague energy given the way these creatures were going down.

From above, I heard the guys shouting words of encouragement, but I didn’t risk a reply. The mere thought that a millipede might try and crawl into my mouth had me clenching my teeth and holding my lips shut tight. I was even trying not to breathe as I beat the life out of the monstrous insects.

By minute five, I had got the hang of it, rationally concluding that, after fighting swamp creatures in the muck, nothing should scare me. But at least there, nothing was shrieking in a near ultrasonic pitch. However, my fists flew much more effectively here than through thick muck.

Experience flowed like a river even for me, which was to say nothing of the guys. By the time I leveled up, I started thinking this location was bugged, and the millipedes would just keep respawning forever as soon as I killed them.

You are now level 14!

5 free attribute points available!

I stopped fighting for a few seconds to spend all five points as I was planning earlier, putting them into agility, my lowest attribute. Then I started doling out punches at random: no matter where I hit, there was always a disgusting insect slithering.

I couldn’t say how many I killed but, at a certain point, it all suddenly came to an end. I blew the last millipede to smithereens with a powerful Hammer. Everything became quiet. All around me were unlooted insect remains and yellowish puddles of hemolymph, giving off a pungent smell of unearthly musk.

I slid down the crevasse wall, exhausted. In the heat of battle, I missed a level-up of both Combo and Stunning Kick. But to be honest, I only leveled up four times. The mobs weren’t that much higher level than me, and the battle didn’t last as long as the one on that memorable day in the Mire, after we defeated Murkiss.

Stunning Kick

Level: 7.

A simple but very effective move. Has 36% chance of stunning target for 3 seconds.

Cost to use: 3 mana points.

Deals 180% of normal damage.

Combo

Level: 7.

Composite combat move, joining other moves into one uninterrupted series of attacks.

Number of slots in chain: 3.

Cost to use: 89% of cost to use attacks separately.

Cooldown: 10 seconds.

Use cost for Combo was down one percent, but the fact that I had unlocked a third slot in the series was much more significant. After a moment of consideration, I chose not to add another Hammer, but a Stunning Kick so I could use it more often. I could always change it later.

Through my still ringing ears, I started being able to make out the screams of the Awoken. Someone, seemingly Ed, whooped:

“Scyth, we’re coming down!”

While I waited, out of curiosity, I checked what dropped from one of the millipedes and saw:

Rock Millipede Bristle

Rare.

Extremely rare ingredient. Used in the weaving and leatherworking trades.

Value: 1 gold coin, 48 silver coins.

“Two levels!” Tissa said, beaming and throwing herself around my neck. When the initial wave of emotions had passed, she sharply backed off and gave a sniff: “Yuck! Woah! Sorry, Alex, but you look like a living corpse... and you’re covered in the blood of these...”

She kicked a millipede, now utterly disconcerted. No one seemed to mind at first, but Tissa’s reaction made them all weird. Bomber hugged me pointedly, lifted me into the air and roared:

“Make way for the lord of the dead!”

“That was the fastest level up in my memory!” Infect yawped, dancing a jig on the crunching chitin of the dead millipedes. Stopping for a few seconds, he noticed: “Listen, Alex, we couldn’t even see you under the pile of insectoids, it was just a solid seething mass!”

“Well sure, I don’t need you to tell me I look like shit,” I chuckled. Deactivating curse of the undead, I gestured at the corpses: “You loot them. I can’t stand to even look at these bastards.”

Working double time, they gathered the loot fairly quickly: blue shoulder pads for Crawler, two greens to sell and ten and a half stacks of Rock Millipede Bristles.

The result was staggering. Nobody knew how much the crafting ingredient might be worth but, even at list price, we would get more than three hundred gold. But even more importantly, everyone leveled up, and Tissa twice in less than a quarter hour. They had all hit twelve, so the idea of continuing farming experience here came to all of them at once:

“What exactly is the point of the Mire?” Bomber asked first.

“What if...” Tissa started at the same time as him.

“Maybe we hunker down here?” Crawler finished the thought. “We just have to figure out the millipede respawn time...”

Infect was still dancing and nodding along, agreeing with his friends as if to say, “how about yes.” They all turned to me because, from their point of view, the decision was obvious. The unknown and nasty Mire or this place which, to them, seemed like a comfy spot to farm experience.

“You’re forgetting something. In the Mire, the mobs are level twenty to twenty-five and experience will farm even faster. But that isn’t what really matters. Even if nobody comes to the ravine, it’s out in the open. Anyone can reach it easily. And can you guarantee that some Axiom scout didn’t see my little invulnerability freak show act? Or that no one else will?”

“Aw, nether!” Infect dashed off. A few minutes later, his voice came down from above: “Clear!”

“He checked as we approached and was constantly monitoring while we fought,” Ed said. “But you’re right. It’s too conspicuous. I guess this makes us look pretty selfish. Sorry, it’s just...”

He hesitated and didn’t continue. And there was no need to. Based on their guilty looks, the guys knew what such carelessness could lead to.

Infect casually walked back down to join us, but suddenly shot up into the air, waving his arms like an idiot and giving a frightened scream that echoed around the whole area. We all shot to our feet. From the far slightly sloping end of the ravine, blasting out clods of earth, a huge mega-bug the size of an aerotrain car crawled out of the ground.

Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen, level 19

Insectoid

Local boss

The boss was bristling with three- to five-foot-long spines, each shimmering with a metallic glint and ending in a threatening pointed tip. All told, Mok’Rhyssa looked about like the other millipedes but much larger and more battle-hardened, the chitin of her carapace covered in keratinous scar tissue.

“I got her!” I shouted, activating curse of the undead as I went. Behind me, Crawler barked out commands, getting everyone into formation. I decided to let them play, too. “Okay, you can join!”

I got off a two-move Combo on the fly, reinforced with plague energy, but that only took fifteen percent of her health at most. Maybe there was a teachable moment in that, but I knew one thing for sure: old habits died hard. If the guys got used to slacking off and just watching while I fought, it would come back to bite us in the ass.

Boom! From somewhere behind me, an Incendiary Shot from Crawler flew into the creature’s face. After that, Tissa whacked it with a blindingly bright Hand of Nergal. Infect, suffering more mentally than physically, took out his poison-dripping daggers and stuck them into the creature’s side, activating Meat Grinder. Next to him, Bomber puffed and gasped with every blow, turning on Attack Stance. His charge procc’ed and the Rock Queen was stunned for a few seconds, allowing Hung to land some bloody Deep Cuts.

As gruesome as it all sounded, they were doing pretty pathetic damage. The difference in level was too great. But I still wasn’t speeding the battle along, continuing to hold the boss’s attention on me and practically not using plague energy.

You have damaged Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen: 2489.

Health points: 13187/16000.

At first, the colossal millipede, which took up almost half the crevasse, was making the same attack over and over again. But when her health got down to half that all changed. The creature threw its mouth open, revealing rows of sharp fangs and screeched. Paralyzing Chirp, the boss’s special abil, stunned our whole group. We were frozen for five seconds and that was enough for Mok’Rhyssa to take down everyone except for me. Contracting fitfully, she lurched forward, getting right up to the guys. She first pressed me down with her tail, pushing me into the damp floor of Little Gully, then jabbed us with a few squirming bristles and started sucking our life out.

In a matter of seconds, their portraits in the group frame went gray, and I saw in the logs that the guys were all dead.

I no longer saw any reason to draw the battle out. As soon as the stun expired, I hopped to my feet, adding plague damage to a Combo and sent the boss to a place her many of offspring now called home, the Nether.

Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen is dead.

Experience points received: 65.

Experience points at present level (14): 545/12900.

Achievement unlocked: First Kill: Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen!

Of all the players in your sandbox, you were the first to kill this local boss. Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen, a gigantic millipede, was one of the top leaders of the insectoid nation of intelligent sarantapods that dwell in Rock Hive.

Now you have laid Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen to rest but, before dying, she inadvertently transferred you a modicum of her power.

Reward: active skill Lifesteal.

Lifesteal

Single-use active skill.

Allows any special attack to be assigned the Lifesteal property: converts 1% of damage dealt into health points for you.

All hail the hero!

Would you like to make your name public? Doing so will give +100 reputation with the city of Tristad and +5 fame.

My clanmates, decided not to wait for me to resurrect Tissa, and were already running over from the res point. When they saw that, they filled the clan chat with elated messages, admonishing me to accept the glory. I looked at the gear they dropped when they died. Fortunately, it was nothing important. Thankfully they had rare quality bags with special features to prevent losing their stuff after death. All green trash. I piled it all up at the edge of the crevasse.

After that, I agreed to the “All hail the heroes” and deactivated my curse.

Attention all sandbox players!

Clan the Awoken has made the first kill of local boss Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen in the foothills of the Nameless Mountains! Residents and visitors of Tristad! Hats off to the Awoken! All hail the heroes! All hail players Scyth, Crawler, Tissa, Bomber and Infect!

Your reputation with the city of Tristad has been increased by 100.

Current reputation: mistrust.

Great! Now we could enter the city again, the guardsmen wouldn’t aggro. Delighted, I decided not to wait for the guys and placed a hand on the boss’s corpse to pick up the loot. And suddenly something started to happen.

The huge hole she slithered out of suddenly started to pulsate and grow bigger. I then, not looking, scraped up the loot and started to move my feet. The earth below me continued to quake and crumble. Slightly panicked, I ran toward the far edge, climbing up the steep slope.

In my peripheral vision, I saw my friends approaching but I was completely focused on the localized natural disaster. If this was an earthquake, it was a very small one. The ravine grew wider, making me step back, then grew deeper. By that time, I had started running because the location was being reshaped faster and faster every second. But suddenly it all came to an end. Everything grew quiet and stable, even the dirt stopped clumping and crumbling.

The hole it all started from was now at the very bottom of the gully. It was much bigger and filled with the shifting green fabric of a portal. After that, a message thundered:

Attention all sandbox players!

A new dungeon has opened in the foothills of the Nameless Mountains – The Sarantapod Hive.

Deep in a series of underground tunnels, the offspring of the ancient god Shog’rassar were born and multiplied. These intelligent insectoids, the sarantapods, eventually gave birth to their own civilization. Now that they’ve exhausted the resources of their mother hive, they are preparing to invade our world and emerge onto the surface near Tristad.

Recommended level: 18+.

First visit bonuses: +50% experience, +10% chance of receiving improved loot, +5% drop chance for items of quality above normal.

“Well god dang!” came an unfamiliar girl’s voice. “I guess we happened to pass by at the right time! Where are the other heroes? They get wiped?”

I turned around and saw a full group of level-fourteen and -fifteen players from a clan called Ambush: four girls and one boy, a hunter. He was staying a bit behind the others, so I figured Nikkin, as he was called, was not their star player. And I was right.

“Hi, Scyth!” a short heavyset rogue girl named Nightshade addressed me in a friendly manner. “What happened here?”

It didn’t escape my attention that, while Nightshade distracted me playing with her daggers, the two other girls and Nikkin were walking around the hole trying to find a way down.

“A meteorite fell from the sky,” I answered, dashing for the pit. I didn’t know if there was an achievement for being first to set foot in an ins, but I didn’t want to risk letting them get it.

But I was too slow. I jumped off the edge, turning on Stoneskin as Nightshade screamed out from behind me: “Slow him down!” And in midair, I felt an arrow go into my back.

Player Nikkin (Nikolas Van Arle) has damaged you: 6.

Health points: 957/963.

You have been slowed: −50% movement speed for 3 seconds.

I landed at the bottom in a shapeless heap because the hunter’s Slowing Shot, although it didn’t stun me, did wrap nets around my arms and legs so I couldn’t brace for impact.

Nevertheless, I won the race to the bottom, and Stoneskin rendered both the fall and arrow to the back painless. I jumped to my feet and slowly walked toward the portal until the nets fell off, all that time feverishly thinking whether to fight them off so they couldn’t kill the guys, or to run in and occupy the dungeon.

Option two had the problem that, right after I occupied the ins, Nightshade’s group would see a message saying the dungeon was undergoing maintenance. Maybe they wouldn’t figure it out but, very soon, half the sandbox would be here, Axiom included. And that would mean Big Po would inevitably learn something I preferred him to not know. He and his analysts would to put two and two together no problem after seeing me enter Evil from the Depths, which had also gone down for maintenance.

So I stood at the portal entrance, mentally preparing to press Ghastly Howl and slam a plague Combo at anyone who came near, then quickly sent a message in the chat:

[16:58] [Clan] [Scyth]: A new ins opened! I’m standing at the portal, protecting it from a group of five lvl 14-16s. Clan – Ambush. Leader – Nightshade.

Ed was the first to reply:

[16:58] [Clan] [Crawler]: Don’t leave, better occupy the dungeon! We’re on our way, we can take down the creeps.

Sure they would! I took another step back. The silhouettes above blocked out the light. Most likely, Ambush also knew this place would soon be full to the brim so they were also in a hurry. All grouped together, they started down.

“Scyth, come join our group, we can do the ins together,” Nightshade’s voice dripped with treacly sweetness. “It’s not even for your level! Come on!”

“Stay where you are!” I shouted. “Otherwise I’m going in.”

They stopped and stomped their feet, looked at one another and whispering.

“We can come to an agreement, Scyth!” Nikkin shouted, his voice cracking. “Don’t play dumb!”

You’re the dumb one, idiot. Sure they might accept me into their group. They’d accept me, enter the ins, throw me out and kill me. But they wouldn’t even have to kill me because I’d get kicked out of the ins as soon as they ejected me from the group.

The hunter continued shouting assurances as Nightshade’s figure disappeared into thin air. Three... two... one! Ghastly Howl!

She popped out of Stealth six feet from me and, flapping her arms comically, zinged away in fear, slamming into a wall and running along it. The ability didn’t affect the rest of them, though. Nikkin still pulled back his bowstring.

A moment later, Bomber was rushing down from the edge of the ravine. The warrior’s massive silhouette ran toward the crowd of girls and Nikkin and, ever the gentleman, Hung slammed into the hunter. After that Infect, invisible, moved out and Tissa and Crawler casted something deadly on the heads of the ambushers, who we’d now caught in a trap.

“Scyth! Into the dungeon!” Crawler shouted.

I only hesitated for one second: I really wanted to help my friends and at least take down Nightshade, but good sense took the day. I could accept the guys dying, but this might have been our only chance at first pass. Big Po and Axiom wouldn’t let me get away with lying. After all, there was an increased chance for improved loot for the first people to enter the dungeon!

With these thoughts in mind, I took a step back and, in two heartbeats, found myself inside the Sarantapod Hive.

Chapter 22. The Ghost of William Stafford

TELEPORTATION, including into closed locations such as instances, was always instantaneous in Dis, but the way it worked was quite subtle. It felt like falling down a hole with your eyes closed for a second. Close your eyes, fall into the nether, open them and you see a different place.

In that momentary fall, I thought through the consequences. The “maintenance,” which was supposed to disguise the fact I was in an ins, would now do the exact opposite. The fact we were too low level for the dungeon combined with, hopefully, the First Kill would perhaps be suspicious but explicable. By the time we were done, the guys would be a level or two higher anyway. But getting that same First Kill while the instance was closed for maintenance would become a worldwide topic of discussion. Add to that the similar happening from before and it would be a matter of hours before the preventers had my number.

My clanmates’ portraits in the group frame were not dim yet, but they all had less than half health. So I walked back through the portal. I didn’t care about the ins or the achievement if it meant my friends getting beat up while I stood aside and watched, knowing full well I could help.

Emerging from the twilight of the dungeon into the bright light of day provided an example of Dis’s realism. It took a few seconds to get used to. What was the deal with that? Did I have virtual photoreceptors? Were the rods and cones in my virtual eyes rearranging? I chuckled and spent a few seconds sizing up the situation.

The battle at the bottom of the crevasse was now closer to the portal. Crawler and Tissa were down there too, pressed up against the wall behind Bomber and Infect, who had activated Dodge. Hung then pulled out his shield, deflecting a couple pounces from Nightshade and a barbarian called Amanita. Nikkin the hunter and Oshandra, a black girl holding a long spear, were ignoring Hung and Malik while focusing on Tissa. Another ambusher, Deidre the druid had taken the form of a bear and, with a deafening roar, swung her powerful paw, lacerating Ed, who was behind a Fire Shield. If not for Tissa’s capable healing, one of the guys would already have been back at the respawn point. The animal’s hide was showing signs of wear: Crawler lit it up with a Shot, then focused on a different target. Going after the tank first would have been the height of idiocy.

Ghastly Howl both leveled up and worked on the whole Ambush crew right away. The bear gave a huffy roar and ran. The girls scattered while Nikkin howled and yelped, running up the wall. As far as I remembered from the battle with Crusher, who had gifted me this skill for killing him, they couldn’t control their bodies, which were just running headlong in mortal terror.

I dismissed a notification and threw out to my friends: “Heal up!” Then I ran after the hunter. For some reason it seemed most important to take him down. Maybe it was just a basic desire for revenge after the arrow to my back. At any rate, just then, the boy was failing to scramble up the vertical wall of the ravine. I brandished my fists and landed a triple Combo, reinforced with a smidgen of plague energy just to make sure. The Stunning Kick that capped off the series went into thin air: he was already dead.

Nikkin (player Nikolas van Arle) is dead.

The Ghastly Howl expired and I ran off after Nightshade. The group leader was running toward the dungeon entrance and only a miracle of the RNG kept her from going straight into the portal: jumping past it, she slammed into the wall. A second Combo finished her off. When the Fear effect was over, she was already too weak to resist. She only had time to shout out a command, shaking her head in the direction of the portal:

“Ama! Osha!”

Nightshade (player Madison Raisman) is dead.

I turned to the survivors and saw Bomber preventing the capture of the ins, catching Amanita with a charge. They all focused fire on her while Tissa held Oshandra down tight, not letting her move. I ran up and pacified Oshandra with a Kick. Meanwhile, Deidre turned into a she-wolf and turned to flee.

Amanita (player Lori Simmons) is dead.

“I got the druid!” I shouted and ran off to give chase.

A second later, the wolf took a throwing dagger to the back from Infect and an Incendiary Shot from Crawler after which they turned to Oshandra. I looked around for a second, seeing her twirling her spear in rage and screaming, not letting anyone near.

Deidre in wolf form had a thirty-percent movement speed bonus, but I had more tricks up my sleeve: plus thirty percent from class bonus, ten from the quiver I bought from Rita, and the same amount from the Lightfoot buff.

Oshandra (player Oshandra Nguyen) is dead.

“Ah, they got spear girl,” I noted as I chased down the druid. She was almost all the way to the top by the time I caught her. I knocked her down with a Stunning Kick and, although it didn’t stun, Deidre whined, turned around and snapped at my hand. With my other, I landed three Hammers in a row, a normal blow then the first two of a series on her broad forehead, finishing the Combo with a punishing Kick.

Deidre (player Deidre Douglas) is dead.

After she died, the druid returned to human form. Her bag was a standard one, so all the contents dropped and so I went back down and sent Hung up for the loot. Meanwhile, the others sorted through the things that dropped when they died and looted the other ambushers. Nikkin, as it turned out, had lost a blue bow and the others just greens. “All’s fair in love and war,” I said, recalling another of my uncle’s beloved sayings as Tissa extended the bow to me.

“Yours is green, right archer?” she smiled. “This one is definitely better, here.”

Poison Shot

Rare.

Bow.

Damage: 16-18.

Possible effect on hit: poison for 5 pt. of damage.

+9 Agility.

+11 Endurance.

Durability: 80/80.

Requires level: 14.

Sell price: 9 gold coins, 45 silver coins.

Chance of losing after death reduced by 50%.

I removed the green bow and exchanged it with Tissa. I felt no pangs of conscience either: sure this would make life harder for Ambush, but it wasn’t like I forced their hand. They attacked me first and it was five against one.

“Nobody around yet,” Infect spoke up, raising his eyes.

“Should we go in?” Crawler asked me.

“Everyone except Malik,” I answered. “We should see what it shows at the entrance.”

My heart skipping beats, I awaited the verdict, preparing to write tech support about the fact that their so-called camouflage was giving me away, and I wanted it gone, but I didn’t need to.

A few minutes later, while we were looking around inside the Hive, the thief wrote:

[17:14] [Clan] [Infect]: Nothing out of the ordinary. It shows 4/5 group members inside. I’m coming in.

Had the false maintenance had gone away along with Patrick’s curse? Oh well, one less headache and one less reason for Big Po to get suspicious. All that remained was to decide whether we should complete the ins and whether the possible reward was worth potentially revealing my threat status.

So when Infect entered the dungeon, and Bomber started a fire, raising all of our energy regain speed, we sat around it and started to think.

Already able to taste the the First Kill, the former lead Dementor’s eyes were burning so bright that anyone might take him for a follower of the Radiant god. But the first one to say something intelligent was actually Crawler, a person prepared to risk a lot for any game achievement.

“We have to get out of here,” he announced, somewhat unsure. “It’s very, very conspicuous!”

“What?!” Bomber roared. “Are you in your right mind, Rodriguez? When else are we gonna have this kind of luck? Remember what we got from Murkiss! That’s for the rest of our lives! And you’re afraid of getting burned by some Poly-wanna-cracker? He can shove his whining up Pythagoras’s ass! After we get out of the sandbox in three or four months, we might never see him again for the rest of our lives!”

“Hung, you actually learned something!” Malik whinnied. “Now tell me, who do you think Pythagoras was?”

“Not now,” Crawler cut him off.

“Ed?” Tissa raised a brow, expecting an explanation of what he said at first, then turned to me.

“He’s right,” I said gloomily. “We’re one false move away from Po sending the preventers after us. And that’s if he doesn’t decide to just handle us himself. For now, the bet is stopping him from pursuing it actively, but if his suspicions get any stronger I think he’d be willing to sacrifice a legendary.”

“But Sheppard, he won’t be able to kill you no matter what!” the tank shot out.

“But all the preventers would be lined up at the sandbox exit. Figuring out my birthday would be a piece of cake. Then they’d roll out the red carpet, and greet me with fanfares, sharpened stakes in hand.”

“But how would they be able to kill you?” Infect asked.

“Guys, whether they can or not, I might as well forget about playing from then on...”

I didn’t tell them about the Achilles’ heel of my ability: there was nothing stopping preventers from catching me and healing me up to get rid of the curse, then taking me out in one shot. Even with Resilience at max for my level, I didn’t stand a chance against a level-three-hundred player. That much level difference would make the skill useless, and who could say when I’d get a higher cap – the maximum level for any skill only went up by one hundred every hundred levels.

And at the end of the day, they could just immobilize me and tie me up in the basement of their clan castle. I could imagine a number of ways and, if they thought it through, they could probably figure out one. Maybe they’d use a magic suppressor or neutralizer to kill me? I didn’t know, I didn’t have enough information. But for the time being, I didn’t even want to think about it. There was only one thing that mattered: if I fell into the hands of the preventers, I’d definitely lose my threat status.

“Maybe we just clear the first bosses?” Infect suggested, his voice hopeful.

“No,” Crawler said. “The bosses here are at least level twenty. Our progress is shown at the entrance, and how will we explain that? I’m afraid even Axiom wouldn’t be able to clear this ins their first go. It takes a bunch of tries to learn boss tactics and practice countering them.”

“Let’s just stick to the plan,” I suggested. “We’re all on even footing, we all made away with vampirism, or what is it called?”

“Lifesteal,” Tissa answered. “Oh, I forgot. I need to attach it to Hand of Nergal, my highest damage.”

“By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask,” I said. “You’re not a priestess anymore, but you get to keep the spell?”

“I always had it,” she answered. “It’s from the light magic arsenal. It’s just a name.”

We all spent a bit of time choosing what attack to give the property. I did what might have been called the clever move and chose Combo. Now every chain of attacks would steal a bit of health.

“Just one percent,” Hung chuckled. “Not much.”

“That’s for now,” Crawler chuckled. “As the attack improves, it will go up.”

“Friends, that’s all well and good, but I say we get out of here with Depths Teleportation,” I said. “There’s definitely gonna be people waiting outside.”

Infect and Bomber sighed loudly and I tried to reassure them:

“Don’t worry, guys! We’ll come back once we hit level twenty. If it took Big Po and his crew that long to pass Evil from the Depths, they’ll get stuck here a long time as well.”

“That’s right!” Bomber brightened up. “Cooldown for raid dungeons is a week. And with the way we’re leveling, we’ll be back in fifteen days!”

“And we should look over the loot from Mok’Rhyssa,” Crawler added. “You, dear Scyth, are either forgetful, or just as much of a smart... guy as ever. We can’t see what you got in the chat.”

I looked in my inventory and smiled happily:

“I’ll show you later. For now, let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”

* * *

The sun dipped beneath the canopy of the sparse forest just as a wall of dead dark trees came into view beyond the impetuous course of the Tremitelle. Maximillian’s Farm, which is where Crawler was bringing us, was behind. Ed didn’t port us right into the Gloomwood. That might have thrown us out anywhere in it, but we wanted to specifically be close to the dead lumberjack village.

In the field, other than the farmer and his family, there was a swarm of magic golem harvesters. They worked something like ancient tractors, but walked on two wooden legs and had dangerous-looking blades for upper appendages. I noticed a couple level-two players running around the field as well.

“Have you done any quests here before?” Crawler asked me. I shook my head and he continued: “Sometimes the harvesters act up, and old Maximillian gives a quest to pacify and repair them. But those people running around over there are catching Pesky Gophers. It’s a nightmare quest. You’ve gotta spend a whole day running around the field.”

“I once got put on scarecrow duty for Maximillian,” Bomber reminisced, a certain nostalgia in his voice. “I scared a bunch of crows away, but then accidentally went after a raven. And it was not neutral! It aggro’d on me...”

“And then what?”

“It pecked me to death,” the tank answered glumly.

We decided not to go back to Goro Gorge. At first, the guys still wanted to go get some gear there. Sure, it may have been blue for the most part, but sometimes epics dropped. But most likely the new ins had stirred up so much activity that we figured it was better not to show our faces without good reason. We still had time to get geared up before the Arena so, we were more concerned with getting our levels up.

“Mok’Rhyssa dropped another two items. Look...” I pulled the loot from my backpack, starting with an epic.

Belt of Evil from the Depths

Epic, part of the Evil from the Depths set

Cloth armor.

Armor: 18.

+15 Intelligence.

+15 Endurance.

+12% mana regeneration speed.

+5% spell power bonus.

Durability: 250/250.

Requires level: 20.

Sell price: 89 gold coins.

Chance of losing after death reduced by 90%.

Evil from the Depths set: belt, armbands, crown, gloves, neckpiece, robe, sandals and pants.

2/8 of the Evil from the Depths set: Reduces magic damage taken by 15%.

4/8 of the Evil from the Depths set: When taking damage in battle, the wearer has a chance to spawn a 350-HP shield.

6/8 of the Evil from the Depths set: +20 Intelligence.

8/8 of the Evil from the Depths set: +100 armor, +33% mana regeneration.

“You’re in luck, Tissa...” Infect squeezed out, jealous and looked to Ed. “Or Crawler.”

“Tissa,” he shook his head. “Mana regen speed and spell power are more her thing. We’re doing just fine for damage, but a lot is gonna hinge on heal in the Arena.”

Melissa Schafer beamed like a true priestess of Nergal the Radiant. At level twenty, she could put on two epics from the same set, which would give an extra bonus.

“Scyth, don’t keep us waiting!” Infect pleaded. “What else did you get?”

I pulled out my next find. Turning my gaze from one nascent smile to the next, I just had to laugh.

Fragment of the Seal of Shog’rassar

Personal Quest Item.

Cast out of this layer of reality by the Sleeping Gods, the ancient mage Shog’rassar made himself a god in another world, subjugating the sarantapod race. Ever since, he has yearned to return to Disgardium, never losing hope. Now he has created a portal between worlds, and sent an advance party of sarantapods into our world.

For now, the portal is too weak for Shog’rassar himself to pass through. In order to expand it, the sarantapod generals have decided to lay low, gathering the forces and resources necessary to descend upon Disgardium with all the might and wrath of the banished deity who generously shared his power with his underlings.

Each of the three generals of the invasion force is in possession of one seal fragment. The seven fragments, when combined and placed at the base of the portal in the Sarantapod Hive, will summon Shog’rassar, God of the sarantapods.

Collected: 1/7.

“I think I’m missing something,” Bomber said thoughtfully. “There are three bosses, but we need to seven seal fragments?”

“Yep,” Crawler nodded happily. “And you know what’s so great about that?”

“Not yet,” the tank frowned.

“It’s easy, Bomb,” Infect shot out. “Even if Axiom kills everything in the Hive, they’ll only have three fragments, so they won’t be able to summon the final boss. What’s his name... Shog’rassar.”

“Or I guess they could but it would take them three weeks at least. They’d have to fully clear the ins two times to collect six fragments,” Tissa corrected. “Don’t forget about the one-week cooldown. They’ll only be able to get number seven on their third run-through.”

“And farming in groups won’t help them either. The fragments are personal,” Ed added. “Most likely, Po will send a couple groups into the ins to study it, then he’ll go in with the main static.”

“We should have taken a couple bosses down if that’s so,” Bomber said.

“No, too many people are watching right now,” I didn’t agree. “And when we go to clear the Hive, we can go in the morning while everyone is still in school, then leave via teleport. We have to collect the fragments secretly. But it’s a shame I picked up the loot...”

“Why?” Bomber asked, ever the slowpoke.

“Because now Scyth has two of three slots full, that’s why, dummy!” Infect answered for me.

With all the loot accounted for – Hung would keep Tissa’s epic until she grew into it – we stood up and headed into the Gloomwood.

The narrow path along the river looped toward the east like a never-ending rope. A hundred steps in front of us we saw a group of players at level seven and eight.

“Oh, a wandering trader!” Bomber said in astonishment. “I haven’t seen one of those in a while...”

Taking a closer look, I could see them all crowed around an unusual looking NPC wearing a turban with a huge pile of bags behind him. There was a small horse stamping around next to the trader, packed in so tight that only its head and mane stuck out from under the man’s wares.

“Let’s go see what he has,” Crawler suggested. “Sometimes you can find things that are impossible to get from any...” He suddenly stumbled, craned his neck, peered with his hand to his forehead, and took off, screaming: “What are you doing, you morons?! Idiots!”

The rest of the gang ran after him, and I followed, baffled. Anyway, it all became clear when I saw that the players were in battle with the trader.

Crawler stopped twenty steps from the fight, turned in our direction and spread his arms:

“Wait, stop. It’s too late, we can’t save them now. Everybody stay out of the aggro zone!”

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s a wandering merchant,” Tissa explained. “From the guild. They carry goods worth tens of thousands of gold and travel without any security. Why do you think that is?”

“Well... Maybe if you rob one, you become and enemy of the guild of wandering traders?”

“A bit worse,” Tissa said. “Just watch. You’ll see for yourself soon.”

Just then, one of the players scuffling with the trader turned to us and shouted:

“Hey! Get out of here! We saw him first!”

“And hey, best of luck to you,” Ed noted gloomily, putting on a brave face.

The trader, a squat man with a head like a wrinkled raisin, was just level ten in fact. And he was barefoot, wearing a scruffy colorful robe and loose-fitting billowy pants. He had no armor and no weapon, so he was fighting bare-handed. And that was not to say it was going well for him. He looked to be missing more often than not, then he left the road and they gave chase. The horse, which I realized when we got up closer was a little donkey with clipped ears, didn’t join the fight until it got hurt by a sweeping blow from one of the robbers. “Hee-haw!” the little level-five donkey brayed, kicking with its hooves.

A few seconds later, it was all over. The trader’s turban was smeared in dirt, his body jackknifed and breathless on the wayside, the little donkey bleeding out at his side.

The players, pushing one another out of the way, went out claim their loot. Digging in the bags and hooting in joy at what they found, they didn’t even notice as a pitch-black spirit raised up from the body of the wandering trader. The darkness spread into wisps and, tapering, extended into fibers. A moment later, the spirit was dispersed, having entered the bodies of the highwaymen.

“What idiots...” Hung shook his head in amazement.

“For your consideration: a group of everyday noobs with alternative gifts,” Infect declared. “instead of brains they have straw. Instead of hands, greedy pincers. And instead of loot...”

“Cursed shit,” Ed chuckled sagaciously.

As they filled their bags, one of the robbers started complaining he had run out of space. Another had grabbed an epic, a fact he announced publicly, then started dancing. But he didn’t stop digging. Then something went awry: the nicks over the noobs’ heads turned red and they stumbled and collapsed.

“Alright, show’s over, we can go,” said Crawler.

“So what was that?”

“The curse of the wandering trader entered them,” he explained. “And everything they looted became a mirrored version of itself, a cursed item. All the plusses turned to minuses, which are active even in their inventory. And they stole a lot. So all their attributes are deep in the... well negative, basically.”

“So just chuck ‘em?”

“They can’t be gotten rid of. They can’t lose them, throw them away, or sell them. The only way is to haul your butt to Darant and beg forgiveness, paying tenfold compensation and returning everything that was stolen. But for the next...” Crawler glanced at the robbers’ profiles, “year and a half, they won’t be getting to no Darant.”

“Write tech support?”

“They’ll be told it was all within the game process. What was more, the trader warned them they’d regret it, but they didn’t listen. Alright, let’s get out of here.”

“I feel bad for the old man,” Tissa sobbed.

“Maybe we should take the poor idiots out?” Infect suggested. “With their minuses now, they won’t even be able to crawl back to town.”

“Serves them right,” I said harshly.

Measuring them up with a contemptuous gaze, Hung dove into one of the bushes that grew all over this section of the Tremitelle riverbank.

We crossed the river with a Waterwalking Potion, but there was a knack to it. The surface seemingly hardened with every step and due, to the burbling rapids, finding solid footing was a challenge.

Beyond that, as soon as we started, the water frothed with Stone Grabbers flying every which way. They jumped out, latching their teeth into our boots and shaking their heads like bulldogs but, unlike my memorable first encounter, I was now covered head to toe in chainmail and leather. Seemingly, after the aggressive little fish clamped down, they couldn’t unclench their jaws, so when we reached the opposite bank, we were draped in so many flailing little glimmering bodies that we looked like Christmas trees.

And then the Hypnotic Toads came out to meet us, attracted by the noise. They were just level eight though. They sat down right next to us like old ladies on the benches on the roof of my apartment building and stared to no avail, trying to stun us with their gaze.

Bomb, who’d put all the grabbers in his bag, tossed them a few little fish and, embarrassed, explained:

“I used to have a pet frog when I was a kid. I caught him in a stream when he was only a tadpole and kept him in a jar. And when he turned into a little frog, I remember how happy I was...” The big stern dude swallowed a lump in his throat. “But the next day, when I got home from school, our stupid cat ate him.”

After that surprising admission came an aggravated tale about a stupid Scottish fold cat and we took a breather to empty our bags. All the loot we didn’t need, including the stuff from Ambush and the stacks of Rock Millipede Bristles I sent to Overweight, the toads staring demandingly all the while. Eventually, unable to resist their charms, we fed them all the grabbers.

After that, Tissa reupped our buffs, we ate some food with attribute bonuses and got on our way. We had about six miles to go, deeper into Gloomwood along an overgrown and fading path.

In the twilight, the long spooky shadows of trees extended over the rapacious grass. It was not easy to get through and not only because of the nasty mobs: our feet got stuck in unstable ground, we tripped on mounds of uneven soil, and trees blocked the way, their entwined branches and trunks forming into monstrous shapes.

We were walking cautiously even though any of us could have taken down the mobs in this part of the forest all on our own. We just didn’t want to get distracted and waste time.

But still, of course mobs aggro’d pretty often. Otherwise this place would have been packed with players. The difficulty of Gloomwood was akin to that of the Mire, something of a light version. We frequently encountered groups of unpleasant mobs like giant spiders, ghastly wraiths or rabid wolves. And because they also wandered, the chance of aggro’ing more than one pack at a time was pretty high. For normal players or poorly trained groups, as a rule, such things ended in a wipe.

Because of all that, we reached the abandoned village late at night, having decided not to let the mysterious quest another day. The homes hadn’t yet totally collapsed, but they were close to it. Their blackened frames stood out against their suspiciously bright surroundings. I bent over and picked up some dirt in my hand. It was damp and glimmered gray in the light of Geala.

“Looks like ash,” I said.

“It is ash,” Crawler confirmed. “After clearing this place, they burned it to the ground.”

“Strange that, after all these years, it hasn’t been demolished in the outsk...”

“Alex, over there!” Tissa shouted.

I scrambled to make out the threat in the twilight and, when I did, I ran. There was danger on all sides. From all around the village, there flocked slate-colored shadows of wraiths, absorbing the moonlight. Ed was giving commands, getting us into defensive formation. I took a look at their levels:

Muted Wraith, level 19

My first goal was to get all the aggros on me, and I got straight to pulling mobs. Then, once my health was down to half, I activated curse of the undead.

The number of wraiths around me was, of course, less than the millipedes in Little Gully, but it was still respectable. They had bigtime resistance to physical damage, so I had to make active use of my plague energy. The guys did the same as when I was in the gully: they pulled mobs one by one and took them on as best they could. They were less concerned with taking them down, and more with levelling skills.

I saw flames in front of me: Crawler had put up a Fire Wall. I mentally approved, after all, the more damage it did, the faster the spell would level. When I considered it, I smiled. Fighting thirty elite high-level mobs was now business as usual.

I chained a Combo with a Hammer, understanding that I’d have to be more careful in the future. Lifesteal was now healing me and, with my damage numbers, I would have to make sure I didn’t lose my invulnerability when I needed it most. And the more I leveled Combo, the bigger a problem it would become.

The dead wraiths turned into inky blots and fell to the ground with a rustle. Soon, there weren’t any left: I wanted to sleep and I was not sparing any plague energy. The battle lasted three minutes.

I didn’t want to get in the way of the former Dementors, though. They were managing just fine, but then Bomber implored me:

“Scyth, get him off me! I want to level my attack stance...”

With a couple of normal punches, I turned the mob’s attention to me and, with a bit of elbow grease, they finished off the last wraith. Bomb picked up the loot and we went to examine the village.

The mysterious questgiver was sitting in a distant home or, to be more accurate, what remained of it. The wraith, whose silhouette was reminiscent of a knight in full plate armor, groaned out a greeting and flew toward us. There was a symbol over his head to indicate the NPC had a mission for us.

The Ghost of William Stafford, level 20

“Greetings to you, intrepid travelers!” the ghost wailed. “How pleased I am to see you! Finally someone has come to this gods-forsaken village!”

He gave a long and ample speech, which we blatantly yawned our way through, just about dislodging our jaws. We were able to discern from it that he was the leader of the very death squad that destroyed the village. The gods, in his words, were angered by that and he became possessed by the same curse that affected the lumberjacks. It happened outside of Tristad, in Darant, and he was quickly taken down by a squadron of city guards.

And after he died, he found himself here, at the site of his villainous deed, without any way to leave. People rarely came to the burnt village, and those who did were quickly torn to pieces by the local wraiths, so the ghost had nobody to talk to. And it was very important for him to bare his soul because he had left a son in Tristad who didn’t know where his father had hidden the family savings. William was worried that his boy was penniless and was prepared to share part of what he’d saved with whoever told his son where old Stafford had buried the money.

The Ghost of William Stafford would like you to release his soul, destroy his ghostly form and tell his son Albert where the family savings are buried.

Time limit: 7 days.

Reward:

— 100 experience points;

— your reputation with Albert Stafford will be increased by 50 points;

— your reputation with the city of Tristad will be increased by 5 points;

— 5 gold coins.

Penalty for not completing mission:

— you will receive the curse of William Stafford;

— your reputation with Albert Stafford will be decreased by 150 points;

— your reputation with the city of Tristad will be decreased by 15 points.

“Okay then...” Infect stroked the back of his head. “Was this worth it?”

“Well... Five gold is five gold,” Bomber gave his verdict and also scratched the back of his head. “One gold a piece.”

“Do we also split the rep?” I asked.

“No, everyone gets it,” Tissa answered. “Then let’s take it? It’s very easy, kill the spirit and run to Tristad to his son. Easy as pie!”

“Alright,” I nodded. “We don’t want to let Albert die in poverty!”

We accepted the quest, then William said again:

“Thank you, intrepid travelers! Now that you have sealed your promise to help me before the gods, I will tell you how to release my soul, and where to find my savings.”

“We’re all ears,” Bomber said. “Please, go on, Sir Stafford!”

“The money is buried under a tree in the backyard of our house. Take five steps from it to the north: there, at a depth of two feet, you will find a chest full of gold.”

The ghost suddenly started to worry and made a pause.

“We’ll tell Albert,” Tissa promised.

“Thank you,” the spirit placed his hand on his heart “As for releasing my soul, it isn’t all that easy. When the gods willed me into this form of existence, it was as if they were mocking me. I am immune to both magical and physical damage. There is only one way – you must go to the shamans in the Osceola Prairies for help...”

William continued his story about the astral plane with zeal, then told us about spirits and a special ceremony, but we were already clutching our heads, not listening.

“Aw nether!” Crawler cursed. “The Osceola Prairies are on a totally different continent! This is a fail, guys! A damn fail!”

Tissa didn’t look like herself.

“Then why did I suggest we come here?!” she shouted, wringing her hands. It was so sincere that it made me want to cry.

As for the curse of William Stafford, we were going to find out, but we didn’t expect it to be anything good. Our memory of the robbers being possessed by the wandering trader was too fresh.

The ghost stopped talking and lost interest in us. He hovered around giving satisfied boos while the guys tried to get a single word out of him about what kind of curse he would give us.

“Freaking AI!” Tissa cursed. “Who put such a lamebrained quest into the sandbox?”

Infect went into stealth and bobbed behind the ghost’s back so he could land a blow with both daggers at once. But the weapons passed straight through without doing even one unit of damage to his fleshless body. Bomber charged and flew into a collapsed wall. The same thing happened with Ed’s fireballs and Tissa’s light magic. All our attacks were in vain. Magic and physical damage just went straight through him.

Then I unhurriedly walked up and slammed him with a plague Hammer.

The ghost of William Stafford fell to dust. Something clinked and a shiny golden bow raised up ten feet into the air.

“That’s a legen...” Crawler whispered.

“Wait For It!” Infect interrupted, bearing his teeth.

“...dary!” Tissa shouted, finishing.

To her shrieks of joy and our roar, Bomber picked up the loot.

Chapter 23. Hunters’ Camp

IT’S HARD TO even describe the happiness that came over them. I’d seen similar elation when my dad talked about his raids, comparing it to hooking a big fish when he would go fishing with my grandpa in his childhood. Killing a boss, seeing the loot and...

If even my father’s heart skipped a beat every time, what could I say about the former Dementors, who were seeing a legendary in their own loot for the first time.

“A ring!” Infect shouted in a voice not his own.

Bomber tossed up the information in the group chat.

Svetovid’s Valor

Legendary

Unique item.

Ring.

+12% to all main attributes.

Absorbs all damage from one lethal attack. Triggers no more than once every two minutes.

Number of gem slots: 1.

Warrior class only!

Chance of losing after death reduced by 100%.

The six-foot-six giant was now just jumping on one leg and pumping his fist, dancing some primordial jig for all to see.

“Lucky you, Hung!” Malik exclaimed in envy.

“Yeah, really lucky!” I agreed.

Raising a hand, I gave Bomber five as he jumped past and gave a broad smile. I wasn’t thinking what it could be worth to me, or about money at all. I was simply happy for my friend.

“Wait up,” Crawler hurried to slow our roll. “Scyth is our tank. Are we sure we need that ring? It won’t give Bomb such a big boost even at level twenty. But to high-levels... I’m afraid to even guess how much it might be worth! So let’s see what the clan lead has to say first.”

“Woah, woah, easy!” Hung crouched down next to us. “What are you talking about?! This is a legendary! How could I sell it? Are you out of your mind?”

“Hung Lee!” Tissa hit him strictly, copying the intonations of our teacher Greg Kovacs. “You’re letting your ego get in the way! Alex wasn’t afraid to risk his legendary mount, he bet it against Big Po for our sake! And now, if not for him, you wouldn’t even have that legendary...”

“Guys... you know that’s...” Bomber was embarrassed, his lips were quavering. “I mean, how can...”

“I don’t see a reason to sell it now,” I said. Hung brightened up and looked at me with hope. “Any equip bought with the money it could bring would be a senseless waste. With our abilities, we can gear up without wasting cash and, for now, we have no other use for gold. We can’t even withdraw it. Did you forget? We can put stuff up on auc if we really need the money and there’s no other way. Bomb, put on the ring. I say we keep it as a rainy-day fund. Agreed?”

“Scy-y-yth-th-th-th!” Hung shouted.

I barely dodged his flying mass:

“I’m not a hugger! Since when did you get so sentimental, Big Bomber!?”

We decided to wrap up the quest and not put it off. We figured Axiom was most likely tooling around inside and outside the new dungeon, so we could swing through town without too much trouble.

Infect brought us to Tristad, and I thought that, at this rate, it would be a while before I would be able to level my own Depths Teleportation skill. I voiced that fear and Tissa made a suggestion:

“Alex, after we finish the quest, we can jump together. Are you level two? That means you can’t choose where to go yet. But I can get you back.”

And that was just what we did. But first we needed to pay a visit to young Alfred Stafford. The home where he lived was in a fancy part of town, but looked poorly maintained: the fence was leaning, the paint was chipped and the garden was full of weeds.

We had to knock for a long time. They were already asleep based on the darkness in the windows and silence inside. Finally, we heard an old man shuffling up to the door. Someone spent a long time fussing with the lock and, when he opened the door, we saw a sleepy yawning boy of twenty years.

“Ali, I knocked out two shifts in a row! Don’t even ask...” He raised his eyes, realized he was mistaken and coughed, giving his voice some seriousness. “I’m sorry, I mistook you for a fellow watchman. Good evening, Tristad visitors! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Alfred Stafford?” I asked politely, although I knew it was him. He confirmed and I continued: “Beg your pardon for the late visit, but this is cannot bear delay.”

“If that’s the case, come inside,” Alfred shook his head indistinctly.

The inside was an even bigger mess than the outside. Noticing where we looked, as if apologizing, he explained:

“After father died, mother went as well. I watched her fall to pieces. I took her to the capital and spent all my money but nothing helped. Their healers just shrugged their shoulders and said they couldn’t do anything about a broken heart. Soon she was gone too and I was left all alone. I work in the city guard on long-distance patrols. I’m afraid I rarely have time for domestic concerns...”

I noticed none of the guys were hurrying the NPC, all listening carefully and even... sympathizing? I came under the impression that the Dementors were taking the boy’s story for the genuine article. Although... Nether! It was genuine! At the very least, considering the age of the game world and freshness of these events, this AI really had been born here, grew up with his parents and lost them both and was now trying to somehow get on with his life despite his loneliness and sorrow.

“Alfred...” Tissa began. We agreed she would complete the quest. “We sincerely sympathize with your loss! But we have good news for you! In the Gloomwood, we encountered the spirit of your father William. His spirit couldn’t find peace until he could send you an important message...”

A few minutes later, we helped the kid dig up a small chest. All of old Stafford’s savings were accounted for. The kid sat at the hole for a long time, clutching the chest with his head sagging. A tear ran down his cheek and all that time we were tactically standing at his side, not wanting to mention the reward.

“I believe this is yours by right,” he said, extending us the compensation his father had promised.

Ghost of William Stafford’s mission complete.

You released his soul and told Alfred where the family savings were hidden.

Experience points received: 100.

Experience points at present level (14): 1060/12800.

Your reputation with Albert Stafford has been increased by 50 points;

Current reputation: ambivalence.

Your reputation with the city of Tristad has been increased by 5.

Current reputation: ambivalence.

Right after that, Alfred’s mood changed. He bounced back mentally and was about run off to the house of his beloved to ask her father for her hand. He couldn’t marry her before because he had no means to provide for a family.

“He definitely won’t say no now!” the boy crowed.

We just barely managed to convince him to put it off until morning.

With a fond farewell, we went outside. It was after midnight and we had decided to end it at that. I had just one thing left to do – teleport my butt somewhere to level the skill. The guys all wanted to join:

“Who cares where it throws you and Tissa,” Crawler said. “Let’s all jump together.”

And when I activated Depths Teleportation, it sent us to the Olton Quarries and, from there, Tissa brought the whole group back to Tristad. To tell the truth, my skill level didn’t go up, but the progress bar showed that, if I used it one more time, it would ding.

“I just noticed we kinda got lucky,” Infect suddenly declared when we said goodbye. “The fact the ring is class-restricted saved Scyth from having to make a tough decision. If he’d chosen himself as clan leader no one would have questioned it but still, there would have been some resentment...”

“You really are a snake, Malik!” Bomber cracked Infect on the shoulder. “And now, do you resent that I got the ring?”

“Yes, I’m jealous, I won’t deny it!” the thief declared proudly and chuckled. “No bullshit, you’re a lucky son of a bitch!”

“What if we got a ring that was for some class none of us had, like shaman? Let’s be happy for Bomb, because otherwise... You have to agree it would be less cool...” Tissa added. “I mean, right?”

“Well, we’d have sold the damn thing!” I concluded the discussion.

On that philosophical note, the second day of our farming venture came to an end. No matter how I looked at it, this was a successful grind of experience and gear. Just the First Kill of Mok’Rhyssa was enough to justify the whole day’s worth of effort!

* * *

The next day, our clan storage, which for now was just Bomber’s bags, got a deposit of a bit over nine hundred gold while my personal wallet was enriched by fifty-two. Overweight had successfully sold almost everything we sent. The letter came with a sheet of calculations for each item: average auction price, actual sale price and commissions. Crawler meticulously checked the numbers and, seemingly, was left satisfied. Honestly, I couldn’t make head or tail of it, just nodded. Knowing him, I was sure that if he had complaints he would make them known.

Just out of interest and taking advantage of the fact we were in Tristad, Ed took a look at the scalable legendaries market to get a handle on how much Svetovid’s Valor might be worth. It wasn’t all that impressive to be honest. The best scalable legendaries gave up to thirty percent to attributes. There were supposedly even better ones, but they weren’t for sale at auction. As for our ring, if not for its impressive property to absorb finishing blows, its value would have been even lower.

After winning the Bubbling Flagon tournament, I was up to over seven thousand gold, but I really had no idea what to do with the money. Maybe I’d need it to buy up equipment before the Arena.

Our business in town took around an hour. The guys dropped by their class teachers to get new abilities or raise their current ones, and I for the first time realized another way my class was gimped. Where was my trainer? Where could I get new abilities?

While I waited for the guys, I decided I wanted an explanation, so I even wrote a letter to support, hoping it would be intercepted by that very same highly placed Snowstorm employee. The answer was very curt. Honestly, to read it, I had to leave Dis and check the mail on my communicator. The letter came from a single-use mailbox and was short and to the point:

Alex!

The game mechanics have not provided the herald class with a trainer. The idea is for you to get skills from your patron deity.

Jackson Briggs (or Sonya Blade, your choice).

Seemingly this was the same person as the Grant and Cooper who wrote previously. That answer didn’t upset me. Better two super-abilities than twenty normal ones.

I went back into the game world and ran to the center of town. At the temple of Nergal, I saw Aphrodite, aka Eve. I waved a hand at her in greeting. But she turned around and only then I noticed she was not alone. Crag was walking next to her. Turning around, he waved and gave me a broad smile, then embraced Eve at the waist and led her into the temple.

Eve had hit level seven, and the ganker warrior was up to fifteen. The last time I saw him in the cave of Wot’al, he was just thirteen. And it had been... only four days! Well, well. What progress...

I didn’t see anyone from Axiom. Their table in the Bubbling Flagon was also empty. Wandering the tavern, I eavesdropped on what people were talking about. For the most part, it was the new instance. I overheard that the dungeon hadn’t been vacant even once since it opened.

Contrary to expectation, the first into the ins after us were not Big Po’s guys but... Ambush! They ran back to the place they died before anyone else, and the dungeon was already empty. Without any preparation, they went inside and, of course, got annihilated. They didn’t even get to the first boss: they were wiped by the very first pack. But nevertheless, they did grab some rare alchemy ingredients, earning back what they lost in the battle with us.

Right after that, the ins was occupied by Axiom and they hadn’t let anyone else in since. Wesley Cho split all his highs up into shifts to provide round-the-clock surveillance at the portal. Minor groups went in by turn, reporting on their findings to HQ, which had been temporarily moved to the gully. The analysts were processing incoming information in real time, trying to find bosses with similar abilities in the database.

They only reached the boss by group three, but they didn’t even take his health down halfway. By morning, the fifth group had killed the first boss, but hadn’t reached the second. The packs of mobs had become even larger and meaner.

They didn’t come to school. By midday, Po had a complete report on tactics for the first boss and a rough sketch on the second. Around one hour ago, he and the main team went inside.

If they failed, we would have a direct path to the First Kill.

* * *

Three zones, the Gloomwood, the Mire and Tristad Environs, stretched for dozens of miles, and encompassed guard posts, farms and mines. At their triple point was a small promontory that overlooked the Tremitelle as it emptied into a lake, and there was a spotted tent as tall as two people. Next to it, there were a few smaller plain tents crammed in together, and some wild game roasting over a fire and wafting amazing smells. I swallowed my spit unwittingly.

“We made it,” Tissa exhaled. “There it is, the Hunters’ Camp. Their leader is named Garrison Alt. He’s the only one you can get quests from.”

On our way from the Gloomwood, where Bomber ported us, the guys told me about a faction called Dangerous Game Hunters. A group of tough men and women of various races, their blood bubbled with an explosive cocktail of love for nature, thirst for adventure and a desire to help society. The stick up their ass was an added bonus. They were something like the defenders of all living things, except for dangerous predators. And the hunters considered any species that directly threatened intelligent life to be just that. For example, they had no problem with tigers in general, but if they ever heard about a man-eating tiger that killed just for fun, they would hunt it down.

The local franchise of the faction had made their home here for a long time. The lifeforms in this forest and swamp presented a great risk and it was no coincidence that no intelligent creatures lived in either of these locations. Even stupid kobolds and gnolls kept their distance. So Garrison Alt and his brothers and sisters in arms had plenty of concerns.

“How do they earn money?” I asked.

“The city pays them,” Crawler answered. “If not for them, the city guard patrols couldn’t do their job. What’s more, they have another source of income – processing and selling what they harvest. Dangerous predators mean expensive loot. Rare pelts, guts, fangs...”

Not wasting time, we headed straight for the main tent. Garrison Alt was having a talk with some player, but when he saw us he patted the kid on the shoulder and walked over to greet us. He was an eminent stately man, strong and wearing heavy boots, pants of thick fabric and a leather jacket. But the first thing to attract my attention was his hair. It was pure white, the color of snow on mountaintops. He had it up in a ponytail and it came down below his shoulders. On his back there were two long narrow swords crossed over one another and, in his hands, he was holding a double-barreled gnomish rifle.

“How do you like my little friend here?” he asked, showing us his weapon lovingly. “It can take down a target at five hundred steps! It knocks cave bears off their feet! And you see this?” Alt pointed at a metal tube with lenses inside that was attached above the barrels. “A diamond sight!”

We expressed admiration. Tissa even asked to hold the gun, which Garrison didn’t refuse. “Epic! Personal!” she whispered delightedly. “Linked to its owner. That’s the stuff!”

“My name is Garrison, but you can call me Garr. Garr Alt,” he introduced himself, and I responded in kind. “I already know your friends. They show great potential!”

“We did the first eight quests in the chain,” Crawler explained to me quietly. “Our reputation with the Hunters’ Camp went all the way up to friendship.”

“What brings you to these wastelands?” Garr asked, squeezing my hand hard.

“A desire to aid the hunters in their glorious cause,” I called back. “I hope I can be of service.”

“A very praiseworthy desire, young man!” the hunter lit up. “At the moment we need some help cutting down the legions of Marshreed Catgators. Don’t be misled by the word cat, either. They’re detestable creature. We all love kitties around here. In Darant, I even have a pet panther I took from the Ursay Jungles as a kitten. But catgators are something completely different. If their bloodline ever harbored any feline elements, they ran dry ages ago. They’re more like scaly reptiles covered in a disgusting slime than anything else.”

I couldn’t resist a question:

“Then where’d the name come from?”

“They meow,” Garr Alt admitted with dismay. And after a bit of silence, he added: “And purr. And do you know when?”

I shook my head.

“While chewing through their victims’ guts! Bring me the tails of ten catgators, then we can find something more to talk about.”

Leader of the Hunters’ camp Garr Alt would like you to complete a test mission: kill ten Marshreed Catgators and collect their tails as proof.

Reward:

— 30 experience points;

— 50 silver coins;

— your reputation with Dangerous Game Hunters will be increased by 10 points;

— your reputation with the city of Tristad will be increased by 1 point.

“I’ll bring you the tails,” I said, accepting the quest.

“Wonderful,” a smile spread on his face, then he turned his attention to the guys. “What about you, friends? Have you taken care of the Swamp Needler nest?”

“Not yet, Garr,” Crawler called back. “We want to help our friend with your test missions first so we can all do it together.”

“Rational,” he concurred. “Any questions?”

“Nope,” I answered.

“Then I wouldn’t dare delay you any further!” he exclaimed, nodding and leaving us back to his tent.

On the mini-map, I saw a marker showing the range of the catgators.

“Are you sure we need to do this chain?” I turned to the guys. “How long is it gonna take? Just the moving around will waste so much time...”

“Yes!” they answered almost in concert.

They exchanged glances waiting for Infect to nod, meaning there was no one around, and Crawler whispered hotly:

“No one has ever finished this chain before, Scyth! In the whole history of the sandbox, nobody!”

“What’s the catch?”

“The needlers. They inject their larvae under your skin, which dig into the flesh pretty much like a screw.”

Tissa was overcome by laughter and it was catching. I felt a shiver run over my skin.

“Well and? What’s so funny? Guys, don’t keep me in the dark here. I’ve been sprayed with acid, burnt, torn to pieces, I even got my head chopped off... What could the needlers possibly have that makes them so impossible?”

“We aren’t gonna keep you in the dark, Scyth,” Bomber boomed. “The needlers’ larva have a peculiar nature. They’re physical but at the same time somehow... immaterial. Like astral creatures, they don’t so much take down your lifeforce as your soul. And they stick you with a debuff that doesn’t go away even after you die. It lasts a week, and if it isn’t refreshed in that time which, as a rule it will be if you encounter more needlers, the debuff expires.”

“But?”

“The debuff is accompanied by a progress bar which shows your larva count,” Crawler started explaining patiently. “One larva gives one percent to the bar. And that’s how much it brings down your maximum health. When the bar hits one hundred percent, a needler bursts out of your ribcage. Then you die and respawn without the debuff.”

“It’s all complicated by the fact that the quest can only be completed in one run-through. If you get wiped, you’ve gotta start all over from the beginning. But you’re already full of larvae, and they live for a week. Now do you understand why nobody has exterminated their nest yet?”

“Just a sec...” The final piece fell into the puzzle. “So it’s an ins?”

“Exactly, Scyth,” Infect grinned. “Can you smell what we stand to gain?”

I sniffed. A First Kill. And something special from Garr Alt.

* * *

Two days later, we’d gotten me far enough in the chain that I also had the final quest to clear the Swamp Needler nest. It would have taken more time, but the guys were very familiar with the location so we were working extremely efficiently.

After our first talk with the leader of the Hunters’ camp, we went toward the lake, the whole shore of which was occupied by Marshreed Catgators. And they really were some creepy reptiles. A deafening, spooky cacophony of catlike meows filled the entire area. The little snakelike crocodiles, their silvery scales shimmering, instantly hid in the mud when they saw us coming. A few of them, based on the bulging strips of ground, were coming in our direction. The reptiles were at level twelve, so they were no problem. Perhaps it was a bit uncomfortable to hit them because they only came up to my knee, but I had hammered down enough tails in just five minutes.

A couple points of experience dripped into my piggy bank and Garr handed me fifty silver. The next mission in the chain was for Maneating Wolves. They were also pretty simple, and I soon handed in ten Maneating Wolf Fangs for experience and coins. All the while, points filled my reputation piggybanks for the hunters, Garr Alt himself, and Tristad.

After that, Alt did me a solid and handed out three missions at once, all to genocide dangerous predators. Poisonous Vultures, Electric Gecko and Gigantic Bloodsucking Vampire Bats filling out my sandbox bestiary. Beyond the fact that they filled Bomber’s backpack with various trade ingredients, the group was getting experience for killing and I for completing quests as well. Garr Alt gave me an encouraging pat on the shoulder and continued to hand out silver and experience points. But it’s worth noting that he never gave more than one gold per quest.

The next three missions were also handed out all at once because nobody knew the exact location of the elite monsters. They all had a fantastically large range, and they overlapped, so we could have found any of them at any time.

“Rare mobs,” Ed explained.

The rares took us the whole next game day. Dirty Shadow, the vulture boss, was in a cavern inside a huge tree; Storm, a lizard that attacked with electricity was found sunning himself on a plain to the east of the hunters’ camp; Fangginga, which looked more like a pterodactyl than a bat, we tracked down on the edge of the Gloomwood.

All the elites were level fifteen, but they didn’t stand a chance against our well-practiced group. None of us even died one time, although Infect came very close: I decided to level Stunning Kick and hit Storm with it alone, and the thief outaggro’d me. Anyhow, I got the lizard’s attention back with one Hammer. Fangginga, by the way was our first opportunity to see Hung’s legendary ring in action. As he was tanking the boss, Tissa got distracted levelling offensive spells and wasn’t healing him enough.

Obviously, we were always coming up against aggressive fauna, which moved us forward in leveling, but we were far from the astronomic pace of Little Gully. That had to do with the fact that I refused to risk using curse of the undead out in the open. There were players all around. So then, on day two, none of us got even one level, though we were all very close. But we were levelling our combat attacks and skills, each getting several minor dings.

“Impressive,” Garr Alt said when I laid out a feather, a tail and a fang from the three rare mobs. “These creatures multiply faster than we can thin them out,” he complained. “We kill one big wolf and, next thing we know, there’s another. We give them all the same nickname so it feels less scary.”

He beckoned one of his men, who carried away the trophies. Garr sized me up before assigning the final quest in the chain:

“I feel you’re ready, Scyth. The Swamp Needlers have been bothering us for many years. These spawn of the Nether were once just common overgrown insects. About this big,” he said, pointing to his forearm. “But a few years ago, everything changed. The forest and swamp were filled with monsters and creatures, and the needlers are the nastiest of the bunch. No matter how many of them we take out, it’s all useless while their queen still lives. Kill her, destroy the nest and you will be pulling a huge thorn out of our butts!”

Hunters’ camp leader Garr Alt would like you to kill Chuff, Queen of the Swamp Needlers, and destroy her nest.

Reward:

— 3000 experience points;

— 300 gold;

— your reputation with Dangerous Game Hunters will be increased by 50 points;

— your reputation with the city of Tristad will be increased by 10 points.

— one class-based item from the Monster Hunter set.

I agreed to complete the mission. Garr squeezed my hand and, wishing us luck, went back into his tent, I suspected, to sleep because it was almost midnight.

“Let’s pick back up tomorrow,” I said, yawning.

* * *

It was the first time I was seeing dungeons of this type. No long winding tunnels and corridors, just a simple underground cave we happened to need a portal to enter.

To be honest, first we had to fight through one group of Swamp Needlers. They looked like gigantic mutant flies with a thick stinger on the end of a little trunk, which stuck out of the lower part of their body, which was how they injected their larva into their victims. Honestly, those ones didn’t get the chance. We took them down from afar before they could get near us. We all had ranged attacks: Infect threw knives, I shot my bow, Tissa and Crawler hit with spells and Bomber always carried a crossbow to pull mobs.

“Another bug ins,” I thought. “This probably isn’t a coincidence considering how strictly the Department of Education censors sandboxes. After all, killing insects isn’t the same as killing more humanoid creatures, even in VR...”

“Don’t move!” Crawler warned, knocking me off track. “Scyth, let me remind you of the tactics as far as we know. In the center of the cave, there is a clutch of huge eggs...”

“Hold up, that doesn’t make sense,” I muttered. “Do they lay eggs or inject larva?”

“Hell if I know,” the tank shrugged. “What do you care?”

“Whoever designed these mobs must not have had a great understanding of biology, that’s all,” Infect threw out.

“I suspect we can only destroy the eggs after we’ve beaten Chuff,” Ed kept repeating what he already explained on the way here. But now it was all right in front of us. “She will appear after an unknown number of waves of needlers. They’re all identical, but every wave will have more and higher level. We never got to the last wave. It doesn’t look all that hard at first glance, a couple dozen mobs up to level sixteen by wave eight but, by that point, the whole group has crazy health debuffs...”

“You can say that again!” Bomber chuckled nervously. “I used to tank back then and, understandably, took the most larvae. By wave eight, my health would be down to six percent. And that was with maximum healing!”

“There’s a one-minute break between waves,” Tissa added. “If not for the debuff, passing this ins would be easy as pie. Eat some food, drink some potions, re-up your buffs and off to the races!”

“You said you’ve tried three times,” I said. “Why so few? You gave Evil from the Depths a bunch of tries. But this is the same, a dungeon no one has ever taken down...”

“Yeah but we already knew it was hopeless before the third attempt,” Infect winced. “It’s obvious mathematically. Every needler can lay two or three larvae and, even though they’re mostly attacking the tank, they choose a random target for the debuff. So keep that in mind. And we didn’t have enough damage to take them down before they could lay larva. After that, just imagine. You have to go around with that debuff for a whole week! We never left the city. A sneeze could have killed us...”

“I know what to do.” I pulled out my bow, preparing to shoot the creatures with plague arrows. “I don’t give a crap about total health, but you might not make it to the boss. Maybe it’d be better for you to wait outside the ins. After all, it’ll be a challenge for you with that debuff afterward.”

“I’ll take the out!” Infect took heart.

“But what about the experience?” Tissa looked to Crawler.

“Scyth is right,” he answered. “We won’t be able to farm for a week after that. And going after mobs with dribbles of life, risking death and losing experience... No, we can’t afford that. Actually, it’s strange we didn’t think of it right away...!”

And that decided it.

One after the next, my classmates left the cave and I was left alone. I crouched down and started to think. What if the debuff ignored curse of the undead? I’d get my hundred larva and what then? Would I be torn to shreds or what?

“I’ll never find out if I don’t check,” I thought and got up. I took a couple steps, stopped and pulled back on my bowstring. I heard a clacking in front of me and a couple needlers flew up from the nearest row of eggs, which glowed in the dark of the cavern.

Swamp Needler, level 12

Magical creature

So then, that meant these weren’t exactly insects. Something like Murkiss’s underlings. Mutated creatures, warped. That explained the eggs and larva conundrum. Maybe the latter had been breathed into existence by the Nether.

I loosed an arrow, looked at their total health and targeted the whole pack. I had enough plague energy that the bar for it didn’t even flicker.

Two seconds per shot, twenty in the first wave. These primitive calculations led me to believe that perhaps I should have told my clanmates to come back. But I weighed everything and decided against it. After all, my conclusions were based only on the first pack. By wave five, there would be fifty of these needlers, and I simply wouldn’t be able to shoot them all down fast enough. Debuffs would be inevitable.

I got my first larva on wave three. A needler flew up to me and poked me with a stinger through my chainmail. The creature writhed fitfully, a wave ran down the trunk and I suddenly felt a very strong, just hellish pain at the injection site. The burning passed and I felt almost nauseous when I saw a lump the size of a pool ball crawling around under my skin, raising even my chainmail. Wriggling, it found a warm spot somewhere in my stomach area and settled in.

Parasites inside — 1

A swamp needler has laid its larva inside you. Some of your life force will now go toward nourishing the parasite.

−1% total health.

Parasites until full integration: 1/100.

Duration: 7 days.

The pain went numb, but after that I considered some strange facts about the intense pain. Was this a result of my threat status? After all, no normal players experienced anything even close to what I felt in battles.

Taking advantage of my pause, two more needlers attacked and a third was buzzing repellently nearby, preparing to attack, opening its mandibles wide and bristling out its needles. “You’re an ugly bugger, aren’t you?” I thought, mixing normal punches with Hammers in a panic. I had no need for Combos. There was no need to save plague energy, so I could level my move in a more comfortable setting.

The fourth and fifth waves showed how the Swamp Needlers earned their name. Dozens of the bugs shot me with hundreds of sharp poisonous needles the size of a finger, then sandbagged me, injecting their larva into my body.

Parasites inside — 99

A swamp needler has laid its larva inside you. Some of your life force will now go toward nourishing the parasite.

-99% total health.

Parasites until full integration: 99/100.

Duration: 7 days.

Feeling the next stinger poke, I got on guard. The larva crawled down the trunk and got stuck, unable to make it into my body. Praise be to the Destroying Plague!

The debuff progress bar was stuck at ninety-nine percent! The curse of the undead worked its magic, not letting it kill me with a one-hundredth larva. I cracked my fingers for show and started handing out punches left and right. The ghastly insects exploded into quarts of slime, lymph fluid and chitin. I was even adding too much damage to make it a sure thing.

Strangely, none of the mobs left any loot behind. Between waves, I wrote how I was doing in the group chat and read messages from the guys. Sympathizing with my position, they were entertaining me as best they could.

[18:12] [Clan] [Crawler]: Axiom has set an entry price for the Sarantapod Hive. One thousand gold!

[18:13] [Clan] [Scyth]: Big Po’s being his usual self! “Like a dog in the manger,” as my Uncle Nick says. Haha! By the way, wave eight is coming up.

[18:13] [Clan] [Tissa]: Alex, you might be surprised, but there’s a waitlist until the end of the week!

[18:14] [Clan] [Infect]: I say it’s time for us to save up for signal amulets!

...

[18:16] [Clan] [Scyth]: I’ll be an archery master any day now. The skill’s already at level five! By the way, here comes wave nine...

[18:16] [Clan] [Crawler]: Look at you, Sheppard! We’ll come back then. We went over to the lake for a minute. Tissa was picking flowers and Bomber cast a line to level his prof, but I don’t think he caught a damn thing.

[18:17] [Clan] [Tissa]: Not flowers, roots! And by the way, they’re for you, Ed!

[18:18] [Clan] [Bomber]: Hey! I caught some Oily Carp! You can level your cooking, Scyth!

Tissa had taken Herbalism, and Crawler Alchemy, an excellent combination of professions. Infect took the weirdest trade, Archeology. It made no sense because there wasn’t really anywhere to excavate in the sandbox. But our Arab Indiana Jones was not going to change trade.

By that point, I was fighting mechanically: shoot down fifteen or twenty needlers before they got to me, swat down the rest, see what they were writing in the chat, then walk circles around the cave looking for secret hiding spots passageways or treasures. I didn’t find anything, and that ran counter to my dad’s tips. He always said unfinished ins’s would contain items players had dropped. And based on the history of the Nest of the Swamp Needlers, there should have been a large amount of stuff.

By the time I was done with wave ten, I had brought Stunning Kick up to level nine, and archery and Quickshot up to six.

I wrote in the chat that they should hurry into the ins because, once the boss came, it would already be too late.

They entered the cave just as the earth underfoot began to tremble. At the far wall, a wide passageway opened and the colossal body of the queen emerged.

Chuff, Queen of the Swamp Needlers, level 21

Magical creature

Dungeon Boss

Chuff was covered in whitish slimy skin and I was immediately reminded of a biology lesson. A big fat maggot with a short body, she had no appendages, but she did have something else: nasty openings all over, dripping slime. And from them came thirty-foot-long, winding tentacles that gave a slapping sound. They were crowned with a stinger that looked like the one on the needlers, but way bigger.

“What were they smoking?” Infect asked. “What sober person could think up something like this?”

The creature started toward us. It was somehow reminiscent of Mok’Rhyssa but, where I’d say she was a ten out of ten on the disgust scale, I’d put Chuff at a full fifteen. Just looking at her made me want to puke.

“Ugh, we didn’t eat any Zombie Rat,” Bomber said, chagrinned. “Maybe there’s still time?”

“No need,” I said. “You aren’t gonna have to fight.”

I wasn’t planning to draw this out. Even the idea of grazing her made me nauseous! So I took out my bow, pulled back the string and loosed an arrow backed up with twenty thousand points of plague energy. Whistling through the air, it lodged into her whitish slimy skin.

“Congratulations on the first...” I started, smiling. But I was mistaken. I stared at the boss’s life bar in disbelief, seeing that it was still full. “What the...”

With a sob, Chuff stopped for a moment, then kept coming.

Chapter 24. Swamp Bugs

THE BOSS, LEAVING a broad trail of slime behind it, froze for a second, choosing a target, then came decisively at me. I studied the logs:

You have critically damaged Chuff, Queen of the Swamp Needlers: 20011!

All damage absorbed by Chuff’s Impenetrable Hide, effective damage: 0.

Zero? Why? I launched another two plague arrows into Chuff’s body, saw that my plague energy bar was getting low, then realized what I was doing wrong.

The guys meanwhile were not panicking: Crawler started giving orders as usual, exchanging commentary with Tissa and I at the same time:

“She’s barely moving, we can kite her! Fan out! Scyth, get her and pull her to the far wall!”

“Twenty-four tons of life!” Tissa shouted. “We need to find her weak point...”

Chuff was two levels lower than the memorable Murkiss, and we took him down without any cheating. But the group was stronger then, so my clanmates’ damage would be symbolic and all hope was on me. They were just too much lower level.

I ran at Chuff, deciding to test her invulnerability in close combat. A charged-up Combo went up in smoke. Zero damage yet again.

Sh-sh-shoop! The queen shot out long purple tentacles in every direction, hitting each of us.

“Larva!” Infect lamented. “I got two!”

The others also said how much debuff they’d taken, but I could no longer hear them. Four stingers poked into me at the same time, each injecting a larva into my flesh.

Unable to control my body, I fell to the ground a formless sack. I like I was being mutilated, torn apart from inside. Blood filled my eyes and, if not for my high Resilience, I would certainly have died from the nightmarish pain alone.

Parasites inside — 100

Integration! At the price of your own life, you have given life to a Swamp Needler!

With a rending crunch, a mature level-nineteen needler tore its way out of my chest. Looking at it, I couldn’t believe this was happening. The only thing helping me keep my cool was a mantra I beat into my brain saying it was not real, just a projection of a virtual world in my head.

The birth of the parasite was accompanied by damage ten times higher than my total health, and I would have died if not for the curse.

Damage completely absorbed by Curse of the Undead.

The severe pain ended just as suddenly as it came on. At the same time, my hearing, vision and control over my body came back. When I could finally move again, I exploded the hovering creature that had just crawled out of me with a plague Stunning Kick. It blasted into chunks, spraying hemolymph fluid.

After that, I looked around at the battlefield. Chuff figured I was done for and turned to the one she deemed next most dangerous, Infect. The thief tried to run from combat, turning on Dodge and Disappearance, but a tentacle came confidently at where he was and knocked him out of Stealth. When he reappeared, the thief rolled aside and fled. The queen slowly crawled after him, periodically shooting stingers at the others. Well, everyone except me.

Only then did I hear Crawler tearing his throat to howl at me:

“Scyth, the tentacles! The tentacles! Take out the tentacles!”

I looked at the combat logs and noticed that, although it was only single units, damage was getting through there. Crawler, Tissa and Bomber were thrashing the tentacles with their abils!

“Got it!” I shouted, giving in to the adrenaline-fueled commotion.

What was I looking at here? Six hundred health per tentacle. Easy-peasy!

I turned the three closest to me into dust with normal punches charged up with plague energy. Then, getting excited, I started shooting the rest with my bow. Every time she lost an appendage, Chuff gave a juicy sob, shuddered and tried to change position as to cover the open wound where the torn-off tentacle had been.

Distracted by the shooting, I didn’t notice how or when Infect died, having taken most of the larva during the last blast, then getting hit by a Throw from Chuff. The others meanwhile were all focusing on one tentacle. Bomber took the boss’s aggro, hanging on its appendages and trying to just about tear it out with his teeth while Tissa bombarded it with light and Crawler with fire. The three of them together had just barely managed to take half the one tentacle’s life. And there were lots of them still fluttering around.

“Do we really have to get rid of all of them?” I thought, driving arrows into them.

I shot a couple dozen in less than a minute and noticed that the section of Chuff’s body that had them all chopped off was now oozing a thick brown liquid. I pulled back my bowstring and loosed an arrow into an open wound with a Quickshot.

You have damaged Chuff, Queen of the Swamp Needlers: 7.

Health points: 23993/24000.

I chuckled and shot again in the same place, adding exactly twenty-four thousand points of plague energy. Just a li-i-itle extra.

You have critically damaged Chuff, Queen of the Swamp Needlers: 24006!

Health points: 0/24000.

Chuff, Queen of the Swamp Needlers, is dead.

Experience points received: 150.

Experience points at present level (15): 50/14400.

You are now level 15!

5 free attribute points available!

She simply stopped moving. The remaining tentacles drooped onto the ground. The guys lit up with golden flashes. They had each earned a level, except Infect, who had been penalized six hundred experience points for dying. Everything went quiet.

In the silence, I could hear a soft hum from Tissa, who was casting to raise the unfortunate thief.

The greenish blue eggs in the center of the cave suddenly started shivering, but nothing hatched out. The contents just streamed out and the shells even went pale, dead.

“Yessss!” Infect filled the cave with a roar, now back to life.

“Yesss...” Bomber drew out with no enthusiasm. “By the way, looks like the debuff completely went away together with the boss kill! But I got another one: ‘Dead parasite inside.’ Time is three days. All my stats are lowered by sixty percent. Does everyone have that?”

“Looks like it,” Tissa answered. “I only have nine percent.”

“I have nothing,” I said. “A needler hatched out of me and I didn’t get any more larva...”

I walked up to the guys and high-fived their slumping, beat-up hands. For some time, no one said anything. Killing the boss hadn’t brought what we were all expecting.

The confused silence drew on. No one even tried to see what dropped. The guys exchanged glances and spread their arms.

“Where’s our First Kill?” Crawler asked, his voice overcoming the rest.

“Maybe we’re not the first?” I suggested.

“Yeah, how could that be? We are definitely the first!” he announced with confidence. “No one had ever even seen the boss before us, much less killed it...”

Bomber crossed his arms behind his back and thoughtfully started pacing the cave. He reached the place where Chuff came from and froze for a few seconds, looking down. Then he lifted his heavy sword and swung it with all his might at the slime-soaked earth.

“How about that?” he shouted with a grin. “There’s a cord here like an umbilical cord leading from the wall to the boss. Well, I already...”

“Look, look at the boss!” Tissa howled, poking Chuff with a finger.

We turned all at once and saw the queen’s body metamorphizing, turning into the shriveled carcass of a huge insect. It looked like we were watching a very high-speed video of her corpse left out under the scorching rays of the sun: the tentacles dried out, fell off and turned to dust. The body compressed, wrinkled, shrunk and... Also turned to dust!

Ta-da! Boom! There was such a thundering sound in the cave that my ears started ringing. The audio and visual effects from the achievements were over, but the sound in the cave was only growing louder. The former Dementors eyes all bulged as they read the notification and, the longer they read, the louder they started screaming.

It really had to be seen to be believed! I took a few shots for clan history: Malik, walking on his hands and pumping his legs, Hung dancing a jig around Chuff’s body, Tissa squealing and Ed laughing.

“An achieve! Another one! A pet! Needler!” Crawler shouted. He was usually reserved but now he couldn’t hold back. “Personal! Ahhh!”

“I came, I saw, I conquered! I came, I saw, I conquered!” Infect chanted, standing on his head. “Seventy-five attribute points! I came, I saw, I conquered!”

Unable to resist, I gave in to the general mirth. A few moments later, we were all hugging.

Achievement unlocked: First kill: Chuff, Queen of the Swamp Needlers!

Of all the players in your sandbox, you were the first to kill this final boss: Chuff, Queen of the Swamp Needlers, level 21! Steeped in the breath of the Nether, her nature was twisted, turning her offspring into some of the most dangerous creatures in all Disgardium.

Reward: swamp needler egg.

Swamp Needler Egg

Epic

Personal item.

Pet.

Swamp Needlers are gigantic swamp flies, altered by the outburst of the breath of the Nether. The mutation gave their young a new appearance and made them aggressive, ruthless and immeasurably loyal to the Nest. Your pet is one of the last five of its species. Its home Nest has been destroyed, so it will be loyal to you alone.

Time to hatch: 0/1000 experience points.

Scyth, set the percentage of experience points you’d like to go to your pet.

Currently: 0%.

Achievement unlocked: I Came, I Saw, I conquered – 2!

You got another First Kill achievement on your first try! Verily, the gods of Disgardium must not only favor you, but also want you to stand out from all other heroes!

Reward: +10% permanent bonus to the following secondary attributes: movement speed, accuracy, dodge chance, critical damage chance, spell power and damage bonus, ranged damage.

“Yuck, a filthy needler!” Tissa chuckled, reading the reward for the achievement. “I’m not gonna hatch mine!”

“Not so fast, buddy,” Crawler noted. “It’s a personal combat pet! Just imagine...”

“What if he’s a sweetie-pie?” Bomber suggested. “I’m gonna give mine a hundred percent experience just to make it hatch faster! Then I’ll have to level it up!”

I had dismissed the suggestion to set experience points for my pet, wanting to handle it later. My whole field of vision was filled with a notifications, despite being already crammed with other windows.

Hunters’ camp leader Garr Alt’s mission complete.

You have killed Chuff, Queen of the Swamp Needlers, and destroyed her nest. It’s not known if she’ll resurrect but, for now, the locals in this area can catch their breath.

Tell hunters’ camp leader Garr Alt about your success to receive your reward.

Experience points received for completing Nest of the Swamp Needlers: 200.

Experience points at present level (15): 250/14400.

All hail the hero!

Would you like to make your name public? Doing so will give +150 reputation with the city of Tristad and +10 fame.

“Let’s turn down the fame,” I suggested. “Okay?”

“No question,” Crawler supported me. “We don’t need this kind of notoriety...”

Attention all sandbox players!

Anonymous players have completed the location Nest of the Swamp Needlers, which is near the Mire, and got First Kill of the final boss, Chuff, Queen of the Swamp Needlers! Residents and visitors of Tristad, hats off to the anonymous players! All hail the heroes! All hail the anonymous players!

By that time, everyone was doing their own thing, digging in their interface and spending attribute points. My endurance was lagging behind, so I threw all five points there. Actively using the bow raised that skill and Quickshot by one more point. Both of them were now up to level seven. The time had come to pay trainer Conrad a visit for new moves.

I tossed a link to I Came, I Saw, I Conquered – 2 in the clan chat. They had no idea this was my second such achievement.

“So, what do you think?” I asked the guys.

“Well god dang!” Bomber exclaimed. “Not too shabby!”

“Badass! So this is your second? I hope we get one of those someday!” Crawler lit up. “When did you get the first one? Crusher?”

“Evil from the Depths. But it gave me a hundred points. I didn’t get anything like that for Crusher or Murkiss. They just gave me a First Kill.”

“Makes sense,” Tissa said. “Looks like they only hand them out for ins’s. They’re much harder than rare mobs.”

“Yeah, there’s only an achieve for the first battle,” Infect confirmed. “I’ve heard of this before: you can only get it for a First Kill in your first battle with the final boss. One of my older brother’s friends got it. They gave him fifty points to place as he liked. Then he got lucky: the damager dropped out of his main static, and he took his place.”

“And they gave us seventy-five, not fifty,” Tissa thought. “But Scyth got a whole hundred!”

“Hm...” Ed scratched the back of his head. “That’s probably because he was very little compared to the boss back then. Like us now, but here the level difference is lower. The rewards for achieves are calculated by the AI dynamically and maybe it figured Scyth deserved double. And it gave us one and a half times more than normal.”

“By the way, speaking of rewards!” Bomber bolted up and went over to the boss’s corpse. He stuck a hand into the loot and shouted: “Check your bags, especially you, Scyth!”

I peeked into my bag and saw all three slots occupied. There was a Respawn Stone, a Swamp Needler Egg and a Fragment of the Seal of Shog’rassar. Approaching the boss’s corpse, I saw a quest item called Chuff’s Desiccated Stinger. I had to carry it in my hands.

In the chat I saw a message about the loot:

Chuff’s Hide Cape

Epic

Cloak.

Armor: 5

Gives a chance of completely reflecting damage dealt from behind.

+14 Intelligence.

+14 Endurance.

+18% spell power bonus.

+3% critical damage chance.

Durability: 200/200.

Requires level: 20.

Sell price: 75 gold coins, 45 silver coins.

Chance of losing after death reduced by 90%.

“Nothing more?” Infect asked with furtive hope.

“Na, that’s all,” Bomber answered.

“Another epic rag!” Infect said woefully. “And is it gonna go to Tissa again?”

“I wouldn’t refuse it in exchange for... The epic Axiom beat out of me,” Crawler grumbled. “But it’s more important to improve our heal! We’re already set for damage right now, as I said!”

“Ed... Maybe you should take it?” she doubted.

“He’s right,” I said, supporting Crawler in his difficult decision. “We can always get more gear, we have enough damage, but we need a strong heal right now. Especially in the Arena.”

“Agreed,” Hung shot out. “Improving healing by eighteen percent will give us more than increasing Crawler’s damage. Tissa, take it...”

We ported out of the instance right to the hunters’ camp. The thundering global notification might have aroused interest, and we didn’t want to lose the fame bonuses for nothing.

When we laid out Chuff’s Desiccated Stinger before Garr Alt, he lost his mind for a moment. Studying the appendage in surprise for a long time, he gave it a sniff, turned his head, nodded in satisfaction then silently beckoned us to follow him.

The hunter stopped in front of a suitcase, opened it and threw all the stingers inside. We got a message saying we’d completed the quest, increasing our reputation with the faction and city, and giving us three thousand experience points. Infect, by the way, had caught up with the rest and hit level thirteen. Then there was a material reward as well.

“You are true heroes!” Garr Alt declared. “You young folk should consider a career in our guild! You have valor and an ability to find solutions to the most complicated situations, and you have an implacable desire to serve for the good of society and fight dangerous monsters. All that commands a worthy price. I will send my best recommendations for each of you to Darant this very day! Whether you’re there or in any of our other camps, which there are dozens of the world over, you can always come to us without a second thought!”

Finishing up, he gave us bags of gold then pulled out a rare class-based object from the Monster Hunter set for each of us. It was all boots: mine chainmail, Bomber’s plate, Infect’s leather, and cloth ones for the mages, Tissa’s satin and Crawler’s silk. The items were for level twenty, and I gave mine to Bomber for safekeeping.

Turning the reward over in his hands, Ed threw his unhappily in his bag and shouted in sincere anger:

“I will not walk around in these!”

* * *

The way the frogs croaked was somehow different. And the herons’ calls were plaintive, totally un-birdlike. But still I was surprised to encounter normal neutral animals and birds, not only the offspring of twisted game designers’ mind seeking to rip into my flesh. I even saw a realistic white stork at level twenty and its marker was also neutral, meaning it would only fight in defense.

A few hours prior, I had again used the “round trip” teleportation service, first with my skill, which randomly spat us out in the Gloomwood, then Crawler brought us all back to the hunters’ camp. The depths teleportation skill had finally gone up, and now I could pick between two possible destinations. And that reduced my chance of being taken to the wrong place by half. From there, as Tissa had once written to me, it came down to luck.

We were bashing our way through overgrown reeds and sedge, zigzagging from pack to pack, which I aggro’d with my arrows. We weren’t trying to hatch our pets, even Bomber. We just couldn’t afford to think about pets for the time being.

And so we walked into the very depths of the Mire, consuming Waterwalking Potions all the way. The stagnant fen squelched underfoot, its surface covered with duckweed, but our boots stayed dry. The potion was working exactly the way it was intended to.

“We definitely won’t see anyone here,” Infect said, panting as he ran. “It’s clear for miles around.”

“Agreed,” Bomber supported his friend, trailing behind the group. “Even high-levels don’t come out here...”

In the condensing darkness, I saw a familiar island in the distance, fringed with sparse patches of cattails and reeds.

“There’s a patch of dry land up ahead, we can take the mobs there!” I turned and shouted.

We had left mountains of enemy corpses behind us, bringing all the former Dementors up a level, but the most important thing still lay ahead. Although that depended how you looked at it. To us, in a lather and running on crumbs of energy, replenished by elixirs, it was actually behind, keeping us on our toes, nipping and biting at our heels when it got the chance.

By the time we were three miles from the hunters’ camp, the packs we encountered started aggro’ing exactly the same way as the millipedes of Little Gully. But we wanted to get further in before we did too much fighting, so we amassed a very long train of followers, all kinds of swamp life: extremely aggressive and nimble two-legged Bog Lizards, poison spitting Camouflage Toads, extremely bothersome Acid Dragonlings. And under our feet in the murky muck were Wineskin Leeches, familiar Swamp Bigheads and magical Angler Balls which glowed blue.

We ran up to the small island with a small hillock in the middle, the only dry land in the area, and climbed up to the top. I kept a bit lower down the slope to intercept the ravenous beasts. In front of me was a living river three hundred feet long and burbling with incoming monsters. But my only worry was that I simply wouldn’t be able to pull the whole seething mass onto me. The curse of the undead disregarded all laws of biology and anatomy the way it swallowed up damage, but it did obey the laws of physics. For example, if I had a couple tons of mobs on top of me, I would be... pinned down. Then only my special moves would work. The laws of physics didn’t apply to them.

And that was exactly what eventually happened. I got off around ten arrows before the mega-pack of mobs caught up to me. First, the Bog Lizards, something like thigh-high velociraptors, jumped onto me one after the next. From ten or fifteen steps out, they shot up into the air and flew forward feet-first, ready to tear me into crimson shreds with their long powerful claws. The inertia of the reptiles’ jump knocked me off my feet and I was unable to finish them off before the second wave reached me. Gobs of spit from the Camouflage Toads splatted onto me, and the dragonlings hit my decaying body with their acid breath while producing a sharp trill.

I made some room above me we a series of clobbering punches while, by some small wonder, lying down! Then I made a Stunning Kick and stood to my feet. The guys’ frames were displayed in color, but actually looking at them would mean losing time, so I just kept swinging.

The lizards went to respawn first. They had come in for close combat, so at first I was only fighting them. The water creatures couldn’t climb up on shore no matter how they tried; the toads and dragonlings were shooting from a distance as I wound up and slammed a Hammer into the elongated toothy snout of the last dinosaur, then picked up my bow.

Unfortunately, my field of vision was severely curtailed by the acidic liquid rising as steam all around me, and I was covered head to toe in the loogies of the stupid toads. They were waiting for me to kick the bucket and get overcooked to begin their feast but, if they had any brains, they would have realized long ago that their dinner was no longer coming.

“Scyth, help!”

Through the deafening cacophony of spit and breath, I heard Tissa squeal.

I loosed an arrow I already had aimed into the toothless maw of a stupid toad, which was just about to spit, then turned. A few lizards, unable to get to me, had come after Bomber, who was already on his last legs, despite the fact that Tissa was pouring all her heal into him. The warrior, hiding behind his shield, crashed his sword down on the one closest to him, but I was doubtful he was even doing fifty damage. Infect and Crawler, meanwhile, were already lying dead nearby.

An instant later, I jumped over but kept my distance, hoping my friends wouldn’t draw the attention of the ravenous horde of poison- and acid-spitting freaks. I pulled out my bow, not sparing plague energy and took one especially zealous lizard off Bomber, leaving the last, slightly wounded one for him to have fun and level his skills. The level-twenty mob would help Bomber improve his tank skills and Tissa her light magic attacks.

Then I got back to work, setting up a shooting gallery like they had at the carnival. First of all, I shot down the dragonlings, finally ridding myself of the vexing cloudy haze of acidic vapor. I tossed a gaze back and made sure Tissa had left battle mode and raised Ed and Malik. Then I got started on the toads.

By the time no more mobs remained above the water, all my clanmates were up to level fifteen, and I was just about seventeen. Tissa, long waiting for just this level, got the Hand of Vecna out of her bag. The blue wand, which we got off the Lich Hermit near the hut in the forest, was topped with a desiccated clenched fist with an extended middle finger. Gazing at it lovingly, she sang out:

“Brother finger, brother finger, where are you? Her I am, here I am! How are things?”[5] and shot up her own middle finger.

It was a funny sight. After a series of jokes, some funny and others less so, we quickly tallied our results.

“Should we call it a day?” Crawler asked, while the rest gathered loot as quickly as they could.

“No. Look there,” I pointed to a concentration of swamp creatures in the water.

Deep down and just under the surface, there were blustering leeches, bigheads and anglers, the deepest layer giving off a diffuse blue light.

“They have an average level of twenty. We could just pick them off.”

Ed mulled it over. Quickly estimating, he made a suggestion:

“Wouldn’t we be levelling too fast then? Maybe we should put it off for tomorrow?”

“I never thought I’d voluntarily refuse a free level, but I agree with Crawler,” Hung noted. “We’ve got a bit more than three weeks before the Arena. Now we know how fast we can level in the Mire and, of course, it’s more than impressive...”

“Ha! Impressive? I’d say it’s the cheapest leveling cheat in the book of top leveling cheats!” Infect exclaimed. “Two levels in three hours! Even considering that the pace is going to fall, soon we’ll all be over twenty! Whoo!”

“Scyth,” Bomber called out. “Just so you know, there’s a crazy amount of cooking ingredients here. I’ll send you the names and you see what you can do with them. And just so you know, you can buy recipes at auc.”

“Sure, send ‘em over. But still I’m gonna pick off the stuff by the shore. Then there’s something I wanna show you...”

Sensibly, we ate our last portions of Roast Undead Rat Chitterlings, raising our skill growth speed by a thousand percent. There was no better situation for this food’s one-hour effect.

“Okay then, bigheads, leeches and balls! You’re all dead meat!” I dipped a toe into the swamp, disturbing the muck.

A second later, the water at the shore was frothing. A couple of leeches got stuck to my boot, so I took them out with a Hammer, just about panicking when I imagined that they might pull me under the muck like last time.

And from there it was a massacre. My archery skill reached level ten and I started dreaming that Conrad might have something with AoE to teach me: explosive arrows or something else for situations like this.

Shooting these creeps one by one was a long and dreary affair, but it was important. And not only because I was levelling myself and the guys. I was also nourishing a little puddle of protoplasm that glinted in the starlight. Showing the great Behemoth to the guys in this form would have been ridiculous.

After sorting through all the loot – around five greens, rare leather pants for Infect and just a mountain of culinary and alchemy ingredients – Tissa and the boys started helping me as best they could.

Ed and Tissa made the water boil with fireballs and beams of light. Malik did his best to exhaust his never-ending stock of throwing knives and Hung lazily popped off crossbow bolts. Their combat skills hadn’t dropped when their levels rolled back to ten, but they had never before had the chance to level them so long or so safely on such high-level mobs, so there were still skill-ups to be had.

We spent a lot of time at it. It was already far past midnight by the time the last flickering light in the thick murky water went out.

I had hit level eighteen, and my clanmates sixteen. They were just a smidgen away from their next as well. Crawler definitely would have, if he hadn’t died at the start and lost experience.

“Good thing these creatures are only in this part of the Mire,” he noted. “Otherwise all ranged classes would level like this.”

“Are we gonna loot them?” Bomber asked, pointing at the site of our slaughter.

“No, thanks,” I refused, imagining myself in the thick, cold swamp muck in the dark. “It’s seventy feet deep. I’m not gonna dive.”

“Ugh, too bad...” Infect sighed. “What if they dropped an epic? Damn, now I’ll be thinking about this so much I won’t be able to sleep!”

“Don’t despair, guys,” I said. “Especially you, Malik. This weekend, we can go into the Sarantapod Hive and loot some epics...”

“How?” Crawler shouted.

Intrigued, they started buzzing and stuck to me with more tenacity than the Bog Lizards, thought they didn’t get quite as close. Bomber said why:

“Scyth, maybe you should turn off the... I mean, I can see a rib and some muscle sticking out of your skin,” said Bomber, plugging his nose.

With a sniff, I winced and barely held back the urge to vomit. I was giving off the sweetish nauseating smell of rotting flesh. I deactivated the curse of the undead, shook off the dead flesh and, with a chuckle, looked at the guys, who were watching my whole body heal up with unfeigned interest. Tissa was the first to come to:

“Alex! Are we really gonna pay a grand to that fat bastard? To hell with him!”

“Well, maybe. For us, it would definitely pay off,” I declared. “But I also have another little idea. There’s something that needs checking and, if it works the way I think it will, we won’t have to pay or fight our way in.”

“Will you tell us?” she asked, showing clearly that her curiosity was a head above the rest.

“Of course. But not now. Now...” I took a few steps toward the puddle of protoplasm, turned and called them after me. “Let’s go. I want to show you something...”

“Greetings, apostle! Who have you brought for me?” Asked a voice in my head. “Allies?”

“Precisely, Sleeping one,” I answered mentally. “Can you show yourself? You need to make an impression, so let your imagination run wild!”

The puddle ran in circles, but only I noticed. The others hadn’t seen it yet, and that played into my hand. Let the appearance of the great and powerful Behemoth come as a surprise...

In complete silence, a wide column of dark mist shot up into the sky with silvery curls. Even I recoiled, it happened so suddenly. In the space of three heartbeats, the mist gathered into the gigantic figure of a god, and we were blown back in a circle several yards wide.

“A dragon!” Crawler whispered.

He tried to get up but something was holding him back.

“An angel!” Tissa said in rapture.

“An iblis!” Infect cried.

Bomber was the most original:

“Son of a bitch! What the crap is that thing?”

I then saw the same nightmarish monster as ever with vapor exuding from toothed trunks and outgrowths all over its body. But this time, it was six times taller than when we first met. I couldn’t imagine calling this either a dragon or an angel, but I already realized that Behemoth had created individualized projections of his avatar in everyone’s mind.

“I have someone I’d like you all to meet. Before you is Behemoth, the Sleeping God.”

Nobody answered me. Seemingly, he was in all their heads and mentally conversing with each of them.

“I cannot accept them as your followers, oh Sleeping one,” I lamented. “I converted some kobold outlaws and now there’s no more room.”

“That matters not,” the deity answered. “All believers are equally valuable to the Sleeping Gods whether they be slave or emperor. But it does matter that your companions are loyal to you. You are no longer alone, that’s what matters. Don’t you remember? There’s strength in unity!”

“I do remember, Sleeping one. What will happen if one of your followers dies? Will the others lose Unity power?”

“No, it can never diminish. As long as they have faith in the Sleeping Gods, our followers will be reborn and continue to power the force of Unity. But now I must bid you farewell... Supporting five avatars at once uses too much energy. Keep improving yourself. Help your friends and never say no to new converts. Even if they were once your enemies. Until we meet again, apostle...”

The voice faded, and the god dissolved into thin air. Frozen and concentrating, the faces of my classmates slowly came to life.

“But how?” Crawler suddenly dropped. “I’ll try, but...”

“What. Was. That?” Tissa asked, saying each word distinctly.

“One of the Sleeping Gods, as I said,” I called back. “What did he tell you?”

“He told me my fate is intertwined with Scyth’s, and that I should treat him as a brother,” Infect said. “As if I don’t already have enough brothers!”

Infect’s traditional Arab family was huge between his brothers, sisters and cousins of varying degrees, a fact that always made us jealous. What was more, to them, a first cousin was the same as a second, which was in turn the same as even a brother or sister. They were all just considered relatives, even a fourth cousin seven times removed.

“Becoming Malik’s brother! I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy! Over there, the older kids are always right, and the youngest are always playing lacky,” Bomber boomed. “The Sleeping one told me about the same, though. Our fates, lives, future, strength, unity... Basically we’ll have to keep hanging out with you after the sandbox, Sheppard! And don’t you go anywhere without me now. God’s orders!”

“Did you realize you were seeing different projections?” I asked. “We won’t know his true form until we dedicate a temple to him...”

We spent a quarter hour recounting who saw what and what they all discussed with the deity. Then someone yawned and it spread. Hung was loudest of all, grumbling and snoring as he threw his mouth open wide. I even got him confused with Behemoth for a second.

“Let’s go. How about we go for level twenty tomorrow?” I suggested with a smile.

“I was thinking...” Ed answered. “I’m pretty confident about our levels for the Arena now. I don’t see any problems with gear either. We can always farm it and anything we don’t get, we can buy at auction. And if we really have to, we can sell the legendaries...”

“Hey!” Bomber protested.

“I said if we really have to! Anyway. I say we practice tactics tomorrow. But let’s stay away from our Arena, so we don’t show our hand. Let’s go to the Battleground. They make match-ups from all around Dis, so we’ll be able to try out PVP teamplay in all kinds of different situations without worrying.”

“Where though?” Infect spoke up.

“To keep the audience low, I say we go ten on ten,” Crawler said. “How about Capture the Flag, guys? Alex?”

“Alright,” I nodded. “Just one condition...”

“What?” Crawler asked, on guard.

“Tomorrow in school, Malik has to do the same idiotic dance he did today with the whole class watching. Like he first did in the dungeon, then again he got the new pants. If he was that happy for a blue, I’m afraid to give him anything better. He might hurt himself.”

“He’ll even sing,” Bomber promised.

Chapter 25. Battleground

HEALTH CLASS WAS required, so Ms. Kalinovich or just Lena as she asked us to call her, was someone every upper classman at our school knew - and adored with abandon. I wasn’t an exception.

It wasn’t just because she was, as far as our administration was concerned, our only source on the details of sexual life. Lena also had long legs, a good body and was stunningly pretty. Gossips (as a rule girls) spread rumors that she had undergone complete plastic surgery but, even if that was so, none of us saw anything wrong with that. Overall, that was probably why we all learned so much in her class. But one thing she said was stuck in my head.

Sleep, Ms. Kalinovich told us, was the most important thing we could do to help our bodies grow and repair themselves. We grew in our sleep. Our cells were restored, and our brain erased unimportant information, restructuring the rest and defragmenting itself. Our dreams, Ms. Kalinovich said, came from that process and also reflected reality.

But I no longer dreamed about reality, I dreamed of virtual worlds. And my brain clearly was playing scenes it wanted deleted: needlers, larvae in my body, squirming around under my skin... The nightmare where my ribcage exploded reminded me of a VR remake of the old movie Alien. I woke up around morning and patted all over my body to make sure it wasn’t real.

AT gave a start at the bed. The catdog, able to sense my mood, came over to lick my hand. I stroked his ear and, without moving my hand from his big old head, fell back into a dream.

A moment later, I was awoken again. At first by my alarm clock then, when I turned it off and fell back asleep, by mom.

I pecked over my breakfast. Mom told me she had come to check when I went to bed and was pissed off to find my bed still empty at two o’clock in the morning and my VR pod still full of intragel. If I kept this up, she said, then... mom said a lot of things, but the main thrust was that my life would be getting nasty. And dad backed her up on that.

On the way, I set the flying car to autopilot so I could get some sleep. In school, I tried to catch the tiniest winks of sleep between classes, and even Malik dancing on his hands couldn’t rouse me. Honestly, all my clanmates were in approximately the same state, so my suggestion that we meet in Dis a bit later this evening so we could take a nap was taken with great enthusiasm and understanding.

“Some Awoken we are. We’re basically asleep,” Bomber quipped, giving a wide yawn.

During one break, Eve unexpectedly walked up to me. Even in her school uniform, which was pretty prudish, her looks could kill. Tim could keep his eyes off her as he walked past, eventually running into the school principal.

Eve didn’t react to the uptick in interest, though. She was either used to it or just didn’t notice. At any rate, she was acting much more confident than before, which was expressed in a direct question with no build-up whatsoever:

“Hi, Alex! The New Year’s Dance is coming up. Wanna go with me?”

“Uh... the Dance?”

My thoughts were all confused: when was New Year’s? What day was it? Should I go to the dance or not waste my time? With Eve? Or Tissa?

Eve must have noticed, because I didn’t get the chance to answer.

“I see,” she nodded. “Okay.”

O’Sullivan flitted off to a group of waiting girls, said something to them and they started smiling, shooting me gazes full of scorn. I had a flickering thought that Eve was becoming popular. I recalled just over a month earlier, when she timidly suggested we watch a video about the Mars Expedition together... We had both changed so much since then.

The sleepy Awoken all flew to our respective houses in the same flying car. They told me about Battlegrounds and explained that they were totally different than the mob battles I was used to.

“It’s very important to know the abilities of the classes you’re fighting against,” Bomber added. “It doesn’t matter how much you study, though. Until you fight a hundred battles against the same druid or shaman, you never know quite what to expect or when. So listen carefully for Ed’s commands.”

Once again lamenting the high cost of signal amulets, he suddenly turned serious:

“We’ll never make it in the Arena without communication. Five amulets are gonna cost us fifty thousand at least. If we can’t farm that up, let’s sell the ring.”

Once home, I ate lunch with my parents, then headed to bed and gave a voice command to my home assistant. Many of them personified the appearance, names and voices of friends, family or movie stars. At Ed’s house, for example, a virtual image of his late mom kept house, and his father’s voice told fairy tales to his sister. But my parents had kept the default settings and genderless name of “O.”

“O, night mode.”

The windows went dark, becoming opaque. The assistant set the room to a comfortable temperature and put my bed into sleep mode, making it comfortable and pushing out pillows.

“O, sleep mode. Wake me up at six...”

* * *

The Commonwealth military outpost was on the edge of the Tristad Environs, where it came up against the river lands of the murlocks. The outpost wasn’t subordinate to the Free City of Tristad, instead maintaining a presence of the overarching government. It was also the location of a stationary portal the Commonwealth could use to flood the area with troops in case of a serious threat.

To get there, we first teleported to the Mountain Dams, where Bomber again failed to catch the Golden Fish, and from there we passed by all the same foraging spots, the Reeking Crypt and Packston’s Vineyards. And from there went on foot to the outpost. The mount didn’t drop, and the leprechaun was not there.

We also took a spin past the Sarantapod Hive to see what things were like. There was a group of Axiom guys hanging out by the dungeon portal. We noticed them from a bit away, but kept our distance.

“Maybe now you can tell us, Alex?” Tissa asked. “How are we gonna get in there?”

“The less you know, the better you’ll sleep, Melissa,” I answered.

I wasn’t teasing her, or anyone else. I just wasn’t totally sure of my idea yet, and I hadn’t gotten around to testing it out.

We made it to the outpost without incident. My classmates, realizing how quickly and easily we could level, had stopped aggro’ing every little creature for drips of experience, but it still took us around an hour to get from the pond to our destination.

The outpost had been designed by talented architects who took advantage of natural fortifications. A sentry shouted down to us from a tall stone tower:

“Who are you, where are you from and what is your purpose?” he asked lazily, chewing a piece of grass.

He didn’t see any of us as a threat. Who were we against his level fifty?

“We’re visitors of Tristad. We want to train at the Battleground,” I answered.

“Come in.”

The gates between the prominent tower and tall cliff opened up.

We found Nicholas Gumilevsky, Commonwealth Captain, on the second floor of the guard tower. The courageous warrior had a somewhat puffy face, pear-shaped nose and fairly sharp wrinkles under his eyes. He looked tired, but perked up when he heard the purpose of our visit:

“It’s encouraging to see that there are still warriors in Tristad! You’re our first volunteers of the day!”

The guys had already told me that Battlegrounds weren’t all that popular in sandboxes: too much running around and wasted time and all you got were Badges of Honor. They awarded one for participation, three for a win and another three for being match MVP. You could also take a badge from a sworn enemy. No experience points, no loot, just miniscule crumbs of reputation points with Commonwealth factions. At the very least, that went for training grounds. At real ones, of course, the plusses were a bit more valuable, going right up to epic gladiator sets specially made for PVP. And the top Battleground league’s battles were broadcast the world over with an audience that could rival that of world soccer championships.

In sandboxes, Badges of Honor were considered useless because you could only use them for temporary improvements and then only in Battlegrounds.

So they were mostly just for fun. Or, very rarely, for training teamplay especially for dreamers who saw themselves as future battleground stars.

“A random Battleground, or one in particular?” Gumilevsky asked.

“Lisher Hollow, sir!” Bomber barked bravely, clicking the soles of his plate boots. “We want to practice teamwork and small-group tactics, sir! For the good of the Commonwealth! Sir!”

His zeal made the captain’s eyes bulge in enthusiasm. He clicked his tongue and, removing his helmet, wiped sweat from his brow, patting Hung on the shoulder.

“At ease, soldier! Excellent choice!” Gumilevsky approved. “Do you know the rules of this training zone?”

“Yes we do, sir!”

“Excellent! But still I have to tell you what they are. Let me be short: two teams of ten, each with a base, a small fortification, and deep inside of them is a flag. If you’re team red, it’s red, team blue, as luck would have it, gets a blue one. And please look at the map.” From a pile of scrolls, the captain unfailingly pulled out the right one and pointed around with his finger. “Distance between the bases is a thousand yards. The area is bounded by mountains on the sides. A river runs directly through the middle. Your mission is to steal the enemy flag and bring it back to your base. If you can do that, and your flag is still at your base, your team will get one point. The enemy flag is then returned to their base. The flag is also returned to base if someone is killed while in possession of it. Do you understand what you must do?”

“Sir! Yes, sir!”

“Do you all wish to take part?” Gumilevsky clarified.

“We would like to register all as one group,” I answered.

“Commendable,” the captain nodded. “Group leader must confirm registration...”

He took out a metal ball with an internal glow and turned its two halves. Each spin changed its color and Gumilevsky stopped on lilac. After that, he stuck the artifact into the base of the portal circle.

The passageway opened.

“Good luck!” the captain wished us. “Don’t put the honorable Tristad to shame! Put more fire under your enemies’ feet, soldier!”

* * *

The Lisher Hollow location in the north of the Nameless Mountains was a training one: only members of light factions competed.

Throughout Disgardium, there were all kinds of different Battlegrounds. Very many, in fact. But before level thirty, the devs had restricted access to the kinds of BG’s that gave truly significant rewards. And sandbox players never got up to thirty. Of course, for the same reason, everyone in training Battlegrounds was human. There were no other races in the sandboxes.

Passing first through the portal, I found myself in a big room with damp stone walls. Near the back wall, there was a column with a blue flag on top. There were a couple of players hanging around, but first my attention was drawn by the huge letters of a message:

Welcome to the Battleground, beginner!

Scyth, your group has been assigned to team blue.

Team Blue:

Milord - Peterborough, human, level-19 Paladin, clan Sons of Anarchy

Caramba - Peterborough, human, level-19 Grenadier, clan Sons of Anarchy

Urbex - Ansan, human, level-19 Cutthroat

Morty - Villereal, human, level-18 Hunter, clan Denise Le Bon’s Butt

Vitalik - Lyubech, human, level-18 Warrior, clan Vitalik

Scyth - Tristad, human, level-18 Archer, clan the Awoken

Crawler - Tristad, human, level-16 Fire Mage, clan the Awoken

Tissa - Tristad, human, level-16 Fire Mage, clan the Awoken

Infect - Tristad, human, level-16 Thief, clan the Awoken

Bomber - Tristad, human, level-16 Warrior, clan the Awoken

Match will begin in: 02:07... 2:06... 2:05...

The introductory text disappeared, but the timer remained. Two minutes to battle.

“Damn, debuff!” Crawler whispered. “With our health cut, we won’t be able to fight too well...”

Meanwhile, Milord, a heavyset irascible kid with a two-hander on his back, walked up to us. He raised his helmet visor, slid a gaze over our nicks, frowned and spat.

“Aw crap!” he cursed. “We’re up shit’s creek. Half the team is scrubs and leechers and now the other half is noobs! Hey you!” he turned to me. “Scyth, you got any experience in Battlegrounds?”

“Na, I’m a first timer,” I admitted.

And what of it? I saw no reason to lie. Anyhow, he’d figure it out soon enough.

“Ahem, ahem,” Crawler fake-coughed, drawing my attention. “Milord... nether! Anyway, Lord, we’ve been in BG’s[6] before, and this hollow most of all. Don’t pay any attention to our levels, they used to be higher.”

“Well, well,” shot out Caramba, a broad-shouldered girl with a gnomish mobile cannon over her shoulder. “At least they know how to work together. I mean, right?”

“Uh... yeah,” I answered vaguely.

“Anyway, there’s no time,” Milord said sharply, “if any of you are like experienced, listen up: hold the underground tunnel. Defend the passage. If a bunch of them come at once, tell us right away! Me and Caramba will get the flags. The other three, Morty, Urbex and Vitalik, you guard the flag. There’s no sense holding the upper passage. Nobody ever runs through it in a big group. It’s too narrow and too long. It needs to be crawled through, and the three of you can take one enemy at a time. If they set up an ambush at our main entrance, Scyth and his group come at them from behind, everyone else from the front. All clear?”

“Why are we gonna have a grenadier run after the flag, I don’t understand?” Urbex asked in surprise. “Her bazooka weighs a hundred pounds, and her speed is low. I could go in stealth while...”

The timer reached its final seconds. The numbers grew larger and a dispassionate female voice made the countdown:

“Three! Two! One! Fight!”

Boomed out as if from a cannon. Capture the flag in the Battleground had begun.

“Urbex, you come with us then,” Milord outsmarted her. “Me and Caramba will distract the defenders, you go in from above. If you turn off stealth...”

“Don’t teach a teacher!” These words came from thin air, because the cutthroat was already hidden and the only reminder she was ever there was a transparent silhouette, visible only to allies.

Cursing aloud, Lord ran off after Urbex and, after her, stomping her heavy boots, went Caramba.

Morty the hunter stuck a Torch of Discovery into the wall, then started placing Ice Traps around the flag. Then, spider like, he threw out a grappling hook, stuck it in under the ceiling and climbed up the rope.

Crawler nodded in approval as he watched:

“Turning on Camouflage. From there he can use Slowing Shots to put the brakes on anyone coming for the warrior. Alright, after me!”

Crawler ran toward the hole and we charged in behind. There we saw a dim tunnel that led downward, wafting a warm, musty air.

We went down until we were up to our knees in dirty water and walked through until we were beyond our little fortress. In the distance, on the backdrop of the setting sun, we could see an identical fortification surrounded by red stripes. Around the edges of the Battleground, there were inaccessible vertical cliffs.

“That Lord is the noobass to end all noobasses,” Ed said. “And they aren’t gonna get the flag. Usually, a big group goes to capture, because usually there are at least five people on defense. And all our enemies are level nineteen. Basically, let’s not worry about the result. We’re just practicing fighting against players.”

“Usual plan?” Infect’s voice came from invisibility.

“Yes, let’s stick to that. Scyth, do what you think is best but try to focus on the same target as Infect. Hit them with a Stunning Kick if you can, maybe you’ll procc a stun. But for now you’re basically a wildcard. We need to gather more statistics before making any conclusions. So, is everyone ready?”

“Five targets spotted,” Infect reported from invis. “Warrior, shaman, mage, priest and owl druid. They’re running to the main entrance. Should we go out to meet them?”

“No,” Crawler answered. “Raid lead said to hole-up in the tunnel. So we’re gonna hole up in the tunnel. Then we’ll come at them from behind. Unless... Infect, get behind them. Tell us what’s out there.”

I looked closer and, in the middle of the running group of opponents, I saw fiery explosions blooming like flowers. That was Caramba scorching them from a distance.

“Okay, that’s all she could shoot. Now it’ll be a bunch of time for cooldown,” Bomber noted. “She took down about a third of each of their health.”

Waves of healing light ran over the attacking figures, not even thinking of stopping or responding to the grenadier’s attack.

“So are we just gonna stand around? Ed I don’t understand,” I admitted. “We’re here, there’s the enemy. What’s the hold up?”

“Because if we start acting independently, we’ll definitely lose,” he answered instructively. “And if you don’t agree with the raid lead, even a self-appointed one – and nobody contested Lord’s leadership – you should have said so before the battle, not during. Alright, Scyth, relax. It’s just practice.”

And then, time to talk was over. The assault was underway.

The enemies burst into the fortress through the main door, took out Morty the hunter and Vitalik the warrior, taking Infect out of stealth in passing, then grabbed the flag and ran out the same way they’d come in, through the main entrance. We intercepted them there, but didn’t manage to do anything. The attack group, their warrior carrying the flag, shot down Crawler and Tissa in a matter of moments, then stunned Bomber and splatted me. And my Resilience and Stoneskin were no help. They slowed me down, stunned me and slammed into me with the combined power of five high-levels.

Along with the rest, I apparated in ghost form in the graveyard then waited fifteen seconds for respawn. In that time, our enemies calmly overcame an ambush by Milord, Caramba and Urbex, dragged our flag into their base and put it up on the board – 1:0.

Once we’d reached 3:0, Vitalik went rogue and ran for the enemy flag along with Morty. Seeing the confusion, Infect in invis also ran off after the ill-fated banner. We stayed back to defend the base: Tissa rolled her eyes every time the logs said someone from our team died. Crawler smiled darkly and never tired of repeating that this was just practice but, based on Bomber’s uncensored and rampant cursing, they were not having a great time. None of us wanted to lose, especially this badly.

As for me, I was just learning to fight without using my cheap abils. Over the course of the battle, I realized how defenseless I was against a decent practiced premade where everyone knew their place.

I didn’t have any positional control abilities, so fairly often I couldn’t even get close enough to land a punch. And meanwhile I would find myself gripped by roots slithering up out of the ground, trapped in an ice cube, poisoned with slowing poison, blinded, or shield stunned plenty. My whole first Battleground was a series of deaths in various ways, all while stunned, then a bit of waiting in a churchyard as a ghost. And the respawn time went up with every subsequent death. By the end, I was relegated to ghost-hood for a whole three minutes.

Infect and Crawler each got a couple frags, but they were in brawls, just finishing people off. But I was holding back. No matter how badly I wanted to pour a bit of plague energy into the weak arrows from my bow, frustrated that I was stuck again. But I knew the revenge wasn’t worth revealing my nature.

Oh yeah, and another thing! No one had to hold their tongue. This was not a sandbox, so both sides were making frequent use of foul language. But the most hateful curses of all were belched out by Vitalik. Thanks to the built-in translator, I learned many Russian words, all with the literal meaning of either sex organs or acts. Surprisingly, most of the positions were unthinkable, physiologically impossible even!

Finally losing his mind at Milord’s idiocy, Vitalik called him both a homosexual and a woman of low morale at the same time. Caramba and Urbex he called obtuse vaginas, confirming in my mind that Russians were devilishly inventive and, from there, he was just spamming the raid chat with catchy, acrid comments.

When my enemies took my badge of honor and mocked me, it put me into a frenzy. The next time I respawned, I looked around and, from far away, shot them in the face, adding a hundred points of plague damage per arrow.

After that, I cut into Bomber’s skirmish, working with Milord to turn back the enemy incursion. And with one plague Combo I chopped up the maligned frost mage and then took on the especially impudent and bad-natured shaman, who was biting into Hung and carrying our flag. The flag carrier was too far gone. He didn’t even try to run away, instead trying to finish off Bomber, who had only one percent health remaining. But his Svetovid’s Valor ring procced, so the warrior survived.

Seeing our slight success, the others glommed onto us and, in the end, Infect managed to grab the opposing side’s flag and bring it to our base. So we lost the first Battleground, but it wasn’t a complete shut-out. 14:1.

We spent the rest of the day on a further six battles. We lost them all, but every time I was feeling more confident, and our defeats were getting less severe.

Overall, I would call my training day and the several Badges of Honor I’d been awarded an asset.

* * *

The next morning, I got a message from Rita, reminding me that she was planning to fly to Glastonbury by lunch for the Rock Festival. She cautiously expressed a hope that I’d go with her and Goosebumps. I answered that I would love to but I couldn’t. I had stuff. “Too bad,” she wrote back.

Over breakfast, I noticed my parents looking through different places for them to live after the divorce. That reminded me of the reality that, in the not so distant future, we would no longer be a family. My mood plummeted so precipitously that the Home Doctor immediately reacted, offering me a dose of children’s antidepressant. I told it and, mentally, my parents to go to the twilight zone, then climbed into Dis. The guys hadn’t entered the game yet.

I had messages in my mailbox. The first was from the organizers of the culinary tournament. At the end of the invitation, there was a stamp: a magical portal sticker in the shape of a roast ham. The letter smelled breathtakingly delicious, of roast meat, fresh bread and fried garlic. The portal could be used tomorrow, Sunday, at eight PM.

In the second letter, Arno the chef of the Bubbling Flagon wrote that he had received his invitation and was hoping to see me at the competition. I’d have to bring my own main ingredients, but they would provide the spices and seasonings.

I finished with the mail and decided to do something. Depths Teleportation sent me to the Olton Quarries, where I didn’t miss the chance to have a talk with Manny and Trixie. The noncitizens had been mining ore since early morning and, when the little guy frowned and wiped sweat from his face, I remembered that their pods transmitted pain and other sensations one hundred percent. Given that, even some salty sweat dripping into your eye might cause discomfort.

“I found a little ring,” Trixie boasted. showing me a finger adorned with an unprepossessing copper band. “Green! It gives me plus two strength!”

“Yeah, the little fellow got lucky for once,” someone from Manny’s brigade uttered enviously.

The foreman himself told me that even that small boost to a main attribute significantly sped up the mining process. Their energy was tied to endurance: they couldn’t swing a pick all day. They always needed to take breaks to rest. But with increased strength, Trixie had to swing his pick less times to get the same amount of rock.

I walked from the mine into the mountains to familiarize myself with the local wildlife. I shot at some Corpseeating Vultures and Rock Coyotes, came across a Feral Harpy nest. They were disgusting dirty and stinking caricatures of women with big wings, sickle-like claws and crooked undeveloped legs. They were almost naked, but there was nothing attractive there. Everything was covered in a layer of dirt. As for loot, they dropped Feral Harpy Feathers and copper. I didn’t fill my backpack, because the feathers were worth mere pennies as alchemy and tailoring ingredients.

My archery skill went up, reminding me of the guys. Suddenly anxious, I left Dis and called Tissa. She didn’t answer. Then I started calling everyone. Nobody was picking up.

Finally, Tissa’s father answered.

“Who is this?” he asked strictly, his eyes sparking just like his daughter’s under his bushy brows.

“Uh... Mr. Schafer? My name is Alex Sheppard...”

“I know you’re Alex Sheppard. I know how to use a comm. It showed me your name. But tell me, what do you want from my daughter?”

“Her and I were supposed to meet in Disgardium along with a few other friends. But none of them are answering their comms. Has something happened?”

“Melissa is ill. She has some kind of infection and fever they can’t diagnose. It isn’t even clear how the disease is transmitted. Last night, I took her to the hospital, which is where she is now.”

“Which hospital, Mr. Schafer? Can I visit her?”

“You can’t,” he replied, a bit milder. “It’s the infection ward, boy. Do you know what the word infection means? You might catch what they’ve got.”

“I know, Mr....”

“Then you must understand that it’s no place for you,” he interrupted. “If of course you don’t want to also fall ill. As far as I understand, her idiotic friends Rodriguez, Lee and that little Arab Malik are there too. I didn’t see them myself, but I talked to their parents.”

“Did the doctors give an approximate time when I could call them?”

“They’re in medical pods, Sheppard. Immersed in a dream. People are gonna be observing their condition of course but, at the very least, they’re gonna have to spend two days in there. They’ll be observed and the course of the infection tracked. I’ve gotta go. Stay healthy, boy.”

Schafer signed off. I spent a bit of time staring hollowly at the comm in my hand. On it I could see Tissa smiling and sending me a kiss.

What happened to them? What made them get sick and not me? Just in case, I had the Home Doctor run a diagnostic. Not counting my bad mood, it didn’t find anything. No disease-causing infections or viruses, apart from a pimple on my forehead, which the doc immediately treated.

I sent messages to the guys, wishing them a speedy recovery and started thinking. What should I do now? Keep levelling alone? After the last week, I’d had it up to my ears with Dis. I almost decided to get to studying but suddenly I remembered Rita and the rock festival. The mere thought that I was going to go have fun while my friends were sick, possibly severely, made me feel pangs of conscience. While I hesitated, mom came into the room:

“Son, you’re not in your pod? I’m impressed!” she squawked in false surprise.

“Did something happen?”

“Yes,” she replied. “We got a notification about your most recent test. You almost failed it!”

“But I didn’t...”

“Yes, at the very least you didn’t fail, Alex! If you keep this up, they won’t even allow you to take the citizenship tests!”

“That’s not likely...”

I tried to reassure her, saying that I was just about to dedicate my weekend to studying, but her answer surprised me:

“You need to get some fresh air, son,” she advised calmly. “You’re always going from school straight into Dis! You’ll have plenty of time to live in that world,” mom said, nodding toward the pod. “Use the rest of your childhood for something else. Go to the movies, fly to the beach, go to a theme park and ride some rides... Or if you want, we could go to the moon. All of us together, me you and dad, huh?”

“When, today?”

“Hmm... Not today,” she replied, upset. “Not tomorrow either, but maybe next weekend? Is that okay?”

“Of course,” I smiled. “Then I have other plans for today. A girl I know invited me to Glastonbury for the rock festival. With sleepover. Can I go?”

“Which girl?” Mom askes, startled. “Melissa?”

“No, Rita. You don’t know her, she’s from a different school...”

Dad, eavesdropping behind the door, started laughing. Mom’s pupils widened and, for a couple minutes, I explained to her that Rita and I weren’t exactly together but I did think she liked me. Still, she was like nothing to me, I liked Tissa but things were complicated. In the end, I got both of us totally bewildered.

In the confusion, I shuffled my female parental out of the room and called up Overweight. No matter how she tried to hide her delight, she couldn’t. And not only her. Goosebumps came into the call, having been standing just out of frame:

“Where should we pick you up? We’re on our way!”

The blonde looked great even if I wasn’t used to seeing her with so much eyeliner on. Only after that it occurred to me that I had never met either of them IRL before.

* * *

“Come on, you just keep going on and on about Disgardium,” said Goosebumps, her plump lips puffed out capriciously. Her real name, by the way, was Karina.

Our flight, first across the continent then over the ocean, was entering its third hour. We were almost there, and we’d spent almost the whole time talking about Dis. The three of us flew together, while Rita’s brother Chris and his girlfriend Raven enjoyed the solitude of a different flying car.

So far, we had avoided personal topics. Maybe that was because it was the first time we were meeting and it was taking time to get used to each other after the game world.

Rita Wood, by the way, was even fitter in real life than in the game. “I lost weight,” she explained in embarrassment. Actually, both of the girls looked a lot better in the flesh. They’d grown up a bit since the initial scan at age fourteen.

“So, what’s up with the Hive?” I asked. “You said something was happening there. Did they lower the entry fee all of a sudden?”

“No, it’s something else. Do you know JJ?” Rita waited for me to nod, then continued: “Former clan lead of the Night Stalkers. After they joined up with Axiom, he became Big Po’s second in command.”

“Did they have a fight?”

“Yeah, it was all because of Marishka,” Karina answered. “JJ’s girl.”

“Yep,” Overweight confirmed. “After the new instance opened and had its first run-throughs, Big Po reshuffled their main static. He removed Marishka and replaced her with Irina. She is a so-so damager, a mystic, and her magic only works effectively on intelligent creatures. But when it became clear the sarantapods were fully intelligent, and Irina could control them, Wesley made immediate adjustments. And of course, Marishka and Jay were very upset.”

“Ha!” Goosebumps exclaimed. “Upset! They threw a fit for the whole tavern to see! Even the Dome of Silence didn’t help! Marishka just about clawed Irina’s face off!”

“Goose is exaggerating a bit, but that’s the gist,” Rita agreed. “First Kill is too juicy a bite. In the end, Jay lost it: he left the clan together with his girl, a tank, a heal, and a top damager, and they said to hell with Po and his rules. They plan to walk right into the Hive after cooldown without paying.”

“And what about Po?”

“He’s mad,” Rita shrugged her broad shoulders. “What can he do? He doubled security at the dungeon, but that’s it. He didn’t put a bounty on their heads for betraying him or anything. The rest of his clan wouldn’t let him get away with it. They may be former clanmates now, but they’re still friends. Same team. Plus there’s been a lot of grumbling. Some think it’s unfair that one of the main players in Wesley’s static was replaced with... well, this is just a rumor... but his girlfriend.”

“Irina?”

“Yep. They’ve been spotted together IRL a couple of times.”

And that was the last we talked about Dis. The girls, egging each other on, rained down personal information on me and, over our chat, we didn’t even notice we’d arrived. The thousands of flying cars landing and taking off made this place reminiscent of a beehive.

“A real concert! Real musicians! Ahhh!” Goosebumps shouted enthusiastically.

I understood where she was coming from. This was all new to me as well! I was slack-jawed and looking around with no idea where to go. There were crowds of people swarming all around us. And everyone was wearing weird clothes, which instantly put me in a better mood, getting me into the party atmosphere.

“Aw nether! This is not VR, there won’t be any popup guides. But we can follow the arrows,” Rita suggested. “There, do you see?”

In the air, high above the ground, there hovered huge holographic letters and arrows:

Welcome to Glasto, the greatest rock festival in the world!

Pyramid stage – that way!

Turning my head, I saw similar arrows pointing to a few other stages, and to a circus and some other attractions.

“What you do is up to you, but I want to drink,” Goosebumps announced. “And right this instant!”

“I’m with you!” Chris said, delighted. He whispered something into Raven’s ear, and she laughed. “Ray’s in! Who else?”

Nobody refused. We tracked down a mobile bar and – lo and behold! – were sold alcohol without even having our personal information or ages checked. This was indeed a festival of freedom.

We each took a bottle of dark beer and joined the procession heading for the main stage. From there, we heard heavy guitar riffs and someone singing in a hoarse voice.

Everyone around was bubbling with excitement, going crazy, and not in a bad way. Some danced, some drank, some laughed. People said “Hi!” and smiled as they passed by. We did the same back and, as we continued in that vein toward the stage, I got a call to my comm.

I picked up and saw Tissa’s face, looking pale. She was lying in a medical pod.

“Alex,” her voice was meek. “How are you?”

“Good. I tried to call all morning, but your dad answered. He told me what happened.”

“Yeah, he mentioned that. I just woke up. They want to put me under again, but I asked if I could make a call first. Are you doing okay?”

“I’m fine. What are the doctors saying?”

“Some weird crap. They don’t know. They can’t make a diagnosis. There’s just a high temperature that won’t subside. The boys have the same. Woah, what’s all that noise? Where are you?”

“I... I’m at Glastonbury. With the Woods and their friends. Your father said you wouldn’t be waking up until Sunday evening, and I didn’t want to level in Dis without you.”

“With the Woods? And that... Overweight, she’s there too?”

“Yes, she’s here. You want me to say hi for you?”

“As if,” Tissa chuckled.

“You want me to fly back and see you?”

“No, come on! Unwind out there! Have enough fun for all of us! Just... don’t go too crazy, Alex. I’m jealous!”

Right after, that the call was over, and I had an idiotic smile plastered on my face.

Interlude 3. Eve

APHRODITE, LAGGING a bit, was walking behind Crag and admiring him. She couldn’t make sense of her feelings, but part of her opinion hinged on a very important thought: he liked her. Her, the real Eve O’Sullivan in her true appearance.

After the plastic surgery, it took a long time for Eve to get used to how she looked in the mirror. Despite her newfound beauty, it was hard to really see herself in it.

Her body structure had been severely altered, even going so far as to lengthen her bones and spine to make her taller and her arms and legs longer. Because of that, she had to learn to walk and control her limbs all over again basically from scratch. She was like an ungainly teen shooting up eight inches overnight and now she didn’t know what to do, how to cope with it all. Of course, Eve actually was just such an ungainly teen. Just the other day, she had been playing with dolls.

After the plastic surgery, she had to fly to the Moon to a special clinic for physical therapy in reduced gravitation. She told Alex it was to get some R and R, but it was hard to call what she did there relaxing. She was just getting used to her body, she even learned to love the pain. It was healthy. It meant her body was getting stronger.

Back home when she went back into Dis, she was pleasantly surprised to see that her character Aphrodite looked the same as ever. With the excess weight, fat deposits and a double if not triple chin, puffy cheeks, swollen eyelids and lackluster eyelashes.

Her power leveling contract with Axiom had expired and the leader refused to take her on again. So, not knowing what to do, she went back to the same old bench outside the Bubbling Flagon. Her first day back, people noticed her and even asked where she had been, where her buddy was.

By day two, she was back to being ignored. Even Alex, now always hanging around with Tissa and other classmates, didn’t notice her.

That very evening, Eve mustered some courage and went over to his house. She was prepared for anything except for what she actually found. Melissa Schafer was there and, based on how casual and loose she was acting... That ruined everything. Eve felt her hopes and dreams, illusions really, cracking to pieces when she saw Melissa half-naked and perched Alex’s lap

The next few days flew by in a fog. She lived like an android: just mechanically getting through each day. She sat through lessons, came back home unresponsive then entered Dis on autopilot to spend her required hour sitting on the same old bench.

Then one of those days, a warrior in a full suit of plate armor came up, sat next to her and said hello.

And that was how she met Tobias. They started talking and found out they had lots of things in common: Crag also had no friends IRL, and Eve concluded he was another lonely soul. He was also very sensitive. When Eve told him that Axiom had turned her down and she didn’t know where else to turn, he offered his help. And completely for free.

They said a warm goodbye when Eve decided to leave Dis because her required time was over. But with surprise, she realized she wanted to stay.

The next day, Crag was waiting for her on the very same bench.

Wandering around Dis with him felt like a pleasant little walk. The warrior easily defeated both high-number packs and high-level mobs. He also protected her. They completed the City Jail dungeon without even dying one time, even though the instance was intended for groups of five. In fact, it all went off without the slightest hitch. By the second boss, Eve had gotten a taste for it, shooting down mobs with gusto as they came after Crag. And she never really took a hit.

At any rate, battles were starting to come much easier to her, even on her own. Now, when she remembered how badly she’d been hurt by the teeth and claws of aggressive level-two bunnies, she didn’t understand how it ever could have happened.

Realizing Eve was afraid of pain, Crag gave her a full set of green equipment and a blue gnomish rifle.

“Easy, convenient, self-loading,” Crag said, beaming. “All you need to do is point the barrel and pull the trigger.”

The rifle changed everything. Not counting bosses, it could kill any mob in just one or two shots! It seemed unbelievable, but Eve liked it so much that she started spending longer than necessary in Dis. Truthfully though, for some reason, it only happened when Crag was with her.

“I have a special aura,” Tobias said with a broad smile. “No, I’m serious. A special class talent. When you’re in a group with me, you become stronger.”

Neither of them were fans of large crowds. The only way they could talk more privately was by walking around the sandbox and beating down the packs of mobs they happened across. They hadn’t even mentioned meeting IRL yet.

Once again they were wandering far from human settlements. They swam in the Tremitelle where it widened, it’s flow becoming peaceful and devoid of angry sharp-toothed little fish. They gathered berries at vineyards, fooled around by a little pond, skipping stones.

To Tobias, all this was a real novelty. He hadn’t told her about his family, but Eve had drawn the conclusion that he did not come from a pampered background. But realizing that only made her more attracted to him. Alex never really listened when she talked, but Tobias hung on her every word with bated breath.

“Have you heard about the new instance?” he asked her one day. “No one has been able to pass it yet. Wanna go? Intrigued?”

Eve smiled and just nodded. Everything in this world intrigued her with Tobias around.

They learned about the new ins from a global notification. Their interest piqued, they went to Tristad and there, on the square before the temple of Nergal the Radiant, they found out where the new dungeon was located. Then Eve saw Alex again. He even waved at her. Embarrassed, she turned away and didn’t respond. But Tobias did.

“You know him?” Eve asked, surprised.

“Yep. A little weirdo,” he answered laconically. “Same as me.”

Today, they weren’t walking just to walk. They had a purpose. Tobias radiated confidence that he could easily pass the Sarantapod Hive and take the achievement. Walking through the packs of mobs in the Goro Gorge, Tobias never stopped talking even for a minute. He was telling her about achievements, how highly valued they were, and how lucky he was that nobody had passed the new dungeon yet.

“First Kill, Eve, can you picture it?” he said ardently. “This is so cool! Before I could only dream of stuff like this!”

“And what changed?” she smiled a wily smile.

“I met you,” Tobias answered.

It was the right answer. Eve liked that he said it without hesitation or thought, not like Alex when she asked him to the New Year’s Dance.

That, for the record, was an impulse decision to test her new charms. But it backfired: Sheppard floundered, and started burbling. And too bad. If he had said yes, she would have laughed in his face with great satisfaction and said something along the lines of, “In your dreams, loser!”

I mean, who even was he? His parents, never exactly ones to reach for the stars, were getting divorced; in school, based on the charts, he was doing worse; and most importantly, even in Dis he was a loser. She wouldn’t be surprised if he failed his citizenship tests. It would serve him right! He got pulled in by Schafer the flirt’s cute little face, unable to see the true inner beauty and feelings of his childhood friend!

But Tobias, on the other hand, was doing great in that regard. Imagining his surprise when he saw her IRL, Eve laughed to herself happily and quietly. They were both letting it wait, simply enjoying their relationship in Dis. The fact that everything was happening in a fake world gave them both courage. They had already kissed, and Eve was afraid to think of taking it further for the time being. At the very least, she was certainly not going to make the first move. It would be another thing if Tobias asked her out, like on a date. Then... Eve blushed.

“I think we’re here,” Crag’s voice brought her back to her senses. Good thing he was looking the other way and hadn’t seen the blush in her cheeks. “There are a lot of guys there. Looks occupied. Anyway, let’s go see what’s what.”

Tobias took her by the hand. Their fingers interlaced very naturally and they headed down the wide gulley. There, down at the far end, the flickering oval of a portal led into the dungeon.

Eve bristled, remembering her first time in a dungeon with Alex. It wasn’t all that long ago, but it felt like years had passed. She wasn’t afraid anymore. In fact, her arms were itching to point her gun, fire a Burst or Explosive Shot at some monster’s face and see the blood spatter and white skull fragments fly. Eve realized these were unusual urges for a young girl but, every time she killed that way, she grew more confident, providing further confirmation that the old Eve – embarrassed and fearful – had been left in the past. Furthermore, it was all make-believe.

Yet again immersed in a memory, she didn’t realize right away that Tobias was yelling at someone.

“What, don’t get the picture? Get lost!” came a sullen voice, echoing off the walls of the crevasse. “And take your bimbo with you!”

Eve raised her head and saw her boy, his head drooping, just listening as Axiom insulted him. She knew one of them, Atiyakari, a level-twenty cutthroat. He used to lead her power leveling group. He was the one who called her a bimbo!! Sanguine mist clouded her eyes.

“Who you callin’ bimbo, moron?” she shouted, walking in his direction.

Tobias stood gently in her path and, embracing her, pulled her aside.

“Please don’t,” he said quietly. “That asshole isn’t worth it, Eve. We’d better get out of here.”

Her rage ebbed. Crag could always cheer her up or calm her down with just a couple words. Like now.

“But why?” she asked, still wanting to know more. After all, they were planning to pass this dungeon. She wanted to pass it! “Is the dungeon occupied?”

“No,” Tobias admitted after a brief hesitation. “Axiom got their grubby little hands on the ins. Yesterday, they were letting people enter for a thousand gold but, since this morning, it’s been off limits. Big Po wants that First Kill, then he’ll let other people try.”

“But that’s not fair!” Eve exclaimed. “What gives him the right? Like how? I would understand if the dungeon was occupied, but it isn’t! Why isn’t anyone objecting? I am not gonna give up on this!”

As usual when she encountered injustice, she was now shouting at full capacity. And on a backdrop of complete silence. The Axiomites were eavesdropping with great interest, adding some color to their boring shift.

“What Crag, your fat girlfriend nagging?” Atiyakari asked, concerned. “Does that mean she’s also kind of a ganker?”

His crew, a few girls among them, whinnied zealously.

“Just ignore them,” Tobias whispered to Eve. “I’ll handle this. On my own.”

Leaving her, he walked up to the bully and asked loudly:

“You know what, Sanji, I’d watch my mouth if I was you. Eve is in a lot better shape than your girlfriend, Big Po. Do you know what Po really stands for? Pooper, and he’s got a huge one! Admit it, you’d do anything for it...”

Atiyakari’s face changed. His clanmates whistled all at once in surprise, preparing for an impromptu performance.

“Don’t go looking for trouble, church freak,” the cutthroat said threateningly. “Wanna spend a bit more time on the KoS list? We can add some no problem!”

“Listen, I don’t want any problems,” Tobias admitted. “You insulted my girl, I had to say something. You apologize, I apologize, we leave.”

Eve was bursting at the seams to add a few things, but reason prevailed over her feelings. Tobias was right, they were doing just fine. To hell with the ins. An apology would be enough.

“Me? Apologize? I suppose you want me to bow for you as well? Get down on one knee? Did I say something wrong? Is she fat? Yes. Is she a bimbo? Well sure, she ain’t a dude. Was she nagging? You better believe it. So get your asses out of here, you retarded piece...” Atiyakari spat at Crag’s feet and went invis.

A second later, he appeared behind Crag and gave him a wholehearted stab in the butt. The Axiomites laughed in mockery, which was the final straw. Eve realized combat mode had switched on.

And the loudest laughter of all was not directed at Tobias but her. Babe, a tall blonde hussy with sharp cheekbones was pointing a finger and guffawing. And she wouldn’t stop laughing even when Tobias swung his sword and decapitated the person standing next to her.

Eve took out her rifle and grinned. She pointed the barrel at the blonde’s face... Explosive Shot! Burst!

Her head exploded, spattering blood and brains while her body slumped onto the ground. Tobias cut Atiyakari to bits with two swings and slammed his shield into the nearest enemy. Eve started shooting with abandon at the now stock-still dungeon guards...

She gave a delighted squeal and didn’t even shudder when she saw a huge barbarian charging her way. Crag intercepted him and Eve pumped him full of lead with enormous satisfaction.

Five minutes later, the Axiomites were all dead. Tobias, covered head to toe in someone else’s blood, looted them all in a business-like fashion, lit up at the epic drop then gave Eve a very big hug and kissed her. “This must be happiness,” she thought.

Then Tobias backed off and frowned.

“This is gonna cause problems,” he said. “Still, I don’t think our punishment can get any worse. We might as well go in.”

“We can take ‘em, sweetheart,” Eve answered. “Together.”

“Then let’s go in and play.”

And so, they entered the Sarantapod Hive.

Chapter 26. Cooking Tournament

GLASTONBURY LEFT ME with great memories. We raged at the concert, ate some tasty food, drank a lot and, by daybreak, when just Rita and I were left on the balcony of the mini-hotel room, I no longer wanted anything but to lie down and sleep. I had let Karina sit on my shoulders for a better view of the stage, so my back and legs were aching. And my head was just splitting.

After midnight, the three of us, wrapped in blankets, sat on big chairs on the balcony and the girls started an endurance competition: who could prove more stubborn and end up alone with me. Rita won in the end, but it was a pyrrhic victory. While I took Karina to her room, Overweight fell asleep in my bed. I had to sleep in an armchair.

If she had any hopes of a budding romance, they didn’t come to fruition. And good. Because going behind Tissa’s back was... Not my style, and the girls would have gotten mad if I refused one of them. Thankfully, the way it played out resolved things without anyone getting their feelings hurt.

I didn’t really get any sleep. Around morning, people started buzzing under our window and we heard the musicians doing soundchecks on stage. Some people on the other side of the wall were making a lot of noise. What exactly they were doing I could not say, but I had my guesses.

Rita got up first. Trying not to make noise, she left my room and went to hers.

Alone for the first time in a day, I cleaned myself up a bit and started getting ready to go back home. I was contractually obligated by Snowstorm to spend lots of time in Dis, so I couldn’t really afford to stay. Plus, I wanted to visit the guys and compete in the cooking tournament. I didn’t think I could take home a win, but I also didn’t want to leave Arno hanging. And of course, I was interested in spending some time outside the sandbox.

As badly as Rita and Karina wanted me to stay until evening, I was gone by lunchtime. And I went home on autopilot, sleeping the whole way.

I called up Tissa. Her voice sounded almost normal and definitely much livelier than yesterday. Her fever was gone, her temperature back to normal and she clearly felt better.

“They still haven’t found anything,” she said. “They said they’re gonna observe me until morning and, if everything is fine, they’ll discharge me. I’ll call you as soon as it happens. How was the festival? Party hard?”

“It was a good time, but I didn’t cross any lines, so don’t worry.”

“Alex! Come on!” Tissa objected, but her voice sounded happy. So I wasn’t surprised when she added: “Alright, I believe you. What are your plans?”

I told her about the cooking tournament and Tissa said I would have to be sure and join the guild, because there were special recipes only members could buy. We talked a bit longer about little things and said goodbye.

I ate lunch with my parents, told them all about Glastonbury then reluctantly crawled into my pod. I was still too tired, but I had to make up for the time I missed yesterday.

But as soon as I found myself in the midst of the majestic Nameless Mountains near the Olton Quarries, I was reenergized. A brisk breeze was wafting down from the snowcapped peaks, carrying the aroma of mountain herbs and fir trees. And that invigorated me, so I no longer felt sleepy.

With a big breath in, I stretched my arms. I wanted to take in all this incredible beauty. Even the shadows were so realistic I had no doubt that this place was real.

The tournament was starting in less than ten minutes. I opened the invitation letter, chuckled again as I smelled the roast meat, and activated the portal sticker.

The world flickered momentarily.

* * *

“Ah, here’s Scyth!” I heard. “Hey, Bob, tell the chef our last competitor has arrived.”

A thickset bearded old man walked up to me and gave me a firm handshake. His huge shovel of a hand engulfed mine completely, then I realized he was a dwarf! I’d seen other dwarves in Tristad, but never spoken to one. It was a human city and other Commonwealth races were generally only passing through.

“Welcome Scyth!” he addressed me. “I am Master Romm, I assist Madame Bloomfie in hosting the cooking tournament. How was the trip here?”

“Faster than the blink of an eye...”

“Yeah?” Romm frowned. “You didn’t even taste anything?”

“No. I activated the portal in the invitation and was transported here instantly. What of it?”

“Bob!” the Dwarf barked, turning. “What the crap is this? Why didn’t the kid get any effects? Why was he transported instantly? Are their brains really that soaked in ale?” He turned back to me: “Sorry, Scyth. We paid a bunch of money to provide our guests with luxury transport! The idea was for the teleportation process to last around three seconds, during which time you would taste one of our greatest culinary masterpieces. I don’t know exactly what you missed; it was supposed to be different every time. You sure you didn’t taste anything? Yeah? Alright. Follow me.”

He led me into a small assembly room where the others were already waiting. They were all high-level players without exception. I saw nobody below level one hundred, and I also didn’t see Arno who was probably handling his affairs with the guild.

Romm set me in a vacant chair on the edge, patted me on the shoulder and walked away.

“So then, all contestants are accounted for!” declared the tall elven woman on the low stage.

Would it be too corny to mention that her beauty had me smitten? Well, it did. Even her voice sounded melodic and youthful. I couldn’t get enough.

“Let me introduce myself for those who don’t know me. My name is Unifelda, deputy head of the chefs’ guild. Our organization has existed ever since the first intelligent creatures learned to use fire and we’ve been holding this tournament just about as long. For the last one hundred and four years, all cooking matches have been broadcast via magivision, which we’re confident will continue at least another two hundred. Recently, we signed a contract with the magivisors’ guild extending our contract for exactly that term. Our tournaments enjoy great popularity!”

All the players clapped in approval. Seemingly, all of them lived by their trade and were personally invested in the guild’s success. I felt like a mere upstart, an odd man out.

“Even our fast-paced weekly tournaments have a huge number of devotees,” Unifelda continued. “So for that reason, you won’t all be taking part in today’s tournament. It would simply take too long. So now we’re going to do a quick selection round, a test of your expertise. I’ll ask some questions and the first to give a correct answer will be awarded one point. After the quiz, we’ll tally up the results and announce our participants.”

Nobody was surprised. This must have been what happened every Sunday. I arrived at a clear understanding that I had zero chance. The guys’ mysterious illness, my trip to the rock festival and staying up all night with the girls had taken their toll. Without a single thought in my head, I had forgotten to even take ingredients with me. I was planning to grab a stack from Bomber, but my slots were full, then he was hospitalized.

“Nether!” I thought. “I could have farmed up resources in the Mire, unloading the quest items and Respawn Stone into my personal chest.”

“What is the key ingredient in Osceola Spicy Soup?” while I berated myself, Unifelda asked the first question.

“Dried Bison Meat!” a voice quickly called out from the first row.

I got up and saw the forehead of a halfling. Woah, a real live hobbit!

“Correct! One point to Jenkins. Next question: how much Burning Pepper is used to make Snails in Garlic Sauce?”

“None!” a couple quipped out. “That dish uses blue pepper, not burning pepper!”

“One point to Bari!” The shouts of outrage didn’t bother the elven lady. “He answered first. Next question...”

I lost count of the questions. They were getting harder and correct answers were starting to be worth more points. The magic scoreboard hovering behind Unifelda showed that Jenkins the hobbit and Bari the fat gnome had distinguished themselves many times. And there was a gray-haired man named Oliver nipping at their heels. Everyone else was hopelessly behind. At the end of the list were a few names, including mine, with zero points.

I suddenly heard a familiar combination of words:

“... filet of swamp bighead with onion and herbs?”

I didn’t hear the whole question but I figured it out based on the guesses.

“Resistance to poison?”

“Increased endurance?”

“Poisoning?”

“Swamp aura?”

The guesses kept coming, but were growing more tentative. Two wrong answers in a row earned a docked point. They must have been talking about the effects of the dish. I raised my hand and said distinctly:

“Marinated filet of swamp bighead with onion and herbs gives the following bonus: plus ten to highest main attribute for three hours.”

“Excellent!” Unifelda was delighted. “In depth and flawlessly accurate! Five points to Scyth!”

“Who?” “Where’d that noob come from?” “What even is that dish?” “Who’s got the recipe?” questions rained down from the contestants. Everyone in the room was staring at me and, not knowing what to do, I started counting the letters and numbers on the scoreboard. Arno came out of nowhere and saved the situation.

He trumpeted like an injured elephant and started shaking me by the shoulders. They hushed him and Arno fell silent. I looked around. The audience was crowding up at the assembly room doors. And there, chest puffed out in pride, stood the chef of the Bubbling Flagon.

“And at that, the selection round is complete!” Unifelda declared. “So then, the following contestants will make it through to the main Sunday tournament: Jenkins, Bari, Oliver...”

Arno was rooting for me more than I was: he had his big fists clenched, his teeth were chattering and he was holding his breath. And so, when my name was said last, he was unable to hold back.

“Not so fast, Mr. Arno.” I squirmed out of his embrace. “As luck would have it, I didn’t bring any ingredients. I have nothing to cook!”

Mr. Arno looked crushed. A wrinkle ran across his forehead. Then his face beamed with an ear to ear smile.

“No biggie, Scyth!” he exclaimed. “The very fact you made it to the tournament is enough to get you into the guild! You would like to join the guild, right?”

“Absolutely.” I smiled. “But what to cook? I mean, I can’t...”

“You can think something up. Just by coincidence,” he winked, “I brought some supplies from the kitchen. Fish, meat, vegetables, fruit. And I won’t even mention the spices and seasonings. I’ve always got them on me. With your imagination, I bet you can think something up, right...?”

* * *

The main tournament was held in a huge kitchen with a few dozen ovens, stoves and tables. And the organizers provided a ton of ingredients. Just in the wild game section I counted thirty different types of meat. But they were all widespread and well-known, so it seemed impossible to invent a new dish.

The magivisors had placed Eyes of Egeria over each contestant, magic balls that transmitted everything they saw to a central magic tower, which then broadcasted that to the owners of enchanted Balls of Egeria.

Basically, recognizing the societal importance and influence of mass media, Snowstorm had made their own versions of various technological methods of data transmission. Instead of comms, there were signal amulets. Instead of radios, there were divine notifications. And in the same way, instead of huge televisions, there were Balls of Egeria. They were relatively cheap, but not permitted in sandboxes.

We were randomly split into groups of two, from which the jury would choose one to go up against all the other winners.

Every contestant had to prepare a dish of their own invention. The jury then would judge them based on a few categories: “flavor,” “beneficial effects,” “uniqueness,” and “sophistication.” And though the first three criteria were all easy enough to understand, the last one threw me for a loop. What could they have meant by that? Obviously, I knew the word, but how did the game mechanics convey sophistication?

Arno helped me with a recipe, laying out a pile of fish and game, vegetables, fruit and herbs from Tristad market on my cutting table. He placed the jars of seasonings separately. The host of the cooking show was the very same Unifelda. After an opening speech for the audience, she emphasized that the dishes had to be new or at least original. After that, she introduced the contestants and finally announced:

“You will face off in groups of two, determined completely at random! Grandmaster Jenkins versus Artisan Fleas, Master Bari versus Master Silka, Grandmaster Nobu versus Master Kima...” It took her some time to get through the list. “And finally, Grandmaster Oliver versus Expert Scyth,” she said with a chuckle, followed by many others. “Begin!”

Someone banged a gong. I quickly looked around: everyone started cooking immediately, again giving me the impression I didn’t belong there. They all had their ingredients ready to go and were confidently executing a plan. Only I was standing around looking like an oblivious dumbass.

Oliver was sitting at a table opposite me. He winked and smiled with his mustache, nodding at my ingredients. They didn’t look quite as luxuriant as the ones my opponent was neatly unpacking. Tidy bunches of herbs, appetizing pieces of meat including a very expensive glossy filet of Cimmerian Boar, pristine little chives, vials of seasonings, jars of grain... And when he took out his epic knife and cookware set, made of enchanted blue steel, even Arno gasped in envy:

“Unbelievable! That guy must really know what he’s doing!”

Melancholically sorting through fish, I tossed a gaze over Oliver’s equipment. Everything, from his chef’s hat and apron to the pots and pans, gave bonuses to trade level. And his cookware sped up cooking time and reduced the risk of messing up a dish.

Among the fish, I saw many Stone Grabbers, which gave off a strong odor of fresh cucumbers. Their big grinning mouths and lean bony bodies seemed impossible to make into anything tasty, so I started with them. No harm in trying.

I put the default pot from the organizers on the stove to heat up then grabbed my Deb’s Universal Knife. The description said that it was good for practically any task involving fish, and cleaning them with it improved the chance of the dish giving extra bonuses. It and a few other chef’s tools, not quite as good as Oliver’s, were handed out to everyone.

“Experiment, apprentice!” shouted Arno, standing along the wall with the audience.

So I started to experiment. We were given one hour and, in that time, I managed to screw up almost every ingredient. I fried and grilled meat, tried to make some kind of soup or stew from the fish, added vegetables, marinated in vinegar, combined the incompatible... But it was all in vain. Everything I made was either a known dish or inedible garbage. As for the Stone Grabbers, without a recipe, I couldn’t turn them into anything worth eating.

Honestly, I did accidentally invent one nonsensical dish by the name of Miner’s Fish Soup when, in desperation, I threw a shot of elven brandy into a bubbling pot of roast grabber and lentils. +1 strength, -1 strength. How such a thing was even possible I had no idea but, by the looks of things, the system generated a dish’s properties by blindly taking one parameter from each ingredient. I set the Miner’s Fish Soup aside, deciding to put it up only if I couldn’t make anything better.

Then I stopped flailing, cleaned the spoiled food out of my cookware and took a minute to think. I had a breakthrough.

Oliver had already finished his dish and was having a lively discussion with Jenkins. The two pros were looking at me and laughing.

I waved at them. They both looked surprised. The halfling said something and they burst into laughter.

“Yeah, to the nether with both of them,” I thought. “I wasn’t planning to win, but I refuse to lose this badly!” My only regret was that I didn’t have any Swamp Bighead. It may have been thin gruel, but it was a unique dish!

Calmer, my logic and subconscious memory flipped on. I had often seen people cooking in street carts and my mom could work real magic at the stove on occasion. Following my intuition, I put some flour in a bowl, mixed in some salt and pepper, then cleaned my last couple grabbers, removing only the guts. I left on the thin skin and scales. Next I filled the fish with chopped herbs, covered them in seasonings, dipped them in the flour mix and tossed them into some bubbling oil. I waited a couple seconds and turned them over.

It worked!

Attempt to create a new dish!

Success! You have created a new cooking recipe: Fried Spicy Stone Grabber, Stuffed with Herbs!

Experience points received for new cooking recipe: +100.

You have prepared Fried Spicy Stone Grabber, Stuffed with Herbs.

Fried spicy stone grabber, stuffed with herbs (1) cannot be added to your inventory!

Not enough room in bag!

Fried Spicy Stone Grabber, Stuffed with Herbs

Epic recipe

Ingredients: cleaned stone grabber, flour, vegetable oil, salt, black pepper, marjoram, dill, parsley, rosemary, caraway.

The predatory carnivorous stone grabber is found in fast-moving mountain rivers with exceptionally clean water. That gives its tender meat strong magical properties when properly prepared. Scyth, the inventor of this dish, came up with it during a Commonwealth Chefs’ Guild tournament.

Special effects when eaten:

+50 charisma;

— significantly increases attractiveness in the eyes of the opposite sex;

— gives a more youthful appearance.

Effect duration: 24 hours.

Value: 350 gold coins.

Cooking trade: +10.

Current level: Expert (327/500)

Just then, reading the message, I took the pan off the heat.

“Plate your dish!” Arno shouted, pleased.

I took a big flat plate, set the fish on it, added a few slices of tomato and a round of lemon. It was still missing something. I remembered going to restaurants with my family and picked out a lettuce leaf. Thinking for a moment, I stuck it under the fish.

“Ready!” I raised my hand.

The siren blasted out shortly after that and a column of green light lit up around me. A scantily clad she-elf picked up my dish and brought it to the jury, which was sitting at the other end of the room. Not knowing what to do next, I walked over to Arno. While we awaited the judges’ verdict, we discussed recent events in the city. Then Unifelda led a mysterious gaze over the whole room and announced the results:

“Our viewers have probably already guessed where our honorable judges stand based on their reactions while tasting, but our contestants are still waiting eagerly. Before I tell you how our jury decided, let me remind you who is in charge of today’s judging, head of the Chefs’ Guild herself, Grandmaster Lady April Bloomfie!”

The crowd started whispering and, Arno told me that the eminent woman had invented hundreds of epic recipes and was friends with the former noncitizen Rachel Kessler from Cali Bottom. A player!

“So then...” Unifelda unraveled a scroll and stood stock still as she read it. A few seconds later, she coughed, looked baffled and started to speak: “Ladies and gentlemen! This is the first time in my memory something like this has happened and believe you me, I’ve seen a lot! By unanimous decision, the unqualified victor of today’s Sunday cooking tournament is a contestant who is not a member of our guild! The winner is... Scyth the Expert from the free city of Tristad!”

What a start! Noise, bluster, shouts of indignation and surprise! While Arno suffocated me in his embrace, I saw a game notifications that my trade skill went up by a hundred points, and others increasing my fame and reputation with the chefs’ guild, Tristad, Unifelda, April Bloomfie, the chef of the Bubbling Flagon and another whole list of names I’d never seen before.

I had to respect the power of magivision!

* * *

For a long time, I just sat on a big shiny stone polished by rain and wind, unable to come to my senses. The cooking tournament had given me a taste of big Dis, and I liked it. I got a sense for how huge and multifaceted the world was. There was no reason to farm mobs or do routine quests out there. You really could just live, do whatever your heart desired.

After announcing the results, I was most surprised by Jenkins the halfling and Oliver. Both, not hiding their surprise, congratulated me on what they called a hard-earned victory.

“You’re a clever one, boy! We underestimated you, of course,” Oliver admitted. “I want to give you a little gift. I saw the way you were looking at my knife. I can’t give you that, it’s personal. I got it for winning a yearly tournament. But I do have another one like it.”

He extended a hand and a knife of unbelievable beauty and utility materialized in it.

Kaizen Chef’s Knife

Rare

Kitchen knife.

Bonuses from food prepared with this knife last twice as long.

Durability: 120/120.

Creator: Miyabi.

Sell price: 150 gold.

I accepted the gift and stuck it in my pocket. Not my inventory, of course. That left it vulnerable to thieves, but I’d get it to my personal room somehow.

Jenkins didn’t give me anything but he did invite me to some secret society of chefs:

“Add me as a friend, Scyth. When you get out of the sandbox, drop me a line. Me and a few other chefs get together once a month in a restaurant to exchange trade secrets. The guild is great and all, but the real top recipes aren’t just handed out to every Tom, Dick and Harry. You see, there’s a lot of money in this. And let me give you some advice for the future: don’t share your recipes with the guild.”

As he said that, he shot a glance at the guild leader, gave a mysterious chuckle and walked away. Standing in front of flickering magic lights, April Bloomfie herself handed me my reward. After the buff from my dish, she looked unbelievably attractive. A middle-aged woman with her dark, gray-streaked hair up in a bun, she was wearing the black and gold robe of a grandmaster. She gave a congratulatory speech, then bid me farewell:

“You have a gift, young man, a real talent! Don’t bury it. At your age, people are usually rushing off on adventures but let me tell you something: us chefs know real adventure, and it requires lots of strength and energy, and the only way to get that is tasty and nutritious food!”

She laughed at her own joke and I smiled politely. I caught a hint in her words that players bought up many stacks of expensive dishes before raids, and noted that I could always keep the trade in my back pocket in case I had to work in Dis someday.

To widespread applause, Madame Bloomfie inducted me into the guild and extended me an epic recipe for a raid dish called Highland Feast: +200 to highest main attribute, +50 to all the rest, +50% to health and mana regeneration. And all that lasted for three hours or until you died. The recipe required seven rare ingredients and, based on my most modest estimates, one portion for a raid group was worth one or two thousand gold in ingredients alone. I wasn’t planning to sell it, but I couldn’t learn it right away either. My level in the trade wasn’t high enough. For lack of free space, I sent both the recipe and the kitchen knife to Bomber for safe keeping. I could get them when we met up, then stick them in my chest.

After the awards ceremony, I was interviewed for the publications Commonwealth Herald and Disgardium Daily. The second newspaper existed only for players and the questions they asked me were the most idiotic I’d ever heard in my life. Still, I did my best to answer them.

“Say, Scyth, what’s it like to be a teenager in a little backwater like Tristad?”

“Us Tristaders would be happy to answer that question, but you’ll have to come there and ask again.”

A guild employee named Bob gave me access to the guild store, where I bought up a bunch of recipes I was high-enough level to learn. He also registered a few of my original recipes: Well-Done Carp in Sour Cream, Miner’s Fish Soup, Marinated Filet of Swamp Bighead with Onion and Herbs and Fried Spicy Stone Grabber, Stuffed with Herbs. As for Roast Undead Rat Chitterlings, I kept that recipe to myself, remembering Jenkins’s advice.

“The guild will add your recipes to the registry. Do you have a bank account? Not yet? No worries, we will send you the royalties by mail. You are entitled to one percent of all sales, and payment comes monthly. But bear in mind, Scyth!” Bob said at the end, raising a hand. “The more unusual the recipe, and the more beneficial its properties, the higher your cut!”

Then Arno and I said a fond farewell, and Master Romm the Dwarf sent me back to the area near Olton Quarries.

Perched on a rock, I thought about what to do next. I was still required to spend a bit more time in Dis and I had no desire to farm mobs, so I came up with a different plan.

I teleported to Tristad. I was given the choice of either there or Packston’s Vineyards. Thankfully, RNGesus was on my side. In the town, I rented out a room in the tavern, locked the door and sat at the window, where I had a good view of the square outside.

I had a theory, and the time had come to test it out. If I was right, we’d be able to get into the dungeon tomorrow no problem.

I looked around for a target, settling on a scurrying girl dressed in the garb of a Priestess of Nergal.

Imitate level-19 Priest Healiann?

Oh yeah.

Chapter 27. Imitation

MY CRAZY PLAN stopped seeming so foolish after the cooking tournament. That very evening I hit Imitation level two as soon as I changed apparent class from archer to priest. That taught me to imitate not only class but level as well. Changing again did not give another skill-up, and I saw no system messages or even progress bar for the herald class ability. Thanks, developers.

After becoming a level-12 barbarian, I stopped swapping my identity and went to bed. I stayed right there in the rented tavern room, catching up on what I’d missed at Glastonbury. After a few hours’ sleep, I saw no progress. I changed class and level again. The streets were empty by then, but there were still a few players walking around town. Without even reading notifications, it hit me: Imitation was up to level three. Now I could also copy gear and, unfortunately, only external appearance. All that confirmed my suspicion: it wasn’t the number of times I used the skill that mattered, only time spent in the different form.

So I went back to bed, setting the system alarm clock for morning. When I woke up, I sighed in disappointment: my Imitation was still the same level.

In school, I saw the Awoken. They were doing much better. They even looked rested and fresh after their two days in treatment pods. When I got home, I went straight into Dis. The skill level hadn’t changed. I realized that Imitation only made progress while I was in the game and in a different form but, even if the invisible bar hit one hundred percent, the skill would only ding when I changed again.

The day was very fruitful. I leveled Depths Teleportation to five, finally gaining control over destination, though the cooldown remained very high. After that, we spent some time catching Stone Grabbers. I showed the recipe to the guys and suggested that the rare fish would soon be taking off in value. The Hypnotic Toads begged for food yet again, but this time they got a whole lotta nothing.

After fishing, we raided the Mire. I hit twenty. Crawler, because of his levelling bonus, hit nineteen, while the rest got to eighteen. And then we hatched our battle pet eggs into level-one Swamp Needlers. And we leveled them fantastically. They couldn’t do much yet, just fly around and sting. There was no sign of the larvae. We also gave them names. I called mine Iggy. The guys were pretty imaginative: Alien, Thorn, Whatchamacallit and Little Trunk. It wasn’t hard to guess who gave what name.

They also looked small, no larger than flies when they hatched. By level ten, they were just the size of a child’s fist. We brought them up to twenty, siphoning one hundred percent experience their way, then dropped it to ten because we had hit our goal. Iggy, Alien, Thorn, Whatchamacallit and Little Trunk had learned to produce larvae. And sure they could only inject one per minute, but we had five of them!

Initial testing in the Evil from the Depths dungeon showed that the five needlers could take down a boss’s health by a quarter in five minutes. We were intentionally drawing out fights for testing purposes. We especially relished the fact that our pets didn’t draw aggro and were only ever hurt by AoE. Because of that, they almost all died on Murkiss. Only Little Trunk survived. Infect called him away with only one percent remaining. However, we did get a crazy amount of blues and two epics! This time, Tissa wasn’t the only one to get lucky. She got the crown, the third item in the Evil from the Depths set, but I got something too: a great pair of purple chainmail boots. The Twilight Chitin Boots made the reward from Garr Alt, monster hunter, look like cheap junk. Honestly, my strength was high enough to wear plate-mail as well, but Bomber had priority on that. Also, Crawler triumphantly gave me a Death-Sworn Hauberk, the epic mail shirt for level twenty, dropped by the boss Locust on our very first run-through of Evil from the Depths while I was sleeping.

All that time, by the way, my apparent class was warrior, having copied Hung. When my clanmates saw it, they lost their minds in enthusiasm. They were even more astonished when I showed them what my Imitation could do after it upped again, total copying. I turned into a level-eighteen thief in the exact same clothes and equipment as Infect. But most importantly, I looked exactly like him. Malik was really freaked out to see himself in the third person. So much so, that he almost died on one of the bosses. He was always getting distracted, staring at me-slash-him.

I had spent the night before in Dis again to level Imitation, so I was nodding off in class, which Greg noticed. That same day we registered our clan for the junior Arena. Each clan could only put up one team, but with standbys. We didn’t have any of those, so our application had only us five.

“Are you sure?” the registrar asked. “You cannot register new participants during the tournament.”

“What will happen if one of us gets sick?” I asked.

“You’ll fight four on five,” he snickered in reply. “A team is only required to field two fighters. But generally, in that case, it’s easier just not to fight. The result will be the same – forfeit.”

We spent another day training in the Battlegrounds and even won a few times. We got much better at working together, especially compared to our first attempts. After that, I opted not to risk returning to town and stayed on Behemoth’s island. I talked with the Sleeping God out of boredom, but not for very long. I asked him about my class abilities and the deity promised to give me more of them as soon as the temple was built. What exactly they would be, he did not say.

“I will decide based on the situation,” Behemoth foretold as he dissipated.

That once and for all confirmed my idea that the herald class was half-baked. Most likely, the AI was generating the quests, skills and story of the Sleeping Gods on the fly. However, I wasn’t sure about that.

By midnight, my Imitation was up to five, and I could also copy the text over my head: nick, real name, race and clan. From that point on, I could turn into whoever I liked and with no cooldown as long as my target was in visual range. As for what would come next, I had my guesses but didn’t have time to check.

I stopped half-way down the stairs into the main room and started looking for someone from Axiom. I knew exactly who I wanted to copy. And as if by fate, the first person I happened to see was Big Po. There was some emergency happening and Wesley, his face crimson, was shouting at his people. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell what he was screaming due to the Dome of Silence. But I didn’t overthink it, quickly imitated the level-twenty chieftain Polynucleotide and went back to my room. Leaving my character there, I exited Dis, got in touch with my friends and told them how we were going to get past the guards and into the Sarantapod Hive.

* * *

Morning in Disgardium was the best time to be alone with nature and watch it wake up. Geala slowly turned pale, then faded into the sky as the crimson sun came up. In our sandbox, it was a rare moment to watch the world living all on its own without almost any player involvement. Well, almost because that day we were all in the game: the guys were on Behemoth’s island awaiting my signal as I walked toward Little Gully.

I studied the situation for a few minutes. At the bottom of the significantly expanded gully, two Axiomites were talking quietly. Detrovay, a boy, had made a fire and was going to make coffee; Annamassy, a girl, was loudly yawning and stretching.

“I just want this shift to be over with,” Detrovay complained. “I already have two strikes this semester, Anna!”

“What about it?” she asked. “Relax, Det, a First Kill will give us a huge head start on our future. Even if we aren’t in the group, it will make the clan stronger! That will make everything easier for us in big Dis... Po?”

Annamassy’s eyes went wide when she saw their clan leader Polynucleotide walking up.

“Anna, Det, both of you can go home,” I said.

“Why? What happened?” objected the boy, who had just been so bothered about missing school. “Is everything alright, Po?”

“We’ve already got too many strikes, Det,” I answered, giving my voice a concerned tone. “You can leave Dis. You’ll still make it to first period. I have a doctor’s note, so I can stay home. I’ll stay on watch.”

They spent a bit more time insisting, assuring me that they were doing just fine in school, but I could see that they were happy. A few minutes later, they both left the world.

[7:36] [Clan] [Scyth]: All clear. Jump over. I’m going in.

I entered the ins and finally exhaled. While I waited for my clanmates, I leaned up against the wall and closed my eyes, enjoying the few minutes of peace.

A few soft splashes of the portal told me the guys had arrived. They were smiling, Bomber and Infect exchanged jokes but I didn’t share their playful mood. I was very tired after the last few days and there was no end in sight.

I didn’t give a damn about the ins itself or the bosses. All I cared about was getting through it as quickly as possible, getting out and coming back after cooldown for the First Kill. Useful abilities were more important than the fleeting improvement given by epic equipment. It was at least good that we could sell it after we grew out of it.

“This will take us approximately three hours,” Tissa said. “I know a girl from Axiom, she shared boss tactics. If we don’t get wiped, we might be able to do it in two and a half.”

“We’ll do it in one,” I said. “Just run behind me and pick up loot. I’m gonna one-shot everything.”

* * *

The Sarantapod Hive might have been the most boring dungeon in all Disgardium. I wasn’t an expert, I had never explored beyond my sandbox, but I had seen guides so I had some basis for comparison. Anyhow, the poor sarantapods found themselves in a very difficult position when they entered our world. They were bound to the portal they came through, and the biosphere of their world spread from there. But it didn’t go beyond the ins, because they didn’t have enough resources. The sarantapods were planning to break out onto the surface in a desperate attempt to complete a mission they were called to do by their god.

Seven days later, not long before New Year’s, we took down the third boss, Skolo’rhyssa, for the second time. And that gave me the seventh Fragment of the Seal of Shog’rassar. I put them all together forming a complete seal and placed it in the base of the portal. The portal grew more powerful, absorbing all the energy from the seal, which turned it into dust, and made the portal many times larger. Then the magic sheet of the portal exploded, releasing the final boss into Disgardium. And that was how we completed the Sarantapod mission.

Shog’rassar, striding through the portal with a regal bearing, was very surprised to see us instead of his servants. He spoke our language but was making a real mess of it. That must have been evidence of his many centuries living among the insectoids. The god of the Sarantapods had entirely lost his human form, but remembered how to threaten at least as well as Patrick:

“Wretch-ch-ch-ched humanssss! It issss complete...”

I didn’t let him finish. Time was of the essence, so I killed him with one Combo, not sparing any plague energy for the honored guest.

That was how we got the First Kill of the final boss. And though the reward wasn’t exactly a disappointment, it wasn’t anything supernatural either. Although the guys didn’t agree with me on that count because, although we didn’t get a skill or gear, we did get nothing more and nothing less than a divine emblem!

Shog’rassar’s Protection

Divine Emblem

+50% resistance to damage from insectoids.

+100% resistance to poison.

The emblem initially showed as a red tattoo on our forearms, then went pale and finally disappeared altogether. Divine emblems, as it turned out, could only be seen by the gods. I suspected that I now had three of them, but I also suspected that the marks of the Sleeping Gods and Destroying Plague conferred no bonuses. They were just brands, as if to say: this person is mine. And I had another one labeling me as a threat.

In just the two runs of the Sarantapod Hive, we got a stupid amount of excellent equipment. Once, we even triggered the chance for improved loot and an epic breastplate for Bomber fell from a normal mob. In the end, we made away with five epics and ten rare items. Everything for level twenty.

At the first boss, I got epic Armlets of the Impenetrable Nether and, on the next run-through, I got a purple Killer Quiver from the same place. It gave a bonus to agility, endurance, damage and archery attack speed.

Still, Tissa had the sickest luck of all. She got another item from her set, the Robe of Evil from the Depths. She now had four items in total, giving her a decent boost to magic resistance and a chance to spawn a magic bubble to protect her from attacks.

And a day earlier Bomber, flaunting the legendary on his finger, finally caught the Golden Fish! It gave the quest to release it, Bomber did just that and, in return, he got a permanent +75 strength.

Infect just about choked in envy when he heard the news! Pouting, he spent a record amount of time feeling sorry for himself, emanating bad vibes. And if not for Crawler cheering him up optimistically, we might have lost Malik once and for all. Well and on top of that, envy is a corrosive emotion and it needs to be quashed before the team starts to break down. And that was just what Ed did, reminding the thief who got him his scalable dagger, alluding to himself sacrificing his threat status. Then he nodded at me, dressed worst of all. That was enough. Infect admitted he was wrong and apologized.

We decided against the “All hail the heroes,” even despite the fact that Axiom was already busy with another hunt, combing the whole sandbox in search of Crag and Aphrodite. As it turned out, those two had somehow taken out two groups of Axiom sentries in Little Gully, and without apparent effort. According to eyewitness accounts, neither of them were even using weapons or magic and had practically one-shotted Axiom with a few snaps of the finger. That led everyone to an obvious conclusion that one of them was a threat.

Meanwhile, Eve’s family had moved to a new higher-category neighborhood, and it was much more out of the way. I called up my childhood friend to find out if she was doing alright and if she needed any help. And though she did answer, she didn’t really tell me anything. All she said was that she was doing very (she emphasized this word) well and, of course, it was very sweet that I was concerned, but there was nothing to worry about. In fact, the conversation felt warm, almost like in the old days. We even agreed to meet up some time.

As for Crag, it was rumored that he’d hunkered down in his personal room in Dis and wasn’t planning to leave. According to his classmates, he denied all suspicions of his threat status and was acting normal in school. In other words, he wasn’t acting at all. He could never have been called talkative, he was always the reserved and sulky type. I concluded that Tobias was just planning to sit out his remaining time in the sandbox, and trying to keep it a secret.

No one really had anything conclusive, but still I wrote him:

Hi, Tobias.

We might not be friends, but I’ve been in your shoes. Axiom is obsessed with finding you and, if they can’t, they’ll take things IRL, if they haven’t already. So here’s some advice: keep your head down.

Scyth.

He answered the next day: “I know. Thanks.”

I met up with Rita Wood on the weekend. Taking a break from Dis, me and her sat in a café and had a very pleasant chat. Rita even mentioned in passing that she wouldn’t be opposed to joining our clan because we were sending her such awesome and amazing loot.

“I’d love to have you,” I answered, “but I’m not sure the guys will see it the same way. Maybe we can come back to this after we leave the sandbox.”

“I won’t insist,” Rita said. “But if you keep this up, the Awoken have great prospects in big Dis. And then... Every clan needs a pet high-level trader, right?”

I wasn’t sure what motivated her more: business or a desire to see me more often. She had proven herself a very pragmatic dealer, but it also seemed obvious that she liked me. And for the record, she gave me back the epics. The Bow of Burning Arrows from Murkiss, honestly, had to be put back in my chest for the time being. It required level twenty-five.

After getting the achievement in the Hive, we jumped to the Mire. There our levels hit twenty-two, and we decided to stop. That would put us inside the normal range for the Arena without making people ask questions.

We then siphoned our unneeded experience to the grown-up and I would say mature needlers. For whatever reason, Tissa’s Thorn and Bomber’s Whatchamacallit seemed like girls to us. Seriously, their bodies were even a more delicate color than the boys’, who chirped more crudely and acted a bit more savage. Iggy, for example, always went out of his way to aggro first, ignoring my commands to heel and defend his master. While we walked atop the muck, a few times he was stupid enough to practically dive under the water to attack the bigheads. He was pretty wild.

At level twenty-five, the needlers reached adult size and started to look imposing. Approximately the size of a calf, they were both huge and dangerous. These were not the little pocket doges which, in view of their low price, had become the most common pets. All they could do was yap, even though they were also supposedly also battle pets.

We hadn’t shown our needlers anywhere other than dungeons and the Mire, and we weren’t planning to. The fearsome fivesome would be our weapon of last resort.

What was more, each of them now had their own abil. For starters, my Iggy could give a Deadly Chirp. It wasn’t exactly deadly yet, just a mass stun of all enemies in a thirty-foot radius for one second. That seemed minor, but a second was sometimes all it took to change the outcome of battle.

Little Trunk could inject a target with two larvae at once at once. Whatchamacallit had learned to squirt a puddle of sticky slime under an enemy’s feet, which slowed them down and even did damage. But it was still pretty insignificant as well. Thorn could put out quills like a porcupine, which made anyone that attacked her take damage, even at a distance. It was some kind of magic.

That made us all think the AI was reacting to our pets’ nicknames. And our suspicions were confirmed when Alien learned to spray acid when taking damage. Really Snowstorm..?

Finishing up the farm, we headed to the city to fill out everyone’s equipment. We had come to the shared decision not to waste money on epics and just traded out our low-level blue gear for more current stuff. In the end, it ran us six hundred gold.

But after that, our group no longer looked like a collection of bums. In fact, most sandbox players who saw us now treated us with respect. Bomb even mentioned in passing that maybe we should transmogrify our gear to make it all match so we’d look better in the Arena.

“You think we should pay some transmogrifier a thousand gold or more just to change the color of our gear?” Tissa asked. “Maybe we should get some make-up as well? Or get our hair curled? Are you a warrior or are you a pretty? Even though I’m a girl, that didn’t even occur to me.”

The “pretties” were a social group who thought looks were the meaning of life, slaves to physical perfection and beauty. And they would use any means available: from plastic surgery to everyday cosmetics. Perhaps that sounded normal, but the pretties would stop at nothing. They even had a saying: “Beauty has no limits.” And when they ran out of surgeries to do or just didn’t have the means, there were always other modifications – skin shading, hair dying, eye and nail coloring, piercings, tattoos, clothing, cosmetics, implanted jewelry and biohacking. Some people looked up to the pretties but our group was more prone to mocking them. None of us saw any point in that stuff. We could understand Denise Le Bon. She earned money with her beauty, but what was the point for someone who worked designing restaurant menus?

So Hung immediately took it back and, for some reason, started apologizing to Tissa. Lady magic, no bones about it. What else gave them the right to call boys out in plain sight like that?

“Alright, let’s pack it up,” said Crawler. “We need to get some sleep for tomorrow.”

Tomorrow was our first qualifying match for the junior Arena games, which had already started for others.

So the guys said goodbye and left the game. But I stayed. Something Behemoth had told me was stuck in my head, and there was something else I wanted to test out.

Chapter 28. Qualifying Group

WE HAD BEEN allocated a room under the stage of the main Commonwealth Arena, which was where we were sitting. It wasn’t the same Arena where I fought Crag. The basic idea was the same, but the scale was much larger.

In the middle of the small room was a table with refreshments, and around it were chairs. There was also a couch against one wall, and a Ball of Egeria mounted on the ceiling projecting events in the Arena on the opposite wall. For watchability’s sake, there was only one match happening at any given time, each lasting fifteen minutes and running back to back from morning until late evening. It was winter break in school, so they didn’t have to worry about scheduling conflicts. The battle zone was given a new random landscape before each match.

“Alex, I’ve told you a hundred times and I’ll tell you a hundred and one! No matter how the situation comes together, you cannot use your cheat abils!” Ed harped. “Don’t even use plague energy! Tomorrow, people are gonna go over all the combat logs with a fine-toothed comb: both competing clans and regular viewers. That’s gonna include some analysts and statisticians and, if they see any deviations from the norm, it’s sure to pique their interest. And the preventers will be about a second behind them...”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” I scowled. In the world killjoy championship, Rodriguez would have definitely taken first place. “Everything will be alright, Ed.”

Crawler had nagged me every day since our first Battleground, when I lost it and started crushing everyone with plague, saying I couldn’t afford to do that ever again. He was more interested in developing my threat potential than I was.

“Just remember: if we lose the bet, all we lose is your legendary pet. It’s valuable, I won’t argue. But we have another thing on the line worth a lot more than that, got it?” He was speaking softly and calmly, as if explaining something to his little sister Pollyanna.

“Alright, Ed. Don’t worry, I’ll act like an archer. I won’t even use my fists.”

“God forbid!” Bomber exclaimed. “Your Hammers can bring down century-old trees! Don’t play with fire, Scythy!”

“Fire is Crawler’s thing,” I joked.

Owing to my sky-high main attributes, impressive Archery and the new moves I’d learned from trainer Conrad and subsequently leveled, I could now fight in the Arena as a true archer. My Unarmed Combat was up to seventy-five and that was the limit for a sandbox. At the very least, I hadn’t seen any mobs higher than twenty-five here.

“For everyone just joining our broadcast, th-iiii-s iii-s the-e-e Arrrreenna!” roared magivision commentator Dariusz Kowalski, a staple of these events.

Dariusz wasn’t a player, just a regular person. Snowstorm had poached him from the World Robot Combat League ten years ago and, since then, every contest had been commentated by him and an invited guest.

“Well, the junior Arena,” noted Ram May, second commentator. “Let me remind our viewers that everyone in these battles plays in an adolescent sandbox!”

“Oh these youth battles,” Kowalski laughed. “Pointless and merciless!”

“I’m gonna have to disagree with you there, partner,” said Ram. “Lots of champions of the adult Arena have come up through these same sandboxes...”

“But none them are in Modus! The current champions!” Dariusz interrupted him. “None of them especially shined in the sandbox. But say Ram, whose faces did you see in the sky when you flew to the studio?”

“You’ve got a point there. But let me remind you of something. Twelve years ago, a fifteen-year-old boy was crowned champion of this very Arena. His name was Magwai. Remember him?”

“Who could forget the best player in the world?” Dariusz Kowalski was rattled, but immediately got himself together. “We’re getting sidetracked! Anyhow, moving on to the next match in today’s series…”

“The teams of the Awoken and Corps of Darkness are asked to please come to the Arena!” rang out in the room. “One-minute warning!”

We exchanged glances and, without a word, got up from all our chairs at once. It took us twenty seconds to gear up then we spent the next forty huddled up with our heads bowed.

“The Awoken, representing Tristad, is up against Corps of Darkness from Ebengard,” Dariusz rattled off. “Both teams are from group NA-12, which has five teams. Each of those teams will face off one time. A win earns them one point, and a loss zero. The top two teams from the group will be sent to the main playoff bracket and, from there, they will have to climb to the top to be crowned this year’s junior arena champions!”

Sh-sh-shu-u-uugh-gh-gh! From standing in silence, we were instantly transported to starting position in the Arena, which was filled with the raucous cheering.

It took a few seconds to adapt to the bright light. We were transported the same way we were standing: in a circle. We split up and took a look around. To the right, there was an abandoned three-story house. To the left was an overgrown patch of stinging Dangerous Flycatcher bushes. In the distance, at the far end, there was an impenetrable forest. In the center was a little hill. Here all the environments were made of real elements: mages simply copied fragments of real locations.

“We’ll tell you about the makeup of the teams as soon as the battle gets underway!” Dariusz promised. “But now... Three! Two! One!”

“Fight!” the crowd went wild.

* * *

There were too many classes in Dis. So the former Dementors didn’t get too specific: rags were mages, priests and anything like them in cloth armor; melee meant close-combat fighters; and ranges correspondingly were ranged fighters. There was also “support,” which referred to any auxiliary profession, which could mean bards, engineers, fairies, flag carriers, and heals. Basically, anyone who strengthened allies more than they did damage.

In the first battle, we got wrecked. We had zero chance. Before we entered the Arena, Ed and Tissa decided on tactics: stun the paladin, quickly take out the rags, i.e. two mages, then get the heal. And last we’d get the ranges: a pathfinder and a hunter.

As planned, right after we heard “Fight!” we got the pally tied down and dashed off to focus on the nearest mage. As we ran, he created four illusions, the pathfinder threw traps around him, the hunter took the high ground and sent a bear against Tissa. Basically, they took us out one after the next. As the audience jeered and Dariusz made ironic commentary, they worked with professionalism and blistering speed. I honestly lost track of what was going on and died last, but only because of my movement speed, Stoneskin and beastly Resilience. And while they came after me, I sent their illusionist to respawn.

After that, we waited a long time for the next battle. Emerald Dream looked weaker than Corps of Darkness and we were hoping to rehabilitate our image.

But it was all in vain. We ended up looking stupid and blowing that battle, too. We floundered a bit longer though, even took out a daring rogue and water shaman. We knocked the first out of invis and hit him with a stun in rapid succession, pinning him down. The second, as was becoming tradition, I finished off all alone.

In the end, we screwed the pooch. They didn’t even have a heal, but they did take Tissa down first. Then Crawler got caught in crossfire, I sent them running with a Ghastly Howl, but they immediately dispelled the Fear somehow and took out our fire mage. Infect took a chomp out of their sorcerer and, a second later, himself ran off in Fear. And by the way, they had a warlock that used a pet, a Nether Demon which impressed even Ed. His class had a crazy penalty to reputation gain with Commonwealth factions, so the lock must have been planning to join the Dark races right after the sandbox. They took me out after the Sudden Death curse kicked in.

Anyway, we lost again and were on the verge of getting kicked out. Only two teams would be moving on from our group and, even if we won all the rest of the matches, there was no guarantee we’d end up higher than third.

We could at least be happy about one thing, though. Axiom wasn’t doing any better. In their first battle, they were devastated by the junior Modus team and, in the second, it was their own stupidity that blew it for them. They killed two without losing anyone, but instead of regrouping, healing up and calmly taking out the remaining enemies, they rushed to take them all out. But instead, they tripped over a magic mine and got frozen for ten seconds. That was enough for their opponents to turn things around.

Our teamwork just wasn’t measuring up, and we had nothing to compensate it with. Our equipment wasn’t better than any of the other contestants’, and a few teams made ours look downright silly. No one was lower level than us, our twenty-two was the lower limit. Lower level teams didn’t even try, because it cost a thousand gold to register. Unfair? That was in the eye of the beholder, but financial success was considered an indicator of clan level. What was more, all money went to the prize fund, which was already huge due to sponsor money. The organizers earned money by selling broadcast rights IRL and through sponsorships, which companies had to ink many-year deals to get. And that made a lot of sense, because teenagers could be a real goldmine. In my elective marketing class, they said we were the juiciest piece of the pie as far as advertisers were concerned. They said we would be loyal to whatever brands we liked now until the end of our lives.

I couldn’t use any of my uber-plusses: no plague energy, no Swamp Needlers, and certainly no curse of the undead. My high Resilience and movement speed bonus were enough for me to outlive my teammates in both battles, but this wasn’t a solo Arena. It was nothing to be proud of.

The only unusual ability I did use was Ghastly Howl, but it never decided the outcome. All our opponents had found a way to get rid of it.

* * *

Right after that shameful defeat, we were sent back to our home sandbox. We were so down in the dumps that we just sat in a rented room in the Bubbling Flagon. Our next two battles were a week away but, if we couldn’t figure something out, we’d lose them as well. Either we didn’t have the skill or PvP experience, or we weren’t working together well enough. Maybe it was all that put together.

“Alright, let’s keep a good attitude,” I broke the heavy silence. “I have one backup option. I don’t know yet if we’ll be able to pull it off. There’s too many ‘ifs’ but, maybe, we’ll be able to think something up together.”

They all shuddered, and Bomber slapped me on the shoulder in excitement as usual but stopped, not yet understanding if there was anything to be really happy about. I had spoiled them with unexpected pleasant surprises.

“Speak,” Crawler demanded.

“So, here’s the deal... Yesterday, when you all went to sleep, I decided to test out an old idea. It came to me the day when we were talking through the old incident with Chris and Rita Wood, remember? It was right before we went out for our first farm. Back then, I just decided to forget about it, figuring it would take too long to test...”

I told them how, after the talk with Behemoth, I thought about the temple again. Left alone, I emptied my inventory, stocked up on potions and headed west on foot. I made it through the river lands of the murlocks and naga territory, then I made for the Bottomless Ocean. I was running so fast the aggro’d mobs trailing me all gave up before leaving their zone.

The quest marker on the map showed where I was supposed to find the ruins of the ancient shrine, the place of power closest to the Sleeping Gods. I estimated the distance at thirty miles. I would never have been able to run that far if not for the game conventions. My breathing was honed by endurance, and I had a seventy-percent bonus to movement speed. That was why I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to reach, just a light jog.

Drinking a Waterwalking Potion, I ran toward the marker. I hadn’t discovered that part of the map yet, so I couldn’t see exactly, but I was sure I’d find an island.

After just half a mile, I hit the Exhaustion debuff. My health started to drop and, although the first tick removed just one percent of my life, the damage kept growing. A fearsome notification promised that, if I didn’t go back to the sandbox, I would surely die. Of course, I kept going. All I did was slam on curse of the undead.

Just before I finished my run, dawn started breaking. Actually, the last part I had to swim because I ran out of potions, bringing my Swimming up to sixty-six.

The guys were listening to me very carefully.

“In the end I discovered the island. The system offered to let me give it a new name, or restore the forgotten name of its former inhabitants, Kharinza. I wasn’t feeling clever, so I just stuck with the old one.”

“You should have called it Scyth’s Island,” Infect smiled. “Or Isle of the Awoken! You’re so clueless!”

“Keep listening, smart guy. For showing respect to the original inhabitants, I got three hundred reputation points with a faction called the Departed. Hell knows who they are but it’s still cool, right?”

“I looked into the game encyclopedia. Not one mention of the Departed,” Crawler immediately called back.

“Nothing that even sounds like it,” Tissa shook her head.

“Alright, keep listening. I walked and walked until I got to the marker on the map. There were some ruins with weird symbols, everything was super overgrown and hell if I knew what to do with it. I walked around it a couple times, but just couldn’t figure anything out. By that time, my brain had basically just given up. Anyway, I didn’t leave my character there. I went back to town and exited Dis. After that, I slept until lunch. I just about missed the Arena.”

My clanmates spent some time digesting what they’d heard. On the one hand, I’d blazed a trail to the island, so we had a hope of building the temple. After all, we had teleport. But on the other... We didn’t have enough time and we didn’t really have a clear idea what we stood to gain. So before they made up their minds, they wanted more information:

“What level are the mobs there?” Tissa asked matter-of-factly.

“How big is the island?” Crawler asked at the same time.

“Dang!” Infect exclaimed. “There might even be a new dungeon there!”

But Bomber kept quiet. He was sitting with his head low, thinking. He waited for everyone to finish, then boomed out in his deep bass:

“We’ll also be able to farm there if, of course, there is anything worth farming. I mean...”

“Not likely,” I said, not waiting for Bomber to finish. “Exhaustion stayed on me the whole time I was on the island. Of course, we could risk it and port out there together...”

“Why not,” the guys all agreed easily.

In less than three minutes, we were back to Tristad. As soon as we left the sandbox, their life started trickling away. We walked in silence to the tavern and soon were sitting back where we were before we jumped to the island of Kharinza. We even took the same seats.

“Can I continue?” Hung asked coolly. Waiting for our nods, he spoke: “Good. So then, all of you except Scyth of course are thinking about this the wrong way. He’s actually being pretty smart. Do you remember what Behemoth said? There’s strength in unity. Once we finish the temple, we can become followers of the Sleeping Gods.”

“Yeah and where are we gonna get enough people for that to do us any good?” Crawler asked.

“Didn’t Scyth get twelve followers without us? If we had room, we could find takers, isn’t that right? Just grab some bots...”

“Bots?” Tissa asked, drawing out the word doubtfully. “Are you serious? Tristad is a city of Nergal, they’re all accounted for. The hunters have their gods, and...”

“We don’t need bots,” I interrupted. “A few weeks ago, I was talking with some noncitizen friends in the Olton Quarries. One of them dug up a copper ring for plus two strength. And you can’t even imagine how jealous everyone was! Even peanuts like that means raising their productivity and that means more income. And let me point out that Dis is how they feed their families. After all, they are not only miners. We’re talking cleaners, builders, masons, lumberjacks, carpenters...”

“Sure, let’s say we can find some builders that way. There are plenty of noncitizen builders. It’s a popular profession. But what do you suggest? Fly off to some inwinova ghetto and yell about it on the street?” Tissa asked sarcastically. “Have you heard the good word of the Sleeping Gods? Convert, help us build a temple and get a boost to your attributes!”

Crawler looked at her and smiled. When she was done sneering, he said:

“Tissa, twenty seconds ago, Scyth told us he has miner friends. Their shift is already over, so we can talk tomorrow.”

“Why wait until tomorrow? Let’s fly out today. I know where to find them IRL.”

“Uh... Are you serious? It’s dangerous! Where?” they all exclaimed at once.

“I’m serious. And it’s not very dangerous. We’d be going to Cali Bottom.”

Chapter 29. First Temple

IT TOOK US half an hour to all get together, then two hours to fly to Cali Bottom. We landed on the roof of Trixie and Manny’s building and went inside. It took us a long time to find the cubby where the Furtados lived, meandering the corridors aimlessly until we admitted defeat and gave a pack of gum to some kid to show us the way.

Old man Furtado invited us to sit and drink tea. Well, he did his best at any rate. There were just two seats. One for me and one for him. While my classmates pressed up against the wall in fear, not participating in the conversation, I told Trixie’s grandfather my offer. He called the Almeida brothers: Manny and Hank (who, by the way, didn’t show).

“My brother’s in that pod all day anymore,” Manny said to explain Hank’s absence. “The corporation offered him better money, but he has to spend a long time in Dis to get it.”

Once he grasped the concept of unity and the Sleeping Gods, Manny got excited and called some friends and coworkers. A quarter hour later, old man Furtado’s little cubby was packed to the gills, so we decided it was better to all go out on the roof. It was us, Manny, his brother Hank, Trixie and his grandpa plus another five people, who all worked in our sandbox. If we would have opened it up beyond that, the whole neighborhood would have showed up.

Thankfully, it was nice out, so we took over the playground, the men chasing all the kids off. We were left alone.

“You all know Alex!” Manuel started profoundly. “The late Clayton had a good opinion of him. He helped me and was always respectful to every one of us. In Dis he is Scyth, you have probably seen him before in the Bubbling Flagon. He has earned our trust and... our help. What’s more, it’s mutually beneficial! Who knows, this could just be your lucky break. Haven’t we all dreamed of moving on to a better life? Anyway, everything in its due time. Alex also brought his friends...”

My classmates introduced themselves and Almeida continued:

“Everything you hear today has to stay between us. Not a word, even to your relatives! If this gets out anywhere, even if you hint at it, it will all come crashing down! Do you all understand?”

They reacted positively. Then Manny asked me to repeat what I’d told him.

“Uh...” I started unconfidently. “Hello, everyone! Here’s the situation. New gods have emerged in Dis, the Sleeping Gods. And now they gave us a quest to rebuild their temple. But the location is outside the sandbox and we cannot get there because our characters are tethered to the Tristad sandbox until we come of age. Plus none of us are builders or masons...”

“No crap,” a broad-shouldered man in a flat cap chuckled. “Why should you be? You’ve got us...”

They shushed him, but I raised a hand reassuringly and turned to him:

“Sorry, what’s your name?”

“Gyula,” the man grumbled.

“Gyula, how old are you?”

“Forty-eight.”

“Well I’m fifteen. The citizenship system was thought up by your generation, not mine. If you’re looking to someone to blame, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

Going crimson, Gyula spat, hissed out a phrase and walked away but Manny stopped him:

“Hear him out, Gyu! I swear to god you won’t regret it!” Leaning over to me, he said quietly: “He’s a leveled mason! The only one we got!”

Manny got Gyula back and started whispering with him. Tissa’s sonorous voice broke the awkward silence:

“Anyway, we haven’t even done our citizenship tests yet! And you’re blaming us? You do know we want to help you, right? Everything is about to change for you!”

Trixie, staring at her the whole time, suddenly hopped up in the center of the group and shouted:

“Tissa’s a good kid! Alex’s a good kid! Hung’s a good kid! Edward’s a good kid! Malik’s a good kid! They’re all good! They want to help!”

And he just kept repeating that. It felt like he was stuck in a loop. Everyone on the roof was now focused on us. Manny told the little guy to settle down and asked the others to quiet down. When it was silent again, I got to the point...

About an hour later, we’d ironed out all the details. We found three reliable masons and one of them, Gyula in fact, already had a blueprint for a temple. We decided both he and Manny would be made priests of the Sleeping Gods. That way they could convert more noncitizens themselves. There wasn’t much left after that. We’d have to find construction resources on the island and provide security somehow. The miners’ characters were limited to level one. Even a little sparrow could peck them to death, if it turned aggressive.

Not wanting to lose time now that it was after midnight, Manny, Gyula and I met in the Bubbling Flagon, walked over to a quiet spot and from there travelled to Kharinza. There was no point taking the former Dementors with me. They wouldn’t be able to hold out even two minutes, then they’d just die pointlessly.

* * *

On our first day, or more accurately night, in the depths of the island we managed to find some rocky hillocks. There we discovered stones and some rare minerals. Manny sniffed professionally with his hooked nose, worked his pick and rendered a verdict:

“The concentration of ore is unbelievable! Weird that none of the mining companies have made it here yet! There’s copper, iron, and tin, but that’s not so crazy! There’s gold! And I can see traces of mithril, but I cannot mine it. My trade is too low level, obviously. At copper mines, you end up plateauing after a while. There might even be adamantite here. As for gems, I bet it’s also rich... Ah, once we get the guys out here...”

A furious roar broke his excited train of thought. Then we heard stomping. It was measured, booming. With every step, the earth shook harder until, breaking through a tall tree, we saw it. Or so we thought, but it turned out to be just one of its legs. When we quickly turned our heads up, we saw the whole thing.

Emerging from the forest, it stopped and gave a bone-chilling roar. Bluish black and a-hundred-feet tall, it had colossal columns for legs and a powerful set of elongated jaws. In the bright light of Geala the moon, it was especially easy to see its monstrous fangs.

Montosaurus, level ???

Ancient Reptile

Global Boss

This boss was so powerful I couldn’t even tell what level it was! It was hundreds of steps away, but the roar effect hit us nevertheless, leaving us stunned for several seconds. We couldn’t go back to the city yet, because Depths Teleportation hadn’t cooled down. And it wasn’t going to any time soon. After all we had just gotten here.

As soon as we unfroze, I shot out a plan of action at tongue-twister speed:

“Gyu, Manny, I’ll distract him and pull him away. You two run to the temple! Then, exit Dis. I’ll see you tomorrow. After school, I’ll fly to your place. We can discuss what to do next.”

Dashing at the Montosaurus, I attracted its attention and ran away from the workmen. As I ran, I pulled the boss with a Slowing Shot, adding my entire plague pool, a full one hundred thousand points. The shot bounced impotently off the terrible monster’s armored chest. The slowing effect and damage from the arrow itself, naturally, did absolutely nothing.

You have critically damaged Montosaurus: 100,000!

Health points: 59,900,000/60,000,000.

I had met my match! Sixty million health! I briefly considered how long it would take me to hack away at all that health, then sighed in disappointment: this boss had rampant regeneration as well. All one hundred thousand missing health was replenished in the space of about three heartbeats.

I started recording to save a clip of the huge creature as it gave another Freezing Roar then walked unhurriedly in my direction while I was paralyzed with Horror.

After I unfroze, I ran away on trembling ground that slipped away beneath my feet. But I didn’t make it far. The Montosaurus easily caught me and, grabbing me in its hand, brought me up into its gargantuan mouth. Terrified, I screamed but quickly choked on its stinking breath. “What is he eating here?” came a flickering thought. “He must have eaten everything alive a long time ago!”

The Montosaurus’s mouth slammed shut. The pain was grueling. I’d never felt anything like it before! It’s nightmarish jaws slammed shut, ripped, gnashed and tried to turn me into gruel. My body obediently crumpled. My bones broke, turned to dust, but my body never broke apart.

Not able to chew me up, the boss started trying to swallow me whole, tossing me upward to get a better grip. Not waiting, I slammed a Hammer into one of its titanic fangs. The inertia sent me flying. Slamming to the ground, I didn’t wait for him to crush me and jumped into a dark hole in the nearby cliffside. I stuck myself deep inside like a cockroach and froze, sensing the lizard’s powerful claws scraping away behind me.

Meanwhile, Manny wrote a PM saying he and Gyu had reached the sanctuary. They asked if I was doing alright and if they could leave Dis. I said they could and, a bit later, when the Montosaurus had given up and stopped gnawing at outcropping of basalt I was jammed inside, combat mode expired and I calmly left the game.

In the morning, the guys said the island of Kharinza was missing from all known maps because it was in an unexplored area of Disgardium. We unanimously decided that was to our advantage.

That same day, we realized there was nothing alive in a thousand-foot radius around the sanctuary ruins. Well, there was plant life, but absolutely no mammals, birds, insects or any kind of vermin. Clearly, some aura or breath of the Sleeping Gods was scaring away everything alive.

That was the best news of the day. We could build the temple without having to fear the dinosaur. Gyula was put in charge of construction.

“I can tell about what it used to be like,” he said. “The ruins are ancient, but there’s a clear system to the way they’re arranged and I can follow it. We can put the temple on the old foundations.”

“Can we do it in a week?”

“Maybe faster,” Gyula answered, scratching the back of his head. “The small temple design is new to me, I got it randomly from my trainer. I didn’t think I’d ever need it. We’ll need more workers. And four thousand six hundred twenty stone blocks. As for wood...”

We had to get kinky with resource extraction. For the most part, what we needed to build the small temple was stone, wood and sand, which we could make, but it was a lot cheaper and faster to find it in nature. And we found some by a river outside the protection of the sanctuary.

The prospect of finding new workers, reliable ones even in Manny’s words, made me think of secrecy. As it turned out Dissimulation also leveled beautifully. The longer I used it, the more stuff I could hide and, soon enough, about by the end of the day three, people around me would see me as nothing but a dark smoky silhouette with no information.

The skill also masked my decaying flesh when I had the curse, which was a boon because, on the island, I had to use curse of the undead constantly to stay alive.

The Exhaustion debuff reminded me of the way I leveled Resilience once upon a time. That gave me an idea for the guys, which I told them, and it worked. Teleport claps kept coming near the sanctuary with envious regularity all throughout the construction process. They would jump in after cooldown, stay alive as long as they could with a mass heal from Tissa, then go back a second before they died. They didn’t hit the cap or even come close, but they did bring the skill up twenty or so levels, which sharply improved our chance of survival.

After Manny Almeida ran his next ad campaign, the Awoken ported another twenty people to the island: miners, lumberjacks, masons and builders, all residents of Cali Bottom. Each of them, including Trixie, decided to take a leap of faith after hearing Manny’s stories of an unclaimed rich mine: they quit the company and decided to come help me. I didn’t know exactly what kind of scheme they’d cooked up, but the basic idea was sound. If we could mine ore and cast it into bars ourselves, then sell it through Overweight, the noncitizens stood to make much more money! And that was including the clan’s cut.

My job was to guard the resource collection brigades. The Montosaurus patrolled the island constantly, passing by the mine several times a day, but it had no fixed route. It seemed impossible to predict its visits.

I would pull the aggro, run to my hiding hole and the workers would wait under protection of the sanctuary until the boss got back to his own business.

The overdose of Dis was making me come undone. I only left the game to eat and do a few exercises like squats and push-ups, handle the various calls of nature and bathe. There wasn’t time for anything else. We were in a hurry.

A few days after Gyula and Manny started working, they called me for a chat.

“Alex, we’ve been thinking we should settle down here,” said Manny. “Gyu has an idea.”

“What is it?”

“When are you guys going to get out of the sandbox?” Gyula asked.

“In three months. Some earlier, some...”

“Got it. Look boy, this place is full of unclaimed resources. I can build you a level-one clan fort. Nothing special, but it’ll give me and the guys a place to stay and keep building: residential structures, a tavern, clan storage. And that’s just a start. That will raise our trade, then we can upgrade the fort to level two. There’s plenty of ways we can go from there, believe you me, right up to a clan castle. Stationary teleportation, stores, an auction outpost, workshops...”

“I like it. What do we need for that?”

“There’s enough here to build a fort. But the upgrades and new buildings will require massive investment,” Manny answered for his buddy. “We can gather some of the resources here, and that will bring up us miners’ trade level, then we’ll be able to mine new kinds of ore. We can sell off what we don’t need, but it’s better for you and your people to handle that. We suffer big penalties to trade. And...” He stumbled. “Another thing. We cannot form a clan. Our level is too low. But if you accept us into yours, that could settle a bunch of issues...”

“The basic idea is that you’re hiring us for a job...” Gyula said, still laconic and tongue-tied. He was very worried. “Can you pay us? We need to feed our families.”

“Here,” I took out three thousand gold and handed it to Manny. “This is for the temple, fort and the time you’ll be without work. Will this be enough for three months?”

Shocked silence followed, then Manny quietly exclaimed:

“Holy mother of God! This is more than enough money!”

“This is only the beginning, guys. Just wait until we leave the sandbox... Then we can really start making money! And don’t forget about the bonuses from the Sleeping Gods..!”

Gyula didn’t say anything but, based on the way his eyes were shimmering, I could tell he was touched. And he told me as much when he embraced me and squeezed me hard. What was it like to hug a smoky formless spirit?

As for the temple and fort, everything was settled. But the rest... I promised to think it over, but not before I graduated into big Dis. Accepting them into the clan would mean acknowledging that I was a threat. Who could say if they had the gumption not to betray me for a potential one million phoenixes? I may have been a mere teen, but I did understand that kind of thing. I’d heard a few inwinova had even sold their own children: for organs, into prostitution, to independent Mars colonization groups... No, I didn’t want to risk that now. I was shining too bright as it was.

When I told the guys about the clan fort, they erupted into ferocious delight. Even a level one building usually cost a ton of money. We were very lucky we didn’t have to pay for resources. You do the math – the stone blocks alone were worth almost nine thousand gold, and that was without delivery fees...

Restoring the sanctuary took four days. By the end of the last day of construction, Gyu sent me a PM: “Done. It’s all yours.”

* * *

The ceremony to dedicate the temple was supposed to happen without any outsiders around. Only followers could be present, as a short guide in the altar description told me.

The Awoken brought the builders back to Tristad over a few trips. I was left alone.

I sunk my hand into a special slot, activating the altar.

Level-1 Undedicated Temple

Dedicating this temple requires a follower of status no lower than priest.

Identified: apostle.

Requirement met.

Scyth, would you like to dedicate this temple to the Sleeping Gods?

I confirmed. After that, a new window popped up above the altar:

First Temple of the Sleeping Gods

Level: 1.

Apostle (1/ 1): Scyth.

Priests (1/ 3): Patrick O’Grady.

Followers: 13/169.

Faith points to next temple level: 574/28561.

When I placed my palm upon the altar, a control panel popped up showing the sources of faith points. I contributed about a hundred, Patrick a bit less, and the rest had been prayed into existence by the kobold outlaws under Chief Grog’xyr. A magical diagram also showed the rate at which faith points were being generated by followers, how much was going to support the avatar of Behemoth, and how much to reinforce the other Sleeping Gods, the estimated time before the temple level would increase.... I dismissed the magical diagram and suddenly lost balance.

It felt like I was hovering in outer space, my mind melded with the temple and all the Sleeping Gods for a few short moments. And I felt the whole spectrum of emotion: pain, wrath, anger, panic, calm, and pure totally unclouded joy. Rapture. Admiration!

“Brave...” Tiamat admitted.

“Patient...” Kingu added.

“Intelligent,” Leviathan whispered.

“Weak,” Abzu doubted.

“But willing to become stronger!” said Behemoth, brushing it aside. “He is worthy!”

I looked around and discovered the temple had transformed. The crude stone blocks of the walls now had a dark gray matte covering that gave off a greenish shimmer. And in the center of the room, there was a gaping circular hole covered by an impenetrable viscous substance, which spun like an eddy of thick liquid, drawing the gaze. Looking away from it with difficulty, I turned back to the altar. It was now the same as the walls, and it was adorned with a bas-relief of the tusked, grinning face of a hippo.

The hippo winked. I was dumbstruck, and in a heartbeat I was face to face with the god.

Behemoth the Sleeping God’s mission complete.

You have successfully completed a new temple for him on the island of Kharinza in the Bottomless Ocean on the foundation of an ancient sanctuary at the place of power closest to the Sleeping Gods.

Thanks to you, the Sleeping Gods have grown more powerful!

Reward:

— skill Liberation;

— skill Lethargy.

Experience points received: 5000.

Experience points at present level (22): 27000/27300.

Your reputation with Behemoth the Sleeping God has been increased by 1000.

Current reputation: trust.

Your reputation with Tiamat the Sleeping God has been increased by 100.

Current reputation: affection.

Your reputation with Kingu the Sleeping God has been increased by 100.

Current reputation: affection.

Your reputation with Abzu the Sleeping God has been increased by 100.

Current reputation: affection.

Your reputation with Leviathan the Sleeping God increased by 100.

Current reputation: affection.

I dismissed the notifications to read about the new class skills.

Liberation

Passive class skill.

Current level: 1.

Removes any crowd control effect and gives a 1% chance of reflecting it.

Cooldown time: 5 minutes.

Lethargy

Active class skill.

Current level: 1.

Causes target to fall into a lethargic sleep. Effect cannot be removed.

This ability works on all enemies however, the higher their level, the higher their chance of ignoring it.

Duration: 1 hour.

Active radius: 30 feet.

Cooldown time: 24 hours.

Well I’ll be! Coming from some nearby ferns, I distinctly heard a neoclassical composition called River Flows in You by the great Yiruma[7].

“You have done it,” Behemoth droned gratefully. “My power has grown by many times, but the other aspects of creation are still tormented by nightmares and are too weak. The only thing keeping Tiamat, Kingu, Abzu and Leviathan from being forgotten is your faith.”

“What is required of me? Another temple? Four more temples?”

“Not now, apostle. First you need to end your affair with your other patron god. As long as its mark corrupts your body, we cannot hide anything from it. With this temple, we had no choice. But in the future, we must remain out of view of the vengeful and avaricious spirit, which leeches off intelligent creatures.”

“Could you maybe explain to me what this spirit is?”

“Maybe. But not today...”

He gave a sharp booming sniff and... Grabbing me by the arms, Behemoth sharply pulled me in and looked me straight in the eyes. He pressed on my neck. I felt like I was drowning in the nether.

The god’s tentacles extended and shivered, acid vapor emanated from his pores, his powerful shoulders bristled with curved bony blades and I barely managed to dodge. The transverse spine and many wrinkles on his head expanded and made him look much more nightmarish. He hissed and, staring at me, said:

“You who call yourself the Destroying Plague! It is I, Behemoth, one of the five Sleeping Gods whose nightmares you leech off! I’m coming for you, worm!”

Then he threw me away and returned to his previous form.

“Are you alright, Sleeping one? What an unmotivated outburst of aggression! And something must be wrong with your sweat regulation. You sweat acid vapor; did you know that?” The shock and fear whirled me away. “Anyhow, sorry for speaking out of turn, Behemoth but something must be done about your avatar! You’ll scare away all your followers looking like that!”

The tiny craters on his body released pillars of steam. He was happy.

Laughing, Behemoth changed shape instantly. Before me now was a ten-foot-tall broad-shouldered man in black plate-mail armor. He looked human in every way, but... I raised my eyes. He had the head of a hippo.

“Is this better, apostle?” He laughed again, grinning his big hefty mouth.

“Much better, Sleeping one. And brush those teeth. Your... mouth smells really bad.”

Chapter 30. Final

MANNY THE PRIEST had converted one hundred fifty-two noncitizens to followers of the Sleeping Gods and that gave all of us the same number of attribute points, plus another four from my clan. The first converts Manuel Almeida made were the people who’d come to work for us.

The second priest slot was taken by Tissa, who stopped following Nergal. At that stage in the development of our faith, there was only one advantage to being a priest: Unity gave them just as many bonuses as the apostle, in other words me.

For the record, it was decided by rock paper scissors. And IRL, in school, the day after we put up the temple.

Malik was envious of Tissa’s luck, which clearly extended beyond Dis, but that was the extent of it. The bonuses were about the same.

We spent the next few days leveling to twenty-five, not afraid to stick out in the second round of qualifying matches. Average level in this year’s Arena was a bit higher than before, so we had nothing to worry about. We also got new attacks and improved the ones we had. Beyond that, we got another three epics, bought up trinkets for the guys to dispel crowd control and started to feel much more confident.

Victory in the third qualifier came easily to us. Asta Rasta’s team had defeated Emerald Dream in the first round, so they figured they could take us out with one left hook. Yeah right. With my new class skills and the bonuses from Unity, I felt like a kindergarten bully. Lethargy, after brief consideration, we decided I could use. We weren’t the only ones with rare talents. So at the very beginning of battle, I put the leader of Asta-Rasta to sleep, then helped the guys hack away at their top damager. Two down. Tissa was sitting back at heal but helping with damage when Crawler was on cooldown. We won without even losing a player.

The same thing almost happened to Corps of Darkness. They underestimated their rival and just about lost to an underdog, the Kalia Wolves. By the time Sudden Death triggered, each side had only one fighter, but the sorcerer had that Nether Demon. And it decided the outcome for the favorites.

Before the last battle in our group, every team still had a chance. Corps of Darkness was in the lead with three victories. The Kalia Wolves had two. Behind them were Emerald Dream, Asta Rasta and us, each with one point.

Axiom had also won their first match in their group, but they stood no chance. The two leaders there had three points each and they were up against each other in the last round.

We needed to beat the Wolves to get into the next round, but then it would still depend on the battle between Corps of Darkness, who was getting through regardless, and Emerald Dream. If they won, we would be going home no matter what.

The battle with the Kalia Wolves was heated. Lethargy hadn’t rolled back yet, so we were having a hard time. Our enemies, though they were lower in level than us, proved themselves practiced tacticians and a strong team. They tried to zerg Tissa, but were sent running by a Ghastly Howl. Licking their wounds, they were careful from then on and drew it out to Sudden Death. And then we realized that, without a healer in the Arena, you might as well give up even with five badass damagers.

Emerald Dream lost their battle, putting us on equal footing with the Wolves, but we got to proceed because we had defeated them in our matchup. The Awoken, along with five hundred and eleven other teams, had entered the playoffs!

Right after that, the Arbitrator sent me a personal notification saying I had won the bet with Big Po. A moment later, my mailbox flickered with a message containing the Whistle of Summoning and legendary Arena Master’s Horn.

In the evening, we celebrated the victory, both at the Arena and over Axiom in the Bubbling Flagon. Polynucleotide pretended not to notice me, and disappeared from the tavern, but I still caught a glimpse of his sour air.

Out of sheer joy, we decided to take a risk and bet one thousand gold through Overweight that we would take first place in the whole Arena. Rita added another hundred of her own money, too. We had enough sense not to bet more, but we couldn’t resist the chance, even if it was paper thin, to add half a million gold to our clan coffers. The bookies had given our team the absolute lowest odds of taking first: 500 to 1. For comparison T-Modus was given 3 to 1.

We made it through the first elimination round easily, even though we were up against the best team from group NA-48, the Singing Gorillas. With every battle, we were getting a better sense for one another and, even without signal amulets, our teamwork was now formidable.

The enemies got harder with every round but, by the same token, working together was getting easier. Though our defeat of the Singing Gorillas didn’t improve our odds by much, by the quarter final, we were sitting at 25 to 1.

Our workmen friends Manny, Trixie and Gyula believed in us so fervently that they were going to bet, but they weren’t allowed. Well not exactly, more like they were persuaded against it. I asked how much they wanted to bet. As it turned out, one gold each. We agreed that if we won, they would get twenty-five gold. This way, they didn’t stand to lose anything if we lost.

After the Gorillas, we won seven battles in a row. The hardest of all was the semifinal. School was already back in full swing and, on day one of the new quarter, Greg notified me that any slip-ups or bad test results would result in a prolonged ban from Disgardium. My parents took it a step further: mom gave me a lecture about the importance of graduating, and father gave it his stamp of approval, saying he would come at nine PM and slam on emergency exit, then unplug my pod and activate Parental Control.

But even that faded in comparison with the realization that we had made it all the way to the final. Our popularity had reached global level and the only thing keeping journalists from tearing us to shreds was a law that shielded underage citizens from invasions of privacy. But in Dis we were stars. Even Tashot the famous tightwad said we could drink at his tavern for free for life.

* * *

On the Sunday of the final, the Awoken versus T-Modus, we were standing in the middle of a boiling-hot Arena in the beams of magic spotlights and smiling. I didn’t know about the others, but I was having a very hard time. Dragons of Infinity were playing behind us. The most popular rock group in both worlds, Snowstorm had hired them to warm up the crowd before our final battle.

Just one win stood between us and the title of 2075 Junior Arena Champions. Somewhere up in the stands were our supporters: the residents of Tristad and Patrick O’Grady, who sent a letter to tell me he was coming. That included the whole city council, headed by Peter Whiteacre, except for Big Po. Also with them were Chef Arno, Tashot, Master Bu aka Sagda, City Jail Warden Edwin Cooper, Carlson the scribe, Hunter Conrad, the chief councilman’s secret lover Mrs. Grossman from Piping Hot, Alfred Stafford, and Mills and Gale the guardsmen. Every time we won, our reputation with Tristad and its key NPC’s went up, so by then it had hit respect.

I felt Tissa grab me by the hand and squeeze hard. I turned my head and saw that she was on the verge of tears.

“This... this is amazing!” she whispered. “Alex, this is all because of you! A month ago, me and the guys didn’t know what we were gonna do. Our level was way down, all our gear had been stolen. Any hope for things to get better had been beaten out of us. But now... we’re standing here with the whole world watching.”

We hugged, then we were joined by Ed, Malik and Hung. And we just stood that way, pressed up against one another. The music went quiet. The audience applauded the Dragons, went quiet and the arena was filled by the sprightly and excited voice of Dariusz Kowalski:

“Will you look at that! This is the most touching scene I’ve ever witnessed! The Awoken must be in disbelief at how far they’ve come!”

“You know Dariusz, I don’t think we can quite believe our eyes either!” came the deep voice of Ramon Macià, a star of sports journalism. “This is a Cinderella story, only...”

“We’ve got five of them,” Dariusz made a stupid joke. “So then! Honorable Commonwealth residents! Ladies and Gentlemen! Citizens and noncitizens! Let us turn your attention to the main event of the evening! The Junior Arena Finals!”

“Meeting in battle tonight, we have,” came Vas, “unquestioned favorites, the junior team of Modus, the adult Arena champions – T-Modus from Broken Hills. And the dark horse of the tournament, unknown just a few short weeks ago, we have the Awoken from Tristad!”

“Wake up, Awoken!” Dariusz joked again. “Teams, go shake hands!”

We exchanged handshakes. Our opponents were completely stone-faced. They really must have been sure of themselves. There was Philex the rogue, Kart the warrior, Olaf the sorcerer, Kanu the druid and Yen the archer. They were all level twenty-six. This team of all boys and one girl, the last, were known by every teenager on earth. T-Modus were perennial favorites in the junior Arena and, long before the beginning of the tournament, everyone was clamoring to find out who made the team. Meanwhile, we had also hit twenty-six, so we were on even footing there. But they had something we didn’t.

Standing behind the captain of T-Modus was a bona fide dragon, Philex’s battle pet. Level twenty-five, it could breathe fire and had a massive body that could easily crush any of us. And next to it were the rest of the team’s pets: a bear, a tiger, a boar and a crocodile. They were a few levels lower, but not much. And that was why the odds were still against us.

“Good luck” Philex wished drily.

“You too,” I replied.

We took positions on our half of the field, standing in specially marked circles on the ground and froze, waiting for the signal to start the fight. Infect, worrying once again checked his outfit. Crawler was looking straight ahead, but his clenched fists revealed his anxiety. Tissa was biting her lower lip. Bomber raised his visor and stroked his forehead.

“Generating battle zone...” a female voice announced. “Location created.”

In the space of a second, the Arena transformed. A hill grew behind us, trees quickly sprouted and shot up. On T-Modus’s half, a small fortress was erected, and river cut diagonally through the middle of the zone.

“Number six,” Crawler said.

“Agreed,” Tissa answered, looking around.

The others had no objections. Number six meant we would feign a retreat and take out lone targets opportunistically. If none came, we moved on to number seven. That meant moving out for a head-to-head skirmish, giving a Ghastly Howl to put their trinkets on cooldown, then using Lethargy on the heal or top damager.

Huge numbers appeared right in the air and started counting down.

“Three!” the stands erupted along with the commentators. “Two! One! Fight!”

We ran back to the little hill and glade. There was only one approach, so there would be no getting around us. We went into the glade and hid. Infect peeked out and reported:

“Their archer has taken position in the fortress. He can’t hit us. The boar is running in our direction. The bear is behind, and the dragon behind him. The crocodile is bringing up the rear. The tiger is with the hunt. The rogue is coming in from the right in invis. The others are on the left, with the dru in tree form close behind. They stopped. They aren’t coming any closer. Boar incoming!”

A second later, we summoned our pets, evening the playing field. The audience gasped, and Dariusz was overcome with hysterical glee.

Branches crunched under the hooves of the boar and the powerful animal’s body burst out of the bushes. We heard a whistle. Casting a gaze at us, the boar gave an oink and turned around to go back to its master. But he didn’t make it.

I slowed him down, Bomber hit him with Ruination and that was all it took. Boar down. We tethered our needlers to Infect and he went to tackle Philex. At level thirty, Whatchamacallit had unlocked a talent that allowed him to see invisible characters.

Then we left the glade, bringing our nearest enemy, the bear into range. We took it down from afar. Did I mention we brought our combat skills up bigtime? At any rate, I never wrote how much. My Enhanced Quickshot was not only upgraded, it also hit seventy-five, putting it just under Hammer in terms of damage!

“I’ll help Infect,” Tissa said, seeing the druid running toward where our thief and their rogue were fighting.

Infect’s frame showed that he was fighting but in better shape than Philex. It was hard to stand up against a simultaneous attack from five needlers, firing from all cannons!

We retreated back into the glade after Infect, Iggy, Alien, Thorn, Whatchamacallit and Little Trunk took out Philex. Rogue down, and the dragon went with him.

After regrouping, we went on the attack. Iggy blasted out a Deadly Chirp, rendering our enemies briefly motionless, then all our pets focused on the warrior, our heaviest remaining opponent.

I walked toward the druid and, while he tried frantically to heal the warrior, put him into a lethargic sleep. For Kanu, the battle was over. Druid down.

Now victory was assured, it was just a question of how. I sent the remaining enemies running in Fear with a Ghastly Howl, successfully dispelled a Paralyzing Shot from the archer with Liberation, which we’d all worked together to level, and helped the rest finish off Kart. Warrior down.

Olaf floundered a bit longer, but not too long. Yen the archer just surrendered.

Achievement unlocked Morituri te salutant! – 1

You have been crowned champion of the junior Arena tournament!

Reward:

— rank of Junior Gladiator;

+5% damage in battles against players;

+5% resilience skill in battles against players;

+10 to all main attributes.

“The Awoken have emerged victorious!” Dariusz whooped deafeningly. “A flawless victory!”

* * *

The whole next day in school was like an amazing dream. We were even congratulated by Principal Fultz. He came to see us in the middle of class and gave a heartfelt speech. We were congratulated by teachers, classmates, and fellow students alike. Everyone was proud to say they went to the same school as the champions of the junior Arena. In an interview with some journalists, the principal noted that the Awoken had been together since first grade and undoubtedly owed their success to their teachers and humble servant Mr. Fultz.

Most jealous of all was Aron Kwon. He used to be a friend of mine, but we hadn’t talked ever since his parents gave him a robot lover that looked like Denise Le Bon. And you know why? Because we were given our award by Denise Le Bon herself! Well not in person, just her Dis character, but it was still her! We were all terribly embarrassed, even Tissa faltered, unable to say a word. The only one not embarrassed was Big Bomber. He hugged the world-famous star and kissed her on the cheek. And thus he became the only one of us who had ever felt the loveliness that was Denise Le Bon, even if it was the virtual version. Well, her lovelies, to be more specific and so you don’t get the wrong idea.

Right after the awards’ ceremony we gave a bunch of flash interviews and, happy, made our way to the teleportation zone to be brought back to Tristad. But we were intercepted. A group of impressively equipped players stood in our path and the delighted whispers of my friends told me who they were.

First to speak was a muscular orc by the name of Horvac, leader of one of the top clans, the Weirdos. After exchanging pleasantries, he got to business:

“We would like you to join our clan. With no trial period. We can provide speed levelling, crafted equipment, the best gear from clan storage. Add me as a friend...”

“Me too,” shot out a tall forest elf named Yagami. “I have the exact same offer but a couple times better. We can promise a yearly salary of one hundred thousand pho...”

“Two hundred thousand,” came a minotaur named Ye Xiu, leader of the top Asian clan, interrupting the Japanese elf. “And don’t believe Yagami. He talks sweet, but...”

“Tell those losers to get lost,” came Yary, pushing the rest aside.

That was Yaroslav, one of the three leaders of Modus, champions of the adult Arena and the top preventer clan.

“Can I get an autograph?” Tissa asked, devouring him with her eyes.

After that, such exotic clans as the White Amazons started trying to poach us. Their leader –Ochre Witch – stuck fast to Tissa and got her to agree to an IRL meeting. “Sweetie, we can sit in a nice little coffeeshop, have a coffee...” she said to the priestess of the Sleeping Gods. “We’ll have such a wonderful time!”

Once back in Tristad, we experienced all the finer points of being beloved. We had reached maximum reputation. The city was in a fervor. Everyone was on the streets. They were happy, celebrating, joyful, throwing their hats into the air. They lifted us up and carried us. And with all that going on, somehow we missed the news that someone had attempted to kidnap Tobias “Crag” Asser right from his school.

* * *

A week after winning the Arena, teacher Greg stopped me after class.

“Sheppard,” he said, and I could read a lot in his manner of speaking. He was going to scold me. And that was what happened, although it was in a somewhat weird way. “You of course are a champion and we are obviously all proud of you... And I understand that you have all kinds of reporters, fans and groupies pestering you...”

He was right. I was being bothered constantly. In the last few days, I had been asked out on three dates, and asked to be someone’s boyfriend a full fifteen times. Right away, without any dates first. Reverberations of my fame had touched even Rita Wood. Goosebumps had been bragging that her and I were dating. The sheer number of offers made my head spin and I made the only right choice and started dating Tissa. We flew off to a deserted beach and... Well, I guess we just kissed. We hadn’t yet reached the main act yet, but I was in no rush. I was afraid to look stupid.

“... all for your benefit, Alex!” as it turned out, Greg was still talking. “I’ve already gotten it all worked out. Start pulling yourself together and study!”

“Sorry, Mr. Kovacs, what?”

“As I was saying, the Department of Education has discharged you from the Disgardium socialization program and placed a temporary ban on your character for a period of eight weeks.”

“Eight weeks?” I figured I’d misheard.

“Precisely. Snowstorm has been notified. Study, Alex. You have just four months until the citizenship tests.”

* * *

As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one banned. All us heroes of the Arena had been locked out of the game and, unexpectedly, life became very boring. School, classes, sleep. And beyond that I had the odd date with Tissa outside school. Her father, after the notification from the school, was outraged and added his own ban on her talking with us. He especially didn’t like the journalists and paparazzi; they were such a nuisance. One of them got their nose broken by Mr. Schafer, and he was put on house arrest and made to pay compensation.

Thankfully, we at least managed to get five thousand to Manny and he had managed to withdraw it for us for a small fee. Even still it was hit with a bunch of checks to prove he’d come by the money honestly. Well, without violating the game process at least. Snowstorm even got in touch with me and I confirmed I had bought ore from Manny, which he had mined in a quarry registered to no one. The money from the gambling payout and the victory prize we solemnly invested in our clan bank account. The Bank of Disgardium, although it was run by the League of Goblins, was in fact property of Snowstorm.

For the first week after our victory in the Arena, we were hounded by fans and journalists alike. Clips of our most striking battles sat at the top of popular video sites, packaged with fast facts about us. The leader of the Awoken and captain of the team Alex “Scyth” Sheppard, an archer, Melissa “Tissa” Schafer, a light mage, Hung “Bomber” Lee a warrior, Edward “Crawler” Rodriguez, a fire mage, and Malik “Infect” Abduhalim, a thief. Images of us in full gear adorned video panels in the rooms of many people our age. And our battle pets Iggy, Thorn, Whatchamacallit, Alien and Little Trunk were no less stars. As it turned out, there was nowhere to find pets like them on the market. They dropped only in rare locations, like the Nest of the Swamp Needlers.

We were idolized and, in all the hubbub, we somehow missed that Big Po had left Axiom.

Soon life got back to normal. So many things happened every day in the world that our victory lost its edge.

Crawler aged out of the sandbox and, when he returned to Dis, he would find his character in Darant in the city council visitor shelter. There he would have to undergo the same process as when he first arrived in Tristad: character creation with a scribe, with the opportunity to choose a different class or faction. If he did change class, he would lose all his high-level class skills. And if he went and joined the Dark or Neutral races, he would be teleported to a different area.

One day, I finally met up with Eve. When my Dis fever passed due to the forced break, I realized just how ugly my treatment of my childhood friend looked from an outsider’s perspective. We had a frank conversation and she confessed that she was in love with me.

“Oh, Alex, Alex...” she sighed, catching flesh-eating glances from nearby men. “I still can’t believe you said no! If you just gave a slight hint, I would have...”

Lamenting the stupidity of men, she said firmly that her feelings for me had passed. She dated Crag for some time, finding in him a kindred spirit, but something had happened after clearing the Hive and they had problems. She didn’t tell me the details.

And I didn’t ask her if he was a threat. It wasn’t the kind of question you could ask a friend. In any case, something had happened between them and they broke up. As for what Crag was doing now, she didn’t know, because she hadn’t talked to him since.

“By the way, my dad got a visit from some serious guys. So serious that dad gave them his most expensive whiskey. They had a talk, then wanted to talk to me. They had a lot of questions about Toby...”

Eve told these “serious” guys everything she knew, figuring there was no reason to be secretive. This was only a game and adults wouldn’t be asking without a good reason.

I also hung out with Rita. I told her I was dating someone else, but wanted to keep talking with her and of course be friends. She nodded sadly, admitting that she liked me from the moment we met, when she gave me the gray Large Bear Bone club.

“And you know, Alex...” Rita said. “I could tell by the way you looked at each other when you introduced us in the Bubbling Flagon. There was no mistaking it! But... Aw, forget it.”

What that “but” was, she didn’t say. Anyway, I understood. After that, we called each other almost every day and chatted like friends. She told me what was happening in Tristad and I told her about my life and school, which I was doing well in again. One thing Rita told me was that there was a new high-class threat, but I let it go in one ear and out the other. And I never lined it up with a thing she told me a few days after that.

“By the way, no one has seen Big Po for a long time...” she said. “Weird, right?”

* * *

A few days before I had to leave Tristad into the big world, I was allowed to return to Disgardium. I found myself right where I’d left the game before the ban, at the bar in the tavern.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in!” Tashot exclaimed, wiping down glasses. “Wait up, dear Scyth, I have something to give you!”

His head dipped behind the bar and, when he popped back up, he extended me an envelope.

“This came for you from Darant, from Patrick,” he said.

I mechanically thanked him, stuck the envelope in my pocket and sat down in a chair. My whole view was obstructed by messages.

Nucleus of the Destroying Plague’s quest failed!

You were unable to pass the test and complete its initial mission: conquer Tristad!

You have lost the Mark of the Destroying Plague!

You have lost the rank Herald of the Destroying Plague!

Skill Plague Infection deleted!

Skill Herald of the Destroying Plague deleted!

Your reputation with Nucleus of the Destroying Plague lowered by 5000.

Current reputation: hate.

Was that all? The end of my threat status? Or would they just lower my class? I quickly glanced at the threat marker on my wrist:

Brand of a Class-Q Threat, with Class-A Potential

Hm, strange. Not knowing what to do now or how to get to Behemoth without my usual invincibility, I opened the envelope and read Patrick’s letter. The first priest of the Sleeping Gods wrote that he was now set up in Darant and had made acquaintances. He had seen Jane, but hadn’t been able to muster the courage to speak with her. And she seemingly didn’t recognize him. Most importantly, Patrick convinced a small tribe of troggs, who lived in the sewers beneath the Commonwealth capital to become followers of the Sleeping Gods. Now he and his trogg friends were impatiently waiting for our follower limit to increase. “Their whole tribe would like to join our ranks,” Patrick wrote. “There aren’t many of them. Just under a thousand people troggs.”

I sat for a bit in the tavern, drank a beer with the workmen, then spent some time with Tissa and Infect. Bomber had turned sixteen two days earlier, and he went off after Crawler. I was just still thinking about what to do next in Dis. My stats, even without the Mark of the Destroying Plague, gave me hope that everything would turn out just fine:

Scyth, level-26 human

Real name: Alex Sheppard.

Real age: 15.

Class: Herald.

Main attributes:

Agility: 100.

Charisma: 96.

Endurance: 100.

Intelligence: 65.

Luck: 105.

Perception: 70.

Strength: 102.

Secondary attributes:

Accuracy: 370%.

Base damage: 32.

Carrying capacity: 1927 lbs.

Chance of receiving a unique quest: +9.6%.

Chance of receiving improved loot: +10.5%.

Critical damage chance: +216%.

Dodge chance: +166%.

Health points: 4446/4446.

Mana points: 465/465.

Movement speed bonus: 140%

Ranged damage bonus: +60%.

Recovery speed: 300 health points per minute.

Spell power bonus: 88%.

Vendor discount: -2%.

Fame: 455.

Skills:

Archery: 75.

Bashing Weapons: 1.

Night Vision: 45.

One-Handed Swords: 1.

Persuasion: 100.

Resilience: 90.

Stealth: 66.

Swimming: 66.

Unarmed Combat: 75.

Abilities and special attacks:

Battering Ram: 1.

Combo: 36.

Crushing Hammerfist: 75.

Enhanced Quickshot: 75.

Explosive Shot: 15.

Paralyzing Shot: 15.

Slowing Shot: 45.

Sneak Attack: 1.

Stoneskin: 90.

Stunning Kick: 33.

Trades and professions:

Cooking: Expert (445/500).

Special skills and abilities:

Depths Teleportation: 7.

Ghastly howl: 21.

Class skills:

Dissimulation: 5.

Divine Revelation (spontaneous).

Imitation: 5.

Lethargy: 3.

Liberation: 24.

Divine abilities:

Unity.

Touch of the Sleeping Gods.

Achievements:

Morituri te Salutant! – 1

The Lich is Dead! Long Live the New Lich…

First kill: Crusher

First kill: Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen

First kill: Murkiss

First kill: Chuff, Queen of the Swamp Needlers

First kill: Shog’rassar, God of the Sarantapods

I Came, I Saw, I Conquered – 1

I Came, I Saw, I Conquered – 2

I’m on Fire! – 1

I’m on Fire! – 2

I’m on Fire! – 3

Divine emblems:

Shog’rassar’s Protection

Pets

Iggy, level-30 swamp needler

Hidden status: Class-Q threat with A potential.

Even without the cheater abils from the Destroying Plague, my character looked formidable. Thanks to my high charisma, my vendor discounts were almost in the green despite the nasty class penalties.

We didn’t want to go farm. That was how the first day in Dis after the ban went, and all the rest were the same. It was no longer fun for us to level in the sandbox, and our speed was severely reduced because were now above the maximum level of the mobs. So I only went into Dis to wait out my required hours, spending almost all my time in the tavern.

The next day, Tashot put on yet another mini-tournament. I wasn’t going to take part in view of my clear superiority in level, but I figured it could be entertaining to watch.

“You should drop by one of these days,” said Master Sagda in a break between fights. “I’ve got some new stuff I could teach you.”

He couldn’t teach me much. My Unarmed Combat had only gone up three levels since our last training session, but still I promised to pay him a visit.

And the day before I left into the big world, there was an outbreak of the Destroying Plague in Tristad.

* * *

On my last evening in the sandbox, I quickly ran through every memorable place. I started with the city council, where I came bearing sweets: a box of hot buns, a jar of strawberry jam and a package of candy. I gave them to Carlson the scribe.

I talked with Chief Councilman Whiteacre briefly, because he was in a rush to go see Mrs. Grossman. As it turned out, Whiteacre’s now ex-wife had discovered her husband’s dalliances, taken her belongings and the kids and brought them to her parents’ in Jingling Glades, a small village on the border with elven lands. “Dog!” she said to her former husband in parting. “Just so you know, I never loved you! And you’ll never make anything of yourself!”

Whiteacre didn’t agree about the last one, he thought he had excellent prospects. Clearly he had convinced Mrs. Grossman of that, because she agreed to marry him and they quickly tied the knot in the temple of Nergal the Radiant.

Whiteacre, in reply to my condolences, gave a broad smile:

“Listen to me, boy. Life has taught me that all changes are for the best. I only now realized how unhappy I was with Claudia. And I never would have seen it without shaking things up.”

I left the city council in deep thought. His words got to me somehow.

After that, I dropped by Bu aka Master Sagda, but he refused to say goodbye, instead telling me Tristad had been getting on his nerves and he was getting ready to leave for the Lakharian Desert where the frail mortal shell of the great Grandmaster Oyama was located.

“It takes a long time for news from there to reach the outside world but, according to a group of novices, the grandmaster raised an eyebrow. Perhaps he is stopping his meditation and preparing to return from the astral plane,” he said with hope.

We agreed not to lose touch and meet up again someday. Who knew, maybe Sagda would be able to introduce me to Grandmaster Oyama.

Hunter Conrad, my archery trainer, simply gave me a hug and told me where to find his trainer in Darant. He said that I was the best student he ever had and, if I kept up this pace, I could be looking at a very high place in the Games. The Games were something like our Olympics. All factions took part, so they elicited huge interest from the whole world. Both worlds.

After that, I dropped by Chef Arno and we exchanged warm goodbyes. My farewell with Tashot was even warmer than that. Solemnly, to thundering applause, he hung our portraits on the wall.

I didn’t know who drew them but they came out very true to life, although there was some artistic license: The artist had made Bomber’s lower jaw twice as big, Crawler was given burning eyes, and Infect a cunning gaze and aquiline nose. And my portrait, a lip protruding in scorn, looked down haughtily. It gave the impression that I might lose control at any second and spit in your face. Tissa was luckiest of all. The artist had just made her breasts twice as large. And that only increased Tissa’s popularity.

Then she, Infect and I took a tour of all the important sites from my history. We strolled through Gloomwood, visited the island in the Mire where I first met Behemoth, then went from there to the Olton Quarries where I didn’t see anyone I knew. While we waited for teleport to cooldown, we ran through Evil from the Depths for fun and nostalgia. Just the three of us cleared it without curse of the undead or plague damage. An easy run.

All new noncitizen followers of the Sleeping Gods went to Darant and there met with Crawler. He teleported them to Kharinza in groups. They built us a clan fort, changed their respawn points there and harvested resources in peace. Dying gave them no penalties other than a temporary dip in attributes, so they weren’t bothered about dying by the claws, hands and teeth of the Montosaurus. Well... that might be a stretch. They did have one hundred percent pain, so Crawler and Bomber did their best to pull Monty, as they fondly called the lizard, away from the workmen.

We walked through Packston’s Vineyards and the Mountain Dams, dropped by the Reeking Crypt, but the mount still didn’t drop. We took an excursion to a little waterfall where, once upon a time, we had started a journey together.

And in the evening, we sat in the tavern with Goosebumps, Rita and Chris Wood and drank heavily. Earl had given us some of his cheer potion, so a good time was had by all.

“The preventers are still keeping an eye on the city council building in Darant,” Tissa whispered to me. “Don’t forget, you still have to escape the registration room without them seeing you!”

Thankfully, we had come up with a plan to evade the preventers already. Ed and Hung had pulled it off before. Depths Teleportation got around the block on using teleportation inside the council building.

Just as we were about to part ways, there was a commotion at the front door. We heard screams, and that was when it all started!

Arno appeared from the kitchen in a bloodied apron which, for the record, was not unusual. But this time, his face was also covered in blood! Of course, it didn’t exactly look realistic; this was still a sandbox after all. But we could tell that it was supposed to be blood!

With a roar, Arno ran at Tashot and sunk his teeth into his neck. The tavern owner gave a blood-curdling howl. The chef tore out a fair-sized piece of flesh and stood back up, groaning and greedily shoving the gruesome meal into his mouth. His face looked crazed. His eyes were covered in a layer of whitish haze. They seemed dead, like they couldn’t see. A fountain of blood shot out of Tashot’s neck. With a shudder, he fell down behind the bar.

“Undead!” a waitress whooped and turned to flee.

Arno, his arms held out in front of him, dashed off after her. “So, he did turn after all!” I thought. But I didn’t know what triggered it. Did he die?

A group of warriors got up from their table and ran off to pacify Arno, while everyone else scattered chaotically. Without a word, we jumped up from our table and ran out onto the street. There, we heard roaring, groaning and fearsome screams. Somewhere there was a baby crying.

“An outburst of the Nether!” shouted guardsman Mills, pointing the way with a hand. “Foul creatures are flooding the square before the city council! Alert! Alert! Outburst of the Nether!”

There were patrolmen and flurried players all running where he was pointing. The latter were happy and loudly discussing what kind of event this might be.

But Mills was mistaken. It was not an outburst of the Nether, but an outbreak of the Destroying Plague. Someone had infected many townsfolk, then opened a portal and undead were just coming out of everywhere. And there were just always more people on the city square.

“What do you think it is?” Tissa asked.

I cast a gaze over my friends.

“Rita, Goosebumps, Chris, you’d better exit the game. you’re too little. You’ll be eaten up before too long. You’ll lose experience, gear...”

“It won’t work!” Underweight screamed. “We cannot leave the game during a global event!”

Not waiting for him to finish, I took out my bow and shot an arrow into the eye of an approaching rotter. It recognized it as the owner of the trinket shop. Someone had definitely infected the townsfolk with the Destroying Plague!

“Then better hide in your personal rooms and stay there until I write that it’s safe to come out. Alright, Tissa, Infect, after me!”

We ran a bit and I stopped my friends. There was nobody around other than a pair of zombies, and we could talk. I didn’t want to hide from my friends that all our plans for the future could potentially come crashing down today.

“Scyth?” they didn’t understand.

“We have big problems. Huge ones.”

We worked together to take down two living dead, pacifying them both and I continued:

“Behemoth gave me a mission to prevent the Destroying Plague from conquering Tristad. If I fail, I’ll lose the status of Apostle of the Sleeping Gods. And I don’t have any cheater abilities as it is. You know what that might mean?”

“You’ll lose your threat status?” Tissa frowned.

“Exactly. We need to find where they opened the portal. And somehow get it closed. Then we need to clear the city of walking corpses.”

“Then we’d better hurry,” said Infect, looking at the undead coming in our direction.

Not splitting up, we ran down the street, killing all the mobs we encountered. Apart from turned townsfolk, there were also monsters, all over level twenty. Our toughest enemies were called Plague Vectors, which looked like gray blobs just crawling on the paving stones. They didn’t take physical damage, but Hand of Nergal could splat them to death easily. There were also Dead Hounds, which mostly attacked in packs and, with them, we couldn’t afford to lose concentration for even a second. If one caught you, all the rest would fly at you. Before our eyes, a pack of hounds tore apart a guardsman in full plate armor.

In the weaponsmiths’ quarter, we encountered our first Foul Quease, a monster cobbled together from various human and animal body parts. I’d seen one before in the Crypt of the Temple of Nergal the Radiant, so I wasn’t scared when I saw it was level thirty, just calmly shot it from a distance. Tissa helped by calling down bolts of light from above, but Infect didn’t even get close.

Running straight into packs of mobs, tossing them around with my fists and sticking them with very costly arrows with enchanted explosive warheads, I was acting as if I could flip on curse of the undead at any moment. When I realized that I couldn’t, I was surprised at my own lack of rationality. Old habits died hard but, in many ways, my recklessness was what allowed us to clear the quarter and get its residents to safety.

Seeing the apparent ease with which we were handling the monsters, a group of men, headed by Guardsman Mills, started gathering up and protecting the women and children. I was told that Tashot had also turned but, since he and Arno were laid to rest, the tavern had been clear. So that was where we established an evacuation point.

I felt a lump rising in my throat. A few hours earlier, I had hugged Mr. Arno... Was this it, I’d never see him again? What about Tashot? He may have been wily and tight-fisted but he had a huge heart. I could hear my teeth grinding.

Another familiar guardsman, Gale, we met at the temple of Nergal. But he was no longer alive, just a walking corpse with an arrow sticking out of his shoulder. He and another few dozen Turned Townsfolk were crowding around the temple door. Behind them, making squelching sounds, there were a group of Foul Queases wandering aimlessly. The broken bodies of townsfolk were lying all around. I couldn’t see any players. And rightly so. These creatures were too strong for the vast majority of sandbox visitors.

We hid behind the corner of the building opposite to decide what to do next.

“Where is everyone? It’s the heat of the night and none of the strong clans are out,” Tissa said, turning her head.

“Maybe it’s because of the event?” Infect suggested. “If we cannot exit Dis, maybe no one can enter?”

“The other option is that player characters are either turning into undead or dying once and for all. Did you forget? I,” I twirled a finger, “was supposed to do all this. So I’m something of an expert. Do you remember Crusher? He got turned into Punisher...”

“Yeah, sure, nonsense...” Infect waved a hand, interrupting me. “If something happens to a player’s character, Snowstorm will be taken to court tomorrow. Think for yourself. What’s the point? Invest years of time and tons of money so that some Destroying Plague can come and turn you undead?”

“That’s what made me such a threat, Malik.”

“Alright, let’s get out of here. We can read what people are saying,” Tissa said. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan is that we need to find and close the portal. Otherwise, I’m in for a world of... Look!”

Before our eyes the doors of the temple flew open, letting out a few packs of queases, hounds and plague vectors.

“One hundred percent, that’s where the portal is!” I shook a fist. “I need to get inside.”

“I can aggro them all onto me and you run in,” Infect said. “I’ll lead them a couple blocks away, then go invis. It’s leveled, they won’t find me. Then I’ll come back.”

And that’s what we did. After that, the thief ran headlong down the street, hooting and teasing the undead. We waited for him to get them away, then ran into the temple. I broke away from Tissa because of my high speed and ran inside first.

There, at the altar, surrounded by the bodies of the priests of Nergal, Big Po was sitting on the floor. And he was holding his hand on the base of a black, sticky portal with greenish veins running through it. When he heard my footsteps, he raised his head, recognized me and grinned:

“Ah, Sheppard, you’re just in time! I was just about to finish up here and go look for you.”

Polynucleotide’s face was decayed, and what I first took for a smile was just a lack of lips. His eyes had drained out, leaving gaping holes in his sockets. I saw a white little worm peek out of one. Nether, was that what I looked like?

“Po? What is that? What is happening?” My voice was quavering. “And what the heck are you? Why do you look like a corpse?”

I feigned disgust. I looked surprised, shocked, skeeved. I was trying to play up to his expectations, so I also put some fear in my voice.

“Oh, don’t play games with me, Sheppard,” Po laughed. “I know that you used to bear the mark as well. Praise the Nether that you failed, and the Destroying Plague found a replacement. And I, unlike you, finished in less than three weeks. And again, unlike you, you loser, I won’t blow my chance and lose my threat status!”

“You’re admitting it so openly?”

Tissa appeared nearby.

“Po? He has the curse?” she exclaimed in surprise. “What the hell?”

“Ah and your flaxen-haired girlfriend is here, too?” Wesley giggled. “Listen, Melissa, now I know how you got that First Kill out from under me! And not just that one, I suppose. In fact, I bet Crusher, Murkiss, and Chuff were all your doing, no? Most likely Shog’rassar was taken down by that moron Crag, but his time will be up soon enough. Modus and the other preventer clans are gonna wait at the entrance ‘round the clock. They even had to urgently get a guy on the Darant City Council...”

He suddenly coughed and raised a hand as if to say he was about to tell me more. I didn’t know what to do. What could I do against an invincible...? “Of course!” I extended a hand and he started speaking again.

“You asked whether I’m afraid of preventers? Believe you me, after today they’ll be afraid of me! I will vanquish Tristad, and they have no way of getting here. From here, the Destroying Plague will begin to spread into the surrounding area, and from there we will conquer the world.”

“Why would they be afraid of you, Po?” Tissa couldn’t contain her curiosity.

“Hehe. You just want me to tell you everything,” he said with a smirk. “Alright, I will. Because they have more to fear from me than I do from them! The Nucleus of the Destroying Plague is generous! It gives its Heralds such... well, who am I to tell you? Scythy, you know all about this, right? I mean, you could have done this but chose to steal small fry from under my nose instead! What an idiot! Trading a threat for victory in the children’s Arena and a couple achieves! You had the whole world at your feet, you dolt!”

The portal began to bulge, preparing to release yet another Destroying Plague unit. I had made my decision and was ready.

“Are you not curious where all the players went?” Big Po continued. “I infected them. They died and turned into thoughtless mobs, obedient only to me. I’m sure that thousands of kids are at home right now thrashing around impotently, not able to enter Dis. But this is only the beginning!”

He threw up his free hand, pointed it at me and whispered. I felt a tickle in my nose and I sneezed. Tissa did as well, and Wesley gave a malevolent laugh.

Tissa’s eyes went wide, then I realized too. He just infected us!

The world around me started to flicker and lose color. Everything around fragmented, I choked...

Divine Revelation has activated spontaneously!

“What do you think, where are all the players? Infected, you dumbshits! They died and turned into stupid mobs! And I control them!”

Big Po was saying the same things, just with different words! I immediately realized I had just been seeing a modelled future and he would be infecting us at any second, but this time for real. Screw that!

“Go to sleep, Po!” I shouted. “Lethargy!”

Not finishing, he fell into a dream. All limp and rotten, the hefty body of the former Axiom clan lead fell to the floor at the altar. As soon as his hand fell away from the portal, it gave a buzz in protest. The sound started fading, then stopped entirely. The portal closed.

“Well I’ll be damned!” Infect’s voice came from thin air. “Well, well!”

And the three of us together dragged Big Po’s body into a closet in the far back corner. We closed the door. The most important part was still ahead of us.

“Is he green to you?” I asked Tissa, nodding at Po.

She nodded:

“Well yeah, we never attacked him.”

I leaned over the Herald of the Destroying Plague and, looking him in the eyes and knowing he could hear, said:

“See, Wesley, it’s always the same story.”

“What do you mean?” Infect asked.

“The three of us are in a group. If he had so much as thrown a knife at us, the system would have identified him as hostile to all of us. But what did he do instead? He told us all his plans like a villain in a movie. And now we can just heal him back to full health, which will get rid of the curse. Tissa, let’s go, heal this creep.”

And she did. His life went up to one hundred percent and his body turned back to normal. The curse of the undead was gone. He was vulnerable again. And although we didn’t have a True Flame on us to see the threat marker on his arm, we didn’t need one. In his immeasurable vanity, Big Po had told us of his status all on his own.

I landed a Combo and Hammer on him, and the guys joined in. When he only had one hit of life left in him, Infect handed me a dagger.

“I expel you from Disgardium forever!” I shouted.

The curved silvery blade of the dagger went into Polynucleotide’s heart and Big Po aka Wesley Cho ceased to exist in the world of Disgardium.

* * *

As we left the temple, we ran into a familiar warrior. Crag lit up for some reason when he saw me and ran over.

“Scyth! We need to talk! One on one!” He slid a gaze over Tissa and Infect. “Without them!”

I nodded, motioning with my eyes for them to stay out of it, then walked into the temple. Crag followed me.

We went into the very same closet. Big Po had already disintegrated and there were no more reminders of the fact that, ten minutes earlier, he was here threatening to destroy the entire world.

“Speak.”

“You’re a threat,” Crag stated. “Now, now, don’t get ahead of yourself. No matter how strong you are, I will always be stronger. Because I am also a threat. Eve told me about you. Well actually, she didn’t know it, she just told me about you clearing that ins at level one and mentioned the Destroying Plague. Was all this your doing?”

“No. I’ll explain after. Tell me what you wanted to say. The city is dying, we need to save its people!”

“Alright, I won’t beat around the bush. You’re a smart kid and I’m sure you’ve got a couple exit strategies in the bag, right? How are you gonna get out of the sandbox? There’s a bunch of people waiting for me already! They’re threatening me IRL! Some inwinova almost kidnapped me. I had to jump out of a flying car as it took off! I barely got away! It’s a good thing the police came in time!”

“I warned you about real life. Why the hell did you do that thing with the Hive?”

“They insulted Eve...” Crag frowned. “Listen, that’s all in the past, I can’t change it now. My parents are sick, my father’s on the verge and mother is also near. I was alone, you see? Completely alone... And Eve was my everything! Alright, it doesn’t matter now. I moved out and into a little cubby now, anyway.”

“Uh, what do I have to do with this?”

“Alex, don’t hold the past against me. I was an idiot. Just say, can you help me? I understand you probably don’t want to, but can you?”

“I can,” I answered. “I’ll help. When are you leaving?”

“Soon.”

“What’s the nature of your threat?”

“Any time I’m attacked, all my attributes are multiplied several times.”

“How many times exactly?”

“A lot. It was ten at level one, but I leveled it. Now it’s seventeen, basically.”

I freaked out for a long time, impressed at what I heard. Now I could see how he took down the guards in Little Gully. But... Wait, what about Eve?

“So am I right that the skill applies to everyone in your group?”

Crag nodded.

“Here, I’m gonna invite you to my clan, Tobias. I know a place where we can hide you. You and your character.”

Level-26 warrior Crag (player Tobias Asser) has joined clan the Awoken.

“I don’t know what your superpower is yet,” Crag said excitedly. “But I imagine we’ll be able to do a lot together! The whole world is gonna shit itself!”

As a matter of fact, I didn’t know what my superpower was either. Behemoth’s quest about the Destroying Plague wasn’t finished yet, but I had no doubt I would complete it now. With Tissa, Infect and Crag, we would easily clear the city of the remaining undead. And what would the Sleeping God reward me with then...?

Was it really that important? I figured that the reward from eliminating Big Po as a threat would be enough that my share would be able to pay for a full course of study at university...

I decided to think all that through later, taking it one mission at a time. And Dis confirmed that I was on the right track with a notification:

Current threat class increased: L!

End of Book Two

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About the Author

DAN SUGRALINOV grew up in a small working-class town on the Russian border with Kazakhstan. It’s a miracle he survived his childhood games of hide-and-seek in the surrounding building sites complete with perilous rebar structures and flooded foundation pits.

Ever since he learned to read at the age of five, he couldn’t put a book down. Reluctant to earn himself the name of a conceited nerd, he concentrated on playing soccer which allowed him to become friends with the town’s toughest kids.

In 1995, he graduated with honors, entering the St Petersburg Academy of Engineering and Economics where he studied business creation. He must have done something right because in the years that followed, he first worked on TV and radio just to get the taste of it, then opened his first successful business followed by several more. In between, he started writing and playing video games, winning the St Petersburg Mortal Kombat championship and becoming runner-up for Starcraft and Warcraft 3. He is a 14-times champion in Quake, Quake 2 and Quake 3 as well as the world’s ex-#1 in the World of Warcraft.

In 2004, he wrote his first motivational novella The Bricks which to date has garnered him over 3,000,000 readers online alone.

In 2014, Russia’s leading publishers of business literature Mann, Ivanov & Ferber published a revised and extended edition of his book, The Bricks 2.0.

In 2015, Dan discovered the existence of LitRPG. He devoured everything that had been written in that genre until he finally decided he too could write similar books.

In summer 2017, he published his first book in the subgenre of RealRPG: Level Up.

Dan Sugralinov is a consummate gamer, a multiple MMORPG champion and the world’s ex-#1 in the World of Warcraft. He is also a successful businessman and author of books on marketing and business organization. His first LitRPG series Level Up took Russia by storm in 2017. The English translation of the series is about to be released on Amazon in its entirety.

[1] Bogatyr is a type of medieval Russian warrior characterized by exceptional physical strength

[2] In the middle ages, the so-called "judgment of God," meant subjecting the defendant to some sort of trial (for example by fire or by water), which they had to survive in order to prove their innocence.

[3] An individual with no value to society.

[4] HCMO – Human-Controlled Mobile Object, i.e. a mob controlled by a human.

[5] Finger Family Song, a children's learning song about a family of fingers popular the world over.

[6] BG, gamer slang for battleground.

[7] Yiruma (real name Lee Ru-ma) is a South Korean pianist and composer from the first half of the 21st century. River Flows in You is one of his most famous works.

“Grand piano in the bushes” is a Russian idiomatic expression meaning an impromptu obviously prepared in advance, or an unnatural, artificial twist of the plot of a work of art, presented by the author as an accident.

This phrase became a well-known cultural reference and a metaphor for an event happening in a presumably unexpected, but oddly very convenient way. It’s roughly similar to the “deus ex machina” trope.