Author: Dan Sugralinov
Date: 2020-04-21 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy
Description: The armies of the Commonwealth, the Empire and the neutral factions, all the leading players and clans of the preventers, have been summoned under the banners of Nergal the Radiant to the sands of the deadly Lakharian Desert, to wage war against a most terrible enemy of all life itself — Scyth. His supporters include not only mindless wild races, but also nightmarish monsters: the zombie guitarist Infect, the death mage Crawler and one undead warrior by the name of Bomber.

Resistance

a novel
by Dan Sugralinov

Disgardium

Book#4

Magic Dome Books

Disgardium

Book #4: Resistance

Copyright © Dan Sugralinov 2020

Cover Art © Ivan Khivrenko 2020

Art Editor © Vladimir Manyukhin 2020

English translation copyright © Alix Merlin Williamson 2020

Published by Magic Dome Books, 2020

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-80-7619-140-2

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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Table of Contents:

Summary of Previous Books

Prologue. Taranis

Chapter 1. Beast God’s Legacy

Chapter 2. Competitors

Chapter 3. Mogwai’s Speech

Chapter 4. No Good to Anyone

Chapter 5. Pecheneg

Chapter 6. The Goblin League

Chapter 7. Auction for Special Sales

Chapter 8. Fortune’s Call

Interlude 1: Ian

Chapter 9. Back in Action

Chapter 10. The Ravager

Chapter 11. Together Again… Almost

Chapter 12. Three Days to the Invasion

Chapter 13. Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees

Interlude 2: Nicholas

Chapter 14. The Craft of Inscription

Chapter 15. The Short Life and Adventures of MonkeyWrench

Chapter 16. Cold-Blooded Punisher

Chapter 17. New Allies

Interlude 3. Hung

Chapter 18. Coldest Holdest

Chapter 19. Stronghold of the Destroying Plague

Chapter 20. Puppet

Chapter 21. Bone-Gnawing God

Chapter 22. Insiders

Chapter 23. Good Hunting!

Chapter 24. E2-E4

Epilogue. Omar

Afterword from the Author

About the Author

Summary of Previous Books

EARTH, 2074. After World War III, a single world government rules the planet — the UN.

The planet's population now exceeds 20 billion, at least a third of which are non-citizens, people declared useless to the community, which means they have no rights to the benefits of civilization. Citizenship is divided into categories; from A with the highest status, the social elite, to L — the lowest.

At the recommendation of the UN Department of Education, every teenager between ages 14 and 16 must spend at least one hour per day in Disgardium. This is considered an important part of education that gives teenagers the social skills they need and prepares them for adult life.

The student Alex Sheppard, after making his character wrong and running into problems while leveling up, quickly loses interest in the game, and for more than a year he just spends his mandatory hours at a stall by the sandbox tavern alongside a neighbor girl, Eve O'Sullivan, who had fallen in love with him.

His parents are planning to divorce, which will lower their citizenship class. That will, in turn, lower their income, and they won't be able to pay for Alex's education to fulfill his dream of becoming a space guide. The colonization of Mars has begun, and plans are in the works to correct the orbit of Venus.

Half a year before school ends, Alex is forced to start playing Disgardium for real to earn enough for his studies. He takes the in-game nickname Scyth.

To maintain balance, the game’s developer company Snowstorm initially introduces the policy of ‘Threats’ to knock imbalanced players out of the game. Any player-threat identified by an artifact of the True Flame can be thrown out of the game permanently with the help of a simple ritual. In addition, the eliminator of the Threat receives rewards based on the Threat's potential, while the Threat itself is rewarded based on their current level. This means that the eliminators (or ‘preventers,’ as they call themselves) gain more by eliminating Threats before they power up.

The Threats themselves need to hide and level up. Their reward after elimination comes not from their potential, but from their current Threat status level, where A is the highest and Z is the lowest.

Scyth becomes a Threat with the highest possible potential A, after a range of unlikely events converge — the NPC Patrick O'Grady curses him (the first human whose consciousness was successfully transferred to the game), and another NPC, a lich dungeon boss, turns out to be under the control of the living non-citizen player Clayton. He was the pilot of an interstellar cargo shuttle before he crashed and lost his citizenship. Clayton, seeing the stubborn spirit of a player dying over and over again but not giving up, surrenders to Scyth and lets him kill him.

Scyth gets Mark of the Destroying Plague from killing the final boss of the instance, who had now died his final death. The Mark allows him to withstand any damage without dying. Alongside Patrick’s curse, this gives Scyth the ability to reach uninhabitable territory in the Mire, home to the dying avatar of the Sleeping God Behemoth, one of five ancient gods.

Scyth makes friends with the ‘Dementors’ — his classmates Ed ‘Crawler’ Rodriguez, Hung ‘Bomber’ Lee, Melissa ‘Tissa’ Schafer and Malik ‘Infect’ Abdualim. Scyth helps them win an argument against Big Po, the leader of Axiom, the top clan in the Tristad sandbox. The group creates its own clan — the Awoken.

The Awoken achieves victory in the yearly Junior Arena. To do that, they have to build a temple dedicated to the Sleeping Gods on the deserted island of Kharinza. After achieving victory in the Arena, they draw the attention of recruiters in the Alliance of Preventers — ten of the strongest clans in Disgardium.

After the Awoken win in the arena, the school bans the group from playing Dis for eight weeks, which makes Scyth fail a quest from the Nucleus of the Destroying Plague. In his absence, the Destroying Plague finds a new emissary — Big Po. When Scyth returns to the game, Big Po opens a portal for the Destroying Plague to capture Tristad. Scyth and his friends fight off the undead assault and eliminate the Threat Big Po.

They’re joined by Crag the warrior, aka Tobias Asser, a former unsuccessful ganker turned chosen one of Nergal the Radiant. Crag’s status as a Threat is revealed, and the boy is forced to hide not only in the game, but in real life too.

Tobias asks Scyth for help, and Scyth accepts him into the ranks of the Awoken.

Scyth and Crag leave the sandbox together. In Darant, they run into a preventer checkpoint and Crag is identified as a Threat. Scyth manages to save his clanmate from the Modus clan castle and delivers him to the distant island of Kharinza, where the Awoken have built a fort.

By using the portal key he got for eliminating Big Po the Threat, Scyth finds himself in the Treasury of the First Mage. There he acquires some allies — the treasury guardians: Flaygray the satyr, Nega the succubus, Ripta the raptor and Anf the insectoid. With their help, Scyth, Crag, Crawler and Bomber repel an attack from the lich Shazz, an emissary of the Destroying Plague, but in the end they are defeated. Behemoth’s temple is destroyed and Scyth is transformed into an undead. Behemoth interferes to help Scyth resist control by the Nucleus of the Destroying Plague, which gives its legate a quest: to build a stronghold of the Destroying Plague in the Lakharian Desert. The Sleeping God himself stays behind in the lair of the Nucleus, to investigate the source of the Destroying Plague’s power.

Scyth, using the abilities gifted by the Nucleus, turns his clanmates and non-citizen friends into the undead.

The undead are immune to weather debuffs, which allows Scyth to quickly level up his character in the desert. There he learns a new ability — Plague Fury. Using it, Scyth reaches a place of power where he can begin to build a temple of the Sleeping Gods. The non-citizen builders help Scyth build a temple in the Lakharian Desert dedicated to Tiamat, one of the five Sleeping Gods. According to Behemoth, she is the only one that can remove Scyth’s curse of the Destroying Plague.

Seeing the incarnation of the Sleeping Gods through Crag’s eyes, Nergal the Radiant, the god of light, declares a holy crusade to destroy Tiamat’s temple. The god promises full immunity from the heat of the Lakharian Desert to all his crusaders.

The Awoken, as the winners of the Junior Arena, must now fly to the yearly Distival, but they’re unlikely to have much chance to enjoy it. After all, very soon they’ll have to fight against the whole world, and not only the game world — the real one too.

Prologue. Taranis

ALL OF VERMILLION could be seen from the tower roof. City of the brave and the stubborn, as the local councilor Westwood put it when he greeted Taranis.

City! Taranis spat.

His spit evaporated as soon as it touched the red-hot roof. Only an inwinova who had never seen the megapolises could call Fort Vermillion a city.

Taranis, a level three hundred and thirty-six scout from the Children of Kratos preventer clan, had seen real cities. Not counting real life, he’d spent most of his time in Darant, performing a thorough investigation of the Commonwealth capital’s fleshpots. He’d had the chance to see the Empire’s Shak as well. But both capitals cowered before Kinema, the main city of the Goblin League on Bakabba. It would take more than one lifetime to sample all the forbidden pleasures there.

The green-skinned little creatures were born traders. No trivial middlemen who knew where to buy and who to push their wares on, no. The goblins had a sixth sense for what any sentient needed, be they a dull-witted minotaur, an aristocratic vampire or a poor craftsman from the most distant pit of northern Latteria, and they offered them what they wanted. And if anyone had ever had a need for a type of object, then it could be found in Kinema.

Like, for example, this Far-Seeing Visor, a unique dwarven spyglass bought on the private markets in Kinema. Using it, you could not only see everything within two miles in the very finest detail — you could also identify it. The system showed the names and levels of mobs, players and NPCs only if you focused your view on an object nearby. With the Far-Seeing Visor, everything far away was always nearby.

Taranis took a swig of his flask of Leprechaun’s Vigor — a coffee with a generous share of the strongest dwarven liquor. His shift was ending. Darin, the clan’s other scout, should show up at any moment to take up his post.

Yesterday, when Nergal the Radiant sent out his call to arms for war against the Sleeping Gods, preventer scouts like Taranis flooded into all the frontier settlements. True, they were making do without the leaders of the top clans — they were probably already sipping expensive cocktails on the beaches of Jumeirah in preparation for tomorrow’s Distival. There the fate of Dis players would be decided, alliances destroyed and created, deals for billions of gold made…

Taranis had planned to go there at first too, but changed his mind. He couldn’t get into the closed events — he hadn’t achieved anything outstanding in the game yet, and nor did he have a personal invitation. And hanging around in the crowd with the trash fans? To Nether with that.

Vermillion, a dusty Commonwealth fort full of narrow streets, ever covered in sand, was waking up. It was three or four hours after dawn — the best time for activity. The heat was at its least scorching, the debuff relatively merciful. Just the time for forays out into the Lakharian Desert. Groups of players — mostly raids, but occasionally there were small parties of resource collectors — moved out beyond the frontier. Individual points ranged out like a fan — clan scouts. Top players in gleaming legendaries sat astride fearsome mounts, their greeting roars and shrieks echoing throughout the locality.

Taranis noticed that the groups were getting far more serious than they had been three days ago when he first got there. The instant the wave of notifications sped through Dis to declare the first kill against Sharkon, every self-respecting clan sent observers to the frontier.

Yesterday, Vermillion even became the most popular spot in Dis as the fort closest to the temple of the Sleeping Gods. Clans were rushing to create a base for the coming assault. Private and group portals were too expensive to transport large numbers of people, so all the top clans were building stationary portals: workers swarmed around the fortress walls erecting clan portals. The rest had reason to stay awake too: herb collectors rooted through the desert under the protection of battle stars, stocking up on reagents for powerful potions; special hunting brigades roamed in search of prey; kitchen workers stayed up for their third day straight to feed so many visitors. Merchants filled the market to bursting and all the prices shot up, including for adult entertainment. Vermillion was too small for such an influx of visitors, and being there without a roof over your head was a death sentence.

Taranis’s clan, the Children of Kratos, was considered the strongest in Dis not for its strength or achievement points. The Children could hardly compete in that regard with the Travelers, Azure Dragons, Modus, Excommunicado or Widowmakers. But if real-world influence was the metric, the Children had no equal. They were all citizens of at least class C, the cream of society, hand-picked aristocracy, members of the richest families, children of rulers of individual regions and of the global government alike.

Twenty-nine-year-old Taranis Ward, named after the Celtic god of thunder, tried to live up to his name. His father led a department that dealt with non-citizen Zones, his mother managed black projects at the UN, his uncle… Almost everyone in Taranis’s family was in the ‘platinum hundred’ — thus were called the first hundred thousand of the planet’s most significant citizens.

Taranis found his path in Dis. By the rule of blood unity, if someone in a family had particularly high status, some of their privileges extended to their closest relatives: parents and children. That suited Taranis.

In the southeast, on the peak of a distant dune, a dust cloud was forming. Switching on his Far-Seeing Visor, the Children of Kratos scout gasped: an enormous pack of mobs was moving toward the fort. He couldn’t make out what kind of beasts they were; it was too far away even for the dwarven artifact. But even from his position, Taranis saw the sand flying up as if a titanic mega-bulldozer created to tear down old cities had suddenly appeared in Dis and was belting through the Lakharian Desert at full speed.

The scout activated his comm amulet and spoke clearly, but quietly, so as not to draw attention from an Azure Dragons observer nearby.

“Come in, Schindler. Taranis here.”

“Go ahead, Taranis,” the clan’s watch officer answered a few seconds later.

“I’m seeing some strange activity. Something is moving toward Vermillion.”

“The Imperials?”

“Hard to say for now. Looks like basilisks, only… Damn, I think they’re undead! Yeah, undead! One has a bone sticking out…”

“Where’re they from?”

“Identifying… Got it, my visor is giving me info. Confirmed undead. Tumbleweeds, basilisks, a herd of desert vultures, sand cobras, a hermit… The whole group is undead! Levels are four hundred plus. Oh, holy shit!”

Taranis couldn’t hold back his shock, and cursed too loudly. Turning around, he grimaced — the Azure scout, until now lazing peacefully, looked in the same direction and immediately jumped up, pulling out his comm amulet. Paying him no more attention, Taranis summoned his Golden Pegasus mount, climbed up and zoomed toward the undead, commenting on what he saw:

“Several dozen mobs, one is a super-elite, also a zombie. It’s Sharkon! Do you hear me? I repeat, it’s Sharkon himself! Wait… They’re all minions!”

“Whose…”

A ringing bell drowned out his clanmate’s words. Vermillion’s garrison had woken up.

“Unknown. I see their leader! He’s riding a dragon. I’ve never seen anything like this. The profile is hidden, and it must be some kind of advanced incognito level. I can’t make anything out, just a shadow.”

“What does he look like?” The voice on the other end of the comm amulet was no longer Schindler’s. The clan leader Joshua himself was getting involved. “Can you at least tell me if it’s a human? A dwarf? A troll?”

“No, sir, negative. It could be anything, the outline is too vague. The mobs are already close enough. I see some top players, they’re getting ready to meet them. I ran into the Travelers’ third static in full gear…”

“The dark ones are already there too?” Joshua mused. “Well well, those boys will take any excuse to wander our territory unpunished. Is Horvac anywhere to be seen?”

“No, there’s nobody else from the Alliance, it’s mostly PuGs[1]. Switching to long-range mirror, sending feed…”

While Taranis soared above the strange arrivals from the desert, silence reigned on the comms.

“Tar, keep observing, record what you see. Don’t get into combat! We’re sending the clan’s battle core,” Schindler said. “Estimated arrival time — ten minutes.”

“Why so long?”

“They were asleep… Good thing Josh handed out some magical kicks in the ass. Alright, over and out.”

Groups of top players milled about below, forming into battle ranks. The garrison guard stretched from the defensive walls to the players. None of the NPCs were above level three hundred, while the attacking NPCs were all well over four hundred.

They’re doomed, Taranis thought.

The Children of Kratos scout counted fifty-five different types of desert creatures. The undead were moving in an arrow formation. At its tip was Sharkon, careering ahead and throwing up piles of sand, a nightmarish creature with an angular muzzle and a threatening spiny plate all down its back. In comparison to Sharkon, the twenty-foot basilisks that Taranis had seen from above looked like tiny geckos. Vultures ran, shedding feathers and flesh as their bony wings flapped in vain.

What? Taranis shook his head. Four undead with personal names moved behind Sharkon. A hermit called Toothy, a vulture skeleton called Birdie, a creepy morten called Kermit, and even one of those horrible tumbleweeds, a nightmare for any player, called It.

The scout steered his pegasus a little lower to get a better view of the battle. Raid buffs flashed across the assembled rows of players.

Judging by how obediently the puggers were listening to her instructions, the warlock Tammy was in command, a big orc girl. That made sense. A top player from the Alliance of Preventers, an officer in the Travelers. Taranis knew her from the battle at Alma’arasan Gorge, when the preventers were fighting over Crag, a Threat that was still at large to this day. Who knew, maybe he was the one controlling the undead?

A shared enemy united two eternal enemies — the Commonwealth and the Empire. The tanks stood in the first row behind a wall of shields: warriors, bear druids, paladins, knights of light…

Immediately behind them, ready to jump over the tanks, were all kinds of classes of melee fighters, frozen in expectation. The last rows looked to be filled with all the colors of the rainbow from above: wizards, mages, spellcasters in variegated mantles, healers, priests, supports and ranged fighters. Engineers and standard bearers ran all along the front, setting up dwarven turrets and flags that buffed allies within their range.

Taranis looked back: a chain of players rushed to the event from the city council building, which had a stationary portal inside. The chain was far smaller than he expected.

Z-z-z-zip! With his peripheral vision, the scout saw a dirty arrow emitting a trail of smoke leading to the mysterious rider on a dragon, and he felt pain. The last thing Taranis saw was electric charges flashing from the dragon’s tail.

<Identity Hidden> dealt you critical damage: 938,734!

You are dead.

Reviving in 10… 9… 8…

In the ten seconds it took for his body to fall from the pegasus, which disappeared as soon as its master died, Taranis watched in flickering black and white as Sharkon easily swept away rows of players that took the main thrust. The undead tore the top players into pieces like rag dolls, and the necromancer ruling over them didn’t even slow his pace as he entered the fort.

Taranis revived at Vermillion’s graveyard. Within an instant, he’d summoned his pegasus, mounted up and was rushing to the site of the attack to record as much as he could. His job was to observe. It would be up to others to analyze this mess.

The undead army had broken into the city, tearing down the wall. The lone mega-boss Sharkon was basically doing it all, with the smaller undead crowding behind, tearing up townsfolk and finishing off wounded players and guards. Their master stayed out of the battle. Now the mages’ spells, archers’ arrows and reinforced ballistae on the walls were aimed at him, but as it turned out, none of that bothered him. He just hovered above the battlefield, apparently sending his minions toward a target known only to him.

The undead had reached the city council building. Sharkon tore down half the building, grabbed the corner of the bank and turned. The necromancer landed nearby, clapped his dragon on the side — an entirely normal, living dragon — and, shading his eyes with a hand, glanced upward. At Taranis.

As if enchanted, the scout began to descend to the silhouette, which looked as if woven from gloom. Reviving players were returning from the graveyard, but none dared approach.

By this time the undead had torn the building down and grabbed the stationary portal, which seemed so indestructible with its billion durability points. After seeing its durability drop under the assault of the undead desert monsters, Taranis’s confidence in the portal’s indestructibility fell. Suddenly, the portal sparked and deep cracks covered its horseshoe-shaped adamantite frame. The magic veil between worlds flickered, lost power and died. The portal switched off just as someone appeared from it. Someone’s hand fell to the stone-strewn ground.

“Are you recording?” said a vibrating voice from beneath the invader’s hood.

His smoky silhouette constantly changed shape, shifting and flickering. The only thing Taranis could make out in detail was the burning gaze of his bright-blue eyes, which switched color to green, then to fire-red. The incomer pointed a finger toward Taranis, who gulped and nodded nervously.

The stranger raised his voice and spoke.

“I speak to all who planned to join Nergal’s crusade. You have seen our power. But we have shown you only a fraction of it. Every clan seen in the Lakharian Desert more than thirty miles from Vermillion will be considered an enemy of the Destroying Plague. So say I, its legate. We will come. We will grind your castles to powder. Keep away from us. This is our land!”

His speech over, the invader disappeared. As if into thin air. His army of undead, fifty-five nightmarish creatures, rushed back from where they came — the desert.

Chapter 1. Beast God’s Legacy

THE IMAGE of a bemused top player from the Children of Kratos still stood before me when I emerged from Depths Teleportation right into the Pig and Whistle tavern. The cacophony of breakfasting miners began to die down, the conversations ceased.

Grinning with all thirty-two of his teeth, Bomber stood and began to slowly applaud, his arms spread wide. A second later, everyone in the tavern was clapping — Crawler, Infect, Gyula, the builders and miners.

We’d split up only three hours before, but the plot was risky, so they greeted me almost as if I’d been on a mission beyond the bounds of the Solar System. Crawler, with the support of Infect and Bomber, had tried to convince me not to risk it and to abandon the plan, but in the end he gave in. Now they were all smiling.

I silently looked over my friends’ faces, removed Cloak Essence and spoke, holding back my glee.

“I smashed that portal to oblivion.”

“We all heard it,” Crawler nodded. “Good idea to keep the comm amulet switched on, Scyth.”

“This is our land!” Infect quoted him. “That was awesome, Alex! Was there a lot of loot?”

“I went up six levels, and the loot…” I glanced at my inventory. “Two legendaries, a few epics. I didn’t bring in blues with Magnetism, so there isn’t all that much.”

“Shame we didn’t see their faces,” Bomber said. “I’d gladly log out of Dis right now to see the video. I bet it’s doing the rounds online already!”

“It’s a good thing there was nobody there more serious than the Travelers’ reserve,” I answered.

I sat at the table and began to unload my loot under the interested gazes of Bomb and Infect. It immediately disappeared into Crawler’s inventory. Grunting in satisfaction, Ed nodded.

“I’ll go through the loot. Whatever doesn’t come in handy we’ll sell through Rita Wood. We already met and came to an agreement. I still doubt our decision to invite her to the clan, but the profit from the auction commission isn’t bad,” he admitted begrudgingly. “And she benefits too. Trading levels up from sales volume, so our legendaries are a good boost for her.”

“Good. The guards?”

“At Tiamat’s temple, like you said,” Bomber answered. “Watching and waiting.”

“Sure,” Infect snorted. “More likely guarding barrels of ale. They took almost all the supplies with them. They’ll meet your dead minions when they return from Vermillion, and get started leveling up. How did you transfer control of the undead to them?”

“I promoted the guards to my lieutenants. Now they can command my brainless servants.”

Bomber yawned widely, infecting me with the same. Shaking my head, I raised my hand and ordered some coffee.

“Have you thought about Holdest?” Crawler asked. “If the mobs there are even fifty levels higher than in the desert, then it’s gonna be even faster to level up there.”

“Yeah. I need to level up Immortality to increase my plague reservoir. Otherwise it isn’t a given that we’ll even be able to kill anything there…”

“Well, maybe we could at least check it out?” Infect suggested.

“We have other things to do for now…”

Gyula’s daughter Eniko approached our table, a girl with an easy laugh who helped out Aunt Steph in the tavern. She put a cup in front of me.

“One black halfling coffee, Alex.”

“Thanks, Ennie.”

She smiled and walked off, her hips swaying. Bomber threw a careful glance at Gyula, made sure he wasn’t looking and gave us a thumbs-up.

“Have you figured out a way to deliver gear to the sandbox?”

“Yeah, we checked it this morning.” Crawler the dwarf mage yawned, covering his mouth. “Tissa arrived when you were attacking Vermillion. I gave her an epic and she went back to Tristad. It all worked; the item stayed with her. So we’ll deliver goods to Rita through her.

“Maybe Tissa could teleport her here? Wouldn’t take long to bring her into the clan…”

“She could do that herself as a clan officer,” Crawler interrupted her. “She’ll bring Rita into the clan as soon as Distival is over, if we don’t change our minds. I think too many people know about us as it is. That security guy from Excommunicado, Big Po, Crag. Now Overweight too. We need to figure out a base in real life. Gyula?”

He looked at the builder at the next table. The man stood up and came to sit with us.

“We’ve found a decent option for a base, a new building, just finished,” Gyula said. “Empty for now. I have the design. If you don’t mind, I want to give our boys more space.”

I nodded, remembering the tiny rooms the workers lived in. Gyula continued.

“Alright, thanks. I’ll go check out the building today, discuss the conditions.”

“Do it.” I exchanged glances with my friends. We hadn’t told the workers about our run-in with Hairo Morales. “Only, we need another option. Just in case we get made in Cali Bottom.”

“Got it,” the builder answered impassively. “About that design…”

“Not here,” I cut him off.

In the morning, before my foray into Vermillion, I’d given him a design for a Stronghold of the Destroying Plague, asking him to figure out the materials he’d need to build it. We’d be able to protect Tiamat’s temple only with the help of Shazz and his undead army. But I didn’t want to talk about it in front of everyone. I remembered Hairo’s warning about rats. I changed the subject.

“About the portal in Vermillion. “How long do you think it’ll take them to restore it?”

“At least a week,” Gyula answered. “It’s a grandmaster level design. With all the boosts, they won’t be opening it sooner than that. They need mages too.”

“Alright… I can pay them a visit myself, in a disguise, and sabotage construction. We also need to take care of the next closest fort to the temple. Bridger is sixty miles from Vermillion…”

“Don’t even think about it, Scyth,” Crawler shook his head. “You caught them unawares today. They won’t let you get away a second time. Worse, they could have a trap waiting for you. Especially since your diversions won’t particularly bother serious clans. They have their own space mages.”

“But they will slow down the huge crowd of casuals…”

“Everyone seems to be headed there,” Bomber agreed. “Did you know that portals to the frontier are free for the duration of the event?

“No way?”

“Yep. Read the news, Scyth. It can come in handy. My grandfather always used to say…”

The crash of the door slamming open drowned out his words. The clan’s grubby gardener ran into the room, stopped at its center and waved his dirty spade.

“Trixie planted tree! Tree growing! Tree will protect!”

My heart sank into a chasm. Even with a gardening level of master, there was a chance to ruin the Tree Protector seed, and Trixie was just a pupil. It looked like I wasn’t the only one who had the thought. Crawler went white and asked hesitatingly:

“Wh-where? Where d-did you p-plant it, Trixie?”

“There!” the gardener pointed at the bar, where Aunt Steph was bustling around.

“There?!”

The heads of those present turned in synchrony. Stephanie looked up from behind the bar, frowning in confusion.

“What?

“You mean where the temple was?” I asked, finding my bearings.

“Yep. Ryg’har brought…”

Not waiting for him to finish, we jumped up from the table, ran out of the tavern and rushed for the ruins. Trixie followed, his little legs spinning, and behind him came the workers, sensing something amiss.

In an open space in front of the ruins of Behemoth’s temple towered a heap of rich, dark earth, with a bluish three-foot-tall stalk sticking out of it, boasting a single leaf. This was the epic Tree Protector? I carefully approached and extended a hand.

The tree shuddered and the soil beneath it exploded, letting out fine, bluish roots. One reached me, touched my pant leg almost gently, then the roots disappeared underground.

Flesh-Eating Tree Protector, level 1, Awoken fort

Epic

“Took root,” Trixie declared with fatherly pride. His face shone with a wrinkly grin. “The finest shit. Ryg’har brought. The finest…”

“Wait, Trix,” Bomber stuck a finger in his ear as if trying to clean it out. “What do shit and the kobold shaman have to do with this?”

The dwarf stuck his arm into his crafting bag and took out a hardened piece of the realest manure.

“With this, everything grows,” Trixie nodded. “All and everything!”

Beast God’s Droppings

Divine

Alchemy ingredient. Can also be used as a fertilizer that significantly increases the chance of seeds taking root and speeds up their growth.

“Montosaurus shat! Ryg’har found. Is finest! I dig hole!” The dwarf jabbered on, swallowing syllables, and I puzzled out the meaning of some words rather than understanding them. “Covered with shit! Makes everything grow fast! Hundred percent! The finest…”

“The Montosaurus is back?” one of the workers asked in fear.

“Anything but that!” another sighed hopelessly.

“Trix, do you understand what you’ve done?” Crawler started to speak, clearly pained by the dwarf’s adventurism. “Not only did you plant the tree on the temple grounds, you also risked losing a priceless epic!”

I couldn’t get used to the fact that Crawler was a dwarf now, and he and Trixie were almost the same height.

The hunched figure of Ryg’har appeared from the thicket on the other side of the ruins. The shaman leaned on a crooked staff. Behind him, maintaining a respectful distance, came two young kobolds. Trixie continued babbling with his back to them, pointing a dirty finger first at the tree, then at the ground, then at me, until he realized that nobody was listening.

“May the Sleeping Gods never wake!” the old kobold uttered hoarsely as he reached us.

“And may their sleep be eternal,” we answered discordantly.

“Greetings, chosen one of the gods,” Ryg’har nodded to me and approached the sapling.

He gently ran his fingers along the thin sapling, took some dry slabs of fertilizer out of his patchy bag and, breaking them up, sprinkled them on the earth around. Then he sat down nearby and closed his eyes. The young kobolds crowded together off to the side. Trixie appeared instantly next to the shaman with his signature Bottomless Watering Can. After watering the tree, he touched the kobold’s furry hand and whined at him.

“Tell them, Ryg’har. What’s up with them?”

It took the shaman a moment to understand the dwarf’s request. He asked a few probing questions and then told a long, drawn-out and very boring story about how his people, in following their ancient tradition, have been using on their farms the divine excreta of Kurtulmak, the patron saint of all kobolds, since time immemorial…

Now that I understood the point — Trixie wasn’t risking anything by planting the tree — I left the others and approached Gyula, who was wandering the temple ruins with a worried air about him. Realizing what I wanted to ask about, he spoke up first.

“I can’t build this, Alex.”

“What’s the hitch? Time? Materials? You need more people?”

“My crafting grade isn’t high enough. You have to have master level, and even then the chance of a failed project is fifty percent. And you say it’s an urgent job. Damn it!” the ordinarily calm and judicious builder swore. “I couldn’t even read what materials it needs or how long it takes to build!”

“Lot of experience left until you reach master?”

“It’s the first rank.” Gyula was silent a moment. “I hit the cap at rank zero a long time ago.”

“The trouble is the capsule?”

The builder nodded. My swagger in Vermillion suddenly seemed very foolish to me. Without Shazz’s army and his skills, I wouldn’t be able to hold back Nergal’s army. And I wouldn’t get any new talents from the Nucleus myself until I built the stronghold.

Even if I had money for a capsule for Gyula, he was still at level one. How, Gods damn it, in the week before the invasion, could we level him up to a hundred, collect all the required resources, build the stronghold, open the Plague Portal and drag Shazz and his horde of undead into the desert? I needed to level up myself, and help my friends!

“You can’t buy a capsule with gold, you need phoenixes,” I started musing aloud. “I can transfer you a big enough amount to take it out in real life, but Snowstorm will block your withdrawal, guaranteed. Give you a legendary to sell? You can’t access the auction house. I can’t go visit the goblins, or the black market. Hmm, hmm…”

I also rejected the idea of getting dad involved. I hadn’t known that he’d not only quit Dis, he’d long since deleted his character to save his collapsing relationship with mom. Creating another wouldn’t be a problem, but by the time he leveled up in the sandbox, by the time he reached the wider world…

A little spark appeared in the mounting hopelessness. A vague idea flitting around, luring me in but not letting me catch it. I kicked a stone in annoyance.

I watched as it flew off, hit a palm tree and fell into the underground. I finally understood the connection, grabbed at the thread and got the point: I was with Manny and Gyula when we first found ourselves on Kharinza and fell afoul of the Montosaurus. I’d recorded what happened then, and nobody had ever seen monsters like it. Today’s undead assault at Vermillion was no doubt a hit. The channel it was uploaded to would be getting virtual wagonloads of phoenixes from monetizing its gawping audience.

Maybe I could share some exclusives too? Disgardium Daily leaped into my mind — a global media channel dedicated to the game. In contrast to the paper newspaper Commonwealth Herald, which existed in Dis and was available not only to players, but NPCs too, Disgardium Daily was a real-life news agency. And that meant they’d pay in phoenixes for my unique material.

“Clear some space, you’ll be getting a full-capability capsule installed in a couple of days. One more day and you’ll be level one hundred. And then… then you’ll try to build the stronghold in time, Gyu. We aren’t the only ones depending on you. The damn Sleepers are too!”

Gyula didn’t know what to say. He held his head and frowned…

“Scyth, come in!” my comm amulet woke up. “Time to move out. Haul your undead ass back to reality, we’re going to miss the plane! Today’s Distival. Or did ya forget?”

Chapter 2. Competitors

“YOU ARE APPROACHING Downtown Dubai, a category A district,” a robotic voice sang from the flyer’s speakers. “Your means of transport will be forcibly stopped at a border zone inspection station.”

Our flyer slowed its movement and was soon hovering in place. Right in front of us, the needle of the famous Burj Khalifa pierced the clouds, until recently the tallest building in the world, now second only to Google Tower. Terrorists had blown up the skyscraper in World War III, but not only was it restored later — its height was doubled.

With a chance of 99.99%, today was expected to be a usual torrid and cloudless day, but in honor of this storied event, the weather had been adjusted; fluffy clouds filled the sky.

Tissa froze in anticipation, excitedly peering into the urban forest of skyscrapers stretching out before them, gleaming with chrome and plastic, washed by the waters of the Persian Gulf and surrounded by a swarm of buzzing flyers. Today the vehicles of Distival guests added to that swarm. Myself, I looked farther, beyond the bounds of the megapolis, at the endless Rub’ al Khali, which, in translation from Arabic, means “empty quarter of the world.” A good name for the Lakharian Desert, which took up around the same amount of space in Latteria.

Nearby hovered the flyer with Hung, Ed and Malik inside. The guys gave us a thumbs-up through the glass, smiling. This trip really had opened up a world we’d only seen in the movies. Snowstorm had provided us with cozy first-class air travel, and someone met us in the airport and escorted us to the red Ferrari Falco superflyer we were now sitting in. This ‘means of transport’ differed from the city and school flyers the way a Storm Dragon differed from an ordinary horse.

The word ‘flexing’ sprang to mind. The whole car was gaudy: the color, the droplet-shaped crystalline frame, the spacious cabin with its armchairs that adapted to the shape of your body, and a mahogany table. While Tissa excitedly examined the design and contents of the mini-bar, my hands itched to switch off the autopilot and drive the thing myself, but that certainly wasn’t possible now — the flyer was moving along a guiding beam toward a checkpoint.

Five minutes later, we reached the checkpoint, flew through three scanning security rings and stopped by a police flyer. Tissa dug her nails into my arm and bit her lip. All the way there, she’d been tirelessly adjusting her short, form-fitting night-black dress, which she didn’t feel comfortable in, and worrying that they wouldn’t let us into the elite district. I was out of sorts myself. First class, a superflyer… Too much bling, it was all so cheesy, and… I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were there by some mistake. It felt as if they were about to put us in jail and deport us at any moment, as soon as they figured out that we’d won in the Junior Arena through dishonest means.

“G’day, youngsters,” we heard a man’s voice through the flyer speakers. “What’s the purpose of your visit to Downtown Dubai?”

“Distival,” Tissa answered shyly.

“Sir?”

“Distival,” I confirmed. Apparently they needed an answer from each passenger. “We’re invited.”

“Please show your left wrist and look in this direction…” An invisible scanner beam did its work. “Thank you! Your right to enter has been confirmed. Please be aware that your stay is limited to three days. Welcome to Distival, Miss Schafer and Mister Sheppard! We hope you have a great time!”

Our flyer continued its journey and started to slowly descend to one of the skyscrapers gleaming with Distival advertisements. Tissa’s lips spread into a smile. She raised her hands and exclaimed in joy:

“Yes! We did it! Look, look!”

Once certain that the others had also successfully passed through the checkpoint and were behind us, I glanced below. A huge motley crowd of cosplayers shrouded in the holographic images of Disgardium characters unhurriedly flowed toward the Dubai Arena, where Distival would take place over the next three days.

Holographic spells flashed all around, looking identical to the spells in Dis. When they hit a target, holographic damage numbers flashed above the victim’s head. People were clowning around — there were no real health indicators, just a mirage for the sake of fun and entertainment.

Judging by Tissa’s frown, she was already thinking of her own image. Although to get one, she’d have to get a special accessory licensed by Snowstorm. The corporation made money on everything: from classic fan gear like keychains, badges, baseball caps and t-shirts to precise copies of in-game weaponry and armor. The list included a gadget for generating a holographic image.

A ticket for all three days at Distival cost two hundred and ten phoenixes. Apart from all the fun fun, Distival attendees were also lured in by in-game souvenirs and meaningless achievements like I Survived Distival-2075! From a purely physical perspective, Dubai couldn’t contain everyone who wanted to come, so huge fan zones were set up in the desert, and for anyone who couldn’t fly in, there were round-the-clock live feeds, with access sold in the form of virtual tickets. Achievements were given with them too, although they had no practical value. Just a line in your profile.

There were ticket options to match every taste, and some included all manner of useless pets, kittens and cubs: non-combat pets that didn’t grow, but were adorable and couldn’t be killed. The kittens, just like my Diamond Worm, were tied to a location, while the cubs ran alongside their masters.

None of this interested me. Considering all the problems that were piling up, plus a severe lack of time, I wasn’t planning on spending more than a day there. I’d visit the exclusive Distival opening ball. I’d hang around there, talk to Yary and the other preventers — I needed to figure out whether they’d guessed that I was a Threat, and what their thoughts were in general on that count.

I’d be sure to listen to the founding fathers of Snowstorm and try to figure out which of them or which of the company directors I’d exchanged messages with. Considering I had the highest Threat status, I was almost sure they’d want to talk to me. And straight after that, I’d fly home.

Tissa and the guys had other plans. My friends were planning to spend all three days here, making contacts, talking and gathering information. The festival, with its behind-the-scenes conversations, was the best place for that. Aside from leveling up their characters, the former Dementors would be more use here than in the game.

We landed. The flyer doors opened soundlessly onto a red carpet leading to the hotel doors. I climbed out of the flyer and extended a hand to Tissa. My girlfriend hesitated for a few seconds, not understanding what I wanted from her, then got it, shook her head and sprang out on her own. Tissa Schafer wasn’t used to the whole ‘boyfriend’ thing.

“Welcome to the Royal Palace hotel!” a doorman greeted us, bending in a half bow.

Another unloaded our baggage in the meantime: Tissa’s suitcase and my backpack, which mom had packed. She failed to convince me to take a suit, but did get me to take more than just shorts and a t-shirt. There was a pair of jeans in the backpack.

A pair of doormen bustled around the guys’ flyer too.

“I bet you five phoenixes Hung won’t trust him with his backpack,” Tissa whispered.

“I bet you none of them will,” I answered.

And so it was. The guys looked ready to fight the doorman to get their bags off him as he unloaded them into his cart. Hung clapped him on the shoulder and said something. The doorman wasn’t upset. On the contrary, he laughed.

The guys headed toward us and Tissa sighed and transferred my winnings over.

We entered the hotel, signed in at reception and went up to floor eighty-one. Our ears popped from the speed of the elevator — it only took ten seconds to get us up there. The doors hissed open.

“Let’s meet in the lobby in half an hour,” Ed said as we walked along the corridor, passing identical plastic doors imitating wood. “We can go for a walk, take in the city…”

“Wouldn’t mind getting a bite to eat first,” Hung said.

Malik was the first to find his room. We heard an excited exclamation from inside as he walked in, although we all roughly knew what to expect. Burning with anticipation, we ran along the gleaming clean corridor in search of our rooms. A robot cleaner followed, working its brushes furiously.

My room was the last. After keying in the sacred numbers 81207, I stopped and placed a palm on the screen on the door. The green stripe of a scanner bean ran down from top to bottom, the invisible ray scanning the shape of my face, assessing my expression to decide whether I was under duress, then the door beeped and lifted.

Crossing the threshold, I found myself in an ordinary-looking room without overly garish luxury; a rug bearing Arabic patterns on the floor, beige walls with three-dimensional paintings, curtains the color of wet sand. The huge bed, on the other hand, astounded the imagination. The whole Awoken clan could have fit on it.

I took a step forward and Denise Le Bon materialized before me. I froze, stunned, then realized that it was just a ridiculously realistic hologram.

It felt as if the most beautiful woman on the planet really was in the room with me. She smiled and spoke.

“Welcome, Mister Sheppard. We hope that your stay at the Royal Palace hotel will be a comfortable one. If you dislike my appearance, you can change it. Please state your name or say a phrase of at least five words so that we can identify you by your voice.”

“Well, hi, my name’s Alex Sheppard. I hope that’s enough.”

“Thank you for your understanding, Alex.”

Denise’s pleasant voice flowed like a stream, relating all the conveniences of the hotel. It had tennis courts, a whole spa, a pool on the roof, restaurants, bars, a cinema. If I wanted to, I could change up the interior design, decide whether a human or robot would clean my room, or opt out of cleaning altogether. Just as the voice was starting to bore me, I was asked if I wanted to give any voice commands, and I ordered Denise’s hologram to disappear.

My wish was fulfilled instantly and I walked toward the window. The curtains began to slowly move aside, revealing a panorama of the city. Then I suddenly noticed a swarthy and dark-haired man around age twenty-five sprawled out on a leather armchair in the far corner of the room.

There are three reactions when you perceive danger: fight, flight or play dead. My body chose the third option and froze. Instead of calling for security, I stared at the uninvited guest; he had a smooth-shaven face and languid, almond eyes like Malik’s, speaking of eastern roots.

“Hello, Alex,” he nodded, not getting up, and crossed one leg over the other. His chocolate-colored costume blended in with the armchair. No wonder I hadn’t noticed him right away. “Before you call security, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Kiran Jackson, a director of Snowstorm.”

The man’s status had the desired effect on me. I didn’t answer right away, nor as confidently as I would have liked.

“Um… Pleased to meet you, Mister Jackson… I think. Are you the one that answered my emails?”

“Emails?” Kiran put on a surprised expression and smiled.

“Ah… Forget about it.”

I stopped in the center of the room. My head was a whirlwind of thoughts. What did this mean? Could I trust this man? Was he really in the corporation, or had the preventers figured me out and infiltrated my room?

If Kiran was telling the truth, then why had they decided to contact me like this? It looked like this was to be a very informal conversation, like our previous correspondence. The only question was, did Jackson plan to speak on behalf of all Snowstorm, or would he be out for his own interests?

“How was your flight? Take a seat…” Kiran pointed at an armchair in another corner of the room and turned his own toward me. “There are plenty of cold drinks in the mini-bar. I recommend the Disgardium Special, a limited edition version of your favorite Coca Cola with some special additives that restore your energy, lift your mood and put you in a positive frame of mind, heh-heh. You’re sixteen already, right? So you’re allowed.”

I didn’t refuse. Keeping track of the guest in the corner of my eye, I tried to grab a bright bottle shaped like a Dis health potion out of the transparent mini-bar, but failed because I couldn’t find any buttons or panels to place my hand on. Remembering that I’d been invited to use voice commands before, I spoke:

“Open mini-bar.”

One of its walls lowered. I took the bottle out and sat down next to Kiran. Twisting off the cap, I drank a little of the Disgardium Special and barely held back a grimace — the drink sure was alcoholic.

“What do you want to talk about? And how can you prove that you are who you say you are?”

“About your status, Alex,” His face turned more serious, his cheekbones sharpening, his forehead creasing. Now he didn’t seem twenty-five at all, but at least forty. I suspected he was actually well over fifty. “You’re a Threat with a potential of A, a herald of the Sleeping Gods and a legate of the Destroying Plague. Your clan, the Awoken, has a fort on the island of Kharinza. Does that prove my knowledge and my affiliation with Snowstorm?”

“Hmm… Maybe. But I’m tired of this secrecy from you guys. You’ve probably even given me a fake name, just like before. Where’s my guarantee that you aren’t some preventer trying to lull me into a false sense of security?”

“Amazing,” Kiran muttered in annoyance. He jabbed his comm and brought up the official Snowstorm page. “See for yourself.”

The second name in the list of the corporation’s council of directors was Kiran R. Jackson. And his photograph matched the man in front of me. Unable to restrain myself, I walked up to Kiran and touched his hair. Real. It was no hologram.

“Happy now? Alright, Alex, I’d be glad to chitchat some more, but you see, the situation obliges me to be somewhere else right now. So I’m going to be brief, and you listen carefully. Forget about the Sleeping Gods. Just forget about them. That’s a dead script that someone from among the first programmers put into the game’s kernel.”

“Someone? One of the programmers?”

“Don’t get hung up on my words. Of course we know who did it, but the name won’t mean anything to you. The name ‘Sleeping Gods’ is no accident. They’re powerful AIs that operate on a mere fraction of a percent of the capabilities of the system. They really are in sleep mode, so the name has a double meaning. According to the game’s lore, all of Disgardium is their dream. In reality, their function is something else. ‘Awakening’ can mean only one thing: the world reaching a critical mass of cascade errors, which means it would have to reload.”

“And what would be so bad about that, Mister Jackson?”

“Everything will be destroyed. Disgardium will revert to its initial version, and not the one the first players once started with, but to the very sources of the world: the creation of life, the first sentient creatures, the old gods, a single continent. The Sleeping Gods will ‘fall asleep’ again, and their dreams will begin anew. Everything in the game will be regenerated from nothing. Do you understand what that threatens? Billions of non-citizens will lose their jobs in an instant. Billions of players will lose their characters. Revolutions have begun over less, Alex.”

“But I’m not planning to wake them up. Behemoth said that the Nether threatens the world, and only the Sleeping Gods can fight against it. To do that, they…”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Kiran interrupted him. “Listen to me. It’s been almost twenty years since the game launched. The kernel remains unchanged, but the world itself lives by its own rules. It grows, Alex, it evolves. And the Sleepers perceive certain things as critical errors. But they aren’t errors!”

“You mean everyone turning into a rotting corpse is perfectly normal?”

“If you’re referring to the Destroying Plague, yes, that’s normal. It’s no worse than fairies or centaurs. We’ll talk about that more later, right now I want to talk about something else. Think about what has happened from the point of view of real life. All the so-called gods are merely AIs. Powerful, sentient, but nonetheless, just artificial intelligences. No feelings, no sentimentality, with clear goals built into their program. You have to understand that the AIs have their own competition. For resources.”

“What resources? Faith?”

“In Dis, everything is interconnected. No AI can get more influence than their capacity allows. Their capacity is always limited. Obviously, this is reflected somewhat differently in the game. The ruler of the Commonwealth, Bastian the First, fights against Emperor Kragosh for land and increased popularity, which gives him more power and opportunities. The old gods, the beast gods, the elemental gods, the new gods led by Nergal and Marduk, and now the Sleeping Gods — they all compete for Faith, and the more followers they have, the more computing power these AIs who believe themselves gods have.”

Jackson spoke hurriedly, but enunciated every word clearly. He took a pause to give me time to process what I’d heard, then pulled something like an inhaler out of his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. Catching my confused glance, he explained:

“It’s an Accelerator. I’ve been on my feet for three days.” He smiled, his eyes gleaming. “Tell me, do you understand what I’m trying to explain to you?”

“That the Sleeping Gods just want processing power?” I asked, taking a swig of my Disgardium Special.

“Exactly right!” Kiran beamed. “I won’t hide the fact that these AIs are potentially the most powerful among all those playing gods. In contrast to the others, they can interact with the kernel of Dis itself, change its physical laws. And the most terrible thing of all, Alex, is that they really do believe themselves to be gods. To them, you and all other sentients are dust, microbes. It’s already clear that a conflict between them and the ruling divine pantheon is inevitable. Nergal has taken their coming very seriously. He even made peace with his eternal enemy Marduk, just to suppress the Sleepers before they can take root. The Sleepers themselves consider the new gods parasites, disturbing their dreams. If all five of the Sleeping Gods are able to activate, then Dis is done. Once they reach full power, they won’t stop until they tear it apart, ‘cleansing’ it of its parasites. That’s the best-case scenario. In the worst-case, they just reload the world.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Give up on Behemoth. Thanks to you, he’s gained the most influence among the Sleeping Gods, but his temple is already destroyed. Remember, Alex, he’s just a virtual droplet of intelligent protoplasm. The allied forces will take care of Tiamat’s temple. For you, the upcoming event is a great opportunity to bring the Destroying Plague event script to its natural conclusion. Concentrate on that. Finish the Nucleus’s quest chain.”

“What’s the Destroying Plague good for anyway? It’s… abominable.”

“Do you really think so? That somehow didn’t stop you using it to level up, to start collecting First Kills…”

“Alright, alright, I get your point. All the same though…”

“The coming of the Destroying Plague is another twist in the game’s development. A new faction, new conflicts and variety in the gameplay. Some of the players will cross over to the Destroying Plague, which will change the current balance of power, add life to the stagnant swamp. You must understand, the undead race itself is the key to conquering territories with an extreme climate, and it’s a powerful boost to the economy…”

“How?”

“Listen, Alex, I really don’t have time for this. In ideal conditions, our conversation shouldn’t be happening. The script would have continued on without our interference, like when the dark races were unlocked. But for some reason, you’ve gotten stuck on the Sleeping Gods, although the game itself has given you clear signals — it’s a dead end.”

“But what does the economy have to do with it?” I finished off my bottle, wanted to get up to grab another one, but thought better of it. I needed my head clear, my mind sharp.

“Leave it alone, Alex. You understood it for yourself when you turned your inwinova friends undead. The undead are inexhaustible, they know no tiredness. The productivity of labor in resource collection trades will skyrocket, and to prevent severe drops in the prices of resources, several long global wars will start at once. Everyone will be fighting everyone else. At least, that’s the gist of what our analysts predict.”

“I see. But what do I have to gain? My Threat potential is linked to the Sleepers, not to the Destroying Plague.”

“Bring the script to its end and delete your character. Then you’ll have options. A contract to work at Snowstorm in the Threat department with citizenship class C guaranteed, along with a house of the same class in the Celestial Valley. Your citizenship tests are coming up soon, right? Think of how happy your parents will be. If you don’t want to work for us, you can choose another class and keep playing. We’ll give you a special booster that will make you level up several times faster. Everything that Scyth collected will, of course, remain with you. Or if you decide to study — we’ll set that up for you. Any Ivy League university, the choice is yours. What do you say?”

“I say I like the sound of that, Mister Jackson. But there might be some practical difficulties.”

“The preventers?” Kiran asked in understanding.

“Yes.”

“That’s part of the gameplay, Alex. I can’t help you there. Even if they eliminate you, the scenario will take a little longer to launch, but not by much. The Nucleus is gaining strength. It’ll find someone, heh-heh.”

“That’s not all. People from the Triad have threatened to pay my family a visit.”

“Do you have proof?”

“Um… No.”

“What are their demands?”

“One million and a clan invitation.”

“So do it!” Kiran scoffed. “God, what nonsense! Subthreats are going to try and cozy up to you, you should know that. As for the million… Sell any artifact from the treasury, who cares? All you have to do is hang on for a week or two and that’s it, your job is done!”

Kiran stood up.

“Well, Alex? Do we have an agreement?”

“Of course, Mister Jackson. We have an agreement.”

“Wonderful.”

He shook my hand, sprayed more of his Accelerator into his mouth, frowned and took a deep and noisy breath. Shaking his head, he seemed to recall something else.

“By the way, Alex. Find the cultists of Morena and contact the goddess herself. Convince her to join your side. I won’t tell you where to look for her; that would be interfering in the gameplay. But I have every faith in you. The event will be more large-scale that way, if you catch my drift.”

Kiran winked, smiled, clapped me on the shoulder and suddenly disappeared, leaving me in a state of elation. I took out another bottle of Disgardium Special. If this wasn’t a special occasion, I didn’t know what was. For the first time in half a year, the weight of uncertainty was lifted from my shoulders. I knew exactly what I needed to do and when it would all end.

Chapter 3. Mogwai’s Speech

AFTER MY MEETING with Kiran, I ran down to the lobby, excitedly swigging my Disgardium Special as I went. The drink really did perk me up and put me in a good mood. I finished it off and mournfully threw the empty bottle into a gleaming chrome trashcan by the lift and went in search of my friends.

They hadn’t come down yet, so I examined the interior and the guests: well-groomed, stately, smiling, businesslike and at the same time in no hurry at all. Gentlemen in smoking jackets and suits and ladies in colorful dresses dominated, but dotted here and there were those that showed with all their appearance that they cared not at all for appearances. Like that one girl with a crimson mohawk and a nose ring…

A waiter came by with a tray and offered us some freshly squeezed orange juice. I accepted and sipped the tooth-chilling juice, studying the walls of the Royal Palace’s lobby, which were peppered with the same kind of three-dimensional paintings as in my room. Staring at people seemed to be unacceptable here.

Raising my head, I saw a giant projection of the Earth. It was spinning, first showing me partially radioactive China, then Europe, then South America, then it suddenly zoomed out and showed me the Solar System, then the entire galaxy. The scale astounded me and gave me a sense of my own insignificance not just within the bounds of the universe, but of the planet.

The enchanting atmosphere of the Royal Palace distracted me so much that a phrase spoken by a pleasing feminine voice made me gasp.

“So you must be the renowned Scyth? Alex?”

Stumbling, I saw a tall laughing girl before me. She looked around twenty and she had short bright blue hair. She had a clean face with very little makeup. Only her lips gleamed with a golden sparkle. She was dressed in short jean shorts and an azure top that suited her eyes, which shimmered in shades of green. Out of habit, I cast a glance at the spot where the player profile usually shows up, saw nothing and was at a loss. The girl laughed even louder.

“I’m Piper. I’m in T-Modus, the guys whose asses you kicked in the final. Don’t be embarrassed, Scyth. Confusing reality with Dis isn’t the worst thing that can happen with a pro player.”

“Hey, Piper, how’s it going?” I said, finally recovering from my stupor, but not thinking of anything better to say to this stranger girl from the junior subclan of Modus. My thoughts span and my now-customary paranoia switched on. The laughing Piper was waiting for something, and I couldn’t think of anything dumber to say than “You’re here for Distival?”

“No,” she said seriously.

“Really?”

“Of course I’m here for Distival!” she laughed. “But I do actually live here, too. So I didn’t have far to fly. I’m here for a friend from the clan, Alison Wu. I can’t tell you how anxious I am — she and I have never met in real life before. What about you?”

“I’m here with my clan. Waiting for them to come down.”

“Wait a sec… Is Hung one of yours?”

“Maybe…” I offered. “What if he is?”

“Alison’s been going on and on about him. Is he really such a good guy?”

“Hung is a loyal friend,” I said diplomatically. Our understanding of ‘good guy’ might be different. “And a great tank!”

“I’m sure he is,” Piper nodded. “And what about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you a good guy too? I bet you have tons of fans!”

“I have a girlfriend. Tissa.”

“Oh, that blonde healer? Shame, shame…” Piper made as if she was upset. “That’s always the way, you meet a guy and…”

She suddenly looked behind me, stood up on her tip toes, her eyes widening:

“There’s Alison! It was nice to meet you, Scyth! You know, you seem cool… Give me a call if you want me to show you the city!” The girl swiped her comm toward me and ran off to meet her friend.

My comm vibrated. New contact received: Piper Dandera. Save?

I accepted and glanced at Alison Wu, the girl from T-Modus who Hung so passionately dreamed of meeting. He spent all his free time in endless conversations with her. They hadn’t met each other in the game. Hung kept coming up with excuses, saying he wasn’t logging in because his citizenship tests were soon, and he couldn’t ask her out in real life for some reason. The girl was a good match for him — big and tall, a face that looked both Asian and European.

Malik soon appeared, and then Hung and Ed. Tissa came down last. I told Hung that I’d seen Alison and he smiled mysteriously.

“We’re going to meet up at the ball, she has things to do for now. Well, how about we get a bite to eat?”

Nobody had an appetite, so the big man found himself in the minority.

We left the hotel, took a community flyer and took off to look at the city. I kept quiet about Kiran, deciding to put off the story until we got home: you never knew who was listening.

This city that had grown up out of the desert astounded the imagination: it had musical fountains that threw water up three hundred feet into the air, aerial bridges that connected skyscrapers at dizzying heights… But most impressive of all was the first ‘floating’ island in the world. We weren’t allowed to get close to it, a forcefield just knocked our flyer back, but even from a mile away, we could make out the gardens and waterfalls of the elite category A district, higher than any skyscraper and protected from wind and weather by a dome forcefield. An hour later, when our flyer flew over one of the artificial islands of the bay, Hung protested, demanding that we land immediately and stuff our faces in the first restaurant we found, but the voice of reason (in other words, Ed) spoke with concern about the prices of food in that area. Hung couldn’t have paid a hundred and fifty phoenixes for a steak no matter how much he wanted one.

In the end, we took advantage of the tour guide built into the flyer and headed for a Dubai district with a lower category. There we found a small street restaurant and stuffed ourselves to bursting with kebabs and shawarma, washed it down with sparkling water and headed back to the hotel.

It was time to get ready for the ball.

* * *

By arranging the opening of Distival for midnight, Snowstorm, it seemed, considered that the best time for the majority of attendees. Many had come from timezones where it was already morning or midday. But there was something of a fairytale about it all: a ball, midnight, magic…

The organizers had laid a long red carpet from the flyer landing spot leading into the building. You could walk along it alone or as a couple. The invited guests, dressed in designer dresses and elegant smoking jackets, harmonized perfectly with the surroundings. The more I looked at myself and others, the more I felt like an outsider at this celebration of a lifetime. The boys and I hadn’t pushed the boat out. We arrived at the ball in our torn jeans, ordinary t-shirts and trainers.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Before you is the Awoken clan, the winners of the Junior Arena this year! Edward Rodriguez — the mage Crawler! Malik Abdualim — the rogue Infect! Hung Lee — the warrior Bomber!

The organizers had outdated info on Malik’s class; the guest lists had been written before he became a bard, it occurred to me as I looked over the boys. Ed, Hung and Malik walked the red carpet, smiling, greeting onlookers and elbowing each other. Now there were some guys that didn’t give a damn how they were dressed.

Tissa and I stood, waiting for them to announce us. I looked at her and realized that the girl felt uncomfortable because of me. Tissa’s beauty was hard to mess up, especially in that black evening gown, on high heels, with her hair up. She looked incredible… I really regretted not listening to my mom and taking a suit! I wouldn’t have looked like a clown then.

“Melissa Schafer — the priestess Tissa! Alex Sheppard — the archer Scyth!”

Just like with Infect, the organizers had taken my class information from the Arena registration data. Only now did I realize how lucky I was. If they’d declared me a Herald, I wouldn’t have been able to get away from questions and unwanted attention. The media stuck news together from whatever nonsense they could find, and a unique class that nobody had heard of…

Tissa walked on rigid legs, her back straight, staring straight ahead as if afraid that if she saw the reaction of the viewers arrayed along the red carpet, shouting and whistling, then her imagined shame would be even more obvious. The girl’s cheeks were red, her tightly closed lips were white, but the thing that made her anxiousness most obvious was the strength with which she gripped my arm.

I aimlessly glanced over the crowd of onlookers, an idiotic grin frozen on my lips. My blood pulsed in my temples. I was dreaming of only one thing: taking this hundred-foot walk as soon as possible and disappearing inside. I heard a chant in the cacophony of the crowd: Cheater! Cheater! The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I turned around. I must have imagined it.

“Sheppard! Sheppard!” two girls were shouting my surname with an accent. Both were topless. Noticing me looking at them, they whistled in glee.

“We love you, Alex!

Tissa didn’t notice anything, her gaze still fixed directly ahead. Only once we walked inside and found ourselves in a full, spacious hall did we relax a little. The girl hung off me and hissed:

“I can’t walk in high heels at all. I was afraid I’d fall over, my dress would rip and the whole world would see me make a fool of myself…”

“I thought you were so stressed out because of me.”

“Because of you?” She looked me up and down in confusion. “You look just fine, Alex!”

Once we got our bearings, we waited to be invited into the grand hall where the ball would take place. The guys were laying siege to the buffet tables and were already throwing back wine, which waiters in the crowd were offering from trays. I stood with them a while, then headed for a gathering of top players from the Alliance of Preventers.

A little off to the side stood a group of brightly dressed people. All of them listened attentively to a young man with long hair to below his shoulders gathered into a ponytail, with shaved temples.

“…damn desert!” he exclaimed, raising his glass. “Which is why… I’m coming back right after Distival!”

The people around started whispering.

“What?”

“Fen is in the game again?”

“Did he say he’s coming back?”

Shocked cries turned into chanting. The onlookers triumphantly shook their fists and repeated:

“Mogwai is coming back to Dis!”

Wasn’t that the legendary top #1 player in the world? Patronizingly looking down on his fans, he smiled. A short athletic Asian man in designer shorts, a rumpled white shirt with sleeves rolled back and dock shoes with no socks.

I recalled everything I knew about him: a druid animalist at level three hundred and ninety-eight, a player who reached the Resilience cap at rank three and announced a year ago that he was tired of Dis and had decided to take a break. Twenty-seven years old. He won the Junior Arena at fifteen, was the best fighter of the Azure Dragons until he was lured over to Modus, but then he left them too. In both clans he became a champion of the Arena, the Battlefields. He won the Demonic Games. And if he wasn’t a Threat — I was sure he wasn’t; Mogwai was forever under focused attention, he would have been checked long ago — then he was, without a doubt, worthy of respect.

The noise drew the attention of my clanmates. I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder:

“So Fen Xiaoguang is returning to Dis?” Hung walked up and spoke quietly.

“No surprise,” Ed noted. “Events like Nergal’s Summons happen only once a decade. He couldn’t miss out.”

Tissa and Infect stayed silent. When I saw the girl’s shining eyes glued on Mogwai, I felt a stab of jealousy.

In the meantime, the crowd around the man had grown severalfold. Mogwai unceremoniously whipped a tablecloth off food off a table and climbed onto it. Raising a hand, he waited for the crowd to calm down, then spoke.

“Thank you, thank you, my friends… I have to admit, I wanted to hold a press conference and declare my return a little later, but it happened as it did. I don’t think there’s any point in that now, so I’ll say my piece here.” He waved a hand, looking at the preventers, and smiled widely. “I see Hinterleaf, Yary, Horvac, Glyph and the others look worried. They were hoping to outdo me…”

Everyone laughed. A short and stocky old man standing not far from the table waved his hand.

“I’m only a couple of levels off you, Mogwai! Rest a little longer! Huh? Relax while you’re young, kiddo!”

“I’m not in Modus anymore, Otto. Focus on commanding your boys!” Mogwai answered, causing another explosion of laughter in the crowd. “To tell the truth, I had no plans to return to Disgardium in the near future. Only a week ago, I remember thinking: what’s there for me anyway? I’ve long since grown out of the Dis I left behind. But the world has changed. An incredible A-class threat roams Dis. The Sleeping Gods have awoken. Undead hordes attack Commonwealth cities from the desert. Miss out on fun like that? Not likely!”

“What are you going to do, Mogwai?” someone shouted. “Will you return to Modus? You’re not going to try and catch the Threat on your own, are you?”

The top #1 player in the world called someone over, extended a hand to him. The man stood up on the table next to him. Throwing an arm over his shoulder, Mogwai spoke. By that time all the conversations in the hall had stopped. Everyone was listening carefully, and even the Snowstorm representatives, who were preparing to invite everyone to the grand hall to start the ball, pricked up their ears to listen to Mogwai’s speech.

“You all know Criterror, my friend Ignatious, the best DPSer I know in Dis. Twelve years ago, he and I conquered the Junior Arena together, joined the Azure Dragons and achieved victory on the Battlefields. Then, when I left for Modus, our game paths diverged, but our friendship remained. Crit created his own clan, Elite. I’m its co-founder, and we had the idea…”

He spoke like Kiran, fast but clear. His cheeks reddened, his eyes gleamed — either from drinking too much alcohol, or from an Accelerator.

As I listened, I watched the faces of the leaders of the Alliance of Preventers, seeing them in real life and in human form for the first time. Hinterleaf looked like his character, a gray-haired gnome, although he was a little fatter in real life. Yary wasn’t so much of a knight in the real world; his shoulders weren’t as broad, he was shorter, and his age didn’t match. His real face was covered in wrinkles. Only his harsh and extremely serious eyes matched his character. Immediately after the official part of the ball, I’d planned to go up and talk to them, try to find out their intentions and make my excuses for not joining Modus, taking cover behind the upcoming citizenship tests. Noticing me, he frowned for an instant, gave me a quick nod — he recognized me.

Among the assembled players, I recognized the aristos[2] Joshua and Vivian Gallagher from the Children of Kratos, the bald leader of Excommunicado, Colonel, a veteran peacekeeper… I had no idea what the others looked like. Some of them avoided the public eye. But it was impossible not to recognize Horvac. The large and loud man with arms around two beautiful women at once, drinking champagne straight from the bottle, could only be Horvac. But Mogwai’s speech shut even him up.

The top #1 player cast his eyes over the crowd. I felt as if he held his gaze on me a little longer than the rest. Then he concluded:

“We are an elite battle clan. We accept into our ranks only outstanding players at the highest levels. The economy, mines, crafting — we leave that to you, those knee deep in countless intrigues, price wars and other such nonsense, the parts of the game not worthy of the name. Unlike you, old men, we plan to play! We’re going to unlock new lands, take First Kills, catch Threats and have fun! We’re going to discover new raid instances, and I promise you, we’ll be the first to complete them! And what’s more…”

Under the rising hubbub, Mogwai poured the last of his glass of wine down his neck, reeled a little, looked for the drones streaming the event to the entire world, pointed his forefinger at the closest and announced loudly:

“Class A Threat! You can hide in places inaccessible to honest players for as long as you like. You can fear to show your true face and hide in disguises, keep your name secret… But I promise you, whoever you are, we will come for you, and that will be your last day in Disgardium!”

Chapter 4. No Good to Anyone

THE CEILING OF THE GRAND HALL stretched up so high that it seemed as if it didn’t exist at all. The light of stars glimmering in the dark of night seemed to pour down straight from the heavens. Miraculous multicolored lights flashed bright and went out again above our heads, creating a sense of excited wonder, as if everything around — even the decor — shivered in anticipation. The air smelled of freshness and spices.

I barely had time to recover from my amazement when a little fairy appeared a few feet from me in a colorful outfit, magic wand in hand. A hologram.

“Hey, Scyth! Would you like to take on your true form?” she squeaked.

“No!” I cried in fear, shaking my head.

That was all I needed! Undead Scyth in the full Unconquered Herald set, right in the middle of the preventers? Why didn’t I just write “Class A Threat” on my forehead..?

“So be it! Have a wonderful evening!” she said and flew off to greet other guests.

The lights of changing appearances flashed through the hall. More and more guests were activating holographic projections of their characters.

The ball, called World’s Edge, began almost half an hour late. And all because of Mogwai. If it hadn’t been him, but one of the leaders of a clan in the Alliance of Preventers, nobody would have waited and the ball would have started on time, but the #1 best player in the world was too significant even for Snowstorm.

Of course, Fen Xiaoguang always said that Disgardium was no more than just a game to him, but he was unlikely to argue with the fact that it was the game that had made him one of the most famous people on the planet (or, counting the colony on Mars — in the whole Solar System). Four years ago, Modus lured him in when he was the number-one top player in the world, promising him a mind-blowing salary of a billion phoenixes per year. Supposedly they paid a huge check to the Azure Dragons for his transfer too! The amount hadn’t been revealed, but no doubt it was hard for an ordinary mortal to imagine that kind of money.

Modus paid all that money in the hope it was getting an invincible tank in the form of Mogwai for the next ten years. With a tank like that, they could conquer all the top dungeons first and pick up achievements in droves. They signed a contract for three years, but everyone knew that was just a formality, considering that Hinterleaf had increased Fen’s share of all the clan’s profit before the end of that term.

Like hell. Mogwai left Modus the day after his contract ended, and a day later he declared that he was going on an extended vacation.

So yes, Fen Xiaoguang’s speech blew up not only at Distival, but all over the world. Judging by the whistled exclamations of Ed and Malik, whose eyes were glued to their comm screens, the whole media immediately forgot about the A-class Threat that descended on Vermillion that morning, and about Sharkon, and Nergal’s Summons. They all switched to Mogwai and his new clan, Elite. If they mentioned his friend and co-founder Criterror, then it was only in passing.

The attendees of the ball were gossiping as well. Even the welcoming speech from Michael Anderson, the sole founding father of Snowstorm himself who showed up at the ball, ended up fuzzy. It seemed I was the only one listening to him at first.

Anderson was almost ninety, but thanks to anti-aging technologies, he looked far younger. Even the roguish outfit he’d chosen for the ball — leather pants, heavy boots and a flyer racer’s jacket — didn’t seem out of place. The lean and short, but still solid Michael used to participate in battle tournaments with no rules in his youth.

In the middle of the thirties, he and his partners founded Snowstorm. A decade and a half later, toward the end of the forties, everyone was talking about the company after it announced Disgardium.

In the sixties, all the founding fathers (among which, strangely enough, was one woman) moved away from direct management of the company. They say the UN forced them to sell fifty percent plus one share, and then steadily forced them out of management. Nonetheless, they still had levers of influence, and the directors, particularly the ones that started with them, remained loyal.

“A year of incredible achievements awaits us!” Anderson said from the stage. His bright eyes seemed to be looking at everyone and no one at the same time. His quiet but confident voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, and I remembered that he was the person I’d heard during the intro when I first loaded up Disgardium. “And if you think that I’m talking about the return of the respected Mogwai, you are mistaken. As you know, we often place bets between ourselves on certain events. After Nergal the Radiant’s Summons, nobody bet on Fen’s return to Dis — we were all already certain of it…”

Old man Anderson paused, glanced at Fen with eyes narrowed. The player spread his hands, not arguing with the man. By that moment, all the whispering had ceased. Everyone was waiting for something important from the founding father.

“I’m talking about the fact that Disgardium will never be the same again. New forces have appeared in the world, and a great deal is going to change very soon…” Anderson looked upwards vaguely, smiled dreamily and moved his gaze onto the assembled Snowstorm employees. After a barely perceptible nod, he suddenly ended his speech. “I won’t ruin the surprises. Have fun!”

He walked off the stage, turned back for an instant and, as it seemed to me, looked straight at me. The old man walked off the stage to the sound of applause — what he and his partners had done had become the meaning of life for many.

Next, my new acquaintance Kiran gave a short, but emotional speech. He spouted a lot of numbers, spoke about the increases over the year in the player count, average player level, in-game transactions and so on and so on. The gist of his speech was that all this was made by possible thanks to the ball’s guests. At first I got the impression that he was currying favor with the leaders of the top clans, but I was mistaken.

It was quite the opposite.

I realized that when the official speeches ended, a band went up on stage and the preventers surrounded Kiran. Judging by the displeased face he was making as he listened to them, by his frown and how he looked down on them, his real attitude toward them was roughly the following: I’m going to let you play in my sandbox with my toys, kids, but don’t forget whose game it is!

Kiran soon moved away, and the members of the Alliance started to heatedly discuss something.

We spread out through the hall, trying to overhear as much as possible. Although Tissa planned to leave the clan, she was concerned for the Awoken and she promised to get everything she could out of Elizabeth, the leader of the White Amazons. Hung headed for the guys from T-Modus — not only the five finalists from the clan had been invited to the ball, but also the reserves, which included Alison. Ed and Malik stood at opposite ends of the round stage in the hall’s center, where the top managers of Snowstorm and the leaders of the top hundred clans of Disgardium were hanging around.

For my part, I stayed close to members of the Alliance of Preventers and Mogwai, doing several important things at the same time: trying out the elegant delicacies on offer from the waiters, listening to what the top players were talking about, looking around and constantly checking my comm to figure out who was who.

When aimed at a person, the communicator collected all the available information about them and showed it in the form of a profile. The problem was that almost everyone present had blocked this method of identification, so I had to make do only with names, and, when they were known, in-game nicknames.

I wandered the hall, making as if I wasn’t trying to listen in on important conversations. On one of the walls, the Disgardium logo was suddenly switched with a panoramic view of the nighttime Lakharian Desert. A skirmish was unfolding at the top of a dune, shadowy against the background of the night sky. At first I tensed, thinking it might be my battle with Sharkon, but I calmed down when I looked closer: it was a group of small Sand Spirits attacking a basilisk.

In the meantime, the starlight on the vaulted ceiling went out, the moon rose, and in its silver light the dancing began. Old-fashioned dancing, in my view. Couples span around the hall just like in old films of the last century.

I got bored. The only thing keeping me at Distival was my need to talk to Yary, and anyway, I felt out of place. Hell, not just out of place — I was having an awful time. I felt lonely.

I watched as Hung cooed over Alison, the girl from T-Modus; as Tissa excitedly told something to Elizabeth from the White Amazons, dressed like a fairytale queen; as Ed and Malik found some company — apart from us and T-Modus, other teenagers had also been invited, those for achievements in Dis outside the Arena. Catching my eye, Ed waved me over. I gave him a nod and turned away. I doubted we’d find things to talk about. I couldn’t tell him the truth about my character, I didn’t want to come up with tall tales, and nothing except Dis interested them. I doubted anyone here shared my fascination with space. So I wandered aimlessly, trying not to bump into any dancing couples.

People I met gave me guarded smiles, asked who I was in Dis and what I did, but when they heard my name, they lost interest immediately. The winner of the Junior Arena? Oh, cool, cool… In the scale of the wider game, yesterday’s escapee from the sandbox held nobody’s interest.

When I approached the group of preventers to finally speak to the Modus clan leaders, hang around for another couple of hours and then disappear off back to my room with a sense of a duty well done, Yary split off from the group himself and walked toward me. He was wearing a holosuit that imitated his legendary knight’s set from Dis. It seemed he’d switched it on only inside, because he’d been in a tuxedo before.

“Hey, buddy!” he shook my hand and led me off to one side. “Alex, right?”

“Yes.”

“Yaroslav. I want to apologize to you. Hinterleaf decided to pause recruitment for a while, especially of new players, even ones as promising as you. If you want, I can introduce you to him and you can even take a picture with him, but the clan invitation is canceled.”

Suppressing my joy and relief, I made as if I was crestfallen. I hoped I wasn’t overdoing it.

“How come?”

“Due to recent events, of course. Who needs a newbie at level thirty or forty, or what level are you at now? It’d take years for you to level up to top player standard, and we need skilled players right now.”

“Yary, maybe… Maybe one of them could make use of us?” I nodded at the group of preventers, among which the tall figure of Glyph stood out in a holosuit of a Chinese emperor. If I was going to put on an act, then it better be a good one. “My friends and I… we’ll level up fast! We’re already almost at forty, in a year we’ll get to one hundred…”

“Ah, damn you,” Yary smiled, scratching the back of his head through his helmet. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

He led me to the quietly conversing group of preventers — all in all, I counted thirty people. It seemed there were not only leaders of Alliance clans in the group, but other preventers too, like Yagami from Mizaki. Some, like Hinterleaf, sat on the couch by the wall smoking cigars. Others a little lower in rank stood, but they all emanated an aura of power. Rulers of a virtual world and elite citizens of real life.

“Hey friends, allow me to interrupt your conversation,” Yaroslav said loudly.

It took a little time, but eventually the attention switched to us. What was I doing? I was like a dumb sheep wandering into a den of hungry wolves. My bravado of that morning in Vermillion suddenly seemed even more foolish. As they all cast a glance over me, I saw annoyance or a very slight interest appear on their faces — most realized that Yary wouldn’t be distracting them unless it was worthwhile.

“Otto, this is the one and only Scyth, the guy I was telling you about. His name is Alex.”

“I remember, I remember,” the gray-haired old man nodded, awkwardly waving his glass of liquor, his bemused gaze moving to Yary. “An autograph?”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind an autograph, but that’s not what he’s here for. Colleagues, Scyth captained the champion team of the Junior Arena this year. Glyph, Joshua, Colonel, you must remember him. I doubt the rest of you will, he plays on the light side. I’ve seen him in battle against our young guys, he has potential.”

“I’m afraid the young man won’t quite fit into…” Joshua, the leader of the Children of Kratos, twirled a finger in the air, showing off a signet ring inset with a fire diamond from the Martian mines. “…into our format. With all due respect for your achievements, Alex.”

“I remember him,” Glyph said, frowning. “He isn’t suitable for us. The Azure Dragons don’t make you an offer twice.”

“Nor does Mizaki,” Yagami said. “We have no interest in Scyth.”

“Listen, Yary, if he’s so great, why don’t you take him?” Colonel asked in a trembling voice.

“We’ve closed recruitment to new members,” Hinterleaf answered for his deputy, shrugging.

“Afraid of getting a mole?” Yagami chuckled in understanding. “What are you plotting, Otto, you old fox?”

They started quibbling as if in jest, but it seemed to me that multiple hidden meanings lay behind every seemingly friendly conversational cut and thrust. I wasn’t allowed to listen to the end. Yary spread his hands and gently but insistently led me away.

“If you decide to create a new char in the Empire, get in touch,” I heard as we walked away, and turned back.

Horvac nodded at me, the corners of his lips lifting. Smiling in answer, I looked at Yary. He gave me a barely perceptible shake of the head.

“I don’t advise it. He won’t remember you tomorrow, and their conditions… The Travelers have several farm clans. The turnover there is crazy. You can get thrown out for the slightest fault. The competition is fierce. Only one in a thousand get selected to move up to the Travelers. Listen, if anything changes, I’ll get in touch. Here are my contact details, just in case…” Yary waved his details from his comm screen to me, and they flashed up on my own.

Clapping me the shoulder, he returned to his group. My soul was singing in joy — I’d gotten out of it! I hurried over to the guys to share the news. But as I walked around the hall, I realized now wasn’t the time for them. The celebratory atmosphere, the sea of free alcohol, the semi-darkness of the night — in short, everyone was going mad.

Hung was dancing with Alison and seeing nothing — kissing. His hands wandered along the girl’s curves, and she wasn’t objecting. Glancing at him, Ed also forgot about his scouting mission, flirting to the max with a knockout with dark blonde hair and long legs. My comm showed me her profile: Olesya, age twenty-three, member of the Damsels clan. Wow! Before I could pick up my jaw from the floor after seeing Ed’s achievement, Malik finished me off once and for all. Our swarthy guitar-playing tearaway was talking to two Damsels at once! Did Snowstorm invite every single one of them here?

I went to find Tissa. And I found her next to Elizabeth, only they weren’t alone: a broad-shouldered guy was regaling them with some story, all the while staring hungrily at Tissa. And my girlfriend held his gaze and laughed.

Suppressing my jealousy with difficulty, I kissed her on the cheek.

“Hey!”

“Alex!” Tissa took me by the hand and stood up next to me. “Guys, meet my boyfriend Alex. Alex, this is Elizabeth, I told you about her. And this is Liam! He’s a friend of Mogwai, can you imagine?”

I tried with all my might to hide my enmity with a smile, but I could tell I didn’t do a great job.

“Alex,” Liam nodded. “Melissa’s been telling us of your successes. I could put in a good word for you with Fen, but I doubt the Elite is going to be opening a youth branch of the clan.

I wanted to snap that I’d asked for no such thing, I had no interest in his offer — just to say something nasty, but I couldn’t find the right words.

“You have good taste, girl,” Elizabeth said, looking me up and down. She looked stunning — feminine, flawless and… naughty. Tissa looked like a schoolgirl next to her. “Pleased to meet you, Alex, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to continue talking to Melissa about the business of our clan.”

She emphasized the final words and I realized that I was being invited to leave. I doubted that Liam had anything to do with their clan, but nobody was chasing him away.

It would have been better to turn around and leave… Not just leave, but also do something, but for some reason I just kept standing there.

“Tissa?” I looked at my girlfriend, hoping that she’d intervene or leave with me.

She glanced at Elizabeth, who half-closed her eyes for a second. Was Tissa asking her for permission?” Taking me by the hand, the girl took me off to one side and spoke hotly, not looking me in the eye. She was close, and I could smell a light scent of wine on her breath.

“Alex, babe, sorry, but I need to get closer to her. You know how important this is for me, right? And that Liam is her nephew, she has no secrets from him. You don’t mind, right?” She made a guilty face.

“Go on, they’re waiting for you.”

Turning around, I tried to leave, to go get lost in the crowd, immerse myself in my problems to wipe away the memory of the night. Tissa followed me for some reason, grabbed me by the shoulder, turned me round.

“How did it all go?”

Instinctively freeing my arm, I made as if everything was fine again. For some reason I thought that if I showed my real emotions, I’d be showing a weakness.

“Fine. Turns out nobody there wants me except Horvac. And that only on the condition that I switch to a new character and play for the Empire.”

“Super! That’s cool, right? Just what you wanted?” Tissa put too much enthusiasm into her voice; it sounded unnatural.

“Well, yeah… You going to be a while longer with her?” I glanced at Elizabeth.

Noticing me, the woman moved her eyes away.

“Damn it, Alex… She invited me over after the ball. To their island. I really want to go there! It’s awesome… You know, after mom…”

What?! The island with that… Liam. The nephew would be flying there too.

And again, I said nothing. I didn’t say that her actions were like a betrayal… She was pushing me away and flying to some island with a guy that was already mentally undressing her! I was seething inside, but I managed to keep a cool head. I wished her a good time, calmly said goodbye and decided to get the hell out of there.

Don’t think about Tissa! Think about the problems to come.

I needed to get myself a pile of cash as soon as I could: a million and change for my parents, twenty thousand for Gyula’s capsule, another million to bribe Hairo from Excommunicado. On top of that, I needed money for a base in real life, and I needed to bring that business with Big Po to a close.

I looked back and saw Tissa dancing with Liam. I suppressed a desire to destroy the world, or at least blow up this building, and walked away, not turning back again.

And then Piper called me.

“Hey! Well, have you already picked someone up, or do I have a chance?

Chapter 5. Pecheneg

“HOW DID YOU get here? Did you get an invitation?”

“I told you, I live here. A guard I know helped me get in.” A devilish grin appeared on Piper’s face and she put a finger to her lips. “Just don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Damn, you warned me too late, I already put your confession online…”

“Would you look at that! He can even tell jokes! Amazing…”

Piper led me by the arm around the hall, but she didn’t tell me where we were going exactly. We walked around the stage, where a DJ at a turntable had replaced the rock band. We filtered through the dancing crowd and finally managed to make our way to the other end of the hall. I saw Hung there, flirting with Alison Wu.

“Your girlfriend is really making herself at home,” Piper noted.

She pointed out a group in which I saw Tissa, Liam and… Mogwai himself. Fen was telling her something. Tissa laughed and jokingly punched him in the chest. She didn’t acknowledge me as I walked by. Come on, Alex, I thought to myself. Don’t behave like some jealous idiot. Learn to trust your girlfriend. I tried to put my thoughts on a more positive track: Tissa was still my girlfriend, we were still together. I’d already known for a long time that she was stunning, outgoing and easy to like. It was no wonder she’d caught Liam’s eye, and now apparently Mogwai’s. That worked perfectly in our favor. I hoped she could get something important out of them, such as Mogwai’s plans.

“Yeah, she really likes it here,” I said, but the pause was obviously too long.

“I can tell,” Piper smiled. “But what about you?”

“I like it too, of course!” I lied, trying not to overdo the excitement. “It’s amazing! All my idols are here! It’s like being surrounded by people who you have posters of all over your walls!”

“Are you serious?” Piper stopped suddenly, her hair frizzing up in a blue cloud. “Well, color me surprised.”

“Surprised?”

“You don’t seem like the type who would like all this. And certainly not the type who would get all starstruck over Distival.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Alex, I’ve watched all the Junior Arena games since I was eight years old. I’m one of those people that hung up holoposters of champions up on my walls. I knew all their faces, their names, I swallowed up all the Dis-related gossip about who was dating who, who went to which parties, who got which kind of dog…”

She was pressing herself against me and almost shouting in my ear so I could hear her over the loud music.

“I worshiped them! Only when I made it into a top clan myself, and saw everything from the inside… I realized how mistaken I was. In reality, the whole elite crowd is a mass of spiders in a jar, all ready to eat each other for another epic. Friends one day, enemies the next… Alright, we’re here.”

Piper stopped. While we were talking, I hadn’t noticed that we’d reached the far end of the hall, where a door led out to a spacious balcony.

“You didn’t tell me why you decided I don’t like it here, Piper.”

“Yeah, I’m getting to that…” She pointed toward a kissing couple. “Say, without your comm, can you tell me who those lovebirds are?”

“What? No, of course not. I can’t see their faces.”

“Hey, Ron!” Piper shouted.

The twenty-three-year-old man begrudgingly tore himself away from the buxom girl and, his hand not moving from her ass, looked at us.

“What do you want, Dandera?”

“Don’t try to get your tongue any further down her throat, she’s already having trouble breathing!

“Nether with ya,” the guy spat and went back to his kiss.

“After you, dickhead,” Piper shot back, then looked at me. “Well, now you’ve seen their faces. Who are they?”

“Well… Ron and his girlfriend, as far as I can tell.”

“Just as I thought,” she nodded in satisfaction. “You don’t know them. Ron, or Ronan, was the captain of the junior team in the Children of Kratos. He won the Arena, just like you. The girl whose throat he’s trying so hard to stick his tongue down is Katrina Salgado. She’s from the Damsels and was Miss Commonwealth last year.”

“Don’t you think that’s normal? There are hundreds of people here. How can you know every one of them?”

“You can,” Piper shrugged. “I do. Like I already said, I lived for Dis and its ‘heroes’,” she said, making air quotes on the last word. “And rest assured, Alex, everyone here is the same. The leaderboard tops, the other high-achieving players — they’re all in the public eye. They know everything about each other. Because, just like I did, people live for the game. After his victory at the Arena, Ron was on screens for a whole year: he was in shows, had his own channel, got himself sponsors, sold merchandise. He had a different girl on his arm every day…” Piper faltered.

“Were you one of them?”

“No, that was later.” She blushed and spoke again quickly. “And it was a mistake! That doesn’t matter, the important thing is that you get what I’m saying, right? You’re not at all like Ron and the others. You’re completely different. Nobody even knows what level you are or what you do! You won the Arena and disappeared. All you Awoken dropped off the media radar, and I thought: here it is! Here’s a group of guys that don’t care about fame, about fans. They just play and have fun, but outside of Dis they have a normal life! And I really, really wanted to meet you. You think Alison just happened to take a liking to Hung, and I…” She bit her lip. “Long story short, I thought, this guy seems cool, he doesn’t care about all this shit… And then I meet him and he says he loves it all! Hah. Hah. Hah. I don’t believe it for a second.”

“You got me,” I said as calmly as I could. “Want to dance?”

“No. I have a better suggestion: how about we get out of here?”

“Why not?”

“Then let’s not waste any time…”

I expected us to head for the exit from the hall, but instead, Piper led me to the door leading out onto the balcony. The lights of night-time Dubai burned behind the thick glass. We passed Ron and Katrina, then walked along the wall. We walked halfway around the building on the balcony a third of a mile up, then reached a door leading inside.

I was silent the whole time, thinking about what I should say next. If Piper had wanted to make as if she had a romantic interest in me, it was now obvious that wasn’t the case. Or she wasn’t telling me everything. There was another conclusion to be made based on her words. For example: the Awoken disappeared from the media because they had something to hide.

“Where are we going?”

Piper stopped, took a deep breath and answered.

“I really do like you, Alex. As a man. If you don’t mind dating a girl a few years older, then my offer’s still open. You can have a clear conscience. I promise I won’t try to take advantage of you. Well, unless you want that, of course. As for the rest — I’ll show you the city, we can have a nice time… But first I want to introduce you to a good friend. Hey, wait!” She grabbed me, pulled me close to stop me from leaving, looked me in the eyes. “He wishes you well. You’re in no danger. Just hear him out, alright? You don’t have to fly anywhere, he’s here, in the tower. Trust me, Alex…”

She whispered the last words hotly, straight into my ear. I felt goosebumps on my skin, but took hold of myself. If this was a preventer plot, then it was a pretty convoluted one. So either someone from Snowstorm wanted to talk to me, or this was some unknown third party, in which case it would be silly to avoid a meeting. That would just leave me in ignorance of who wanted to see me and why.

“Is he a preventer?” I decided to ask.

“What?” Piper said, either not understanding or making as if she didn’t understand. “No, he isn’t. What do they have to do with anything?”

“Alright, let’s go see this good guy of yours. Then you can take me to the airport.”

Nodding, she led through the long and winding corridors of the tower to the elevators. We went up a few dozen floors, passed through a pompous, brightly lit corridor; once we got to the residential section of the building, we made a couple more turns and stopped at some apartments with a nameplate on the door: S. Polotsky. Piper stood in front of the screen, let it identify her. The door lifted soundlessly.

“Come in,” Piper said.

I automatically checked whether my comm and safety chip were giving out a signal, then crossed the threshold.

“Thanks, Piper,” an old voice said from another room. “Hello, Alex! Come into my office.”

This obviously wasn’t the first time the girl had been here. She nodded toward an open door, herself staying in the lounge, sitting down on a couch and switching on the holovisor.

Two walls of the small office were covered in shelves filled with paper books (!), and half-darkness reigned. The only light source was a green lamp on a table, unless you counted the holographic walls, which created an illusion that I was somewhere on a boundless plain at night. There was a strong smell of some sort of herb. I took a deep breath, but couldn’t identify the scent.

“Purple sage, Alex.” A gray-haired man in a dressing gown stood up from a huge leather armchair. He shuffled across the parquet floor toward me, extended a dry, wrinkled hand. “My name is Sergei Polotsky. Forgive me if Piper’s motives misled you, but I fear you would have otherwise refused to meet with me.

The old man, who was eighty-two according to my comm, directed me to an armchair by a coffee table and sat down opposite.

“Why did you want to meet, Sergei?”

“The youth of today…” He sighed. “Want a drink?”

I shook my head. He poured some water from a jug into a tumbler, knocked it back in one gulp, took a sharp breath, coughed and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

“I’ll explain everything,” Sergei said with a tired voice, frowning. “What was your answer to Yary?”

“What? How do you…”

“Piper saw you talking. I know that Yaroslav invited you to Modus. What was your answer?” The old man’s voice was strained, as if something important depended on my answer.

“What the hell is this, Sergei? I don’t know you, and you’re asking about something that is absolutely none of your business.”

“Ah… Forgive an old man. It seems I’ve caught the bug of impatience from you and Piper. Let me tell you my story and share what I know, then you can make your own decision. And so that you listen carefully, I’ll explain two things. Firstly, I was the founder of Modus. Yes, me, try not to look so surprised. That’s a story for another time. Secondly, Hinterleaf and Yary are ninety-nine percent certain that you are the fabled A-class Threat. Do I have your attention now?”

Shaking myself out of my stupor, I gave a barely perceptible nod.

“Good. Then listen carefully…”

* * *

In the game, he was called Pecheneg[3]. A once influential businessman, he was one of the first to recognize that the future lay in Disgardium. However, he had a business to attend to. His numerous projects and obligations demanded his personal presence, so Sergei found a man who could represent his interests in the virtual world. His long-time assistant, the forty-year-old Otto, was perfect for the role. The same Otto whose surname was now spoken in every household — Hinterleaf.

Using Polotsky’s money, Otto gathered the best e-sports players from every game discipline. One of them was Fierce, the world champion in a popular VR shooter. Fierce’s real name was Yaroslav, the very same Yaroslav that was now in Modus. In Dis, he changed his nick to Yary, the Russian word for ‘Fierce.’ From the very first days, these two players took the clan to the top of the global leaderboard by using Polotsky’s generous contributions.

The global economy at the time was in ruins. The markets were collapsing. Stock exchanges and national currencies were devaluing in record time. Humanity was preparing to switch to a single global currency — the phoenix. Sergei listened to Otto and poured more and more money into the clan, deciding that it would be profitable to invest in a game that was taking on nearly a million new users per day. Polotsky converted dollars, euros, rubles, yuan — these were the names of currencies in the old world — into in-game gold for the clan he’d founded.

When the global banking system fell, Sergei lost all his savings. And then he mentally praised himself for his providence — he’d managed to save a lot of money by putting it into Dis. Only it was too soon to celebrate: using the clan statute, the very one he’d written himself, Otto Hinterleaf made himself the full-fledged master of Modus. In contrast to his former boss, Otto flourished both in Dis and in life, and then simply kicked Pecheneg out of the clan with no fuss or ceremony. Moreover, by that time he’d gained a respectable citizenship status.

The banished Sergei Polotsky raged and fumed. He called in every favor he had and took Otto to court for compensation. He got mere crumbs of what he’d invested before. He decided to live on that money, and not in real life, where his age would drag him down, but in Dis, where he felt young. I got too old for all this crap, he said to me bitterly, summing up that stage of his life.

Pecheneg began to apply his business skills in Dis, which bothered Hinterleaf. He did everything he could to put his former boss down, and he succeeded. After everything, Pecheneg went bankrupt in the game, too.

In desperation, he left for a forest in the north of the Commonwealth. It was the most natural forest he could find, with mobs no higher than level sixty. There he built a hut and leveled up all kinds of skills: fishing, mushroom harvesting, mining, cooking. He spent several years there, and then one day, Pecheneg wandered particularly far from his home.

That was when he became a Threat. He didn’t come straight out with it, but I guessed.

“Sorry, Alex,” he said. “I can’t share the details. I’m sure you understand. All I’ll say is that my potential isn’t high, and the gist is simple: within a certain rather large radius, I see markers on the map.”

“Markers of what?”

“Rich veins of ore. This let me find a source of Corrupted Adamantite…

The old man explained that thanks to this rare and extremely valuable metal, his fortunes rose once more. Not as high as before, but high enough to bring his whole family into Dis and to live well from his metal business.

“What’s so ‘threatening’ about that? How can you use that to take over the world?”

“Not everything is decided on the battlefield, Alex. If I wanted to, I could flood the market with any metal I wanted, or strengthen a specific faction. You know that armor and weaponry made of Corrupted Adamantite is magically superior and can carry more bonuses than any other armor? And I put my ore on the market in very small batches so as not to draw too much attention.

I didn’t know if I should believe what he was telling me. I couldn’t find even the slightest confirmation anywhere online. Although, I believed what he told me next straight away. Polotsky was very convincing. He claimed that he had people infiltrating Modus, and at all levels. For example, Piper was one of them. Another of his moles was a senior officer whose name the old man wasn’t about to reveal.

Pecheneg had learned plenty of interest from him. After Crag escaped, all the notes and logs were carefully studied, and suspicion fell on me. Hinterleaf and Yary began to dig deeper and came to a conclusion: the A-class Threat was probably none other than Scyth.

Polotsky paused to judge my reaction, but I stayed silent.

None of the other preventers had this information, and Hinterleaf decided not to share his suspicions with the Alliance. On the contrary; according to Polotsky’s intel, this information was classified at the highest level in the clan. The leader of Modus insisted that nobody should eliminate me, but that they should instead try to get me on their side. Nobody had figured out how yet. Pressure in real life could go badly for them: one of the founding fathers had made it clear that Snowstorm wouldn’t turn a blind eye to that kind of behavior. Any interactions with Threats had to take place only in Dis.

“But then why did they cancel my invitation to the clan?” I wondered aloud.

“Oh, there’s a reason for that, my boy. First they openly reject you, then they make a show of helping you join another clan in the Alliance — and all to calm you down. You understand? With the same move, they solve the issue of competitors who know that Hinterleaf never lets anything go — if he refused you, and even offers you to others, albeit through Yary, then that means there’s nothing interesting about you. Secondly, you know that you couldn’t have joined the clan in any case.”

“How come?”

“Alright, since you want to keep playing your game, I’ll play along. The mechanics of Threats are such that they are simply not able to do so.”

I didn’t tell him that he was mistaken. My potential was higher than Crag’s, which was why he could join the Awoken.

“Basically, for now Hinterleaf has chosen a policy of non-intervention. He fears scaring you off or revealing you to his sworn partners in the Alliance of Preventers. But if I were in your shoes, I’d look closely at my friends. It should go without saying, Alex, that Modus’s recruiters are already looking for paths to them. If they haven’t found some already…” Polotsky’s gaze drilled into me. “Do you trust them?”

“Yes. If I didn’t, then why the hell would they be my friends?” I didn’t like what he was saying. I felt like he was trying to put a wedge between me, Tissa and the boys. And he still hadn’t shown his hand. “This is a very interesting story, Sergei. But why are you telling me all this?”

“I want vengeance against Otto. No reward for eliminating a Threat can be worth more to me than the opportunity to destroy Modus. And money is no problem for me. If I need more, then I’ll just put more ore up for auction.”

“Are you so sure I’d refuse an alliance with Hinterleaf?” I asked.

In fact, that would have been a strong move. Uniting with the leading clan of the preventers, turning them into followers of the Sleeping Gods… If it hadn’t been for this meeting with Polotsky, it would have been a few short moves for them to catch me and eliminate me in Dis. Who knew, maybe Polotsky himself was Hinterleaf’s man? It seemed the old man was sure that I’d think so.

“You don’t have a single reason to trust them, Alex. Or me. But nonetheless, I hope you’ll make the right choice. You’d have to be a fool to imagine such an alliance possible even for an instant. You have no guarantee that Hinterleaf won’t betray you. Believe me, when the time is right, Otto will stab you in the back. As for me… You risk nothing, and I… Well, very soon, I’ll prove I’m on your side.”

“Alright, Sergei. I get the idea, but what do you need from me? I’m just an ordinary player…”

“Don’t play the fool, Sheppard!” the old man snapped, but immediately calmed down. “Sorry. I know Snowstorm’s rules, so I won’t ask you to admit anything. I’m not trying to find out the nature of your Threat status. I’m not asking about your abilities. But still, let’s not waste time on meaningless words. I’m not asking you for anything right now. I’m just going to keep helping you by giving you intel on the Alliance. Because we have a common enemy. If you ever want to have an ally not only in real life, but in Dis too, send me a message through Piper.”

“Alright. But why don’t we communicate directly?”

“I’m a bit of a recluse, you see. You won’t find any information about me online. I have no contacts, no permanent address. I’m off the grid.”

“I guess your name isn’t even Sergei, right?”

“You’re a clever boy,” Polotsky smiled, throwing back another half a glass of water.

Although now that I think back, I’m pretty sure it was vodka.

Chapter 6. The Goblin League

PIPER TOOK ME to the airport, chatting all the way there as if nothing was amiss. She even kissed me on the cheek as we said goodbye. I liked the girl, both for her looks and for her attitude to life. She was easy to be with. To tell the truth, I wouldn’t have minded keeping her company and hanging out a little longer, if only I had the time.

I told my friends I was flying out and wished them all a nice evening. We’re still working, everything is going to plan, Ed reported. Love you, Tissa wrote. Hung and Malik said nothing. Apparently, their hands were busy.

The intercontinental flights set off every quarter of an hour, and my ticket from Snowstorm allowed me to get on any of the flights. To be honest, I could have taken a flyer instead, but only a private one: the public ones were tied to region. But then the flight would have taken a lot longer — a flyer can never reach the same supersonic speeds as a modern airplane.

My impressions of colorful Distival steadily faded. By the end of the flight, all the dross was gone from my mind, and the result of the trip had crystallized in three important conversations: with Kiran, with the preventers and with Pecheneg-Polotsky. Piper’s smiling face flashed up somewhere in the background, but I pushed away all thoughts of her. All in good time, as Uncle Nick used to say.

Kiran Jackson was no doubt playing his own game, but perhaps I was mistaken and he represented the interests of the whole corporation. That seemed fully possible. After all, for many people, Kiran and Snowstorm were one and the same. The way the preventers fawned over him was a sure sign of that. But Anderson said that they placed bets within the corporation, which probably meant that there was no single consensus, and the fate of Dis hadn’t yet been decided.

Nonetheless, something still concerned me. If the Sleepers bothered them so much, then wouldn’t it be far more effective to invite me into the office to explain everything in detail? Maybe even draw up a contract, like with the Threat status? Kiran’s actions looked like an attempt to manipulate: please don’t help the Sleepers! Anything but that! Don’t do it! What does any right-thinking teenager do when they’re told not to do something? Exactly. They do the opposite. Or was I overthinking it?

As for my conversation with the preventers… In light of Polotsky’s story, I looked on it from an entirely new point of view. Now it didn’t seem like I’d escaped their attention. On the contrary, I was stuck even deeper. A sixteen-year-old boy filled with raging hormones, Polotsky had said, quoting from the dossier that Modus’s analysts were keeping on me. And he added something of his own: Blue balls at a critical level. Leaking from the ears. And he laughed, the old bastard. I hoped Piper didn’t hear him.

According to Modus, I was unpredictable. It seemed that was why they were trying not to scare me off by letting me know that they knew about my status. Instead, they were methodically searching for a way in. There was a reason Yary was making as if he liked me and wanted to help me out. But they needed me to ask them for help myself, to gain their trust — that was why Yaroslav sent his contact details to my comm. Polotsky hinted that he had ideas of how to take advantage of that, but I still didn’t trust the old man. He saw that and didn’t press further, saying that I’d find out everything when the time came…

And then, in mid-thought, I fell asleep. Apparently my brain had had too much, and my body shut down to prevent a meltdown.

Once I reached New York, I switched to a public flyer, set the autopilot to take me home and tried to drift off again, but couldn’t. I kept going over and over my chat with Polotsky in my head. According to the old man, he had a small clan that consisted of loyal people from within his family, with the self-explanatory title ‘Taipan.’ True, at first I didn’t know what that meant until Polotsky explained it.

“The coastal taipan, or the Fierce Snake, inhabits Australia. Its venom is so toxic and so fast-acting that the victim has no chance to resist. It is the most venomous of all land reptiles. In contrast to the other venomous snakes, which bite only once, this one attacks its prey with a series of bites. I am too weak to defeat Hinterleaf with one strike. So I will be like the taipan…”

Now there are some potential adepts for the Sleepers, I thought. If I tempted him with the bonuses, old man Polotsky could become a true ally. Say, I wonder if he’d lend me three million? I ran through the possible consequences in my head and rejected the idea. I didn’t want to be in debt to a man like that.

The flight was too short for me to get a decent sleep. I yawned at dinner with my parents, my jaw cracking.

As they listened to what I’d seen and heard, they joined together for the first time in the last year: dad took notes in his comm, recording all the names and drawing a map of the relationships. Mom asked clarifying questions. In short, I got the impression that my career in Dis was a work project for them now. And the most important in their life.

“Of course, you shouldn’t have met with Polotsky,” mom said as if delivering a verdict. “You’re being conned. I spoke with Hinterleaf when Mark and I were designing a training ground for them. This is his style; showing one thing, hiding another, and when you think you have him figured out, it turns out you didn’t see a fourth thing.

“Where did the third thing go?” I asked in confusion.

“You missed the third thing. You got the fifth thing too late. But that was an illusion too. And maybe your very first impression was the right one.”

“You’re making this too complex, mom. I’ve had almost no sleep, I’ve traveled a long way. Keep it simple, please.”

“She means to say,” dad interjected, “that the mysterious old man Polotsky might be Hinterleaf’s crony. They put him in front of you, he gave you a song and dance, and in the meantime Modus’s analysts carefully studied your reactions to write a psych profile on you. Or they were just testing to see if you really were a Threat.”

“And it has to be said, they did it elegantly,” mom grumbled, frowning. “Think back, Alex. Who distracted your friends? Hung was busy with Alison, a girl from T-Modus, right? Ed and Malik got set up with some girls from the escort clan, the Damsels… Do you know what level those dames are at? Who would believe that world-class models would suddenly take an interest in your friends? Sorry, son, but that doesn’t happen even in fairytales. One — well, stranger things have happened… but three at once?”

“And Tissa?”

“The White Amazons are allies and partners of Modus. There are rumors that it’s a farm clan for them, but the Ochre Witch wouldn’t agree, of course. I’m more inclined to think that the Amazons are a little like the Damsels, only not so obvious with it, and only for their own.”

“Damn it…”

Polotsky had said roughly the same, and I assumed a simpler meaning to his words then. But now that my parents were breaking it all down for me… It was like they’d put a massive hole in my chest! No, hell no, I didn’t believe it! I mean, I believed that the preventers might have set it all up, sure, but not that my friends could have betrayed me, no way.

“Alex, we’re not saying it’s exactly like that,” dad said. “Don’t doubt your friends’ loyalty, but…”

“What?”

“When you’re making decisions…” He sighed deeply. “Just remember, son: anything is possible.”

* * *

I’d sent an anonymous email to Ian, a journalist at Disgardium Daily, before I set off for Distival. It seemed to be the fastest way to earn money for a capsule for Gyula. I’d written it fast; just offered to sell him a video of a boss of unknown level, attached some clips of the roaring Montosaurus and signed it in the spirit of that mysterious Snowstorm employee: Noob Saibot.

The answer came from Ian while I was climbing into my capsule after dinner with my parents.

Hello, Mr. Saibot!

Thanks for getting in touch! This is amazing! The footage you attached truly is impressive. I’m willing to offer you ten thousand phoenixes for a ten-second video of the tyrannosaurus, Mr. Saibot.

In addition, I am authorized to offer you another ninety thousand for an exclusive interview. I think you understand why we’re being so generous, but even if we’re mistaken, we’re willing to take on the risk.

In answer to your question: yes, payment in dark phoenixes is possible. Please send us your account number so we can pay you an advance, and let us know a suitable time for an interview and an invite cipher to a private room if you accept our offer.

Best wishes,

Ian Mitchell, journalist at Disgardium Daily.

The newspaper had obviously put two and two together and come to the conclusion that this was the A-class Threat contacting them. I hadn’t said as much, but I’d counted on them figuring it out. That would make it easier to give them an exclusive down the line.

I sent Ian an answer without hesitating, agreeing to the interview and asking him to send the full amount right away. I didn’t bother haggling. First they could see I was the one they wanted, and then I could raise my rate. I’d have plenty to offer them. I also sent them my account number for my virtual cryptowallet. The big plus there was complete anonymity. The minus was that anyone with the password could access it.

Deciding that they probably wouldn’t answer me today, I logged into Dis. Even if Disgardium Daily came through, that wouldn’t solve all my problems. The time given to me by the security guy from Excommunicado, Hairo Morales, was running out fast. There were just four days left, and I needed to help my parents out as soon as possible; they needed to pay the fine for their failed project before the end of next week.

And I also had to get ready for a war and find some allies, including the cultists of Morena. There was a reason the Nucleus had spoken about them, and then Kiran brought them up too.

To be honest, now that I’d seen the self-satisfied faces of the top players in real life, I wanted more than ever to take them down a peg or two, and having some allies would help me do that. Damn, I even had the thought of bringing those snake-worshipers from Yoruba onto my side!

“Initiate immersion,” I ordered, climbing into the capsule and taking hold of the handles.

The world flickered and I opened my eyes. A fresh sea breeze kissed my cheeks. The tavern door banged shut, and I heard the piercing shriek of a banshee from somewhere far off. I was home.

Nothing had changed in the fort in my absence. Some of the miners were killing time in the tavern after their shift. The waitresses and Aunt Stephanie were bustling around, with Patrick getting in their way. His drinking buddies Flaygray and Nega were absent, and it looked like he’d changed his priorities.

“Get out of here, O’Grady!” Stephanie shouted in annoyance. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not interested!”

“You’re breaking my heart, light of my life!” Patrick whined.

I ordered a coffee and sat next to Gyula. I exchanged a couple of words with him, confirmed that he could take dark phoenixes from me and order a capsule himself.

“What if they ask where the money’s from?”

“They won’t,” the builder chuckled. “I have channels. When should I expect it?”

“Tomorrow, I hope.” I suddenly remembered yesterday’s scene with the Tree Protector and looked around, but couldn’t see the dwarf. “Say, where’s Trixie?”

“That dwarf has some cheek!” the normally reserved builder cursed. “He fancies himself some master gardener now, keeps blabbering on about fertilizer, looking after plants and other nonsense about the craft. Do you have any idea what he plans to grow?”

“What?”

“Grass, for Nether’s sake!”

“What? What kind of grass?”

“Hemp!”

“Um… What for?”

“Ganja? Cannabis? Marijuana?” Gyula rattled off, laughing. “No? Doesn’t ring any bells?”

“Oh, you mean the kind of grass you smoke…” I said, the penny finally dropping. I’d even caught my parents smoking it once. “How come it’s in Dis?”

“The devs are people too, Alex.”

“Where is he now?”

“Who?”

“Our apprentice drug kingpin! I’m going to ban that moron from going near the Sleepers!

“Mr. Fur… Ugh, Trixie is, as far as I know, wandering the jungle with the kobold shaman right now. Ryg’har is helping him level up. They’re best buddies now, you know. But all this is one thing, you know what else he’s managed to do?”

“Planted some opium poppies?”

“Well, right now he’s doing nothing but planting — he’s set himself the goal of becoming a grand master. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he can’t get to rank one. Warned the boys off telling him too. But there’s something else; our gardener has banned everyone from calling him Trixie. He said that since he’s such a big fish now, we have to address him by his full name.”

“What?” Seriously? I don’t even know his name!”

“Veratrix. Maybe he’ll do you a deal and let you keep addressing him the same way as always, but for us simple mining folk,” Gyula chuckled, “no more Trixie.” Either Veratrix or Mr. Furtado. Son of a bitch, eh? The little guy’s gone nuts…”

“Alright.” I smiled and shook my head at Patrick, who was kneeling before Aunt Steph. “What about this guy? He got the shakes?”

“Worse. He’s in love, poor fella.”

Picking my jaw up off the floor, I opened my quest log. What? The quest Become a man, which I’d had since back when I was playing solo, had updated. Jane’s name had been swapped for the name of Gyula’s sister, Stephanie Katon. Amazing! An NPC falling in love with a player? Dis’s quest AI was really off the mark if it couldn’t see the difference there. In any case, I had no time for Patrick’s romantic woes right now.

Gyula left me and I decided to go through the loot I’d amassed, hoping it would inspire some idea. I’d put some of the things in a chest in my private room, so I quickly drank down my coffee and headed upstairs.

In my room, I looked at the small wooden nightstand, chest and low bed that had somehow been stuffed in there. I sat on the bed. It gave off a soul-wrenching creak.

“This won’t do,” I shook my head in displeasure. “I need to upgrade this stuff.

The private room was available from any tavern — it was outside of space and was always the same. I went into my settings. It turned out that my private room was Basic. The next one was Standard — twice as large, with a good bed, a cupboard, a table, a couple of stools and pictures on the walls. The chest was four times as big too, with thirty-two slots. The upgrade cost barely anything, just nine thousand. At the sight of the zeros, the prudent side of me wanted to just close the window, but I calmed it down.

The best option, the Royal Suite, would have cost me one and a half million gold. It was a two-tier mansion with designer decor, twelve rooms (yep, rooms in a private room), a pool and a Ball of Egeria in each room with a subscription to all the channels. That was the Dis version of three-dimensional television.

Was it worth spending any money at all? Sure, I wasn’t here often, but one glance at this mess put me in the worst mood. It didn’t make me feel safe like it should; instead I felt like I was at rock bottom. And the damn bed was squeaking…

Scratching the back of my head, I gave in and ordered the upgrade. If the bed stopped squeaking, that would be good enough.

Request to upgrade private room to Standard level.

Cost: 9000 gold.

Accept? Decline?

Successful! You’ll see the changes when you next enter your private room.

I left the room and immediately went back in. Now this was more like it! It was brighter, I had windows overlooking the street and the ruins of Behemoth’s temple, flowery-patterned beige drapes, four pictures on the walls and a bookshelf. Ooh, it even had a book on it! I picked it up: Catalog of Interior Design Solutions for Your Private Room. Version: Standard. I chuckled and put the catalog inside, then started taking inventory.

Alright, what did I have… The legendary Svyatogor’s Chainmail and Vestment of Irkuyem’s Fury; the identified Righteous Shield artifact; the slotless Isis’ Blessing and Ebis’ Inspiration artifacts; the Elemental Concentration ring and the Thunderbearer trident, which still required identification; the Summoning Whistle for the legendary Spectral Wolf; and finally, the Balancer, which I had in my inventory. It wasn’t much. All the rest was in the clan vault or with Crawler, but there wasn’t anything super-awesome that could be sold for more than a million there. Oh, there was also the Portal Key leading to Holdest.

Wait a sec…

I had a Diamond Reputation Token from getting that achievement, I’m on Fire! I am the Fire! after defeating Sharkon!

I suddenly realized how I could solve my money woes. The solution was so simple that I smacked myself on the forehead: the token would add two thousand reputation with any faction, and that would be enough to win the trust, if not even the respect, of the Goblin League. Then I’d have access to their anonymous auction house.

As long as I could use Imitation to get around the fact that my reputation with all the intelligent races had fallen down to hatred after I got turned undead. But there I was relying on the fact that Imitation copied the reputation of the original too.

If I managed to do what I was planning, then I’d be able to finance my parents, the clan and my couple of blackmailers. Then I could calmly prepare for war with my flanks covered.

I ran downstairs, said goodbye to the workers and headed for the Lake District. There — in safety, out of general view — I could choose myself an image.

A suitable original caught my eye: Hanzo, a level fifty-seven hunter. I copied him. My skill immediately leveled up:

Imitation level increased: +1! Current level: 10.

Unlocked spontaneous imitation. You can now spontaneously come up with an image yourself. Bear in mind: an invented image has a higher chance of being exposed than a copy of an existing image.

At your current level, you can spontaneously imitate: character class.

The interface flashed, pointing out the new ability — the Imitation button in the command panel was highlighted gold. I pressed it and saw a three-dimensional character model in front of me, along with a list of available changes. Yep, the class line was lit up. The others were faded — just like before when I could imitate only the class. Well, time to give it a try…

Not thinking too long, I chose the Archer class from the drop-down list. That was better. It would be easier to pass for an archer than for a hunter with their specific skills.

I waited for Depths Teleportation to cool down, then jumped to Darant. Fortunately, forced exit from Dis didn’t activate on weekends, which meant that I had a whole night ahead of me to achieve my plans.

* * *

The Goblin League quarter in the Commonwealth capital reminded me of Chinatown: street merchants lined the sidewalks, myriad signs gleamed on the buildings, my head span from the multitude of colors… I had neither the time nor the desire to examine my surroundings, so I headed straight for the main building of the League. Along the way I ran into a pickpocket trying to steal a legendary out of my inventory. He failed — the higher the item quality, the lower the chance of successful thievery, but the thief wasn’t ashamed. I didn’t bother calling for the watch — they might see my true, not-quite-alive form.

Two strong-arms guarded the entrance to the League building: a titan and a lopher. Both were way past level three hundred, in full epic sets. The only difference between them was that the titan held a gigantic halberd, while the elephant human stood with a monstrous hammer over his shoulder. The goblins valued good guards.

“Where d’you think you’re going?” the titan moved to block my path.

“Into the League.”

“You ain’t earned the League’s trust, archer,” the titan answered dully.

Nether. The whole point of coming here was to unlock my rep with the goblins! Only then would I be able to use the Diamond Reputation Token. The factions in Dis work like this: until you encounter the faction, you have no level of reputation with them at all. That meant there was nothing there to increase.

“How am I to earn their trust, honored… Kryos?”

The lopher answered in his stead. Raising his mighty arm, he pointed across the street.

“See that stall of League souvenirs? Go there and buy yourself… something. Then make a sacrifice at the temple of Maglubiyet or Bargrivyek, makes no difference.”

Thanking the guards, I headed for the souvenir stall. It sold all kinds of crap; bracelets, magic pictures with views of Kinema, the goblin capital, or bags full of their ‘national’ delicacies, which looked a lot like dried insects. I chose a bracelet, particularly since it was cheaper than the rest.

“Ninety-nine gold,” the young goblin salesgirl smiled a predatory grin, her short wine-red dress making a shocking contrast against her green skin. Taking my coins, she threw them into the till and smiled even wider. “We have an offer on today: when you buy one souvenir, you get a second at half price. Want another?”

“No, thanks.”

I slipped my purchase onto my wrist. I couldn’t boost my rep with the bracelets; they were one-use-only and didn’t stack. Well, at least I wouldn’t have to wear it all the time — put it on once…

Your reputation with the Goblin League has increased: +1.

Current reputation: ambivalence.

…and I could take it off and throw it away. It had served its purpose.

“Then I’d like to recommend you some stunning crystal balls that predict the future!” The goblin girl smiled even wider and I finally realized who she reminded me of: Sharkon. Although my minion had less teeth. “Here, look: This Oracle Orb changes color if you’re in danger. Usually it’s colorless, but when you take hold of it…”

Unable to resist this onslaught from the green-skinned pipsqueak girl, I took the transparent orb. At first it went white, then it changed color to red, as if blood had been poured into milk.

“You see!” she said triumphantly. “You’re in danger! Wow, I’ve never seen it go such a deep red before… That means deadly danger! You definitely need this amazing Oracle Orb for just nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine gold!”

While she was talking, I found the Diamond Reputation Token in my inventory and activated it.

Your reputation with the Goblin League has increased: +2000.

Current reputation: respect.

The goblin girl’s already huge blue eyes doubled in size. She shook her head and her ponytail of hair nearly knocked over a figurine of Maglubiyet, making the eyes of the already upset-looking divinity flash with fire.

“What am I going on about? What was all that about, eh? Forgive a foolish gabbing goblin, dear master, I completely mistook you for someone else! Taking into account your services, we can offer you a five-percent discount on our entire range!”

Hmm, kind of miserly, I thought. At maximum reputation, the discount probably goes up to six percent. Legends were told of goblin avarice. Even the Merchant Discounts stat, which I had at the cap of fifty percent, didn’t work on them.

Tearing myself away from the saleswoman with difficulty — she was practically hanging off me and begging me to buy something else — I went off to make my donation. The nearest temple was Maglubiyet’s, the goblin god of treachery. The minimum contribution was a hundred gold, and nothing else was accepted — only pure gold.

In contrast to the temples of Nergal, Behemoth and Fortune, here I didn’t feel any divine presence whatsoever. The donation felt more like a legal method of squeezing money out of gullible idiots. Especially since I didn’t see a single goblin in the queue for the altar; only players of other races. They could have made a donation to Mickey Mouse with the same success; having paid this extortionate duty, my reputation rose by a single point, not with Maglubiyet, but with the Goblin League.

Of course, I only realized my stupidity when I got the notification of the change in my reputation. I’d thrown a hundred gold down the drain; there was no point whatsoever in going to the temple after activating the token! All this was from my lack of sleep. Like Miss Kalinovich told us in health class, sleep deprivation kills slowly but surely.

Only one question remained: when I went back to my usual form, would my reputation with the League drop to hatred? That would suck. I couldn’t afford the goblins selling my legendaries and just keeping the money. Never mind, I’d go to pick up my money in this form and see how it went.

The guards let me through without a word this time. A spacious hall, goblin clerks running to and fro in frock coats, players scurrying around…

A portal to Bakabba towered at the end of the hall, a gigantic arch through which a platoon of soldiers in exoskeletons could have walked without breaking formation. It shimmered a poisonous green, flickering. When someone walked into it, it rippled as if a stone had been thrown into water.

Maneuvering in an attempt not to bump into anyone, I reached the portal and walked through without a hitch. It worked! If my reputation had been too low, then the portal would have just pushed me back.

In the next instant I fell deaf from the noise of the Bazaar — the largest market not only in Bakabba but in all Disgardium. A little green man in a leather mess jacket over his naked torso immediately appeared before me. Gleaming boots bound in iron stretched up his sinewy short legs in leather trousers. A long curved blade hung at his belt.

“Welcome to Kinema, friend! First time at the Bazaar? Would you like to buy the most complete guide to Kinema on the market?” The goblin bared his sharp teeth, glanced around furtively and whispered: “Just so you know, I have the second edition…”

“What?”

“The second edition, friend! The most complete guide to our glorious capital, including its juiciest parts,” the goblin winked, “if you know what I mean. The forbidden edition! It’s yours for just one gold!”

Yep. I was definitely in Kinema.

Chapter 7. Auction for Special Sales

“ARE YOU A PROBLEM MAKER or a problem solver?”

I sat in the office of a manager of the League’s Auction for Special Sales, or, as it was known among the people, the goblin auction house. I struggled not to stare wide-eyed at the decor. I felt like I was in the house of a British aristocrat. Everything was so luxurious, but at the same time functionally simple. Nothing was superfluous, but what there was was all a work of art, like the figurine of Maglubiyet on the table.

The manager himself, a gray-haired goblin in a black suit complete with a tie, didn’t look anything like the kind of swindler that welcomed me to the Bazaar. It helped that Bakabba was on the other hemisphere: it was late evening in Darant, whereas here, the sun was just rising, and the workers of the auction house were just starting the day. Although… these were goblins. Maybe they worked round the clock?

The green-skinned manager was called Grokuszuid, and there was something not particularly goblin-like about him: almost human facial features, teeth that weren’t as sharp or as large as usual, small ears, and the green of his skin was somehow pale, at least on his face. His somewhat long, narrow and sharp-clawed fingers were decorated with signet rings inset with massive gemstones, but even his nails were cut to within half an inch. The auctioneer’s level was also impressive: three hundred and sixty. Did he get to that level from trading alone? Couldn’t imagine this guy leveling up in battles.

“Sorry, Mr. Grokuszuid, I’m not sure I understand you…”

“You are undead, correct? Sit, sit!” he raised a hand in a gesture of calm. “We’re used to working with all kinds of clients. What, you think I’ve never seen the living dead? True, the ones I’ve met weren’t quite as intelligent as you, but anything is better than scheming demons, may they burn in the fires of the Nether! Anyway, my question for you is this: do you solve problems, or do you create them?”

“I don’t create any problems. What are you driving at?”

“My daddy, may his tortures in the Inferno never end, taught me that sentients can be divided into two camps: those who solve problems and those who create them. Which camp are you in? Will I run into trouble on your account, Hanzo the Archer? Or would you prefer for me to address you as Scyth the Herald?

I had Depths Teleportation at the ready, but my uncertainty still came through in my voice.

“How..?”

“Listen, friend, why are you acting like a child? You’ve never done business with us? Ah, I get it. Your little disguise might have fooled the portal identity spell, but within these walls, we see only that which is real. There is ancient magic here, not the sort those foolish adepts practice nowadays… Don’t worry, by ‘we’ I mean only the employees of the League’s ASS. What’re you smirking about? Yes, it’s a silly acronym. Joke about it and I’ll disembowel you, got it? May my fingers fall off if it is not so!” The goblin rubbed his thumb and index finger together. “Oh, relax, Herald. We see what is truly there. You can’t deceive us with silly camouflage spells…”

Sensing that the goblin was no threat to me, I decided to experiment and activated Cloak Essence.

“How about now?”

Grokuszuid shoved his seat back and shot to his feet, his mouth opening and his eyes widening.

“What are you?” he asked, pointing a claw at me.

“You said it yourself — a Herald. This ability was gifted to me by the gods,” I declared pompously.

The goblin went even stiffer, his mouth opening and closing, and then he… burst out laughing. Keeping his index finger pointed at me, he bent double, grabbed his belly with his other hand.

“Gifted by the gods! You’re a riot! Oh, thank you, my friend, you’ve made my day! These walls don’t give a shit about your gods! Only our gods rule here, Herald. It’s a shame I can’t share this with my colleagues. Client confidentiality and all that…” Calming down, he got back in his seat and his face got serious. “Alright, let’s get down to business. Why have you come to see us, Mr. Scyth?”

Feeling my ears reddening, I stood up and silently placed the Vestment of Irkuyem’s Fury on the table. According to Rita Overweight, this was the last discovered piece of a top equipment set for druid tanks. Once fully assembled, it would absorb as many percentage points of damage as health lost. Now the goblin’s surprise was real. He didn’t jump up, his jaw didn’t drop. He just sat silently and drummed his claws on the table.

“A-a-alright…” he finally broke the silence. “Is that all?”

“There’s more. This, for example…”

I pulled out the chainmail from the Svyatogor set. I remembered Bill and Xan discussing it once at Eve’s birthday party. Now I realized that those two — one from the Children of Kratos, the second from the Azure Dragons — were probably not in leading roles, so the set probably wasn’t actually the best. All the more reason not to keep the chainmail.

“Now I see, Mister Scyth, that you do not create problems!” Grokuszuid declared, triumphantly raising a finger. “You create opportunities! How much do you hope to get for this mighty armor?”

“You’re right, Mister Grokuszuid. This is the first time I’ve done business both with the League and with your auction house. Could you tell me a little about the rules, about how the trades take place? And another thing. I’d like to keep my name secret. I’ve heard your auction house is famed precisely for the fact that you don’t reveal the names of sellers.”

“Without a doubt!” The goblin rubbed his hands. “Anyone with access to Kinema can participate in open trades. We provide anonymity both to sellers and buyers, though on the condition of a thirty-percent fee. And there’s a high chance that you won’t get full value for your goods, since everyone knows that the most valuable lots aren’t sold there.”

“How much can I sell these items for? And how quickly?”

“In your case, it would be better to sell them in closed auctions. They provide truly full anonymity. Even the most advanced mages are unable to determine to whom the item previously belonged. The Maglubiyet priests have an excellent obliviating spell. As for the price — we need to see what the valuers say. So as not to waste any time, if you’ll allow me…”

The goblin blew into a silver whistle hanging at his neck. I heard no sound, but a few seconds later, the head of a younger goblin peeked round the door.

“Zamozik,” Grokuszuid addressed him. “We need to value Mister Scyth’s goods.”

The young goblin came in, closed the door firmly and approached the table. He placed a hand on the chainmail, then on the vestment, shut his eyes tight…

“Hmm… Irkuyem, eh…” Zamozik opened his eyes and his big ears flapped like radar dishes. “Starting price of six million. The boots from this set sold for ten a year ago. The other parts are split between two owners, they’ll start a bidding war. As long as they don’t come to an agreement… As for Svyatogor’s chainmail… We’d be lucky to get a million and a half. Sure, it’s legendary and unique, but… the set items are spread across different owners. Nobody is likely to get the full set. Although considering this is the last set piece to be found… Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. We could put it up for three.”

“Thank you, you may go,” Grokuszuid nodded, and the young goblin left us. “Now, there are no random buyers in closed trades. Information on the lots of an upcoming auction is sent out to a list of chosen invited attendees. They gather in Kinema at a set time and place their bids. In this particular case, obviously we’ll send out invitations to the owners of the other parts of the sets and to certain collectors, including the princes of certain small but very proud countries.”

“How soon will I get the money?”

“The League’s ASS runs like clockwork, Mister Scyth. We’ll sign the contract, send out the invitations and by the day after tomorrow, the auction will be underway. Although there is one condition. According to the ASS rules, closed auctions require the seller’s personal presence. Our patron, the greedy and heartless Maglubiyet, demands it,” the goblin said, spitting the epithets with contempt. The green-skins had a strange relationship with their god.

“Um…”

“I understand you, but your doubts are in vain: attendees at the auction are hidden by a Mist Veil. Believe me, it guarantees full anonymity. It is far better than what you were showing off earlier.”

“Alright.”

In answer, Grokuszuid immediately pulled out some papers, wrote in the names of the lots and my name, and handed it over to me to sign. I read the contract carefully, found nothing amiss and signed it. The league would keep a quarter of my goods’ value, but the anonymity was worth it.

The goblin blew into his whistle again. The now-familiar Zamozik appeared and carried off the two max-level legendaries.

“After the items sell, we take our fee. The rest you’ll get right away,” Grokuszuid said once we were alone.

“Tell me…” I hesitated. “You said it doesn’t bother you that I…”

“That you’re somewhat dead?” the goblin chuckled. “I repeat, the League cares not.”

“Shame they don’t think that way in the Commonwealth and the Empire.”

“A client is a client. We make a living by remaining neutral and not asking too many questions. You may rest assured, Mister Scyth. I would even go so far as to say that it is extremely unprofitable for us that peace reigns between the Commonwealth and the Empire. And recent events, you know the ones I mean — Nergal’s Summons, the alliance of light and dark… I do not like it.”

“You don’t like their ceasefire? What’s bad about it?”

“For them? Nothing. But for us goblins, it’s a thorn in our side. Now that they’ve stopped fighting each other, King Bastian and Emperor Kragosh cast their eyes southwards. To Bakabba,” The goblin frowned, tapping his claws on the table. “So, Mister Scyth, if I can somehow help you to repel the upcoming invasion of the allied armies in the Lakharian Desert, you have only to say the word. The upper council of the League recently authorized me to declare our position… unofficially, of course.”

Grokuszuid’s words struck me dumb. Recent days had shown me that my secret was known to so many people and… non-people, too, that I might as well not hide it anymore. Hey, everyone, here’s your Threat! I thought feverishly of how to answer so as to dispel his speculation and get something out of this potential partnership. Having the biggest financial tycoons of all Dis among my allies would be awesome! Especially since they were all NPCs. The goblin race was unavailable to players.

“Tell me, Mister…”

“You can just call me Grokus,” the goblin graciously allowed.

“Then you can just call me Scyth. Tell me, Grokus, have you ever heard of the cultists of Morena?”

“That’s… the forbidden cult of a cursed goddess,” he said after a moment’s pause. “What do you need them for? Oh, I get it. The goddess of death, of the old gods banished by Nergal… I will make inquiries at the Council. Anything else? Good. Then I will let you know the time of the closed auction. From what I understand, you can travel freely wherever you wish…”

I sighed as I walked out of the auction house. If I was successful, then all that was left was to buy that damned copper bar from Hairo the blackmailer and somehow pull a couple of million out for my parents and the clan base. Big Po’s ultimatum hadn’t gone anywhere either, although in light of recent events, I felt more and more like telling him where to stick it. In any case, I’d better bring out a million more, just in case. Dad could sort all that out.

As for me… Since I happened to be in Bakabba, it was the perfect time to pay a visit to the home of she who favors the brave. The temple of Fortune.

Chapter 8. Fortune’s Call

IF I’D THOUGHT DARANT an expensive city, then it was only because I hadn’t been to Kinema yet. Practically all the same services here cost at least twice as much. And there were goblins, goblins, goblins everywhere. Goblin cabbies, goblin guards, goblin merchants. Even little green-skinned beggars.

Although I tell a lie about the green skin. I’m no great expert in the races of Disgardium, but even without an interface I could tell that Kinema had different kinds of goblins. While I was walking to the Temple of Fortune, I saw gray skin and chocolate tones. Hobgoblins, goblin trolls and orc-goblins scurried through the streets. I was almost certain I saw a mix of a goblin and a hobbit. His legs were hairy, anyway. Then an arrogant gobster nearly knocked me over. That was the name for the extremely aggressive descendants of goblins and humans. An unkempt NPC in leather training armor and a cap without a peak.

“What’re youse lookin’ at, bigman?” the level thirty-one gobster puffed out his chest and stared at me. His short stature meant he had to bend his neck back pretty far to give the impression that he was looking down on me. That made his cap fall off and he swore, quickly stooping to pick it up. “Where you from, longlegs? Darant? Huh? I’m gonna smash your face, mo-fa…”

The last word must have been from the Goblin language. I’d heard it more than once already. I had to carefully move my unwelcome conversation partner out of the way, but he dogged my heels for some time, making idiotic requests.

“Hey, buddy, come here! You got change? Let me make a call on your comm amulet! What’s up witchu, ya dragon? Try smilin’ sometime..!”

I barely made out a fraction of the nonsense he was spewing. Over the few minutes while he followed me, I went through a bunch of options for dealing with him, right down to dragging him off with me to Kharinza and feeding him to Shazz’s Ghost Hounds, or even loosing Patrick on him, but in the end I just used Lethargy to put him to sleep.

Marveling at the variety of goblins in the city, it occurred to me that this was probably related to the fact that goblins were a rare race in that they could successfully reproduce with any other. Grokuszuid, for example, was clearly a gnomish mix.

According to Dis lore, the goblins were once at the brink of extinction. They were chased out of everywhere, and often entire goblin clans were wiped out. In an attempt to at least somehow preserve the population, the elders of all the goblin tribes once gathered and decided that from that day forth, anyone with a drop of goblin blood in their veins could be considered a goblin.

It seemed this genetic variety in subsequent generations had played a role in the League’s success. The goblins made a home on Bakabba, outliving the local wild tribespeople, and over time they became the third most powerful force in the world after the Commonwealth and the Empire.

Kinema, in contrast to Darant, did not astound the imagination with its broad streets, majestic buildings and clean roads. On the contrary, the city seemed filthy. Snowstorm had clearly designed it based on real-life megapolises: a bustling downtown with gleaming skyscrapers surrounded by a thriving business quarter, goblin clan districts and then the tradesmen’s streets. Luxury rubbed shoulders with unassuming dull boxes of buildings. There was a smell in the narrow, garbage-filled alleyways, even in the city’s business districts… The stench could knock you off your feet with its disgusting mix of sour wine, perfume, burnt oil and unwashed bodies. And the Bazaar was a huge area below downtown that took up almost a quarter of the entire capital.

What it did not smell of was non-citizens and low-level players. Earning the League’s trust wasn’t so easy. I didn’t know if I’d have bothered if it weren’t for the reputation token. Some would call that luck, but to get it, I had to put down a hundred beasts that were five times higher level than me.

Fortune’s main temple in Kinema far surpassed the one in Vermillion, both in majesty and beauty. The goblins, as born merchants, understood better than anyone what luck meant, and they weren’t stingy with it. That was probably why the goddess chose this temple as her main one, with a sixty-five-foot statue of herself made of green gold on the roof. Magic, not without intervention from Fortune herself, gave the statue life: it moved. A blindfold hid the goddess’s eyes, symbolizing her impartiality. A crown decorated Fortune’s head and she held a large horn in one hand with coins pouring out of it; they disappeared in the air before they hit the temple’s roof.

Since our last meeting in Vermillion, when I was in Fortune’s temple alongside Zoran and Ehehe, my Luck had grown a lot, and no wonder; I got five extra points each time I leveled up. Maybe that was why, when I went into the temple and joined the long queue of those wishing to make an offering, a priest approached me unnoticed and said:

“Follow me.”

Accompanied by astonished glances, I followed the stately goblin with silver-dyed hair and a thick beard. A bearded goblin… Now I’d seen it all.

Against my expectations, the priest didn’t lead me to the altar, but to a wall where a narrow passageway hid in the shadows. We walked through a corridor and came out in a storeroom around sixteen by twenty feet, with a single item inside: a round full-length mirror. As I approached it, I saw my reflection and…

Turning, I realized that the priest had disappeared off somewhere, as had the door we’d used to get in here. There was nothing but a seamless wall left. Returning to the spot where the entrance had been, I felt all over the wall and found nothing.

They’ve walled me up, those damn priests! I thought, and when I saw that my Depths Teleportation icon was inactive too, I swore aloud.

“Nether! What the hell..?”

I heard a ringing laugh. A smiling woman… girl… young lady no older than twenty, was watching me from the mirror. She didn’t look like the statue on the temple’s roof; she wore no crown and had no blindfold. She was no model, but wasn’t ugly either. An ordinary girl that might be found in any class in our school. Long, bright-red hair, green eyes, freckles… But that wasn’t the most important thing. She was absolutely naked. Was this the goddess?

Applying an inhuman effort, I tore my eyes away.

“Well hello, dead man,” she said playfully. “So shy…”

A normal voice, not as… divine, as Behemoth’s, but resonant and clear. I didn’t know what came over me, but I suddenly bent forward in a bow. Damn, I’d never bowed to anyone in my life. I didn’t even know how! I hoped I didn’t look too foolish.

“Fortune…”

But the goddess reacted graciously.

“There’s no need for that, young Scyth. Mortals prove their worth with deeds, not with words or bows. Please, make yourself at home…”

I had no time to think of how exactly to make myself at home in an empty room — maybe I should just sit on the floor? — before the decor changed. The steps sank into the fleece of the carpet. A huge, soft armchair more reminiscent of a throne appeared behind my back. On a special stand was a transparent jug filled with some colorless beverage, with droplets of condensation on its walls, and next to it a crystalline glass with a long, fine stem.

Trying not to stare at the goddess’s nakedness, I sat down in the armchair and unhurriedly filled the glass just to have something to do with my hands.

“Nectar,” Fortune said. The voice came not from the mirror, but from my side. Drawing a sharp breath, I turned and saw that she was sitting a few feet from me in another of the same armchairs. Now the girl wore a short and light dress the color of lettuce. “Not the kind the new gods drink. It comes from the days when we ruled the world…”

Her voice sounded sad. Logic told me that a quest NPC at this level wouldn’t waste any time on empty conversation. If she brought up the old times, then it was for a reason, and I’d better show sympathy.

“I’m sure they were incredible times!”

Saying nothing in response, Fortune approached, stood next to me, took my head and pressed my face into her belly. I froze, fearing to move a muscle.

“Relax, dead man, I won’t harm you. Oh!” The goddess jumped back, releasing my head. “So it’s true… The Sleeping Gods have returned! They’ve marked you. I see it now. As they’ve marked another couple of creatures whose nature is unknown to me. But… There is something familiar in these deathly emanations… No, I can’t figure out what.”

She returned to her seat and pointed at the glass.

“Try some…”

I planned to take a small sip, but the drink turned out so tasty that I drank it all down before putting the glass back on the pedestal. I tried to compare it to other tastes that I’d tried in the past, but couldn’t remember ever trying anything like it. The capsule was probably influencing my brain, taking into account my personal preferences and stimulating specific taste receptors to give me the maximum possible pleasure.

But it wasn’t just the taste of the drink that amazed me.

Divine Nectar of Fortune

+100% to all stats for 12 hours.

+300 luck for 12 hours.

“Delicious. Thank you.”

“I’m glad you liked it, but I’m even more glad that you survived. You are pure, without the corruption of the new gods.”

I mentally wiped sweat from my brow. Lucky me! More divine debuffs were all I needed. One was too much… But what did she mean by ‘corruption’? That smacked of discrimination, just like Behemoth’s ‘parasites’ in reference to the Destroying Plague and Nergal the Radiant.

“Tell me about those days, Fortune,” I asked.

“There’s nothing to tell. We lived alongside the sentients, walked the same land with them. Sometimes we shared bread, sometimes we fought, but we never demanded blind tribute. We simply lived. Sometimes we took on mortal form and lived entire lives. We fell in love, raised children, ruled, warred, won bread.”

“‘We’ meaning the old gods?”

“Yes, young Scyth. We were many. Wild and primitive beast gods that demanded offerings of blood. Elemental gods, sometimes wicked, sometimes protectors of mortals. Each wind gave birth to an elemental god, just as one appeared through the faith of sentients at every stream, grove and mountain. They were many, born into unenlightened times. The strongest of us ruled the world in their own way until the new gods appeared and called themselves the True Gods,” the goddess sniffed like a cat. “They aren’t from this world. They’re outsiders.”

“Nergal, Marduk and the others?”

Fortune nodded sadly and continued.

“Nobody knows where they came from. But once they appeared in Disgardium, they began to gain followers at a rapid pace, and once they came into their strength, they began to persecute the old gods. A day didn’t pass without some new god declaring a holy war against some followers of an old god or some unlucky beast god.”

“Did they fight personally?”

“Of course not. They fought through mortals. ‘Heroes’ strengthened with divine gifts,” she chuckled bitterly, “chased away the ‘monsters and unnaturals,’ as they were called, from the lands they inhabited, exterminated their followers… We lost our strength, became weak, and… Some of us excarnated into non-existence, some went to ground in lands unsettled by intelligent life, but without Faith, they were doomed to extinction. Some of the old ones, like Diablo, Belial and Azmodan, turned to Chaos in their desperation, transforming into Fallen Gods and descending into the Inferno, forever losing their ability to return to this plane of existence.”

“But you’re fine, Fortune?” I asked carefully. “You have plenty of followers and temples. How did you find common ground with the new gods?”

“Oh, believe me, sentients will always rely on luck. And the more foolish the creature, the more important it is to them. None of the new gods are able to play with probability like I can. Thousands of years of training.” Fortune smiled. “They accepted it. I haven’t become one of them, but they leave me be. They know how I can respond to them.”

“How did you get along with the Sleepers?”

“Oh, things were easy with them. They didn’t poke their noses into our business, but both we and every mortal knew that they existed, and may they never awaken, and may their sleep be eternal. We respected the Sleeping Gods, young Scyth. True, some of us rebelled, like the once-young Diablo and Belial, but Leviathan and Behemoth quickly put them in their place, depriving them of their power for a century or two. As the new gods appeared, people began to forget the Sleepers…”

Fortune fell silent. I opened my mouth to ask something else, but she gestured for me to say nothing. I felt the touch of something imperceptible, careful and weightless, like a feather brushing my skin. The goddess half-closed her eyes. I don’t know how long it lasted. I started to daydream, feeling as if I was falling into a trance, but when my focus returned, I realized only a few seconds had passed.

The goddess stood opposite me, her hair fluttering as if in a breeze, although we sat in a closed room. Crossing her hands at her chest, Fortune looked at me, her eyes flashing with emerald fire.

Quest of Fortune, Goddess of Luck, completed.

You visited Fortune’s main temple in Kinema, on Bakkaba, and met the goddess.

Experience: +100,000.

Experience at current level (199): 227,436,964 / 465,816,531.

Your reputation with Fortune, Goddess of Luck, has increased: +100.

Current reputation: trust.

In theory, she was supposed to reward me with a new quest chain now. I froze in expectation, but Fortune was in no hurry. She seemed to be hesitating, unable to decide whether to ask something. She bit her lower lip, wrinkled her clear and charming brow. Finally, she spoke.

“I lied to you, Initial of the Sleeping Gods. My position is not as solid as I said. Not only Nergal and Marduk, the strongest of the new gods, but even their minions covet my place in this world. I have need of your aid.”

She was standing, so I stood up too.

“I’ll do everything in my power, goddess. Just tell me what to do.”

“Faith is not the only thing that supports the gods,” she answered. “Faith gives us strength, but it does not save us from accidents…” The goddess chuckled. “On a universal scale. And accidents are not accidental, young Scyth. Everyone has a share of luck apportioned for their life, even the immortal gods: some have more, some have less, but there is balance in all things. What is it you mortals say? Lucky at cards, unlucky in love? That’s the truth. If it isn’t cards, it’s something else. But do you know what happens to luck unspent after the death of an intelligent mortal?”

I shook my head, unable to tear my eyes from Fortune. Her appearance might have seemed ordinary to me before, but now the lines of her face had changed imperceptibly. Now I could see her true divine beauty, and I felt sorry for the fact that I’d never be able to love an ordinary girl again in my life — they would all seem plain. Fortune was perfect.

“The remainder of mortal luck unspent goes to that mortal’s god, whomever they followed in life. If they followed none, then the ruler of the Inferno rubs his hands in glee — he gets the luck. But that’s unjust! I am the goddess of luck! This priceless and limited resource must go to me!” Fortune became even more beautiful in her anger, but I physically felt her pain, and the pressure was so strong that my legs bowed, my health began to drop. “I need your help. War looms. I know that you will be at its center, Scyth. There will be many deaths, and it is within your power to help me.”

“How?”

She placed a hand on my head. The top of my head went numb for a couple of seconds, but the unpleasant sensation soon passed. The pressure disappeared, and I stopped taking damage.

New stat unlocked: Serendipity.

Volume: 1,000,000.

“Before the soul of the deceased goes to their god or falls into the Inferno, or worse, drains away into the Nether, you can take a Sphere of Serendipity from its body. It is incorporeal.”

“How many Spheres must I collect?”

“Every mortal has their own leftover luck. You will learn that the collector I have given you is full when you cannot pick up any more spheres.

Fortune didn’t give me any numbers, but the system did it for her, bringing up a quest window:

Serendipity for Fortune

Fortune, the goddess of luck, wants you to collect Spheres of Serendipity from the bodies of fallen intelligent creatures. Spheres of Serendipity are made up of the unspent luck of intelligent creatures.

Return to Fortune with a full collector to get a generous reward and the next quest in the divine quest chain.

Rewards:

— Elixir of Luck

— 1,000,000,000 experience

— +5000 reputation with Fortune, Goddess of Luck

— next quest in the Wheel of Fortune divine quest chain

Serendipity collected: 0 / 1,000,000.

“I will fulfill your request, Fortune,” I said, bowing my head.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

I felt a weightless kiss on my cheek, and an instant later, the goddess was gone.

Fortune blesses your endeavors!

+250 luck for 12 hours.

The mirror was just a mirror again. The room took on its previous appearance. A passageway had opened up in the wall, and the priest appeared again from it.

“Time to go, master,” he said.

“Yeah, it’s time,” I agreed.

Interlude 1: Ian

“HOW’RE THINGS, Ian?” Axel Donovan, a young intern reporter, nodded as he walked by.

“Great, thanks for asking…” Ian looked at him as he walked away. “Axel…”

Fifty-year-old Ian Mitchell, journalist at the global media group Disgardium Daily, felt annoyed. A journalist with a classical education, a master wordsmith, once the brightest star of the company, he had now lost everything. He’d left his beautiful wife, his charming daughter and his career at the bottom of a glass.

All that remained of the Ian of the past in this loser of the present was six feet and two inches of height, since they had nowhere else to be. His former athleticism was all gone, making way for fifty pounds of unnecessary fat. He’d also gotten himself a beard and plenty of gray hairs. The first one grew out of a desire not to waste time shaving, and he didn’t like using hair removal creams. And the second… Well, he had to go gray sometime, right?

The company kept Ian on mostly out of sheer habit. Fewer and fewer of his articles were published in the main edition, with more and more kept back as discussion topics on the forums. Mitchell’s sharp tongue still held fast to its followers, and there were always extensive discussions surrounding his materials and provocative articles. This, along with the need to pay the rent and buy alcohol, forced him to show up at the office, deal with the taunts and teasing of his young colleagues, and try to ignore his long-legged female coworkers wrinkling their noses when they walked by him. He knew he didn’t smell that great. So what? Not everyone could afford to waste water. And Ian had had to tighten his belt more and more — he was tumbling down to rock bottom, losing a citizenship category level almost every year or two.

But today, even Axel couldn’t put Mitchell in a bad mood. The fresh-faced intern had apparently decided to make a career out of Ian, constantly referring to him in his articles. His notes exposed the more experienced colleague as a bigoted alcoholic, long cut off both from modern life and from Disgardium. Mocking a colleague in public was unprofessional at the very least, but Ian could tell which way the wind was blowing. The preventer clans were feeding promising young journalists and influencers, investing in the future good graces of the press, and events that interested them were always shown from the angle they needed. As for Ian, who constantly criticized the top players for selling out, for the fact that they, as he put it, “are killing the Dis that we love,” — he had been a thorn in their side for some time.

So the appearance of a new Threat with a ridiculously high potential inspired Ian. And although his victory over Sharkon didn’t mean that the Threat was able to defeat the preventers, the viral video of him crushing a small fort at the edge of the Lakharian Desert made it clear: the A-class Threat was not only capable of standing up to the self-indulgent and lazy leaderboard tops. He might also be able to stir up the swamp that Dis had turned into in recent years.

Then something happened that forced Ian to get a grip on himself, shave, shake the dust off his suit and come into the office.

“One extreme to another, Ian,” Clark Katz, the age-old chief editor of Disgardium Daily, grimaced. In some ways unkempt and disheveled, he nonetheless enjoyed the great respect of both his underlings and the shareholders. “Has nobody told you it’s better to smell like nothin’ at all?”

“Quit it, Clark.” Ian, who hadn’t skimped on cologne after shaving, blushed, but then spoke hotly: “You’d better look at this. We’ve hit the jackpot! Look!”

Ian brought up a holo projection of the frames he’d received a couple of hours ago. It was a giant dinosaur running straight toward the cameraman, opening its monstrous maw.

Clark whistled.

“Holy shit! That’s a dinosaur! Where did it come from?”

“A tyrannosaurus with the arms of King Kong,” Mitchell chuckled. “It’s Godzilla, damn it!”

“That or a Ravager, or…”

“Or an unknown boss. But all the Ravagers are known, and do you see any Smoldering anywhere?”

“Alright, alright,” Clark muttered, excitedly spinning a cigar in his fingers. “True, I don’t see any Nether Smoldering. This was taken at night, so the aura would be bright. Definitely not a fake?”

“I put it through the neural network. Definitely an original. That thing is real.”

“Uh-huh… A hundred and thirty feet tall?” the editor asked, all business as he continued to inspect the monster. He was a fan of dinosaurs and always complained that there weren’t enough of them in Dis.

“Not quite, I think,” Ian doubted. “A hundred, maybe a hundred and fifteen.”

“Where are the shots from? This doesn’t look like the Lakharian Desert…”

“Looks like a jungle. Definitely not the Ursai Jungle, the vegetation isn’t right. Take a look at those mountains. Shad’Erung doesn’t have any like that. And that means it could be Meaz or Terrastera! You know what that means?”

“Wait, wait, wait…” Clark started to stand up, leaning on the table, shaking out his mane of hair and taking a sharp breath. “Bullshit! You mean to say that the guy who sent you these shots…”

“It has to be him. The A-class Threat. All the shots are first-person, the dinosaur’s level is unknown… There just aren’t any mobs like that in any developed areas!”

“What does he want? Or she? It? They?” The editor wasn’t joking. There were ‘theys’ in the modern world, people who contained more than one personality. “Who is this anyway?”

“If only I knew, Clarkie… Let’s say it’s a ‘he’ to avoid confusion. He wants ten thousand for a ten-second clip of the monster. A damn grand per second…”

“Tell him yes right away!” Clark brought a fist down on the table. “This is gonna blow up! Ask for commentary, where the video was taken, what kind of monster it is, what level it is… Wait! Do I understand correctly that you’ve agreed to more, you old rascal?”

Ian had forgotten that heady feeling he got when he brought in hot material, and the editor was ready to sell his own grandmother for the chance to get it, dancing around you and… He mentally shook himself. The deal wasn’t done yet. He pulled a yellow post-it note folded in half out of his pocket. It had a cryptowallet number on it.

“We need to transfer a hundred thousand dark phoenixes to this account. He’s willing to give us an exclusive in a private room. I’ll make sure we get permission to record the audio.”

“Perfect. Who should we send?”

“Clark…” Ian panicked, thinking his boss might hand off the interview to someone else.

“Maybe Axel?” the chief editor began to think aloud. “No, Kelly would be better! She’s heading back to Distival as we speak, and…”

“For God’s sake, Clark!” Mitchell burst out. “This is my scoop! Either you give it to me or I’ll take it to…”

“Alright, alright,” Clark agreed, failing to hold back a grin. Ian realized the old coot was joking around. Clark took the post-it from his hand, scanned it and quietly spoke into his comm: “Transfer a hundred thousand in dark phoenixes to this account right away.” Then he looked at Ian and asked just one question: “When?”

“Today, I hope…”

Three hours later, Ian Mitchell, undressed to his underwear so he could jump into his capsule as soon as it was time, was nervously pacing his house, looking at his comm every other second. He had no answer from his anonymous friend yet. Ian was waiting for confirmation that the money had reached its target, and for an invite cipher to the private room.

He got more and more anxious with each passing minute. Clark had made it clear that if Ian brought him an interview with the Threat, then Mitchell’s position, including in financial terms, would be fortified. Who knew, maybe even his daughter, who hadn’t wanted to hear from her father since the year before last, would renew contact with him. But if he’d just been conned… Then it was all over. Clark Katz would just write off the expense, of course, but Ian Mitchell, once a star journalist, now a citizenship category K drunken loser, would be ejected from Disgardium Daily faster than a cork from a shook-up bottle of champagne.

Minutes turned to hours, but he still had no answer from the Threat. Midnight came… The journalist glanced at the bottle of whiskey on the table more and more. He hadn’t touched it since he got the first message from the Threat. He realized that this was his last chance, and this time he was determined not to mess it up. Ian even thought of pouring the whiskey down the sink, but couldn’t quite make himself do it.

Casting a glance at the bottle for the millionth time, Ian stopped. He checked his comm again. Still no answer. He squared his shoulders and headed for the table. There could no longer be any doubt: he’d been had. Scammed like a trusting young inwinova from a Zone at the public Fair. The Fair opened in every region every year and drew in non-citizens to shake loose their miserly savings.

“Damn it all to hell,” Ian muttered.

He grabbed the bottle. Just as it was about to touch his lips, his comm squawked. Mitchell slowly put the whiskey back on the table and looked at the screen.

Mr. Mitchell,

Thanks, I got your money. The private invite cipher is attached. I can do right now or in a couple of days. Sorry, lots to do.

Noob Saibot

Feeling his hands shake, Ian sent the cipher to his capsule, confirmed the connection and climbed in. As he closed the panels, he heard the signal that meant that the other side had accepted the connection.

Intra-gel filled the space at the usual rate, but Ian shook with impatience. He was worried he wouldn’t be in time, that his contact would leave without waiting for him. Finally, the world blinked, and he saw letters burning brightly in the gloom.

Connection established.

Generating private room… SUCCESSFUL.

Attention! Audio recording in this private room is ALLOWED.

Attention! File transfers in this private room are ALLOWED.

Ian found himself in an empty room without so much as a chair. It was spacious, thirty feet by thirty, with white walls, a gray floor and ceiling, no textures. The tall athletic figure of a black man around forty years old in a Darant Eagles basketball uniform and Air Jordan trainers detached himself from the far wall.

“Welcome, Mister Mitchell,” Ian heard a low, somewhat rasping voice with an east coast accent. “I don’t have much time. Is twenty minutes enough for you?”

“More than enough for the first time, Mister Saibot,” Ian answered.

He walked to the middle of the room and sat on the floor, crossing his legs.

“The first time?” the man asked with some surprise, sitting down on the floor opposite. “We’ll see how it goes. In the meantime, here’s the holorecording of the dinosaur.”

Ian accepted it on his virtual comm, got permission to save it and pressed play. The action began in the very first second: the colossal dinosaur emitted a soul-chilling roar and rushed right at the camera. The camera stayed in place for three seconds, then the person behind it turned and ran away. A couple of seconds later, everything began to flash. The scene darkened; bones crunched… And the recording cut off there.

“Did you survive?” Ian asked.

“Yes,” the man answered simply.

“Where did this happen?”

“In the unconquered lands.”

“Can you be more precise? Meaz? Terrastera?”

“No comment.”

“Are you a Threat?”

“Yes. With the highest potential.”

“Wonderful!” Ian celebrated his first foothold.

That meant this Threat was capable of going up against creatures far higher than him in level. Although that was obvious as soon as he got the First Kill on Sharkon.

“Then if you don’t mind, I’ll start off with some general questions. Do you consider Disgardium a good or bad thing for modern society?”

He would analyze the answers later and they’d help to build a psychological portrait of the Threat. The important thing now was to get the man talking.

“To answer your question, we’d need to see how it all ends for humanity in forty or fifty years,” the Threat answered after a moment’s thought. “All I can say for now is that Dis is here. For many, especially non-citizens, it’s their only source of income. I know one… guy. He is, how would you put it… ‘intellectually different,’ and has never been outside his district. He might not have even ventured beyond his apartment complex. This man would like to see more of the world, but has no money or opportunities. Disgardium has given him that ability.”

“Is he a… non-citizen?”

“No comment.”

“Alright. Then answer this next question. Does it seem to you that the government has, for many years now, been deliberately creating conditions in which, for many people, even high-level citizens, real life has already been the game for a long time?”

“In the end, that’s everyone’s personal choice, don’t you think, Mister Mitchell?”

“I agree with you,” Ian nodded. “All the professional athletes, for example, have been in Dis for a long time. People who are used to achieving their goals through persistent training get excellent opportunities for truly limitless growth within the game! There are no limits to how much you can build up your body, no limits related to age. You keep your progress forever and you can level up endlessly…”

“And they earn far more, isn’t that so?” the man asked smoothly.

“No doubt. Take professional football. Initially, the football league in Dis only contained veterans who had hung up their boots in real life. But now even young athletes spend more time training in the game than in real life as soon as they hit fourteen.”

“You see. They make the choice themselves. But I want to make it clear: not everyone has that choice. An honest non-citizen that needs to feed their family has no choice. The only work he can get is in the game.”

He — or she, it doesn’t matter — definitely has some link to non-citizens, Mitchell thought. His opinions on this are too atypical. Or maybe he’s a non-citizen himself? There must be a reason the mining companies are spreading these rumors, after all.

But Ian, professionally agreeing with the man, said something else:

“Exactly! That’s what I meant when I brought up the government…”

Ian spoke hotly and passionately on this subject, which concerned him but was so unpopular at Disgardium Daily, until he realized that time was running out and he hadn’t asked his main questions — the ones millions of readers and viewers were waiting for. Ending his thought, he began to ask more specific questions.

“How long ago did you become a Threat, Mister Saibot? What level did you get to beforehand? What are the features of your status..?”

Mitchell was rushing, trying to fit everything into the allotted time, but the answers from ‘Mister Saibot’ were disappointing. Vague words, allusions and no end of ‘no comment.’ Time was running out. The timer set by the Threat would go off any moment, and Mitchell hadn’t gotten anything interesting from him yet. Overall, he hadn’t revealed anything that could confirm his status.

“Forgive me for being unable to reveal certain details,” ‘Mister Saibot’ said regretfully. “I don’t want to give my enemies an advantage. But to convince your viewers and readers… Here’s something else.”

Another holo recording came. The timer showed less than two minutes. Ian started the video, scrolled forward to the middle and gasped. ‘Mister Saibot’ was definitely the class-A Threat! Only he could have recorded the attack on Vermillion from the aggressor’s side!

“I’ll give you some other materials, Mister Mitchell,” the mysterious man smiled. “I promise to give my comments on the upcoming war. Tell Mister Katz that I’ll speak only to you personally.”

‘Mister Saibot’ rose, glancing at his comm. There were only a few seconds left until their session would terminate.

“Why?” Ian asked simply.

“I like your articles, Mister Mitchell. I think it’s time you got back on the front page…”

Time expired! Session ended.

Barely waiting for the intra-gel to drain away, Ian ran to his comm. Phew — the recording of the conversation and the video from the Threat had saved properly.

Mitchell was about to sit at the table and start editing the interview, but then he remembered something. He looked at the bottle of whiskey, grabbed it and, without thinking, poured it down the sink.

Back at the table, he started his work.

The player who has become a Threat with the highest potential could be anyone, but I know one thing for sure: he or she is an amazing person, uncorrupted by their newfound power, by their never-before-seen abilities, by the billions of gold raining down on them…

Chapter 9. Back in Action

“I GOT IT ALL. We’ll make the order in the Guyana Cesspool. I’ll take it home from there.”

“What about installation?”

“Not my first rodeo, Alex. I got people to connect and configure it. Over and out.”

Channel terminated.

Gyula disconnected. I’d sent him the thirty thousand dark phoenixes to buy a standard capsule, including the fee to cash it out, before my meeting with Ian Mitchell. Once the interview ended, there was already an invite to CrapChat waiting for me — an anonymous system for encrypted messages that disappeared as soon as they were read.

Incidentally, I’d made a request to talk to Tobias on the same system. I hadn’t heard anything from him in three days, but my messages stayed unread. Crag hadn’t logged on to Dis either, although his name was still in the clan list.

When I left the room, I found my mother tidying up.

“You need to sleep, Alex,” she said gently.

“I can’t. If you saw the buff I have, mom, you’d be chasing me into the capsule too. I need to level up. Why are you tidying up at night? Is the robot broken?”

“That thing doesn’t know where to put stuff,” she answered dismissively. “But it’s working too, I sent it to clean the bathroom. Oh, we forgot to tell you — Uncle Nick is coming to stay on Monday. So try not to plan anything that evening.”

“Wow, awesome!” I loved my uncle and I’d been really missing him.

“He has business on Earth. He’s only here a couple of days. I made him promise to stay with us.”

I nodded, yawned widely, stroked AT as he rubbed against my leg in cat form, then wandered over to the coffee machine.

“Where’s dad, by the way?”

“In Dis…” mom sighed. “I hope he can make it. He’s barely coming out of his capsule, poor thing…”

I listened to my internal sarcasmometer, but to my surprise, I didn’t hear a single sign of ridicule in her voice. Mom really did feel sorry for dad.

“We need him to make it,” I nodded. My parents didn’t have much time to pay their fine. “Is he still at five?”

“Almost to six. He said he wouldn’t come out until it was done.”

Dad needed to reach level ten to withdraw the money that I hoped to receive from selling legendaries. I couldn’t help him level up due to the huge difference in our levels, but he was doing just fine without me: he put some money in when he made his character to get premium equipment from the beginning, and he was farming mobs higher than his level.

“Good night, mom…”

I drank down my coffee and went to my room.

“Don’t be in there too long, Alex!” I heard from behind.

I would have been happy not to be, but… plus a hundred percent to all my stats! Incredibly, the goddess’s blessing even increased my plague reservoir volume. Considering how little time remained until Nergal’s event, wasting this time was unthinkable. Fortune’s buff would only be active for another ten hours. I’d already lost two.

Logging in…

The din of voices on Kinema’s streets replaced the silence of the capsule. The local beggars immediately assaulted my character, which I’d left at the gates to Fortune’s temple.

“Spare any change?” a grubby goblin street urchin said, extending cupped hands.

Someone else’s agile fingers forayed into my pocket, but I grabbed the hand. It belonged to a little guy who only came up to my knee. How did he even reach..?

“Gimme money!” he demanded.

I threw ten silver coins for them all and, while the green-skinned kids swarmed around in the road dust, I activated Depths Teleportation to take me to Tiamat’s temple.

Today I planned to fly south. On the map, the Lakharian Desert looked like a diamond placed on its lower left edge. The climate was gentler in the northern zone parallel to that edge, which was why the forts of the Commonwealth were built there, the southmost of which was Vermillion. Tiamat’s temple was even further south, close to the center of the diamond, but even then, the desert stretched out hundreds of miles further, to the Thunder Strait. If you crossed the strait, you could reach the Ursai Jungle of Shad’Erung, but nobody had done that yet.

On the night when I summoned Tiamat and Nergal declared his holy war, Crawler, Infect, Bomber and I crossed the unexplored part of the desert on my dragon and reached the northern section of the Thunder Strait. We saw nothing special, just the same old mobs, although their level fell the further north we went.

The sand shot upwards with the clap of the teleport. The steadily growing knocking of bones began in the dead silence: my undead minions had awoken. Barely visible greenish lines stretched from me to them.

Whenever I was absent for over a full day, they went into a kind of sleep mode, and mobs didn’t aggro on them; the minions looked like just a pile of bones. But now those bones were being reinforced with plague energy from my reservoir, forming into skeletons and growing rotting flesh. Sharkon arose in a giant heap, with the other guardians next to him: Birdie the vulture, Kermit the morten, Toothy the hermit and It the tumbleweed.

Throwing up piles of sand, my Diamond Worm, Crash, crawled out from under the ground. He’d grown even bigger in my absence. He could have swallowed up Sharkon if he wanted to. At least if he could beat him; his level was far too low for now.

“Long time no see, boss,” Flaygray muttered, shaking off the sand.

“Hey, Flay!” I shook the satyr’s bony hand and nodded to the others. “Nega, you look as beautiful as ever. Ripta, Anf…”

The dinosaur emitted a range of sharp sounds like someone blowing into a pipe. The insectoid touched me with the serrated tip of a limb and chittered something at me.

“Iggy? Yeah, you’re right.” I summoned my needler. He rubbed himself against my shoulder and then flew off to talk to Anf. “How’s it going, guys?”

“Grraargh…” Nega cast a mutinous glance at me. She’d been stuck to a bottle of Cali Homebrew this whole time, an invention of Aunt Steph’s. “I feel awful, boss! The longer you spend away from us, the worse it gets. If you disappear for long, we literally fall to pieces. Did you speak to the Sleeper? She can turn us back to normal, right? Without all this shit.”

The succubus waved a hand to indicate the band of brainless minions.

“I was about to do just that. Keep an eye on them in the meantime…” I nodded at the minions and started to walk down to the temple.

Tiamat appeared by the altar after I walked in. She was as tall as Behemoth and just as mighty and majestic. As I looked at her, I recalled Tissa, Rita, Piper and the still-fresh image of Fortune. The variety in feminine beauty never ceased to amaze me. I couldn’t classify them into types, I just knew they were all completely different, and yet every one was beautiful.

“Greetings, Initial!” the Sleeper said in a deep voice that reverberated through my bones, making something inside me relax unbidden. This must be the feeling they called divine benevolence. “We weren’t able to speak at our first meeting. I’m afraid we don’t have much time now, either. The adepts’ Faith is barely enough to support the strength of two Sleeping Gods at once. We need a second temple…”

“I’m working on it, great Tiamat.” I bowed my head and heard a chuckle.

“Working on it by talking to that obnoxious girl that likes to play with probability? She has gotten carried away in our absence…” Tiamat’s words sounded threatening, but when I raised my head, I saw that she was smiling.

“I will use any opportunity to become stronger. The Sleeping Gods are not popular, to put it mildly. We’re up against the strongest fighters in Disgardium, Tiamat.”

“I understand… and approve. I understand your consorting with the parasite for the same reason. Alas, we need more followers to give you such powers ourselves. Of what did you wish to speak, Initial?”

Her figure flickered, a sure sign of her lack of energy. I had to hurry.

“Mighty Behemoth mentioned that you have the ability to help me and my friends return to our normal forms, to be alive again.”

“That is true,” Tiamat answered. “But right now I am barely able to maintain my own avatar, Initial. Return when Behemoth’s temple is restored and his incarnation appears there. Hurry…”

After passing on this information to the guards, I summoned Storm. I had a plan for the duration of Fortune’s buff. Firstly, I wanted to explore further into the desert and find at least one instance. The importance of getting a First Kill couldn’t be overestimated, and in any case I’d been planning to complete dungeons with my friends, and that meant finding one first. If I couldn’t find an instance, then it would be great to at least find some roaming boss. Although I’d have to kill it right away. Finding the same boss twice was rare…

Secondly, leveling up. I planned to switch off experience sharing with my pets, and the guys were still chilling out at Distival. This was a great opportunity for me to jump up a few levels.

Thirdly, I needed to level up at least two key skills which I planned to rely on after I lost my Destroying Plague skills: Unarmed Combat and Resilience.

Yes, I’d shaken Kiran Jackson’s hand, accepted his conditions and agreed to bring the Destroying Plague scenario to a conclusion. But my gut told me that just deleting my character straight after that would be… foolish? Rash? I didn’t know. But I wanted to develop my Threat potential to the end, and for that I needed Scyth. Anyway, what would happen to the others? Would the Sleepers disappear into oblivion? And my friends? What awaited my non-citizen friends?

In any case, I’d decided to play both sides, which fit into my initial plans perfectly: I would build the Stronghold of the Destroying Plague, fight against the allied armies under its standard, and at the same time advance the Sleeping God storyline. Like Uncle Nick used to say (whatever it meant): “If you have to choose between the Railroad, the Brotherhood of Steel and the Institute, work with all of them at once for as long as you can.”

“Are you leaving us again?” The satyr frowned when he saw me climbing up onto my dragon. “Flying off to have fun without us?”

“Boss, have I ever told you that you’re the worst possible boss to have?” Nega asked casually.

“Enjoy your final days of peace, friends…” I pulled ten squirreled-away bottles of dwarven ale out of my inventory and threw them into the sand. “And protect the temple.”

“Hmm, maybe not quite the worst,” Nega said, licking her lips and flicking her tail. “You’ve gone up to second-to-last place, boss. By the way, I wanted to tell you, the guys won’t let me lie to you…”

“What?”

“I swear on Azmodan’s cock, that toothy jackass, the mix of a shark, porcupine and an armadillo, has traces of intelligence. Look…” The succubus whistled sonorously.

Sharkon crashed toward us, crushing the zombie minions in his path.

“Dig!” Nega ordered, pointing a claw at the closest dune.

The minion boss jumped up and drilled into the sand where she pointed, leaving behind a wide tunnel that an entire steam train could have passed through.

“Woah! How did you figure that out?”

“Pfft…” Nega sniffed. “When you’re dying of boredom, and I say that in the most literal sense, boss, your imagination gets the better of you. By the way, mine in particular is very…” the succubus slowly ran her tongue along her lips and smiled. “Rich.”

“I believe it,” I agreed. “Don’t worry, I won’t check.”

“On the subject of boredom…” Flaygray threw away an already empty bottle and nodded in another direction. “We’ve been playing demonic chess. Sharkon drew us a board and we stuck a crowd of brainless beasts on it and had ourselves a tournament.”

“Who won?”

“Anf,” Flaygray admitted begrudgingly. “The little bug possesses impressive strategic capabilities.”

A handful of sand flew at the satyr. I swore I could make out laughter in the insectoid’s chittering. Ripta translated and Flaygray sighed heavily.

“Yes, yes. In this body, with its dead brains, I’m as dumb as a post, I admit.” Flay turned to me. “Incidentally, Anf has learned the common tongue. He can’t speak it himself, but he understands it now.”

He muttered something else, but his melancholy speech was putting me to sleep. Time was marching on and it was time to say goodbye. A thought was spinning around in my head, a way to use Sharkon’s newly revealed talents, but I had no opportunity to test it for now.

“See you soon, friends!” I shouted, urging my dragon into the air and recalling Iggy.

“Have fun without us wherever you’re going, boss!” I heard the succubus shout back. “Kick their asses!”

A scorching wind beat my face, but my dulled undead sensations allowed me to pay it no heed. Fortunately, the extreme climate didn’t affect my legendary mount either, but I wasn’t sure that Exhaustion would work the same way, otherwise the top players would have long since flown to Terrastera this way. I flew the dragon close to the surface, watching for signs of an instance portal or a cave entrance, but all around, wherever I looked, there was only monotonous sand flowing into a single yellow surface, with nothing for my eyes to latch onto. Packs of mobs, the odd monster here and there, dunes…

Cartography skill increased: +1. Current level: 5.

Now you can create more detailed maps of unexplored lands, automatically entering information on flora and fauna you discover.

Quality of maps you create: medium.

Ah, that was better. Before level five, the quality of my maps was ‘amateur,’ and they looked more like schematic drawings written in crayon by a child. As I’d found out, a map could be sold at the explorers’ guild on the condition that they had no data on the area, or had only data of the lowest quality.

I wasn’t planning on selling them anything; it would only end up with Nergal’s minions. I was just driven by the urge to level up everything I could in Dis. And no, these weren’t the maps that appeared in my interface when I found myself in unfamiliar areas. This was a paper map that magically filled itself in, with annotations, levels, mob stats and markers for points of interest right down to individual trees.

We flew on, covering around sixty miles of desert per hour. The mob levels went up as we got further south, but I pushed on and on, trying to get to the end of my intended route. It was a good thing my undead ass couldn’t feel anything, otherwise it would have been tough to withstand the far from smooth flight — Storm soared, sometimes flapping her wings at a furious pace to fight pockets of strong winds. I barely held on.

Soon my interface map showed me that I was coming up to Latteria’s southmost tip. Before we reached the sea, I landed Storm at the peak of a dune to take a look around. From there I had a perfect view of my surroundings and could easily see packs of mobs.

The closest was the silhouette of a basilisk shrouded in an aura of flame, but I couldn’t make out its level. To avoid risking Storm — she was too weak to fight the local mobs for now — I recalled my mount and ran toward the basilisk. I stopped just outside its aggro range.

Burning Basilisk, level 597

Well, it looked like I wouldn’t find anything higher than six hundred in the desert. I’d have to work with what I had. I took off my armor and knuckledusters and headed for the mob naked. Leveling up skills was easier while my level was low. The greater the difference with the enemy, the faster my Resilience and Unarmed Combat would go up. But I decided to start with something else. Entering Stealth, I carefully crawled toward the mob, and as soon as I got into its aggro range, the skill began to grow at an incredible rate, leveling up every few seconds.

Stealth level increased: +1! Current level: 84.

Chance to remain unnoticed by enemies increased to 84%.

Stealth level increased: +2! Current level: 86.

Chance to remain unnoticed by enemies increased to 86%.

Stealth level increased: +5! Current level: 90.

Chance to remain unnoticed by enemies increased to 90%.

Stealth check failed! Burning Basilisk detected you!

After noticing me, the fiery mob dove into the sand and rushed toward me. I stood up into combat stance and prepared for the clash, steeling myself at the thought of what I’d have to endure. Oh well, it wouldn’t be the first time…

A hundred feet… Fifty… Twenty… The giant reptile leaped out of the roiling sand and opened its monstrous mouth, spitting liquid flame.

“Crushing Hammerfist!” I shouted exuberantly, dodging the strike and slamming my fist into the beast’s lower jaw. Shouting ability names did nothing, but I was caught up in the heat of battle. I’d missed this. “Combo!”

My Combo had been reset to level one and consisted of only two moves again. The strikes, strengthened neither by plague energy nor vindication, dealt pitiful damage to the mob relative to its ten million health, but that didn’t matter; I didn’t miss once, and I took health off a mob almost four hundred levels higher than me! Path of Justice was working perfectly!

After the first series of strikes, Unarmed Combat leveled up; as soon as the basilisk hit me with a powerful leg, Resilience jumped up by two points at once. My health went down to almost zero, but Destroying Plague Immortality kicked in and the battle continued.

The mob’s powerful strikes threw me back ten feet like a rag doll, and it so happened that others began to take an interest in our party.

First a vulture descended, its talons sinking into my back. Next came another, then came a tumbleweed, a couple of giant snakes, a Sand Golem from beneath a nearby dune, and then three mortens and a big pack of Air Elementals following in the golem’s tracks. I couldn’t withstand the weight of mobs anymore, and all I could do was give in to their will, leveling up my Resilience and practicing my Unarmed Combat moves. When my plague reservoir built up, I detonated Plague Fury, but the energy built up slowly and the explosions only took ten percent of the mobs’ health…

The sun was rising in the real world, but I continued my endless course of masochism. Alas, it was as if the mobs had an agreement to attack only me. If they’d fought amongst themselves, I would have finished them off quicker.

The energy of the Destroying Plague prevented them from tearing off my arms and legs, but by midday there was nothing left of me but a skeleton. A morten had taken off the top of my skull with a sharp claw and pulled out my brains. The vultures pecked out my guts, and the other mobs devoured the rest. A Predatory Tumbleweed burned away my vocal cords with acid. All the same, Crushing Hammerfist was still working. My clouded mind couldn’t handle text, so I wasn’t reading the skill level-up notifications.

Thirst stabbed at me and hunger twisted the knife. I was drifting off, but as soon as I fell asleep, another sharp throw, jerk or bite woke me up. Yes, I felt no pain, but I felt the touch of the claws, fangs, tentacles and needles. I was surprised that I could see even with my eyes plucked out. I wondered — what did I look like to outsiders? I was still wearing the image of Hanzo the archer, after all.

Coming round for what felt like the thousandth time, I opened the mini-map to confirm that the sea was less than a mile away. The mobs had dragged my corpse a fair distance…

The sand gave way begrudgingly to rare greenery and faded grass. The number of mobs around me exceeded all sane limits: for three hundred feet all around, the space was filled with red markers.

Suddenly, another marker appeared at the very edge of the map, bigger than usual and with a golden frame. Then I heard an ear-splitting, drawn-out roar reminiscent of the Montosaurus. Every two seconds, the earth shook so hard the mobs fell off me. An instant later, the crowd of high-level creatures was fleeing.

With no feeling in my arms and legs, I lifted myself on my elbows and threw my head back.

Ervigot, level ???

Ravager

The six-limbed monster reared up on its hind legs, as solid as a mountain and over three hundred feet tall, with a protective shell on its back. Who-o-osh! Whooosh! Who-o-osh! Oily black strings flew toward me from a multitude of holes in the shell. Wherever they fell, the sand smoked, melted and collapsed into fast-growing holes.

Turning, I saw a giant tar-like droplet cover two basilisks at once — their skin sloughed off, smoking, then their flesh and bones dissolved. The animals’ roar of pain cut off. Two corpses in a fraction of a second.

The other mobs torturing my character met the same fate.

You leveled up..!

You leveled up..!

You leveled up..!

It seemed the system was sending part of the experience my way; I’d taken away over half the mobs’ health, after all. My level kept going up, text blocked my view, I heard constant fanfare. I thought feverishly of what to do. Fight the thing? Run?

Through the cacophony of noise — the wailing of dying mobs, the roar and trample of the Ravager — I heard wings beating in the air.

“I wouldn’t stay here if I were you, buddy,” came a high-pitched squeak from above. “Jump on!”

Raising my head, I saw a female gnome in hunting gear. She sat astride a golden gryphon and extended a hand to me. Above her glimmered the umbrella of a portable defensive dome.

Kitty, gnome, level 378 explorer.

Dangerous Game Hunters

“Come on, Hanzo! Hurry!” I heard notes of panic in Kitty’s voice. “The dome won’t hold much longer! You’re badly hurt. Praise Nergal that you’re even still alive!”

“Agh…” I coughed, dragging the noises from my burnt throat. My tongue regenerated a little, and I managed to speak more clearly: “Tha…ack… thank you, Ki…Kitty. I have… other plans.”

Swearing harshly, she flew up and disappeared behind the top of a dune. I stood with difficulty, fell, stood again and looked at the Ravager. I pointed my half torn-off index finger at it and grinned.

“You’re just who I’ve been looking for, Ervigot.”

Chapter 10. The Ravager

AN ANT IN THE PATH of an elephant… That’s what I reminded myself of when Ervigot turned his attention to me. Ervigot the Ravager.

I’d never heard a damn thing about Ravagers. The world of Disgardium was too big to ever know everything there was to know about it. I’d lived on Earth for sixteen years, but I doubted I could say much about the fauna of Australia, for example. Kangaroos, wild dingos, koalas, what else?

The only thing I knew about Ravagers was that they existed and they were the strongest creatures on Dis, at least of those discovered so far. There wasn’t even any information about what level they were, because when the level difference was too great, then the level showed up as question marks.

Ervigot, spitting anthracite slime over everything in his vicinity, stopped near me. The sand and the corpses of dead mobs melted for three hundred feet all around, and clouds of smoke from burning flesh rose into the sky. It stuck to me, covering me in a layer of sticky soot, and soon all that remained of me was a coal-black skeleton, maintaining its integrity only thanks to Immortality.

Considering how fast the slime killed mobs almost at level six hundred, I was right to try to squeeze the maximum I could out of my meeting with the Ravager. The only thing that bothered me was Kitty the gnome girl, who had, through some incomprehensible means, found herself here and may even now be watching me. How could she survive out here? Nergal’s crusade hadn’t yet begun, and nobody had immunity to the extreme climate of the desert yet…

Only then did I realize the sun was falling behind the horizon, and that meant the strength of the debuff was dropping. A little longer and it would be dark.

Ervigot the Ravager dealt you critical damage (Nether Blob): 24,099,510!

Resilience level increased: +4. Current level: 41.

Ervigot the Ravager dealt you damage (Nether Blob): 15,472,141.

Resilience level increased: +3. Current level: 44.

Ervigot the Ravager dealt you damage (Nether Blob): 13,559,883.

Resilience level increased: +2. Current level: 46.

The messages popped up with every tick. My Resilience was growing almost as quickly as on that memorable day before my first meeting with Behemoth, when I’d been floundering in a thick swamp.

Ervigot, apparently surprised that this little bug was still moving, fired a deadly stream of its baleful substance directly at me, pushing me nearly a hundred feet away. All I did was grit my teeth, glad that I couldn’t feel pain and couldn’t smell or taste. The poisonous liquid even seemed to have splashed into my not-yet-regenerated skull.

Almost an hour passed like that. The Ravager kept covering me with its spit, not coming close. I suffered through it, not moving — my Resilience leveled up slower each time, so I had to wait longer and longer for the increases.

In the frozen silence, occasionally interrupted by the Ravager’s smacking spits, I heard only the hiss of the sand as it melted, and a rustle as it fell into the growing pit with me at its center, bent double in the fetal position and mentally celebrating every level-up.

Resilience level increased: +1. Current level: 90.

Resistance to all types of damage increased by 90%. Pain sensation reduced by 90%.

After that notification, I lay there a long time, dimly failing to understand why the skill stopped leveling up. Damage was coming in, albeit it reduced by my Resilience and not as high as it was. What was wrong? I finally figured it out; I’d reached the cap!

In convulsions, I opened my profile to raise my rank.

Resilience level 90

Rank: I (Path of Justice).

Resistance to all types of damage increased by 90%. Pain sensation reduced by 90%. If your health drops below 10%, Diamond Skin of Justice activates.

Reached Resilience cap at current rank!

Diamond Skin of Justice level 90

For 90 seconds, you are covered in a diamond skin that fully absorbs all damage. Removes all crowd control effects and debuffs.

Ninety seconds of full invulnerability! Nether, I’d done it! I’d done it in less than a day! Praise the Nucleus, the Destroying Plague, the Sleeping Gods, Fortune and Ervigot the Ravager!

But I needed to get all I could from the situation. How long could a person live without food and water? I definitely had at least a couple of days! I laughed at that crazy thought, the grinding of my jaw echoing through the desert, and started leveling up the next rank. Thankfully I’d reached level two hundred and forty-four from the mobs Ervigot had killed, which unlocked rank two for me.

Resilience rank 2 reached!

Select a skill progression path:

Path of Equanimity

You completely ignore all damage for the first 3 seconds of battle.

Path of Life

You absorb 1% of damage taken, using it to automatically recover health, mana or your class resource.

Path of Reflection

1% of damage taken is reflected and ricochets back to the enemy.

Path of Stubbornness

A magical shield with a durability equal to 300% of your mana surrounds you at the start of the battle.

Path of Torment

By choosing the Path of Torment, you willingly refuse reduced pain and save up your experienced pain in a Vessel of Torments, to later transform the contents into free stat points.

I had time to notice that the Path of Torment had appeared, which seemed to be new with the rank, but Ervigot wasn’t about to give me time to think about it. Whatever AI was controlling this supermob, it was slow, but now it had finally figured out that its spit wasn’t doing the job. Ervigot’s trample brought down dunes; one step, another, and the monster was looming over me. Its enormous form blotted out the sky, and it seemed to double up; Ervigot’s vague outline was encircled with a thick fiery border, trembling, flickering, giving off smoke. It was as if coals burned inside the Ravager.

A colossal angular limb, with teeth all along its length like a giant saw, blocked out a third of the starry sky. Crack! Piercing and breaking my ribs and crushing my spine, it cut straight through me. Ignore it! I whispered like a mantra over and over again, trying not to let it distract me as I read the skill paths.

The Path of Stubbornness didn’t suit me. I didn’t have a big mana pool, unlike Mogwai, whose impenetrable magic shields had become the talk of the game.

The Path of Life, another choice for Mogwai, would have made a great replacement for Immortality. It was a practically constant heal, but it wasn’t relevant to me. In any case, I hoped to reach the third skill rank, and maybe then…

“Ss-ss-rr… Ss-s-aa-r-rg-h-s-s-s!” Ervigot gave voice for the first time since this started. He wasn’t roaring. It seemed like he was trying to convey some thought. I made like I couldn’t hear him, still concentrating on choosing my path. “Arsh-s-s-s..!”

The Path of Equanimity, the third one, also fully completed by Mogwai, would provide several minutes of full invulnerability. After all, it was three seconds only at rank one, and if you added another minute and a half from my capped-out Diamond Skin… But, glancing at Ervigot, it occurred to me that invulnerability wasn’t the only thing you needed against mobs like this. You needed damage that their regeneration couldn’t keep up with. Mogwai’s choice was understandable; he wasn’t a solo player. For him, the most important thing was being able to withstand damage from any boss while the raid heaped damage on it. Against equal opponents, for example in the Arena, Mogwai just became invulnerable by healing more damage than he was taking.

I, on the other hand, needed abilities that would let me actively attack. What to choose: the Path of Reflection or the Path of Torment? I could withstand virtual pain, I’d learned how in my half a year in the sandbox, but what would be the use? I hadn’t seen any hints about how much and what I’d have to suffer to get one point of the stat. Was it worth it, considering how much I got for adepts with two temples to the Sleeping Gods?

I decided on the Path of Reflection. After confirming my choice, I admired the skill description:

Resilience level 1

Rank: II (Path of Justice, Path of Reflection).

Path of Justice (completed): You completely ignore penalties in battle against enemies at a higher level than you.

Path of Reflection: 1% of damage taken is reflected and ricochets back to the enemy.

Resistance to all types of damage increased by 90%. Pain sensation reduced by 90%. If your health drops below 10%, Diamond Skin of Justice activates.

Continue to improve your skill in battles against enemies at your level or higher for additional bonuses.

Hello again, skill level one. Only this time at rank two! I was still a long way off the achievement of Fen Xiaoguang, also known as Mogwai, but what was stopping me from ranking up again then and there? My premium capsule had nourishment cartridges, so I didn’t need to worry about thirst or hunger. But then why did I so badly want to eat? As soon as I thought of my long hours in Dis, my stomach in my real body growled in protest and pain flared up in my head. Possible signs of exhaustion. I had to hold on! Running into a Ravager, the like of which appear only once a year in a random spot, only to let it go just like that? No way.

Maybe I could end it all right now? I had the Balancer in my inventory…

Boo-o-o-o-o! A vibrating sound shook me to my bones. It seemed to nestle into the very neural connections of my brain, sucked out as it had been by the desert mobs. The sound turned out not to be a shuttle taking off from a nearby spaceport, but a howl of pain from Ervigot.

The beast from the Nether, if I correctly understood the historical home of the Ravager, became enraged and began to trample all over the pit with its column-like chitinous legs. The monster was aiming at me, but you try crushing an ant in a rut in the asphalt. Ervigot rampaged, releasing great streams of its tar-like liquid. If it didn’t melt so quickly into the sand, there would have been enough to swim in. Beneath me, the melting sand froze in a volcanic crust that stretched across the collapsing pit, preventing me from falling further.

Ervigot was raging like this because he’d taken damage. That damned Ravager was so used to swallowing up anything it encountered in the blink of an eye that this might have been the first time it ever felt pain! That hellish overgrown crab got a boo-boo!

I really was going insane if something like that made me laugh. You can’t do much chuckling as a skeleton, but I knew what my laughter sounded like, and I heard it. Mentally, of course.

Ervigot the Ravager dealt you critical damage (Nether Blob): 3,480,227!

Resilience (rank II) level increased: +1.

You have damaged Ervigot the Ravager (Reflection): 696,046.

Health points: 899,303,954 / 900,000,000.

“Yes! Yes!” I shouted like a lunatic, making crude gestures at the boss.

There was reason to celebrate. Firstly, my fully leveled Path of Justice was cutting off a clean ninety percent of the damage in spite of how mighty the Ravager was.

Secondly, the reflected damage wasn’t calculated based on what I’d actually taken after my Resilience cut it down, but based on the full amount!

And thirdly, the reflected damage amounted to two percent, meaning it grew as my Resilience increased, and it was as pure as a babe’s tears, as Sleeping Vindication, as Plague Energy — in the sense that nothing cut it down: not armor, not defensive stats, not resists, and this monster’s resists must have been astronomical!

To put it simply, the more damage Ervigot dealt, the more was reflected, because even though it wasn’t as fast as at the previous rank, my Resilience skill was still going up!

Inspired, I found the strength to pick myself up and start to fight. Thankfully, one of the Ravager’s enormous limbs was nearby, and occasionally even on top of me.

Boom! Boom! Boom! — the unprotected bones of my fingers cracked and crunched as they beat against the stony surface of Ervigot’s skin, but the creature still took damage. There wasn’t long to go until I reached the Unarmed Combat cap, and I was determined to raise the skill’s rank before the day was out.

After Resilience reached level ten, my Reflection damage went up to ten percent, and even Ervigot began to notice it. Plague Fury didn’t hold a candle to Reflection!

Ervigot the Ravager dealt you damage (Pierce): 9,210,358!

You have damaged Ervigot the Ravager (Reflection): 9,210,358.

Health points: 734,646,117 / 900,000,000.

The monster took as much damage as I did! And it wouldn’t have worked at all if I hadn’t chosen the Path of Justice way back when. Otherwise the Ravager would have ignored all my Resilience!

All I had to do now was stay awake…

If I’d have taken off my Hanzo disguise, my watcher would have seen the following: a broken skeleton with crushed bones weakly beating whatever its fists happened to land on. The enemy, a mix of a woodlouse and a crab fifty times bigger and taller than the skeleton, was covering said poor skeleton in a black, oily substance seeping from the joints in its shell, and trampling the earth with all six of its legs, smashing through the glazed ground.

By that time, it seemed my brain had entirely switched off. Periodically drifting into half-sleep, I woke up from yet another spit or strike from the Ravager, automatically activated Hammer or Combo and drifted off again. My head was pounding harder and harder, and my Resilience didn’t help one iota against real pain.

When I next awoke, I noticed that Ervigot was now bellowing constantly. That made me force my eyes open and take a look at the lines of logs floating before me:

Unarmed Combat level increased: +1. Current level: 100.

Accuracy and damage of strikes dealt without a weapon increased by 505%.

Reached Unarmed Combat cap at current rank!

Crushing Hammerfist, Stunning Kick and Combo levels increased: +1. Current level: 100.

26 training points available. Pay a visit to a master of Unarmed Combat to study new special attacks!

My vision doubled up the lines; I couldn’t focus, and it took me some time to figure out the meaning.

But for some reason, something else was bothering me. What’s Ervigot whining about? I thought curiously. Oh, right. He was kicking the crap out of himself! Almost half of the Ravager’s health was gone as if it had never been! If I’d still had a face, it would have had the biggest smirk ever on it. The clear scent of a First Kill was in the air. I could smell it even without my nose.

Focusing on my interface with difficulty, I filled in all twenty-two series slots with combo moves, lining up Hammers and Kicks. It was high time I found some master of unarmed combat; I was fighting like a paladin, two main moves making up my whole rotation.

Shaking my head, I put my thoughts in order and started thinking about my Path for the next time Unarmed Combat leveled up.

That’s when I ran into my first bump in the road:

To reach rank II of the Unarmed Combat skill, you must confirm the rank of Great Master.

Contact any trainer with a rank higher than the rank you wish to obtain: you will need a trainer with the rank of Unparalleled Master, Grand Master, Great Grand Master or Legendary Grand Master…

Then came bump number two. The invincible boss, Ervigot the Ravager, had successfully taken away half his own health, and his squealing ceased. A silence descended, so deep it was as if I’d gone deaf. The monster had disappeared.

I moved my head. The edge of the pit, clearly outlined against the night sky, was at least a hundred and thirty feet away! I couldn’t get there on foot…

I glanced at the logs. My Resilience had leveled up to twenty-seven, and I had no idea how to level it up higher for now. An errant thought came to my head; I could summon Storm, take off and figure out where the Ravager had gone. But while I was thinking about it, my subconscious acted for me.

Interface, menu, quit game.

The intra-gel had barely subsided before I fell to the floor of the capsule with no feeling in my legs. I don’t remember how I managed to crawl to my bed. I remember draining a bottle of water on the table and falling face first onto the nightstand. Heh, it got hurt worse from my Reflection, I thought spitefully.

With that thought, I smiled a wicked smile and fell into a deep sleep.

Chapter 11. Together Again… Almost

“ALEX… Wake up…”

Something wet and cold was moving across my shoulder. My eyelids were stuck together. Every bone, every muscle hurt, and I was sorry to be awake. I unwillingly turned my head and half-opened my eyes.

“What..?”

An unfamiliar old woman stood by the bed, with unwashed, disheveled long hair, a hooked nose, a sharp chin and black eyes with no whites. The old woman stretched her unnaturally long arms toward me, and, as I looked closer, I saw that they were twisted in all directions. The creepy sight worked better than a bucket of cold water. I screamed. And when I realized what she was touching me with that was so cold and wet, I shouted even louder and pulled my legs up, instinctively trying to get away from her. I backed myself into the wall and put my hands out protectively.

“Why so cowardly, eh?” the old woman asked in a cracked voice.

She licked her lips with a long, forked tongue and wheezed as she raised a leg high and set it down on the bed. Her colorless dress (she was wearing a dress!) rode up, revealing blackened skin covered in scabs and blisters.

My initial fear was instinctive, animal. This old woman who had inexplicably turned up in my room smelled of sickness, horror and death.

I barely kept myself from throwing up. My heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest, but I managed to get a grip on myself and take a deep breath. The uninvited guest climbed onto the bed and loomed above me. She turned out to be very tall, nearly six and a half feet.

“Have you not been seeking me, boy?” The old woman took my chin in her hand and raised my head. “What do you want?”

She showed no aggression. Just patiently waited for an answer. I tried to think logically: I wasn’t in Dis, so I was at home, in my room. Judging by the dark sky outside the window, it was late evening or nighttime. My electronic clock projecting the time on the ceiling showed 00:00.

“Who are you?”

The question remained unanswered. The door opened behind the crone.

“Alex! Wake up!”

The old woman disappeared.

“Wake up, Alex, you’re going to miss school!” mom said. “Son!”

And then I woke up again. I rubbed my eyes, looked around. The clock showed 07:02, early morning. It was just a nightmare…

I’d climbed out of my capsule the evening before after lunch, having spent nearly a full twenty-four hours in Dis. With that and my sleepless night at Distival, I fell asleep almost immediately and slept through the rest of the day and all night.

Feeling broken, I gave one-word answers to my parents’ questions at the breakfast table until they gave up. I didn’t want to chit-chat. That old woman hadn’t left my consciousness — the dream was too real, and the impression hadn’t faded. Every detail was burned into my brain: the old woman’s sickening stench, her flabby skin, her inhumanly twisted limbs…

I managed to get to school on my own — I was lucky enough to grab a vacant flyer. On the way there, I thought about what I’d been through in my last foray into Dis, interrupted only by the interview with Ian. Kinema, my conversation with Grokuszuid the goblin, my introduction to Fortune, my meeting with Tiamat and my long farming run in the desert, ending with Ervigot escaping the battlefield. Oh, and there was that gnome girl Kitty! I wondered what dropped from the mobs that died. After all, those little beasts were the highest-level mobs around. Shame I didn’t manage to finish off the Ravager.

The hamster within me whined… That was how I thought of my imaginary friend, my alter ego responsible for economy and thrift. I call him a hamster because no creature in the world likes to stock up more than those critters. His name is actually Pepper — a long time ago I had a real hamster with that name, but if I start referring to my imaginary friend by his name, I’ll run into serious problems at the citizenship tests. So I’ll just call him my hamster. Who was whining.

Well, whining isn’t really a strong enough word… He was screaming loud enough to rouse the dead! Flaygray and Nega would have envied his filthy swearing.

Alright, alright, I thought, calming him down. Don’t worry, a cargo flyer full of Christmas presents is sure to crash on our street someday!

The hamster had no intention of calming down, presenting me a long list of missed opportunities for profit in the form of several ranks of Resilience, not to mention the priceless crafting ingredients that no doubt dropped from the mobs, which my lazy ass hadn’t even picked up before I dragged it out of my capsule. And my Magnetism skill was set up to only scoop up epics or better. And there I agreed with Pepper… I mean, with my hamster, that I’d screwed up. It was bad enough just to imagine how much I could have leveled up Cooking.

So I emerged from my flyer and walked to class in, to put it mildly, a melancholy and broken mood. I ran into Ed, Malik and Hung on the way there. They were waiting for me. I hugged each of them and looked around.

“Where’s Tissa?”

The guys lowered their eyes. Ed answered.

“Yesterday we all flew to see you together. Melissa wanted to explain it all herself, but your parents said you hadn’t come out of Dis for a full day and you’d only just gone to sleep. Point is, we didn’t wake you up.”

I glanced from face to mournful face and didn’t quite get it.

“Alright, so you came to visit, didn’t wake me up, cool. And now here we are. Has someone died?”

“Bro, the thing is…” Hung cast an arm over my shoulder and pushed the words out quickly. “Tissa is done. Basically, that lady from the White Amazons made an agreement with Mister Schafer. As of today, Tissa is studying in another school. On top of that, she’s moving to her new clan’s island.”

“Already? But she still has her citizenship tests… she’s still in the sandbox…”

“Well, yeah… Elizabeth basically told her well, why wait, move in, make yourself at home, it’s all decided anyway. Tissa isn’t going to leave the Awoken for the time being.”

“Fair enough.”

The news didn’t quite stack up in my head. Of course, I knew my girlfriend would be moving to another clan, but I didn’t think she’d actually move away. It was all so sudden. And there was nothing from her on my comm. Strange.

“How did it all go?” I asked, my voice strained.

“Just like we planned,” Ed nodded. “The lesson’s starting, let’s talk after…”

I talked to the guys in our lessons in a whisper after that, and on recess we spoke quietly in a far corner of the schoolyard.

I listened carefully to my friends and analyzed what I heard. We figured we’d been made, and now the preventers would be tracking us, but we’d never guessed that their attention would take this kind of turn. They really know where to hit us!

Tissa wanted fame and to help her father. She got what she wanted, and right away. And Mister Schafer was happy. The Ochre Witch had promised to find him work in his profession, and that would help him get back to his old citizenship category.

Ed, who liked Tissa (I didn’t know that for sure, but guessed) had been handed Olesya, a girl of a similar type, only with higher status and more attractive on account of her workouts, makeup, her walk and other feminine wiles that Tissa hadn’t mastered yet. And with far more… ahem… womanly experience.

Naturally, Rodriguez couldn’t refuse the opportunity to spend time with a Damsel. When the time was right, the girl dragged him off to her room, and they emerged from there only once — to watch a grandiose show in honor of Distival and featuring world-class stars. All that time, Olesya worked Ed like an expert, opening him up and encouraging him to brag of his game achievements, which she apparently valued above all else.

“Ugh, I blabbed so much to her!” Ed grimaced as he told us of his time with the Damsel. “She asked me about my level and I said ‘thirty-two’ and then shut myself up by kissing her…”

“Nice,” Malik snorted.

Our bard had an even more interesting tale. Modus seemed to be doing stellar work analyzing the psychological profiles of the Awoken, because Malik, who always considered himself hard done by, had been given twice as much as Ed. At least, Ed thought as much and told me so in private so as not to offend his friend.

“So I got one Damsel and Malik got two at once.” Olesya was a C-cup with a standard room. The other two were at least D’s or E’s, and they took him to a Deluxe room. Can you believe that? Malik bragged about it the whole way back until Tissa asked him to shut up.

Malik himself admitted that he’d nearly broken down and revealed our successes, and the fact that he was already — wowee! — level one hundred and two, and not even a thief anymore, but a real bard with a legendary horn and an epic guitar with ethereal strings.

“So I drank a little too much, happens to us all, right?” he asked rhetorically. “Good thing I got sick. I barely made it to the can, but once I threw up, my head cleared a little…”

They hadn’t given Hung any such props. None were needed. He had Alison. And she was from T-Modus, the young wing of Modus, which included not only teenagers, but players a little older, like my acquaintance Piper. They’d met up outside of Dis in virtual entertainment worlds and had even practiced a thing or two before meeting in real life. Before Distival, Alison’s senior colleagues had no doubt instructed her on what exactly to try and find out from Hung.

“I think I’m in love, guys…” he admitted in a whisper in our history lesson. “I know we dated in a virtual world, but in real life she’s totally different… Real. First class, guys! Hit me, take away my loot, I don’t care, I just forgot about everything when she was with me. Sorry, Alex, I couldn’t find out any of the stuff you asked me about.”

“It’s not a big deal. I’m happy for you, Bomber!” I punched Hung in the shoulder and he didn’t even frown. “Did you have a good time?”

“An amazing time!”

“There wasn’t anything suspicious? How did Alison behave?”

Hung thought for a moment, frowned and admitted darkly:

“There was something strange. She was asking too many questions. Always seemed to be asking something different, but when I think about it, it was all the same subject. I felt like I was in a minefield trying to explain why I wasn’t playing Dis after leaving the sandbox, and I’d already spoken to her about that before. Said I was studying up for my citizenship tests, my parents were strict, didn’t have enough time for Dis, somehow managed to get away for Distival… And she was like: ‘Hm… I get that. The tests are really important! Your parents are wise people, Hung. By the way, why aren’t your friends playing?’ And she kept on like that over and over. I barely talked my way out of it.”

“You know, they were pretty clumsy,” Ed chuckled. “They thought they could show us a couple of busty babes, they’d smile at us and that would be that, we’d melt? The Nether with that!”

In the end, Mr. Kovacs moved us to opposite ends of the room and took away our comms. We only managed to continue our conversation after we got to my place.

Mom had met my friends the day before, while I slept. And now, refusing to hear our objections, she began to bustle around, sitting the guys down and then cooking us a meal. Seemed like she was in shock that her son had finally found some real friends, and boys too! After all, generally speaking, apart from Eve and Aaron ‘Robolover’ Quan, who I’d fallen out with a few years ago, she’d never met my friends. That isn’t to say I was a hermit. I just kept myself to myself, didn’t really get close to anyone, let alone invite anyone home. And now three at once!

The guys, embarrassed by mom’s hospitality, sat quietly on the couch. Hung took up one half, Ed the other, with Malik squeezed in between them, stuck between his friends’ broad shoulders. It was a shame dad wasn’t here — he was slaving away in his capsule, trying to get to level ten as fast as he could. He would have made friends with the boys straight away.

“My parents know,” I said quietly. “About my Threat status, about everything. You can speak freely, mom won’t blab.”

“Oh, I don’t know about all that stuff,” mom waved a hand, somehow catching my words. When she needed to, she heard everything. It was her superpower. “The game goes straight over my head. Talk about whatever you want, just don’t swear.”

“No swearing, Mrs. Sheppard!” Hung said happily and jumped up from the couch, overturning Malik. “Let me help you in the kitchen…”

Suddenly, my communicator activated. I read the message in CrapChat, asked the boys to make themselves at home, went to my room and climbed into my capsule.

I came back only a quarter of an hour later. Hung was helping mom set the table, and Malik and Ed were entertaining her with tales of Distival.

“Gyula is ready to start building the stronghold today. He needs materials,” I said. “And we need to level him up. I found a spot where we can do that very quickly. He’s going to send you a list, Ed. He claims he needs three days, but we don’t have that. So today I’m going to have to make some omelets from Vulture Eggs. They’ll double the pace of the work.”

“I got eggs,” Malik said.”

“You sure you don’t mean balls?” Ed answered.

He was joking, but the Vulture Eggs weren’t a problem. If the Lakharian Desert had anything, it had scavengers aplenty. You couldn’t walk ten paces without one dive-bombing you. The eggs didn’t drop every time, but they were easy enough to farm.

While we ate, I told them about what I’d achieved in Dis, staying silent about my meeting with Fortune. For some reason, it seemed wrong to give up the goddess’s secrets. I didn’t tell them about Sergei Polotsky either.

“What are you planning to do, boys?” mom asked suddenly, silent until now. “I mean, after you get what you want in Disgardium.”

“I want to play football,” Hung said. “In real life. Not in Dis. But to do that, I need to get into a college or university, which I can’t hope to do without money. But anyway, what I want doesn’t mean shit… sorry, Mrs. Sheppard… I mean, doesn’t mean anything. So all my plans are in Dis.”

“I’m starting to enjoy playing the guitar,” Malik said, blushing. “True, only in Dis for now, but if I do well at it, maybe I could do it in real life too? I even asked my uncle for his old six-string, but I haven’t picked it up yet. Who knows, maybe I have some talent?”

“You definitely have talent, Malik!” mom said. “You have fine hands with long artistic fingers. That means you have a genetic inclination to music!”

Malik blushed crimson and mom looked at Ed.

“I don’t know, Mrs. Sheppard,” he answered.

“Well, what do you like?”

“Planning, thinking about ways to level up, calculating chances. But I don’t know where I can use skills like that outside of Dis.”

“It’s worth thinking about corporate strategic planning, Edward. Work like that is very well paid…”

“I doubt I can do that, Mrs. Sheppard. But I’ll take a look. Maybe it really is for me.”

“Are you thinking about going to college straight after school?” mom asked.

“That depends on Alex,” Ed answered, glancing at me. “We’re just concentrating on Dis for now. By the way, Alex, I have a lot of thoughts I want to discuss. But first we have to admit something…”

He looked gloomily at Hung. He nodded. Malik did the same, and then Ed spoke.

“Bro, in the last six months, our opinion of you has changed from ‘arrogant bastard…’ Sorry, Mrs. Sheppard… to ‘loyal friend.’ But the thing about life is… You know, I have a sick grandmother and a little sister, and Hung’s family is huge, and they all fit into a house smaller than your apartment. Malik…”

“It’s even worse for me,” Malik blurted out. “Why do you think I never invite you guys home? Because there won’t be any room to sit down, and I’m not just talking about chairs. It’s real crowded…”

“The subject of leveling up your potential… Well, you yourself know that that’s probably impossible. Right?”

“Let’s say it is.” I frowned, starting to understand what he was driving at. “But we’re farming, right? Levels, skills, epics, legendaries, artifacts… When we can, we’ll take the money out and split it. Isn’t that enough for you?”

“Hear us out, please,” Ed asked gently. “When we signed out of the hotel, a guy from Children of Kratos approached us. He invited us to talk in a private booth in the hotel restaurant and made us an offer. Roughly the same offer Tissa got.”

“They’re aristos, why the hell do they need us? And Joshua himself, their leader, I’m unsuitable for them! Said it in front of all the other preventers!”

“They didn’t invite us to the main clan, only aristos are allowed in there. But you get that they need ordinary dudes with good game skills too, right? They have Heroes, a sister clan that works as a combat wing. They bring in promising new recruits there. They equip them, help them level up, give them everything they need as long as they play. And the pay starts at a hundred thousand a year for anyone below level one hundred, but it grows every hundred levels.”

“Money like that just for playing?” Mom’s eyes widened. “What’s in it for them?”

“They have a harsh selection process, Mrs. Sheppard,” Ed explained. “Good players are a rarity, the clans compete for them. You see, successful people come to Dis to relax. There are fewer people trying to make a career there, to make progress and earn money, because fast progress takes time, and people need to work. That means that people who can afford to play Dis all day are either non-citizens or rich people, but the first don’t have the ability to develop their characters, and the second group can’t be bothered with long, boring farming sessions. Ninety-nine percent of players are ordinary casuals who play to relax after work.”

“That’s why the top clans select promising noobs like us and invest in them,” Hung added. “Then their investment pays off big time, because all the loot goes to the clan coffers.”

“Anyway, we’re getting sidetracked,” Ed said. “Before we flew home, we met with four different top clans, Alex. The Travelers recruiter said if we changed factions, they could offer better conditions than the Children of Kratos. Then there was a guy from Azure Dragons. He promised less, but hinted at a citizenship status boost. Apparently they have people to help with that. We spoke to the Exco recruiter on the airplane. Apparently the Colonel himself has invited us to his residence. We saw some other people from the Alliance of Preventers at the airport: the Ferals, War Song, Widowmakers… But they didn’t approach us, they just watched us.”

I didn’t get what they were saying.

“They all refused me! Or do they want you guys specifically, and not me?”

“They refused publicly. Then you disappeared, and then they started looking for ways to get through to us. But we split up, went to different rooms… ahem… we were really tired, Mrs. Sheppard, we went to sleep… So the recruiters only found us the next day.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“We thanked them, jumped for joy, said that we have other offers too, that we needed time to think,” Ed shrugged. “You saying we should have refused? That would have looked suspicious, man — poor boys from the outskirts of civilization refusing a leg-up into the stratosphere? Like I said, Alex, everything went to plan. We knew there’d be offers, and there were. We were ready and didn’t refuse.”

“Yeah, but that’s not what you started with here! You were all talking about how shitty you all have it…”

“Alex!” mom rebuked me.

“Let me explain,” Hung interjected. “Listen, Alex, bro, the plan is the plan, but all of us had a long think about it. Tissa was going on all the way home about how awesome it was on the island she was moving to, which university she was going to, and… Of course we want the same. Right now everything feels unstable, we don’t know what tomorrow’s gonna bring. We have some legendaries, some money too, but we can’t take any of it out…”

“We’re going to be withdrawing it any day now! The closed auction in Kinema is tonight, and dad is gonna reach level ten soon, I told you…”

“Wait a sec,” Hung touched my arm. “We want to say…”

“I think you need to talk in private,” mom interrupted. “I’ll be in my room if you need anything. No swearing, alright?”

She swatted Hung on the head, making the big guy blush. He waited for mom to disappear into her bedroom, then continued.

“Let’s put all our cards on the table. In the grand scheme of things, you don’t need us. You’re doing just fine, but we… We’re just slowing down your progress. Ed?”

“He’s right, Alex,” Rodriguez said. “We all agree with that. You’ve been carrying us on your shoulders since the start. Even with selling stuff, you somehow figured it all out yourself — some through Rita Wood, some through the goblins. You got Manny and Gyula to handle building up the fort, even Trixie…”

“Veratrix,” I corrected him automatically.

“What?” Ed asked, confused.

“He asked us to call him by his full name.”

“Oo-kay, even Veratrix is more help to you than we are. And the situation isn’t going to change any time soon. Crag is another matter, but… By the way, have you heard anything from him?”

Not sure I should reveal anything, I shook my head. Ed continued.

“It’s all turned to chaos. I hope you get the point; we’re useless to the clan and the whole situation is too tenuous to even talk about stability. We had a serious discussion about the possibility of accepting one of the offers from the top clans. It’d help us solve our family problems, give us a steady income and a future…”

“So you’re leaving the Awoken? You’re Subthreats. You can only leave if I allow it. And I will allow it, if that’s what you’ve chosen, if it’s important to you…”

“No, bro,” Malik interrupted him. “But we thought you should know that we’ve discussed it.”

“Then what are we talking about?” I started to get angry, unsure what they were saying. Something was happening, but I didn’t understand what exactly. “Guys, hurry up and spit it out, I have a hell of a lot to do!”

Hung got up and crossed his arms. Ed stood up next to him, Malik joined them. There was no sign of levity in their faces.

“We told those recruiters that we’re interested in joining their clans, but we aren’t even thinking about Dis until the citizenship tests,” Malik said.

“We decided you had too much shit to deal with at once, bro,” Hung said.

“So we’re going to plow through it all together,” Ed said. “We’ll kick the preventers’ asses, crush Nergal’s army, conquer the world, get rich and live happily ever after.”

“Anyway, I still like the idea of a clan base in Cali Bottom,” Hung added. “With private apartments, a pool, a harem and all that.”

“But what about Alison?”

“I doubt she’d agree to be in a harem,” Hung shook his head. “Especially in Cali Bottom. So Alison is gonna just be a distant dream until we leave the underground.”

“And anyway… Think about it, Alex…” Ed said, a barely visible smile on his face. “We’re undead! They might take us into their clans, but there’ll be questions. And we don’t need that. Why risk exposing you? So pick your ass up and let’s start planning. I have a bunch of ideas on what we should do next.”

Chapter 12. Three Days to the Invasion

WE’D BEEN LEVELING UP Gyula for four hours. I’d dragged him and the boys to the same place where I encountered the Ravager the day before, thinking it would be quicker to level up there. There was still a hundred-level difference with the mobs at Tiamat’s temple.

There was one pretty serious flaw in this decision — we were really missing my undead minions, and I was rushing around like the damned, watching carefully to make sure none of my friends died from a random sneeze in their direction.

For some reason, Depths Teleportation couldn’t grab my minions — either my level was too low or there was some other problem. It was a shame. It would have been awesome. I’d have jumped to Modus Castle and given their famous Righteous Shield a run for its money… We’d see if it could stand up to Sharkon, with his new ability to dig tunnels at the command of my guardians. We could dig under the shield, and then… Like Uncle Nick used to say, the show would be over: nightmarish monsters would tear down the fortress of the top preventer clan brick by brick. Incidentally, Nick had probably already arrived while I was here. I’d have to find a moment to climb out of my capsule.

Gyula was setting records for powerleveling. He may have been getting mere crumbs of experience relative to the whole, but the monsters were almost level six hundred! Even just one percent of the experience was more than enough for our builder — after the first pack, he went up fifty levels and got a class. An awesome one! It was very rare — Demon Hunter.

Considering Gyula hadn’t killed a single mob with his own hands, not to mention any demons, the AI’s choice to give the builder Demon Hunter seemed odd. Must have been from talking to the satyr and the succubus.

The builder picked up achievements in droves. Like that I’m on Fire! achievement, or Greatest and Most Merciless Slayer of Giants, which required you to kill a mob five hundred levels above you. That seemed to be the cap on the Slayer of Giants achievement. The reward impressed even me: triple damage against any enemies at a higher level.

The other guys quietly marveled and envied him, while Gyula himself gloomily chewed his tobacco — Old Toby, a hobbit brand, — and read out achievement descriptions to Crawler. As for Infect, he was fully ready to change his character right away to get the same achievements, but common sense prevailed…

The battles were now much more fun and much more efficient. We used all the buffs we could. Gyula, for example, came from the fort with a very timely Rested buff (+50% experience gained for 1 hour). We used Roast Undead Rat Chitterlings constantly, but the supplies ran out. We should have stocked up. We were beginning to seriously think that it wouldn’t hurt to use the epic recipe for the raid dish Highland Feast, which we got for winning the cooking tournament (+200 to highest main stat, +50 to all other stats, +50% health and mana regeneration). Crawler had already ordered all the required ingredients in industrial quantities from Rita, roughly fifty thousand gold’s worth. There was no point in using the recipe for normal leveling, but very soon, Highland Feast would come in handy.

I’d gotten so tough that it took a while for Immortality to activate. First my Most Magnificent Avenger aura cut down the enemy’s damage and defense (-25% damage and defense to all nearby opponents). Thorn Aura kicked in at the same time (300% base damage to all enemies within thirty feet once every three seconds), which came from the Unconquered Herald Set. The other three set bonuses synchronized perfectly with Reflection: minus five percent to incoming damage, five percent damage reflected back at the enemy and a five-percent chance to reflect an entire attack. Thanks to my incredible Luck, the proc activated almost every third time.

It was tough to say for now whether the damage reduction from equipment was multiplied by Resilience or whether they kicked in separately, but in any case, even without Immortality, I felt like a terminator against ordinary mobs. Remember that tale toward the end of the last century about a cyborg from the future? As someone from that future, let me tell you: Skynet never did happen, but military robots did get used to the full. And some really were called terminators…

It was a shame Ervigot had escaped. It would have been awesome to pick up a mob like that and triumphantly bring it to the Commonwealth! We wouldn’t have touched any civilians. We were good bad guys, after all. But I’d have steamrolled the army of leaderboard tops with pleasure. Yep, mounted astride the Ravager.

By the way, in the end I did get an epic and a legendary off the mobs he killed! The first one was trash: a halberd without any level requirement and with averaged stats. I think the weapon was blue at first, but the chance to get improved loot kicked in and the gear was upgraded to purple. I gave it to Crawler.

As for the legendary, that was more exciting. It wasn’t gear, but a scroll. Nothing special at first glance, but…

Of One Blood…

Legendary.

Unique item.

One-time-use scroll.

On activation, equalizes your pets’ level with yours.

Sale price: 7200 gold coins.

Chance of loss after death lowered by 100%.

After reading the description, I was overjoyed that I could pull Iggy, Crash and Storm up to my level. I almost used the scroll. It was a good thing I had the sense to show it to the guys.

“Don’t be stupid, Scyth!” Infect shouted. “First level yourself up as high as you can get, then use it.”

That was solid advice from our bard, and now the scroll waited in my inventory for its time to shine. That was all for material achievements. Almost a full day of farm had given me a crappy epic and an awesome legendary scroll. Destroying Plague Immortality had leveled up to eighteen, Plague Fury was still at one — it would probably upgrade when its conjoint ability, Immortality, went up ten levels. At least, when I used Plague Fury the skill’s progress bar didn’t move, but it did when Plague Immortality leveled up. I didn’t use Plague Reanimation or Plague Pestilence yesterday, so there was no change to those.

Another bonus: I’d gotten to level two hundred and forty-four. I put a hundred points into Strength and Endurance and poured the rest into Agility.

My many hours of flying on Storm brought me a reward too: Riding reached level twenty (Movement speed while riding increased by 20%. Your mount reacts to commands more quickly). Oh, and Cloak Essence leveled up to ten. A hopeful line was added to the description of the class talent: Slightly reduced chance to be detected by identification artifacts and higher beings. Sure, it was ‘slightly’ for now, but the main thing was that I could level the talent up, and everything that could be leveled would be leveled!

Overall, after the fight with the Ravager and my insane boost to Resilience, we were getting kills easily. I barely even had to use Plague Fury. I shot mobs with my bow, and when they reached me and attacked me, they died to Reflection. It was just a shame that Resilience was now going up extremely slowly; just one level from two hours of running round the desert. Unarmed Combat had frozen completely, since I hadn’t gone to see the tutor. My first priority was leveling up Gyula and getting building materials organized.

The other guys stayed out of my group with Gyula so as not to take experience from the builder. We needed to get him up to level one hundred and to rank one of his craft. Although I was a lot higher level than him, I was still much lower than the mobs, so we didn’t lose any experience. Another matter entirely was that our newbie couldn’t deal any damage whatsoever to the mobs with his crossbow from afar, so ninety-nine percent of the experience went to me.

“Scyth, intercept!” Crawler shouted down from above. Our mage had learned Levitation and was now soaring above the fight, looking for mobs. “Pack of hyenas to the right!”

Damn it! I thought. The Crying Hyenas always attacked the weakest in the group. That meant Gyula was in danger. They didn’t give a damn about the aggro meter, or the tank’s taunts, which were mine in this case. The beasts were as tall as a man, with long segmented tails tipped with a venomous stinger.

I discharged Plague Fury, finishing off our current pack of mobs, weakened as they were by Reflection, then I rushed toward the oncoming pack. Gyula and the guys, who happened to be closer to the new mobs, ran toward me. Bomber the undead titan, Crawler the undead gnome and Infect the undead human, alongside the similarly deceased builder in the torn canvas clothing of a newbie, made a pretty picture indeed.

The pack of nine hyenas at level five hundred and seventy bristled and growled, but seemed in no hurry to attack. Broken Fang, the pack’s named alpha marked with a gold crown on its icon, shrieked piercingly. The pack immediately split into two groups with four dogs apiece. And started to surround me.

“Your move, Iggy!”

Chirping in flight — talking and using his abilities at the same time — the swamp needler took on the left group. He wouldn’t stand up to them for long, but he’d distract them.

To my surprise, Ghastly Howl activated, hitting a hyena in the group on the right. I sent my dragon to that one, but Storm couldn’t do much with her measly six levels. He was good for one thing: helping out the team. The dragoness’s lightning was weak, but he could hold back anything with his giant frame.

Bomber flew past me in a Charge. He smacked into a hyena with his plate-clad right shoulder as it ran to and fro in Fear. The result was unsurprisingly ineffective. That said, I’m sure the skill leveled up — he was getting nearly a whole level every time he used it! Crawler kept close to the tank, hovering ten feet above the ground. He was launching every spell he had as soon as they came off cooldown, from various different schools of magic; the tomes from the Treasury of the First Mage had come in handy after all.

The leader of the pack growled, crouching down in the sand, preparing to pounce. The fur on Broken Fang’s mane rose and began to transform. With a popping sound like someone reloading a shotgun, it molded into solid armor plates. I shot arrow after arrow, supposedly with adamantite armor-piercing tips, but they ricocheted off and disappeared into the sand all the same.

Wah-wah, twang! came the powerful guitar riffs from Infect, bouncing from dune to dune.

It was very easy for Infect to protect himself from the mobs’ aggro. His legendary boots from the Treasury left a Frost Trail which slowed down anything following him.

Also, now that Crawler had leveled up his air magic, his buff helped us to easily escape the mobs, kite them and even practice battle skills on them. Infect, for example, was firing off Distract, Enchant, Battle Inspiration and Frightening Melody. None of it affected the mobs, but the bard’s skills still leveled up even quicker than my Resilience had when the Ravager was spitting all over me. The music fulfilled two functions: it inspired and sped up his allies and weakened and slowed his enemies.

He even managed to freeze the whole hyena pack for a fraction of a second. If the hyenas had been at Infect’s level, they would have been frozen for some time, and then they would have come round disoriented and slow. But it didn’t matter; we could level up the bard, especially since he’d unlock some really powerful area-of-effect abilities at level two hundred. We just had to get him there in time.

Everyone was moving in synchrony, each of us knowing what to do and when. Apart from Gyula, who was running around like a headless chicken, his eyes wide — he still wasn’t used to the fact that his new capsule dulled pain, so he was having trouble relaxing. He was afraid of getting bitten on the ass, and made sure we knew about it. He seemed to have a complex about that. Good thing he didn’t have to put up with it for long.

In the end, the hyenas realized I was the only target that wouldn’t run away. Broken Fang had already lost two thirds of his health, and now stood with his feet splayed, in a strange pose like a spider. His ten-foot-long tail with its gleaming stinger stiffened, shook… then shot into my stomach. I flew back, somersaulting head over heels, bent double. The strike was so strong that the leader of the Crying Hyenas immediately died. Whoever brings the tail will die by the tail! That sounds like something Uncle Nick used to say…

After the fight with the pack leader, I had enough plague energy to strike with Sharkon’s Mane. All credit to Crawler for coming up with that idea. I fed the shield with plague energy and threw it like Captain America. It ricocheted between the pack members, gathering aggro and dealing respectable damage. I’d need to check out the auction house, buy some gems for the shield. It was looking bare.

This meant that apart from Plague Fury, my arsenal now contained another AoE, or area-of-effect ability. It only had one flaw: you couldn’t throw it in close quarters. But I had my twenty-two-strike Combo with plague energy for hand-to-hand combat.

After it was finished breaking the mobs’ ribs, my shield returned to my arm, ending its long flight. The hyenas didn’t like that. They forgot the builder and all switched to me.

A couple of minutes later, thanks to Reflection, the pack bit itself to death.

Gyula was surrounded by the halo of a level-up twice.

“Ninety-nine!” he shouted, rubbing non-existent sweat from his brow.

“Scyth, the mobs dropped some Crying Hyena Spare Ribs. You got a recipe for ‘em, or should we send them to auction?” Crawler asked.

“No recipes, but I’ll think of something.”

“Ooh, rare loot!” the builder turned demon hunter said. “Cloak of Broken Fang’s Skin. Requires level five hundred! Holy shit!”

“Let me see it!” the guys all piped up.

Gyula picked up the loot that my Magnetism hadn’t and gave it to my friends. They figured out on their own how to split it up. As of today, we had uses for all crafting ingredients.

Apart from Alchemy, Crawler was going to take Enchantment, and Herbalism too, since Tissa was gone. Infect kept Archeology and decided to learn Skinning and Leatherworking too, and Bomber wanted to take up Mining and Blacksmithing in addition to his Fishing. It wasn’t worth taking on more than three trades — the more you had, the harder they all were to level.

The perfect combination was a gathering trade with two crafting trades. If you took all the trades, you could get the Dilettante achievement (cannot advance any trade beyond rank zero), and your leveling speed dropped catastrophically.

As for me, I decided to add Inscription to my Cooking. The trade went well with Cartography, but that was a happy coincidence. The main reason was that I could create spell scrolls for my own use. Usually it was priests, wizards, mages and warlocks that took on that craft — they had plenty to put on parchment. An idea grabbed me: what if I could put Depths Teleportation, Ghastly Howl or even Plague Fury on a scroll? The workers would gain mobility, the boys would get a secret ability to scare off enemies if they got into a scrape, and my ultimate ability stored and multiplied in dozens of scrolls… Mmm! A mass diversion tool.

All the crafts we’d chosen were only a small part of the clan’s overall plan for the future. To learn them, we’d need to visit the corresponding guilds, and my friends… weren’t quite alive. Darant, Kinema and Shak tended to be unwelcoming to the vitally challenged. So we put that aside until we started building the Stronghold of the Destroying Plague.

The special goblin auction was due to start in a couple of hours, and I had to be present for it. Grokuszuid emailed me the time and place.

While we were resting and having a drink, Crawler flew fifteen feet or so up and looked around.

“I see a basilisk!” he shouted. “One, level five hundred and eighty-six. Want me to aggro it?”

“Yeah, pick it up,” I called back, begrudgingly standing up.

Plowing through the sand, the Stone-Skinned Basilisk, a particularly unpleasant breed of six-legged desert crocodile, rushed toward the mage and launched a fireball at him.

I ran in at an angle to hit the creature first; the others, including Iggy and Storm flying above him, arranged themselves in a semi-circle behind.

A shield throw, an arrow volley, a Combo. I took off maybe half a percent of its health, but it was enough to get the mob’s attention. Next came the usual fun — me getting hit in the face and my pathetic indestructible corpse getting dragged around in the sand, my bones cracking until the basilisk finally killed itself. On a Scyth. Well, he wouldn’t be the first.

“One hundred! No! One hundred and one!” Gyula shouted and broke into dance.

“I leveled up too, two hundred and forty-five,” I said, high-fiving the builder.

Gyula rummaged in the basilisk’s corpse, shook his head — no loot, apparently. Then Infect crouched by it and, armed with daggers left over from his time as a rogue, tried to take the skin off. His face darkened.

“Not working.”

“You’re wasting your time,” Crawler shook his head. “There’s only a tiny chance to learn a trade that way. You need tutors. Or skillbooks.”

“It’s decided. After the auction today, I’ll check out the guilds in Kinema,” I said. “We need the rank one construction book for Gyula to reach Master anyway.”

“Oh, Scyth, stop by the warrior school! My moves are at the cap, I need the next rank,” Bomber said.

“Me too!” Infect piped up. “If we’re going to keep leveling up like this, grab the books for ranks two and three as well. Not long until we get there!”

The bard was setting his sights too high if he thought it was ‘not long’ to rank three, but I could see his logic. I always forgot that normal players had class skills at the core of their battle moves. I should have taken that into account when I turned my friends into undead — they couldn’t visit any cities now. On the other hand, they would never have leveled up so quickly as humans. Um… That is, as a human, gnome and titan.

“Sure thing. If anyone needs anything else, send me a message or else I’ll forget.”

“I’ll write up a list and send it to you,” Crawler said. “It’s gonna cost a shit-ton of money. Cheaper to learn from tutors. Rank one fire magic will cost around twenty thousand, rank two — three hundred thousand, rank three… Oh, damn! Who’s this?”

Everyone’s eyes followed the mage’s. I saw a golden dot outlined against the cloudless sky. It was too far away to make out details.

“Back to the fort, now!” I ordered. “I’ll stay to find out who it is. I can hide with Cloak Essence…”

Nobody argued. I kicked Gyula from the group and Crawler added him to his own.

“Scyth, I almost forgot!” Crawler shouted in the middle of casting Depths Teleportation. “I have info on Yoruba. I’ll tell you when you catch us up…”

With the snap of a teleport, my friends disappeared. I hoped they remembered that we needed to move materials to the construction site for the Stronghold of the Destroying Plague. I’d chosen a spot right in the middle an imagined line between Vermillion and Tiamat’s temple.

The dot was approaching, and now I saw it was a gryphon. I watched it, not moving from where I stood. Soon I could make out a rider. It was Kitty, the gnome girl. That high-level explorer from the Dangerous Game Hunters faction. I relaxed a little, but continued to watch her carefully.

It seemed I alarmed her as well. The rider stopped, hovering a dozen feet or so from me. Now that I could see who I was dealing with, I sighed with relief. She was an NPC. They were far easier to deal with.

“Good day,” she greeted me. “My name is Kitty Spitfire. My colleagues and I have a camp not far from here. I heard an explosion and decided to check it out.”

“Hello, Kitty,” I answered, looking at the gnome with interest. “I can’t tell you my name, but you can call me Hammer-22. That’s my callsign.”

“Oh, so you’re… a mechanical creature? A golem? Is that how you can survive in the desert?”

Kitty jumped off the gryphon and approached me. It seemed her explorer’s spirit won out over her sense of caution. Tsk, tsk, girl, careful now! I’m an evil and terrible legate of the Destroying Plague. You might catch something!

“Nice to meet you, Hammer-22,” Kitty bobbed in a curtsy and stretched out a hand.

My hand swallowed up her little one when I carefully shook it. The gnome girl didn’t even wince.

“Your hand feels human,” she noted. “Sorry, I can’t be here too long. My shield energy drains very quickly. I just wanted to ask — what are you doing out here? Did you kill these poor little critters?”

“Believe me, Kitty, these little critters,” I shook my head, gesturing at the corpses of some hyenas, a morten, a few vultures and a basilisk, “are anything but poor. Let any one of them loose in Darant and the townspeople will have to find a new place to live, and they’ll be lucky if it isn’t a graveyard.”

“That’s true, but they’re not in Darant, they’re in their natural environment. This is their home. You’re an outsider here and you’re killing them!”

“Would you prefer it if they killed me?”

“They have a right! They need to eat something!” the defender of nature cried. “One sec… Aren’t you the one I saw yesterday in these parts? That suicidal maniac that refused my help?”

Should I lie? What was Persuasion saying?

Direct lie: your conversation partner has a very high chance of detecting the lie, but will consider it a defensive reaction and will not be offended. But they will avoid direct questions afterwards, preferring instead to ask veiled ones. Your reputation in the eyes of Explorer Kitty will drop. If the lie remains undetected, Kitty will no longer speak on this subject.

Indirect lie: your conversation partner has a high chance of detecting the lie and will be offended. Your reputation in the eyes of Explorer Kitty will drop. If the lie remains undetected, Kitty will no longer speak on this subject.

Truth: Explorer Kitty’s interest in your character will sharply increase and she will be more open with you.

Ignore: Explorer Kitty will ask the question again in one form or another until you answer. What do you expect? Explorers are nosy!

The skill also told me whether I should flirt, whether compliments were appropriate, and generally how best to treat people: politely, casually, formally or jokingly…

“Yeah. You got me, Kitty, but I want to warn you: Hanzo is just a disguise. I hope we can keep that between us?”

“Sure thing, Hammer-22.”

Assessment of Kitty’s statement: truth.

“Could I ask you what you’re doing here?” I asked. “And how you manage to survive out here?”

“We’re exploring the desert. Our camp is protected by a forcefield. We go on expeditions with personal mobile shields and study the fauna.”

“Aren’t you afraid of the vultures? They’re violent!”

“They only hunt life on the ground.” Kitty waved a hand as if didn’t matter. “Actually, we ran into a Nether rift and spent a long time watching it. As you know, the rifts close up on their own sooner or later, and there are no populated areas nearby, so it isn’t dangerous. The first wave of Nether beasts met its end in the desert when it ran into the local predators. The next waves died the same way, but then the Ravager came. I’m sure you remember it, Hammer-22…” Kitty fell silent. Her eyes devoured me, studying my reaction.

“I remember. He wanted to kill me.”

“A perfectly natural reaction,” Kitty said dismissively. “That’s the point of a Ravager — to kill and absorb life. Have you ever seen a Ravager that just emerged from the Nether? They’re like this…” the gnome girl showed me a little fist. “Like little kittens. Shame we didn’t form up in time…”

Kitty sighed heavily.

“Why?” I asked.

“We could have captured it. It would have been a unique case in the history of science! But another wave came out of the Nether after it. The Ravager killed them all and so it grew, turned strong and dangerous. After it ate a few more waves, it went to look around near the coast, killing whatever it met and increasing its power.”

“So they just can’t be beaten if they gain enough strength?”

“Sure they can be beaten. It’s like you dropped down from Geala, Hammer-22. Everyone knows this stuff! If a Ravager appears, you have to tell the priests of Nergal, Marduk or another strong god right away, depending on whose territory the rift is in. They tell the high priest and he asks the god for strength. That takes time, and to stop the Ravager in the meantime, the strongest warriors of the Commonwealth and the Empire stand shoulder to shoulder until the high priest appears. They distract the monster so it doesn’t wander into inhabited lands. Once the priest gets to the battlefield, he uses the strength gifted by the god to return the beast to the Nether.”

“Return it? Can’t they be killed?”

“Nobody has ever killed one. Wounded Ravagers just disappear. Then they show up again somewhere else. About that, by the way. How did you manage to banish Ervigot?”

Persuasion told me it was better to laugh this one off.

“He didn’t like the way I tasted, Kitty. He got upset and left.”

“You’re ve-e-ery interesting, Hammer-22,” the explorer said. “I get that you have a bunch of secrets, and I’m glad you haven’t ripped my head off for my awkward questions. Hell, a creature capable of banishing a Ravager on his own is either a god or a high priest. I don’t know who you are, but I really want to find out. So I’d be happy to continue our conversation in more comfortable conditions. The Dangerous Game Hunters will always welcome you! Oh, damn… I might not make it back to camp at this rate! See ya, lil Hammer!”

I recalled the words of Garrison Alt, the leader of the hunters’ camp at the Mire who once told me something similar. My reputation with the faction had grown then. But right now, Kitty’s words had no effect. Maybe the reputation increase was blocked by Cloak Essence. Well, that made sense.

Kitty jumped onto her gryphon and I remembered that I wanted to ask her something else.

“Hey, Kitty, do you know anything about the cult of Morena?”

“Hah! Never ask about them in polite company!” Kitty said as she flew into the air. “But if you re-e-ally need to, go visit the Crooked Spear tavern in Shak. Talk to Hettran, he’s the boss there…”

Kitty’s voice grew more distant with each flap of her gryphon’s wings, but I caught most of what she said. So, first Kinema and now Shak on Shad’Erung, the continent of the dark ones. As long as I didn’t get thrown out of Dis at midnight. I hoped the devs listened to my arguments about the need to stay in Dis without a time limit.

How else could they get that full-scale Holy War they wanted?

Chapter 13. Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees

I JUMPED TO KINEMA straight after my meeting with Kitty the Explorer. I thought I had enough time to get to Shak through the permanent portal in the goblin capital, but it somehow wasn’t working. I couldn’t jump to the Empire in the form of Hanzo the human, and I ran out of time while searching for a dark race suitable for Imitation.

So instead of seeking out the cultists of Morena, I decided to go shopping at the guilds and class schools.

The Guild of Stonemasons and Builders sold me construction books for Gyula: Rank One Construction Mastery and Rank Two Great Construction Mastery. From what I understood, if you read them, they didn’t just rank up your craft, they also taught you some standard designs.

It was expensive as hell — I could have bought three flyers for the same money — but I wanted to thank him somehow. The couple of thousand gold a month he got from the clan wasn’t much of a salary. Sure, for him that was a lot of money, but it really wasn’t. The miners got a percentage of the sales of the ore we sold, but the builders? And Gyula and his brigade, when they got better, still had the clan fort to upgrade.

The boys didn’t get left out either. Apart from the crafting trades, I got Bomber a couple of combat skillbooks for ranks one and two. Crawler and Infect got identical versions for mages and bards. And how could I forget yours truly? There was nothing available for heralds, but a book caught my eye: Rank One Master Chef. After a moment’s thought, I bought the one for rank two as well.

The rank two books stood out; they had an expensive binding, cost five times as much and were twice as thick. The spines of the rank one books were silver, the rank two books — gold. Rank three tomes gleamed with diamond dust; their cost came to seven figures.

When I was done, it was time to think about something else. Thankfully, all the guilds were on the same street. It was just a shame that I didn’t spend long with the inscription guild. Of course, it was a good idea to learn crafts from the trainer and get a little practice in at the same time, but since I was short on time, I just bought the books for ranks zero, one and two. I also picked up some clean scrolls of parchment, special pens and ink that gave me a bonus chance of successful Inscription. I decided I’d wait until tomorrow to get to grips with the trade. The auction was starting.

I was running late, so I had to hire a cab. Mounts were forbidden in Kinema, and at a system level — you simply couldn’t summon them. We flew like the wind — two reptiles, constantly snapping at each other and urging each other on, delivered the cart (or carriage — I was no expert in medieval transport) to the League of Goblins ASS building.

When I walked into the building, a magical cloak enshrouded me — as a participant of a closed auction, I’d been given a Mist Veil. Interestingly, Imitation seemed to take that as a change of disguise and randomly leveled up. Now I could not only give myself a class, but a nickname, level and clan too. Mentally wiping my hands, I stopped at the center of the hall and looked around, trying to figure out where to go.

“Wow!” I suddenly heard from behind. “Hey, Hanzo!”

Turning, I saw a tall warlock human by the name of Defiler had entered the hall behind me. A level three hundred and twenty-one player from Children of Kratos. A preventer. Damn. It looked like Mist Veil had no effect yet. Defiler was walking right at me and saw my disguise.

“Where’d you come from?”

“Darant,” I answered, not understanding his surprise.

“Well, yeah, obviously,” he waved in annoyance. “But I don’t get it, Hanzo. What level are you? Fifty-seven. But to earn the League’s respect, you have to be at least two hundred. How did you kill the Steeplejack boss from Hill Forest? And don’t tell me you had high-level friends helping you! Everyone knows you have to complete that quest chain solo.”

“It’s a secret,” I said, answering with the first thing to come to my head. “A trade secret. I can sell it to you if you want.”

“You broke the system?” Defiler frowned.

I didn’t know how our conversation would have ended if it hadn’t been for Grokuszuid. He emerged from the back offices waving his arms and came to my rescue.

“Ah, there you are?” The goblin gestured me to join him. “Hurry up!”

“Sorry, gotta go,” I told the warlock before moving off to join the auctioneer.

He had a businesslike and somewhat excited demeanor, the reason for which was apparently the fees the goblin hoped to earn personally. Glancing at us, Defiler spoke thoughtfully as I left.

“And he has a personal manager… Interesting…”

As I left the hall, I felt the warlock’s gaze drilling into my back. I hoped there was nobody waiting to meet me after I left the auction house…

Grokuszuid was in a hurry. His little legs working rapidly, he practically dragged me to to his office, where he gave me some clear instructions and a few recommendations.

“Some sellers take advantage of the auction’s anonymity to participate in the auction as a bidder and push the price up. In addition, this removes any suspicion that they are the sellers. I’m sure you’ll agree, Mister Scyth, that there is some sense in that. Certain influential individuals of this world use coercion to literally force people to sell artifacts for mere coppers. We provide anonymity, but sometimes… Well, there have been misunderstandings. All those caught in such acts are put on the ASS blacklist, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Alright, Mister Grokuszuid, I’ll participate in the bidding.”

“Now I want to give you a little warning. Don’t get carried away! If nobody beats your bid, then you’ll have to buy the item yourself. The ASS rules are strict, and they do not allow special treatment. Place bids only in the initial stages, when there are a few people interested. We’ve had cases when the seller, wishing to drive the price higher, won the bidding for their own item. And usually, such… heh-heh… clever fools, I dare say, do not have the funds to purchase their own artifact. Do you know how that ends?”

“I doubt it ends well.”

“It’s so nice to do business with such a perceptive young man!” Grokuszuid smiled. “Violating the rules of the auction house always puts you on the blacklist, and then the ASS will never do business with you again. Not to mention the lot is confiscated. Do you understand me?”

“Yes. Thanks for the explanations. I’ll be careful, I have no plans to get carried away.”

Done with his instructions, the goblin led me to an auction hall — one of many. Out of concern for magical protection, as Grokuszuid explained it to me, each hall was in its own separate low building. I counted more than a dozen of those buildings. They looked like windowless crypts made of granite slabs, with a single door. All the auction halls were in the rear courtyard of the ASS, and each had a narrow path of cobblestone leading to it, shining as if inset with diamonds.

Each auction hall, from what I could tell, was designed to fit around twenty to thirty people. When I walked in, almost all the bidders were already there.

They all looked identical behind their Mist Veils — just balls of smoky, colorless flame. From snatches of conversation in the hall, I learned that the participants’ voices were not identical — they were equally genderless, but with differences in tone. Above the balls of smoke, the system text just showed ‘Closed Auction Participant’ and a number. I got number nine — roughly in the middle of the total number.

It turned out I wasn’t the only latecomer. The doors swung open and another bidder entered.

“He-e-e-y! What’s up, losers?!” he said before heading for a free seat in the back row.

“Mogwai… Mogwai…” I heard all over the hall.

How did they know? Or was that his catchphrase? The whispering quickly ceased. The doors slammed shut behind Mogwai and clamped together with magic seals.

I heard fanfare, the light went out in the building and the stage lit up. A fat goblin emerged onto it in a sparkling jacket. Bowing like an inveterate entertainer, he triumphantly declared:

“Welcome, friends, to this League of Goblins special sale! My dear bidders! I understand your impatience and value your time, but nonetheless, please forgive me. I must recite the rules of the ASS…”

He spoke the bidding rules in a lightning-fast tongue-twister, then moved on to the lots.

“Allow me to present to you the first of our two items for today: Svyatogor’s Staunch Chainmail, an item from the legendary set of Svyatogor the Dark. Eras have passed since he lived, but to this day legends are told of the exact cause of Svyatogor’s death. He died not from an enemy blade, nor from a traitor’s dagger, not from a poisoned cup… Demeter herself, Mother Earth, punished that most magnificent warrior, a giant greater than any Disgardium had ever known, for his arrogance…”

The presentation was accompanied by a demonstration of scenes from Svyatogor’s life.

“He once bragged that if only there existed a ring in the sky and another on earth, he could have forced the two to meet…” The auctioneer shook his head “Mikula, a plowman and warrior, heard this and threw at Svyatogor’s feet a bag which contained ‘all burdens earthly.’ Svyatogor tried in vain to move the bag. He pulled and pulled and sank to his knees in the earth, pulled and pulled still more, and died. Until now, the chainmail, so far the only piece of Svyatogor’s armor yet to be found, was considered lost. But here it lies before you!”

Shocked gasps echoed throughout the hall. The chainmail floated straight through the air from somewhere off to one side, as if worn by an invisible man. The Goblin League knew all about marketing! The whisper and movement in the hall grew.

“The bidding is open on lot number one, Svyatogor’s Staunch Chainmail! Starting price: three million gold!”

One of the balls of smoke flashed with bright white light.

“We have three million! Three million — going once..! Bidder number two — three million one hundred! Three million one hundred — once! Bidder number twelve — three million two hundred..! Three million two hundred, going once..! Bidder number…”

* * *

Money doesn’t grow on trees! — how often had I heard that from my parents? They never stopped telling me the stuff was hard to come by. Seemed to me that wasn’t always so. For example, I’d just earned ten million gold in an hour. Alright, call it nine after Snowstorm’s fee.

Imagining how mom and dad would have reacted, I smiled wickedly.

Where’d you get this money, son? they would ask.

I was walking by a tree and there it was, just growing off the branches! I’d answer. Damn. I thought money didn’t grow on trees?

My personal nonsense generator coughed in sudden euphoria. I didn’t believe until the very end that everything was working out. I kept expecting a hitch. I’d never had things go to plan like this before. But now, as Uncle Nick used to say, my problems were dropping my like flies. I’d bagged the hare, the deer and the duck. And hit a bear in the head with a ricochet. And the bear crushed a hamster. I got ‘em all, is what I’m saying.

Paying off my parents’ fine? No problem. Finding money for a real-life clan base? Sure thing. Earning enough to pay for the whole Awoken clan to go to university? Easy. I even had enough left over to pay my blackmailers Hairo and Big Po, if I decided to.

I changed my character information right in the auction hall, taking advantage of Mist Veil. I turned into a level three hundred warrior, MonkeyWrench. I couldn’t get that preventer warlock out of my head.

As it turned out, my paranoia was justified. At the exit from the auction house, I saw a few suspicious groups from the Alliance of Preventers. They were standing, inspecting the odd passerby, making as if they were just chatting. Well, well. They probably wanted to check Hanzo with the fire of the True Flame.

Unfortunately, my Imitation wouldn’t let me invent a disguise with gear for now, so I had to steal one from the first samurai I found instead. I changed my class at the same time:

MonkeyWrench, orc, level 300 samurai

Clan: Cthulhu’s Boys.

In this disguise, I headed for Disgardium Bank, which belonged to the League of Goblins and had the reputation of the most secure bank in the game. There were lots of them here — dozens, if not hundreds. There were plenty of private ones opened by players or clans — those were less trustworthy, but their investment returns were better, as were their loan rates.

The goblin bank belonged to Snowstorm. It didn’t pay much on investments; on the contrary, it actually had negative returns. On the other hand, the bank’s responsibilities extended even to real life. That meant that an account at Disgardium Bank was treated like a real bank account.

Most of all I was worried about how Imitation might affect opening an account. I imagined a siren sounding out as I entered the bank, calling in the guards and forcing me to fight my way out. But everything turned out just like in the Auction for Special Sales: they identified me as undead, but they didn’t ask me to remove my disguise. A polite, although somewhat arrogant goblin met me in the lobby, asked the purpose of my visit and took me to see a manager.

Because I wanted to deposit such a large sum, one of the senior managers was assigned to me. I thought a little about the four million I needed to set aside for dad and decided to make it five.

“Five million and up gets you a reduced rate,” the employee explained. “Your investment will be put in the Premium category, which gives you a range of privileges…”

The privileges tipped the scales. A personal manager, even in real life; special bonuses; twenty-four-seven service. I didn’t even need to meet my dad in Dis. He could stop in at any branch here or in real life, name the account number and a passcode and get his money. Or transfer it wherever he wanted.

That said, we nearly ran into trouble with the passcode.

“May the Sleeping Gods never wake,” I told the banker.

He froze for an instant. Nether knows what the goblins and their greedy gods, Maglubiyet and Bargrivyek, think of the Sleepers, but professionals stay professional. The goblin nodded, muttered something very much like “And may their sleep be eternal…” and then filled in the forms.

A huge weight fell off my heart. Practically all my problems, and my family’s too, were solved. All that was left was for dad to withdraw the money in real life. As for me — I could just play. That realization filled me with reckless abandon. Warring with the preventers, saving the Sleepers’ temple, completing quests for the Destroying Plague — right then, it all seemed like just a game. And one where you could get a lot more than you expected.

After my mass purchase of class and crafting manuals for my friends, I had roughly six million left including what I’d gotten for Big Po and advancing my potential. I planned to invest some of it in identifying the remaining artifacts; some would no doubt come in handy in the upcoming war. The rest I wanted to put into quickly upgrading the fort to level three to unlock Righteous Shield. But all that would come later. Right now, the top priority was building the Stronghold of the Destroying Plague as quickly as possible.

I jumped from the bank to the fort. As usual, I found everyone sitting in the tavern. Trixie had joined Gyula and the boys, excitedly chewing on the roasted leg of some sort of bird. Judging by its size, it must have been as big as an ostrich.

I sat down with my friends and waved my hand, gesturing for ale. Gyula’s daughter Eniko smiled at me and nodded.

“Look,” Crawler said, snapping his fingers.

With a barely perceptible hum, a Dome of Silence formed over our table.

“Wow! How?”

“Air magic,” he explained, grinning happily. “Been leveling it up a little.”

“You manage to look in on the guards?”

“Yeah. Flaygray asked me not to come back without booze. Apart from that, all’s well. They’re driving your minions to the spot. They’ll get there around an hour from now.”

Someone had to defend the construction site while I was sleeping or in school. That was why Flaygray, Nega, Anf and Ripta were heading there. Well, I guessed I’d have to wait until they got there. I couldn’t leave Gyula unguarded. He’d decided to spend all night in Dis, picking up the first rank of his craft and starting the Stronghold of the Destroying Plague. Even with a hundred-percent boost to construction speed from food, time was scarce. Without the lich Shazz and his powerful army, I wouldn’t be able to deal with Nergal’s forces.

After quickly relaying my conversation with Kitty to my friends, I told them of my success at the auction. Then my coffee arrived, and with some Mango Candy too — Aunt Steph was wasting no time leveling up her Cooking. She’d invented some new dishes.

After unloading her tray, Eniko walked off, but the boys didn’t watch her go. On the contrary, they stubbornly refused to look at the builder’s daughter, fearing his anger. Who knew how non-citizens might react to things like that?

“What’s up with you guys?” Gyula said, peering at us. “Why you shut up like clams?”

“They’re afraid of you,” I said, betraying the boys. “They really like Eniko.”

Well, why not? They’d spread their wings in Dubai, now they were looking at Eniko too. Out of Eniko’s view, Bomber shook his fist at me. Infect kicked me under the table. Crawler shook his head, eyeballing me: Come on, Scyth! Gyula just frowned and tried to figure out if we were playing a prank on him.

To change the subject, I triumphantly laid his books on the table, followed by the ones for the other guys. They whistled and started to go through the heap of tomes.

“Oh, thank you so much, Alex,” the builder said, shaking himself. “You got rank two already? That must have cost a bomb! I’m shocked…”

“No, thank you, Gyula,” I answered. “You and your colleagues.”

“Thanks from all of us!” Crawler added. Bomber and Infect expressed their gratitude too. “Thanks, Uncle Gyula!”

“For what?” he asked, his eyes widening.

“For everything,” I said. “For your loyalty, for your work, for your trust.”

“Then I thank you too, guys…” the builder said, clearly touched.

Someone touched my arm. Turning around, I saw Trixie. The dwarf sat quietly this whole time, and I didn’t notice him.

“Where are my books, Alex?” he asked.

Damn. What about him? How could I explain that he couldn’t get to rank one? Was I supposed to start a charity, buy him a capsule and level him up to a hundred too? Watching as I frowned and hesitated, Trixie spoke up himself.

“Me really need. Lots. Me gonna be great master gardener! Otherwise Tree Protector won’t grow…”

His broken explanations made me realize that the tree would grow only to level two hundred. To get any higher, we’d need to level up Trixie’s craft.

“Alright, Veratrix,” I said after thinking for a moment. “We’ll go to Kinema together tomorrow. I have some business there. We can check out the gardeners’ guild.”

It seemed I’d have to buy a capsule for the dwarf too. As some writer of old said: you become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

“Don’t forget to buy seeds for a money tree, Mister Furtado,” Bomber suggested, holding back a smile. “And keep away from the guards. I heard you’re wanted as the founder of a drug cartel!”

“Really?” Trixie’s eyes widened and his lip quivered.

“He’s joking, Veratrix.” I punched the warrior in the shoulder, adding a kick in the leg for good measure. “You think about what you’re saying, Mister Hung Lee!”

“Kinema’s district of forbidden pleasures is famous for its variety…” Infect began to sing, pulling out his guitar.

Trixie smiled, realizing the boys were making fun of him. All kinds of ideas started flowing for how Trixie could have a good time in the goblin capital. Amid the friendly chorus of jokes, I glanced at the clock — damn, Uncle Nick was probably already here! I needed to log out of Dis, but I couldn’t just up and leave without starting construction of the Stronghold of the Destroying Plague.

“Do we really have to read them?” I asked, nodding at the thick books on the table.

“Yep,” Crawler said gloomily, dropping his eyes to the offending objects. “There are almost two thousand pages in my Rank One Master Alchemist. You wouldn’t wanna read it twice…” He looked at me and broke into a grin. “Gotcha. Hahaha! Come on, Scyth, the game might be realistic, but it’s still a game! Who would ever read that much? Tomes work like scrolls, only the cast time, meaning the ‘reading,’ is longer. Ten minutes. And you can break off and come back to the same point.

“Hey, I came up with a song,” Infect said suddenly. “Want to hear it?”

“No!” we all shouted at once, including Trixie, but Infect was already strumming.

“A ho-o-oly wa-a-ar looooms and the pe-e-eople hide in the desert duuunes…” the bard sang, howling where necessary.

We didn’t have the heart to shout him down. If a man, albeit a dead one, wanted to sing, who were we to stop him? And we liked the words. And the song really did get better, believe it or not. Bomber and Gyula even started singing along, and Trixie joined them. The song’s chorus was simple and easy to remember, but somehow it stuck in the head.

“It’s just a song,” Infect said as he finished. “I came up with it myself. I’ll link it to my next skill when I unlock something powerful. The important thing is to make it shorter — the song length influences the cast time… Although on the other hand, the longer you sing, the longer the buffs and debuffs last… Hmm, I’ll have to think about it.”

“What’s there to think about?” Bomber asked in confusion. “Sing your songs as long as you want, your place is in the rear, you’ll have time!”

“By the way, I’m going to sing to the workers tomorrow,” Infect said, blushing. “Like a concert. Can get experience from that too.”

“Alright, people, I really gotta get offline, so let’s get down to business,” I said. “Everyone give me their cooking ingredients. Infect, I need vulture eggs. Crawler, what’s the status on Zombie Rat entrails?

“They’ve reached the site. Looks like there’s an epidemic there, all the rats are respawning as zombies already. So we’ve farmed plenty. Here…”

“Yeah, take mine too…”

“Here’s more…”

The guys heaped piles of meat, guts and other culinary ingredients on the table. I picked it all up, drank down my coffee and went to the Pig and Whistle’s kitchen.

Using Aunt Stephanie’s stove, I made some chow, leveling up my Cooking to three hundred and ninety-four of the same grade, Expert. I unloaded most of the raid food to Bomber, keeping a few portions of rat guts to boost my skill leveling speed.

Gyula handed over two stacks of Incredibly Tasty Cheesy Vulture Egg Omelets. That should be enough.

We teleported from the fort to the build site. When choosing it, I’d made sure that the future stronghold would be within Crash’s territory. The Diamond Worm could already deal with any desert mob on his own… well, almost, and if he lost, he just respawned after a cooldown.

My undead army was already trudging around aimlessly on the site of the future stronghold, alongside the former Treasury guards. A big pile of building materials towered next to them; stone, logs, barrels. As for sand, we had plenty of that to go at.

The place had been totally cleared. All the guards had taken advantage of my absence to level up, getting past level three hundred and fifty. Anyone could claim loot that hadn’t been picked up for an hour, and Flaygray took advantage of that. When we appeared, he had a bunch of different ingredients to give to Crawler.

“A few of our loyal soldiers fell while we were clearing the area, boss!” Nega reported. “We need new recruits!”

I had to mount up on Storm to go collect reinforcements. I aggroed some mobs and brought them to my dead retinue. We piled them all up in neat stacks, looted them and then I began my magic, raising another ten zombies.

Thanks to that, Plague Reanimation leveled up to eight. The limit on minions I could control went up by another ten — I had to fly off and aggro more mobs.

Not long before midnight, I got an email from Snowstorm: they’d lifted the limit on my game sessions. Just before I was about to log out of Dis, I thought of something.

“Hey, guys! I got an idea!”

“What..?”

“I was just thinking… Since the minions obey the guards, why don’t we share control of the dead with one of you?”

At first, the solution didn’t seem so obvious; all the minions were lit up in the interface, divided into groups of ten. There were no special commands for transferring control. With the guards, it was easy; I could shuffle around all the mobs I’d raised and designate a leader.

The trouble was, my friends obviously weren’t in that list. I had to think. We were all in the same group, and all in the Destroying Plague faction. Could one legate not transfer his minions to another? I thought I remembered Koshch and Shazz somehow doing that. Sure, my clanmates weren’t legates. Who knew their place in the Destroying Plague’s hierarchy..? But I was the one that turned them!

The guys waited patiently while Gyula was ‘reading’ his construction tome. I was studying my game interface and the minion panel… I dragged Crawler’s icon onto one of the groups of raised mobs and… It worked!

“Woah, we’re in business!” Crawler shouted. “You have been set as the leader of Scyth’s second group of minions! Wow, I can control them!”

Obeying his mental order, the ten minions plowed through the sand as they ran down the crest of a dune.

“Yes! They’re obeying me!”

“Do you know what that means?” Bomber said, his eyes widening. “We can level up on our own now! Without Scyth!”

“And all the experience will go to us!” Infect shouted in glee…

In the end, I gave them three groups. With thirty groaning undead, they could take out any pack of mobs in the desert, unless they got cocky. The other forty zombies remained under the guards’ command — they would protect Gyula.

As for my own bodyguards: Sharkon, Toothy, Kermit, Birdie and It — I didn’t give them to anyone. I wanted to keep those guys.

Interlude 2: Nicholas

ONCE UPON A TIME, he was called Nicholas Wright. That life had featured a difficult childhood, some pickpocketing, the framing of a sidekick, an unjust accusation of murder and an impressive sentence. He thought his life would end there, but an unexpected offer came from the military to participate in a scientific experiment. As a test subject. Just for a few months, and then — freedom.

Those few months turned into an entire lifetime, but now even that was in the past. Having returned to the ordinary world, Nicholas, or Nick to his friends, was so tired of adventure and danger that he began to live like an ordinary man.

However, he didn’t last long. His body demanded challenges, adrenaline, and he cast his eyes up, toward the cosmos. He finished flight training with flying colors, completed an astronaut training program, then a few more programs related to the upcoming colonization of the Solar System…

His younger sister Ellen had shown great promise, but hadn’t had the opportunity to go to university. Nick did what was necessary to ensure that the money appeared. For apparently no reason at all, Ellen caught the eye of a large corporation, which financed her studies.

They never knew their father, so Nick was the one to walk his sister down the aisle on her wedding day.

Ellen’s chosen man was called Mark Sheppard, a strong and sinewy soul of medium height, with green eyes, thick brows and a playful smile. Back then, Nick was very worried about his sister’s family life; it was clear that her man was a heartthrob and a playboy. However, in marriage, the newly-minted husband became a loyal and reliable companion.

They had a son, Alexander. Nick had no children of his own, and his little nephew Alex became very dear to him. In his rare stops on Earth, Nick always stayed with his sister to spend time with the boy and take Mark and Ellen out somewhere. Like to a nice restaurant. The young professionals lived modestly, dedicating all their time to work and their son. To tell the truth, the boy grew up a hooligan.

The Sheppards worked as architects of VR worlds, made a name for themselves and got involved in the development of certain locations in the game Disgardium, which was rapidly gaining popularity. All that was possible up until the so-called hour X, when the world became fixed, permanent. From that moment, the demand for game designers for work on Dis dropped precipitously. The world rejected external changes and developed on its own, following the laws laid down in the kernel.

Mark and Ellen switched to other games, and when Dis took a dominating position, they began to work on small independent projects, like virtual stores or private worlds for rich people.

Due to a shortage of work, Mark got into the game: he leveled up in Dis, started his own clan and even got it into the top 10000 of the global leaderboard. But his success in the game affected his family life. Ellen didn’t see her husband for weeks at a time while he spent every waking moment in Dis. Household routine, Alex, who was now going to school, work projects — it all fell onto her fragile shoulders. She could have handled these cares, but then Mark began to pour money from the family budget into his character, saying that the investment would pay off sooner or later…

Of course it would…

Nick had thought that Mark would be the first to cheat in the Sheppard family. Quite the contrary, as it turned out. While her husband was off in virtual reality, Ellen had an affair. A short one, less than a month. Ellen was very worried. She needed to talk, to justify herself, and she spoke to her brother. Nick. He didn’t support her, but he promised to talk to Mark. And did so. He hinted that Sheppard’s wife needed more attention, otherwise he risked losing her. Mark listened and stopped playing.

But Ellen’s joy over her husband returning to the real world was short-lived. The senior Sheppard turned out not only to be a man enthralled. He was insanely, desperately hooked. It so happened that Mark’s clan, while he was saving his family, had an extremely expensive legendary item drop from a raid boss. Some helmet or shoulderpads from some crazy set. Nick had no clue. They sold the item and split the money. Without Mark’s involvement, of course.

The senior Sheppard couldn’t handle the fact that he’d been left out, and returned to Disgardium. He returned from his unsuccessful raids in the morning, angry and irritable. Ellen saw him only a couple of times a day: at dawn as he climbed out of his capsule, and after lunch, hurriedly grabbing a snack before going back into Dis.

Then his sister found a new lover. She had a relationship with him for several years — the state of affairs suited both sides, and they had their reasons; unsuccessful marriages, a cold partner, children, families. So nothing serious was likely to come of the relationship. Rare meetings, flashes of passion, and each went back to their separate homes. Nick found all this out later, when his sister found a third lover.

Nicholas was angry. He shouted at his sister, feeling masculine solidarity for Mark. You shouldn’t have told me anything! he shouted at Ellen, torn by contradictory feelings. In the end he decided it was none of his business, that he wouldn’t get involved; his sister was his sister. They were all adults. Let them sort it out for themselves.

Especially since things seemed to be more serious with her new lover. She was in love, apparently. Ellen didn’t even want to listen to her brother’s opinions. She was determined to divorce Mark and go be with her lover. Nick did not approve of her decision. He liked his brother-in-law, and the looming divorce could negatively affect his nephew’s future. But how could he make an adult, independent woman listen? Cutting the sky with a sword was easier.

When Nick flew off to Mars, Ellen finally decided to divorce.

The colonies demanded more and more resources, and work was so busy that even when he returned to Earth, Nicholas didn’t come down to the surface, staying in orbit instead. He’d go to the lunar spaceport, refuel, unload, and head straight back to the Red Planet.

But this dreary, routine work quickly bored him, and Nicholas switched to long-range expeditions. He’d made all the required arrangements for transferring a pilot. All that remained was to go through his personal channels on Earth to solve certain problems of bureaucracy. And see his relatives at the same time.

So overall, when he knocked on the Sheppards’ door, Nicholas expected to find himself in a land of despondency and pre-divorce stress. He was mistaken.

His sister opened the door, businesslike and in high spirits. Nick had always seen joy on her face when he came to visit, but it had been a passing emotion that quickly disappeared, like watercolor paint in the rain. Right now, Ellen’s good mood seemed more fundamental, sturdier, like in the first years of her marriage to Mark.

Once he’d brought her up to speed on his news, Nicholas began to carefully question her, and the more he learned, the more his face strained.

“Mark is in his capsule, leveling up,” Ellen said. “We need him to get to level ten as soon as possible.”

“We?” Nicholas repeated in surprise.

“Yep,” his sister nodded unconcernedly, until now having spoken of her husband’s passion only in scorn. “We failed a project and got a fine.”

“And… is it a big one?”

“Very big. Over a million.” Ellen started setting the table. “Are you hungry?”

“As a wolf. I’ve been visiting damn bureaucrats all day, haven’t eaten so much as a crumb,” Nicholas answered mechanically, and then suddenly parsed her words — over a million!

The Sheppards had never had that kind of money in their life, and now this fine..! How could Ellen talk about it so calmly?

“Wait…” He decided he must have misheard her and asked again. “Did you say ‘over a million’?”

“Yes. It’s a very big project. Well, was. The customer’s losses were significant.”

“Ellen, this situation seems very far removed from your ‘we’re doing fine’! Sorry to ask, but… have you lost your marbles?”

“How do you like your meat?”

“Bloody. Don’t dodge the question! Tell me what’s going on here, and… sit down, for God’s sake! Stop bustling around! Sit still and explain calmly.”

Ellen took a deep breath, put aside the knife she was using to cut meat and sat down on a chair opposite him.

“Nick, there’s a lot you don’t know…”

“Now that’s for sure!”

“Alex has achieved incredible success in Disgardium. I don’t know the details, but his achievements really are amazing. Alongside his friends, he became the world champion in the junior battles at the Arena. I don’t know how, but he got his hands on some very valuable artifacts. He can’t withdraw the money from the game himself until after he completes the citizenship tests, so Mark is leveling up his character round the clock right now. He deleted his old one… Well, I’m sure you remember, after that…”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Nicholas answered dryly. “I just don’t see the connection. So you both messed up, I get that. You’ve racked up a little debt, a mere million and change. And you’re sitting here calmly, putting it all on your son. Have you lost your minds? I don’t know the game that well, but I’m smart enough to know this is nonsense. People spend years there trying to achieve something. My nephew just, what, won the lottery? Found some fairytale treasury and pulled a big pile of unimaginable riches out of it? Next you’ll tell me he found out how to switch on God Mode. It’s bullshit! Alex is playing a game instead of getting ready for his citizenship tests, and now he hasn’t even come out to say hello to his beloved uncle. Does he even know I’m here? Did you tell him I was coming?”

“Of course I did, Nick. He’ll come out as soon as he can.” The sister didn’t even flinch at her brother’s accusations. She spoke gently, with a slight smile. “Everything’s fine, relax. Will you let me cook? The boys will come out…”

“Of their tombs!”

“…of their capsules, and they’ll tell you everything themselves. Well, Mark will. Alex has a non-disclosure agreement with Snowstorm…”

“What about the divorce?”

“Everything’s still the same,” Ellen said, a shadow crossing her face. “What, did you think something had changed?”

“I know people, little sister. I see that the prospect doesn’t cheer you up as much as it did half a year ago.”

“Now isn’t the time, Nick.”

Ellen stood up and went to cook. Nicholas spoke of the government’s plans to send the first expedition to the far reaches of space, to another star system. He spoke of his business on mars, of his plans to help Alex fulfill his dream — to go to university and become a space guide. Nicholas liked the fact that his nephew had gained an interest in space from his influence. There wasn’t much romance in routine interplanetary space travel, but that was down to a lack of imagination. Whereas if you imagined that the endless universe out there was a place humanity would sooner or later surely reach… ‘Our footprints will be left on the dusty pathways of distant planets!’

“What kind of job is ‘space guide’ anyway?” Ellen asked, glancing at her brother, who was stuffing his cheeks full of food. “Doesn’t sound very serious.”

“Space tourism is really picking up,” Nicholas answered. “Alex won’t make it as a full-fledged pilot, he isn’t cut out for it, but he loves space. Working as a space guide requires knowledge, but not piloting skills. They do teach them piloting, of course, but it’s a secondary priority. When he finishes university, he can get a job to practice and then start up his own company. He can start by putting on tours, Earth to the Moon to Mars, and then maybe he’ll grow into more serious routes…”

Mark was the first to climb out of his capsule. He ran to the fridge in nothing but his underwear. He noticed the guest out of the corner of his eye, stopped, skeptically turned his head. A smile lit up his brother-in-law’s face, and a moment later he blushed.

“Nick, you interstellar gangster, you’re here already!”

While Nicholas hugged his brother-in-law, Ellen laughed and slapped her husband on the ass.

“Go get dressed, Mark! Make yourself presentable!”

“Ah, leave me alone, we all know each other…” he said, but still obeyed.

The short episode showed Nicholas’s trained eye something that he called vibes. They were interactions of human biology invisible to the ordinary eye that revealed the truth of relationships. Today, the vibes differed sharply from those he’d felt last time he was here.

Dinner passed in a warm family atmosphere, and Nicholas had to eat a second time to keep his excitedly blabbering brother-in-law company. Mark, as it turned out, had made friends with some strong group and completed a difficult instance with them. “A dungeon with special mobs and rewards,” he answered Nicholas’s confused look.

“I got to level nine! We don’t have much time, so I’ll stay here a while and wait for Alex, then head back into Dis…”

“Mark!” Ellen said, giving her husband a reproachful look. “Nick is only here for a day. You’ll have time to play later!”

“That’s true… Let’s sit and talk like in the good old days!” Mark said.

After dinner, they made themselves comfortable by the imitation fireplace, opened a bottle of wine and continued their conversation while they waited for Alex.

“Let’s get back to the point,” Nicholas said. “If I understand correctly, Alex has obtained some powerful artifacts in the game, and he can sell them to solve your problems?”

“Yes!” Mark nodded in enthusiasm. “He sent me the descriptions. They’re incredible!”

“Nick, please try to understand…” Ellen began to say, but Mark interrupted her.

“I know what you’re thinking. That we’re getting divorced and Alex needs money for himself. He could use what he wants to give us. It would be enough to pay for a whole degree course…”

“Exactly!” Nicholas suddenly exploded. “What are you thinking, using your son’s love to rob him? Will you keep messing up his life after this too? He’s a child without a cent to his name as it is, without having to clean up after you two! If you get forcibly resettled, you’ll be fine, you can separate, but the kid? Don’t roll your eyes at me, Ellen! Does the truth hurt? Alex isn’t without skills, but he isn’t the sharpest knife in the block either. Where will they put him? In category L? Without an education, without skills, who does he end up as? They’ll stick him in the ass-end of beyond, he’ll be like an orphan from Kansas, scraping a shitty living in Dis instead of studying!”

Nicholas chewed them out for quite some time longer. Mark and Ellen didn’t understand all his colorful idioms, but they got what he was saying from the context. They didn’t dare argue, let alone interrupt him. But when he’d finished speaking, Mark continued his unfinished thought, undeterred.

“So, as I was saying, he could use what he wants to give us for himself… But the point is that those artifacts are worth a lot — a hell of a lot! — more. Maybe even tens of millions. If he only had one artifact, then sure… But he has several! And each one is worth at least a million. So Nicholas, you should hear us out first. His auction is today. Apparently, the buyers are obliged to pay him right away. Alex put up two lots, and, based on our most conservative estimates, he’ll get at least several million for them. We already agreed that I’d bring out four. A million and two hundred and for our failed project, two to the bank for an education for Alex and his friends. And that money will be untouchable. Alex will get an education.

“What about the rest?” Nicholas asked darkly.

“Alex needs it,” Ellen answered. “He won’t tell us what it’s for.”

“He has that right,” Nicholas snorted. “Fine, I’ll speak to him. Is there no way to pull him out of there? Can we send him a message?”

“No way from here,” Mark said, shaking his head. “The devs deliberately cut players off from the real world so as not to break immersion. If he was in my friends list, then I could write to him, but alas, I’d have to meet him in person for that. Another condition of the game world.”

“What about an emergency exit?” Ellen suggested timidly.

“No, hell no!” Mark said, looking scared. “Not a chance! What if he’s fighting a boss or he’s at the auction? That would mess up his game! No..!”

Alex showed up almost at midnight. He was obviously exhausted, but in a good mood. And when he saw his uncle, he was overjoyed. Hugs, slaps on the back… Look how he’s grown! Nicholas thought happily.

The adults opened another bottle of wine while Alex ate and brought them up to speed.

“The goblins really laid it on thick with the threats, dad. Not to me, but to the bidders. They’re real strict. Any violation means dropping down to hatred with the League, and being put on their blacklist. There weren’t many bidders, twelve at the most. And they weren’t just players, from what I understood. But I couldn’t tell who any of them were; they were all under a Mist Veil spell. Couldn’t see their faces or names. Basically, they sat us down, and by the way, I ended up with the bidders. Grokuszuid, that goblin from the League, told me I should put in a bid here and there so as not to stand out.”

“Wow…” Ellen shook her head. “It’s all so serious!”

“Big money is always serious,” Mark answered, as if he’d ever sold anything for millions.

“Uh-huh…” Alex nodded. “Anyway, first the Svyatogor set chainmail came up. The bids came in fast, but almost everyone had dropped off by five million, except two. In the end it went for seven million and a hundred thousand.

Mark whistled. Ellen nearly dropped her glass of wine. Nick’s nephew calmly continued.

“As for the Vestment of Irkuyem’s Fury, it didn’t get us much. I’m sure Mogwai made a deal with the other bidders. Since he was the only owner of the other parts of that druid set, there were almost no bids. Maybe one of the NPCs tried to fight it, but they fell back at seven million. In total…”

“Fourteen million and two hundred thousand,” Ellen whispered. “Mother of God…”

“Actually, it’s around ten. The goblins take massive fees for the service. Still, that’s pretty awesome!”

“This is all well and good, son, but don’t you need to go to school tomorrow?” Mark asked.

Alex’s look of surprise told Nicholas that this was an unexpected question. Oh, of course, Nicholas chuckled mentally. He was just worried that I’d pull his son out of the game, talking about not interrupting his gameplay, and now he’s decided to show some fatherly care. Looked like Mark was trying to win points with his wife’s brother. To hell with that. Let the kid spend some time with his uncle! Who knew when they’d see each other next?”

“I do, yeah,” Alex confirmed.

“Then how come the game’s timer didn’t kick you off?” Mark asked in surprise. “At midnight?”

“Oh, I messaged the developers. You know, blah blah, I wouldn’t have time to…” Alex snapped his mouth shut and glanced at his uncle. “Point is, they gave me permission. In view of my special circumstances I can play with no limits. So hurry and level up and head to Darant. I’ll transfer you the money.”

They sat almost all night in ordinary, relaxed conversation; remembering Alex’s childhood, sharing funny moments from his life. Nostalgia struck Mark and Ellen as they remembered how they met and started dating…

Five empty bottles of wine stood on the table, and Nicholas shook his head, looking Alex in the eye. His nephew got the hint.

They left Mark and Ellen and went out onto the balcony for some fresh air. The holographic lights of advertisements lit the street as if it was day. The first leaves were appearing on the trees, and the grass on the lawns was getting greener. The scents of spring were in the air. Delivery drones flew into the apartment building’s windows with a light hum. The modern world never slept.

Nicholas lit a cigar, put an arm around Alex’s shoulder… They spent a long time talking. Alex couldn’t say much due to the terms of his agreement, but Nicholas listened carefully and made sure he understood everything. About the girl Tissa, about his once-tearaway classmates that had become his friends, about the non-citizens who had become, if not friends, then allies. Alex let slip a thing or two about the other clans, too, and about the Triad, and Nicholas promised to use his connections if the shit started hitting the fan.

Dawn was breaking, and the nephew yawned, decided to listen to his uncle’s advice to go catch a couple of hours of sleep.

“If my contract gets signed tomorrow, we won’t see each other again for a long time,” Nicholas said, hugging his nephew.

“I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too. I’m proud of how you’re dealing with all this. I’m glad you’re solving your family’s problems and digging your parents out of the hole they got themselves into. Let me give you one piece of advice before I go, alright? Will you listen to an old man?”

“Ha-ha, who’s old? You look younger than dad!”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Nicholas smiled. “Listen. Your parents don’t need to get divorced anymore.”

“As if they ever needed to!”

“Before, maybe they did. Your mom fell out of love with Mark, or thought she did. She had somebody else. Now that somebody else is gone. Both from my sister’s life and from her heart. Didn’t you see how your parents spoke to each other today? I don’t think either of them want to split up now. To be honest, Mark never wanted that, but now his pride won’t let him make the first move.”

“Mom won’t either,” Alex shook his head. “She’s said too many things to dad. It’ll be hard for her to…”

“Create the right conditions for them,” Nicholas interrupted him. “If you can make it happen with that money, give them a honeymoon. Send them to a resort, let them spend some time together, without work, without the game.”

“Do you think that’ll work..?”

“Nephew, believe a man who’s seen a hell of a lot. If you stick two young heterosexual people of opposite sexes in a hotel room at a resort, with a prepaid mini-bar…”

“Alright, alright, Uncle Nick, you can stop there,” Alex laughed. “I get it. But where?”

“I recommend Silver Harbor, on the Moon. The way they’ve set that place up, under the dome — it’s heaven! They’ll love it! And the low gravity has a funny effect on er…”

“Stop, uncle!” Alex punched Nicholas in the chest, laughing.

“..ections,” Nicholas finished.

He always brought everything to an end.

Chapter 14. The Craft of Inscription

I BARELY REMEMBERED the next day after Uncle Nick’s arrival. A lively breakfast, my parents in a good mood, saying goodbye to my uncle — all that stood out, although I’d been yawning and cracking my jaw, and was still hazy even after.

The lessons went by so slowly that it sometimes seemed as if time stopped. I looked at the clock, wanting to drift off, counting the minutes until recess. The last lesson was free time, and instead of finally finishing work on my artificial companion, which I’d been tinkering with since the start of the school year, I flew home.

“Do what you want, I’m going to sleep,” I said to the guys.

“Sleep, then,” Ed shrugged. “You can snooze now while we fly and when you get home. It’s fine, Alex. We can handle things on our own for now. What are your plans when you wake up?”

“I need to go to Kinema. I want to buy the copper bar from that Exco security guy, and I promised to take Trixie with me. Then I’ll head for Shak, I have some business there.”

Silence descended on the flyer’s cabin. I understood why — I hadn’t discussed the decision to pay the blackmailer with my clanmates. The loot was mine, the money too… But it was still best to explain myself.

“I have an idea. If it comes to anything, I’ll tell you about it. If not, then I’m the only one that loses anything.”

“We aren’t making any claims to your gold,” Ed said thoughtfully. “But you know how it works — one head is good, but four…”

“This is my responsibility, Ed. Soon all the chips will be down, and we’ll know if it was worth it. But I don’t need any trouble with Excommunicado before the war. It’s a criminal clan. They have a bad reputation.”

“It was initially financed by the Cali Cartel,” Hung confirmed. “My friends from the Triad told me. Well… friends of friends, really. You’re right, Alex. We don’t need problems like that right now. I’m with you.”

“Me too,” Malik said.

“Nether, as if I’m against you!” Ed snorted. “That’s not what I meant at all! It’s just… Not counting Hung, we’d have three times the analytical power, our processing capabilities would get through the info quicker,” he tapped his head. “You catch my drift?”

“I sure do,” Hung grumbled. “You saying I’m a moron?”

“Damn, Hung, don’t start. You’re always saying you got all your brains bashed out when on the football field and can’t think fast anymore…”

“Come on, guys,” I stopped the brewing argument. “Ed, say sorry. Hung has proved plenty of times that he figures some stuff out quicker than us. I’m in the wrong too for not consulting with you guys, but you’re better off not knowing the details. For now. If something comes out of it, then everyone will benefit. If not, then I’ll tell you what I did and why. Agreed?”

The guys nodded.

“Alright. Then a question about your grinding today. Are you sure you can handle it yourselves?”

“Well, if a mob eats anyone, it ain’t a big deal,” Hung said. “You rest. Soon we won’t have any time for sleep.”

“Yeah. We’ll level up on our own today. We’ll kill two birds with one stone — help the guards protect Gyula and learn how to control the minions. Without you in the group, we’ll get way more experience than usual.”

“We still need to check that.”

“We checked it yesterday, just forgot to tell you,” Ed said. “After you left, we stayed behind and sent off the minions. The game mechanics are a little odd, since the minions are yours, and the experience should go to you too, really. But if you aren’t nearby, your brainless boys don’t get the XP. Also, the guardians proved yesterday that in those cases, it all goes to the people controlling the minions.”

Shazz the lich didn’t level up his army from kills, as far as I could tell. What was there to kill on Kharinza anyway? The Montosaurus, and he escaped. So the lich probably leveled up his army using some kind of ritual or special spell, drawing death energy from ancient remains. I remembered the Nucleus saying that Kharinza stood on bones — maybe that was why Shazz was holed up there.

“Don’t get distracted, don’t leave Gyula completely unguarded,” I said, pushing the words out before I had the chance to fall asleep. “The guardians are still NPCs. God knows what might get into their heads, especially if they get drunk enough. And we need to hurry and finish building the stronghold…”

I yawned widely, shut my eyes and began to drift off, but didn’t quite make it. Ed spoke, touching my shoulder.

“Hey, Alex! I almost forgot. I got some info on Yoruba!”

“Well? What is it?”

“Basically, it’s a strange clan. They seem a couple sandwiches short of a picnic, never got high up the leaderboard. At some point the clan got a sudden growth spurt, as did all its members. The speed of their progress isn’t crazy high, but they’re getting up higher than the global average. Much higher.”

“Citizenship?” I asked, using the code word for these situations.

“Yeah, and it’s the leader. The others might be like us, ‘sub-citizens…’ Damn, we gotta be more careful talking about this stuff. Let’s discuss it when we land.”

The flyer landed on the roof of my apartment building. We went inside, set ourselves up in the top floor hallway and continued our conversation. There was almost no chance that we’d be overheard there.

“What do you think, what type of Threat is in Yoruba?”

“I bet you a million gold it’s something to do with that massive snake,” Malik said confidently. “What’s that about?”

“Some kind of divinity. A beast god,” I answered quietly. “We need to visit them and tear that castle of theirs down…”

“Why tear it down?” Ed asked in surprise. “We could ‘disassemble’ it, or even better, just sell it.”

“To sell it, we have to hold it. You want me to sit there without ever leaving?”

“No, why? You’re best pals with the goblins now, you can go through them. They’ll take the property under protection and put it up for bidding. If nobody buys it, they’ll keep it. It’ll be three times cheaper, but you get the money right away. I heard that when invaders are in a hurry, they sell the castle ‘as is’ with all the contents of the vaults.”

“What, and the castle’s former owners just watch while it happens?”

“What are they going to do? If the little green fellas get their hands on something, then that’s that. You can probably fight to get it back, but then who wants to ruin their reputation with the guys that control all the transport and financial markets?”

“So I have two options. Capture the castle or come to an agreement.”

“About what?” Malik said, not getting it. “And with whom? The goblins?”

“We need allies,” Ed answered in my stead. “Alex wants to suggest a partnership with Yoruba. Right?”

“Something like that. When I was leaving, their leader Yemi said that if I called, they’d come. So let’s see if they were telling the truth.”

“What the hell’s in it for them?”

“They’ll turn undead and then they can farm the Ursai Jungle. That’s one,” I started raising fingers. “They’ll get to take part in a fun event on the side of the Destroying Plague — that’s two. There’s also the option of turning them into adepts of the Sleepers — three. But the last isn’t going to work until we get a second temple.”

“You forgot to mention that they’ll keep their clan castle,” Hung added.

“Right. Actually, that’s probably the main plus for them. But something else bothers me. We need to think of a way to level up faster. We really need to get to the top of the leaderboard, above Mogwai, to be really worth anything.”

“It’s high time!” Hung and Infect roared, and the second added: “To one-shot all the ghouls!”

“Sorry to burst your bubble, but… we kind of are the ghouls. Undead, at least,” I said. “But let’s get down to specifics. Today we’ll follow the plan, but tomorrow I suggest we move on somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“Holdest, for example…” I said very quietly.

“Holdest!” Malik perked up.

“Keep it down, fool!” Hung said, kicking him.

“You sure..?” Ed asked doubtfully. “How will we kill the mobs there? We don’t have the damage. Even if we could drag your minions there, what would they do against mobs a couple of hundred levels higher?”

“Nothing,” I agreed. “But in case you’ve all forgotten, I almost bagged a Ravager solo. I doubt the beasts on Holdest are that much more powerful.”

“Of course, your Reflection!” Ed nodded, rubbing his hands. “Then why mess around, why not go today?”

“I have a ton of things to do today. I need to pay a visit to Yoruba, too. We have another couple of days anyway. I think we should skip the last lessons tomorrow and move to Holdest. In the meantime, level up as high as you can. Don’t spread yourself too thin, focus on your main combat skills and levels.”

“Got it.”

“That means you too, Infect,” I added. “You’ll have time for concerts later. There’s a war just around the corner, you know.”

“Damn, and I wanted to level up my Archeology,” the bard moaned. “I saw a ton of Dig Sites when we were flying on the dragon. The sandbox was full of garbage, but this is the Lakharian Desert!”

“If you run into one near your farming spot, dig away. Try not to waste too much time though. Alright guys, I gotta sleep. Another all-nighter will finish me off.”

I said my goodbyes and went home, and the guys returned to the flyer. I had a feeling they were in for a fun time today.

* * *

After sleeping to my heart’s content — a whole two hours, — I took a shower and went to grab a bite to eat. I listened to my parents complain about their hangovers at the breakfast table — dad still had leveling to do in Dis, poor thing! — and climbed into my capsule.

I materialized at the clan tavern where I’d left my character the day before. When my vision adapted to the room’s partial gloom, I saw Trixie at the next table.

“I’m coming with you!” he said when he saw me. “Been waiting!”

The gardener’s big black eyes were fixed on me. If it weren’t for his big bushy eyebrows, I’d have called them the eyes of an excited child. I remembered I’d promised to take him with me yesterday, but now I was thinking: if the low-level Hanzo caused the preventers’ suspicion, then how would they react to a non-citizen? They definitely didn’t have access to Bakabba — the goblins somehow managed without the cheap labor of non-citizens. And I couldn’t change his appearance, which was quite memorable: a hunched dwarf who behaved like a child… Yeah, no…

“It could be dangerous, Veratrix. Not for you, but for the whole clan.”

“Alex promised!” he whined.

“Yeah, I promised. Then I thought about it and realized it was dangerous.”

“You promised! Promised!”

Trixie was all ready. He’d put on an outfit he’d bought in Darant, combed his disobedient hair and even shaved. In contrast to ordinary capsules, non-citizen ones conveyed the player’s real image to the game. The dwarf had spent time making himself look nice in the real world, and now his eyes were welling up with tears.

“You promised! Promised!” he repeated endlessly.

Damn, what could I do? You can’t let down women and children, Uncle Nick always insisted. I didn’t know why he didn’t include men or old people. Apparently, you couldn’t just not let down women or children; it was criminal to do so. And, mentally, Trixie was almost a child.

“Listen carefully, Veratrix. I’ll take you with me. But if something happens, you have to leave Dis immediately, and then you won’t be able to go anywhere except Kharinza for a very long time. Got it?”

Trixie hiccuped and cracked a smile. Was he even hearing me? Weighing it up again, I decided to be extra careful. I left the confused dwarf, shot over to the Darant auction house and bought a stack of Scrolls of Obscurity. It was no Cloak Essence, but it was something at least; they would temporarily wipe all character information.

“You back!” Trixie grinned.

“I’m back. Take these scrolls. Each lasts an hour, so don’t forget to refresh them. Got it?”

“Yeah, I refresh ‘em.” The scrolls disappeared into the dwarf’s inventory. An instant later, he demonstrated that he knew how to use them; all the information above his head disappeared. “You want to look at Tree first?”

“Of course,” I smiled, pleased that I’d dealt with the problem at least somehow.

Trixie dragged me out of the tavern and badgered me with questions about what happened in Kinema, and whether he could stay the night there.

The Flesh-Eating Tree Protector he’d planted had shot up; it was fifty feet taller now, its aggro radius fully encompassing the square in front of the temple ruins, the headquarters, the clan storehouse and part of the street. Ryg’har the kobold shaman stood beneath the tree, smoking a roll-up. It smelled of burnt rags.

“Greetings, spirit speaker!” I said.

“May the Sleeping Gods never wake, chosen one,” the shaman muttered in response.

“And may their sleep be eternal!” I answered, myself thinking: Ooh! I’m the chosen one now!

After saying hello to him and the tribe chief Grog’hyr, who came out to say hello, I asked whether they needed anything and heard that all was well, except that the dead minions roaming beyond the boundary were scaring the children.

“Children?” I asked in surprise.

“Yes, chosen one. The tribe has found peace and protection here. Our young warriors have been able to spend time with their lovers…”

That was kind of fast. They’d only been here two weeks. How had they had the time to make babies, give birth..? And how had the kids grown up enough to be afraid of dead people? Correctly perceiving the reason for my confusion, the shaman explained:

“It is all thanks to the tree protector, who is of the species of the Great Tree of Life, chosen one. Life flourishes beneath its boughs…”

As was his habit, Ryg’har went off into a long, drawn-out monologue. I opened the fort control panel.

Welcome to the Kharinza fort control panel, Scyth!

Owner: clan Awoken.

Level: 1.

Population: 45/100.

Structures: Headquarters, Vault, Tavern, Stables, Barracks, Houses, Cemetery, Merchant Stalls…

What? I couldn’t believe my eyes. There had been thirteen kobolds when I met them and turned them into followers of the Sleeping Gods. Then Tissa and Infect brought all thirteen here. I remembered their number precisely! Wow! At that rate, we’d be able to upgrade the fort within a week!

“We’re zooming to level two hundred, Scythy!” Crawler wrote in the clan chat. I told him I couldn’t take it if they overtook me, I’d take their minions away. My friend’s message reminded me that time was flying, and I quickly got ready.

Just as I was about to jump to Kinema, I remembered Inscription. Thinking a moment, I decided it was best to get to grips with the trade in a relaxed environment.

“Let’s go back to the tavern, Veratrix,” I told the dwarf, who was pining in impatience, dreaming of getting to the goblin capital as quick as he could. “I need to do something first.”

Nipping his tantrum in the bud, I pulled Trixie into the Pig and Whistle. At the table, after ordering a coffee, I pulled out ABCs of Drawing — a thin, leather-bound book. Well, what did we have here?

Do you want to read this book and learn the basics of the Inscription trade?

Limitation: no more than one trade for every ten levels.

Warning: the more trades you learn, the less quickly you will progress in them.

When I agreed, the book opened. Beams of light fell from its pages, and before me appeared a cast meter — Study progress: 1%. The number grew quickly, and twenty seconds later the book snapped closed and disappeared.

Inscription trade unlocked!

You now have the ability to create symbols and enhancement runes, transfer your own spells and magic skills onto scrolls and independently copy geographical maps.

The symbols you create can be activated by others to boost their class talents and abilities. Lesser symbols strengthen rank one talents, greater symbols — talents of any rank. There are limitations on the number of symbols that can be used at once!

Enhancement runes increase base and secondary stats when used on equipment items. No more than one rune per item!

Copying geographic maps requires the Cartography skill. At a high level, the quality of copied maps increases.

Creating spell scrolls and magic skills is available at any level of the craft, although the success rate of transferring a spell to a scroll depends on your Inscription level and the spell’s strength.

To draw, as a rule, you need blank scrolls of parchment, a pen and ink.

Current grade: Pupil (0/100).

Chance to successfully create a known lesser symbol: 50%.

Chance to successfully create a known greater symbol: 0.5%.

Chance to successfully create a known enhancement rune: 50%.

Chance to create a scroll for a spell or magic skill: depends on spell or magic skill rank and craft grade.

Added lesser symbols: Fireball, Charge, Fade, Quickshot…

Added enhancement runes: Lesser Strength, Lesser Agility, Lesser Endurance, Lesser Intellect…

Keep perfecting your craft: create symbols, enhancement runes, spell and magic skill scrolls and maps. Experiment with ink to get new effects from symbols and runes known to you.

You have received experience points for learning a new trade: 500,000.

Experience at current level (245): 534,993 mil / 1.330 bil

Now that’s what I call a craft! When I’d read it all, my head was spinning. I’d been given a couple of symbols and runes for each base class and each standard stat. The rest, as I understood it, I had to invent myself, or just buy at a guild or on the auction house.

I wasn’t planning on getting deep into the trade right now. I was up at the high-level grind now, where every new level came dragged, kicking and screaming, and you had to spend time fine-tuning in pursuit of single extra damage points on the DPS meter.

Greater runes, for example, gave plus one hundred to stats. If you put one on each equipment item, you’d get plus one thousand and six hundred! But I was sure those recipes would need something like Golden Blue Drakonid Blood for ink, and said ingredient would only drop once a year from a super-rare mob. Well, so what?

I was better off focusing on the simpler task of gaining character levels than trying to level up my craft enough to get the best enhancement runes. So I decided to do what I’d gotten Inscription for in the first place.

I pulled out a blank scroll, an ink well full of blue ink (+5% chance of successful inscription) and an epic Elegant Scribe’s Pen (+15% chance of successful inscription).

I activated Create Scroll and got a list of skills available for imprinting:

Depths Teleportation

Chance to successfully create scroll: 0.01%.

Ghastly Howl

Chance to successfully create scroll: 0.01%.

…

Plague Fury

Chance to successfully create scroll: 0.001%.

Wow… looking at those chances, now I knew the kobolds were the only thing around here multiplying fast. The idea of churning out a hundred Plague Fury Scrolls, charged to the max, was a good one, but implementing it would take some serious work. I’d have to level up the craft after all. I had hoped that my, how can I put this… ‘unranked’ skills could be easily transferred to paper. But the AI was no fool.

Fine, if I had to level it, so be it. All of life was just one big grind. First you leveled up the skill of holding your head up and crawling, then talking and writing, and now this was just another level! Putting pen to paper and writing bombs…

“Your coffee, Scyth,” Eniko’s voice distracted me from perusing the interface. She placed a cup of steaming hot coffee on the table. She’d put a smiley face with the tongue stuck out in the foam.

“Thanks, Ennie,” I smiled. “But I didn’t ask…”

“Friends don’t just do things when they’re asked,” she said mysteriously before moving off, her hips swaying.

I shook myself. All in fine time… or what was it Uncle Nick always said..? Whatever. The important thing was not to stare. Take a deep breath, Scyth, get a hold of yourself.

As soon as I had my blood pressure under control, Trixie appeared.

“Come on, Alex,” he whined. “Come on, let’s go!”

From the mouth of an adult man, albeit it a short one, his wailing seemed pathetic. He stubbornly pulled at my plate armlet, but I shook my head.

“Just sit quietly a damn second, Veratrix! I need to finish this!”

Oops. I’d snapped at him after all. Trixie got offended, started sniffling and went over to Patrick, who was lying face down on a table. This walking problem and time-honored mascot and talisman of the clan had been missing for several days, and had only just reappeared today. I hadn’t spoken to him yet, since it was impossible to talk to someone in a drunken stupor or a sound sleep, but the clan chat told me what I needed to know. Patrick had asked the boys to send him to the city of Glendale for a ‘change of scenery,’ where he successfully drowned the sorrows of his unrequited love for Aunt Stephanie and came back.

Trixie shook Patrick’s shoulder and the man stirred.

This felt like day-care. They got their kicks like adults, but behaved as irresponsibly as children. The satyr and succubus had been drinking heavily without pause, to look at them, and Ripta was getting involved too. Even the insectoid Anf had started smoking, only how? One of the guys must have been smuggling smokes in for him from the island. And Trixie, he was a damn sex pest. Gardener my ass! He’d fritter away all his money in the district of forbidden pleasures again just like in Darant, then spend the next week talking about his adventures far too vividly. Patrick… I didn’t even know what to think about our honored citizen of Tristad. He was no use, all he knew how to do was grumble and get drunk. “Give a copper to Uncle Patrick…” Ugh! Don’t even get me started on Ed, Hung and Malik and their adventures in Dubai. I knew in my heart that they were being modest in their stories, that they’d gotten a lot drunker than they said. I should have called the clan Kindergarten. And I should have brought mom and dad in too, who weren’t that far behind the rest.

Annoyed, I started leveling up Inscription, churning out lesser symbols and the most basic runes. It was garbage. Lesser Strength gave an entire plus one to the stat. On the other hand, every little helped for the miners…

A half-hour later, after ruining a pile of scrolls and emptying an inkwell, I achieved the first upgrade in the trade.

You have successfully created the enhancement rune: Lesser Endurance.

Lesser Endurance Rune (1) added to your inventory.

Inscription: +1. Current grade: Pupil (100/100).

Experience for progressing in craft: +1000.

Your Inscription grade has increased to Journeyman! Current grade: Journeyman (0/250).

The book completely covered the entire breadth of knowledge in the trade at rank zero, so I didn’t need a teacher.

In my Inscription tab, however, all the lesser symbols and runes had turned gray — I couldn’t use them to level up the craft anymore. Damn, I’d have to buy new recipes at the guild after all. Which meant I had to go to Kinema.

“Manny!” I waved my hand to the miner foreman as he walked into the tavern. “How’s it going?”

“All’s well, Alex.” He approached my table, gesturing at me to stay seated. “Just finished a shift. I heard about Gyula. I’m happy for him!”

“You mean the capsule?”

“Well, yeah. All our boys have decided to save up too, since we’ve hit the cap, unfortunately. We got work, but can’t level up our trades anymore. Believe me, there’s plenty to get at in the mine. Just a shame we don’t have the rank.”

His words made me think. What if I didn’t just give them capsules, but organized something like a clan loan system? Then our resource harvesting would improve, they’d be able to level up their stats, which meant they could work faster… I’d have to talk to Ed and maybe even get Rita involved. Anyway, all that could wait. As for now…

“Here, hand these out to your guys.” I unloaded all the symbols and enhancement runes I’d made onto the table — circular, one-time-use pieces of parchment. “You cast the symbols on yourself, the runes on equipment. Do the rounds with these, then we’ll figure out the capsule situation later.”

Leaving Manny dumbfounded, I called Trixie over, barely managed to get away from Patrick, who wanted to ‘personally see the capital of those stinky little creatures,’ and jumped to Kinema.

Chapter 15. The Short Life and Adventures of MonkeyWrench

TRIXIE DIDN’T GET his grand tour of Kinema out of me. We stopped by the gardeners’ guild so he could buy some seeds, get the books for ranks one and two of the craft. The local guild, incidentally, offered a far greater assortment of goods than the guild in Darant, its range including exotic plants from Shad’Erung and Bakabba. Trixie’s jaw dropped and he started picking up whole armfuls of produce. I had to stop him, otherwise all my millions wouldn’t have bought what he wanted.

When we paid, I mentally calculated how much I’d already spent on Trixie. It went into the six figures. All the same, they were all necessary expenses, even counting the capsule. A high-level gardener would be a valuable asset to the clan — it meant rare crafting ingredients, protection and buffs for the fort.

As for his entertainment plans, there the little man ran into difficulties. Patrols of preventers wandered Kinema, examining suspicious individuals, and Trixie looked suspicious even to me; a hunched little homunculus that you couldn’t really even call a dwarf, and with a Scroll of Obscurity on him to boot.

So as soon as we left the guild building, I immediately went back home, dragging the little guy with me. He looked around in confusion, recognized his homeland of Kharinza and shouted in shock, his eyes widening.

“No! No! No! Alex bad! I not see sights yet!”

“Now isn’t the time for sight-seeing, I explained that, Veratrix! There’ll be time later!”

“Me want now!”

Trixie, his inner tourist stifled, fell to his knees and began hitting his little fists on the ground. The workers still hadn’t returned from their shifts, so the only witness to these ludicrous hysterics was Patrick.

“What are you wailing about, hunchback?” he asked.

“Me not hunchback,” Trixie protested through the tears, then decided to explain further: “Is deformity of spine!”

“I’m happy for you,” Patrick chuckled. “So what are you wailing about? Did the little green men kick you out?”

Swallowing tears and shooting dark glances my way, the little man explained in between fits of crying. Once Patrick understood what had happened, he began trying to console him by offering him the only method of solace he knew: a drink. Trixie wasn’t a big fan of spirits, but he didn’t refuse. After sending me another dark frown, he went to the tavern with Patrick. Of course, as he was leaving, he declared that he wasn’t talking to me anymore. We’d see how long his boycott lasted.

After waiting for Depths Teleportation to finish cooling down, I returned to Kinema. The first thing I did was visit the goblin auction house, where I bought that copper bar from Hairo Morales.

I attached a message to the money. My plans depended on how Hairo reacted to it — I hoped to reach an agreement with him. Ed had found out how much people like Hairo in the top clans earned. Not all that much, as it turned out. A hundred and twenty thousand a year. I had a chance to lure the security agent to my side by offering more.

Next I hired a cab and went to the stationary portal to Shak. The path took me through half the city, and on the way I saw the magical lights of advertisements for the Green Fair, which was taking place not far from Kinema. Some kind of yearly holiday held after Distival. Intelligent creatures from all over the world came to it. The event lasted three days, and today happened to be the final one.

I thought for a moment, then decided to go and take a look for an hour or so. Construction of the stronghold was underway, the guys were grinding, and I didn’t have that much left to do; just intimidate and recruit the Yoruba clan, and find Morena. Point is, I had time. Especially since the advert said that rare crafting ingredients that you couldn’t buy anywhere else would be on sale at the Fair.

“Change of plan,” I told the cabbie, a gray-haired goblin. “Drop me off at the Green Fair.”

“Seventy gold extra,” the goblin answered without batting an eye. After I agreed, he turned his lizards around.

A tropical downpour hit us along the way, but the wind quickly chased away the vapors and the sun broke through the storm clouds. The snow-white peak of the highest mountain of Bakabba, whose name I didn’t know, glittered in the sunlight.

The Fair was outside the city, in the woods, and I got dropped off right at the edge. A broad pathway led across a bridge over a ravine. Judging by the magic signs, it would take me to the Fair. Cabs drove by, dropping off and picking up players and NPCs — although we were beyond the bounds of Kinema, mounts were forbidden here too. Whatever you said about them, the goblins made money on everything.

As soon as I set foot on the bridge, someone shouted to me from behind.

“Hey, you! MonkeyWrench! Stop!”

Nether! I recognized the whiny, lazy voice belonging to Defiler the warlock. He was the one who blew my cover the day before, when I was in the Hanzo disguise. A rich little son of a bitch from Children of Kratos.

An imp cantered along beside him. A natural imp — black as tar, small, toothy, with horns and hooves. Like Flaygray, only pint-sized. He twirled his ears like radar dishes, reminding me of a certain great Jedi. The beast’s eyes glowed with bright yellow fire, and its right fist was wreathed in hellish flame. It was probably one of these guys that once convinced my satyr friend to rob the Treasury.

I tensed — I couldn’t afford to get too close under any circumstances. The zone was teeming with Children of Kratos members, apparently because Defiler saw me yesterday in the form of the low-level Hanzo in the auction house and started spreading rumors that there was a Threat in Kinema. Without hesitation, I started casting Depths Teleportation, deciding to get out without any unwanted questions — I’d just have to do without the rare ingredients from the fair.

Defiler whistled a command at his imp, who launched a tiny fireball from his hand. It didn’t deal damage, but it did interrupt my cast!

Depths Teleportation interrupted!

“Not so fast, MonkeyWrench,” Defiler said threateningly. “I have a few questions for you.”

I stopped and stared darkly at the approaching preventer and his familiar. A bunch of drunken dwarf NPCs danced past us. Bellowing out songs, the dwarfs disappeared into the woods. Letting them pass, the warlock stopped a yard from me. His imp couldn’t stand still; it kept jumping, juggling fireballs and looking at me with curiosity.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Why did you attack me?”

“Nothing is wrong,” Defiler answered. “A routine check.”

“We’re on Bakabba. The League of Goblins rules here. I’ve passed all their checks.”

“You haven’t passed mine,” he chuckled.

“You don’t look like a goblin.” I moved my eyes to the imp by the name of Shuutz’Utz, and asked: “Shuutz’Utz, does he look like a goblin to you?”

The imp cackled. I’d heard that warlock familiars hate their masters and would be happy to cut their throats if only they got the chance. The warlock cast an annoyed glance at the imp, wrinkled his brow, thought on my words, then smacked Shuutz’Utz around the head.

“Right…” Defiler said at last. “So, you’re MonkeyWrench from the Cthulhu’s Boys clan, is that right, joker? Somehow never heard of that clan…”

“That can happen.” I shrugged indifferently. “So what’s up? Your imp attacked me in a non-combat zone. I could complain!”

“Complain to whoever you want!” he sneered. “Here’s the deal. A suspicious person was seen here yesterday. They’re most likely a Threat. So I have to check you.”

“Why me?! Plenty of other people here!”

“Your face is suspicious. I don’t trust you. You look cocky. Present your wrist for inspection!”

Defiler looked like a true aristocrat: high cheekbones, white skin, a thin crooked nose, a mustache and sharp pointed goatee, black piercing eyes. Now he twisted his lips in a smirk, raising his brows; he felt like the man in charge, with not only the weight of the top clans behind him, but all the money in the world as well. I really wanted to teach him a lesson. All the preventers were arrogant, but if they were from the Alliance, and all the more so from the Children of Kratos, then their self-importance went into the stratosphere. Strike that, it went all the way to Aldebaran.

“Go to the Nether,” I answered, realizing that I’d have to fight, quickly clear his imp’s target lock and escape. “Your face doesn’t just look untrustworthy, it has ‘idiot’ written all over it.”

“Wha-a-at did you just say?” The warlock’s face tightened. Even the imp stopped jumping around and playing with its fireballs in shock. “Say that again!”

“Go to the Nether, moron.”

“Now you’ve done it,” he answered, and soundlessly whispered a spell.

Right beneath my feet, in the dust of the road, a pentagram blazed up. Broken black beams stretched up from it and immobilized me, but Liberation freed me. I didn’t show any sign of it, just froze in place. The pentagram disappeared.

Defiler pulled out a torch and activated it — it flickered up, giving life to the True Flame.

I didn’t wait for the warlock to check my wrist — he was standing in a most convenient pose, leaning forward slightly. My hand clenched into a fist, and my fist turned into a Hammer. Or more precisely, into a bunch of Hammers in a Combo series alongside Stunning Kicks of Justice!

I didn’t need the entire series of twenty-two strikes. Defiler reeled from the surprise attack. His head weaved from side to side, his body bent, he coughed a bloody mist… The next Hammerfist sent the warlock back to the respawn point.

The imp launched a fireball when I attacked his master. The perk of my Unconquered Herald set activated first, reflecting the damage in full. There was nothing left for Reflection to reflect, but it still fulfilled its function. The imp nearly died from the double hit — it threw him into the ravine, and now I could hear a plaintive bleating from the bottom.

I was surprised the familiar didn’t despawn when its master died, but I didn’t plan to leave it alive. I took out my bow, added some plague energy, took aim at the small figure… and saw the emissary of the Inferno raise its little arms.

“Have mercy!” the imp bleated in cracked tones.

“I can’t.”

I loosed my arrow. The imp flashed up in fire, instantly burning away and leaving nothing but ash behind. Strange multicolored birds took flight from the trees.

Looking around, I made sure that the short battle hadn’t drawn attention; it had all happened too fast. Bending over Defiler’s body, I examined the loot. Trinkets and souvenirs from the fair, Explosive Lollipops with random effects, and several stacks of all kinds of potions. The most valuable item was a pack of continent-wide teleportation scrolls. Not bad…

Z-z-z-ip! The warlock’s body disappeared, leaving behind a gleaming sphere around the size of a fist.

Sphere of Serendipity, level 320

Quest item.

Adds 320 Serendipity when picked up.

I placed my hand on the sphere and it melted into my palm, crackling. A notification appeared before me:

Serendipity: +320. Total earned: 320 / 1,000,000.

Studying the numbers, I realized that players dropped Serendipity equal to their level… So I’d have to kill around five thousand level two hundreds to complete Fortune’s quest? Picking up the spheres by hand would be annoying, so I went into my Magnetism settings and added quest items to its list.

All that took around thirty seconds, including killing the imp. I doubted Defiler would make it back before I was gone. But it seemed he’d raised the cry before starting the check.

Smashing through the undergrowth, a band of high-levels in the gold crests of the Children of Kratos emerged from the woods. And judging by their faces, they weren’t picking mushrooms. They’d come to kill someone. It was me.

They started shooting at me on the move, which stopped me from escaping again. A Frost Arrow to my shoulder interrupted my Depths Teleportation cast. I had to take the fight.

It was a full-fledged battle star. Two melee, two ranged and a healer girl, all level three hundred and some. The leader of the five-man team seemed to be a mage. He barked an order and the hunter and priest stood next to him. They reacted quickly; the group was obviously used to working together.

A paladin in a black breastplate, long hair flowing over an unhelmeted head, closed the many yards between us with a leap and would have trampled me into the sand if I hadn’t jumped aside. The earth shook — I barely stayed on my feet. In the meantime, the fifth group member, an assassin, disappeared and reappeared from behind, stabbing me in the back with poisoned daggers. At the same time, the mage and hunter fired Astral Arrow and Slowing Shot at me. After that I didn’t even keep track of what they were shooting.

My aura from Most Magnificent Avenger reduced the damage by twenty-five percent, and Sleeping Invulnerability absorbed another twenty. The rest was taken care of by my armor, set effects and Resilience strengthened by the five-percent bonus from the Morituri te salutant! achievement from my victory in the Junior Arena. Roughly speaking, around two to three percent of the hail of arrows, strikes and deadly spells got through to me.

Several times more damage was reflected back at the attackers than what reached me. Twenty-eight percent was reflected, plus five from the set. Oh, and multiplied again by ten percent from the Mighty Punisher perk. Thorn Aura was ticking away too…

In short, while I took out the rogue with a Combo, the mage killed himself. The healer realized too late that she needed to concentrate on more than just the meleers. The next one I dropped was the paladin. Or almost dropped. He managed to hide away in a bubble just in time, so I rushed the healer, a priestess of Nergal. My speed was high, so the priest couldn’t escape or kite me, and she was the third to fall.

The paladin was still hiding behind the protection of his Divine Shield, and I switched to the hunter. It took a little longer to take care of him — maybe twenty seconds. He used his agility to jump away, somersaulting backwards and leaving Frost Traps as he went. My life was hovering dangerously close to the orange zone. I wanted to get by without activating Destroying Plague Immortality. So I took out my own bow and loosed an arrow at a range of ten paces, right into the genitalia of the hunter as he advanced on me. It didn’t matter where I hit, since I was using a plague arrow with an explosive tip. The preventer emitted a soul-chilling scream, quickly silenced. Minus one hunter.

The only one left standing, the paladin, was vulnerable again. He was in no hurry to rejoin the fight, instead shouting into his comm amulet, begging for reinforcements. I moved toward him and drove the amulet into his throat with the first strike of my iron knuckleduster. Boom! Boom! Boom! Legendary plate crumpled under my fists. I span and delivered a mighty Stunning Kick, throwing the paladin back.

Realizing that things were bad, the preventer took out a shield and hid behind it. It crumpled like an aluminum can and the paladin fell onto his back, but managed to hit me with a special sword strike as he fell. That finished him off.

Serendipity: +1,864. Total earned: 2,184 / 1,000,000.

“It’s a Threat,” I heard in hushed whispers all around me.

There was no time to think. A crowd of onlookers was already forming. I quickly made sure I’d collected the Spheres of Serendipity and grabbed an epic necklace for casters and a legendary shield (the one I broke). Time to go.

But I wasn’t allowed to leave. The gawpers weren’t just casual players. There were only high-level players on Bakabba. The people in the crowd quickly got a grip, organized into a raid and advanced on me. A few crowd-control abilities pinned me in place; as an undead, I was immune to stun effects, but when you’re tied physically, racial talents don’t matter. A net was thrown on me, roots tore up from beneath the ground, a block of ice froze me in place… My Depths Teleportation cast was interrupted again, and the attackers rejoiced.

“Get the bastard!” a huge red-skinned orc shouted, moving in to tank me.

Shading my eyes from arrows and magic, I squinted, looked at the over-excited crowd, where Commonwealth stood shoulder to shoulder with Empire. Get him, get him! I heard over and over. The attackers formed up as if against a global boss.

A rain of arrows, spears, bolts and spells showered down on me. In the heat of the battle, the players didn’t realize right away that they were taking damage too. Or maybe Reflection just didn’t cause any unpleasant sensations when it dealt damage. The average health of players at level three hundred was one and a half to two million, including defense from gear. Tanks had more, of course, but even they were cutting their health down by a third now.

The net around me fell, dematerializing; the block of ice binding my feet melted; the roots dried out and sloughed off me. I was free.

Firing a series of strikes and throwing back the orc and the titan and minotaur at his shoulders, I took a couple of steps toward the casters and archers. I wasn’t taking any chances. Noticing suspicious movement, nets and manacles were thrown at me again, and fresh roots grew from the ground to bind my feet. All the attackers were within range of my ability…

I loosed Plague Fury. The nuclear explosion swallowed up everything within thirty feet in a dead flash, then instantly imploded.

Everything alive — grass, insects, lizards passing by hitched to a carriage, all those in the carriage, all the attacking players — turned dead.

Although not quite — at the edge of the swirl in whose center I stood, I saw movement. Four players protected by artifacts or special abilities had survived. Their personal shields broke with the ring of broken glass.

You leveled up..!

You leveled up..!

You leveled up..! Current level: 248.

15 free attribute points available!

Without giving my enemies a chance to gather themselves, I flew at them, striking with my fists and feet. Blood streamed from broken noses. Skulls, ribs and collarbones crunched, legendary and epic armor cracked under Crushing Hammerfist of Justice. The max-level skill broke through all defenses.

I absorbed their attacks with pleasure, restocking my supply of plague energy, then fired off Sleeping Vindication and everything I’d saved up with another Plague Fury. This time, there were no survivors. My bag got noticeably heavier as I pulled in loot.

Serendipity: +16,078. Total earned: 18,262 / 1,000,000.

I was already casting Depths Teleportation, but then I heard the clap of portals. Wow! Ten battle stars from the Children of Kratos at once, all out for my blood. More precisely, out for revenge; the warlock Defiler led them. Now he had a Nether Demon next to him in place of the imp.

“You’re a corpse, MonkeyWrench from Cthulhu’s Boys,” the warlock spat. Wishful thinking. He cast Fear.

Technically, he wasn’t wrong — I was a living corpse. Which is exactly why his crowd-control effect didn’t work on me, but I decided to pretend like it did — I ran around as if I had no control of my body. His Fear was at a high level, so I had to run around like that for at least thirty seconds. I didn’t even think about escaping; my Depths Teleportation cast would only have been interrupted again.

The Children of Kratos, having hurriedly assembled for this special operation, apparently hadn’t taken the outcome of the previous battle into account. While I ran around and waved my arms in panic, they fired off as much damage as they could at me. The attackers didn’t seem to realize what they were doing at first, and shot off all their most powerful abilities at me, which filled up my plague reservoir. My plague energy stacked up rapidly due to the high conversion rate. Nineteen percent was a lot more than one. It didn’t take a Ravager to fill up my supplies now.

My health, already in the red zone, almost immediately ran out, which activated Diamond Skin of Justice. Visually, it changed nothing, but I had cause to celebrate a second later:

Resilience (rank II) level increased: +1. Current level: 29.

Still pretending to be under Fear, I judged the distance to my enemies and ran toward them chaotically, still waving my arms in terror. Once I reached them, I detonated Plague Fury.

“For Cthulhu!” I roared in triumph, standing at the center of the explosion. “For the Great Ancient One!”

Notifications filled my vision:

Destroying Plague Immortality leveled up: +1. Current level: 20.

If you are the only representative of the Destroying Plague in an area, then when you take lethal damage, you will be given temporary immortality: 100% of all subsequent damage is absorbed, 20% is converted into plague energy and stored in a reservoir.

The effect lasts until your health is fully recovered.

Plague reservoir volume increased: +100,000.

Current volume: 2,000,000.

Plague Fury ability leveled up: +1. Current level: 2.

Plague Fury level 2

You can explode in fury, burning up all your accumulated plague energy and releasing it in a sixty-five-foot radius around you. All enemies within the ability’s area of effect will take full damage amounting to triple the plague energy burnt.

20% chance that a killed opponent will turn undead and become your minion.

I didn’t have time to finish reading it. All I saw was that Plague Fury would deal triple damage within a sixty-five foot radius. Against all my expectations, nobody died.

It seemed the mobile shields of the Children withstood no more than a million damage, but each had their own. Everyone remained alive, even if they were on their last legs.

But the attacks stopped. The Children were regrouping.

A tree appeared in front of me, a ten-foot-tall druid ent with luxuriant boughs and a face carved into its trunk. Suspecting trickery, I quickly pulled out my bow and drew it to my cheek, but didn’t have time to shoot. Raising its arm-branches, the druid uttered a quick spell. Flexible, hardy twigs wrapped around my neck.

“A torch!” the druid commanded. “Give me a torch!”

After my adventures at the Yoruba castle, I was far calmer about these kinds of situations. They couldn’t kill me physically, which meant they couldn’t eliminate me as a Threat. Although… What if the torch of the True Flame broke through my Imitation? They’d learn my name!

I heard a series of cracks like machine-gun shots.

“What the..?” The druid, already approaching with torch in hand, stopped and hesitated, looking past me.

I turned, but all I could see through the thick twigs wrapped around my head were some vague moving silhouettes.

Then came hell.

I’d gone through something like this when I visited the Yoruba clan, but now it was far — far! — more serious. The living branches encircling me exploded into splinters, which then burned up in a mass of acid, fire and magic.

I rolled out of the firing line and looked to see who else had joined the fray. Portals were opening ceaselessly, releasing hundreds of warriors from all the clans of the Alliance of Preventers.

It looked like the Children of Kratos had begun this operation in secret from their allies in the Alliance, but now, realizing that they risked losing it all, they’d brought the rest in.

The damage streaming into me filled up my plague reservoir again to the max, and I didn’t hold back.

“For Cthulhu!” I shouted over the crowd an instant before the explosion.

The flash of dead flame blinded my attackers. Magnetism pulled in everything it could reach while I cast Depths Teleportation. My Serendipity bar increased noticeably.

Serendipity: +98,946. Total earned: 117,208 / 1,000,000.

You leveled up..!

You leveled up..!

…

You leveled up..!

You leveled up..! Current level: 256.

55 free attribute points available!

Contradictory messages floated up before me, telling me my reputation with the Commonwealth, Empire and neutrals had changed: pluses for killing players in the enemy camp, minuses for killing their own.

Attention! Achievement upgraded to Mightiest Punisher!

You eliminated 500 players of an enemy faction at a much higher level than yours (by 50 levels or more).

Reward: rank of Mightiest Punisher; +25% to damage against other players.

Unlocked achievement First Ever: Mightiest Punisher!

Mightiest Punisher achievement received for the first time in the history of Disgardium!

Reward: full Cold-Blooded Punisher armor set.

All hail the hero!

Would you like to make your name public? This will give you +500 reputation with all global factions and +1000 fame.

A few stunned survivors remained. I saw Horvac, Hinterleaf and Yary among them, remembered our meeting at Distival.

“Remember MonkeyWrench!” I had time to shout. “He lived a short, but worthy life… See you in the desert!”

The last only I could hear as I traveled through the depths.

Chapter 16. Cold-Blooded Punisher

…AND FOR THE FOURTH TIME that day, I found myself on Kharinza.

The first thing I did was write to the boys, asking them to drop everything and teleport to me. My inventory was full to bursting, and the Sleepers only knew how much awesome legendary loot I’d left on the battlefield. I had neither the time nor desire to sift through it all alone.

Infect told me they were dealing with a big pack; they’d come as soon as they were done. Then I walked into the tavern, looked reproachfully at Patrick and Trixie as they wailed some song, the kobold chiefs providing the backing vocals. I climbed up to the second floor.

I put the copper bar I’d bought off Hairo Morales for a million gold on the shelf in my private room. As a reminder of how important it is to weigh the consequences of your actions and not let emotions get the better of you. But, to quote Uncle Nick, if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Let’s see what kinds of drinks I could make.

While I waited for the boys, I decided to take a look at my loot. Everything Magnetism had grabbed impressed me. If we included what I’d gotten before Distival in the Yoruba castle and in Vermillion, our clan was rich — this time most of the loot was high-level epics, but golden legendary items stuck out here and there.

I put the souvenirs from the Green Fair that I’d taken from Defiler into one pile to give to Aunt Stephanie as decorations for the tavern.

Then I found the Explosive Lollipops. There were tons — Defiler must have had a sweet tooth. I put one in my mouth to try it. The lollipop immediately ‘exploded’ with a sweet and sour taste that kept changing; from oversweet to minty, from cream to peaches. All in all, it lasted about ten seconds.

You ate an Explosive Lollipop.

Random buff received: you’re lighter for 30 seconds! You can jump three times as high as usual.

I couldn’t resist. I just had to try it out. The ceilings in the tavern weren’t low, but alas, they still weren’t high enough — I hit my head. Dust fell from above. The hit was so strong that my Resilience even leveled up a little. I kept the lollipops for myself. They were fun and tasty.

They reminded me of the Sweet Joy candy that Rita Overweight had given me. That was on the day I became a Threat. Which reminded me bitterly of what happened next… Tissa! I missed my girlfriend. I could still remember the taste of her lips. I’d called her that morning on the way to school, but she asked me to give her time to get used to her new home and new school. Said not to bother her for now. I wondered how she was. I should take a look at her social media, see what she’s up to…

I paced the room as I thought of Tissa, methodically unloading loot from my bag and dividing it into the legendaries we needed and those we didn’t. Class items that nobody in the Awoken could use went into the second pile. I put the epics in a third pile, ending up the largest.

Then I found something. At first I thought it was some strange loot from my enemies. Turned out it was a reward for my achievement.

Cold-Blooded Punisher

Soulbound to Scyth.

Legendary.

Scalable.

Use: transforms into full plate armor that covers the entire body.

I put my dropped jaw back in place with my hand, quickly got undressed, took off the whole Unconquered Herald Set. Then I pulled out the Cold-Blooded Punisher — a small thick disk about half a hand in size. Heavy, matte silver with red edging made of some other metal. There were hollows at its center on both sides. Intuitively, I held the disk with my thumb and forefinger in the divots.

Use Cold-Blooded Punisher?

Yes! In the next instant, the disk heated up and began to melt, flowing over and enshrouding my hand. The metal closed over it like a scaled silver glove, and continued to wrap around my arm until it reached my shoulder. The fine, almost wire-like black Balancer disappeared under the new gauntlet.

Thousands of needles pricked my arm underneath the metal, moving across my body beneath the flowing armor. I was afraid I’d lose mobility, but the armor turned out to be malleable. When it reached my throat and began to spread over my head, a full-fledged helmet formed and hardened, fully covering my face. Incredibly, my view wasn’t restricted; the metal before my eyes seemed semi-transparent, like tinted glass.

The whole process took twenty seconds, maybe because it was the first time I equipped it. Could be something like a first set-up.

I cast off my MonkeyWrench disguise, opened the interface window and admired my character model. The armor fit my body snugly, but created thick plates in vulnerable spots, so I didn’t look entirely like a circus acrobat.

Its color changed constantly as if it was burning in the sun. The silver tone of the metal had almost fully disappeared, and the longer I stood in place, the stronger the colors varied. And they were somehow unevenly distributed; here lighter, there darker. When the armor covered in spots, I finally got it: it was changing to match the environment! The item description didn’t say anything about camouflage, but my eyes weren’t deceiving me; my arm had turned semi-transparent and matched the floor almost perfectly! So it changed color depending on the angle too? Incredible!

As an experiment, I approached the wall and put a hand on a painting of a herd of horses grazing on a flourishing plain. Thirty seconds later, my wrist was blending in with the pastoral view!

The equipment’s description had changed too:

Cold-Blooded Punisher

Soulbound to Scyth.

Legendary.

Scalable.

Unique item.

Full armor set.

This armor is not of this world. So have said those who have had the honor of wearing it. Perhaps that was just an exaggeration, and in fact it was the final invention of the First Mage, as some said. The truth, as ever, is somewhere in between.

Armor: 25,600.

+512 to all main stats.

Special effect: Punisher’s Cruelty (every minute spent in battle increases the damage you deal by 1%).

Durability: indestructible.

Sale price: cannot be sold.

Chance of loss after death lowered by 100%.

Ho-ly shit! My hamster, spoiled by a stream of epics and legendaries and until now turning up its nose condescendingly at my loot, fell into excited hysterics. I broke into a jig and at the same time mourned the loss of the Unconquered Herald set effects. But the bonuses from Cold-Blooded Punisher were far greater, there was no question about it. The only thing I could use from the last set was the weapon and the jewelry; my new solid armor filled all the other slots.

My ring, bracelet, earring, necklace, bow, chainmail and knuckledusters remained from the Unconquered Herald set. That allowed me to keep two set bonuses: Damage taken reduced by 5% and 5% damage reflected back to opponent. In addition, I wore a non-set ring for Agility and an earring for Strength. Both items were legendaries taken from Yoruba, and both gave me pluses to Endurance, Accuracy and Critical Damage.

Now was the perfect time to check my profile. I hadn’t looked at my stats in an age!

Scyth, level 256 undead (hidden)

Ranks: Junior Gladiator, Most Magnificent Avenger, Mightiest Punisher (all hidden).

Clan: Awoken (hidden).

Real name: Alex Sheppard (hidden).

Real age: 16 years (hidden).

Class: Herald (hidden).

Primary characteristics

Strength: 354 (+652).

Perception: 256 (+512).

Endurance: 518 (+672).

Charisma: 345 (+1265).

Intellect: 142 (+512).

Agility: 288 (+794).

Luck: 1311 (+1272).

Secondary characteristics

Health points: 716,083.

Mana points: 98,150.

Vindication points: 169,000.

Plague Energy points: 2,000,000.

Serendipity: 117,208 / 1,000,000.

Restoration rate: 68,290 health per minute.

Base damage: 1163.

Accuracy: 1458%.

Bonus to chance to get a unique quest: +30% (maximum value reached).

Bonus to chance to get upgraded loot: +30% (maximum value reached).

Bonus to chance to stun enemy: +5%.

Bonus to critical damage: 699%.

Bonus to damage in battle against players: +30%.

Bonus to damage resistance against insectoids: +50%.

Bonus to damage resistance from poisons: +100%.

Bonus to dodge chance: +483%.

Bonus to magic power: 180%.

Bonus to movement speed: 169%.

Bonus to ranged damage: +140%.

Bonus to Resilience in battles against players: +30%.

Carrying capacity: 6594 lbs.

Chance to avoid critical damage: +5%.

Chance to detect invisibility: +5%.

Critical damage chance: +100%.

Vendor discounts: 50% (maximum value reached).

Fame: 455.

Skills

Archery (no rank): 96.

Bashing Weapons (no rank): 42.

Cartography (no rank): 9.

Daggers (no rank): 57.

Night Vision (no rank): 81.

One-handed Swords (no rank): 43.

Persuasion rank 1: 2.

Resilience rank 2 (Path of Justice and Path of Reflection): 29.

Riding (no rank): 20.

Spears (no rank): 18.

Stealth (no rank): 90.

Swimming (no rank): 66.

Two-Handed Maces (no rank): 11.

Two-handed Swords (no rank): 11.

Unarmed Combat rank 1 (Path of Justice): 100.

Crafting and trades

Cooking: Expert (394/500).

Inscription: Journeyman (0/250).

Special skills and abilities

Depths Teleportation: 14.

Destroying Plague Immortality: 20.

Ghastly Howl: 27.

Plague Fury: 2.

Plague Pestilence: 4.

Plague Reanimation: 8.

Second Life (spontaneous).

Class skills

Cloak Essence: 12.

Divine Revelation (spontaneous).

Imitation: 11.

Lethargy: 6.

Liberation: 30.

Divine abilities

Sleeping Invulnerability: 1.

Sleeping Vindication: 1.

Touch of the Sleeping Gods.

Unity.

Auras

Most Magnificent Avenger: -25% damage and defense to all nearby opponents.

Achievements

Explorer — 1.

First Completion: Treasury of the First Mage.

First Ever: Mightiest Punisher.

First Ever: Most Magnificent Avenger.

First Kill: Chuff, Queen of the Swamp Needlers.

First Kill: Crusher.

First Kill: Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen.

First Kill: Murkiss.

First Kill: Sharkon, Underground Terror.

First Kill: Shog’rassar, God of the Sarantapods.

I Came, I Saw, I Conquered — 1.

I Came, I Saw, I Conquered — 2.

I Survived Distival-2075!

I’m on Fire! I am the Fire!

It is a Good Day to Die!

Mightiest Punisher.

Morituri te salutant! — 1.

Most Magnificent Avenger.

That Doesn’t Happen!

The Lich is Dead! Long Live the New Lich…

Divine emblems

Shog’rassar’s protection.

Pets

Iggy, level 198 swamp needler.

Crash, level 114 diamond worm.

Storm, level 27 storm dragon.

Hidden status: K-class Threat with potential A.

Hidden status: Initial of the Sleeping Gods.

Hidden status: Legate of the Destroying Plague.

Money: 4,428,591 gold, 99 silver, 18 copper.

Marks of the Valorous: 10.

If someone had told me half a year ago, when I was hanging around that stall outside the Bubbling Flagon and half-heartedly chatting to Eve O’Sullivan, that I’d become who I was now… I would have told you had a screw loose.

* * *

I heard three cracks outside the window — Infect, Bomber and Crawler appeared from thin air. They looked bedraggled. I didn’t mean their undead appearance, but their armor. They’d taken quite the beating. Then it hit me like a thunderbolt; what happened to the preventers I’d killed? There was a twenty-percent chance that anyone who died from Plague Fury would come back undead!

I dug through my memory, trying to restore what I’d seen at the Green Fair frame by frame, and even what I might have missed. Defiler died first, but he didn’t come back. Then came the five-man team from the Children of Kratos to help him, and they went down next. The next to attack was the PuG raid that spontaneously formed from the crowd of onlookers, and plenty of people died there! I don’t remember anyone getting up again… Hey, wait, maybe it was to do with the minion cap? My cap was at eighty vassals, including my guardians.

There was something else. As far as I remembered, Plague Pestilence, which infected the living, didn’t affect players. Which meant it seemed unlikely that the Plague Fury after-effect would work on them. One question remained: how had Big Po managed to infect players in Tristad? Was there a quest for that? It was probably worth meeting with Wesley to find out, especially since I needed to pay him… I definitely wouldn’t have time before the event, but maybe after?

Where had the guys gone? They’d probably already gone into the tavern and couldn’t find me. Private rooms were like an instance, and outsiders could enter only with the owner’s permission.

I opened the door, the guys piled in, with Bomber having to stoop — the titan race was famous for height and might — and then spent a long time looking at me, feeling my armor and shaking their heads.

“I’m speechless…” Infect whispered. “And the stats are just… incredible!”

“And they’ll grow,” Crawler said. “The armor is based on your level multiplied by a hundred. The stat bonuses are double your level. Scyth, you’ve hit the jackpot! Now tell us — where?”

Bomber bashfully pulled an epic shield out of his inventory and showed it to me.

“Only just dropped, was gonna brag about it…” He looked at the piles of loot in the center of the room. “But not anymore.”

We spread out around the piles of loot. Bomb took out some beer and gave everyone a bottle. He waved away my silent question.

“Listen, if this ain’t cause for celebration, I don’t know what is.”

“You’ve set this place up pretty nice…” Infect noted. “Getting into interior design now too?”

“Once we build the castle, you’ll have your own.” Crawler sat down cross-legged, swigged his beer and finished his thought. “No point wasting the money now.”

“Come on, guys, let Scyth tell us what happened!” Bomber pleaded.

As they listened to my story, the guys’ reactions were varied. Bomber and Infect were overjoyed. Crawler shook his head and bit his lip.

“I don’t even know what to think,” he said after I finished. “You took a big risk. Why the hell were you even at the fair?! Achievements and new levels are cool, triple Plague Fury damage — sure, awesome. But damn, Scyth, you showed your hand, they know what to prepare for!”

“That’s the way it went. You think I wanted to fight a horde like that? I didn’t have the chance to escape…”

“What the hell were you even doing there?” Crawler asked, repeating Bomber’s question.

“Listen, before that I was strolling around Darant, and then Kinema. After I’m done talking to you, I’m headed back there. I don’t have any other option; I have to take risks. Otherwise they’ll just overwhelm us en masse. Anyway, relax — we got so much loot here that we shouldn’t run out of money the rest of our days. Now we can just play for fun, right?”

“Shame we can’t sell anything yet,” Crawler said. “If we put it up on the Commonwealth auction through Overweight, the girl will catch a lot of negative attention. Someone is sure to notice their gear and put pressure on her. We can’t clear the history of every single item!”

“The goblin auction?” I suggested.

“There’ll be big losses,” the mage pointed out. “But since we’re going to have to sell loot through the League in any case, we’re best off waiting for Rita. She’ll be out of the sandbox soon. Take her to Kinema with you and you’ll save ten percent on fees. Maybe more.”

We settled on that; we’d keep all the loot in the clan storehouse for now, then Rita could deal with it. Thank the Sleepers the storehouse had plenty of room. We hadn’t yet brought Rita into the clan, incidentally. I’d planned to meet with her and discuss it all with her when I had the time. She and I had spoken over the phone on the way back from Distival. I asked how she was, and she answered that she was fine, but she’d be even better if I spoke to her more often. I couldn’t tell if Rita was joking or if she really did have feelings for me.

“The transport lines are overloaded,” Crawler changed the subject. “While you were getting your beauty sleep, we were watching live streams. Everyone is rushing to the frontier to take part in the event. The queues for the stationary portals in Darant and Shak are miles long. Plenty of folks are even desperate enough to pay for airship flights. The tickets are sold out three days in advance.”

“Have they fixed the portal in Vermillion?”

“Yeah,” Bomber answered for Crawler. “But don’t even think about repeating your trick. The mages have added True Light to the defensive field. Like True Flame, only citywide. You’ll get burned.”

“Another thing…” I took out some bare scrolls of parchment. “My Inscription is leveling up quick. Once I figure stuff out with Morena and Yoruba, I’ll level it to the cap. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make many Plague Fury scrolls, but even a couple could change the outcome of a battle…”

“Yeah,” Crawler nodded. “During the event, lots of people are going to have their link points set only at frontier forts. But to blow up the scrolls, you have to be nearby…”

“If only I was still a rogue, I could creep in and blow everyone up!” Infect said, interrupting him.

I wanted to tell him his low-level stealth would have failed him pretty quickly, but then I looked at the guys’ level. They hadn’t wasted any time. They were all up at one hundred and eighty after only a few hours of farming. That’s what hard work meant!

“You can put them to sleep with your songs,” Bomber answered. “And their ears will blow up all on their own.”

“You really wanna be a footballer, Bomb?” Infect suddenly asked. “I think you should be a stand-up comic instead. Your jokes are hilarious, you’re a real genius…”

“Has anyone spoken to Tissa?” I changed the subject.

“Yeah, um…” Bomber hesitated. “She’s good.”

“Even too good,” Infect added. He saw Crawler’s frown and continued: “She’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

“She’s doing so well that I don’t even know if we should let her go to the White Amazons,” Crawler added threateningly.

“Just spit it out, what’s she up to?”

“You haven’t been checking her posts online?” the bard asked.

“When would I find the time?”

“You’re better off.” Bomber sat down next to me, wrapping his arm around me and shaking my shoulder. “There’s nothing there. Views of the island she’s living on, the school, her house, flowers, new outfits… Don’t stress.”

“I’m not stressed, just worried about her.”

“So don’t worry either,” the warrior muttered.

“How’s our friend doing?” the gnome asked.

“Crag? No clue. He just disappeared. Doesn’t come online in Dis, doesn’t pick up the phone in real life.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Bomber admitted. “We need to hurry and switch to distance learning to stay under the radar. Your old man leveled up yet?”

“Almost. He should be able to take the money out tomorrow. We’re putting some aside for the clan base in real life. Dad will convert it into dark phoenixes and send it to Manuel Almeida, aka Manny. Not all at once, but as and when he needs it.”

“Who’s gonna sign the contract?” Crawler asked. “The non-citizens, or you?”

“Like I already said, you have to either trust people in full or not at all. The rental agreement of the three-story building in Cali Bottom will be signed by the non-citizens. If they want to push us out, then they can do that without a contract anyway, so I’m not worried. Anyway, we aren’t planning on holing up there forever, right? What if the whole story of my Threat status ends in a week? By the way, any info on Big Po?”

“Rita sees his new character in Tristad all the time. He sits out his time in the Bubbling Flagon and that’s it. Doesn’t level up, doesn’t quest. He’s probably waiting for us to…” Crawler’s eyes glanced down and he shouted. “Woah! Crag is online!”

I checked the clan chat. Immediately after the line ‘Tobias is online,’ I saw:

16/04/2075 20:36> Player Crag, level 102 undead warrior, has left the Awoken.

“Oh, shit!” Bomber said. “Craggy’s jumped ship! I told you we should have taken him out before, at the temple…”

“Where is he?” Crawler opened the map and tried to find Crag’s marker.

“Must be the same place he logged out of Dis from,” I answered. “Next to Tiamat’s temple!”

Without wasting a second, Crawler invited me to his group, I accepted and he immediately threw us to the temple.

“Toby, stop!” we shouted when we saw the warrior.

He was casting a teleport, only where to? When he saw us, he shrugged.

“Bye bye,” he waved a hand at us and disappeared.

“How?” Bomber and I shouted in unison.

“Maybe he had a portal scroll?” the bard suggested.

“Where from? He was always with us, he never left the fort without us.”

“He could have got one by mail,” Infect shrugged.

In the meantime, Crawler was looking at his friends list. He swore.

“Nether! He deleted me from his friends!”

“Me too!”

“And me…” Bomber sighed sadly. “Damn. What a messed-up dude…”

Chapter 17. New Allies

MY FRIENDS AND I parted ways, I put on Cloak Essence and returned to Kinema. A haughty imperial elf caught my eye and ‘Cthulhu’s Boy’ MonkeyWrench disappeared. Lalanos, a dark elven archer at level three hundred and nine, was born. Then I ran to the guild of inscription, bought all the recipes as I could, and then ran from there to the transport portal halls. I bought a ticket to Shak and passed through the portal with no issue.

In Shak, I saw for myself the commotion that was brewing over the upcoming event in the desert. As I passed the main square opposite the imperial palace, I saw a whole crowd of high-levels, and not just of the dark races, but neutrals too. The queues to the departure portal halls stretched out over entire city districts. The transport guild had opened up the routes to the Commonwealth for the whole Empire. Apparently, an army larger than any seen before was forming there. The only thing that cheered me up was that all of them, before they reached Tiamat’s temple, would first have to get through the aggressive desert mobs, each at least a hundred levels above the top players.

All of Shak astounded the eye with its magnificent gloom, from its thick walls stretching into the sky, made to stand up to titans or even larger creatures, to its monstrous central city gates through which streamed crowds of orcs, trolls, minotaurs, ogres, dark elves, draconids, vampires and other dark creatures, united under the iron fist of Emperor Kragosh. Some said that Kragosh’s veins ran with the blood not only of orcs, but of giants too; the ruler was renowned for his massive frame. Others claimed that it was all far more boring than that, that it was just from an ogre great-grandfather. Whatever the case may be, the dark ones had rebuilt the capital of the Empire in its ruler’s image: it astounded the imagination with its monumental scale.

The Crooked Spear tavern turned out hard to find. Architecturally, the city of Shak differed from everything I knew and had seen. It seemed as if the orcs couldn’t stand straight lines, so Shak didn’t have streets like I was used to. It was a mishmash of thousands of structures, erected without a hair of logic and order. Made of stone, wood, whatever was to hand — but all tall buildings with many floors. Between the buildings stretched an array of mismatched bridges, some made of rope. They weren’t necessarily all horizontal.

A city guard helped me. Shrouded in black armor, the orc landed his wyvern, a creature similar to a small dragon, only with one pair of legs — the back ones. The front were replaced with wings like those of a gigantic bat. The orc growled something in Orcish, realized that I didn’t understand the language and switched to broken Common Tongue.

“Me know four taverns call that name. Who you seek, vagrant?”

“I need Hettran.”

“Not know him. Then you listen me where are four taverns…”

After the guard was done explaining, four markers appeared on my minimap. It turned out easy to find the tavern I needed among them — the orc guard had problems understanding Common; he’d directed me to the Broken Spear, the Lying Spear, the Crooked Spear and a restaurant called Two Bent Spears.

The orcs’ love for spears never ceased to amaze. I headed for the right tavern, the Crooked Spear. At least I could use my mechostrich instead of walking around. I didn’t want to let people see my legendary dragon, and there was no room for Storm to spread her wings here anyway.

The Crooked Spear was on Shak’s third level, in the local slums. The first level, on the ground, was covered in a thick layer of manure, dirt and garbage, and nobody wanted to risk taking a stroll down there except for me and some grubby orphaned orcs, trolls and other young ogreish types. Among them I noticed a two-headed young ogre holding a book, and I did a double-take. He sat in a corner reading with one head and watching the children play with the other. I didn’t know what should surprise me more; the two heads or the book. The icy gleam of some spell glimmered in the young ogre’s hand.

My appearance in the tavern drew no attention. The place was almost the same as similar businesses in Darant or Kinema, not counting the clientèle. The choice of drinks was probably different too. Oh, and the ceilings were twice as high, built to accommodate tall trolls, horned minotaurs and beefy ogres. The people buzzed, clinking crockery, chewing loudly, roaring in laughter. They drowned out the rhythms of the lone troll drummer lost on the stage in gray smoke. He played with abandon, a long cigar always between his razor-sharp teeth.

I tried not to look at the unfamiliar faces. Tripping over outstretched legs and the prostrate bodies of drunkards face-down in the garbage, I reached the closest waitress — a worn-out and brutal orc woman with tattooed temples and a ring in her nose — and asked whether she knew Hettran. If the gnome girl Kitty was telling the truth, then Hettran was the one who could put me in contact with the cultists of Morena.

Cutting through the hubbub and the noise of the drums, the orc girl shouted at the top of her lungs. “Camrode!”

“I need Hettran,” I raised my voice and emphasized the name.

“Camrode Hettran,” the orc girl growled. “You not know name of one you seek?”

Nobody batted an eye at the waitress’s shout. But a stocky elderly orc emerged from behind the bar, pushing aside the customers to reach us. The orc girl nodded, jabbed a sausage finger at me and walked away. Hettran looked me over, frowned and beckoned for me to follow him. We went outside, walked along the wall and ducked into a descending lane.

“Hettran?” I decided to clarify. “Is that you?”

“Camrode,” he answered unhappily. “That’s what everyone calls me. But the outcasts know me by the name you used. You are seeking them, yes?”

“What outcasts?”

“Those that consort with death.”

We moved off the zigzagging descent and headed down a lichen-covered slope, up to our knees in dirt. At the bottom, the orc stopped, moved aside some vegetation, looked around furtively and pulled on a metal ring. I asked no questions.

There was another descent, this time into a cellar.

Hettran lit a torch, revealing a narrow tunnel. We turned three times, then the orc stopped at the bars of a cell, listened a moment. All was quiet. Then, rattling a bunch of keys, he opened the door.

“Enter.”

I crossed the threshold, but Hettran didn’t follow me in. The door squealed shut.

“Stay here and don’t reveal yourself.”

Hettran moved off, leaving the door unlocked. I had to wait a long time. To get at least some use out of it, I studied the recipes for symbols and enhancement runes that I’d bought, and started leveling up my Inscription.

When I heard footsteps in the corridor, my Journeyman grade had gone up to almost a hundred out of two hundred and fifty. Two figures stopped at the bars. I recognized one as Hettran. A large figure towered behind him, stooped over, face hidden beneath a hooded cloak.

“Here he is,” the orc said obsequiously.

“Leave us,” his companion hissed.

Hettran gave him the keys and disappeared. The other entered the cell, for some reason locking the door behind him. The system label above his head told me that his name was Ranakotz, and he was a half-orc. I saw no level and no faction. Just ‘Ranakotz, half-orc.’ If he was a cultist, then no wonder he hid the fact. The magic of the dead wasn’t the world’s most popular sort.

“So you don’t run away,” he explained. He approached to within a yard of me, cast a glance at the empty scrolls on the floor, pursed his lips and frowned. “A scribe?”

“Sort of. Are you Ranakotz from the cult of Morena?”

“Shshhhargkh!” he hissed, making my skin crawl.

I swear he hadn’t moved an inch, but his grinning face with blackened teeth and empty sockets for eyes was suddenly in front of my own. His pale, thin lips twisted.

“Who are you to ask, Lalanos? Since when have the sharp-ears taken an interest in the Inexorable One?”

I calmly collected the scrolls into my inventory, stood up face to face with him and spoke.

“I can’t speak for the elves. I’m not one of the forest folk.”

If he thought he could scare an undead, he was wrong. I took off my Imitation, because Persuasion was telling me clearly that no line of dialog would work: not jokes, not intimidation, not respect.

But what I did didn’t work either. I thought that if he saw me as a dead man, he’d stop suspecting that someone had sent me. At the very least it should have pricked up his professional interest, and shown him why I wanted Morena… But no.

Ranakotz jumped back, but quickly took control of his emotions and stretched out a hand. Palm toward me, he started to fanatically read some kind of prayer or spell. Whatever it was, it was doing something. Fine silver threads shot from each fingertip and wrapped around my legs, arms and head. He moved his fingers like a puppeteer. He was probably trying to take control of me.

But an instant before that, I felt the touch of something cold and sticky. It lasted less than a second, then I saw the explanation:

Unlocked ability: Destroying Plague Immunity!

Destroying Plague Immunity

You are immune to the magic of the dead.

Ranakotz cast Enslave Undead on you!

Effect blocked (Destroying Plague Immunity).

I waved my arm, cutting through the cobweb-like strands of the spell. Ranakotz threw back his head in shock. His hood fell, baring a bald and knobbly scalp. Then he opened his mouth in a soundless cry, releasing a column of black mist that struck the ceiling and then immediately disappeared.

I grabbed him by the shoulder, pouring plague energy into him. The system took that as an attack and the cultist’s health slowly fell. Bringing my face closer, I spoke:

“I need Morena. I have a business proposal for her.”

“Only the worthy can see the Inexorable One,” he rasped. His maddened eyes span and he began to back toward the door. “Have mercy… Please…”

“I need Morena,” I said again.

“Only the worthy… Hack-hack…” he coughed and I tightened my grip.

Stubborn, I thought. Or afraid. Maybe some divine edict forbids him? I need to take a different approach.

“What was that crap that came out of your mouth, Ranakotz?” I asked, referring to the black smoke.

The cultist took out something that looked like a yellow tablet, rubbed it with his fingers into a powder and noisily sniffed it into his nose. Dark branching streams appeared beneath his skin. For an instant, his eyes filled with mist, which then quickly dispersed.

“You will find out!” Ranakotz said triumphantly, his voice loud and confident.

With eyes locked on me, he stepped back and unlocked the door. I heard footsteps in the corridor. Definitely more than three people running. So the cultist had called reinforcements. In Kinema, I hadn’t revealed the shield I got for killing Sharkon, but now there was nobody to hide from. Ranakotz was an NPC from an underground cult, so his reinforcements probably were too. There was no point in killing them; that wouldn’t help me find Morena. I needed to try and find common ground.

While I was thinking, it suddenly got very crowded in the cell. Ranakotz traveled light, but his reinforcements were armed to the teeth. From what I could see, they were all practicing necromancers, and the leader wasn’t unfamiliar with close-quarters combat, judging by his short poisoned blade and the bone armor beneath his cloak. Names, status, levels — it was all hidden. Including the half-orc, they were six now.

When they saw me in my true form, the necromancers attacked without hesitation. My logs filled up with notifications of blocked spells of subjugation and undead excarnation. They wouldn’t get far trying to take on one of the two Legates of the Destroying Plague.

“Listen, lunatics, I didn’t come here to fight. Let’s calm down and talk.” I made sure I had their attention, then spoke again, enunciating each word separately. “I. Need. Morena.”

They looked me up and down with a surprised gaze — wow, a talking zombie! — then started casting something again. The cultist leader raised his blade, muttered a spell, struck. The blade’s edge sparked with fire and sliced against my shield. Although he hit the shield, Reflection still activated. The necromancer leader suddenly wasn’t looking so good. His legs bent and he fell to the floor.

The cultists were furious, and started spitting their spells with greater fervor.

“No!” Ranakotz shouted, raising a hand. “Standard subjugation spells do not work on him. A circle! Form a circle!”

Are you serious? I thought, chuckling internally. The cultists took me by the arms, lifted me over their heads and started humming a gloomy hymn in which I could make out neither words nor prayer. I had no plans to simply watch.

First I cracked one with a clean Hammerfist, untainted by plague energy. The nameless cultist, apparently a woman, cried out, flew back and hit the bars of the door. The strike was so strong that the necromancer took her neighbor in the choir with her.

A life meter immediately appeared above her head, dropped down to almost forty percent. So she won’t survive a second hit, I thought. I’ll need to be careful with these new allies of mine. I still needed them to fight against Nergal’s forces. As I remembered that, I hit each in turn, each time repeating:

“I need Morena.”

By my estimates, none of the cultists were over level two hundred. I hoped they were just the rank and file. Otherwise why bother with an alliance? Would the goddess Morena go into battle personally? As far as I knew, divinities had neither the right nor the ability to do so. It was one thing to manipulate mortals, but quite another to intervene directly. And they could solve matters between themselves in the heavens, where they lived.

“Who are you?” Ranakotz rasped as I held him to the brick wall.

“I was sent by the Nucleus. I’m a Legate of the Destroying Plague. And I need Morena.”

“Only the worthy can see the Inexorable One,” he repeated. “Prove that you are worthy and you will meet her.”

* * *

They knew nothing of the Destroying Plague or the Nucleus. Or if they did know, then it didn’t impress them in the slightest. I agreed to ‘prove’ that I was worthy of seeing Morena in person. Once the withered and bug-eyed troll Dekotra, the cultist leader, managed to get to his feet, he gathered all the others around me and began to sing.

A little later I learned that this was how the cultists’ teleportation worked. It was a long cast that required several people at once, and you couldn’t make a mistake when you spoke the spell or it wouldn’t work, but on the other hand you could choose any point on Dis. Ranakotz told me so once he loosened up a little. All together, the cultists imagined the place they wanted to get to and called to the goddess. If she was in the right mood, then the singers, plus whoever was standing in their circle, would be teleported.

Immediately after the jump to some dark cave with a high ceiling, the cultists relaxed. Either they felt protected or they were stronger in their lair. Ranakotz willingly answered my questions, and once he was finally convinced that I was an intelligent creature, he started asking about how I ended up among the living dead. I answered mysteriously, implying that if it was necessary, Morena herself would tell them everything after I met with her.

In the meantime, the other followers of the goddess of death split up through the branching tunnels. They didn’t come back empty-handed. One pulled a bleating and struggling goat at the end of a rope, another carried a black cockerel under one arm, which suddenly emitted an earsplitting “cock-a-doodle-doo!” They all held something alive.

The troll Dekotra stood at the sacrificial altar where a thick book lay open. Grooves cut in the stone floor led away from the altar.

“You’re going to make a sacrifice?” I guessed.

“Sacrifices. We need a great deal of living blood,” Ranakotz answered. “Otherwise we will not break through the Barrier.”

“What’s the Barrier?”

The half-orc looked at me in surprise, but answered:

“The Barrier between the planes.”

“But why?”

“You wanted to prove that you are worthy of beholding Morena,” Ranakotz said. “Go beyond the Barrier, and if you return alive… ahem… I mean, if you return at all, you will have proved your right.”

Dekotra cut the throats of the sacrificial animals with a practiced motion. The blood seeped into the grooves on the floor and formed a symbol: an isosceles triangle with a circle inside it and three rays emanating from its center. As the streams of blood met, the symbol flashed red and streaks of crimson light emanated from the grooves. By then, all the cultists were holding hands, standing at the edge of the circle. They began to do what they apparently had to do every time they cast a spell: choral singing. Infect could have given them some great backing vocals.

A gap opened up in the wall and formed into a dark-red arch. A transparent film covered the passageway, with the bloody veins in the floor oozing into it.

“Go,” Dekotra said. Seeing my hesitation, he growled: “Go!”

Blood seeped from his every pore, as it did from the other cultists, and I hurried before my potential allies ended up worm food. Blood was starting to stream from them. The symbol on the floor flickered, losing strength. I broke into a run and flew through the portal arch.

I didn’t have to break the film over the portal; it dissipated as soon as I touched it. My foot found no purchase, and I fell. In impenetrable mist, feeling no air, I flew downwards.

The interface’s system clock showed me that the fall lasted six seconds. For me, they stretched out into hours — I even thought it was a bug, that I’d have to get out with Depths Teleportation, but it was inactive!

A soft landing in a strange substance like liquid jelly, and still the same mist all around. When the cultists told me there’d be a challenge, I thought I’d have to fight. I didn’t think I’d be thrown into a swamp — I sank up to my head in a pliant and sucking ooze. I couldn’t see a damn thing. The minimap showed my marker in the center of blackness, so I couldn’t figure out where I was either. The logs were silent too — the environment wasn’t aggressive.

The main thing I realized was that I wasn’t in Disgardium anymore. Even when I was standing in front of the Nucleus of the Destroying Plague, deep under Holdest, I at least saw that I was on that continent.

Better to stop worrying and just wait. Based on feeling, I was still sinking. What was the damn test..?

Suddenly it hit me, and I swore; the environment wasn’t aggressive only for me, because I was undead! The cultists that ended up here had probably died, meaning they proved they were ready to subject themselves to Morena’s will, and then she brought them back. Right? But then why here? Perhaps Morena had more power here.

That would make sense. The goddess of death was of the old gods, who had lost their power and their followers, and jealously guarded the few adepts they had. But to give them more abilities, she needed more Faith. It occurred to me that the ones that died for her and were reborn were so fanatic that each gave her far more of the resource than any single adept of the new gods. Dying in the name of Morena was far more serious than hanging around at a temple of Nergal for a buff.

But what was I to do? My undead immunity and Destroying Plague Immortality prevented me from dying. I couldn’t even kill myself. Detonate Plague Fury? I didn’t have the energy; I’d burnt it all in Kinema. And what was the point? And anyway, I was feeling good, calm… I peacefully spread my arms and legs, floated on my back, closed my eyes and started drifting…

“That’s enough,” a woman’s voice whispered.

The jelly around me disappeared and I began to fall. I tucked and landed on my feet. On a stone floor.

After the absolute darkness, even the dim lighting blinded me. Squinting, I looked around. I was standing by an altar in a temple. What I’d at first taken for walls turned out not to be stone, but trees. Their straight trunks were crowded together, creating the impression of a solid surface, and rare beams of red sunlight broke through the foliage like little flickering candle flames.

My eyes acclimatized, and I beheld her. The Inexorable One. I had seen the Nucleus of the Destroying Plague and saw nothing divine in it. I had seen Behemoth, Tiamat and Fortune, but they showed me their avatars, incarnations in our reality. Morena stood before me in the flesh. Surprising even myself, I fell down to one knee and bowed my head — looking at her was painful. Physically painful, like when you look at the sun.

Eras passed before my eyes, thousands of generations of intelligent creatures that walked their earthly path to its end, and were then treated to Morena’s attentions in their last moments of life.

“Your spirit is sealed in your body, fixed by familiar ties,” the goddess said, approaching and placing a hand on my head. “Oh… You are marked by the ancient Sleeping Gods, young Scyth. You are their chosen one!”

“They are not the ones who sent me.”

“I am not surprised. I was never their favorite. Who else… That flighty girl, Fortune, hmm… She always seeks advantage by offering patronage to the chosen soldiers of the divine. Who else?” Morena chuckled. “Oh, a weak little god from another world…”

“You mean the Destroying Plague?”

“The Destroying Plague?” the goddess said in surprise. “I’ve never heard of it. No, I see the mark of Shog’rassar. I remember a mortal mage with that name, banished beyond the Barrier at the dawn of time. So that means he became a god and fell at your hands…”

Leaning forward, she took my head in both her hands, shut her eyes tightly and went quiet. I felt my brain and body being scanned, felt Morena shudder.

Squinting, I tried to look at her again; a human figure, yet somehow with an entirely inhuman face. I don’t know how to explain it. Two eyes, eyebrows, a nose, full lips, long black hair, but at the same time, something otherly, not of this world, something rich with a strange, infernal beauty. Something that made even the bravest freeze and look at something, anything else. And something that reminded me of that old lady from my nightmare.

“It’s him…” Morena whispered in shock. “It’s him! Him! But not him, too… Not the same…”

“Who are you talking about?”

“What did you call the creature that bound your body and soul?”

“Um… The Destroying Plague?”

“I can’t figure it out,” Morena said, clearly upset in a manner most human. “This is definitely the mark of one I knew by another name. He and I walked the world of Disgardium alongside the first intelligent creatures, hand in hand. His name was Reaper. I met the dead at the threshold between the worlds, and he collected their souls. He was my chosen one…”

She fell silent. Both Morena and Fortune were of the old gods, but apparently, although the goddess of luck had made her place among the pantheon of the new gods…

“Yes, you are right,” Morena spoke up, reading my thoughts. “Reaper and I found no place in the new world. Our temples were razed, and in their place the mortals built altars to the new gods, the young ones — hungry, insolent and petulant. They were not above bribing the mortals, offering them powers they could only dream of. That was when magic came to the world. Reaper had it worse than me. Marduk, the new god in competition for the spirits of the dead, defeated my beloved. My wounded Reaper disappeared. I managed to hide myself away…”

“You believe Reaper and the Destroying Plague are one and the same?”

“Yes and no. You definitely have his power within you, I felt it as soon as you came here. But it has a heavy dose of the Nether, and something else that I can’t quite identify. The weavings are unfamiliar to me…” She groaned and quickly jumped back as if from an electric shock. “No, I can’t identify it… It hurts. But some of this is definitely from Reaper.”

“Now I see why the Destroying Plague sent me to you.”

“Sent you to me?” Morena gasped. “Tell me exactly what it said.”

“Let me think…” I strained my memory. “It said that if I manage to find traces of Morena, then I should find her. She would be my ally.”

“Ally? Against whom?”

“Against the new gods, from what I can tell. But for now, against the mortals who answered Nergal the Radiant’s summons to war…”

I didn’t mention that Nergal’s war was against the Sleeping Gods, not the Destroying Plague.

“I will help you. As will my new followers. They aren’t as strong as you, young Scyth, but they know how to work in the circle. The power of spells within it is greatly multiplied. When?”

“The day after tomorrow. My people are building a stronghold of the Destroying Plague. I’ll open a portal to the undead legions in the Lakharian Desert.”

“My people… and others… will be there.”

“What about you?”

“I have no path into your plane of existence while the new gods still rule it. But I will help. And I will start right now…” She extended her hands toward me, palms up, and something materialized in them. “The Reaper’s Scythe. A gift from my beloved. I have no need of it, but you may find it useful…”

The melody of a completed quest rang out, and a notification window popped up.

Hidden quest completed: In Search of Morena.

The old gods lost to the new in the battle for the souls of the dead. Some faded from existence, while others continue a wretched excuse for it. Morena, the old goddess of death, hides behind the Barrier, the border between the worlds. Once she was mighty and walked arm in arm with the Reaper, another old god, and devourer of impure souls. But now Morena is weak and continues to exist only thanks to a small and universally persecuted cult.

You not only succeeded in finding the Morena, the old goddess of death, you also got her on your side! She saw someone in you that can help her, if not to return to her former glory, then at least to take vengeance against the new gods.

Reward: the divine weapon Reaper’s Scythe.

Experience: +150 mil.

Experience at current level (256): 943.18 mil / 1.62 bil

Your reputation with Morena, old goddess of death: +1000.

Current reputation: trust.

I quickly skimmed the text and my eyes widened. Something didn’t quite fit: the Nucleus had asked me to find Morena, but it hadn’t become a quest then. Now it all looked as if this was the wish of the old goddess of death all along, who stood patiently waiting for me to accept her gift — the quest reward.

The scythe didn’t give the impression of a dangerous weapon: a short wooden haft, a handle at the base of a long, serrated half-moon blade. Like something out of a film of village life.

“Thank you, Morena,” I bowed, taking the divine weapon. “It’s a shame I prefer to fight with my fists.”

“Young Scyth!” Morena exclaimed, smiling. “The scythe is merely a symbol. It can take on any form. Try to imagine the form you would like to see it in.

I imagined myself in the thick of battle. Hammerfist, taking the strikes of enemy blades, claws and teeth, block, Combo. Knuckledusters clenched in my fists, curved blades extending along my forearms, useful for hitting people attacking from the rear or side…

Reaper’s Scythe split into two parts in my hand and transformed. The haft wove around my fists, the edge melted and reformed into blades reminiscent of Wolverine’s short claws. The metal covered the outer edge of my forearm, giving my arms extra protection, and stretched out into a long needle beneath my elbow.

Reaper’s Scythes level 1

Soulbound to Scyth.

Divine.

Scalable.

Unique item.

Twin fist weapon.

Damage: 1536-2304.

Bonus damage: 154-230.

This weapon for harvesting impure souls was cast from celestial metal by the Reaper himself, one of the ancient and powerful gods. Its haft was made from the first branch of the Primordial Tree of Life.

The spirits sealed inside have kindled within the weapon its own intellect.

+10% chance to avoid deadly damage.

Special effect: The remainder of the life of those killed by this weapon is sealed within it and increases damage by 10% for every level of Reaper’s Scythes.

Sealed lives for next level: 0/100.

Durability: indestructible.

Sale price: cannot be sold.

Chance of loss after death lowered by 100%.

My head was a whirlwind of thoughts. Without a doubt, I was overjoyed to get an imba weapon that would not only grow along with me, but level up in its own right as well. This priceless gift so soon after I got the Cold-Blooded Punisher armor made me wonder if someone was helping me.

Let’s say the achievement made sense, considering all the high-levels were hunting me. But who sent me to Morena? The Nucleus at first, but then Kiran Jackson the Snowstorm director reminded me of her. And when they saw that I wasn’t in a hurry to search for the goddess of death, Kitty appeared out of nowhere in the Lakharian Desert! And the Ravager broke through in that very spot… Well, if Kiran wanted me to give the preventers hell, I wouldn’t disappoint him. But our deal implied that right after the event, I’d lose all these gifts. Kiran hadn’t talked about me being eliminated as a Threat. He’d told me to delete my character.

He had another think coming. The five Sleeping Gods, the three old gods, my clan, the non-citizens, the kobolds, Patrick, damn Trixie… They were all relying on Scyth being alive. And playing.

So I was going to play.

“I see you are full of determination,” Morena said, listening to my thoughts with a smile.

“Like never before,” I nodded, also smiling. “Can you send me back? Or somewhere else?”

“You don’t need to go back now. I will speak to my followers myself. Imagine where you wish to go…”

I activated Cloak Essence and imagined the courtyard of the Yoruba castle, the altar of the White Snake…

“Until much later, young Scyth!” I heard as I fell through the Barrier again.

* * *

The NPC archers on the walls of Yoruba’s clan castle reacted instantly. Just as I was shaking off the light headache that seemed to be a side effect of Morena’s divine teleportation and shifting through the Barrier, four arrows shot into me. Elvish tips, especially the dark elf variety, were serious business. Long, with hooked barbs, and heavy. All four pierced right through me. One even broke my spine.

For some reason, I was in the castle’s courtyard without armor. My weaponry and trinkets were also in my inventory. I equipped my gear, armed myself with the Reaper’s Scythes. The arrow shafts sticking out of me fell off, cut away by the armor, which covered my body instantly this time, without any of the spreading special effects from before. I had no idea why the teleportation had undressed me. Maybe that was how going through the Barrier worked? Strange, anyway.

Clang, clang! the castle’s siren bell rang out, the alarm for an invasion. Crackling with energy, the defensive forcefield went up around the castle. I stood at the altar to Apophis, the White Snake, my arms spread in a gesture of peace, waiting for a player to appear. The corpse of an overzealous guard fell from the battlements.

“Cease fire!” a woman shouted from a window of the castle.

The next instant, she was before me. She’d used Blink, a short-ranged mage teleport. A level three hundred and fifty-seven vampire battle mage with a tall Amazonian figure, Francesca looked at me tensely. An indigo cloak flashing with electrical discharge, with a blackened chestguard bulging out so far that the cloak looked about to split. Boots all the way up to her thigh on long and powerful legs. And a staff tipped with ball lightning in her hand.

“Who are you and how did you get here?” she asked, her eyes drilling into me.

“I’ll talk to Yemi, Francesca.”

“Yemi will not speak to you,” the mage huffed.

I saw that she recognized me, and I even remembered that she was the one handing out pieces of my heart to her clanmates.

“He will, believe me. But I have very little time. And I still haven’t forgiven you for kidnapping and trying to kill me. So you have ten minutes to get Yemi here.”

“We have been preparing,” she answered threateningly. “We knew you would come here. You will not escape, Threat!”

“Nine minutes and forty-eight seconds left. Then I’ll kill you all, take your castle and sell it to the League.”

“Dream on…”

The girl seemed to be from that category of people that always wants to have the last word. But I wasn’t about to play that game. Pulling out a handful of Explosive Lollipops, I put one in my mouth. Then I sat down on the ground and froze, waiting. Francesca started whispering something rapidly into her comm amulet.

I spent the wait usefully, thinking over again what I wanted from the dark clan. At first I’d planned to turn all of Yoruba undead, and declare through Ian Mitchell that I was gathering allies for the Destroying Plague, as many as wanted to join, but then… Then I realized that would mean meeting unfamiliar players personally, and I changed my mind. I didn’t have the time, and it would be too easy to fall into a trap. As for Yoruba, I’d show them the carrot, but I’d hold off on giving it to them. I needed them alive for now…

Yemi appeared eight minutes later — he might have been offline or in an instance. The spellcaster emerged from the castle and headed toward me. A ten-foot-tall ogre by the name of Babangida rumbled along beside him, a mighty bony growth sticking out of his forehead like a rhinoceros horn. Even as a fair-sized orc, Yemi looked small next to him. The ogre held a massive hammer in one hand. Its handle could have been used as a power pole.

Francesca joined the duo. Flanked by his clanmates, Yemi stopped before me, looked me up and down, and asked a question:

“What was the last thing I told you?”

“That you, Yemi Iwobi, and the entire Yoruba clan is at my service. That all I have to do is call.”

The mage nodded and pointedly put his weapon away in his inventory. Francesca and Babangida did the same. Other clan members were appearing from all directions, but they didn’t dare come closer than twenty paces; the clan had iron discipline.

“Forgive me, Great One, but I must be certain that you are the one you claim to be,” Yemi said. “Allow me to invite you into the castle and offer you…”

“I don’t have time for a sit-down, mage,” I interrupted him. “And call me Legate.”

“As you wish, Legate. These are my officers: Francesca and Babangida. I have no secrets from them.”

I nodded and asked:

“What have you heard of Nergal’s Summons?”

“All civilized races are uniting under the banner of the Radiant One, to bury the temple of the nightmarish Sleeping Gods in the desert sands. If I may be so bold as to ask, this temple…”

“Has no relevance to what I offer you. I am a Legate of the Destroying Plague. The abilities you have seen were granted to me by the Nucleus. It is within my power to turn you undead.”

“You will give us immortality?” Francesca asked hungrily. “Like you… Legate?”

“No. But you will be immune to severe climates. Once Nergal’s event ends, so will the immunity to heat. I’ll also give you the ability to hunt in places others can’t reach. The Ursai Jungle and the Lakharian Desert at least. Maybe Holdest. You’re too weak for Meaz and Terrastera for now, but the climate there won’t kill you either.”

Babangida’s voice was thin and high-pitched as if from a cartoon.

“I don’t understand! What do the Sleeping Gods have to do with this? If you are not from them, then what can we give in exchange?”

“You will join my undead army. We’re going to kill everyone who invades the desert, and collect a lot of loot. You can level up fast off the desert creatures, and then…”

I fell silent, unwilling for now to talk of the bonuses of the Sleeping Gods. Noticing that there was something I wasn’t saying, Yemi took the initiative.

“May I discuss something with you in private, Legate?”

“Of course.”

The mage inclined his head, and his officers begrudgingly walked away. Yemi covered us with a Dome of Silence and continued.

“Potential A?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m a Threat too.”

“I know.”

“You mean you guessed. My potential isn’t high — T. My strength is from being first priest to Apophis. The White Snake can appear wherever it wishes.” He looked this way and that, came closer and whispered: “I’ve been to Terrastera.”

My surprise was visible even through Cloak Essence.

“Really? How long did you survive?”

“Two seconds.”

“Tried again?”

“It’s difficult. The snake is insatiable. She demands three times the sacrifice for fulfilling the same wish each time.”

“What are you driving at, Yemi?”

The mage excitedly brought his fist into his palm, leaned toward me and whispered hotly:

“We have to go there together! The creatures there are at level thousand!”

I shook my head.

“There’s no point yet. You’ll withstand the acid rains of Terrastera, but…”

“You’re immortal!”

“I’ll survive, yeah. But you guys won’t. We’ll come back to this later.”

“Yes, yes, I understand.” Yemi kept nodding, and his thin goatee shook. “We must earn your trust. Tell me, what do you want us to do? How do we prove that we can be useful to you and your master?”

“I don’t have time to turn you undead, Yemi. The character regeneration takes a full day. We’ll do that when the time comes.”

“Then what..?”

“I need you to join with Nergal’s allied army.”

The mage’s eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed in understanding. His lips stretched in a shark-like smile.

“Sabotage…” His smile deepened and I saw his fangs. “Oh yes, they’ll be sorry…”

It seemed the ju-ju class orc mage had his own beef with the Alliance of Preventers.

Interlude 3. Hung

HUNG LEE lost his left eye in childhood. It happened during a fight with his cousin Mickey. Hung had a lot of cousins, and they were all good fighters, but Mickey stood out even then. In addition, he was two years older and didn’t like Hung because of his Swedish mother. Which was why Mickey didn’t hold anything back in his lotus kick; a leg strike from a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin. Hung flew to the side, face-first into a tree. A sharp flash of pain in his eye, blood, an ambulance flyer. His eye was bleeding, and the doctors suggested a choice of implants: newly grown or bionic. The first option had no insurance attached, the second was cheaper, but the Lee family still had to tighten their belts for the next three years.

Hung didn’t see his parents often. They spent most of the time on underwater farms in the Pacific Ocean, and the boy’s grandfather brought him up, his mother’s father. A little deaf, very strict and even cruel at times, the man showed his grandson no mercy, so the boy tried to spend as little time at home as possible. The teenager’s inquisitive mind demanded something more than doing endless chores under his grandpa’s watchful eye.

Four years ago, his friend had suffered a catastrophe. Edward Rodriguez’s parents caught the Doom virus in Africa: they were in the first wave of infected, and the disease burned them from within, eating their cells alive. There were rumors that the virus randomly broke out of containment in an underground genetic lab. A vaccine quickly followed, but the Doom virus killed Ed’s parents too quickly for it to save them. His little sister, Pollyanna, was adopted, but Ed loved her with all his heart, so he grew up, accepted that his childhood was over.

Hung had made friends with him in third grade; they’d both been put in detention for something or other. Then the boys joined the school football team and their friendship got even stronger.

His parents’ death made Ed look at life differently. There was still time before school ended, but he had to start thinking about his future; Ed had his sick grandmother and sister to look after.

Hung was fit as a fiddle, strong and fast. His family never had big money, so he hoped football would help him get an education. But in seventh grade, he got an injury from free-running. Hung lost his speed, and that put paid to his plans. He played well at school level, but could no longer make it into the big leagues, at least not until he got an expensive operation on his knee and recovered from it.

Then Ed suggested he consider Disgardium.

“It’ll take us years to get anywhere,” Hung said doubtfully.

“If we start sooner, we’ll earn faster,” Ed said. “And we have to start with the sandbox. While everyone else just messes around, we’ll level up. And by the end of school, we’ll be so strong that we’ll start earning in Dis right away!”

It took time, but the idea found a place in Hung’s heart. And his friend, although seen as an underachieving hooligan, was smarter than many. He’d just put studying on the back burner after his parents’ death. And Hung suspected that Ed never suggested bad ideas. On top of that, the idea of playing Dis professionally went down surprisingly well with his grandpa, who believed that anything not illegal was good enough for his grandson. It was certainly better than a potentially bright, but most certainly short career in the Triad.

They started to look for like-minded people. Edward suggested that, to level up quickly, they needed a coordinated group of five, a perfectly balanced and time-tested number for farming instances. Hung called dibs on the tank role right away — he was used to taking hits and staying standing after his football career. Ed planned to become a ranger, since it was easier to control the pace of battle from a distance. The positions for the healer, melee fighter and a second damage-dealer were still open.

“I’ll be Bomber,” Hung declared.

“Dumb nick,” Ed laughed. “I chose Nagual.”

“What does that mean?”

“My Aztec ancestors believed in protector spirits called Naguals. The shamans called themselves that too…”

Malik joined their team at roughly the same time. A short and swarthy Middle Eastern with dark, curly hair, he got laughed at and bullied in school. Somehow overhearing Hung and Ed discussing Disgardium, Malik took an interest, came closer, steeled himself and corrected Rodriguez.

“You can’t do that!”

“What can’t I do?” Ed asked in surprise, but then checked himself. “Get the hell out of here.”

“Wait,” Hung stopped his friend and spoke to Malik: “What are you talking about, little man?”

“You can’t level up attack and defense skills at the same time, Hung. Your chance of getting a tank class will drop massively. And you want to be a tank, if I heard you right.” Malik smiled from ear to ear.

They spoke and it turned out that their classmate was a treasure trove of info on Dis. From that day forth, Malik felt protected, and Ed and Hung had a like-minded ally, a future master of stealth and hidden attacks.

Later, Hung would realize that Malik’s snow-white smile was his highest-level ability. ‘Disarming,’ as Tissa had once called it. But back then, neither Hung nor Ed knew anything about it, though they’d studied with Malik since first grade. It was just that usually, Malik didn’t smile at them. On the contrary, he was usually crying after tripping over Ed’s outstretched leg and dropping a tray of food in the school canteen, or standing embarrassed on the football field after Hung pantsed him. At one point, that was Hung and Ed’s idea of fun.

After that, Melissa joined them, and all three fell in love with her. Of course, they couldn’t take their eyes off their female classmate before either, but close contact with her reinforced their interest.

Tissa, as she put it, “knocked the stupid out of them,” by explaining that when they were having their ‘fun,’ the victims of their ‘harmless’ pranks and jokes were most definitely not. It took time, but the guys eventually got the drift and stopped behaving like morons. Their final victim was Alex Sheppard, who had laughed at Hung for answering a question wrong in class. A pack of unwashable paint exploded as Sheppard opened his locker, and the ninth-grade student spent two weeks walking around with a blue face. If hate could take material form, then the supply they generated back then would have been enough to blow up Jupiter…

And now they were friends… You never knew how life would turn out. Memories flooded back to Bomber as he mechanically fired off his skill rotation.

A powerful scorpid almost at level five hundred worked its claws, its tail and its venomous stinger all at once, so Bomber had to attack form the side. His ten undead — well, eight now, two had gone down, — tore into the scorpion enthusiastically but aimlessly. Scyth had given them ordinary zombies that didn’t have any of the skills they’d had in life, so their damage was relatively low. Their strength was in numbers. Crawler and Infect stood off at a distance; the former cast spells, the latter played his guitar, inspiring the group and its minions.

“Think we got time for that pack?” Infect’s voice finally brought Bomber back to reality.

“Half an hour left, not enough time,” Crawler answered. “We still need to get these dead guys back to Gyula. So let’s gather the loot and get gone.”

“Yuck…” Infect said in disgust as he looted a scorpid. “More guts and pincers.”

Bomber chuckled.

“Give ‘em to Scyth. Maybe he’ll come up with some new uber-dish.”

“What kind?” Infect said, holding up the stringy guts.

Over years of friendship, the bard had grown used to Bomber always cracking jokes, and not always good-naturedly. But Crawler answered instead:

“He already said, the uber kind. Come on, get on your ostriches!”

They were just a little way off level two hundred. Maybe they would have reached it, but eight of their minions had fallen and they had to be more careful. Killing one mob cost them three undead mobs of a similar level, and they had to keep an eye on their health and make sure the ‘healthiest’ got aggro. The minions recovered pretty quickly, but not while in combat. That took time too.

“I still don’t understand,” Infect said suddenly, breaking the rhythm of mechostrich legs clunking evenly across the sand. “Why didn’t Scyth say anything?”

“You talking about Crag again?”

“Yeah! ‘Nether with him’ — you think that’s a normal reaction when a person leaves the clan..?”

“Dwarf,” Crawler corrected him, demanding respect for the details.

“Okay, okay!” Infect lost his temper, reigning in his mount sharply. Bomber and Crawler stopped too, along with the three undead parties. “A damn D-class undead dwarf Threat leaves our clan. He knows everything about us! He even knows where Sheppard lives in real life, he’s been to his damn house! And how does Alex himself react? ‘Nether with him,’ and that’s it. Does he really not give a damn? Am I missing something here?”

“We were all there,” Crawler answered, sighing. “But if Scyth isn’t worried, then neither am I. You still ain’t used to the fact that we don’t get to know everything right away?”

“A hundred percent, that’s what’s going on,” Bomber agreed. “Those two have come to some agreement and not told us anything. I’ll just repeat what Scyth said: either we trust our friends or not. No point in trusting only halfway. So, friend Infect, calm down and focus on your own responsibilities…”

They traveled the rest of the way in silence. Gyula wasn’t at the stronghold construction site. Seemed to be taking a break. After commanding their minions to ‘sleep,’ the friends moved into the fort and left their characters to ‘rest’ and get the Rested buff (+50% experience gained for one hour). They sat in the tavern until their forced exit and leveled up their trades, swapping news with the workers and flirting with Eniko.

The alarm clock went off at five forty-five in the morning. Hung didn’t have the heart to get out of bed right away, but eventually pushed away the idea of sleeping another hour and forced himself to get up. He washed, stretched, poured himself some coffee and climbed into his capsule. The school curfew was active from midnight to six in the morning, which meant he could wake up a little earlier and level up something that didn’t require group play. All the Awoken knew about that, but Alex had somehow managed to get permission for unlimited play time anyway, and Ed and Malik preferred to sleep the extra hour.

Once in Dis, Bomber looked around. It was still night on Kharinza. The tavern’s hall was empty. One of Aunt Stephanie’s helpers dozed behind the bar. Not Eniko, unfortunately. He waved at her, walked out of the tavern, mounted his mechostrich and headed toward the ocean.

The path there led through the standing undead army. The lich Shazz never slept; once he was done building ziggurats, he started digging. His monsters had pulled up the jungle for half a mile around, but they didn’t stop there. On Shazz’s order, they’d dug out a huge ditch. Three Bone Hounds patrolled its edge from above, while skeletons, zombies, Sickening Rotters and Foul Queases teemed at its floor.

Not wanting to waste any time, Hung aimed his mount right at a trio of Howling Banshee Lieutenants. They didn’t touch him, taking him for one of their own. Skirting the banshees, Hung approached the edge of the ditch. Something was happening down there. Shazz floated above a monstrously large pile of bones. With one hand he drew energy from a pack of rotters, and with the other he poured unlife, or plague energy as Scyth would have said, into the bones. Each was as thick as Bomber himself, and a label floated above the skeleton: Remains of the Departed.

Enthralled with the sight, Bomber stopped his mechostrich and took a couple of pictures to show Alex. What is it? he wondered. The lich wouldn’t have answered him if he asked. He didn’t talk to anyone but Scyth. That made sense. They were legates in arms.

Suddenly, he got a message from Infect. “Hey, Bomb! You’re awake too? I want to level up my Archeology. Want to go into the desert with me?”

“Morning, buddy. Nah, I’m going to level up Fishing. There’re no fish in the desert, in case you didn’t know.” Bomber answered. “See ya later.”

They were both hoping to get something special from their crafts. Both Fishing and Archeology gave you the chance to catch or dig up an artifact or divine piece of gear, not to mention legendaries and epics. Especially in high-level zones like the Lakharian Desert or the island of Kharinza. Infect had found some ruins beneath a dune the day before, but hadn’t had time to investigate. Apparently couldn’t sleep without checking it out.

As for Bomber, he was fishing for the third morning in a row. The undead didn’t touch him, and the Montosaurus had disappeared. Nothing could keep him from sitting by the shore in the morning and casting out his line. He used low-level crabs as bait. The beach was teeming with brainless hordes of them.

After squashing a few, Bomber collected the Crab Meat that dropped from them, took out his rod and started setting up. His Fishing Hat gave plus fifteen to trade level, Crushed Mussels mixed with Cheesy Bread made a great lure: the small fish reacted to the smell, and they brought in the bigger fish.

Bomber’s crafting grade wasn’t high enough to successfully reel in every fish — they often broke away, although thanks to the difficulty of the area, his craft grew quickly. The day before, Bomber had overcome the threshold of rank zero and successfully gone up to rank one — thanks to Scyth for the fishing textbook. So today, Hung was hoping for a good catch.

He cast out his line and waited in silence. Sometimes a bite came right away, sometimes he had to throw the line again. Hung’s heart sped up as always when there was a game to play. The peaks of the mountains lit up pink, and he saw the tip of the sun poking up between them.

The sea was usually calm at dawn. Warm waves lazily licked Hung’s bare feet, and if it weren’t for the knowledge that Shazz’s zombie army roamed somewhere nearby, you could think you were in heaven. A light breeze tousled the tips of palm trees behind him. The sea air was intoxicating, and made his eyes drift shut in reverie.

Bite followed bite. Bomber barely had time to celebrate one catch before the next went into his inventory. He’d give something to Aunt Stephanie for the workers’ lunch and dinner, and something to Scyth…

Then he heard sand shift behind him. Bomber turned and found himself in combat right away. Throwing away his rod and putting on battle gear — thank the developers for the ability to change all your gear with one button, — Bomber went into defensive stance, crouched behind his shield, looked at the enemy… and laughed.

Flector, level 3

Crab

Flector was around ten times as large as ordinary crabs, just big enough to reach Bomber the titan’s knee. It seemed the mob had become named and stood out from its peaceful brethren because of its aggression. Maybe it was a cannibal.

Without rushing to attack, Bomber looked at the overgrown crab with interest. It was snapping its pincers in vain, trying to break through the warrior’s adamantite full-length shield and strafing constantly left and right, left and right again, as if trying to get around the shield and bite into his flesh.

As it raged to and fro, the crab marked its path with foul-smelling piles of excrement; either one of Flector’s special combat moves or a side effect of its berserking. Once convinced that nothing else interesting was going to happen, Bomber ended the mob with one strike of his sword. He looted it and got some standard Crab Meat. To Bomber’s surprise, that wasn’t all the loot. Flector’s Crooked Claw also dropped, a cooking ingredient! It was blue!

Scyth’s gonna be so happy, Bomber thought, setting his hook with new bait; the old had been eaten away during his ‘fight’ with Flector the crab. Then, suddenly, he thought: what if..? Many problems in Hung’s life began with that question. What if he threw that stone through the school window? What if he grabbed that mean girl’s ass? What if he drank what was left over in dad’s bottle?

What if he used Flector’s Crooked Claw as bait? His hands moved faster than his thoughts, pulling out the loot and setting it on the hook. Excited by the idea of using blue bait, Bomber walked out farther into the sea. Up to his waist in water, he threw out the line and waved away the annoying timer he’d set for himself — it told him it was time to get ready for school. The fishing line kept unwinding; apparently the bait hadn’t hit the bottom yet. It dropped away sharply about thirty feet from Hung.

Bomber was just starting to worry that his line wasn’t long enough when the reel stopped spinning. He tried to pull it back a little, but the reel wouldn’t go further than half a turn. Something was holding the hook.

The hardiest fishing line, made from the woven guts of Stone Dragons, suddenly stretched out, twanging like a guitar string. The rod bent. Bomber would have been happy to let out some more line and take off some of the pressure, but there was no more left on the reel. In the next moment, the rod broke, the thread rang at the edge of ultrasound and snapped, and the unfortunate fisherman himself was thrown onto his back. As he fell, Bomber had time to see the smooth water bubble up, then a monstrous body broke the surface.

Orthokon, level ???

Ancient Kraken

Global Boss

The monster’s elongated body blotted out the sky. Bomber pushed himself back along the sand with his feet, trying to crawl away as fast as he could, but he was panicking too hard to get up and run. As it emerged from the dark depths, the kraken raised a huge wave that washed over Bomber, plunging him underwater. When the water subsided, he saw a gigantic inhuman eye towering above him. Powerful tentacles weaved toward him from all directions, each at least a hundred feet long. Each sucker could have swallowed up the entire Pig and Whistle.

The unblinking eye burned the warrior with malevolence. That’s a wipe, Bomber thought, furiously removing his gear so that the beast wouldn’t damage his equipment and it wouldn’t be lost after death. He prepared to die.

The kraken’s disgusting face came closer. Its powerful beak touched the warrior’s chest and he felt like he was underneath an excavator’s bucket.

Five seconds later, the wide-eyed Bomber was still alive. Maybe it doesn’t eat dead men? the warrior thought. Slowly, making no sudden moves, he reached into his inventory and took out the biggest fish he’d caught. He carefully extended the three-foot-long snack toward the beak.

The kraken opened its mouth and licked up the offering. Nothing but a crumb, Bomber thought.

Your reputation with Orthokon the Ancient Kraken has increased: +1.

Current reputation: mistrust.

Hung’s heart started beating three times as fast. He pulled out another fish just as carefully and fed it to the kraken. That got him another point. Then two at once by giving up a couple of smaller fish. Bomber slowly stood up and went so far as to even stroke Orthokon’s beak, never stopping the flow of offerings.

Mistrust became ambivalence, and soon nothing was left of the catch. Then Bomber tried feeding the kraken cooking ingredients from the desert monsters. Some the beast refused, some it lapped up and spat out, like Lakharian Snake Heart for example, but it crunched up Vulture Eggs so enthusiastically that Bomber got three rep points for each.

With the last egg, his reputation with the beast god changed again.

Your reputation with Orthokon the Ancient Kraken has increased: +3.

Current reputation: affection.

“That’s all for now, Orthokon,” Bomber said, spreading his hands, his bags empty. “But I can come back tonight.

He’d already decided to buy up all the fish he could find at the auction house, taking advantage of Overweight’s procurement business. Having a good relationship with a beast god, and Orthokon was precisely that — that meant… Thought after thought danced through Hung’s head, each more colorful than the last, but all his dreams collapsed when the kraken realized he was out of food. The beast spat streams of dirty water at the warrior and returned to the ocean. A couple of seconds later, there was no sign of the beast god but tentacle marks in the sand and a few big waves.

Disappointed, Hung gathered what was left of his rod into his inventory, and, casting a longing glance back at the sea, decided to go. He had to leave his character in the fort and run to school.

But then he saw something gleaming in the sand in the wake of a wave. Hung bent down and picked up a mother-of-pearl seashell. A useless trinket. He brought his arm back to pitch it into the sea, then suddenly realized that the item’s name was red.

Orthokon’s Call

Soulbound to Bomber.

Divine.

Accessory.

Use: summons Orthokon the Ancient Kraken if the summoner is at sea.

A siren rang out, and then came a global notification: a new Threat was born in Dis, with potential O.

Chapter 18. Coldest Holdest

HUNG GLOWED with a happy smile all morning, without explaining anything. He maintained the mystery all through algebra and modern history, then cracked at recess.

“Listen, something happened…”

We froze, Ed rolled his eyes and smiled, Malik’s jaw dropped, getting ready in advance for whatever he had to envy.

“I was fishing this morning…” Hung continued and then paused.

“Yeah, yeah, we spoke,” Malik said impatiently. “I didn’t dig anything up, but I got a level-up and got Archaeology up to fourteen! Did you catch something special?”

“Yeah,” Hung grinned. “You can say that again.”

“What..?”

“I can’t say. But Alex will see it when he logs on to Dis.”

“What the hell did you catch? Tell us.”

“Something awesome. Really awesome!”

“What is it?!” Malik nearly shouted.

But Hung didn’t answer this time, nor later. Although Malik kept badgering him with questions for a while to come.

“Was it divine gear?”

“Not telling.”

“An artifact?”

“Not telling.”

“Argh!” Malik growled, driven to fury.

Ed was the first to guess, but he kept quiet too. To be honest, I didn’t even think about it. I was too worried about how I’d have time for everything. Gyula was set to finish the stronghold in the evening, and I had a sleepless night ahead immediately afterwards to get everything done before Nergal’s event started.

At recess, I studied yesterday’s news and was a little shocked to see a press release from Children of Kratos: four million eight hundred thousand phoenixes. This is our estimate of the financial damage we’ve taken. We and our colleagues from the Alliance of Preventers are preparing a class-action suit against Snowstorm and the player behind the pseudonym MonkeyWrench, for the total sum of over one hundred million…

I quickly wrote a message to tech support, the general tone of which was what the hell do they think they’re doing? It took a while to get an answer, but by the end of our lessons, my comm squawked as it got a message from an unknown sender. This time, the mysterious high-ranking Snowstorm official called himself Erron Black (Kiran?) and told me that I had nothing to worry about, since everything I did was within the bounds of the gameplay.

Feeling easier, I climbed into a spare flyer alongside my friends. While our classmates made plans for the day — who would be doing what to relax — we were the only ones who were trying to figure out how best to use our remaining hours before hordes of players invaded the Lakharian Desert under the banner of Nergal the Radiant. I cast a glance at the empty seat where Tissa usually sat. That killed my mood for a while.

Malik pestered Hung all the way home. The big man never revealed his secret, apparently delighting in torturing his friend. In the end, Malik got upset and said that when he found something good, he wouldn’t tell anyone either.

“He’ll last an hour,” Ed said absentmindedly.

“Ten minutes,” Hung argued.

“Alex!” Malik wailed. “These guys are pissing me off! Tell ‘em!”

“Tell ‘em what?”

He groaned again and leaned his forehead against the flyer window. Hung’s pleased smile never left his face.

To lighten the mood, Ed started reading a few comments from the forums on my battle with the preventers in Kinema, but my comm interrupted: Rita Wood was calling me. Glancing at the boys, I switched the speaker to internal audio and answered:

“Hey, Rita!”

“Hey, Overweight!” the guys shouted in chorus and laughed.

“Hi, Alex,” the girl nodded, smiling shyly. “Hi, Alex’s idiot friends. How’s it going? I remember you said there’s lots of interesting stuff happening in Dis… I read the news, I imagine you’re real busy. I’m already thinking of the best ways to manage the clan’s trading operations…” She was silent a moment, then spilled out: “But Karina is getting on my nerves!”

“Um… Karina?” I didn’t remember who she meant right away.

“Goosebumps, remember? We flew to Glastonbury together!”

“Oh, right, yeah. Of course I remember her. What about her..?”

“Listen, Sheppard,” Rita spoke quickly, as if she wanted to get it all over and done with, “between us, the girl is crazy about you and wants to go out with you. I explained to her that you have a girlfriend, but she doesn’t want to hear it!”

“Why doesn’t she call me herself?”

“Well that’s the point. She’s shy and she’s been begging me to invite you out somewhere and then not turn up myself. So you two end up alone. I don’t like that idea, and I’m sure you know why. But she managed to make me promise, so here I am…” Rita frowned and took a deep breath. “That’s why I’m calling.”

She lowered her eyes and I thought for a moment. I didn’t plan on going out with Karina, but I was flattered. And… Well, Tissa was far away, and after she left without even saying goodbye… Maybe those thoughts showed on my face. Rita spoke up again.

“Alex?”

“Yeah, yeah… I was just thinking… Do you want me to say yes?”

“Honestly? No. But…”

“Then tell her I’ll call when I have time.” I remembered that the whole clan was waiting for Overweight to get into big Dis, and mechanically asked: “She still in the sandbox?”

“You mean, is she sixteen yet or not?” Rita asked, pouting. “Yeah, at the start of the year. Karina Rasmussen is officially of age.

“What about you?”

“My birthday is on April twenty-fifth, Alex. Alright, I’ll give Goosebumps your answer. Bye bye!”

“Wait! We…”

She was gone. My friends giggled quietly. I had no plans to go out with Karina, I’d meant roughly the following: When I get time, I’ll call her and we’ll talk, but that doesn’t mean we’ll go out, since I still don’t know what’s happening with Tissa yet. And anyway, I’d rather go out with you. But Rita interpreted things her own way. And got upset, it seemed.

“Don’t call her now,” Hung advised, seeing me looking at my comm. “Give her time to cool down.”

I listened to my friend’s advice.

When the flyer landed, Ed waved.

“See you soon.”

I nodded, said goodbye to my friends. At home I threw down my bag and sat at the table, ready to have a quick bite to eat before my long immersion. While mom heated up the food, I told her the latest news from school.

“Where’s dad?”

“At the bank,” mom answered shortly.

At first, I hadn’t noticed that it was unusually quiet at home. Mom was quiet, always biting her lips and answering in clipped phrases. When she put a plate of pasta salad in front of me, the crockery rattled. Only then did I realize her hands were shaking.

I figured mom and dad had probably argued again. I sighed and started eating. I hurried, swallowing it down almost without chewing so I could get back to Dis quicker. Dad came in a short while later, said nothing, sat at the table and sighed heavily. He always did that when he wanted to say something important, but I started first.

“Hey, dad. Everything’s fine in the school, and in the game too. I have big plans for today…”

“Alex,” dad interrupted me. “We have a problem. They rejected the money transfer.”

My hand froze with a fork full of pasta halfway to my mouth.

“I don’t get it. Is the money in your account?”

“Yeah, no problems there. But it’s frozen. Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else can withdraw it from the account until you complete your citizenship tests.”

“Three days, Mark!” mom gasped. “Actually, it’s two now! The day after tomorrow is the last deadline for settling with the customer out of court! You said it was just a misunderstanding, that you could handle it!”

“Wait, mom, don’t panic…” I put a hand on hers. “Tell me from the beginning, dad. The money is in my account, and although it’s special, meaning anyone can take money out of it if they know the number and passcode, it has limitations too, right?”

Dad thought over what I’d said, then nodded hesitatingly.

“Then come on, dad, get into your capsule. Are you in Darant?”

“Yeah, got there yesterday.”

“Perfect. We’ll meet by the bank and I’ll give you gold. And a couple of unidentified legendaries for you to sell yourself. Then you can withdraw the money like we planned.”

“Oh, son, as long as nobody else puts a spanner in the works again,” dad sighed loudly. “But let’s try it. Just give me five minutes to get a bite to eat…”

While dad ate, I went to my room and took a look at Tissa’s social media. In the most recent photo, she was hugging a guy that looked familiar. That damn Liam! Nephew to Elizabeth, the head of the White Amazons, the one that was flirting with my girlfriend at Distival. It felt like an age ago, but it had only been a week. Liam stood holding Tissa and looking at the camera. She was looking at him. Looking at him and smiling like she used to smile at me.

My heart felt like it was splitting. I suddenly felt empty, as if there was a big hole in my chest.

I scrolled through the feed. Most of the shots were ordinary and showed Tissa standing in front of some local landmark or other, but I really didn’t like the look of one of them. The one where Tissa was sitting at a table with an unfamiliar girl and Liam. An apparently ordinary scene, except that Liam and Tissa were holding hands.

I’d pulled my comm off my wrist and was clenching it hard in my fist. I pulled back my arm to throw it against the wall… But changed my mind. I took a deep breath and slowly breathed out, like Uncle Nick had taught me, then called Tissa. It was best to ask instead of coming up with stuff myself. As long as I didn’t say too much. Jealousy is toxic, my uncle told me. It blinds you and kills everything good. True, those words had been for dad, not for me, but I’d heard them.

“Hey,” Tissa said. I saw the calm waters of the Indian Ocean behind her. The girl was in a bathing suit, with wet hair. “How’s it going?”

“Hey! I’m good, so are the boys. How are you?”

“Oh, I’m doing just great!”

A volleyball flew past her and someone shouted “Tissa! We’re waiting!” She laughed and shouted back that she’d be done in a minute.

“Babe, they’re waiting for me. Is something wrong?”

“No… yes. Listen, I was just looking at your page, and… I saw a photo with Liam. Tell me… are you still my girlfriend?”

I waited, hoping for her to say yes, of course, for her to laugh and tease me for being jealous. Then I could calmly log into Dis…

The door to my room opened. Dad appeared in the doorway.

“Alex, I’m heading into Dis.”

I nodded to him and looked at Tissa again. She bit her lip, glanced back furtively. Then she answered:

“Alex… I didn’t want to say anything to you, because I’m not even sure what’s going on. You have to understand me!”

“I understand.”

“You’re far away, Alex, and I have a new life here… I miss you, I really do! But you have to understand…”

“Just answer the question.”

“Yes, I’m still your girlfriend,” she blurted out. “There’s nothing between me and Liam. He’s cute, fun, kind… But I… I…”

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you too! But… ugh, Nether!” Tissa started walking along the shore. Surprised shouts followed her, but she paid no attention. “I didn’t know how to tell you this, but I… I want us to take a break. I need time to figure things out.”

“A break? How does that work?”

“We live our own lives,” Tissa said in apologetic tones. “Each to our own. You live your life, I live mine. I’m flying in to visit dad before the citizenship tests, we can meet then and figure it all out. But for now…”

“We’re no longer a couple?”

“Yes, Alex…” she said sadly, not looking at me. “Don’t worry about your secrets. I’m not a fool.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about…”

“I have to go now,” Tissa cut me off sharply. “Bye!”

Now the hole in my chest felt as big as the Lakharian Desert. I knew this ‘break’ was just an excuse. Just a way not to end things too painfully and permanently. But all the same, I believed this was temporary, that we’d talk when Tissa came home and everything would work itself out. And if anyone said Alex Sheppard was a naive idiot, I would have agreed. It just made things easier for me.

I felt an urge to go and pack my things and fly out to Tissa. While part of my brain feverishly thought of how to get to the high-citizenship-category private island, another part of it made me mechanically undress, climb into my capsule and log into Dis.

I realized why Hung had been torturing Malik as soon as I got into the game. He’d become a Threat, and couldn’t talk about it.

* * *

Digging through the clan vault got me a few legendaries that Crawler considered superfluous from the ones that dropped back in the Treasury. We couldn’t sell what I’d taken from the preventers; that would expose dad. After explaining the situation to the guys and asking them to wait, I jumped to Darant, giving myself the name Sheppard. I had to take my disguise from one of the workers who was still human. In the meantime, my friends furiously discussed Bomber’s new status.

After a moment’s thought, I decided not to touch the account at the goblin bank. I gave dad two million of what was left over from the auction, along with the legendaries I’d taken, the last of the loot from the Treasury. Incidentally, dad had gotten a less than common class.

Glexen, Human, level 10 Crossbowman

“Good luck, son,” he said as we said goodbye.

We hugged. Without further delay, I left him to take care of withdrawing the money while I jumped to Gyula, to the construction site of the Stronghold of the Destroying Plague… where I found myself in the thick of battle.

When the builder saw me, he rushed to meet me. His feet sank into the sand, but his leveling had done him good; he moved with far more confidence than when he was at level one.

“You’re just in time, commander!” he shouted into my ear over the sound of the battle.

As it turned out, a rare mob had passed by the build site, the gigantic Neratakon, a Sand Golem at level five hundred and sixty.

Flaygray, Nega, Anf and Ripta saw me and broke into triumphant cries and chirrups. They were having a rough time of it. Whether it was the rare itself or our guys being careless, we’d somehow also caught aggro from three packs of vultures and one daring morten. The birds tore through my undead like paper, and our tank Sharkon was below thirty percent health. Crash was dashing to and fro, but even his diamond drill couldn’t hurt the golem’s flesh — the little worm was still too young.

I quickly got my bearings and regrouped my troops. Then I sent my surviving but diminished squadron of minions to attack the vultures and the morten. I sent Iggy and Storm with them, and then I pushed my way into the battle against the rare.

My legendary shield, Sharkon’s Mane, flew in a wide arc, bouncing off mobs, while I fired off a Combo series at the golem’s leg. This was the first combat test for Cold-Blooded Punisher and Reaper’s Scythes!

I was dealing insane damage. Sand and stone flew off the beast as if struck by a sledgehammer. The golem’s leg broke and the boss fell onto its side under its own weight. The golem was losing health as if it wasn’t over double my level.

In that same instant, I took unconditional leadership of its aggro meter — the boss stopped striking Sharkon with its ton-weight hands and switched to me. A colossal room-sized fist descended on me from above, breaking my bones and spine. I was simply squashed. I survived only thanks to Diamond Skin of Justice activating. The boss’s health fell by twenty percent from its own strike.

The icons of my undead minions turned red in the interface. Some of the icons covered up with skulls, but the surviving zombies successfully zerged the vultures. With a few words to Azmodan’s ass and Belial’s cock, Flaygray shot fireballs and burned vultures with Conflagration, but magic was useless against the golem. The other guardians, as melee fighters, took part in the fight carefully, fulfilling my order not to get into danger unless absolutely necessary.

Dropping to my knee, I met the rare’s fist again as it came down, this time with a Hammerfist of my own, strengthened with plague energy. The stone fist exploded into shards. As did the boss himself.

Neratakon the Sand Golem is dead.

The vultures were no trouble to finish off. Columns of light surrounded my allies; everyone leveled up, not just Gyula, but the guardians too. Nega was approaching level four hundred and the others weren’t far behind.

As for me, I didn’t quite reach my next level.

Experience: + 390,448 mil.

Experience at current level (256): 1.325 bil / 1.622 bil

You got Essence of Neratakon.

The rare was worth a lot of experience, but still not enough to level me up.

“Woah, how about that!” Gyula exclaimed. “Alex, I got an achievement! And leveled up to one hundred and twenty-five!”

Unlocked achievement First Kill: Neratakon the Sand Golem!

You are the first in the world to kill the local boss Neratakon the Sand Golem! The evil spirit Neratakon took over a sand golem and gained strength, but the merging of the two creatures demanded so much mana that Neratakon spent most of his life not moving. For many years, he gathered tiny particles of magical energy and saved them, to one day awaken and become the overlord of the desert. And then he met you…

Reward: Inert Reinforcement Stone.

Magnetism was already pulling loot into my inventory. I opened my bag and examined the spoils.

Essence of Neratakon

Legendary.

Essence.

Alchemy ingredient.

The wandering essence of an excarnate old god. Only a few alchemy ingredients like this have been discovered in all the history of Disgardium, but none know how they are used.

Sale price: 9,000 gold coins.

Chance of loss after death lowered by 100%.

Inert Reinforcement Stone

Legendary.

Building material.

The ancient craftsmen and stonemasons knew that if they used this stone in a building, no mortal could tear it down.

Sale price: 6,000 gold coins.

Chance of loss after death lowered by 100%.

Both crafting resources were intriguing. I needed to give the first to Crawler and the second to Gyula to use when he restored Behemoth’s temple. I headed for the builder to give him the legendary stone. A final notification loomed up before my eyes, covering my view…

All hail the hero!

Would you like to make your name public? Doing so will give +150 reputation with all the main global factions and +750 fame.

Automatically refusing to make my name public, I waved away the text… and then I remembered I wasn’t alone.

“Gyula, wait!” I shouted.

“What?” the builder raised his head, and then it happened…

All hail the heroes!

Gyula the demon hunter and a player who wishes to remain nameless have achieved a First Kill in the Scorched Earth area of the Lakharian Desert on Latteria, taking down the local boss Neratakon the Sand Golem!

People of Disgardium! Congratulations to Gyula and a player who wishes to remain nameless! All hail the heroes! Hail Gyula and a player who wishes to remain nameless!

God damn it, I thought. Then I had my own few words for Belial’s cock, Azmodan’s ass, for Gyula, and not to mention the idiot player who wished to remain nameless.

Myself.

* * *

After the unexpected battle with the rare mob Neratakon, I replenished my undead army to a full set of eighty zombies, with twenty zombie vultures, some of which retained the ability to fly. My dead valkyries! Unfortunately, I couldn’t raise the boss; Plague Reanimation didn’t work on golems.

Then I strengthened our defenses, distributed the undead along the perimeter, ordered the guardians to keep their eyes open and not to get drunk under any circumstances. If all went well, they’d be back in their beloved tavern by nightfall. Estimating how long it would take to finish building the stronghold, I returned to the fort and spoke to the guys.

“There’s no point in leveling up in the desert anymore. I just finished off a rare mob at level five hundred and sixty, didn’t even level me up. Who wants to try out Holdest?”

The boys were still discussing Bomber’s Threat status. They’d done the subject to death, it seemed, but they were still discussing it. So they paid no attention to what I said. They were too involved in the argument.

“No way, Bomb!” Infect shouted. “It doesn’t matter how much food you sacrifice, it’s about the rarity!”

I sat down at the table, ordered a coffee and decided to listen. The prevailing opinion was obvious; it was awesome to have another Threat in the clan, only so far nobody knew what to do with it. Build an altar to the beast god? Continue to bring it food and wait for a reputation jump? What food did it want? Was there a limit on the amount you could offer per day?

In the end, they decided that until the event ended, Bomb would continue to log into Dis in the mornings and feed the kraken. Especially since the summoning artifact’s cooldown was precisely one day. It didn’t say so explicitly, but they’d figured it out through experimentation. Maybe the cooldown went down as reputation with Orthokon went up.

“Doesn’t it seem strange to you that Orthokon sounds like Neratakon?” I asked.

My friends fell silent and looked at me, confused.

“What do you mean?” Crawler asked.

Only then did I realize that I hadn’t told them what had happened in the desert. I’d started to talk about it, but hadn’t been heard. I had to repeat myself.

“After Darant, I jumped over to Gyula to find out how things were going. They were fighting a boss, Neratakon. A golem the size of a skyscraper. Well, maybe not quite that big, but huge. Anyway, I finished it off, but I didn’t even gain a single level! So I suggest we use the Portal Key right now and start farming mobs on Holdest.

It was strange to look at Infect; today was a day of hard-hitting news for him. Hung had become a Threat and I’d bagged a First Kill almost accidentally.

“What did you get?” he asked, gulping nervously.

“Maybe this will console you.” I pulled the legendary essence out of my inventory. “Crawler, I think this is for you?”

As he read the alchemy ingredient’s description, the little dwarf’s eyes widened and he climbed onto the table. It still felt odd to see the former leader of the Dementors in such a small body. In real life, he was huge. Not as big as Hung, but just as tall. But here he was a dwarf.

“I don’t know where I can use it,” he muttered. “And I’ll be terrified of wasting it! I’ll make sure I don’t touch it until I reach rank three at least.”

Crawler ran to his private room to put the priceless ingredient in his chest, then we went outside — who knew how destructive the effect of the Portal Key might be? — and stood in a circle. I made sure all the guys were in my group, and Gyula the hero wasn’t. I took out the Portal Key and activated it.

Rings of light began to shoot out from us, speeding up as the cast progressed, and then began to zoom in the opposite direction, rose into the sky and…

We suddenly found ourselves on a snowy plain.

Then the notifications came. Before I even had a chance to look around the unexplored continent, I saw:

Unlocked achievement Pioneer!

You are the first players to set foot on the continent of Holdest, the most mysterious and obscure continent on the planet. A magnificent snowy desert, the coldest place in Disgardium, in the depths of which lies the South Pole. What awaits intelligent life on this continent? Unique environmental conditions that cannot be found anywhere else, unknown flora and fauna, deadly monsters and… who knows what else. Magnificent treasure? Lifeless wastelands? Death and oblivion?

Reward: title Pioneer, passive aura Pioneer (+300 feet to view radius, +10% to mounted movement speed).

While my friends’ shouts of glee echoed throughout the new land, I chuckled in amazement. I’d already visited the continent, or at least its depths, when I met the Nucleus of the Destroying Plague, but got no achievement for it. Maybe the system didn’t count the lair of the Nucleus as part of Holdest.

This in combination with the zones I’d discovered in the Lakharian Desert upgraded my Explorer achievement:

Attention! Achievement upgraded to Explorer 2!

Discover 5 zones where no other player has set foot before you.

Reward: +100 perception.

Scyth, you have the right to name this new zone!

You can keep the old name (Icy Shore) or come up with your own.

Nice name, I decided and left it as it was. Was I the only one who got that offer because I was the only cartographer? Or maybe it was only offered to the group leader?

“…!” Bomber suddenly swore. “Seriously?”

As we looked at the level two furry white rabbits, each of us mentally rattled off a few curses. Infect said what we were all thinking.

“Bullshit! Nether, that can’t be right! What is this, some kind of lottery?”

“Nah…” Crawler objected. “The continent is big. Remember, Latteria has low-level zones too, but it also has the Lakharian Desert. We just need to find a zone with bigger mobs.”

“Guys, we don’t have time to fly all over the continent,” I said. “And if the extrapolation…”

“What?” Bomber interrupted.

“The extrapolation…” I repeated. “Basically, I think Holdest probably has the same distribution of mobs as Latteria and Shad’Erung. If Snowstorm intended the undead as a full-fledged faction, and Holdest is their continent, then the mobs here will be from level one to five hundred plus. And there’s no point searching for level five hundreds when we have them close by in the desert. But let’s fly around, take a look…”

I summoned my dragon, and while Storm slowly landed, the beats of her mighty wings kicked up a small snowstorm. Bomber took out a couple of the nearby rabbits, looted them and showed me what he got:

“Snow Rabbit Meat! Scyth, you could invent a completely new dish! Or make money off unique ingredients!”

“He still has a bunch of resources from the desert mobs,” Infect muttered. “I’ve been carrying them around like an idiot…”

“What about the Portal Key?” Crawler asked, thoughtfully watching a level five Happy Penguin, furiously flapping its little flippers to get as far away from us as it could.

I glanced at my inventory and made sure I still had the Portal Key; it wasn’t a one-time-use thing.

“Safe and sound. Not soulbound, which means…”

“You can sell it!” Crawler ended the thought. “What do we need it for now? We all have Depths Teleportation; we can come back any time. We need to fly far away from here, so we don’t end up stepping on the buyer’s toes. Can you imagine how much we could get for it? A hundred million at least. We’ll buy our own island and live like Tissa…”

“Doubt it’ll be enough for an island, but we can put a hundred up as a starting price. Who knows how high it could go? If the Alliance clans pool their resources, they could stretch to half a bil!”

Smiling broadly, Crawler raised a hand and I automatically high-fived him, then Infect and Bomber. Everyone seemed to like the idea, but something was bothering me…

“Look, the preventers don’t know what’s here,” Crawler continued his thought. “They’ll think this is something like Meaz or Terrastera. But those are high-level continents, unlike Holdest. What do you say, Scyth?”

“I say we should mount up and take a look around.” I scratched the back of my neck. Some thought was disturbing me. I felt like I’d forgotten something, but what? Then I suddenly got it. “Wait! We can’t sell the portal key. You know why?”

“Why?” the boys asked all at once.

“Because there’s a place of power on Holdest! And you also forgot the First Kills. There’ll be a ton of undiscovered instances here. Are we just going to hand them to the preventers?”

As I spoke, I opened the map, marked Behemoth’s quest to build a second temple, which I hadn’t been credited with yet, and saw a yellow marker right in the middle of Holdest — a spot suitable for a temple to the Sleeping Gods.

“Look,” I took Crawler’s magic staff and began to draw a map of Dis in the snow. “Here’s Kharinza. Here’s the temple on Latteria. Here’s another free place of power in the Ursai Jungle on Shad’Erung. There’s another on Meaz, Terrastera and on the equator under the water in the Bottomless Ocean. The last one is here. On Holdest.”

“Is it far?” Crawler asked.

“We’re practically at the edge of Holdest. The place of power is right on the South Pole — it’ll take at least ten hours to fly there. If we try to do it now, we won’t have time for anything else.”

Eeeeee! a rabbit squealed as it died to a fireball from Crawler. The mage looted the floppy-eared corpse and shook a Rabbit’s Foot in front of us.

“An alchemy ingredient, guys!” he said, not hiding his excitement. “Maybe Scyth is right and we should keep this place for ourselves. Let’s take a look around?”

I nodded and mounted the dragon first. My friends mounted up behind me. We took off and I noticed that Storm was flapping her wings unusually slowly. What the hell?

Climbing with difficulty, the dragon roared, its body bent… I saw a blue skull appear beneath my mount’s icon:

Deadly Frost I

-50% health regeneration, mana, movement speed and vigor.

-5% health every hour.

“We have a problem, guys. My dragon has a frost debuff.”

“What..? How?” Crawler asked in confusion. “We flew fine in the desert!”

“This is strange…”

“It’ll take a week to get to the place of power on foot. Or two,” Infect said. “And that’s not counting battles.”

“Uh-huh. You guys keep an eye out, I’m going to check what’s up with my mount…”

I aimed Storm toward the South Pole and then went into the mount’s profile.

The mystery was easily solved: the dragon was a creature of the desert, so it could easily withstand the desert heat. But it was allergic to the cold, confirmed again by the debuff, which was increasing too fast:

Deadly Frost II

-75% health regeneration, mana, movement speed and vigor.

-10% health every hour.

It was as if we’d fallen into an air pocket. Storm roared, exhaled an electrical discharge that destroyed a snowdrift beneath us, and began to descend. His wings barely held us in the air.

“The preventers won’t find shit here,” Bomber muttered from behind me, wheezing. He was seated at the very back and barely held onto the mount. “At the most they’ll farm some rabbits and freeze their balls off. I doubt they’ll get further than the starter zone!”

The debuff got stronger and Storm began to fall through the air. I recalled the dragon a few feet from the surface so she didn’t die, so our group fell into the snow without a mount. A Snow Rabbit squeaked, squashed under the titan’s body.

I spat out some snow. “A hundred percent,” I agreed belatedly with Bomber. “Let’s sell the damn Portal Key.”

“Yep,” the dwarf said, tunneling his way out of the snow. “I have a feeling that trade will be the biggest scam Dis has ever seen.”

Chapter 19. Stronghold of the Destroying Plague

FOR A FEW HOURS I just ran around the desert, time after time collecting a long column of mobs and dragging it after me. Bomber, Infect and Crawler followed a little off to one side, always on their mechostriches.

I stopped now and again to let the mobs catch up and performed a now familiar routine; I threw my shield, and while it bounced among the mobs and strengthened my aggro, I hit the leading mob with a Combo. To my pleasant surprise, Reaper’s Scythes, technically fist weapons, harmonized just fine with Unarmed Combat, and I fought with the moves I was used to. The weapon didn’t care whose unspent life it swallowed, and it leveled up quickly; as it turned out, even non-intelligent mobs counted.

Reaper’s Scythes level 3

Soulbound to Scyth.

Divine.

Scalable.

Unique item.

Twin fist weapon.

Damage: 1668-2502.

Bonus damage: 500-750.

This weapon for harvesting impure souls was cast from celestial metal by the Reaper himself, one of the ancient and powerful gods. Its haft was made from the first branch of the Primordial Tree of Life.

The spirits sealed inside have kindled within the weapon its own intellect.

+10% chance to avoid deadly damage.

Special effect: The remainder of the life of those killed by this weapon is sealed within it and increases damage by 10% for every level of Reaper’s Scythes.

Sealed lives for next level: 18/300.

When I began to fight, the boys dismounted and attacked the mobs from afar to at least get on their aggro meter. We could have farmed experience separately, but I wanted to level them up as high as I could just in case I got eliminated. In spite of the experience penalties, the Awoken leveled up quicker with me.

At first Crash kept us company, but we soon left the Diamond Worm behind as we went beyond his territory. The swamp needlers Iggy, Whatchamacallit, Little Trunk and Alien had each managed to die, be resurrected and die again. We left the undead army and guardians at the construction site so they didn’t slow us down.

Our new grinding method worked great: Reflection alongside Plague Fury saved us a bunch of time. I made a train of several dozen mobs, then they killed themselves and ended in an explosion which, incidentally, didn’t affect undead, which meant it didn’t hurt the boys. After detonating Plague Fury, I finished off any survivors that remained and ran further along in an imagined spiral, getting further from the stronghold’s construction site with each turn.

We’d decided to level up with this most effective possible method until the stronghold was built. The point of it could be boiled down to this: collect as many mobs as possible, kill them, and repeat.

At first, to collect the packs faster, I ran on my mechostrich, but the mobs couldn’t catch me up. They fell behind and lost interest. So now I was running on my own two legs, and my friends followed along.

It didn’t always go smoothly; the strategy was pretty risky. Once, Infect and Bomber got hit by a Slash from a basilisk they caught aggro from. I understood Bomb going in to level up his warrior skills, but what was Infect doing so close? Memories of his roguish past getting the better of him? Anyway, the bard died, and the warrior’s legendary ring activated to prevent his death. It was a good thing we didn’t have to wait too long for Infect; he revived on Kharinza and teleported back to us. Another time, Crawler accidentally picked up a nearby pack and I was under a pile of monsters and couldn’t get out. Only Levitation saved him.

In the routine, I nearly missed the moment when I got an achievement upgrade.

Attention! Achievement upgraded to It is Too Good a Day to Die!

You have leveled up to 250 without dying once, and your name will once again go down in the history of Disgardium!

Reward: chance of Second Life passive skill activating increased to 50%.

The reward was useless for now — Second Life was good for when you died, which I didn’t have to worry about.

Unfortunately, we didn’t run into any rare mobs. Monotonous battles, flashes of shadows and notifications of new levels… Once the boys ran back to the fort to free up space in their bags, complaining about missing out on loot. I just dreamed of one day finding the time to level up my Cooking. I was slowly but surely leveling up Inscription, approaching rank one, at which I planned to try putting Plague Fury on scrolls…

“Another marker!” Infect shouted when we ran, dragging another train of mobs behind us. “Can I check it out, Scyth?”

That was the third archaeological marker that had appeared on his map that day. They popped up when an archaeologist was nearby. We skipped the first two so as not to waste time. The markers covered an area around a quarter of a mile squared, inside which archaeologists had a chance of finding something.

Excavation in Dis worked like this: Infect took out a shovel and started ‘digging’ in a marked spot. Ninety-nine percent of those actions led to the system giving the archaeologist the finger, and then he had to dig in another spot — an arrow appeared to point out where. Infect ‘dug’ again, spending roughly five minutes each cast. From the outside, it looked like when Gyula was taking apart the ruins of Behemoth’s temple.

Long story short, digging took time. But I wanted to somehow help Malik feel better.

“Sure thing, our archaeologist bard! Once we’ve taken out these mobs, get digging. The rest of us will take a break…”

A quarter of an hour later, Infect was digging, first boosting his trade with my Incredibly Tasty Cheesy Vulture Egg Omelet. Four attempts ended with nothing. When Bomber began to grumble that we were wasting time, we heard Infect’s voice through our comm amulets.

“Got it!”

Bomb, immediately forgetting that a minute ago he’d been whining and trying to convince everyone that their friend wouldn’t find a damn thing, was the first to run to Infect at full speed as he stood at the foot of a neighboring dune. The archaeologist was jumping around and waving to us, dancing a jig, and then he took out his guitar and played a rousing tune, aggroing a Sand Worm. Crawler and I exchanged smiles and ran to save Infect. His eyes widening, he rushed toward us. Bomber froze, stuck out his chest and prepared to take the aggro, knowing that we couldn’t let Infect die a second time that day, but my shield flew past him and the worm rapidly changed its priorities. It didn’t last long; it tried to swallow me up and the harder it clenched its jaw, the faster it died.

Infect had dug out the entrance to an instance. The shimmering veil of a portal stretched across a narrow stony passageway half-filled with sand. Standing in front of each other, the three former Dementors shouted at the top of their lungs.

“I-i-instance!”

“I-i-i-instance!”

“Yesss!”

I joined them, of course. We’d decided before that there were no dungeons in the Lakharian Desert, but Infect had just proved that theory wrong and was now reveling in the love he got for it. We hugged the poor guy so hard that I thought we broke his ribs at one point. When our excitement subsided a little, I approached the entrance, pushed away some of the sand and found a stone tablet. Touching it brought up a name:

Lost Sanctuary of Lavack

Raid dungeon.

Recommended completion level: 500.

Attention! Lavack’s Heart required to enter dungeon.

My sigh of disappointment was so loud that the boys took notice at once.

“Something wrong?” Infect approached, suspecting something was amiss. He touched the tablet. “Nether! We need a key! And level five hundred!”

“Five hundred is recommended,” I said. “But I think we could complete it. Shame we don’t have the key.”

“Where can we find it?” Infect asked, at a loss. He looked so upset. If the undead could cry, we’d have seen it then.

“Who knows, Infect, buddy. Who knows…”

* * *

It’s done, Gyula’s message came at the very height of a battle.

Finally! This time I didn’t bother detonating Plague Fury. I just stood like a training dummy and waited for Reflection to kill the mobs. I didn’t even strike with my fists — what was the point if Unarmed Combat was at the cap and Reaper’s Scythes would reap their harvest anyway? The damage the mobs dealt themselves was considered mine, after all.

The last left alive was a Hermit at level five hundred and three, cousin to my pet Toothy. The tiger-sized mix of a cat and stingray leapt behind me and tore into my back with its nightmarish claws. The damage bounced back and ended the beast.

My friends approached the heap of corpses around me. They were surprised that I was standing still instead of running on to pick up more mobs.

“Everything alright, Scyth?” Infect asked.

I checked their levels: they were all over two hundred. Crawler the dwarf mage had a small lead thanks to the boost he got after his first character, Nagual, was eliminated. Then I marveled at the coincidence; Gyula finished building the stronghold precisely when I reached level three hundred.

“The stronghold is ready. Let’s go see Gyula, then to the fort…”

The builder and guardians were waiting for me by the foot of their new structure. The Stronghold of the Destroying Plague was reminiscent of the ziggurats that Shazz the lich had built on Kharinza, only it was three times as high. The monolithic black building with its multicolored veins almost seemed to breathe, but it was an illusion; the fort wasn’t active yet, so the gigantic portal archway was empty inside. Broad steps led up to the stronghold from all four sides. I imagined groaning hordes of undead roaming down them, and for an instant I was overwhelmed with a sense of triumph — not mine, but a feeling inflicted on me.

The boys shook their heads and stared at the stronghold, but didn’t go up. I redistributed the groups of minions and gave my friends a squadron of vultures, then headed for the stronghold.

When they saw me, the guardians climbed the stairs. Gyula stayed seated. He seemed to be daydreaming.

“Are we done here, boss?” Nega asked in a bored voice, wrinkling her nose. “I want to go home.”

Anf chittered, Ripta translated and added a word or two of his own, and then Flaygray translated that.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, boss? None of our business, of course, but I wouldn’t like to live in a world where everyone is like us.”

“I can’t feel anything, Scyth,” Nega pouted. “Anything at all, if you catch my drift.”

“Just a little longer. Be patient.” I raised my comm amulet to my mouth and spoke. “Guys, someone send the guardians to the fort.”

“Copy that, Scyth,” Bomber answered.

Uplifted, the guardians ran down, leaving me alone with the builder.

“Gyula,” I touched his shoulder. “How are you?”

Although I was annoyed at him for his vanity or idiocy, I knew that nothing terrible had happened; all information about him was hidden, just like with us and the boys, and all the workers on Kharinza. We avoided Fame because we were known from the Arena. Scyth, Tissa, Crawler, Infect and Bomber were winners of the Junior Arena! If those names showed up in a global First Kill notification, people would recognize us right away. After all, everyone knew our real names. As for Gyula… There were plenty of Gyulas in the world.

“I’m tired,” the builder complained, wiping his eyes with calloused hands. “Did I do it in time?”

“You did, friend. Thanks.”

“You need to Finish Construction. I can’t do it; the button is inactive. The stronghold control panel is inside. These last few days really took it out of me, Alex. If you don’t need me anymore, I’m going to rest.”

“I really do need you, but not right now. Rest. If I’m right, then tomorrow there won’t be any undead left on Kharinza. So I want you to rest up as well as you can, get a good night’s sleep, and tomorrow, start restoring Behemoth’s temple. Is there a way to speed up the process?”

“It won’t take long anyway,” the builder answered, yawning. “I just need the materials.”

“Oh, by the way…” I handed him the Inert Reinforcement Stone. “Try it out and tell me what it does. As for materials… Can Manny and his crew help?”

“Yeah…” Gyula hesitated. “Only the thing is, Almeida ain’t much help right now.”

“What’s up with Manuel?”

“He’s helping his brother’s family. Hank, I think you know him. Anyway, he got sick, went cuckoo… They took him away.”

Hank had controlled the boss in the Tristad City Jail instance, and then he wanted to hand me over to the preventers, but changed his mind when he learned that I’d stood up for his brother Manny against Crag. It was all so long ago!

It was strange that Manny’s brother never joined the ranks of the adepts of the Sleepers. It would definitely have made him more money than playing a weak boss in a dungeon.

“Went cuckoo? How’s that? What’s up with him?”

“With Hank? Who the hell knows. I told ya, they took him away.”

“In an ambulance?”

“Haha, nah. Ambulances don’t come to our districts. I didn’t see it myself, but people say they saw a Snowstorm flyer. Hank hasn’t been himself lately. Nobody knows what he’s been doing in Dis. Manny keeps quiet about it, claims to know nothing. But his brother’s mind went west, he started to get his worlds mixed up. They say he was standing by a wall for hours, rocking back and forth, trying to grab something out of the air. He thought his wife was someone else, grabbed a sword and started waving it at her! She ran off, but he stood for a long time after in the corridor, fighting someone invisible. Apparently he even won,” Gyula laughed bitterly.

No roaring success, then, the corporation’s experiments. Trixie had changed careers just in time. The little man once also controlled a minotaur in that same dungeon, after all.

“Had any more cases like that in your district?”

“Not like that, nah. But things really are bad. And I don’t mean just our guys. It’s been happening since the start of the year; people are dropping like flies. Two neighboring families caught the Doom virus. Even the kids. Thank the Sleepers it didn’t touch us. Then my old buddy Louis died right in his capsule. IDE, they say. Instant Death Effect. Seraphim, Abdul, Pietro,” the builder started counting on his fingers. “And all this year. And it hasn’t even been four months yet!”

“They died in their capsules? Were they all working in Dis?”

“Some in their capsules, some not. But they all worked here, yeah.”

“Miners?”

“Pretty much, yeah… Wait.” Gyula lowered his head, chewed his lip. “Not sure about the others, but Seraphim passed on last summer. Louis bought it at around the same time, although he worked on a farm…”

The builder fell into gloomy reminiscing. A high death rate among non-citizens was no shock, but if even Gyula was worried…

“What about our guys? Especially the ones like you, who turned undead? They aren’t sick anymore?”

“They got better once you told them not to log into Dis. You know, I spend most of my time here anyway, I don’t hear all the news. Alright, I gotta go.”

“Wait. Let’s jump to the fort, you can log out there.”

It took less than a minute for me to activate the portal. I completed the check, confirmed my status as a Legate of the Destroying Plague, and pulled an imaginary lever. The stronghold shook. Dull crunching noises came from somewhere beneath the foundations.

I ran out of the structure. The sand around the stronghold blackened and was instantly covered with thick slime, turning into the same sticky soot I’d seen next to the fort in Shazz’s camp.

Crawler and Infect ran away from the structure in shock. Everything around seemed to die at once, even the air. The plague portal sucked in life itself. The shaking strengthened.

A couple of vultures got caught in the plague slime as it spread, and fell down lifeless. Their bodies seemed to melt, to flow into the earth, leaving only the birds’ skeletons, but then the slime swallowed up even the bones.

Destroying Plague quest complete: Stronghold of the Destroying Plague.

You managed to build a stronghold on the continent of Latteria and raised a Large Plague Portal. This will unlock the path to legions of undead to areas of Disgardium inhabited by intelligent creatures.

Report your success to the Nucleus of the Destroying Plague to claim your rewards:

— 200,000,000 experience

— +1000 reputation with Destroying Plague faction

— +500 reputation with Cursed Lich Shazz

— Legate’s Crown, an item of the legendary Destroying Plague equipment set

— Abilities: Subjugate Mind, Plague Boost

Gyula and I ran to the boys. Infect activated Depths Teleportation, and a few beats of our dead hearts later, we found ourselves on Kharinza.

The first thing I saw in the dusk was a column of green light firing up into the sky from the direction of Shazz’s camp. Short flashes of lightning sprang from it, branching off and lancing into the earth.

We watched from the entrance to the Pig and Whistle. Suddenly, the door flew open and Bomber ran out.

“Holy shit!” he said, looking at the column. “Is that because of the stronghold?”

They were all looking at me.

“Looks like it,” I said. “It’s all starting. No going back now. Well, time to get moving…”

“What about us?” Crawler asked.

“Stick to the plan. Run around Holdest and look for dungeons. Collect everything you get as you go along. We’ll deal with it later.”

“You don’t mind if we grab some minions and take a stroll near that instance we found? I have some ideas about where that key might be.”

“Sure thing. What ideas?”

“Well, here’s what I think. Just today, we saw two more dig sites. Remember in the sandbox, to get into that ogre raid instance Goro Gorge, first you had to complete the Gnoll Quarry? The key dropped from the last boss…”

“You think you’ll find another instance?”

“Who knows, Scyth, buddy, who knows…” the dwarf smiled, quoting me. “In any case, we need to check out those dig sites. Then we’ll head to Holdest. If we find an instance there, we’ll call you.”

For understandable reasons, my friends wouldn’t be able to help me on the battlefield. After all, I could take on the guise of someone else or hide myself with Cloak Essence, but they couldn’t. And they wouldn’t have been able to do much anyway. Better that they lay the foundation of the clan’s financial success and our future. That would make me feel calmer.

“Come here.” Smiling, Bomber pulled me into a hug. “Kick the crap out of ‘em! I guess you’re not going to school tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I spoke to Mr. Kovacs. A note from my parents helped. I’m free from lessons until the end of the week.”

“Good luck, Scyth,” Infect said, and joined in our hug. “We’re keeping our fingers crossed for you.”

“Come on, guys. Not like I’m going to war…”

“Yes you are, bro,” Bomber chuckled.

“Alright, enough crying,” Crawler said, holding out his fist to me. “Are you sure you wanna do this without us?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I can hide, you can’t. Don’t waste any time. The whole clan is relying on you.”

“Have you had time to think about the workers?”

“Yeah. We’re going to bring them into the clan, sign new contracts… Well, that’s all up to you.”

“The hardest parts, as usual. While you have all the fun!”

“Yep. I left myself all the easy stuff — all I gotta do is defend the temple from all Dis’s top players…”

Leaving my friends, I summoned Storm and flew to the undead camp, which extended out several miles now. That meant the lich was far from the fort. My internal timer was counting out the final hours before the invasion of the forces of Light, and I still had so much to do.

Guided by the shrieking cries of Banshee Lieutenants, Shazz’s walking dead and nightmarish cadavers were forming up. But it wasn’t the sheer numbers of undead that surprised me. Close to the jungle, the colossal figure of a monster towered above a gigantic pit. Even the Montosaurus would have looked like an overgrown lizard next to it. It was a massive skeleton with scraps of flesh hanging off it here and there. Each of its ribs could have covered up a whole fort. It had four pairs of column-like legs, a massive torso and an elongated crocodile’s skull — the monster looked like the Empire’s AT-AT walkers from Star Wars.

I flew around the massive beast, stunned by its size and power:

Deznafar, Battle Avatar of the Departed, level 750

Undead

Shazz’s minion

Deznafar paid me no attention whatsoever. I counted nine eyes in its skull in total; three on each side, two in front and one on the back of its head. Streams of dead plague energy flowed from a ziggurat, feeding the battle avatar of the Departed. I aimed Storm toward the lich, whose piercing gaze I could feel even on my back.

Landing and dismounting my dragon, I greeted Shazz.

“Life is death, Legate.”

“There is no death in service to the Destroying Plague,” the lich raised his three middle fingers, bony and sharp. Each was wreathed with a band or signet ring.

“I finished the quest of the Nucleus. I’ve opened up a Large Plague Portal in the Lakharian Desert on Latteria. There are no intelligent creatures there yet, and you’ll have time to gain strength, although Nergal the Radiant’s hordes are due to attack this time tomorrow. That’s the god of light…”

“I know who Nergal is,” Shazz spat, his jaw clicking in vexation. “The deed you have done is a momentous contribution to the might of the Destroying Plague, Legate! We should inform the Nucleus at once. I must initiate the excarnation process, and then we will leave. Now that the way is open, none can stop us!”

The lich flew a dozen feet into the air and extended his arms toward Deznafar. The streams of plague energy stopped. The flesh began to fall from the monster, and the skeleton began to collapse.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

“Deznafar will not pass through the portal. My minions will carry his remains, and on the other side I will awaken him anew. It is done. The process is begun. Follow me, Legate!”

I dismissed Storm and followed the lich. As I looked at the hundreds of high-level mobs, without a single simple skeleton or zombie among them, I couldn’t help but feel pride. Shazz’s legion was filled with nightmarish beasts, each at least level five hundred.

Bone Golems, Bone Hounds and flying Bone Gargoyles clattered around. Plague Belchers like gigantic dead sunflowers spat their pestilential pollen. Meat Collectors, Baleful Zombies, Fetid Corpse-Eaters and Plague Spitters awaited orders, swaying rhythmically. The front line was made up of Foul Queases, Sickening Rotters, and the lean and sharp Starving Corpses. Scavengers and Destroyer Worms covered the flanks. The horde had it all; tanks, fighters, aerial assault units, artillery with area-of-effect attacks, and looters to collect source material for replenishing the ranks. When Deznafar joined the army, then as long as it had a steady stream of fresh corpses, it could march all the way to Darant.

My undead army would have looked humble next to this. But they, and I, and these terrible soldiers of Shazz, and the lich himself — we were all the Destroying Plague.

“Life is death, Legate,” I heard just before we walked into the portal.

“But there is no death in service to the Destroying Plague.”

“Yes,” Shazz agreed. He touched me with a bony hand and spoke excitedly, as if to a friend: “Let us go, he who speaks to the Nucleus! It has waited long enough.”

I had never heard anything but cold indifference in the lich’s voice. This time, I heard a thrill.

Chapter 20. Puppet

THE SPACIOUS CAVE in which the Nucleus was based had come alive. Time or the stronghold had increased its strength, and venomous green veins ran all along its surface. They pulsated, carrying plague energy in its concentrated form.

The walls and floor hummed and snapped like high-voltage power lines in the wind. I heard a grinding noise, the same as the noises from beneath the stronghold.

Shazz and I walked as equals into the lair of the Nucleus. And although I hadn’t yet handed in the quest, and the lich’s relationship to me was the same as before, he treated me far better than usual; he completely filled up my plague reservoir and even dryly shared his story. Once, thousands of years ago, there lived a talented mage, an elvish youth by the name of Shazzdari. He took an interest in dark energy and went farther in his experiments than was allowed; he began to practice necromancy, gaining power and immortality but becoming an outcast. He couldn’t be killed, so he was placed in anti-magic chains and banished to the ocean floor, where he spent an entire era losing his mind until the Nucleus finally sensed and summoned him. Shazzdari joined the Destroying Plague and became Shazz.

“Greetings, Legate!” the voice of the Nucleus in my head was just as passionless as ever, but now somehow far stronger. “You did it. The Stronghold you erected has multiplied our power!”

“Yes, my lord.” I stubbornly pushed away thoughts of Behemoth, filling my head with thoughts of the magnificence of the Destroying Plague. “The stronghold in the Lakharian Desert is built. The mortals currently have no way to reach it, but tomorrow, they will gain immunity from the heat. The strongest warriors of Disgardium known to Nergal…”

“What the Legate knows, the Nucleus knows also. Legate Shazz, you know what to do…”

The voice quietened. To an outsider, it might have looked like Shazz froze still, but actually, he and the Nucleus were having a discussion I couldn’t hear. It lasted several seconds, after which the lich unfroze and feverishly hissed:

“By your will, ruler!”

Without saying goodbye to me, Shazz floated through the air toward the portal. The Nucleus switched to me.

“Approach, my Legate.”

I walked to the edge of the pool at whose center the Nucleus loomed, and stopped. Already prepared for what would happen, I wasn’t surprised when the tarry tentacles shot from the water’s surface. This time they seemed thicker and more solid than back when I first saw the Nucleus.

Without resisting, I allowed the tentacles to drag me into the pool of slime. The substance immediately filled my mouth and nose, sank into my skin — I felt myself becoming a part of it, first of the pool, then of the entire Destroying Plague itself. I saw pestilential veins stretched out in millions of tentacles all over the lair; up, down, side to side. I saw how they all joined in a central mass and poured into and out of the Nucleus. I saw a vein of great thickness — invisible, but there — stretching across the ocean to the Lakharian Desert, and from there energy streamed back, feeding the Nucleus, and the whole Destroying Plague with it.

Destroying Plague quest complete: Stronghold of the Destroying Plague.

Rewards:

— Abilities: Subjugate Mind, Plague Boost

Experience: +200 mil.

Experience at current level (300): 1.947 bil / 3.876 bil

Your reputation with the Destroying Plague faction has increased: +1000.

Current reputation: trust.

Your reputation with Cursed Lich Shazz has increased: +500.

Current reputation: friendship.

Unlocked ability: Subjugate Mind!

Subjugate Mind, level 1

You can bend the mind of any intelligent creature to your will. However, the greater their superiority over you, the greater the chance that they will resist your control attempt. Does not influence creatures without sentience or free will.

Cost to use: 1000 Plague Energy per target level per minute.

Unlocked ability: Plague Boost!

Plague Boost, level 1

There is no death in service to the Destroying Plague! When any of the legate’s minions are killed, they strengthen the rest of the party, giving them 10% of total experience gained.

A legate with Plague Boost absorbs 10% of the total experience gained by other legates that die if they are in the same zone.

Cost to use: this passive ability requires 1000 Plague Energy for each absorbed level from a destroyed minion or legate.

You received Legate’s Crown.

Legate’s Crown

Divine.

Helmet.

Armor: 12000.

+100% to plague reservoir volume.

+3 to all Destroying Plague ability levels.

Durability: indestructible.

Sale price: cannot be sold.

Chance of loss after death lowered by 100%.

Usable only if you have the Legate of the Destroying Plague title.

Threat rank increased! Current class: I.

My real heart, back on Earth in the year 2075, was beating out of my chest, driving hormone-enriched blood through my veins. Pepper the hamster fell to his knees and praised the Nucleus for its generosity.

It was silent for a long time, allowing me to examine my gifts. Then I heard a quiet and familiar voice in my head. I jumped.

Extend your right hand, Initial.

Something pricked my finger, went into my bloodstream. Behemoth. Terrible timing!

Now that I’d seen how the Nucleus rewarded its legates, I decided to give up the Sleeper and concentrate only on the Destroying Plague. I was becoming so strong by helping not only the Destroying Plague, but Snowstorm too! Why invite trouble with the Sleeping Gods? And Kiran said that the scenario for the ancient and cruel gods would lead to nothing good. Whereas this was fun: the rewards were better, and there were so many opportunities ahead, it took my breath away! We’d get to the Ursai Jungle and scoop up all the achievements — ordinary players there had no immunity, which meant there were tons of undiscovered instances! Then Holdest, and from there… I could make Yemi open us a way to Terrastera. As for Meaz, we could even sail there on our own if Bomber could tame the kraken. Although what the hell did I need Bomber for? He was dead weight, he and all the others. Like fleas riding the hound. Parasites. That was for sure. If they didn’t take up so much of my time, I’d be level five hundred by now! Level one thousand! My fate was bound to the Destroying Plague. It gave me all I had, and… I was sick of hiding. I wanted to tear through Latteria like the Ravager, not hiding my true form. To make those funny, pathetic little humans, gnomes, elves and bearded dwarfs bow to their true ruler! Hell, why not overthrow King Bastian the First himself and take his throne? Then the same with Emperor Kragosh…

Stop, Initial… Behemoth said threateningly. Or else…

Or else what? What will you do to me, little bug? I laughed soundlessly and…

…lost control of myself. The microscopic droplet of the Sleeping God hid itself somewhere within me, and my body took on a life of its own.

‘Scyth’ took off his Cold-Blooded Punisher gear, threw away the armor disc and triumphantly placed the Legate’s Crown on his head. Had he gone crazy? I tried to take control and at least pick up my armor, which was dropping like a stone to the bottom of the pool, but it didn’t work. I’d just lost a full (!) scalable (!) legendary (!) set! Just like that!

In desperation, I mentally called out to Behemoth, prayed for mercy, begged the Sleeper to cast out the idiotic invader from my body, but in vain. Apparently he’d decided to give me a lesson and removed my mental protection from the Destroying Plague, and I’d lost control.

Or was I wrong? Had I lost control of my character forever..?

In the meantime, a silent dialog took place between the idiot within me and the Nucleus. In spite of everything, I heard each word. It was like I was observing Scyth from the outside.

“Morena is with us,” Scyth reported. I heard myself, but it was someone else talking. The AI that had taken control of my character. Even the voice changed, got harder, rougher, just as emotionless as the lich. “Her intelligent minions will arrive at the fort tomorrow.”

“We will need bodies prepared by the Barrier to return our eliminated Legates. Infect them with the Destroying Plague and hand their control over to Shazz.”

“It will be done, my lord.”

“Gain Morena’s trust and lure her out of hiding. I will deal with her.”

“I bow before your treachery, ruler…”

“Do not presume to flatter me, Legate.” The Nucleus said in a grimacing voice. “We will need more people like you. Select the strongest intelligent creatures and transform them also.”

“Your will, my lord.”

“You do not have enough strength to carry out my plans. Take my gift, Legate…”

The substance around me thickened and myriad fine wisps shot out of it, piercing into Scyth’s body. Lines flashed by, informing me that my abilities had leveled up, but they disappeared too fast for me to read. The AI that had taken over my character didn’t need to pay attention to system notifications. The damn thing was part of the system itself.

I focused on the logs and brought the notifications back:

Plague Pestilence ability leveled up: +1. Current level: 5.

Infects living players and NPC characters with the Destroying Plague. After death, the infected rise from the dead and obey the infecter. The Nucleus of the Destroying Plague may consider an intelligent creature raised from the dead worthy of the rank of Legate, in which case control over it is given to the Nucleus.

Only works through physically touching the victim.

Cost to use: 10,000 Plague Energy.

Infecting players! This was what would really kick off the scenario to unlock a new race and faction in Dis! I switched to the second system message:

Plague Reanimation ability leveled up: +2. Current level: 10.

There is no death in service to the Destroying Plague! You can now breathe unlife into dead players. Raised skeletons and zombies become part of the Destroying Plague and serve the Legate or the Nucleus directly if it so decides.

Chance of saving skills and combat abilities possessed in life: 10% for NPCs, 100% for players.

Limitations: up to 100 servants at the current ability level.

Cost to use: 1000 Plague Energy plus 1000 per day to maintain reanimation for NPCs; 10,000 Plague Energy (for players).

It was clear these abilities were also designed to drive the new scenario forward.

The Nucleus continued to whisper of our coming glory, and Scyth kept answering like a house robot programmed by an owner with delusions of grandeur: “Your will,” “It will be done,” “Your wish is my command, ruler,” after which the tentacles of tar pulled my character from the pool.

While he mechanically moved his feet toward the portal, I had time to familiarize myself with the new quest from the Nucleus:

More Legates!

The Nucleus of the Destroying Plague demands more Legates to lead its legions of undead. Identify the 9 strongest intelligent creatures of Disgardium and turn them undead.

Rewards:

— 90 billion experience

— +2000 reputation with Destroying Plague faction

— Legate’s Staff, part of the legendary Destroying Plague equipment set

— abilities: Plague Selection, Plague Crossing.

I read the list of rewards for the Nucleus’s next quest when I was on the other side. The naked Scyth in his idiotic crown stood like a statue in Kharinza’s mine. I moved my fingers, my arms, jumped; I’d gotten control of my character back.

Take me to the place of power, Initial! Behemoth’s fierce voice resounded in my head. It is time we had a heart-to-heart.

Sure, one sec, I answered and walked back into the portal to find and get back my lost Cold-Blooded Punisher armor.

The veil wouldn’t give way. I was just pushed back. It seemed the Nucleus didn’t want to see me until I completed its new quest. Fine, if it won’t let me through the door, I’ll go through the window, I decided, and activated Depths Teleportation.

The Nucleus’s lair wasn’t in the list of available zones…

I climbed out of the mine, exchanging greetings with miners I met along the way, but in spite of Behemoth’s wishes, I didn’t go to his temple ruins, but to Shazz.

As I passed through his camp, I watched as columns of the undead disappeared into a portal. The banshee lieutenants drove the lich’s minions with sharp shrieks like the crack of whips, while the lich himself floated above them and watched intently as if counting his flock. The whole fort was gathered to see the dead troops depart; the people pressed up against the barrier wide-eyed.

“We need to talk, legate.”

Shazz nodded, descended to me and greeted me as if we hadn’t parted ways only half an hour prior.

“Life is death. Speak, Legate Scyth.”

“I’d best show you.” I took out a map of the Lakharian Desert, but without the marker for Tiamat’s temple, and showed it to the lich. “Here is the stronghold. Our enemies will be advancing tomorrow, from here,” I jabbed my finger at Vermillion. “They call this line here the frontier. Nobody will stick their nose south of it until tomorrow. To the northwest of that line is the Commonwealth.”

“Thank you. The world has changed since my time. Your information is useful. What do you recommend?”

“Do you know who the undying are?”

“Aliens from another world. Like you,” Shazz’s black eyes were fixed on me. He was waiting for something, and I confirmed it.

“Yes, like me. We don’t die forever. The first time we’re killed in a day, we disappear for ten seconds. The second time — an hour. The third time we come back only the next day. But we always come back.”

“But if that is so, then how you be defeated?” the lich asked in confusion. “How does one defeat those who always return?”

“You see, my dear friend, life is death only for mortals, for the native inhabitants of Disgardium. The undying are simply reborn, becoming a little weaker each time. They appear not where they were killed, but in the graveyard of the city or town that they link their spirit to.”

“I see,” Shazz said, clearly interested. “So if you kill them, they come back, but not at once?”

“Exactly right. Which is why I don’t think we should go and meet them. We should let them get as far into the desert as possible. The best place to fight them is near the stronghold, which they’ll reach within a few days at the most. If we break the core of their army, then the rest, the far less organized undying, will be easy prey to your troops.”

“The Nucleus made you a Legate for a reason, Scyth. Are you with us?”

“Of course. But I still have things to do on this side. I’ll be there by midday…” I said, meaning the desert’s local time. Midday in the Lakharian Desert was morning in my time, and Nergal’s event would begin then.

After exchanging that strange gesture with Shazz, with three middle fingers extended, I mounted Storm and flew to the fort.

* * *

Behemoth’s lesson sobered me up well. I understood that the thoughts that came in the plague pool may have been mine, but they wouldn’t have appeared without the Nucleus’s influence. How was that possible? It was very simple. If alcohol makes people lose their way, and certain narcotics transform reality and turn the norms of morality upside down, then what can be said of a capsule that controls not only your brain, but the entire biochemistry of your body? Interrupt the signals for so much as a second, the ones firing between the neurons in the part of the brain responsible for friendship, for that feeling of closeness, and a person might start thinking differently. Even if his character was undead.

We were taught in school about how more and more people preferred the pleasure and adventure on offer in virtual worlds. Safe alcohol, narcotics, sexual pleasures — all of it was more vivid, somehow more complete, and with no consequences whatsoever. No wonder a vacation on Perfetto invited more envy than one on any earthly resort. Virtuality interacted with the brain directly, and that made it more vivid than reality. If you had an advanced capsule, then you didn’t need nicotine, ethanol or cannabinoids to influence the right areas of the brain. The VR architects provided realistic surroundings, and perception adapted in twelve seconds. That was all the time it took for the mind to believe without a doubt that everything around it was real.

This meant that entities like Nergal, Behemoth and the Nucleus of the Destroying Plague were perfectly capable of inspiring religious ecstasy, deadly terror and self-righteousness. All you had to do was send the right signals. And if it weren’t for Behemoth, then I would have melded together with the Destroying Plague without having any control over myself. Not only over my character, but my own mind. And I wouldn’t have hesitated to betray everyone that trusted me in the name of my higher purpose.

I released Storm, crossed my legs, sat down in the temple ruins. Geala was at its zenith and cast a silver glow over the jungle. The green column firing into the sky from Shazz’s camp had paled, but the fires above the portal burned even brighter. I heard the banshee’s screeching cries on the wind. The surviving trees on this side of the fort had lost their foliage. The breeze no longer tousled their branches — it was as if they’d turned to stone.

I didn’t see, but rather felt that I’d lost something. A droplet of protoplasm that could have fit on the point of a needle separated from my chest and glimmered in the light of Geala. Behemoth was significantly smaller, but his voice sounded clear:

“Life is death. That’s the truth, Initial. Or would you rather I call you Legate?” I heard laughter in his voice. “The Destroying Plague is no life at all. Its servants exist, but they don’t live. They have no free will. Everything disappears into the Destroying Plague, and truly, there is no death in its service… as long as it exists.”

“Nice to see you again, Sleeper,” I answered. “Sorry for my somewhat clouded mind earlier, that wasn’t me.”

“It was you, don’t try to weasel out of it, Initial.”

Sure, it was just a droplet of protoplasm, but I knew it was looking at me and shaking its head sadly. Behemoth’s avatar was so weak that I could have ignored him. Except that he was the only reason Alex Sheppard was in control of Scyth. I’d learned my lesson. I wouldn’t argue or… weasel.

“Understood, Sleeping God. What did you manage to learn?”

“We cannot destroy the Nucleus,” he answered simply. “At least, not yet.”

I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. Behemoth was silent. Then I asked:

“What is it?”

“It is the essence of an old god, corrupted by the Nether. A puppet that thirsts for power. The puppeteer is a new god. The one known as Nergal the Radiant.”

“What?” I jumped up. “How? Why?”

“That is what we must find out, Initial. I did not manage to penetrate the parasite’s thoughts, and our situation is too fragile to resist the Nether-spawn’s gathering power. I failed to cut the cord feeding the Nucleus with emanations from the Nether, and even when I am strong enough, I will not do so. The creature is a part of all existence. Its cancerous tendrils extend all across Disgardium. If I cut the cord and kill the Nucleus, the whole world will be destroyed.”

“Tomorrow its Legate will turn the strongest warriors in the world to the side of the Destroying Plague, and the Nucleus will be a lot stronger! Especially if Nergal is controlling him… By the way, why..?”

“He is not controlling the Nucleus. The Destroying Plague is his creature, a creation of his radiant hands. I am certain Nergal made sure that only his power is capable of withstanding the creations of the Destroying Plague…”

That was it! The undead had penalties against light magic! By creating such a monster, Nergal could expect a massive influx of believers — I was sure none of the adepts of the other gods got the blessing of immunity in the desert. Even the races of the Empire would be forced to pray to Nergal — who would refuse the chance to farm mobs in the Lakharian Desert with boosts and buffs from the Radiant God? And it all fit perfectly into Snowstorm’s desire to add excitement to the gameplay; a new strong faction, endless wars for land and resources, a jump in the average player level… And rivers of money flowing through the filters of Snowstorm’s fees. In the meantime, the craftspeople would rank up and it would become possible to conquer all the land beyond the frontier, then the Ursai Jungle, then the next continent. Just like when Horvac launched the event to unlock the dark races.

“So if we can’t defeat the Destroying Plague, do we just have to accept his buff? What am I supposed to do? Tiamat’s temple definitely won’t survive; either players will take it out or legions of the undead will. I doubt I can stand up against the other legates the Destroying Plague is going to recruit.”

“How is my temple progressing?” Behemoth asked, ignoring my question.

“We’ll start to restore it tomorrow. But the path to the Nucleus leads across the island. If the lich winds up there, he’ll see the temple and destroy it again.”

“If more followers join us, Tiamat and I can think of something.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. There’s a tribe of outcasts in Stone Rib, sewer troggs. They want to join us. There’s over a thousand of them, and…”

“Troggs…” Behemoth laughed. “An unsuccessful attempt by one of the old gods to make life from stone. I was the one that intervened in that experiment… Apparently to no avail. The creatures had no thirst for novelty. They were inert and thoughtless. You say they want to join our followers? Amusing… Well, we don’t have much of a choice in our situation. If they join, Tiamat will have enough strength to remove the undead curse from you and your allies. But until then…”

“Do what the Nucleus asks?”

“I know what it wants. If you obey it, then it will not be stopped…”

The banshees’ cries fell silent. The green fires above the undead camp had gone out, as had the portal through which the army left.

“…So do what you intended, Initial. Use the power gifted by the Nucleus to stop Nergal’s army and win time. Restore my temple and recruit new adepts. Gain new powers from Tiamat and return your human form. And if you survive tomorrow, after doing all you intend, we will speak again. Then we will decide what to do next. Go.”

I had planned to spend the night leveling up Inscription, putting Plague Fury on scrolls and sabotaging the enemy ranks. Yemi and his people were waiting for the scrolls so they could infiltrate the raid groups. We needed a great many scrolls, which meant I had long hours of farming ahead of me in the desert to get enough plague energy.

But something changed.

The booming footsteps of a giant dinosaur came from the jungle, shaking the treetops. A trumpet roar echoed over the island like a signal, warning us that its master had returned.

The Montosaurus was back.

Chapter 21. Bone-Gnawing God

“GO,” Behemoth’s voice rang out.

The quicksilver droplet of intelligent protoplasm rolled away under a stone, and I summoned Storm. The Sleeping God stayed behind to await his temple, and I started to act.

Flying to the tavern, I recalled my mount and landed on my feet in front of the door. I walked in, ran up the stairs without a word to anyone, passed a stunned Trixie who was trying to say something (I think I heard a ‘sorry, Scyth’), and locked myself in my room.

An hour later, wiping my eyes, more virtually tired than I really was, I moved aside a pile of written and ruined scrolls and sighed heavily.

You have successfully created the enhancement rune: Greater Agility.

Greater Agility Rune (1) added to your inventory.

Inscription: +1. Current grade: Expert (1000/1000).

Experience for progressing in craft: +100,000.

Congratulations! You unlocked the next rank of the Inscription progression!

Visit a tutor or read a rank one Inscription skillbook to unlock rank one.

I pulled out the book, spent a few minutes reading it, then got another notification:

You reached the first rank of Inscription!

Your Inscription grade has increased to Master! Current grade: Master (0/250).

I pulled out a blank sheet of parchment and activated Create Scroll for what felt like the millionth time that evening.

Depths Teleportation

Chance to successfully create scroll: 60%.

Ghastly Howl

Chance to successfully create scroll: 75%.

…

Plague Fury

Chance to successfully create scroll: 30%.

Now I could work. The chance of success increased with every grade, but I still had to create another ten thousand symbols and enhancement runes to reach the next level — Great Master — and that was only if every attempt was successful. Anyway, all the recipes I knew were already grayed out, which meant they were too easy and wouldn’t increase my crafting grade. Jump to Kinema and draw until I saw double? No. I still wouldn’t have time. I’d have to make do with the chances I had.

Pulling out a vial of epic ink that I’d been keeping specially (+25% chance of successful inscription), I said a prayer to the Sleepers and started my first spell scroll. The cast bar took a tortuously long time to fill, but when the process came to an end, my shout of triumph filled the room.

You successfully created a spell scroll: Plague Fury.

Plague Fury Spell Scroll (1) added to your inventory.

Impatiently opening my inventory, I checked the scroll’s properties: it worked as I thought it would. My plague reservoir, doubled thanks to Legate’s Crown, was almost fully depleted. I only had a little left to maintain the reanimation of my minions.

The same Legate’s Crown raised my Plague Fury level to five. That meant the scroll absorbed six times my plague reservoir: nearly twenty-four million damage for one hundred and sixty feet around. Let’s see, multiply π by the radius squared and… the area of effect was just over twenty-five thousand five hundred feet. How many players would fit in that area? On foot, without mounts or pets — around three thousand. That was if they didn’t crowd close together, and they would, because the raid structure forced it; everyone had to be within range of healing abilities. That meant one explosion could take out a thousand players or so. Some would survive if they activated gear that prevented deadly damage, but then the Yoruba spy that cast Fury would finish them off. I wondered, would the caster survive? We’d have to have a test battle and find out.

I had at least two hundred of those spies. Including lower levels, the African clan had almost five hundred members. But if Yoruba betrayed me… No, they wouldn’t. Of course, they would be tempted to use the scrolls for other purposes or to sell them on the auction house, but damn it, even without my threats, they should want to stay for the loot. My allies would get rich! Insane achievements, an ocean of experience, both personal and clan, and a bunch of awesome loot. Selling it would be their problem, but Yemi had promised to give half of what they earned to me.

All I had to do now was the simplest part: write those damned scrolls. Without thinking, I ruined two more scrolls; the first time I just botched the transfer, and the second time I created a Plague Fury scroll with zero damage. It was time to fill up my plague reservoir.

I equipped my Unconquered Herald Set again, applied a Greater Strength enhancement rune (+10 strength), swept everything off the table and went downstairs.

“Trixie, come here!” I waved the dwarf over. Waiting for him to approach, I unloaded a pile of enhancement runes and greater symbols for Warrior, Bard, Mage and Demon Hunter classes. “Hand the runes out to the miners. Give the symbols to Crawler when he shows up. He’ll pick something out for you too. Got it?”

“Veratrix will do it.” The hunchback sighed loudly. “You not upset no more, Alex?”

“I was never upset; you were. I gotta go.”

“Wait! Montosaurus is back!”

“I know. I’ll take care of it…”

It didn’t take long to find the beast god. A path of destruction through the jungle clearly showed his path from the mountain canyon in the north of the island to Shazz’s camp. The Montosaurus stood on the edge of life and death and roared. If he was here to fight the lich, he changed his mind too late.

Montosaurus, level ???

Ancient Dinosaur

Global Boss

Landing not far from the dinosaur, I recalled my mount and put away Reaper’s Scythes. It occurred to me to use the Balancer against the Montosaurus and solve this problem forever, but it wouldn’t be right to do that without my friends. The loot, experience, achievements — it all had to help the clan. Anyway, in a few days Rita Overweight would arrive on Kharinza, and she could do with a possible achievement. Yeah, I was already thinking of her as an Awoken clan member.

Now I just needed the dinosaur to not kill itself on my Reflection. I mused as I held an inkwell, pen and clean scroll in my hands. The Montosaurus hovered at the edge of the sticky soot covering the soil in Shazz’s abandoned camp, and noisily sucked in air.

“Hey, Monty! Long time no see!” I shouted, approaching the dinosaur. The huge head turned sharply toward me, cocking to one side like a bird’s. “If you think you’re the boss of the island again now the lich is gone, think again…”

An ear-splitting roar cut off my speech. The dinosaur took three paces and its head descended toward me, its great jaw yawning open. Rolling up into a ball, I held my writing instruments close to my chest and resisted the pressure of its fangs with all my might. One pierced right through me, and I was pinned to the ground, but I found the strength to laugh; a tooth might make a nice writing surface.

A river of damage flowed in both directions.

Of course, in reality, nothing would have come of my insane plot. In Dis I just had to have everything I needed to cast Create Scroll in my inventory. I judged that dropping twenty million damage on players whose health, even fully buffed, was probably not above five or six million, was excessive. So while the dinosaur, a mix of a T-rex and Godzilla, stubbornly worked its jaws in an attempt to bite me in two, I scribbled scrolls and waited impatiently for my plague reservoir to refill.

A few attempts to close the jaws — a cast — one scroll done.

Or not done, if the process failed, but in that case I kept the plague energy and started a new cast right away. These repeated scrolls contained more energy — seven to eight million. Sometimes damage interrupted the cast, sometimes I was successful. Everything basically went as planned. I thanked the gods I couldn’t smell anything. I was sure the Montosaurus’s mouth stank worse than a sewer.

Reflection did its job, and despite the boss’s insane regeneration speed, its health slowly but surely sank into the yellow zone.

You have damaged Montosaurus: 1.84 mil

Health points: 48.48 mil / 60.00 mil

At roughly half health, the dinosaur started acting like Ervigot the Ravager; he tried to crush me, spitting out fountains of saliva and trampling me. But my dead magic kept my body together. The game conditions let me keep writing scrolls, and the Montosaurus kept killing itself. Its health had already dropped into the orange zone, and I’d amassed upwards of fifty Plague Fury scrolls, but suddenly my character’s tortures stopped. Crushed into the mud as I was, I didn’t even realize the dinosaur had just up and left.

His trampling faded. The trees shook as he left. No way! I thought angrily, summoning Storm and flying after the Montosaurus.

I didn’t catch up to him. The damn dinosaur was gone again. It was the most cowardly beast god I knew.

Chapter 22. Insiders

THREE HOURS. The time I set aside for sleep. Climbing out of my capsule, I took a long breath, thinking on whether to take a shower now or put it off until morning. Laziness won and I headed for bed.

I grabbed my comm, wanting to check what was online about tomorrow’s invasion before I slept, and saw some missed messages. I started one — Piper’s hologram appeared on my comm. The girl I met at Distival, the one who introduced me to Sergei Polotsky, the oligarch betrayed by Hinterleaf.

The holographic girl spoke with a grave face:

“Hey, Alex, I’ll be quick. Pecheneg wants to meet you in his castle. He has important info for you. Call me back.”

My greatest wish was to close my comm and do what I most wanted — sleep. But based on my chat with Polotsky, I knew the old man wouldn’t bother me over nothing. Maybe he really had found something important. Or maybe it was a trap. There were other options, but those two were the likeliest. Could be either, but outside the Lakharian Desert, away from Shazz, I couldn’t be killed. I decided to at least hear Piper out. I called back, saw the girl right away:

“Hey! I don’t have any contact info for you in Dis. I guessed you were stuck in there!”

“Sorry… What info does Pecheneg have?”

“He didn’t say. He asked me to take you to his castle.”

“Why there? Is this some ambush? There are plenty of places to talk in Dis. What about Kinema?”

“Alex, I’m just a go-between here, I don’t know what he wants, but I think you should go. He wouldn’t complicate things for no reason. Are you willing to meet him?”

“Hm… Fine, go ahead. Where?”

“I’ll be waiting in the Stuffed Lamb in Darant. I’ll save you a seat at the bar. You’ll be, um… another character, right?”

She was talking about my disguise without mentioning it directly.

“You’re very perceptive for a sixteen-year-old.”

“Ha-ha, joker. I’m twenty-two. Say: ‘Hey, Piper! I can’t get away from you!’ and I’ll know it’s you.”

“Sure thing.”

Hanging up, I put down my comm and climbed into my capsule again. Three minutes later, in Darant, I saddled up my mechostrich and headed for the tavern. As I went, I swapped my worker disguise for a more presentable paladin at level three hundred and sixty. I called myself MacDonagh.

I spotted the armored elf beauty not at the bar after all, but near it. The sight of her brought with it inappropriate thoughts. The bar was busy, so she had to hover nearby. I examined her character: judging by her armor, a druid with a bent for healing. Level two hundred and forty-three. Great progress — it looked as if Piper had practically lived in Dis since her fourteenth birthday.

Leather knee-high boots covered the girl’s legs. Her chainmail miniskirt looked too short for armor. I doubted it could offer effective protection, but maybe the skirt had wonderful bonuses. Then I remembered that I’d probably permanently lost my morphing mega equipment, and got upset. That made my voice sound harsh:

“Hey, Piper, I can’t get away from you.”

“What?” The girl looked at me in confusion and asked: “What color is my hair?”

“I don’t know what color it is right now, but it was blue. Or cyan, hard to say.”

“Accept the invite, MacDonagh,” she whispered, nodding and inviting me to her group.

I made sure my settings hid all my real character information from the group leader and accepted the invite. Piper took me by the hand and started casting a group teleport.

A couple of heartbeats and a white flash later and a new view appeared before me; the portal square of the Taipan clan castle in the north of the Commonwealth. White snow glistened all around. The boughs of pines swayed beyond the fortress walls. A full-fledged castle that any preventer clan would have been proud of. Pecheneg wasn’t lying about his fortune from Corrupted Adamantite.

We were expected. Apparently, Piper let Pecheneg know we were coming. Polotsky’s in-game appearance was far different from his real one; a tall, stately barbarian, young, with expressive eyebrows, blond hair in a crew cut and a strong, square chin.

Pecheneg, Human, level 365 Barbarian

Clan: Taipan.

“What were you drinking when we met?” I asked, using the same crude test as Yemi.

“Heh,” Pecheneg chuckled. “The good stuff, my friend.”

“What?”

“Vodka. I was drinking vodka, Alex. It’s you, right? How did I introduce myself when we met?”

Mistrust was doing the rounds these days. I was ready to hit Plague Fury and Depths Teleportation at the same time. I even felt a temptation to use Subjugate Mind, but I didn’t see a reason for it just yet.

“Sergei. Sergei Polotsky.”

Pecheneg’s face relaxed. He extended a broad, shovel-like hand and grinned.

“Well, nice to see ya, Alex. Thank you for trusting me. Would you like to use your true form?”

“Hell no.”

“As you wish. Then I suggest we head inside right away. I have a lot to tell you… and show you.”

He whistled and a multitude of fearsome figures suddenly appeared around me, bristling with blades, spears and ready spells; four battle stars, until now hidden under some veil. It had it all: humans, gnomes, dwarfs, titans, even one lopher. All high levels, nobody below three hundred and fifty.

Next to Pecheneg himself appeared a pair of white panthers, six-foot-six long. Each could have bitten Bomber in half.

My first thought was: Ambush, time to go. But Pecheneg’s words kept me from jumping to conclusions.

“Guys, this is Alex, the tree up the preventers’ ass. I hope you’ll get along.”

We exchanged handshakes, I was clapped on the shoulder and given words of support. The warriors introduced themselves, but I didn’t memorize their names. Even a passing glance was enough to assess their gear — pure legendaries. A small, but very well-armed clan.

Only one wing of the castle was inhabited. Pecheneg didn’t explain what the other wing was used for, saying only: Unfortunately, it’s too expensive to build a castle using a unique design, and a standard building at this level is designed for one thousand two hundred inhabitants. The old man didn’t have that many players in his clan. Most of the guards turned out to be hired NPCs.

Pecheneg took me to his headquarters, where there was a detailed map of Disgardium covering half the wall. The old man didn’t invite any of the Taipan officers in. The three of us sat at the table: he and I and Piper. A couple of minutes of small-talk later, some efficient NPCs brought in some beautiful appetizers, but I didn’t touch anything. It wasn’t that I was afraid of poison or some potion to loosen my tongue. I was undead. It was just that the tension killed my appetite.

When we were finally alone, Pecheneg went and stood by the map.

“Vermillion,” he jabbed a finger at a point on the frontier, then moved it to the next, sixty miles from the first. “Bridger. The Alliance of Preventers will advance from these two forts. A third group will depart from Fort Smith, but that’s a hundred and ninety miles farther north, we’ll talk about that later. The event begins at six in the morning, American east coast time, although you know that first, the high priests of Nergal will hold mass blessings of those who responded to the Sacred Call. That will take time. The queues are long, the process will take more than a day, but the Alliance’s people will get priority treatment. They’ll get a buff with full resistance to the heat of the Lakharian Desert.”

“I haven’t heard anything new yet.”

“The point is, Alex, the huge crowd of people who want to be involved in the event won’t reach you. The majority will be content to simply level up in the desert, farming experience and rare resources, looking for new dungeons — doing everything they can to profit as much as possible. Everyone knows the event won’t last long. However strong you may be, you cannot stand against the collective power of hundreds of thousands of players. Unless you have some tricks up your sleeve apart from what we’ve all seen already…”

I recalled the battle avatar of the Departed, Deznafar, at level seven hundred and fifty. I shook my head.

“Nothing up my sleeve.”

“I see,” Pecheneg chuckled.

Here, he enjoyed mobility and youth; he gesticulated actively, moved plenty and even spoke quickly, excitedly. He rocked like a spring, giving no signs whatsoever of his age and condition in real life. He still kept some habits, though; he was smoking the Dis version of a cigar (with blue, spicy smoke) with clear enjoyment, and it wasn’t long until he walked over to the table and poured himself some strong dwarven brandy. He drank it down, grunted, wiped his lips and returned to the map.

“The Alliance has its own motives. Nobody wants to share Nergal’s rewards — and they’re incredible, believe me! Of course, nobody involved in the destruction of a temple to the Sleeping Gods will leave empty-handed, but the S-tier rewards will only go to the top ten players.”

“Top ten according to what?”

“They have a ton of side quests. Be the first to hit the temple, deal the most damage, kill all the cultists of the Sleeping Gods… And to top it all off; build a temple of Nergal there. So there’ll be competition among the other side too. In these conditions, the critical factor is time. Reluctantly, the Alliance’s leaders agreed to combine their efforts to craft and bring along a Great Portable Altar. An item not only expensive, but also huge. Three hundred of the very strongest haulers from the race of giants will carry it. They have great stamina, and the transport guild is pushing the price for their services sky high.”

“A mobile altar doesn’t seem all that rare a thing…”

“Unlike ordinary ones, you can set your home to a Great Portable Altar. They’ll have a mobile respawn point. It cost the preventers ridiculous amounts of money. I know that Hinterleaf sacrificed a divine ingredient for it, one he got personally from Nergal.”

“Can it be destroyed?”

“It has three hundred million durability. And active defense; attackers hit Shining, an aura of deadly light. In another world, it would be called radiation. Two hundred grays. Death is almost instantaneous.”

“Translate, please.”

“The damage increases exponentially with a multiplier of over two. This is reliable information; the preventers did experiments. How’s your math? Two hundred thousand, four hundred, eight hundred, one million six hundred, three million two hundred… game over. You’re a corpse. That’s the best-case scenario, if it is two. Ticks every second.”

“That’s useful information, thanks.”

“That was just the beginning, Alex,” Pecheneg chuckled. “Let’s move on to the news. I dare say you might know a certain Tobias Asser, also known as Crag, a D-class Threat.”

I nodded and leaned forward, ready for bad news.

“The kid went over to Modus. Note, not the entire Alliance, but Modus specifically. As far as I know, they can’t bring him into the clan, but they decided not to eliminate him due to his abilities. Do you know what his power is?”

“Yes.” I’d been waiting for something like this, but it was still an unpleasant surprise.

“Then you’ll understand why Otto Hinterleaf has decided to keep the Threat around. The other Alliance clans don’t know. To Crag’s credit, he said nothing about you. He denies any connection to you. He came up with some tall tale, said Nergal the Radiant himself practically appeared personally to pull him out of the preventers’ clutches in the Modus castle. And I quote: ‘Hallowed be his name from here to eternity, amen…’” Pecheneg smiled. “He a religious sort?”

“No comment.”

“Whatever… In any case, he made it worth his while. He got them to agree to some conditions; treatment for his sick father, upgraded living conditions, good money and a share of the loot. Tobias was moved to Modus’s domain yesterday, and given premium-class lodgings.”

Pecheneg continued to drill his eyes into me, but got no reaction. Then he raised his comm amulet.

“Come in.”

I rose from the table, expecting an attack. The castle blocked Depths Teleportation, but my fifty Plague Fury scrolls gave me confidence. I’d heard magic skills could be blocked, but scrolls… They always worked, and mine had an instant cast time.

The door swung open. A girl with a familiar nickname entered the conference hall. Even dressed, she was the same as she’d been that day when I first saw her, when I saved Crag from the Modus castle; leather armor, a light crossbow behind her back, snug pants and winged boots.

Blackberry, Elf, level 378 Demon Hunter

Clan: Modus.

“Alex, meet Blackberry, a senior Modus officer.”

The girl (or, judging by her level, middle-aged woman) looked me up and down. Her eyes widened.

“A complete imitation of another form! Incredible!” She quickly crossed the room and offered me a hand. “Pleased to meet you, Alex! I’m a big fan!”

I hesitated, then shook her hand, ready to detonate Plague Fury at the first sign of True Flame. Considering the Threat brand on my wrist, giving someone my hand could have consequences.

“I can’t say the same, Blackberry.” I moved my eyes to the barbarian. “You could have warned me, Pecheneg. I’m a little on edge, if you catch my drift.”

“A nuclear explosion,” Pecheneg nodded. “I admit, I was afraid you’d refuse to meet Blackberry. I decided to make it a surprise. But I assure you, this is in your interests. The preventers are racking their brains over your damage type. What they’ve seen in the logs is total nonsense. Your explosion showed up as Stellar Whirlwind.”

“A samurai AoE ability,” Blackberry felt the need to clarify. “MonkeyWrench was a samurai, right? That’s just amazing. I’m repeating myself, aren’t I? Sorry. Mimicking other forms is uncommon in Dis, but known. Top-level assassins have skills that allow them to create a doppelganger of the selected target that repeats all their actions; a top-level warlock’s succubus can confuse the minds of those around them, making them think that her master looks different than he does; transmogrification mages can take on another form, but only for five minutes at the maximum skill level. There’s a Transformation Potion, but it only works for a few minutes. You’re something special, Alex. The system itself breaks to suit you, imitating even the abilities of the class you choose!”

“What did my Stellar Whirlwind look like?” I asked embarrassedly, regretting that I hadn’t checked the logs of that fight.

“Like a Stellar Whirlwind,” Piper piped up, reminding me of her presence. “But it just looked like it. That samurai ability has a range of twenty-six feet. Yours left a crater with a glass floor, and the survivors saw burning bodies. Boom! Like after a nuclear explosion. Believe me, a samurai just throws out a fan of blades like a damn ninja throwing shurikens.”

“The crater was sixty-five feet around,” Blackberry nodded. “Nobody in the Alliance will group up in battle after your solo performance in Kinema. They got the picture. I wrote the combat strategy for the Threat personally. Pecheneg will show it to you later, it’s not important right now.”

“I should probably say ‘thanks,’ but I’m finding it tough. Sorry, Blackberry, but I don’t know you and I don’t trust you. As for my ‘solo performance,’ I wasn’t banking on you guys having a sudden attack of idiocy multiplied by amnesia in the future. I had no choice in that situation.”

“So you have something else up your sleeve, great!” Blackberry rubbed her hands. “Alright, let me say what I came here to say. “Everyone thinks you’re not going to take a straight fight. Your abilities are known; undead minions and a nuclear bomb. And probably not many minions, right? An analysis of the last battle in Kinema allowed us to determine your ability cooldown. It’s ridiculously low for an uber-ability like that! We think you’re still leveling up the ability, and we think your explosion range will be up to a hundred feet by the time the decisive battles come.”

I wasn’t about to let her know that my range with the Legate’s Crown had already reached a hundred and sixty feet.

“We’re preparing for the worst, you understand. The formations will be based on that. Practically everyone in the Alliance will have last-chance protection to prevent deadly damage. So don’t rely on repeating your trick from Kinema.”

“Got it, I won’t.” I couldn’t tell her that my hands itched to infect everyone with Plague Pestilence. Then no altar would help them — they’d be reborn as undead.

“You won’t what?”

“Rely on it.”

“Oh, sorry. I’m a little, like you say, on edge, because they might notice I’m gone. Everyone here is ready to move out at a moment’s notice. So I’ll be quick. Just the most important stuff. Basically, we think you’re going to use guerilla warfare. You’ll change your skin, infiltrate raid groups and blow them up from within. For many, that will sorely damage their enthusiasm, and once they lose a bunch of experience and their favorite legendary, some will pack their things and go home.”

“The chance of dropouts isn’t that high.”

“You know you broke everyone’s armor? Smashed it to fucking pieces!” Blackberry coughed and added in embarrassment: “Those aren’t my words. Just what our shaman shouted. He was in the explosion and didn’t survive.”

“Should have stayed at home, it’s safer,” I grumbled.

“Exactly! In a few days, many will come to exactly that conclusion. After all, you’re not the only thing in the desert. There are mobs too! As for the Alliance clans, they’ll take parallel approaches to the temple. They’ll level up along the way independently, with their own raid groups. There’s an agreement that the clans don’t have to inform each other about instances they find. Nobody will be in a hurry; everyone wants to carry off as much loot as they can…”

That contradicted Pecheneg’s words. He believed the resistance would be over quickly. Maybe contradictions plagued the Alliance; on one side of the scales were the prizes for destroying the temple, on the other — the treasures of the desert.

I nodded to my thoughts and Blackberry continued.

“Nergal hasn’t set any specific deadlines. Maybe he hoped competition for the top spot would play a role. It’s difficult to apply human logic to AI thinking. After the main raids from Fort Smith, a combined group from all the Alliance clans will advance. Its function is to supply and protect the altar. Of course, they’ll have dozens of scouts on flying mounts. Their highest priority is to investigate the area around the temple of the Sleeping Gods.”

My plan was starting to come apart at the seams. It seemed fully possible that no big battle would even happen. While Shazz and I were stuck in skirmishes, their individual groups could fly straight to Tiamat’s temple and destroy it. Nether! All my hope was on the vultures flying sentry in the desert skies.

“Next.” Blackberry casually tossed back a glass of brandy. “The Alliance will always keep ahead of the PuGs. There are three hundred thousand players crowded into the frontier right now. Many second-echelon clans have also made temporary alliances and plan to swarm us. They’ve got another think coming — they won’t be able to deal with level-five-hundred mobs. There’ll be wipes, lost gear, scandals, accusations… All in all, our analysts predict that no more than three percent of participants will make it to the temple. And that’s an optimistic prediction. How’s the sky in the desert, clear?”

“Not a cloud in sight. But if you mean the mobs, they’re there.”

Piper chuckled. Pecheneg smiled. Blackberry didn’t seem to get the joke.

“That’s good,” she said. “Even Mogwai won’t withstand a direct attack from a level five hundred. Fen Xiaoguang and his Elites are thinking of joining the Alliance. Obviously they won’t refuse him. Once a day, the leaders of the Alliance will gather at their campaign headquarters at the altar and exchange new information. Yary, Hinter and myself will be representing Modus there.”

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

“And we arrive at the point.” She turned to Pecheneg. “Do you have it?”

“I hung it up over there, above the map.” The barbarian nodded. “Alex, will you approach?”

A torch of True Flame hung on the wall. It had been disguised as an ordinary magic candlestick with a marble mosaic shade. I could only see its true form by focusing my gaze on the source of the light, and the room was full of candlesticks like it.

“No.”

“Listen, we’re going out of our way for you!” Blackberry exclaimed. “We know you’re Scyth. We don’t know your true class or level, but you’re definitely not an archer. We’re certain you could mimic others back when you registered for the Junior Arena.”

“Does ‘we’ mean Modus?”

“Both Modus and Pecheneg and I. How do you think he found out about you? I told him. But as for the Threat situation, that’s where Hinterleaf and I part ways. I owe a lot to Pecheneg. My entire family is eternally indebted to him. If you trust him, you can trust me too. The Alliance has made a new type of True Flame artifact that can be mass-produced. It’s basically the same, only it has a wider area of effect. You won’t be able to get close to anyone, your cover will be blown within a hundred feet. The limit of your explosion radius, right?”

“What are you driving at?”

“We want to check a theory. It worked on other spells related to changing and copying forms. If you stand beneath that torch, we’ll know what exactly the preventers will see.”

Expecting stun spells and a Modus battle star to burst into the room at any moment, I walked over to the map on stiff legs. My mind screamed that I was making a mistake, but my gut felt no danger. So I staggered over to the map and stopped. When I began to turn, I heard stunned shouts.

“Nergal the Almighty!” Piper gasped.

“Holy..!” Pecheneg shouted, crossing himself and knocking back his drink.

“Now I have no ides what’s happening!” Blackberry said, dazed. “We were all sure you were linked to the Sleeping Gods! Sure, everyone saw you controlling the undead, and maybe turning things undead, but why would you be undead yourself? Does that have something to do with the fact that you called yourself Legate of the Destroying Plague?”

The Modus analyst officer reminded me of the words I’d said in Vermillion after destroying the stationary portal. She was the first to get a grip on herself. Repeating Pecheneg’s action of a moment before — pouring and knocking back a glass of dwarven ale, — she quickly spoke.

“It reveals your appearance, that’s for sure. Your name, level, class, clan — that’s all hidden. Looks like it’s at the system level. Did you hide this information in your profile, Alex?”

“Yeah. Let’s try something else.” I put on Cloak Essence. “How about now?”

“Nothing changed,” Piper answered. “You have a semi-transparent cloak now, like made of smoke, but you can see everything beneath it. You’re undead, Alex! I thought we might kiss someday, but not in Dis! Don’t even think about it!”

“Uh, I wasn’t…”

“Sure, sure,” Blackberry said doubtfully. “We know all about you, Sheppard. Piper is your type, and not only her looks, but her personality too.”

“Alright, alright, maybe I wouldn’t have refused, but let’s get down to business. Did you have some reason to mock a poor, lonely zombie like this?”

“Can you imitate, let’s say… me?”

“Easy.”

“Okay.”

The demon huntress approached me, put an arm on my shoulder and ceremonially pronounced:

“I, Blackberry, summon an Arbiter to confirm this exchange.”

Crackling with electricity, a burning blue Eye appeared next to us.

“The item to be traded?”

“I, Blackberry, willingly and without duress, give Scyth the right to take on my form and to use my name for his own aims.”

“The process of transferring the rights to the name and form of Blackberry has begun. The cost of the rights?”

“One gold.”

“The duration of the deal?”

“Um… One month.”

“Scyth, do you accept the conditions of the trade?”

“I do.”

“Trade complete. Scyth, the cost of the rights will be taken from your account and given to Blackberry, present here. Good fortune.”

The Arbiter disappeared as quickly as it arrived.

“Copy it!” Blackberry exclaimed impatiently, her hand still on my shoulder. She seemed to be breathing heavily and blushing for some reason. “If it works, you can take on my form permanently, even when I’m not nearby. It should stay in the list of options…”

Imitate Blackberry, Elf, level 378 Demon Hunter?

“Yes,” I said aloud.

A hush descended for a few seconds. Then Pecheneg’s pleased voice broke the absolute silence.

“Daaamn. It worked! We did it! They’ll never recognize Scyth now!”

“Now we have two Blackberries,” Piper whispered. “Even the crossbow is the same…”

Chapter 23. Good Hunting!

I STOOD on the street outside the tavern and listened. The sun hadn’t yet risen, but the stars had already lost their shine, barely flickering. The open windows brought in a dull din, the sound of splashing water and ringing crockery. A cricket chirped in the bushes Trixie had planted in the back yard. When the undead appeared on Kharinza, all life was extinguished.

Everything else was quiet. The Montosaurus had either run away or was taking a nap somewhere. Even the restless wind was calmly snoozing, playing gently through ferns and palm trees.

My meeting with Pecheneg and Blackberry left me with mixed feelings. Everything that happened in the castle fitted with Pecheneg’s story and his desire to take vengeance against Hinterleaf, but it all looked somehow petty. Even if I sent all of Modus back to the spawn point ten times over, that wouldn’t bring down the clan. No doubt they’d been getting used to wipes since they started getting world-firsts in the top raid dungeons.

My vague discomfort formed into fully realistic suspicions: apart from the wool that had been generously pulled over my eyes, I’d gotten practically nothing, but had confirmed that Alex Sheppard, also known as Scyth, is most certainly the A-class Threat. I’d also revealed my true form and proved that True Flame can easily reveal me. Damn it. I’d let them wrap me around their finger, lure me in with the titties and long legs of girls… from Modus!

Arrrrgh! The shame brought blood rushing to my face, my ears went red. Shutting my eyes tightly, not wanting to see anything, I growled in anger at myself and punched the tavern wall as hard as I could. Idiotic naiveté and naive idiocy, or faith in people’s good side and ability (precisely ability, as Uncle Nick always insisted) to put my trust in people? Time would tell. Whatever. Come what will!

“Um… Alex?”

Shaking my head, I opened my eyes. My fist had broken straight through the wall. A scared Aunt Stephanie peeked her head out the window.

“Yeah, it’s me.” For our people, I always looked like Scyth no matter whose form I was in, but sometimes, especially in dim light, they said they could see the mimic flash around me. “Sorry.”

“Everything alright?”

“Everything is just fine,” I squeezed out a smile. Everything was fine, not counting a million problems. “Sorry. Will you ask Gyula to fix this?”

“Oh, Alex, of course, don’t worry. Want me to make you some hot chocolate? Of course you do! Come in and take a seat, I’ll be quick!”

The tavern’s hostess ran into the kitchen. I went inside and looked around. The hall was empty.

“Where is everyone?” I asked Aunt Steph.

“The night shift is still down the mine and the day shift hasn’t arrived yet. Patrick and the hell beasts,” — that was what she called the satyr and succubus, — “are sleeping upstairs. The bug and dinosaur are guarding the miners. They like it more down there underground…”

After a mug of hot chocolate with cinnamon and honey, I started to liven up. My suspicions hadn’t gone anywhere, but they were quieter. But the question remained: what to do now, considering the new information from the Nucleus, Shazz, Behemoth, Pecheneg and Blackberry?

I racked my brains, trying to figure out what to do in this war. I could crush the preventers alongside Shazz, first destroying their Great Portable Altar and pushing the front line back. Then we could go on to invade the Commonwealth itself? But then who would protect the temple? What if someone broke through and all I had there was Crash — he was a tough little worm, but just barely level two hundred!

Should I do what the Nucleus wanted? I could definitely find the nine strongest players in Dis in the headquarters of the Alliance of Preventers, especially if they recruited Mogwai. I’d infect the leaders of the Alliance with Plague Pestilence and the Nucleus’s quest would be done! That would give me so much experience that I’d level up almost twenty times, but the main thing was that I could get Cold-Blooded Punisher back!

No. That wouldn’t work. If the leaders of the preventer clans turned undead, and especially if they became Legates, then they’d turn their own, and several thousand high-levels would be storming Kharinza… I couldn’t allow that. On the contrary, I had to prevent it!

How? Behemoth ordered me to gain strength and buy time. That meant I had to knock out the preventers’ Great Portable Altar. Then strike Nergal’s troops without Shazz. Otherwise the lich would infect them himself, and then my game would be over. Sure, I’d be the strongest legate of the Destroying Plague, but I’d lose Immortality too. It worked only when there were no other legates nearby. That meant I could be killed and eliminated as a Threat.

I’d have to revamp my plans and take a risk. I could try to strengthen my minions, but with which of the two methods…

Aunt Steph broke the silence in the tavern, interrupting my thoughts.

“More?” she nodded at my empty mug.

“Please…”

By the time I finished the second hot chocolate, my plan was ready. It wasn’t the most sophisticated or reliable plan, but it could work. Plucking up my courage, I wished Aunt Steph a good day and was just about to jump to the desert when I got a message from the Auction for Special Sales.

They sent me the answer from Hairo Morales, the Excommunicado clan officer: Your proposition interests me, I’m willing to discuss it. Real life, private room, Dis — wherever. Will wait for time and place. Hairo. I couldn’t put that one off, but was it worth meeting him today? I’d see how the day ended, then decide where, when and whether to do it at all.

* * *

“Life is death, Legate!”

I was still mimicking Blackberry, but Shazz could somehow always see that it was me, Legate Scyth. After I answered with the standard greeting, the lich gestured at the rows of fresh undead.

“Every moment of our presence here enhances the might of the Destroying Plague.”

Unlike me, he wasn’t just raising slain desert mobs, but transforming them into new types. The place teemed with new types of undead, awaiting their time to dine; Nightmare Rotters and Terrible Queases made of inhuman flesh. Around twenty-five to thirty feet tall, with six limbs, extra armor plates, long segmented scorpion tails and clawed tentacles. But even these new monsters seemed like bugs against the gigantic mass that was Deznafar.

“These lands are a truly great discovery,” the lich congratulated me. “The Nucleus was right about you. What did you manage to learn?”

Nergal’s event was set to begin at any moment, and Yemi was already waiting for me at the place we’d discussed on the frontier line. Everyone is waiting for Nergal’s high priests to arrive, he wrote. Now is the perfect time for the White Flash. That was his name for Plague Fury. He was suggesting that we detonate it during the mass blessing for heat immunity. He and the Yoruba members wouldn’t be allowed near the Alliance raid groups, but I hoped they could drink some PuG blood. To tell the truth, I was afraid even my own followers would hate me if I did that. On the other hand, I doubted I had any followers among those who responded to Nergal’s Summons.

Blackberry had said that the preventers would be slowly and steadily pulling a fine-tooth comb through the new lands. That would give them loot, and experience, and possibly even new achievements. Shazz and I would farm until then too, only I couldn’t be in the same location as the lich or else my Immortality wouldn’t work. That meant I needed to convince the lich to keep away from the front line.

“Shazz,” I addressed the lich. “Hundreds of thousands of mortals are coming here. The strongest will arrive first. Their flying scouts will appear even sooner, by nightfall. Can you take care of them?”

“My Plague Belchers can fire their charges through the clouds. Nobody will be flying above us.”

“But remember, they’re undying. They’ll report what they see and then the others will head here.”

“More flesh, blood and bones for my legions,” Shazz responded.

“You underestimate them. They are guided by Nergal, and we are vulnerable to light magic…”

“Legate, you worry in vain. Mortal flesh is more vulnerable to the plague than we are to the light. But you are right. I have no right to err. I will use this time to reinforce my legions…”

Boom-boom-boom! — unseen drums echoed, playing a fanfare, and huge letters appeared before my eyes:

THE NERGAL’S SUMMONS EVENT HAS BEGUN!

“It’s started,” I breathed. My heart began to pound, adrenaline surged through my real body’s veins.

Shazz was listening to something.

“Yes. The fabric of the plane convulses. War looms!”

In the next instant, the space around us cracked and a crowd in black mantles began to appear from thin air. First their numbers measured in the tens, then the hundreds. Around six hundred cultists of Morena had appeared right outside the stronghold. They appeared in concentric circles, starting with the innermost, holding each other by the hand.

When the teleport was fully completed, the cultists lifted their lowered heads and began to look around. Either Morena’s protection or some spell protected them from the stronghold’s deadly aura, but they felt uncomfortable. Stunned cries rang out as they beheld Deznafar. Some began whispering hymns of prayer.

I activated Cloak Essence and headed toward them. Two familiar cultists came to meet me: the troll Dekotra and the half-orc Ranakotz.

“We have arrived,” the troll said simply. “As the Inexorable One demanded.”

The Nucleus had told me that I should infect them with the Destroying Plague and hand them over to Shazz. And he would implant the spirits of dormant liches into some of their bodies. But… Nether, I couldn’t do it! It was one thing to turn my friends undead, for whom Dis was just a game. It was something else to exploit these strange amateur necromancers.

“Do you understand what lies ahead?”

“Whatever awaits us, we are grateful to serve the Inexorable One,” Ranakotz answered.

“You will become undead.”

“By the will of the Inexorable One.”

“Some of you won’t see the next morning — others will take over your bodies.”

“Then that is our path in this life,” Dekotra shrugged.

“Wait here,” I answered and walked back to Shazz.

I couldn’t make myself turn these meek cultists undead with my own hand. The lich was busy with his minions and had paid no heed to the new arrivals. I had to point them out.

“The people of the Cult of Morena have arrived,” I said. “The Nucleus ordered me to turn them to the Destroying Plague and give them to you.”

“Have you turned them? I see you have not.”

“Can you do it yourself?”

“Each does his duty, Legate,” the lich answered and turned away. “Do yours and then I shall deal with them.”

Shazz helped me make my decision. No way in hell would I transform them! As soon as I did, there’d be nine liches instead of one. The Nucleus’s quest made no mention of it anyway. If there was no quest for it, then the Nether with it!

I returned to the cultists, firmly deciding to send them far away from here.

“What did Morena order you to do exactly?”

“To present ourselves for the command of the intelligent undead by the name of Scyth,” Dekotra answered. “And to do all he asks. To help him and show no mercy in battle.”

“And do you see who I am?”

“Of course, Scyth. The Inexorable One awarded us with special vision when she sent us here.”

“Alright. You see the gates?” I pointed at the stronghold with the veil of a portal glimmering inside. “Go there. On the other side is my domain. There are ziggurats there, strange arches and structures with the same dead soil beneath as here. Destroy them. Can you do that?”

“By the will of the Inexorable One…” Dekotra began his usual tune, but Ranakotz interrupted him.

“We will do it, chosen of the Inexorable.”

“There is a fort behind an enclosure. It is mine. My people live in it… and non-people. Kobolds, undead, a satyr, a raptor, a succubus, an insectoid… You will also find the temple of an ancient god there, whose authority even Morena recognizes, and we are all his followers.”

“May I be so bold as to ask…” Dekotra cast a quick glance at Shazz and whispered. “Forgive my inappropriate curiosity, but should we not be helping you in the war against the new gods?”

“That is exactly what we are doing. We will return the old gods. And you know what, Dekotra? I like you more this way. Don’t be shy, ask your questions.”

“But we prepared for war!”

“The war will be everywhere. But your battle is not here, not now. That lich and his master don’t want you to fight for them. They simply need your bodies, they need Morena.”

“So are we with them? Or with you? Who are you, chosen one of the Inexorable?”

“You answered your own question, Dekotra. I am Morena’s chosen one. And the initial of the Sleeping Gods. And, apparently, Fortune’s favorite. And a Legate of the Destroying Plague, as it happens. Now go. My allies will explain everything.”

After making sure that the cultists successfully passed through the plague portal (it might not have worked, but apparently my allies could use it too), I checked who was online.

Despite the early morning, Crawler was already logged into Dis. I messaged him to tell him to go to Shazz’s former camp, meet our new allies and settle them in the fort. I also added that I needed the guardians at Tiamat’s temple to support Crash. Consider it done, Scyth, Crawler answered. He asked no questions, for which I was particularly grateful. The curiosity must have been a torture.

After gathering all my undead, I sent them north, to a point between the stronghold and Bridger, then I jumped to the frontier. Not to Vermillion, but a little farther north, to the Singing Dunes, the meeting place I’d agreed with Yemi.

The Yoruba leader was lying beneath a canopy of invisibility. After confirming in the chat that it was me, he showed himself and stood up from the sand. Shaking it off, he looked at me intently, measuring me up in tense expectation.

“Yemi! Is everything ready?”

“Yes, Legate. The people are in position. They’re just waiting for the message. Clan mail will work fast. The sanctifying rituals have already begun in Vermillion, Bridger and Fort Smith. Reports tell me Nergal’s high priests are working round the clock.”

“Alright. Attack on my command. I need chaos when I start what I have planned. Take these.”

I unloaded most of my scrolls into the trade window, leaving myself seven just in case.

“Forty-five scrolls?” Yemi’s eyes widened. “Should we set them all off at once?”

“These are more powerful than the ones you’ve seen. The area of effect is one hundred and sixty feet. The damage varies, but each will deal at least six million.”

“Got it. I’ll assign people to cover the whole square in front of each of Nergal’s temples. By the way, are we blowing them up too?”

“Without a doubt,” I answered, and Yemi’s chuckle was bloodthirsty. “You don’t have to blow everything up at once, but I’ll give you the extra scrolls you need. And try to destroy the stationary portals.”

“By the way, what happens to the person who activates the scroll? Do they survive?”

“I’m not sure. We need to test that.”

“Alright, I’ll keep a group outside the explosion range just in case, so someone is there to grab the loot. My people will be under Scrolls of Obscurity, but they could still get made. One sec…” His eyes glazed over. “A scout from Fort Smith says a caravan of preventers has moved into the desert. Two full raids, each with a hundred intelligent creatures and three hundred NPC haulers with twenty million health each. They’re also contracted to protect the cargo, so be careful.”

“You too.”

A player on a gryphon flew by above us, probably a preventer scout. But it was too high to see who it was. I doubted they could make us out. Following the rider with his gaze, Yemi raised a fist.

“Good hunting, Legate! And rich loot to us all!”

Chapter 24. E2-E4

I DROVE THE UNDEAD toward the caravan escorting the Great Portable Altar. Thanks to the Legate’s Crown, my skills were counted as three levels higher than they were, which meant I could enhance my minions with a level-four Plague Boost.

When I saw a pack of mobs, I separated off my weakest minion and sent it off for an uneven fight. Twenty-five percent of the total experience gained by the dead mob was split between the others. And the more brainless undead died, the stronger my guardians became: the former boss Sharkon, the ragged hermit Toothy, the zombie morten Kermit, the skeleton vulture Birdie and the dead tumbleweed It.

By the time I had only fifteen minions left, my ability had leveled up three times already.

Plague Boost ability leveled up: +1! Current level: 4

There is no death in service to the Destroying Plague! When any of the legate’s minions are killed, they strengthen the rest of the party, giving them 25% of total experience earned by the minion.

With Legate’s Crown, the ability level reached seven; forty percent of the experience was shared out. Shazz was focusing on quantity while I went the other way; maybe I’d have fewer minions, but they’d have their abilities from life and super-high levels! At first there was too little experience coming in, and it disappeared as it split among the minions, but as my number of minions fell, their levels began to skyrocket. Sharkon reached five hundred and thirty. The other guardians, like the Treasury guardians, although those weren’t nearby, were approaching five hundred.

When they were the only ones left, I raised the last slaughtered pack of mobs and continued the grind. Three hours later, when all my minions were over five hundred and Sharkon had reached five hundred and forty, we stopped. Thanks to my high Perception, I could make out the caravan, dark against the background of the blinding white sand as it wended its way through the desert. It could have been someone else, but somehow I was sure that I’d reached my first target for today.

Estimating the trajectory of the caravan’s movement, I pointed to a sand dune it was heading towards.

“Dig, Sharkon!”

I didn’t know how Snowstorm implemented that. There was no button on the minion control panel. Did the beast just read my thoughts? Understand my speech? Whatever the case, the boss lowered its blunt sharklike snout and drilled into the sand. In mere seconds, he was over sixty feet deep. I couldn’t reveal my Blackberry disguise, so I decided to take a head-on approach.

At my command, my four guardians rushed toward the caravan, kicking up sand. The hermit and morten were the first to fly into battle, with the cottage-sized tumbleweed flying in behind them, and the vulture coming in last, flapping its bony wings. It never did start to fly. On the other hand, it compensated for that with its utterly deadly abilities, including a screech that froze in place all nearby enemies.

I mounted up my mechostrich and galloped into the spacious tunnel my minion boss had dug. Soon, the guardians’ icons flashed red: they were under attack. Stopping next to Sharkon, I glanced at the minimap. My minions’ markers were three hundred feet from me — the caravan hadn’t made it to where we were.

“Dig that way,” I ordered my minion as he awaited instructions.

As I followed the tunnel along, I looked at my guardians’ icons. They were constantly flashing red, but their health was dropping slowly, and I came to a hopeful conclusion; two hundred preventers were having huge problems in a fight with four minions. Even without Sharkon.

Boom! Boom! Experience rushed in from two kills at once. Boom..! And a series like a machine-gun volley; “Boom!” six times — Kermit and Toothy were ripping apart enemies stunned by Birdie. The tumbleweed It swallowed up foes and was now digesting them alive — I’d been through that, and it took up all three top spots in my list of the worst sensations ever.

Minus nine preventers in total, great. My bag rustled — someone had dropped an epic, my first loot in this Holy War since it officially began.

Mentally cheering on my minions, I stared into the darkness and waited for my moment. Sharkon froze beside me. Night Vision leveled up twice.

The preventers lost four more, but then they seemed to figure out a strategy; the tanks took the aggro and they started to turn things around. Kermit’s health dropped into the yellow zone. The others weren’t faring any better. It was time to release my armored landshark.

“Dig, Sharkon!” I pointed upwards.

I didn’t see what effect Sharkon’s appearance had from underground, but I was sure it was impressive. The former boss literally corkscrewed out of the sand, jumping straight into the thick of the battle. I waited three heartbeats, climbed out through the shifting sands behind him and began to pick targets. Sharkon paid no attention to the tanks, following my command to fly into a bunch of casters and play a little game of Hide and Seek-and-Destroy. They didn’t want to play, but found it wasn’t optional. The clothies fell from two to three strikes from the boss. I imitated one of their forms, keeping Cloak Essence active.

Screams echoed through the dunes as the boss sowed death and destruction. “Sharkon! It’s Sharkon! Nergal help us!”

Reaper’s Scythes shrouded my fists and they whistled through the air as I launched a series of strikes and tore through the mass of melee. Fighters surrounded my guardians, taking chunks out of them and professionally rotating tanks, blocking my minions’ path and protecting the damage-dealers. The raiders’ refined tactics collapsed when I detonated a Plague Fury scroll in their midst. I decided not to fire off another, maintaining the myth of its long cooldown time for now.

The desert filled with hysterical cries. I heard the word ‘Threat’ a lot, with cries for help into comm amulets, the shouts of raid leaders and the groans of the dying. The guardians had already dealt with their initial targets and began to fight again according to their aggro tables. I set an order of attacks — from the surviving raid leaders to the remaining casters and ranged attackers, — then I rushed to the preventers’ precious cargo.

The caravan was stretched out over almost two hundred yards, and I needed to get to the end of it. There were no players in the rear; they’d all crowded ahead to fight off my guardians.

I saw a giant cart the size of a two-story house, surrounded by hauler giants and covered with a canvas-like cloth woven with gleaming magical threads, with a mobile forcefield dome above it. The forcefield glimmered with reflected sunlight.

I stopped thirty yards from the cart. To avoid ruining my reputation with the haulers’ guild, I decided to avoid conflict. I focused on the Senior Hauler Foreman, the largest giant, a sixteen-foot-tall hulk, ragged and bearded and wearing a guild uniform, and activated Subjugate Mind.

My field of vision split into two separate pictures; I saw everything as Scyth, and at the same time viewed the world through the giant’s eyes. My head span, but I got used to it surprisingly quickly, switching to the correct — the giant’s — field of view. One part of my brain continued to control Scyth while the other dealt with the giant.

“Let’s go, boys! It’s all over!” the foreman rumbled in a bone-shaking bass. “The guild has voided this contract.”

The haulers were slow to think, but they had no second thoughts once they made a decision. When they saw their foreman hauling ass away from the cart, they threw down their cargo and rushed to follow. Turning quickly, I saw the haulers following foreman-me; behind Scyth-me, the surviving preventers were scattering. One of them, a thoroughly beaten-up mage, stared at me in shock, stretched out an arm and fired a frostbolt. Liberation reflected the freezing spell and the mage stopped still, covered in ice.

My Plague Energy was leaking away to maintain Subjugate Mind, but I was sure I wouldn’t have a severe lack of it in the next few seconds, and I got to work; I started smashing through the forcefield using my plague-enhanced Combo. Time was running out, and the preventers’ main force could arrive at any moment.

“Everyone on the Threat!” I heard a furious shout from behind.

My body shuddered under the preventers’ strikes. A long spear with a serrated blade ran me through and pinned me to the cart. Arrows, crossbow bolts and darts stuck into my back. Like a porcupine, I thought in a flash, but the next instant my body exploded in Hellflame and my charred flesh began to fall from my body, my bones hissed from the acid… Some aerial blades, sharp as razors, cut through my spine and caused my skull to fall off and hang from me, held on only by my undead curse.

There were still over a hundred preventers left. They concentrated their efforts and surrounded me, and I couldn’t kill them with one Plague Fury. I decided not to get distracted — as my Diamond Skin of Justice buff ended, Immortality replaced it and Reflection was doing its job.

The dome forcefield flickered out under the hail of my strikes. It took one more Combo to break through the canvas damage-absorbing cover, and when the cloth’s magic faded, it turned into an ordinary rag. I pulled it aside.

Behind me was chaos. The preventers had somehow pinned Sharkon in place and were now peppering him with arrows unchallenged. The tumbleweed It expired before it could digest its last victim. Birdie was knocked out of the sky by a small meteorite, the light version of Armageddon. Kermit was living out his final moments. Toothy was still stuck in and hanging on, leveling up just in time when the other guardians died and gaining a little health. It was a shame the minions’ health didn’t fully recover after a level-up. My brain noted all this as if from a distance, in passing.

The cart broke into pieces. Nergal’s altar — several monolithic blocks and a slab carved with the visage of the Radiant God stacked on top of each other — fell, raising a mountain of sand and flashing with cold light.

Great Portable Altar of Nergal the Radiant dealt you damage (Shining): 30,000!

You have damaged Great Portable Altar of Nergal the Radiant (Reflection): 90,000.

Durability: 299,910,000 / 300,000,000.

I stood, absorbing the radiation of the altar’s active defenses. Pecheneg was mistaken. The altar’s damage progression multiplier was higher than two. Seven ticks in, I was burned for two hundred and twenty million damage, cut down to twenty-two by Resilience. Sixty-six went back to the altar.

The ninth tick was the last for the structure. Widening cracks like veins spread along its surface. Barely noticeably, it condensed, then compressed, then… exploded into pieces.

No! — stunned, it took me a moment to pick out the agonized wails of the surviving preventers.

A furious divine scream descended from the heavens. A flash lined the sky, like a cosmic blade cutting through the fabric of space itself, and the altar’s energy seeped away toward it like smoke pulled into a fan.

The deed was done. The rest would be just details.

First I removed Subjugate Mind from the poor hauler foreman, who was still running without looking back and had caught aggro from a couple of angry hermits. He was bleeding now. I hoped he survived.

Then I helped the only surviving guardian, Sharkon, to finish off the preventers, thoroughly demoralized after the destruction of their altar. Some escaped through portals, others galloped away on mounts. I didn’t bother following any. The plan was done. At least, the first part of the plan.

Taking advantage of the lull, I examined my inventory: Magnetism had pulled in plenty of loot, but less than I’d hoped for. Maybe the preventers had thought of some trick to lose less gear.

Then I sent Sharkon to Tiamat’s temple. It wasn’t the first time he’d traveled such a distance without me. True, he hadn’t done it alone… Never mind, he could handle it.

Then I read a couple of lines from Blackberry. She said the time was coming. I replied that I’d be there.

Then I got a notification; dad logged onto Dis and immediately messaged me: It worked, son! I withdrew the money, paid the fine and the client signed a liability waver. It’s finally all over!

It’s all just beginning for me, dad, I answered. And for you and mom too, I hope. What do you think about taking her to a lunar resort? Uncle Nick suggested the Silver Harbor. Take some of my money, go nuts.

You know, that sounds just great! he answered. Thanks, Alex! We’re really proud of you!

He ended the final message with a bunch of emojis. Every message he sent was full of happy faces. For a second, I wanted to log out of Dis and hug my parents. But I decided I’d still have time.

Twenty-four miles south of Vermillion. We’re waiting for the others. Hinter’s tent is the largest. Good luck, Blackberry wrote.

I summoned my dragon, took off and headed toward the camp of the Alliance of Preventers. According to Blackberry, after covering a small area of desert, they planned to hold a short council to analyze their rate of advance. On the way, I activated my Blackberry disguise and removed Cloak Essence. Storm crackled with energy, but to others she was no longer a Storm Dragon, but a Purple Ursai Dragonhawk, the legendary mount of Modus’s analyst officer.

It took me around forty minutes to reach the target. Scouts and patrols on flying mounts whirled above the camp. The camp itself was as fraught with activity as the Goblin Bazaar. Top players swapped their impressions of the first hours of the event, waiting impatiently for the campaign to continue.

I messaged Yemi, told him to get started. Understood, the mage confirmed immediately.

Landing next to the largest tent, I confidently walked toward the entrance.

“That was quick, Blackberry,” said a nameless elf standing at the entrance.

I smiled, not knowing how to answer, and tried to walk past. The elf grabbed me by the elbow and whispered quietly:

“Nice to see ya, dead boy.” Only the words he said next saved him from instant death in the fires of Plague Fury. “It’s me, Crag. Getting sick of drinking Transformation Potions. These guys,” he nodded toward the tent, “don’t want to reveal me to the others. The potion only works for a half-hour.”

“How?” I asked vaguely, but Crag understood me.

“You’re expected. They’ve been keeping an eye on Blackberry and they know she’s been leaking intel. Whatever you have planned, they’re ready. I only just figured it out myself and decided to warn you. They don’t tell me that stuff, I overheard it…” Crag’s whisper quietened and cut off.

Something was happening. The voices in the tent got louder. I noticed there was nobody in the sky now; all the sentries had landed. The chaotically scurrying crowd began to close in toward the center, and although the preventers were aimlessly wandering around as if going about their business, they were moving this way. Toward me.

“Run, Scyth!” the elf who turned out to be my friend Crag whispered, barely audible.

“Sorry, buddy,” I said…

…and took control of his mind. When Shazz the lich had done that during the attack on Kharinza, Crag had been kicked from my group. I hoped the same would happen now.

I invited Crag-me to my group and accepted the invitation. It worked!

Horvac’s voice resounded from within the tent:

“Are you sure it’s him? Looks more like ‘her.’”

“Oh, absolutely sure!” Hinterleaf exclaimed. “She is in Pecheneg’s castle right now. I knew that girl got entangled with that stubborn old man. She has my astral mark on her. And he is in her form…”

Now that I had a clear picture, I pressed Depths Teleportation and… suddenly, complete silence descended. The voices stopped, the roaring of mounts and battle pets subsided.

And I froze in place, unable even to blink. All my interface buttons turned gray, going inactive.

Astral Trap!

Your soul has been pulled from your body and is wandering the Astral Plane.

Duration: until damage is taken.

The tent flap flew aside and Hinterleaf and Horvac appeared in the opening.

“Piece of cake…” the first declared, a self-satisfied smile on his face. “You see, the True Flame doesn’t reveal him. So, Blackberry must have given him permission herself. But that’s a family matter. I’ll deal with it. It worked, didn’t it? Huh?”

“It sure did. Old-school, heh-heh-heh,” Horvac clapped the Modus leader on the shoulder and laughed.

Both walked out, letting the rest out behind them. One after another, the strongest players of Dis emerged from the tent: Yary, Joshua from the Children of Kratos, Colonel, Glyph. Behind them appeared Yagami. He must have brought his Mizaki clan into the Alliance. Humans, orcs, elves, minotaurs, gnomes, trolls, dwarfs, titans…

Next came unfamiliar leaders from the Empire clans: a vampire, an ogre and a dark elf. Then the leaders from the neutral clans: the dryad Adda from Sharp Blades and the gnoll Fang from Ferals.

They were all smiling, laughing, joking. The air hummed tensely from the concentrated auras of legendary armor and magical upgrades.

Mogwai was the last to emerge. As he approached, the leader of the Elites transformed into a gigantic bear.

“Hello there, class-A threat!” Hinterleaf exclaimed, addressing me. “This time you will not escape. We have portal blockers all over the camp. How did you like my false altar idea? I have to admit, I’ve suspected Blackberry of playing both sides for a long time now, and then a reason to test her loyalty finally came! Hah! And Horvac and Joshua didn’t think you’d take the bait…”

“My bad,” Horvac the orc grumbled. “I overestimated him.”

“So did I,” Joshua admitted, smiling. “I lost the bet. You get your Rainbow Artifact, Otto.

The goliath Colonel, leader of Excommunicado, stood forward. He came close to me, growled in my face:

“You aren’t going to take anyone out again with a nuclear explosion. We aren’t some dumb PuG in Kinema!”

“Easy, Caesar, easy,” Hinterleaf said, calming the man down and addressing me: “Please forgive my friend’s lack of restraint. He lost something valuable in Kinema… But this makes it all worth it, don’t you think?”

“He made fools out of us! Only blood washes that off!” Colonel grunted.

“Fancy yourself the chosen one, do you?” Yagami asked, twisting his lip. He spat, exchanged glances with Glyph.

The others echoed his angry shouts. Hinterleaf raised a hand, calling for silence, then spoke again. His tone was far harsher. The little gnome narrowed his eyes, spoke through his teeth.

“Now listen to me. If you make our job easier, we’ll recruit your next character. The yearly pay…”

While the preventer harped on at me, I tried everything, including logging out. All in vain. When it hit me, I mentally slapped myself.

I was overcomplicating things. Crag-me appeared from behind the all-important and holier-than-thou top players and threw a throwing knife at Scyth-me. I took damage and Astral Trap was no longer active.

Hinterleaf didn’t see it because he was busy arguing with Glyph and Horvac. He turned to me and started threatening me.

“If you even think of resisting…” the gnome spread his hands theatrically. “Well, is there even any point in trying?”

Scyth-me set his shoulders, stretched his neck and smiled.

“Sure there is…” I said, smiling and firing off a Hammerscythe at the gnome’s self-satisfied face.

Fractions of seconds imprinted themselves in my memory frame-by-frame: Hinterleaf thrown into the air, blood streaming from his nose; the other Alliance leaders dropping their jaws; my fist carrying through with momentum… And then everyone leaping into action.

“Enough talk, old man!” Mogwai the bear roared, deflecting the gnome’s body as it flew into him, then rearing back and leaping at me.

His monstrous frame shone with a rainbow mana shield as it crashed down on me, pressing me into the sand. Its eight-inch claws began to tear my face, which had only just recovered from the fight at the altar.

“Explosion in Vermillion! At Nergal’s temple!” Yary shouted. “This isn’t the Threat!”

Contradicting his words, I activated my first scroll. A flash lit up everything around me.

As the light of the explosion faded, figures in gleaming power shields began to shine through the smoke. Everyone had survived. The crowd roared and descended on me. Even with my Resilience at the cap, the combined damage from the preventers took my health down to ten percent, which activated Diamond Skin of Justice. Reflection kicked in, but the Alliance’s healers were paying attention.

Mogwai kept me pinned to the ground, mauling me, shaking me like a rag doll. The Path of Equanimity! the thought flashed in my head. By my estimations, that line of Resilience gave Mogwai a hundred and twenty seconds of full invulnerability at the start of the battle. Trying not to pay him any mind (which wasn’t hard after Ervigot and the Montosaurus), I waited thirty second under a hail of strikes until the shields fell from the rest, then activated my second Plague Fury scroll.

The first explosion had put all their protective amulets and skills on cooldown as they activated to prevent the deadly damage. The second scorched the earth and all the players to ash. They hadn’t following the strategy Blackberry had developed; they crowded together like sheep, rushing to get a look at the Threat and take part in its elimination.

Mogwai survived, of course, still holding on by his invulnerability from Path of Equanimity, and he probably had a mana shield strong enough to take five million damage, and had a heal for ninety percent damage (I hoped it wasn’t instant), plus nine million health on top of all that. A fat tank in the full Vestments of Irkuyem’s Fury set, which lowered his incoming damage by the amount of health he lost. Our battle promised to be long.

“Hold him for two minutes, Mogwai! The roots are on cooldown!” Hinterleaf’s voice came from somewhere off to the side.

The Modus leader had survived even the second explosion. I looked through the eyes of the surviving Crag; yep, Hinterleaf and Horvac were still alive. Stubborn bastards.

“Easy!” the bear roared as it continued to rake its mighty claws across my face.

Diamond Skin of Justice made way for Immortality. The invulnerable Mogwai had my arms pinned, which meant I couldn’t use a single move.

Several tons of fearsome mass pinned me down fast. Ghastly Howl had no effect. I removed Subjugate Mind from Crag and switched it to Mogwai. Useless, the level difference was too great. Could I raise some of the dead to help me with Plague Reanimation? Infect Mogwai with Plague Pestilence? Not now…

“One minute!” Hinterleaf’s voice came from Mogwai’s comm amulet.

Twisting my head round, I managed to make out the gnome and orc standing off in the distance — they’d understood their mistake, figured out Plague Fury’s range and stood right at its edge. The next instant, Mogwai’s full invulnerability shield from Path of Equanimity fell. The druid didn’t stop working his claws, making mincemeat of my entire upper body and head, but now Reflection was able to do its job and it began to take down Mogwai’s mana shield. Then I’d be able to fight back.

Boom! Boom! Boom! I added a Combo to Reflection, and in three hits, the mana shield was gone! Crag’s divine ability was working; my stats multiplied by twenty, and when the mana shield disappeared, another series of Hammerscythes hit the druid so hard that his gigantic body flew to the side, flashing up with another shield. The druid was almost dead, but some artifact had saved him from fatal damage.

I managed to pull myself to my feet and look around. Crag was alive, but playing dead in a pile of ash. Mogwai transformed into an ent before he hit the ground and began to flood himself with Heals, at the same time covering the area all around him with Rain of Prosperity. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Horvac charging toward me. His mouth was twisted into some paralyzing shout that my Liberation reflected back at him.

In the meantime, I rushed Hinterleaf — he seemed the most dangerous. There was a lot going on, but I still recalled that I also had Lethargy. The cast unexpectedly worked and sent Ent-Mogwai to sleep. The paralyzed Horvac was no help, and Hinterleaf suddenly launched into a run.

“You’re dead!” the gnome shouted. “You’re a corpse, threat!”

He couldn’t run as fast me, so it wouldn’t have been hard to catch him, but my job was even easier when my thrown shield suddenly stunned him. A five-percent chance proc. In all the chaos, I’d even forgotten to charge the shield with Plague Energy. I charged Combo as I approached and knocked the gnome’s teeth into the back of his throat. He survived, surprising me again. Something wasn’t letting him die.

His face was a mess of blood and bone, his jaw crushed, one eye hanging down by a thread. He was saying something, but it was hard for me to understand. Hinterleaf multiplied, creating ten copies, and each aimed a spell at me.

At the same time, Horvac the orc chief had come round and was already dropping his monstrous hammer down on my head. Hinterleaf shouted:

“Astral Roo…”

Before his cast could finish, I detonated my own Plague Fury for the full twenty-seven million damage. I don’t know what onlookers saw — maybe one of Blackberry’s AoE abilities, — but to me it looked like death from within, as if I was in the epicenter of the explosion of a neutron bomb.

Hinterleaf, his damn friend Horvac, Mogwai still asleep within the explosion radius — they all died. The shockwave carried the now shieldless ent away like a feather, and only Mogwai’s bones landed, collapsing into ash as they went. So much for your rank-three Resilience…

The logs ran so fast down the edge of my field of view that I only saw the last lines:

Serendipity: +1,191. Total earned: 564,610 / 1,000,000.

You leveled up..! Current level: 309.

45 free attribute points available!

I got to my feet with difficulty; my inventory was overloaded. Reaper’s Scythes vibrated, absorbing the unspent lives, choking but still swallowing, and leveled up to five.

Nobody was left alive. Nothing remained of the marquee but a perfect circle of ash.

Something shifted nearby, and I watched with a certain amazement as an undead dwarf rose to its feet, coughing. Crag survived. He immediately put a flask of potion to his lips and transformed into an elf again.

“Run, Scyth,” a smile lit up the elf’s grubby face. “You smashed the wrong altar. They’ll be back soon.”

“Got it.” I smiled back. “How’re your folks?”

“At the church thanking god night and day. Dad got treatment, they even made him a little younger. There’s money at home, and Hinter bought new digs for them. But they still think Dis is devilry. They beg me to come back to fold of the church and give up all this work of Hades.”

“What are you going to do next? What if someone sees you talking to me?”

“I’ll send a screenshot of the logs to their analysts. You took control of me, ha-ha! Alright, you really better get going.” Crag walked almost right up to me. “Hit me with something. I don’t want to be the odd one out. Everyone’s dead, so I better be too…”

“See you when it’s all over,” I said, pulling back my fists.

My series of strikes dropped my friend’s health rapidly, but Crag still had time to whisper:

“See you when it’s all over, friend…”

Or when it’s all just beginning, I thought, disappearing through Depths Teleportation.

The fort was alive. The workers were talking to the cultists of Morena, whose leader, Dekotra, was having an important-sounding conversation with Trixie and the kobold shaman Ryg’har. Kobold children pattered along the sole street.

The distant booming roar of the returning Montosaurus only added to the feeling of life.

The sound of a hammer striking stone carried down the street. Gyula was starting to restore Behemoth’s temple. He’d patched the hole in the tavern wall up, I noticed.

“You don’t look well,” Patrick noted from his seat on the bench outside the Pig and Whistle. The honored veteran of the Third World War and Second Swarm War explored his gums with a toothpick as he continued. “You should rest, kid…”

Patrick O’Grady was rarely right. But this time he hit the nail on the head.

Epilogue. Omar

THERE’S A LOT to be said for being tall. Little Omar knew that by the end of school. The girls in his class had a growth spurt during the summer holidays. The boys lagged behind at first, but soon overtook the girls. Only Omar, dubbed Kiddo at school, stayed as small as ever.

Fully grown, Omar reached a height of five feet. In the second half of the twentieth century, such trivialities were easily solved: DNA editing, biochemical reconstruction, or even just growth hormones. But even cheap synthetic hormones cost money. And there wasn’t any.

This was why, when he created the character Babangida, Omar paid no attention to racial bonuses or appearance. Only height interested him, and among the races of the Empire, the tallest were the ogres. The fact that they were also the strongest was a nice bonus.

When his family lived on the edge of Lagos, forty million strong, little Omar forced down nutrition briquettes and never dreamed that he would one day see the world, live in expensive hotels, fly his own sports flyer. That chance came to him from Dis, Yemi Iwobi and his clan, which had become his second family.

So, when Yemi declared not only to his officers, but to the entire clan all the way down to the raw recruits, that they would be taking the side of the A-class Threat and side by side with it, Omar agreed. He didn’t care who he fought as long as he fought.

“If anyone breathes so much as a word of this to any outsiders, I will personally rip out their rotting tongue,” Yemi said as if talking about the weather. “And then cut off their head.”

Babangida was sure there were no traitors in the clan, but there were plenty of fools. So he approved of his leader’s threat. Everyone knew that Yemi never joked and always kept his promises.

The same Yemi had promised the legate, who had asked to be referred to as the Threat, that Yoruba would fight on his side as soon as he said the word. Which the legate had done — which meant it was time to keep the promise.

Babangida now stood in a motley crowd, waiting for the event to start. It seemed to contain some of every single race in Disgardium. A short, square dwarf wheezed next to the ogre; behind him two gnomes on a goliath’s shoulders were squeaking about something, and on the right a fairy hovered, its wings fluttering. An imperial minotaur was discussing something with a Commonwealth lopher, and a dark elf was finding common ground with his distant forest cousin. Everyone was waiting with bated breath for the High Priest of Nergal. There were several in Dis — Nergal couldn’t have just one High Priest. Mere seconds remained until the event began, and the crowd counted it down:

“Three! Two! One!”

Shining letters appeared before the crowd to a triumphant roar:

THE NERGAL’S SUMMONS EVENT HAS BEGUN!

The shared sigh of relief carried all across the square before the temple of Nergal the Radiant, then the god’s high priest appeared on the central balcony. Wearing a snow-white shining cassock and a crown inset with three crystals made of concentrated light, the High Priest held a staff in his right hand with a small sun at its peak. Lower-ranked priests stretched out in a row behind his back.

The square fell silent. The blessing of Nergal’s warriors began, but there was still no news from Yemi.

Babangida had pushed his way as close as he could to the temple and was pressed against the guards’ barrier. He was about a hundred feet from the balcony — the perfect position. The White Flash would hit the temple, the priests and the players. Six of Babangida’s clanmates were also spread across the square according to the plan. Seven explosions should fully cover the temple square with its seething crowd.

Long minutes of expectation… Omar began to lose patience, started to think that maybe the whole plan would be called off. He looked around — his clanmates were still in position.

Suddenly he heard the rustle of paper signaling a new message. Looking ahead, Babangida opened it and saw an attachment. Plague Fury Scroll. The White Flash! He’d seen it in action, and he trampled in excitement. The little dwarf next to him yelled as the ogre’s heel landed on his foot.

Now he just had to wait for the signal. The wait stretched out — the people on the square changed more than once before the long-awaited message from Yemi finally arrived: Begin!

With a certain childish excitement, Omar activated the scroll.

For several seconds, the entire square disappeared in gleaming light. Lines streaked by his vision, notifying him of kills, of experience and achievements gained, of his ruined reputation with every possible faction…

Babangida himself died too, but in the ten seconds before he revived, he saw the temple and unperturbed faces of the Nergal priests, all completely untouched. In the dead silence, Babangida could easily hear the high priest strike the ground with his staff and cry:

“In the name of the light and all things living, Nergal the Radiant, I entreat you! Protect your sons and daughters from blasphemous magic!”

A supernova explosion lit the sky, and a voice boomed down from above, cutting through to the bone:

“To all who answered my summons, protection will be given!”

End of Book Four

Author’s Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/dansugralinovslevelup

Afterword from the Author

I write these lines during the fourth week of a global quarantine. Nobody knows how the coronavirus pandemic will end, but I really hope that our healers (healthcare systems) will rank up enough to learn new spells with resists against coronavirus, and mana to heal us all.

Like you, I’m a little worried about the future not only of my own family, but of mankind itself, but, like my characters, I always stay optimistic. I believe that we will pass through this challenge (not only the virus, but the economic consequences as well) with valor; I believe we can learn something from this experience. In any case, if you’re reading this and still stuck at home in the pandemic, I have a favor to ask: please look after yourself and stay safe!

This book was supposed to be called Holy War. Russian readers began to read it as Holy War. But everything changed. :-)

I wanted to give Scyth and the Awoken time to prepare for the war, which meant that my planned storyline for the book grew to include an unreasonable amount of events. I had two options: cut out the extra threads, cut down on scenes and put everything into one book, or just split Holy War into two tomes. I couldn’t decide myself, but naturally, I wanted to tell the story in full. In the end, I surveyed my readers and over 90% of them voted against cutting anything.

So Holy War was split into two parts, and then my publisher advised me not to confuse anyone with names like ‘Book Four: Part 1,’, but instead to continue the sequence so far.

In the Russian version, this book is called ‘Призыв Нергала’ (Prizyv Nergala, Nergal’s Summons). In Russian, this has two meanings: the people are summoning Nergal and Nergal the Radiant is summoning his followers. I think the last two lines of the epilogue lived up to that name. However, the English version’s title of Resistance had already been confirmed, and we decided to leave it.

So Holy War, as the fifth book in the series is called (it’s already written, and by the time you are reading this, it will probably already be in the process of translation), you’ll read a little later. Although, maybe my publisher will suggest something like Holy Crusade…

Rest assured, my dice have shown their character again, and you’ll never guess some of the twists in the storyline. See you in the Lakharian Desert!

With thanks to…

Once more, I’d like to thank everyone who reviewed the previous books in this series, even negatively. For an author, reader feedback is essential.

Special thanks to my responsive translator Alix Merlin Williamson. Alix joined the project late, at book three, which meant there were some minor discrepancies in character names and ability names. We’ve fixed that, with big thanks to my agent Alex Bobl.

In general, I’m grateful to the entire team at Magic Dome Books, in particular to Simon Vale.

I greatly value the contributions of Ramon Mejia, Paul Bellow and Ian Mitchell to the LitRPG community. Ian, special thanks to you for allowing me to use your image in Disgardium.

Thanks to my colleagues Vasily Mahanenko, Michael Atamanov and Alexey Osadchuk for their wonderful books, which inspired me to begin to write four years ago.

The importance of the following people cannot be overstated. With love, I say thank you:

To my sons: 16-year-old Artemy, on whom Alex Sheppard was based, and 9-year-old Kenes, who has played a bunch of video games with me. I love writing books with Kenny in his room while he plays through yet another Skyrim quest or gets stuck on another Final Fantasy boss on his PlayStation. Sometimes I give him tips, sometimes I take over the controller. Incidentally, Artemy prefers World of Warcraft.

To my beloved Lena — for believing in me and for the beautiful Russian covers of my books.

To my parents, who brought me up to love reading.

If you like our books and want to keep reading, download our FREE Publisher's Catalog, a must-read for any LitRPG fan which lists some of the finest works in the genre:

Tales of Wonder and Adventure: The Best of LitRPG, Fantasy and Sci-Fi (Publisher's Catalog)

New!

World of the Changed  LitRPG Series
by Vasily Mahanenko

Rogue Merchant  LitRPG Series
by Roman Prokofiev

Project Stellar  LitRPG Series
by Roman Prokofiev

Clan Dominance: The Sleepless Ones  LitRPG Series
by Dem Mikhailov

The Alchemist LitRPG Series
by Vasily Mahanenko

Level Up: Update (The Knockout Book #2) LitRPG Series
by Dan Sugralinov

Resistance (Disgardium Book #4) LitRPG Series
by Dan Sugralinov

Neue Versionen (in Deutscher Sprache)!

Nächstes Level LitRPG-Serie
von Dan Sugralinov

Disgardium  LitRPG-Serie
von Dan Sugralinov

The Knockout  LitRPG-Serie
von Dan Sugralinov und Max Lagno

ALL BOOKS BY DAN SUGRALINOV:

LEVEL UP LitRPG Series:

Re-Start (Level Up Book #1)

Hero (Level Up Book #2)

The Final Trial (Level Up Book #3)

DISGARDIUM LitRPG Series:

Class-A Threat (Disgardium Book #1)

Apostle of the Sleeping Gods (Disgardium Book #2)

The Destroying Plague (Disgardium Book #3)

Resistance (Disgardium Book #4)

World 99 LitRPG Series:

Blood of Fate (World 99 Book #1)

The Knockout LitRPG Series:

Level Up: The Knockout (Book #1)

Level Up: Update (The Knockout Book #2)

Short Stories:

You're in Game!

(LitRPG Stories from Bestselling Authors)

You’re In Game-2

(More LitRPG stories set in your favorite worlds!)

New Release!

Please meet our new author! Kaitlyn Weiss writes in the genres of romantic fantasy, urban fantasy and fantasy adventure. You can download her first book for free on Amazon: Captive of the Shadows (The Fairy Code Book #1).

Captive of the Shadows (The Fairy Code Book #1)

by Kaitlyn Weiss

In order to have new books of the series translated faster, we need your help and support! Please consider leaving a review or spread the word by recommending Disgardium to your friends and posting the link on social media. The more people buy the book, the sooner we'll be able to make new translations available.

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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] PuG, PuGs (Pickup Group) — a group consisting of players in different clans. Members of such groups can be called ‘puggers.’

[2] Aristocrats, citizens with a citizenship category above C.

[3]The Pechenegs were a semi-nomadic Turkic people from Central Asia. Also, Pecheneg is a Russian 7.62×54mmR general-purpose machine gun.