by Dmitry Bilik
“He’s no more mine than yours.”
“That’s irrelevant. And this blood spirit, as you call him, is feeding off two commoners at once, if I’m not mistaken. We can sing and dance all we want but we won’t be able to strip him of more than 30% HP, and we’ll die trying.”
“Just say there’s no way out.”
“There is, but you’re not gonna like it. A blood spirit sucks the life out of its host. If the host dies, so will the simulacrum.”
“Wait a sec! Did I understand you correctly?” my voice grew sterner. “Do you suggest we kill these people?”
“Exactly,” she replied in an even stronger tone. More than that: she looked me straight in the eye. She was the epitome of determination.
Which was more than I could say about myself.
“This really isn’t it right,” I finally said.
“What isn’t?”
“It’s not their fault. They don’t deserve any of this. They definitely don’t deserve being killed by us.”
“Do we deserve being killed? Do you suggest we give up and wait patiently for our own demise? Or should I say, our turn? Look me in the eye! Do we or don’t we?”
I didn’t say anything. I had nothing to tell her. Part of me had already agreed with her reasoning while the other half was screaming at me that I had no right to decide anybody’s fate. Unlike Jan or Pull, these people had done nothing to hurt me. Nodding my head would condemn them to death.
“If you’re so reluctant to tarnish your precious karma, oh Light One-” she began sarcastically.
“Shut up!”
Arts promptly did so, apparently realizing she’d gone a bit too far. She paused but she had no intention of giving up quite so quickly. “You can hate me all you want! You can despise me — but yes, I do want to live. And I’m quite prepared to kill a few Commoners if needs be. You know full well that I’m Dark. The time will come when you’ll realize that you can’t achieve true power without getting your hands dirty. You need to fight for your place under the sun.”
“What if I don’t want to achieve true power?”
“All right, all right,” she blew a desperate breath in an attempt to either calm herself down or find the right words that might convince me. “Let’s drop the emotion and think rationally. You’re in possession of two Divine Avatars. You’re undoubtedly one of the few Players most worthy of owning them. Nobody argues that. Now just imagine what’s gonna happen once Talsian lays his hands on one of the Avatars. Because he will, the moment he kills you.”
The five-minute silence that ensued felt like an eternity to me. You can’t imagine the kinds of thoughts that went through my head. But I’d already made up my mind. Arts had been right in one thing: A Seeker can’t let his emotions control his path. He has to be perfectly rational.
“You think you can kill them all at once?”
She didn’t bat an eyelid. “Yes.”
“Then you’d better do it. Not because I can’t or because I’m afraid of sullying my hands,” I forced myself to look her straight in the eye, investing all my strength into not averting my gaze. “If I do, it’ll be all for nothing.”
“I understand,” Arts replied. There was none of the usual sarcasm in her voice. Not a trace of fake obedience even. She really did understand. “May I?”
I nodded.
A staff appeared in her hand. She raised her other hand and moved it through the air as if feeling for something, then made a sharp movement as if pinning someone down.
The threads attached to the monster expired on one side.
The creature darted toward Arts but she’d already launched a fireball with her staff, illuminating the entire cave. The fireball zeroed in on its targets, exterminating the sources of blood magic. In other words, killing the two people. They died so that we could live. Or at least had had the chance to survive.
“That’s it,” Arts said softly, staring at the place where the blood spirit had just stood. “Now we need to get the hell out of here.”
“You think you could conjure up a small stick and some string for me to make a splint for your leg?”
“Sure,” she hurried to open her sketchbook and began leafing through it.
I glimpsed one of the pages with the already-finished grenade. Any other time I would have joked about it but now wasn’t the right moment. Arts laid out a few sheets next to each other and sketched a small piece of wood. As for the string, she just pulled some out of her inventory.
“Ooh,” she groaned when I pulled the string taut around her leg.
“Is this the third time I’ve saved you? I’m afraid, you’ll have to save me from several enemies next time.”
“That’s not a problem,” she said, clenching her teeth and digging her nails into the palms of her hands. Beads of sweat covered her forehead.
“You okay?” I asked as I let go of her.
“I’m fine. We need to get out of here. Once we’ve put down some distance from this place, you should leave me somewhere safe and go on to get the guards from Heraclea.”
“Talsian might leg it when he realizes he’s been found out. He may be crazy but he’s not stupid. And what if he finds you? No, that’s not a good plan at all.”
“So what do you suggest, staying here? You think that’s a good plan? I’ve got a broken leg, don’t forget, and you seem to have run out of your little tricks.”
“You’re not quite right there. We need to stay and fight him. And incidentally, I’ve just got a few new tricks up my sleeve.”
I lowered my eyes, rereading the lines that had appeared in my mental view a few seconds prior.
You’ve helped a Player who is friendly with you.
+20 karma points. Current level: +2000. You gravitate to the Light Side.
You’ve unlocked additional abilities of the Divine Avatar: Savior. Unlocking auxiliary abilities requires 5000 pt. Light Karma.
Chapter 22
ONE OF THE MOST challenging skills that not many people can learn but all are obliged to have is the ability to wait. It’s always useful, whether you’re a college student humbly waiting bouquet-in-hand for a tardy date, or an impatient police rookie stuck in a tobacco-filled unmarked car staking a suspect out. Not to mention an elderly pensioner waiting in line in the welfare department.
I had only just begun to master this complex skill but I was already sick to the back teeth of it. I mean, how long did it take to get to the nearest village and catch a couple of unsuspecting victims? Or just flag a car down and open it like a tin can?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not that bloodthirsty. I just knew that until a potential victim entered the cave, his or her life wasn’t in danger. That would come later — and this “later” entirely depended on our quick reactions.
Arts took her old place next to the cave’s wall. She was supposed to attract the bastard’s attention. Then it would be my turn, attacking him from behind in the best traditions of BDSM movies. Especially because now I had my share of weapons to choose from. As soon as I’d helped Arts, my karma had hit 2000 pt., unlocking three more abilities. I wouldn’t say all of them were equally useful but they were curious to say the least.
Shield of the Lamb
Creates a spherical holy shield all around you which ignores all magic attacks from any Dark-karma creature
Use: on self
Duration: 2 min
Cooldown: 7 days
Walking on Water
Allows you to move over a liquid surface
Use: on self.
Duration: 3 min
Cooldown: 24 hrs
Righteous Blow
Allows you to deal a triple crit by any means available.
Use: varies
Cooldown: 7 days
We’d even come up with some semblance of a plan, but that wretched Talsian still hadn’t showed up. The fire under the pot should have gone out a long time ago but it hadn’t even begun to die down. Magic, it was all done by magic here.
&n
bsp; We’d liberated three of the surviving victims but they seemed to languish in a weird comatose state, a bit like flies when the spider injects them with his digestive enzymes. Apart from that, we hadn’t found much of any interest. I inspected the cave, hoping to locate a stash or a secret hiding place but found nothing. I got the impression that the crazy malefic never parted with whatever treasures he might have.
After a couple of hours of waiting, I was beside myself with boredom. Arts was luckier: at least she had her sketchbook which she’d laid out on the stone floor next to the everburning fire and was now busy doodling in it while I paced the entrance, listening intently over the sound of the surf outside. I even peeked out, only to discover that the cave mouth was located right by the water’s edge. There was no point in keeping an eye on the surrounding area as the view from the cave was very limited and risked attracting attention to ourselves.
Finally, after three hours of waiting, I heard the sound of gravel tumbling down the slope. “There he is!”
Arts hurried to lean languidly against the wall. She winced as she dragged her wounded leg closer to her body and laid her hands in her lap, making it clear she was ready for the show. In the meantime, I froze about three paces away from the entrance with my back pressed against the wall.
“Sergei, don’t forget what I said!”
“I won’t.”
“You need to strike the right spot and use just the right amount of strength.”
“Quiet!” I hissed. The footsteps were very close now.
“Okay, okay.”
Now it was my turn to act. My hands moved rather awkwardly as I cast the little-practiced spell. The Mantle hugged my shoulders like a cozy fur coat on a wintry morning, muffling all sounds and spreading a strange calm through my body.
The Shield of the Lamb was a surprise. I thought it would be just another sphere but it came as a bright flash which instantly expired, leaving me with a weird confidence that it had indeed worked as it was supposed to.
I slowly drew my Katzbalger and clenched it hard.
The blood mage staggered into the cave under the weight of four new victims. Despite his frail build, he was carrying two on his shoulders and dragging two more behind him. He must have brought them from afar because their limbs were covered in wounds and bleeding: clearly a waste from the malefic’s point of view.
He noticed the absence of the blood spirit at once. He shrugged his load off by the entrance, lowered his head and came at Arts.
“I’m afraid, you’re late,” the girl smirked. Still, according to my Observation, she was pretty nervous.
“Where’s the half-blood?” Talsian invested all his bloodthirstiness into the question. His words painted a gruesome scene in my mind. Him, slitting Arts’ throat. Watching her blood flow. Skinning her alive. Gutting her, ripping all the veins from her body, slicing through her muscles and breaking her joints.
I shook my head free from the vision and softly tagged on behind him.
“Where’s the half-blood?” he repeated.
“Gone to fetch the guards.”
“Liar,” Talsian said smugly.
I realized I wasn’t gonna make it. The mage recoiled and swung round, so my sword barely touched his shoulder. All it did was draw a few drops of blood.
“Silly Seeker,” the malefic grinned gleefully. He started waving his arms frantically in the air like a tecktonik-dancing epileptic caught in a strobe light, then stretched them out in front of him.
What happened next could probably be called Blood Rain. Or Red Tornado. Whatever. A powerful spray of reddish-brown droplets swept over me without causing me any damage. The holy Shield worked like a dream.
“How did you do that, Korl?” Talsian asked, not really scared, but I could see that my invulnerability was bothering him.
“A good magician doesn’t reveal his secrets to the audience,” I said, feigning indifference.
Which admittedly wasn’t easy. The mage conjured up a glowing rope and lassoed me with it — but the rope disintegrated the moment it had touched the Shield. Talsian then attacked me with two more spells: one of fire, the other of ice, following them up with my all-time fav, electricity.
By the time he’d realized that I was now immune to his magic, it was already too late. I took another swing with my Katzbalger. A short sword appeared in the mage’s hands, more like a longish dagger, really, lightweight and apparently perfectly balanced. Talsian pointed its wafer-thin predatory tip at me and lunged toward me, forcing me to stab him.
The Mantle disintegrated in a flurry of blue sparks as I buried the Katzbalger deep in his chest, slicing through a couple of ribs as it went. Dammit! Either I’d missed or Talsian had managed to dodge it at the last moment.
[ ∞ ]
This time, everything went according to our plan — or should I say, Arts’ plan because all I’d done was follow her advice. The Righteous Blow sliced right through his neck. No amount of power or hitpoints could set his head back on his shoulders now.
Your Short Blades skill has increased to level 15.
You’ve killed a Player who was hostile to you.
A change in development branch available: Observer. In order to activate it, you need to select it as your new development branch within the next 24 hours.
You’ve gained the Regeneration skill.
You’ve gained the Bloody Whip spell.
Your fame has increased to 7.
You’ve helped a Commoner who is neutral to you.
+20 karma points. Current level: +2020. You gravitate to the Light Side.
You’ve helped a Commoner who is neutral to you.
+20 karma points. Current level: +2040. You gravitate to the Light Side.
You’ve helped a Commoner who is neutral to you.
+20 karma points. Current level: +2060. You gravitate to the Light Side.
You’ve helped a Commoner who is neutral to you.
+20 karma points. Current level: +2080. You gravitate to the Light Side.
Talsian’s sword clattered to the floor. The bonfire under the magic pot expired. The mage himself crumbled to dust which dissipated at my feet.
“I told you it would work!” Arts shouted. “Even if his Unarmored Combat was maxed out, all it could do was lower the damage. But a crit is a crit! Hello? Sergei?”
I stood there staring at the message. The offer of the Observer development branch was just too tempting. It meant thousands of points of mana, health and vigor. All I had to do was find an occupation of my choice.
It would all have been well and good — but it gave me no guarantee of escaping Talsian’s fate. Not that I could ever become a bloodsucker, but there were plenty of other stomach-turning activities in the world to choose from. This Talsian must have once been a perfectly normal guy too. True, one’s natural leaning did matter but...
But I quite liked myself the way I was now, thank you very much. Ditto for my current development branch. I swiped the message away. There were two more left, and they looked marginally more interesting.
Regeneration (Strength) — the ability to restore damaged tissue within a relatively short period of time. Your current level of Strength allows you to choose two of the ability’s available options offering improved regeneration of two of the following types of wounds: stabbed, slashed, cut, bruised, lacerated, gunshot and bite wounds.
That set me thinking. Slashed, cut, bruised and lacerated wounds could be dangerous but hardly life-threatening. Bite wounds — now they depended on the kinds of creatures they had here. Which left stab and gunshot wounds as the most logical choice. So that’s what I selected.
Bloody Whip (Destruction) — materializes a combat lash which deals 120 pt. damage with every blow while restoring 60 pt. to the caster’s health
Cost of use: 150 pt. mana. Duration: 20 sec.
Yeah right. I didn’t have enough mana to even test it. But I can’t tell you how badly I wanted to have it.
“Hey you, daydreamer,”
said a voice at my feet.
I looked down and saw Arts who must have crawled toward me from her place by the wall. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“You zoned out, didn’t you? Someone had to wake you up. Help me to my feet, will you?”