The Clan

by D. Rus

  I was watching, slightly dumbfounded, as system messages flashed before my eyes,

  Alexandra Kovaleva, Level 1 Druid, has accepted your invitation to join the clan!

  Jana Novac, level 1 Cleric, has accepted your invitation to join the clan!

  Sergey Tischenko, level 1 Warrior, has accepted your invitation to join the clan!

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Their heartrending voices had long died away but my lips were still moving as I repeated Doc's last phrase,

  "Who if not us?"

  A very uncomfortable question, once again raising the subject of responsibility. Instead of playing and having fun, I kept sinking deeper into local problems, lugging the load of other people's hopes and struggling in a net of responsibilities that hadn't been mine to accept.

  Of course I understood Doc, at his wits' end with frustration, overwhelmed by the never-ending chain of deaths. He was like a cat saving her kittens out of a burning house: her hair smoldering, her eyes swollen with blisters, diving back into the flames time and time again to pull out her wailing babies one at a time. Doc, too: once he'd seen a ray of hope in the dark, he followed it, throwing caution to the wind, selling his apartment, exposing himself to blows from all quarters, all to pull his babies out: not so much where to, but more importantly, where from.

  How could I not understand him? How could I have said no? True, he hadn't warned me; he hadn't asked for my advice. Probably, in the light of his objective it all seemed petty and irrelevant. Like a lip-biting kamikaze pilot pointing his plane at the deck of an enemy aircraft carrier, he saw no problems, only his goal and his duty. In his mind he was already there, burning alive on the mangled deck amid crumpled metal, taking hundreds of enemies and their powerful machine with him.

  I had no idea how it was going to work out with the children. In case of war, we could always move them somewhere safe—say, to the Vets to begin with. No human being would object to offering shelter to a child in danger. Besides, they wouldn't have to walk the war's endless roads as refugees. Here, reaching safe areas was as easy as activating a teleport. Wish we had this skill back in 1941 when millions of people had perished in blockades and ambushes. The siege of Leningrad alone had cost us way too dearly...

  In principle, given another ten to fifteen years, these kids who knew no other home but the world of sword and sorcery could become its strongest warriors. They would have no inkling that it was all a game. They'd have no doubt that magic is real, invisibility is normal and healing someone is as easy as waving your hand over them. They would be the ones to invent new spells and bring magic under control. There had to be a difference, making knights and wizards out of thirty-year-old office rats and housewives or raising them from two-year-old toddlers. Which of them would I bet on in the long run? Quite possibly, he with enough intuition to foresee this trend now and take the young wolf cubs under his wing could be looking at a considerable jackpot sometime in the future.

  Still, I had to do something about Lena. This was a classic case of cognitive dissonance causing me to expect more from her: more responsibility, more help and more maturity. I kept forgetting about the barely teenage girl locked inside that voluptuous adult body, her hormones raging (if that were at all possible here). So I really had to put my foot down before she derailed us all. And seeing as we had a kindergarten in the making, it would be a good idea to introduce a similar hierarchy in the clan itself: we'd have a junior group, a senior group, pre-school, primary school and so on.

  I spent a few more minutes distributing some basic rights between the groups, making sure that senior clan members had a few more options than the younger ones. With a vindictive grin, I removed Lena from the clan officers' list and moved her to a new group, Junior High. After a moment's thought, I added one final touch. Poking out the tip of my tongue with zeal and satisfaction, I wrote: Valley of Fear Junior High. Now, baby, you'd have to prove to me you merited a promotion! Best regards.

  Excellent. I slapped my knees and jumped to my feet, scaring a butterfly and earning a disapproving glance from the Hound pup busy hunting it.

  Enough digressing. I reminded myself of a steam engine pulling an enormous freight train packed with goods and people clinging to car roofs as I dragged it directly into the financial abyss. I had to force myself out of it. Actually, that was exactly what I'd been doing those last few days. The cigarette business wasn't bringing in any profits yet: all the proceeds were immediately invested into its development, building premises, buying supplies and hiring more staff. Judging by what my analysts had gleaned from my business plan, in just one year we were looking at five hundred grand gold a month to each alliance member. Nice as it was, I needed money now—preferably fifty times that.

  I started by creating a new High Spell scroll, put it up at a private auction, then sent an invitation to the Minediggers impatiently waiting for it. In less than ten minutes, they bought the precious parchment. True to their word, they transferred the million into my account adding a polite letter where their ill-concealed impatience and hopes for quick revenge shone through their words of gratitude. I had a funny feeling they weren't going to stop at that. They would keep going, destroying the greedy offenders' castles one after another. They were yet to learn that sooner or later—sooner rather than later—their happy bubble would burst. Everybody in the square had witnessed the scroll in action. All the interested parties had gleaned everything they needed from that demonstration and were probably busy working on countermeasures. Which were quite simple and obvious. It was enough to break the dome down into a few smaller segments or levels. Then the scroll would only be able to remove the first layer, presenting the attackers with an unpleasant surprise: a second protective sphere.

  I was afraid that very soon, when discussing a castle's defense levels, everyone would allude to the number of layers in a dome. The scrolls would still be used but their price would fall tenfold, if not hundredfold.

  Too bad. I had to squeeze as much out of it as I could while I still could. I had to churn out a scroll a day: the Vets' arsenal could wait no matter how many hints Dan and the General would drop.

  Another money-making idea had been burning a hole in my brain for the last twenty-four hours, ever since I'd received Thror's message. That honorable Dwarf, the patriarch of Thror's Gem House, informed me that the work on both altars had been completed. Which made me remember our last meeting and the way he complained of the greedy priests of Light who didn't want to add a new god to their pantheon—one that would answer the needs of both Dwarfs and miscellaneous crafters. Actually, he'd chosen the right shoulder to cry on. Was I the First Priest or just a pretty face? Granted, I only knew the location of one Dark temple out of the remaining four: the one in the Drow capital. But that was plenty to summon a new patron god. Ruata, the Drow Princess doubling as the deserted temple's Priestess, was unlikely to mind. And even if she did, so what?

  In other words, I had enough to offer the midgets from Under the Mountain to make them untie their purse strings and dig up their grandfathers' pots of gold. The unique service of custom-summoning a patron god was going to cost them.

  A couple of hours later, having rummaged through the available gods lists and having discovered, to my joy, an additional box saying include deities from literature, fantasy and gaming, I was knocking at the massive gate of Thror's Gem House with my most enticing smile.

  The clan's patriarch knew better than to make me wait. Almost straight away, the receptionist invited me in. He wasn't particularly pleased with the speed with which I accepted my finished order—apparently, he'd been looking forward to explaining every flourish of the intricate design and painting a picture of the task's inconceivable difficulty. Now he sniffed into his beard, apparently betrayed in his best expectations.

  Unwilling to alienate him, I hurried to rectify my mistake. "You'll have to excuse my haste, Sir. I didn't want to hurt your feelings by inspecting your perfect work for non-existent faults. The stamp of
your House is all I need to justify its quality."

  My sugar-coated flattery had the desired effect. The dwarf relaxed, accepting a stance of haughty arrogance. Oh well, end of fine tuning, time to engage the primary caliber.

  "Besides, I wanted to save our time and energy for a much more important private conversation," I rolled my eyes meaningfully at the guards behind their firing slits.

  The Patriarch gave a kingly nod and began making a complex sign combination with his fingers. Steel trapdoors clanged. The Dwarf's time-ridden face expressed a patiently polite attention with just a tad of skepticism.

  "Absolutely private," I repeated.

  He stared at me with suspicion, chewing his lower lip. Finally, he made up his mind. He made another sign, dramatically more complex than the first one, and froze, listening. Then he made another sign and finally shook his fist at somebody unseen. Another doortrap clanged—hopefully, the last one.

  The Patriarch looked up at me from under his bushy eyebrows. "Speak."

  "Does the name of Aulë say something to you?"

  Crack! A steel pencil in the dwarf's hand snapped in half. With a thump, one of the guards collapsed behind the wall. So he should. The blacksmith god, the lord of earth and metals and the Maker of the Dwarven race who'd passed onto them his love of creations in metal and stone.

  "Speak," the Patriarch repeated. He leaned forward, virtually lying with his chest on the table, his hopeful eyes looking into mine.

  Four hours later I walked out of his house, not quite stable on my feet due to the amounts of Dwarven Extra Dry consumed, and breathed a sigh of relief. It probably would have been easier to come to a business agreement with an electric kettle than with those skinflints from Under the Mountain. They hadn't given me twenty million. Nor ten. I'd only managed to squeeze seven out of them. Plus five hundred Dwarves deployed for the restoration of the castle's defensive capacity including four external bastions.

  And if someone says it's not enough, then I hope they have to deal with a dwarf vendor in every scruffy shop they ever visit on their crooked life's path. And if six months of such pain in the butt doesn't turn him into a gibbering walking skeleton gray before his time—then I'll eat humble pie and admit I was taken for a ride. But at the moment, I was entirely proud of the deal I'd just struck.

  According to the Dwarves, they could have seven million in a week in exchange for my keeping my end of the bargain: summoning their much-anticipated deity. Actually, without even mentioning anything else, such summoning would bring thousands of Dwarves under the Fallen One's banners. True that whenever the question was raised, Honorable Thror had turned rather pale and sad—so it looked as if the event could lead to a rift in the Dwarven ranks. Not everyone was prepared to denounce their new gods returning to their original element that technically had found itself on the side of the Dark.

  But for me personally, such a Dwarven exodus from the army of Light and their allegiance to the Fallen One was in some respect even more important than the money itself. This was a very hefty weight added to the balance of future confrontation.

  Having received a boost from the admittedly decent brew, my mind was already painting countless steely ranks of Dwarf squads lining up at the foot of the Temple, waiting for my command. Then the world shuddered.

  Booom, the gong reverberated all over AlterWorld with a system alert. I peered at the opened message and froze in the middle the road.

  Pantheon alert! A new force has entered the world! Llos, the Dark Mother of the Drow, Weaver of Chaos and the Lady of Spiders, has joined the Pantheon of the Fallen One!

  A Drow Goddess? Still hopeful, I rummaged through the Altar menu only to confirm that the Dark Temple of the Original City had regained its patron deity. Ruata, you stupid woman, what was that now? How on earth could you have done the dirty on me?

  I was like a taut string, unable to restrain my anger. What a cheek! Who did they all think they were? When I needed them to help me restore the First Temple and sort out the problems it had created—no one seemed to be interested. They were all too busy lining up for the freebies! Not just lining up—they were taking the place apart, pilfering everything that wasn't screwed down! Destroying valuable ammunition, stashing away mithril and gobbling it down, even denying me my right to summon a patron god! The Temple's High Priestess was the only person who could have done it, and that's exactly what she did, jumping at her chance. Everyone was busy tugging the blanket while I was alone lying here freezing my butt off.

  Sorry, guys. This isn't the way the cookie crumbles. I'd do whatever it takes—excommunicate, anathemize, disembody whoever deserved it.

  I found myself running on the cobbled pavement not really looking where I was going, colliding with unhurried players or ducking out of their way. They shouted at my back something about those Elven tykes who should all be put up against the castle wall or hanged on lampposts. I only smirked. Yeah, no foreigners allowed, wonder where I'd heard that before? Sorry, guys, bad timing, duels would have to wait.

  Finally I reached the massive wall of the House of Night residence. The guards were respectful but unyielding. "You'll have to wait to be taken inside." For five minutes I paced the yard by the front door, working myself up and getting more and more agitated. Finally the majordomo, unhurried and majestic like the Queen, invited me to follow him. I was running rings around the well-fed NPC, struggling to refrain from goading him on with a hearty kick in the butt. The only thing that stopped me was the thought that the guards would interpret such an action as a direct assault, resulting in my respawning a few seconds later in the Vets' portal hall. So I had to grin and bear it, notching up interest on the bill I was about to present Ruata with.

  After fifteen more minutes of marching through a series of opulent halls I was already almost sure they'd been walking me in circles. Then the majordomo finally swung open another pair of doors and stepped aside, allowing me to enter.

  Yet another luxurious hall, its thirty-foot ceilings heavy with stucco and frescoes depicting the Drow's exploits. A soft 'the Princess will see you shortly' followed by the inconspicuous sound of the closing doors made me swing round. He'd legged it, the bastard. Very well, I could wait. Ignoring the soft couch and the side table laden with delicacies, I began pacing the hall making the guards of honor by the doors jump to attention every time I went past them.

  The hall was sixty paces long and forty wide. Just when I started thinking I'd already worn a groove in the marble floors, the world shuddered again.

  Boom! The guards bowed deep as the inner interface flooded me with messages,

  Quest completion alert: The Prince of the House of Night. Quest completed!

  Reward: a new social status, The Prince of the House of Night.

  Congratulations! You've received Achievement: you've become the third person in AlterWorld to occupy a Prince's throne.

  Reward: +10,000 to Fame

  Congratulations! Your family status has been updated! Princess Ruata has become your wife!

  Holy cow. That wasn't the agreement! What was that about the Prince? And his spouse? Didn't I have to make another 100 levels for a successful completion?

  I opened my quest logs and looked for the record I needed,

  Level above that of Princess Ruata (current level: 71) (met)

  Gosh. How had she managed to drop a hundred levels? Taali would kill me and she'd be right. Why would I need this stupid princedom, what for? To be perfectly honest, I'd already bitten way more than I could chew. I was looking at at least another couple of years of simply gaining experience in running my own clan and the castle. All I needed now was a couple of thousand Drow and all the problems they could bring.

  Having said that... I cast a patronly glance over the surrounding splendor and the guards with their doglike expression. What was it Ruata had said? A hundred fifty cutthroats and three hundred guards? Yeah, right—I gently shut my inner greedy pig's dropped jaw—plus a whole shedload of other people's problems. In
cluding a marriage I couldn't care less about. Sure, Ruata was fire and ice incarnate, the peak of passion and beauty, totally mind-blowing, forcing you to think with completely different body parts. Still, finding myself licking someone's feet, looking up in devotion waiting for their command to fetch their slippers—that was something I really didn't look forward to.

  I shook my head and pursed my lips, thus hitting the right note for my upcoming exchange with the Princess. With a decisive step I approached the bowing guard. "Take me to the Princess, now!"

  "Yes, Sir!"

  That's better. For the next five minutes we kept winding and unwinding down the stairs, descending deeper and deeper into the bowels of the residence's dungeons. The number of guards at intersections grew, pointing at our approaching an especially guarded object. Finally we arrived at an old archway of black marble intricately carved with archaic pictograms of a long forgotten tongue.

  The guard pointedly stepped aside and saluted, making clear his mission was completed. Very well. I could manage on my own now.

  In centuries past, countless feet had trodden a groove in the eighty-eight ancient stone steps that led me to an enormous hall, its size concealed by the True Darkness. A barely noticeable walkway was marked by braziers filled with smoldering embers and crimson sparks. It led to the iridescent soap bubble of a magic dome.

  I stepped onto the walkway. It crunched and rattled underfoot. This wasn't the right time to enjoy the divine Darkness, so I rummaged through my bag in search of the Torch of True Flame. Yanking it out, I activated a third of its power and recoiled. The entire floor was littered with bones and ancient weapons. Crossbow bolts that sat deep in crumbling skulls, chestplates that spilled loose ribs, helmets crushed by powerful blows and shields smashed into pulp. It appeared to be the remains of a great battle that had once raged under the Temple's walls. The defenders and attackers lay randomly on top of each other, their bodies piled high in some places. The flesh had long been reduced to ashes and the smell had worn off; there was nothing left but bones and steel.