The War (Play to Live: Book #6)

by D. Rus

  I chuckled. This bodyguard obviously had a strong sense of duty since AlterWorld had grouped them together. It was a real pleasure to imagine how he delivered countless crits to the 200-level monster. He must’ve put its eyes out, plus dealt double and triple hits to the same spot. So the system really slowed the varan down, allowing the noob to kill such a strong monster. "Headshot cobmbo," "Blindness," "Paralysis," "Stun," "Bleeding." So gunfire really did have potential here. We just needed powerful ranged weapons and strong faith in our own skills.

  "Pick up your grave before it goes bad. Just touch it."

  The girl wiped away a tear of anger, then carefully patted the blue marble. She froze for a second, reading the message in her interface, then nodded reflexively.

  The obelisk crunched and turned to dust, leaving behind a small bundle of things. My greedy pig gave a sad howl; the marble was gone! Goodbye, sky-blue coffee table, bathroom painted in royal colors, rare statuettes and ash trays that blend in so well with the Super Nova design!

  Kate took her things out of the bundle. She pulled on a pair of tight shorts and a light shirt which she tied into a knot on her belly. After that, she put on silver rings, then examined her Colt 1911 and tucked it into her belt.

  I looked away, feeling jealous. The gun was empty, but it was still a firearm and the legendary 1911.

  The girl heaved a sigh of relief. Being dressed made her feel better. She looked skeptically at my weapons, but asked anyway: "You have ammo by chance? Bullets, .45 caliber? Or better, a Kalashnikov?"

  I shook my head. "This is a world of swords and magic. Forget about firearms. Let’s come back to my castle where we can determine your class and get you some gear. What weapons are you into anyway?"

  The girl smiled. "I like steel…I’ve used a two-handed sword before, and my dad gave me a bunch of knives. I’m pretty good with the crossbow."

  "I don’t think you’re of a high enough level for a two-handed sword yet. Although…Things are weird now, and we don’t know what the future holds just yet. But I’m sure you can manage a crossbow."

  Kate nodded pensively, then shuddered at the thought that suddenly occurred to her. "Wait, we’re in a virtual world now, right? So Andrew can also be revived?"

  I shrugged. "Yes, in theory. If the grave’s still available, and if he has retained his mind and agrees to be resurrected. Obviously we have to find the obelisk first."

  "Over there, 2829 feet away!" the girl declared with confidence as she pointed somewhere far.

  "How do you know?" I asked.

  "I feel it," she whispered, hearkening to herself in surprise.

  Instantly I knew what she was. "A ranger, specializing in hunting or scouting. Or a rogue, an assassin. Or, the most exotic variant, a druid with ranger skills."

  Kate frowned, confused and irritated. "Are those character classes? Whatever! The point is, I’m not nuts and I really do know where to find Andrew. Right?"

  "Right," I nodded, amazed by the girl’s stress tolerance once again.

  She raised her brows. "So why are we still standing here, soldier? Come on, spur your bear! My bodyguard has given his life to save me. Sure we’ve had our fights; he’s a big, boring baby-sitter sometimes. But he’s loyal and one of us. And we don’t leave our own behind!"

  I placed a foot in the stirrup and got into the saddle. I offered the girl my hand and easily lifted her up into the saddle to sit behind me. Hummungus could handle the extra weight as I had long ago trained him to be able to lift an entire family. Taali had really wanted a big family with a dozen kids. Her mom didn’t show her enough love when she was little…

  After Kate assumed a comfortable position and stopped fidgeting, I couldn’t help but ask: "Hey, are you just naturally cool-headed, or you just haven’t figured out yet that you’re stuck in a different world?"

  Kate punched me, making my mithril armor jingle, then hissed, rubbing her fist. Was she going for my liver? Smart.

  "You trying to provoke me or something? If I go off into girly hysterics, you’ll feel more at ease? Look, I’m not used to showing my emotions. They’re mine, and no one else’s. I can be scared senseless or be endlessly happy on the inside, but in either case I will remain poker-faced. Riga University of Law and Diplomacy, got it?"

  "Got it. A Nordic temper, a particularly strong one, clearly. Just don’t fight. You’ll mess up your hands, or draw the bear’s aggro. Until you’re bound to a place, you’ll just fly back into the Great Nothingess again. Is that what you want?"

  Kate shivered, swallowing hard. "Let’s go already…I’m stressed out, see? Too much adrenaline. And then, once we’re in a safe place, I’ll chicken out. So don’t be mad, rescuer who never got a thank-you kiss."

  I blushed, thanking all the gods for my massive helmet with its aventail to cover my beet-red ears. I quickly changed the subject: "What language are we speaking now? Lettish? Hebrew?" I nodded at the raft as I bent down, touching the hot rubber with my hand and tossing the object into my inventory with a mental effort. Eighty pounds was nothing.

  I glanced at the girl to see if she liked the miracle physics. But she didn’t care, she just sat there with a crooked ironic grin and feverishly shining eyes.

  "We’re speaking Russian, bro, the great and mighty. Come on, hurry up and stop looking so surprised! No elven ears and phoney scars can hide your Ryazan face."

  Lifting my hand with adamant injuries, I rubbed my cheek which got burned by the Sun God’s plasma and muttered: "The scars are real."

  I prodded Hummungus with my heels, turning him to the bodyguard’s grave. I grew slightly irritated, thinking I was being manipulated again. Important work was piling up, and there were countless people to rescue and tons of abandoned goodies to collect. Only I wasn’t the one deciding what to do about it; the girl sitting behind me was now making these decision for me. She sure didn’t have a Baltic character. I really felt strong next to her, but I also felt a bit like a slow, dumb bear. I wondered if that was the norm for a Russian man. As the saying goes, Russians harness their horses slowly but ride fast.

  We didn’t get very far. The varans that had attacked the raft were staying in a shady lowland between two rows of tall sand dunes. The trench was roughly 60 feet deep. I couldn’t cast Resurrection underwater, and doing so from the saddle or a small patch of land would put the spell out of range.

  I put a marker on the map, then looked at the girl’s knuckles. They turned white as she clutched the pommel. Turning slightly, I yelled, trying to shout down the strange rumbling in the distance: "We can’t reach him! We’ll head back; there’s nothing left for us to do here. I got his coordinates and will put my dwarves on it. Maybe they’ll build a leakproof well over the gravestone or put together a diving bell. We’ll figure something out! Damn, what is that noise? A waterfall?"

  Kate bit her lip in disappointment, nodded in agreement and pointed ahead with her finger. "Seven waterfalls! That’s where we came into this world. After seeing this, nothing can surprise me now."

  I looked hard into the distance. I couldn’t see anything, as if a storm was brewing at sea. I used the veil of Eagle Vision again. What I saw made me gasp. It was like someone had been firing cannons into the sky. There were seven giant holes, all at different heights from 300 feet to over half a mile, and every one of them was spewing forth water of different colors. The water pressure was insane. That’s how I found the breaches in the fabric of reality.

  "The Ocean of the Seven Seas…" I muttered, labeling the new location by habit and automatically receiving the Discoverer bonus.

  The rumbling became deafeningly loud. It turned out that Hummungus, entranced by the sight, was nearing the waterfalls, using the tops of sand dunes to get there faster.

  The sheer grandiosity before us reminded us of how unimportant we were. Even Kate’s mask of imperturbability was shattered. Squeezing my shoulder, she brought her lips to my ear and began excitedly sharing her story: "I’m well aware of the Perma phenomenon and t
he mess surrounding it. My dad’s sponsoring a private medical center for the poor. It’s better than the public ones. That’s how I got to be a volunteer. The worlds didn’t just fall apart in one instant. I mean their bonds broke instantaneously, but the spatial wounds still haven’t closed everywhere as you can clearly see."

  I nodded. Yep, I saw it all right.

  "My dad called, gave us the Zombie Apocalypse command. Most of our situations have code names and special provisions laid down for them. Alas, I was on vacation at the Red Sea at the moment, on our frigate Hope. We didn’t have time to reach shelter. We had just turned the ship around when we got caught on something and were cast out here with a piece of the stern deck. Good thing Andrew was always by my side. The debris sank, the liferaft self-inflated and rose to the surface. You know the rest. By the way, what’s this world called? I hope it’s not the Padishah or some other perverts’ paradise!"

  "It’s called AlterWorld," I said reassuringly. "It’s fine. Oligarchs, special services, slavery, and religious wars. You’ll like it here. Say, what’s that huge carcass floating between the blue and green currents?"

  Kate looked at it hard. "A giant cruise liner! About 900 feet long and 16 stories tall. But it’s on its side. Looks like this area wasn’t deep enough for it. And also…"

  "What?" I asked, alarmed by the size of the ship, and gave my greedy pig some Validol as I wondered whether to get all of the Alliance involved in looting this vessel or try to handle it with the help of my clan alone.

  "We were trying to swim over to it at first, but then Andrew said we have to lie down and stay low. Some ugly types in spotted uniform had seized the ship and were in a hurry to loot it."

  I shuddered. Camoes?! So, our paths have crossed again.

  The lust for vengeance, the anger at seeing loot being stolen right from under our noses, and the desire to destroy one of AlterWorld’s vectors of power – all this determined my plans for the near future.

  Just wait, you bastards! I'm coming after you!

  Chapter Sixteen

  I didn’t risk getting close to the ship. I wanted to, and my hands itched for loot. My greedy pig was throwing a fit; the evil strangers had collected the most prized loot in this world! This giant pial of manufacturable iron, stuffed with freebies from keel to the 20th VIP deck, cost a few billion dollars.

  There was nothing magic in there, no artifacts. As for weapons, it had only useless kitchen knives. The only valuables were the contents of personal safes in some of the cabins and a few boutiques.

  This was no Fort Knox, but still; thousands of tons of all types of metals, millions of gallons of fuel, and countless everyday belongings and decorations, all of them natural, from Earth. They were all worth the effort.

  And people? Even if the ship wasn’t carrying passengers, it must’ve had at least 2,000 sailors, officers and all sorts of hired staff from highly trained security professionals to cooks and pretty singer girls. They would’ve made a terrific reinforcement for any clan. Even cancan singers and dancers could’ve come in handy as the demographic situation was still quite bad; every day I would hear suitors crossing swords under my window. A mercenary Drow was better than nothing, but it didn’t suit everybody…

  Of course I would’ve been much happier to find a war ship or a strategic mobile reserve fleet instead. But it is unwise to want to much. I always bowed my head in gratitude for any gift or challenge fate sent my way.

  My instincts told me to board the ship, chase away the vultures and claim whatever loot was left onboard. But I resisted. My rational side prevailed over my lust for adventurism which got stirred up by the prospect of a new solo mission.

  I put the lid on my desires and made my bear back up, taking cover behind a low sand dune. Hummungus fidgeted nervously; the newly formed island with its delightful golden beach was quickly turning into a deadly trap of quicksands as it got soaked in salt water.

  But for me, the air of freedom was intoxacting. Loneliness was like a healing potion for my weary nerves, even though Kate was there with me.

  As I temporarily set aside the problems of the unmanageable cluster, the mighty Alliance and my clan, I was finally able to meditate and feel reborn. At last, I stopped being the main part of a huge mechanism and became the old Max, riding his bear out in the Frontier with nothing to care about.

  Several weeks of insane stess followed by a time of rest when I pondered over my new experiences gave my personality a new dimension. I jumped down from the saddle, then told Kate to stay. The wet sand gave a squelching sound as it sucked in its first victim.

  I flipped through my spell book, looking for the old Bind icon. I swallowed hard. I was afraid. My hands trembled and my legs grew weak. I had seen thousands of slaves and dozens of torture chambers. I had been chained up myself, had been on the sacrificial altar, had heard the screams of people immured into stone walls.

  To change the bind point and to break your own rules was truly frightening. This taboo of my own making had become linked to my survival instinct. But I just had to do this, Sungoddammit! It was critically important to pace myself.

  I clenched my teeth and climbed a little higher, then activated the pictogram. Everyday magic was always slow. For eleven seconds Kate watched with curiosity as flames danced around us, accompanied by the quiet bell-like chiming.

  Again, I better not die…Who knows? Maybe this place will be the bottom of an ocean in a few hours, with a pressure of several atmospheres.

  I opened my staff chat. It was suspiciously quiet. Were my officers asleep? I gave them a wakeup call by raising the alert status to Orange, then sent a series of blitz-codes: "Prepare for siege" and "Enemy unknown." I also informed them of the place and time оf my arrival.

  At that moment, a huge flash appeared in the sky behind us. In ten seconds, the deafening sound of an explosion reached us, followed by the air wave.

  Kaboom! The ground shook. The air wave nearly broke all the laws of physics, almost tearing the clothes off our bodies. It was like a blow of a celestial hammer to the chest. I flew through the air and got pressed into the sand.

  Hummungus remained standing thanks to his four paws and massive weight. Because of the game algorithms, Kate remained in the saddle but still lost two thirds of her HP. Her nose was bleeding. She rubbed her neck in bewilderment, smudging the thick blood running out of her ears.

  "You’ll have to get used to it," I said, casting an intense look in the direction of the magical explosion.

  My intuition told me that the Portal to Seventh Heaven was no more. The angels had left, sealing their plane of reality and slamming the door in our faces.

  The water was quickly receding from the island’s shoreline, filling up the giant crater left by the explosion that was over there somewhere, and exposing the seabed with its freebies. Fish floundered on the sand, broken glass glittered in the sun, and the varans began rushing about.

  Kate was the first to react. "Sea’s receding! Had this been in the real world, I would’ve said beware the tsunami."

  I nodded slowly. "Same here…"

  I evaluated the situation, at the same time healing Kate and casting some much-needed ranger buffs on myself; Eagle Vision and Wolf’s Ear.

  I really did hear water somewhere. It was roaring, sounding quite frightening.

  I tossed my head, dispelling the buff in a hurry. "Here, accept this group invite! Let’s get outta here!" I told Kate as I sent her an invite and patiently waited as she familiarized herself with the interface.

  Meanwhile the water began to rise in the distance, forming a giant bulge. Hummungus growled quietly and backed up, and I felt a knot in my stomach. The wave would kill us. We’d respawn in ten seconds, returning to the murky waters teeming with sharp splinters and dangerous creatures. Then we’d die over and over again, our chances of hitting level zero increasing significantly. Have I not told myself to never set bind points outside of friendly walls?!

  "Press the key already!" I cried, lo
sing patience, and quickly activated the priestly Portal to Altar.

  Alas, this also took time…

  The giant wave swiftly gained speed in shallow water, towering over us and ringing with the laughter of dozens of water elementals. Their foamy limbs reached for us, wishing to strangle us and dissolve our power.

  Kate’s imperturbability was gone. She did not want to go back to the Great Nothingess. The girl went pale as a ghost and tried to make Hummungus run for it. She pulled his bridle, making him turn his head, dug her bare heels into his mighty flanks. But she would’ve had more luck trying to move a mountain.

  I ground my teeth so hard that I crushed my enamel and lost HP. I had to stay where I stood. Retreating like a coward could make me lose focus and fail the cast. Then I would surely die.

  The wave crashed into the sand dune just as I heard the long-awaited clap of my portal. Even though transportation by portal was quick, we still brought along a few tons of salt water and a dozen marine animals. Spectacular!

  Coughing up water, I kicked a fish floundering on the steps of the First Temple. It landed right under the nose of a hellhound eagerly sniffing around nearby.

  I motioned for Kate to dismount. "Get off, end of the line. You’ll be safe here. Welcome to my castle."

  But the girl was not in a rush to leave the comfy saddle. She clearly felt safer up there.

  I could see why. Hellhounds and temple guard orcs didn’t look too friendly. And the grand temple itself had an overwhelming aura.

  There was already a crowd gathering around us. The return of the nomad leader did not go unnoticed. Whatever, I thought, let them run, they could use some exercise. Some of the logistics officers were already growing beer bellies with all the government grub and their easy life. That’s the sad part about possessing knowledge. They ate like pigs and knew that it would be impossible to keep the fat off. And believing in something can make a lot of things happen.