Apostle of the Sleeping Gods

by Dan Sugralinov

“Any more of these events?” Kolesnikov asked.

  Bellamy was starting to dislike this upstart. He was too curious and talked out of turn. But he’d heard rumors that Kolesnikov had done half the work on the HCMO Cali Bottom project on his own, so he had to keep his eye on him. In this company, people could rise very quickly and fall just as fast.

  “You bet there are!” Bellamy burst out. “But good question, Max! Thank you. Look... Event five. As Peter was saying, Clayton surrendered to Scyth after realizing the boy would keep resurrecting in his instance forever, and Patrick’s curse worked exactly as it was supposed to. Here, we can see him writing questions on the floor, but we can’t say for sure how Scyth answered.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah... How many times have I said that we have to make audio recordings of all player conversations, not only ones sent over signal amulets?!” Kolesnikov exclaimed and Bellamy noted with surprise that no one disagreed with that. By the looks of things, this upstart had more authority than he thought. “What made HCMO Clayton surrender? After all, he knew what he stood to lose!”

  “But we are making recordings!” a girl from the same department objected. Bellamy didn’t know her name for certain. He was seeing her for the first time. “Everything players say in the X zones is recorded!”

  “We started recording after that incident,” Gowatsky noticed gloomily. “Alright, Bell, keep going.”

  “Event six, a direct consequence of number five,” Drake said coolly, after he realized no analysis of that episode was coming. “Clayton activates final death, which gives a small chance of conferring one random skill from the arsenal of the Destroying Plague. And Scyth gets... well more like we get Scyth... Ta-da!” Bellamy sang out. “Anyhow, he gets the skill Mark of the Destroying Plague!”

  “What a complete fluster cluck...” the girl whispered, her eyes wide open.

  “Yep,” Drake grinned happily, as if he’d given Scyth the abil himself. “And no player before him had even seen that boss skill. As a matter of fact, its location hasn’t even been discovered!”

  “Nevertheless, that only upped his threat class to L,” Kiran added. “Come on, Bell, keep it going. You’re on fire. Surprise us!”

  “It just gets more unbelievable from there! Event seven: using the curse of the undead, Scyth gets first kill on Crusher, a minor rare mob in the Gloomwood. And as insignificant as that may seem, when the system calculates loot drop, he gets one that only has half a percent chance! A quest! Medallion! For Patrick! Hm? Can anyone smell what’s cooking?”

  “Patrick generated a quest?” Gowatsky asked.

  “Yes. The trigger was around an event that came before O’Grady met Behemoth. But then, when Patrick saw the medallion in Scyth’s hands, he gave him a mission to go to the Sleeping God. And this is where we smoothly transition to event eight. This one is completely predictable, seeing the way the stars keep aligning. The scenario was never fully activated before and was caught in a loop. The system was looking for ways to move it forward and threw Scyth a bone for First Kill in the Evil from the Depths location and again, ta-da,” Bellamy said with no emotion, “The Depths Teleportation skill. According to the scenario, it is an ability of priests of the Sleeping Gods and the AI took its only chance and gave it to Scyth as a reward! Why only? Because Evil from the Depths was the only dungeon in his whole sandbox with the tag ‘Breath of the Sleeping Gods,’ and skills can only be awarded for First Kills! Anyhow, do you know what the chance of this coincidence was?”

  “Am I to understand there is also an event nine?”

  “Well, I’d hardly call it an event. Look.” Bellamy flipped to the final slide: “Scyth uses the teleportation skill, and seemingly falls through the ground. Behemoth’s AI intercepts Scyth on his way to Tristad where he was supposed to be sent, redirecting him to the Mire. If it were any other player in his place, it all would have ended then and there. At the very least, nobody else could have survived! Nobody! Either they’d drown in the muck or be devoured by swamp creatures! But it wasn’t any old player. It was Scyth, who always respawns right where he dies, and has a chance of becoming invincible. And that was exactly what happened. At the same time, he leveled his resilience skill to maximum. For his level, of course. Praise the Nether he was not the first! Do you remember the achievement Magwai got for that?”

  “Yes, we do, we do,” Gowatsky said cantankerously. Everyone knew the number one player in the world. “What came next?”

  “Behemoth named the boy Apostle of the Sleeping Gods. For now, it doesn’t give him any advantages but, potentially, considering the Destroying Plague, he could end up destroying the entire world. Now, probably not the same way the dev who set that bomb was thinking, because Scyth probably will not have any way of converting half the population of Dis into followers of the Sleeping Gods. There won’t be a complete awakening. But just imagine what will happen if the boy turns Darant? That’s half of the world’s power: the economy, interconnections between regions, quest chains, the leaders of the Commonwealth... Everything will collapse! The world will never go back to the way it was!”

  “Why don’t we just ban his account?”

  “We can’t,” Kiran shook his head. Everyone turned to him. “We cannot do anything at all. Even if the boy... hm... let’s say unexpectedly crashes in a flying car, the system will just assume control over his character as happens with any threat in such situations. He’s a part of Dis now and there’s no changing that without violating the game process.”

  “Preventers?” Bellamy voiced the obvious.

  “Yes, but not the way you’re thinking.” The head of project Pilgrim gestured for everyone to take their seats. “No leaking information to preventer clans, no help and no hints. Everyone clear?” Kiran raised his voice and someone tucked his head between their shoulders. With a wave of his finger, the man could show great favor or, with one kick, send anyone flying down from Olympus. “Good. For anyone who still has doubts, let me clarify. This is what the founding fathers specifically wanted. They’re watching the boy and even making bets about how far he’ll make it”

  “So we’re just gonna stand by and watch?” Max exclaimed. “Because of him, project Pilgrim might completely...”

  “Peter, control your fighter,” Kiran said lazily. “Remind him that I am in charge of project Pilgrim and your mission has not changed. Provide for the complete transfer of minds into Dis. That is the only way forward for your little project Pilgrim.”

  “Maybe we should just have a talk with the kid?” Bellamy suggested. “I mean, so he doesn’t make a total mess of things. Promise him money, pay for his university... And I dunno, maybe raise his citizenship category? Have him sit back quietly, farming raid ins’s. Why would he want to conquer the world? Is he even normal you know, mentally?”

  “In a certain way, I have been... communicating with him,” Kiran admitted despite himself. “Mentally, he’s just fine. And if we made such an offer, he’d definitely accept. But we aren’t going to do that.”

  Chapter 18. Tough Lessons

  THE DAYS AFTER my mandated two-week Dis ban were so steeped in events that it took me a long time to get to sleep, just tossing and turning. I had a million thoughts racing around in my head. Some were pleasant: my victory in the mini-arena, my relationship with Tissa, excitement at Rita’s obvious attraction to me, my bright future if I could pull off my plan and increase my threat status.

  But there were also plenty of fears and they wouldn’t leave me alone. And I had scary nightmares: myself being revealed and eliminated as a threat, people I trusted betraying me, failing my citizenship tests, losing my citizen’s account and being mocked and given the finger by players who recognized me. And the biggest laughs came from Big Po.

  Good thing that, by morning, no matter how beaten-down or exhausted I felt, most of the worries had faded and were almost erased from my memory. I started getting ready for school, then ate breakfast slowly and it dawned on me: the unarmed combat master was waiting for me.
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  I tossed a gaze at the clock. It was seven thirty. I had half an hour to explain to my parents that it was important for me to miss school for Dis, dive into my pod and reach the master’s school.

  “Mom, dad...” I started, but I didn’t have to continue.

  “Good morning, Alex!” they came, kissing my cheek on one side and tousling my hair on the other.

  My parents stood from the table.

  “Are you leaving?” I asked, confused. “Or what?”

  “Sorry Alex,” mom answered. “You were out too late last night, and my brain just hasn’t been working since I woke up! I forgot to say that me and your dad are flying to New Zealand. We’ll be back late. We might even spend the night.”

  “Why?”

  “We need to take pictures for a new order. Mark had a talk with the client and they agreed to cover all our expenses. Behave yourself!”

  Dad winked, smiled at something in his head, caught a look of reproach from mom and, giving her a little hug, led her to the door. So the issue of how to ask to stay home from school solved itself.

  Just five minutes later, I was standing at the front door of the tavern and, squinting in the direct beams of the rising sun, trying to get my bearings and find the shortest route. Sure, Tristad was a small city but, as for public transportation, ha-ha, good one

  I formulated a route and ran down the lively streets, surprised to see so many players. Only then did I realize it was Sunday. Now awake, the city was going about its busy NPC life: street sweepers swept, carts of fresh fish, fruits and vegetables flocked to the market square, shopkeepers wiped down their glass displays. Whiteacre passed by in a cart headed for city hall. Walking through the residential quarter, I saw old men getting set up at tables in cozy little courtyards, mothers going on walks with children and housekeepers hanging laundry.

  It seemed like a fully-fledged society, which could live just fine without our participation. I wondered what would become of the city in twenty years if we left it all on its own. It would probably be the same as any city. On the forums I’d read that, many years ago, Peter Whiteacre used to be just some street urchin who sometimes gave out quests to find a lost cat, help him paint a fence or take him home (in that case, he was found in a cave in the Nameless Mountains where he got lost).

  Over these idle thoughts, I didn’t even notice that I had reached the unarmed combat school. And I was not even wheezing thanks to my higher endurance.

  Master Sagda was already standing at the door leaning against a wall with his arms folded across his chest. As I came near, he said demurely:

  “I was hoping you’d be late or, even better, not come.”

  “Good morning to you too, Master Sagda...”

  “First lesson, student. Forget that name!” the trainer frowned in dismay. “I am neither a master nor a Sagda.”

  “But how?” I asked, taken aback.

  “Sagda is my stepfather’s last name. He wasn’t the nicest man and hearing his name time and again... Brings up bad memories. My real father’s last name is Buaco.”

  A thought flickered by that it wasn’t too hard for me to switch, but why did he allow others to call him Sagda? Yesterday, Tashot had said that name several times.

  “As for the rank of master, I don’t quite fit either,” the trainer continued. “I have reached the level of grandmaster, but the greatest grandmaster, Oyama, is the only one who can officially confirm my rank and, a few years ago, he went to meditate and hasn’t yet returned from a prolonged voyage to the astral plane.”

  “Then what should I call you? Grandmaster Buaco?”

  “No, apprentice. Just call me Bu,” he said with an impenetrable face, extending his hand. “Have you brought the money?”

  I extended the five hundred gold, which he instantly scraped up. The money disappeared and he, without saying another word, walked inside the building. I followed and immediately sneezed at the dust twirling in the air.

  The musty room was full of all kinds of boxes, which Master Sagda, i.e. Bu ordered me to clean up.

  “Be careful, apprentice!” he barked when I almost tipped over a heavy box. “That belongs to Athanasius the trader and, if you damage anything, you’ll have to compensate him yourself.”

  “Are you renting this place out as a warehouse?” I asked in astonishment.

  That earned me a strong blow from a long flexible cane.

  “Lesson two: never question the nature of my training!”

  Every minute I spent in his school made me seethe with greater fury. By hour two, I had busted my hump and finished clearing out his room, but we still hadn’t gotten to the training. And sure, if it came in the form of quests like “Clean up the Practice Room” with a reward of even a few experience, I’d have been fine. But no. I marveled at the master’s AI’s guile. I mean, I’d paid him a hard-earned five hundred gold and he had me sweeping his floors.

  I cleared the space and, spurred on by Bu, brought out a broom and swept up smaller items for a while, sneezing at the rising dust. But that wasn’t the end of the clean-up. In fact, it had just begun. After that, I mopped the floors, beat all the rugs, wiped the dust off the windows and cleaned all the cobwebs from the ceiling corners. And I wanted to skip school for this?

  Achievement unlocked: Naive Idiot!

  Pay a large amount of money for the chance to clean up Master Sagda’s unarmed combat school.

  Rewards: shame and wasted time.

  That was approximately the achievement I gave myself mentally as I wiped the dried wine spots off a cracked wooden table with a little rag. And by that time, the cleanup had reached Bu’s bedroom. The master took a glug off a flask and grew happier before my eyes, all the while never tiring of handing out pearls of wisdom and “lessons:”

  “Lesson twenty-one, apprentice,” he said, picking at a leg of mutton. “A plate almost always breaks when it falls off a table, especially if the floor is made of stone. And now, step to and clean up this broken plate!”

  Many times I felt the urge to tell the “teacher” to stuff his “lessons” where the sun didn’t shine but I felt insanely pathetic over the wasted time and the strike I would have earned for missing real lessons in school had this not been a weekend. So I clenched my teeth and continued bearing the mockery of the mad, rude artificial intelligence.

  By midday the trainer’s practice room and living quarters were sparkling clean. The trainer himself, by then pretty glass-eyed, gave a satisfied burp and abruptly tossed out:

  “There’s a wash basin in the yard. Go clean yourself up and come back inside! I keep a clean house, you see, and the last thing I need is for you to go mucking it up.”

  With a happy nod, I dashed into the yard and ran over to the wash basin. But there I ran into another problem: there was no water. I swore out loud and when I mentioned the nether in all its nastiness, I imagined Bu in the fires of hell and decided that, even there, he would just lie back looking blasé, bidding the demons go out to bring him booze.

  My gaze hit on an empty bucket. I grabbed it and ran off to a well for water, poured it into the wash basin, quickly rinsed off my hands and went back inside. The drunken master was standing there and staring into space.

  “Bu?” I called out, figuring he’d fallen asleep.

  “You took too long,” the trainer told me, yawning.

  I was expecting yet another punishment, but he just called me into the middle of the room and finally began teaching me unarmed combat.

  The process was significantly different from what I’d experienced with archery master Conrad and that was easy to explain. When I went to Conrad, I didn’t even have his skill. But by the time I reached Bu, my Unarmed Combat was seventy-two.

  “I have a lot to teach you, Scyth,” Sagda said seriously.

  Unarmed Combat Master Sagda offers you one of the three special attacks:

  Scorpion Strike

  Level: 1.

  A perfidious blow that starts from a long distance. Jump forw
ard, land on your hands and hit with your bent legs. Due to the element of surprise, this attack ignores 25% of enemy armor.

  Cost to use: 5 mana points.

  Deals 250% of normal damage.

  Dragon’s Tail

  Level: 1.

  A spin kick, as a rule, to the opponent’s head. Has 1% chance of dazing target for 1 second.

  Cost to use: 4 mana points.

  Deals 200% of normal damage.

  Stunning Kick

  Level: 1.

  A simple but very effective move. Has 30% chance of stunning target for 3 seconds.

  Cost to use: 3 mana points.

  Deals 150% of normal damage.

  “Is that all?” I asked, struck by the lack of selection.

  “At your level, you can learn fourteen of more than four hundred attacks,” the trainer answered. “But not all at once. Now you’re choosing a base attack, and what I offer next will depend on what you choose now.”