Apostle of the Sleeping Gods

by Dan Sugralinov

  Working double time, they gathered the loot fairly quickly: blue shoulder pads for Crawler, two greens to sell and ten and a half stacks of Rock Millipede Bristles.

  The result was staggering. Nobody knew how much the crafting ingredient might be worth but, even at list price, we would get more than three hundred gold. But even more importantly, everyone leveled up, and Tissa twice in less than a quarter hour. They had all hit twelve, so the idea of continuing farming experience here came to all of them at once:

  “What exactly is the point of the Mire?” Bomber asked first.

  “What if...” Tissa started at the same time as him.

  “Maybe we hunker down here?” Crawler finished the thought. “We just have to figure out the millipede respawn time...”

  Infect was still dancing and nodding along, agreeing with his friends as if to say, “how about yes.” They all turned to me because, from their point of view, the decision was obvious. The unknown and nasty Mire or this place which, to them, seemed like a comfy spot to farm experience.

  “You’re forgetting something. In the Mire, the mobs are level twenty to twenty-five and experience will farm even faster. But that isn’t what really matters. Even if nobody comes to the ravine, it’s out in the open. Anyone can reach it easily. And can you guarantee that some Axiom scout didn’t see my little invulnerability freak show act? Or that no one else will?”

  “Aw, nether!” Infect dashed off. A few minutes later, his voice came down from above: “Clear!”

  “He checked as we approached and was constantly monitoring while we fought,” Ed said. “But you’re right. It’s too conspicuous. I guess this makes us look pretty selfish. Sorry, it’s just...”

  He hesitated and didn’t continue. And there was no need to. Based on their guilty looks, the guys knew what such carelessness could lead to.

  Infect casually walked back down to join us, but suddenly shot up into the air, waving his arms like an idiot and giving a frightened scream that echoed around the whole area. We all shot to our feet. From the far slightly sloping end of the ravine, blasting out clods of earth, a huge mega-bug the size of an aerotrain car crawled out of the ground.

  Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen, level 19

  Insectoid

  Local boss

  The boss was bristling with three- to five-foot-long spines, each shimmering with a metallic glint and ending in a threatening pointed tip. All told, Mok’Rhyssa looked about like the other millipedes but much larger and more battle-hardened, the chitin of her carapace covered in keratinous scar tissue.

  “I got her!” I shouted, activating curse of the undead as I went. Behind me, Crawler barked out commands, getting everyone into formation. I decided to let them play, too. “Okay, you can join!”

  I got off a two-move Combo on the fly, reinforced with plague energy, but that only took fifteen percent of her health at most. Maybe there was a teachable moment in that, but I knew one thing for sure: old habits died hard. If the guys got used to slacking off and just watching while I fought, it would come back to bite us in the ass.

  Boom! From somewhere behind me, an Incendiary Shot from Crawler flew into the creature’s face. After that, Tissa whacked it with a blindingly bright Hand of Nergal. Infect, suffering more mentally than physically, took out his poison-dripping daggers and stuck them into the creature’s side, activating Meat Grinder. Next to him, Bomber puffed and gasped with every blow, turning on Attack Stance. His charge procc’ed and the Rock Queen was stunned for a few seconds, allowing Hung to land some bloody Deep Cuts.

  As gruesome as it all sounded, they were doing pretty pathetic damage. The difference in level was too great. But I still wasn’t speeding the battle along, continuing to hold the boss’s attention on me and practically not using plague energy.

  You have damaged Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen: 2489.

  Health points: 13187/16000.

  At first, the colossal millipede, which took up almost half the crevasse, was making the same attack over and over again. But when her health got down to half that all changed. The creature threw its mouth open, revealing rows of sharp fangs and screeched. Paralyzing Chirp, the boss’s special abil, stunned our whole group. We were frozen for five seconds and that was enough for Mok’Rhyssa to take down everyone except for me. Contracting fitfully, she lurched forward, getting right up to the guys. She first pressed me down with her tail, pushing me into the damp floor of Little Gully, then jabbed us with a few squirming bristles and started sucking our life out.

  In a matter of seconds, their portraits in the group frame went gray, and I saw in the logs that the guys were all dead.

  I no longer saw any reason to draw the battle out. As soon as the stun expired, I hopped to my feet, adding plague damage to a Combo and sent the boss to a place her many of offspring now called home, the Nether.

  Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen is dead.

  Experience points received: 65.

  Experience points at present level (14): 545/12900.

  Achievement unlocked: First Kill: Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen!

  Of all the players in your sandbox, you were the first to kill this local boss. Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen, a gigantic millipede, was one of the top leaders of the insectoid nation of intelligent sarantapods that dwell in Rock Hive.

  Now you have laid Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen to rest but, before dying, she inadvertently transferred you a modicum of her power.

  Reward: active skill Lifesteal.

  Lifesteal

  Single-use active skill.

  Allows any special attack to be assigned the Lifesteal property: converts 1% of damage dealt into health points for you.

  All hail the hero!

  Would you like to make your name public? Doing so will give +100 reputation with the city of Tristad and +5 fame.

  My clanmates, decided not to wait for me to resurrect Tissa, and were already running over from the res point. When they saw that, they filled the clan chat with elated messages, admonishing me to accept the glory. I looked at the gear they dropped when they died. Fortunately, it was nothing important. Thankfully they had rare quality bags with special features to prevent losing their stuff after death. All green trash. I piled it all up at the edge of the crevasse.

  After that, I agreed to the “All hail the heroes” and deactivated my curse.

  Attention all sandbox players!

  Clan the Awoken has made the first kill of local boss Mok’Rhyssa, Rock Queen in the foothills of the Nameless Mountains! Residents and visitors of Tristad! Hats off to the Awoken! All hail the heroes! All hail players Scyth, Crawler, Tissa, Bomber and Infect!

  Your reputation with the city of Tristad has been increased by 100.

  Current reputation: mistrust.

  Great! Now we could enter the city again, the guardsmen wouldn’t aggro. Delighted, I decided not to wait for the guys and placed a hand on the boss’s corpse to pick up the loot. And suddenly something started to happen.

  The huge hole she slithered out of suddenly started to pulsate and grow bigger. I then, not looking, scraped up the loot and started to move my feet. The earth below me continued to quake and crumble. Slightly panicked, I ran toward the far edge, climbing up the steep slope.

  In my peripheral vision, I saw my friends approaching but I was completely focused on the localized natural disaster. If this was an earthquake, it was a very small one. The ravine grew wider, making me step back, then grew deeper. By that time, I had started running because the location was being reshaped faster and faster every second. But suddenly it all came to an end. Everything grew quiet and stable, even the dirt stopped clumping and crumbling.

  The hole it all started from was now at the very bottom of the gully. It was much bigger and filled with the shifting green fabric of a portal. After that, a message thundered:

  Attention all sandbox players!

  A new dungeon has opened in the foothills of the Nameless Mountains – The Sarantapod Hive.

  Deep in a series of un
derground tunnels, the offspring of the ancient god Shog’rassar were born and multiplied. These intelligent insectoids, the sarantapods, eventually gave birth to their own civilization. Now that they’ve exhausted the resources of their mother hive, they are preparing to invade our world and emerge onto the surface near Tristad.

  Recommended level: 18+.

  First visit bonuses: +50% experience, +10% chance of receiving improved loot, +5% drop chance for items of quality above normal.

  “Well god dang!” came an unfamiliar girl’s voice. “I guess we happened to pass by at the right time! Where are the other heroes? They get wiped?”

  I turned around and saw a full group of level-fourteen and -fifteen players from a clan called Ambush: four girls and one boy, a hunter. He was staying a bit behind the others, so I figured Nikkin, as he was called, was not their star player. And I was right.

  “Hi, Scyth!” a short heavyset rogue girl named Nightshade addressed me in a friendly manner. “What happened here?”

  It didn’t escape my attention that, while Nightshade distracted me playing with her daggers, the two other girls and Nikkin were walking around the hole trying to find a way down.

  “A meteorite fell from the sky,” I answered, dashing for the pit. I didn’t know if there was an achievement for being first to set foot in an ins, but I didn’t want to risk letting them get it.

  But I was too slow. I jumped off the edge, turning on Stoneskin as Nightshade screamed out from behind me: “Slow him down!” And in midair, I felt an arrow go into my back.

  Player Nikkin (Nikolas Van Arle) has damaged you: 6.

  Health points: 957/963.

  You have been slowed: −50% movement speed for 3 seconds.

  I landed at the bottom in a shapeless heap because the hunter’s Slowing Shot, although it didn’t stun me, did wrap nets around my arms and legs so I couldn’t brace for impact.

  Nevertheless, I won the race to the bottom, and Stoneskin rendered both the fall and arrow to the back painless. I jumped to my feet and slowly walked toward the portal until the nets fell off, all that time feverishly thinking whether to fight them off so they couldn’t kill the guys, or to run in and occupy the dungeon.

  Option two had the problem that, right after I occupied the ins, Nightshade’s group would see a message saying the dungeon was undergoing maintenance. Maybe they wouldn’t figure it out but, very soon, half the sandbox would be here, Axiom included. And that would mean Big Po would inevitably learn something I preferred him to not know. He and his analysts would to put two and two together no problem after seeing me enter Evil from the Depths, which had also gone down for maintenance.

  So I stood at the portal entrance, mentally preparing to press Ghastly Howl and slam a plague Combo at anyone who came near, then quickly sent a message in the chat:

  [16:58] [Clan] [Scyth]: A new ins opened! I’m standing at the portal, protecting it from a group of five lvl 14-16s. Clan – Ambush. Leader – Nightshade.

  Ed was the first to reply:

  [16:58] [Clan] [Crawler]: Don’t leave, better occupy the dungeon! We’re on our way, we can take down the creeps.

  Sure they would! I took another step back. The silhouettes above blocked out the light. Most likely, Ambush also knew this place would soon be full to the brim so they were also in a hurry. All grouped together, they started down.

  “Scyth, come join our group, we can do the ins together,” Nightshade’s voice dripped with treacly sweetness. “It’s not even for your level! Come on!”

  “Stay where you are!” I shouted. “Otherwise I’m going in.”

  They stopped and stomped their feet, looked at one another and whispering.

  “We can come to an agreement, Scyth!” Nikkin shouted, his voice cracking. “Don’t play dumb!”

  You’re the dumb one, idiot. Sure they might accept me into their group. They’d accept me, enter the ins, throw me out and kill me. But they wouldn’t even have to kill me because I’d get kicked out of the ins as soon as they ejected me from the group.

  The hunter continued shouting assurances as Nightshade’s figure disappeared into thin air. Three... two... one! Ghastly Howl!

  She popped out of Stealth six feet from me and, flapping her arms comically, zinged away in fear, slamming into a wall and running along it. The ability didn’t affect the rest of them, though. Nikkin still pulled back his bowstring.

  A moment later, Bomber was rushing down from the edge of the ravine. The warrior’s massive silhouette ran toward the crowd of girls and Nikkin and, ever the gentleman, Hung slammed into the hunter. After that Infect, invisible, moved out and Tissa and Crawler casted something deadly on the heads of the ambushers, who we’d now caught in a trap.

  “Scyth! Into the dungeon!” Crawler shouted.

  I only hesitated for one second: I really wanted to help my friends and at least take down Nightshade, but good sense took the day. I could accept the guys dying, but this might have been our only chance at first pass. Big Po and Axiom wouldn’t let me get away with lying. After all, there was an increased chance for improved loot for the first people to enter the dungeon!

  With these thoughts in mind, I took a step back and, in two heartbeats, found myself inside the Sarantapod Hive.

  Chapter 22. The Ghost of William Stafford

  TELEPORTATION, including into closed locations such as instances, was always instantaneous in Dis, but the way it worked was quite subtle. It felt like falling down a hole with your eyes closed for a second. Close your eyes, fall into the nether, open them and you see a different place.

  In that momentary fall, I thought through the consequences. The “maintenance,” which was supposed to disguise the fact I was in an ins, would now do the exact opposite. The fact we were too low level for the dungeon combined with, hopefully, the First Kill would perhaps be suspicious but explicable. By the time we were done, the guys would be a level or two higher anyway. But getting that same First Kill while the instance was closed for maintenance would become a worldwide topic of discussion. Add to that the similar happening from before and it would be a matter of hours before the preventers had my number.

  My clanmates’ portraits in the group frame were not dim yet, but they all had less than half health. So I walked back through the portal. I didn’t care about the ins or the achievement if it meant my friends getting beat up while I stood aside and watched, knowing full well I could help.

  Emerging from the twilight of the dungeon into the bright light of day provided an example of Dis’s realism. It took a few seconds to get used to. What was the deal with that? Did I have virtual photoreceptors? Were the rods and cones in my virtual eyes rearranging? I chuckled and spent a few seconds sizing up the situation.

  The battle at the bottom of the crevasse was now closer to the portal. Crawler and Tissa were down there too, pressed up against the wall behind Bomber and Infect, who had activated Dodge. Hung then pulled out his shield, deflecting a couple pounces from Nightshade and a barbarian called Amanita. Nikkin the hunter and Oshandra, a black girl holding a long spear, were ignoring Hung and Malik while focusing on Tissa. Another ambusher, Deidre the druid had taken the form of a bear and, with a deafening roar, swung her powerful paw, lacerating Ed, who was behind a Fire Shield. If not for Tissa’s capable healing, one of the guys would already have been back at the respawn point. The animal’s hide was showing signs of wear: Crawler lit it up with a Shot, then focused on a different target. Going after the tank first would have been the height of idiocy.

  Ghastly Howl both leveled up and worked on the whole Ambush crew right away. The bear gave a huffy roar and ran. The girls scattered while Nikkin howled and yelped, running up the wall. As far as I remembered from the battle with Crusher, who had gifted me this skill for killing him, they couldn’t control their bodies, which were just running headlong in mortal terror.

  I dismissed a notification and threw out to my friends: “Heal up!” Then I ran after the hunter. For some reason it seemed
most important to take him down. Maybe it was just a basic desire for revenge after the arrow to my back. At any rate, just then, the boy was failing to scramble up the vertical wall of the ravine. I brandished my fists and landed a triple Combo, reinforced with a smidgen of plague energy just to make sure. The Stunning Kick that capped off the series went into thin air: he was already dead.

  Nikkin (player Nikolas van Arle) is dead.

  The Ghastly Howl expired and I ran off after Nightshade. The group leader was running toward the dungeon entrance and only a miracle of the RNG kept her from going straight into the portal: jumping past it, she slammed into the wall. A second Combo finished her off. When the Fear effect was over, she was already too weak to resist. She only had time to shout out a command, shaking her head in the direction of the portal: