Apostle of the Sleeping Gods

by Dan Sugralinov

  In the first battle, we got wrecked. We had zero chance. Before we entered the Arena, Ed and Tissa decided on tactics: stun the paladin, quickly take out the rags, i.e. two mages, then get the heal. And last we’d get the ranges: a pathfinder and a hunter.

  As planned, right after we heard “Fight!” we got the pally tied down and dashed off to focus on the nearest mage. As we ran, he created four illusions, the pathfinder threw traps around him, the hunter took the high ground and sent a bear against Tissa. Basically, they took us out one after the next. As the audience jeered and Dariusz made ironic commentary, they worked with professionalism and blistering speed. I honestly lost track of what was going on and died last, but only because of my movement speed, Stoneskin and beastly Resilience. And while they came after me, I sent their illusionist to respawn.

  After that, we waited a long time for the next battle. Emerald Dream looked weaker than Corps of Darkness and we were hoping to rehabilitate our image.

  But it was all in vain. We ended up looking stupid and blowing that battle, too. We floundered a bit longer though, even took out a daring rogue and water shaman. We knocked the first out of invis and hit him with a stun in rapid succession, pinning him down. The second, as was becoming tradition, I finished off all alone.

  In the end, we screwed the pooch. They didn’t even have a heal, but they did take Tissa down first. Then Crawler got caught in crossfire, I sent them running with a Ghastly Howl, but they immediately dispelled the Fear somehow and took out our fire mage. Infect took a chomp out of their sorcerer and, a second later, himself ran off in Fear. And by the way, they had a warlock that used a pet, a Nether Demon which impressed even Ed. His class had a crazy penalty to reputation gain with Commonwealth factions, so the lock must have been planning to join the Dark races right after the sandbox. They took me out after the Sudden Death curse kicked in.

  Anyway, we lost again and were on the verge of getting kicked out. Only two teams would be moving on from our group and, even if we won all the rest of the matches, there was no guarantee we’d end up higher than third.

  We could at least be happy about one thing, though. Axiom wasn’t doing any better. In their first battle, they were devastated by the junior Modus team and, in the second, it was their own stupidity that blew it for them. They killed two without losing anyone, but instead of regrouping, healing up and calmly taking out the remaining enemies, they rushed to take them all out. But instead, they tripped over a magic mine and got frozen for ten seconds. That was enough for their opponents to turn things around.

  Our teamwork just wasn’t measuring up, and we had nothing to compensate it with. Our equipment wasn’t better than any of the other contestants’, and a few teams made ours look downright silly. No one was lower level than us, our twenty-two was the lower limit. Lower level teams didn’t even try, because it cost a thousand gold to register. Unfair? That was in the eye of the beholder, but financial success was considered an indicator of clan level. What was more, all money went to the prize fund, which was already huge due to sponsor money. The organizers earned money by selling broadcast rights IRL and through sponsorships, which companies had to ink many-year deals to get. And that made a lot of sense, because teenagers could be a real goldmine. In my elective marketing class, they said we were the juiciest piece of the pie as far as advertisers were concerned. They said we would be loyal to whatever brands we liked now until the end of our lives.

  I couldn’t use any of my uber-plusses: no plague energy, no Swamp Needlers, and certainly no curse of the undead. My high Resilience and movement speed bonus were enough for me to outlive my teammates in both battles, but this wasn’t a solo Arena. It was nothing to be proud of.

  The only unusual ability I did use was Ghastly Howl, but it never decided the outcome. All our opponents had found a way to get rid of it.

  * * *

  Right after that shameful defeat, we were sent back to our home sandbox. We were so down in the dumps that we just sat in a rented room in the Bubbling Flagon. Our next two battles were a week away but, if we couldn’t figure something out, we’d lose them as well. Either we didn’t have the skill or PvP experience, or we weren’t working together well enough. Maybe it was all that put together.

  “Alright, let’s keep a good attitude,” I broke the heavy silence. “I have one backup option. I don’t know yet if we’ll be able to pull it off. There’s too many ‘ifs’ but, maybe, we’ll be able to think something up together.”

  They all shuddered, and Bomber slapped me on the shoulder in excitement as usual but stopped, not yet understanding if there was anything to be really happy about. I had spoiled them with unexpected pleasant surprises.

  “Speak,” Crawler demanded.

  “So, here’s the deal... Yesterday, when you all went to sleep, I decided to test out an old idea. It came to me the day when we were talking through the old incident with Chris and Rita Wood, remember? It was right before we went out for our first farm. Back then, I just decided to forget about it, figuring it would take too long to test...”

  I told them how, after the talk with Behemoth, I thought about the temple again. Left alone, I emptied my inventory, stocked up on potions and headed west on foot. I made it through the river lands of the murlocks and naga territory, then I made for the Bottomless Ocean. I was running so fast the aggro’d mobs trailing me all gave up before leaving their zone.

  The quest marker on the map showed where I was supposed to find the ruins of the ancient shrine, the place of power closest to the Sleeping Gods. I estimated the distance at thirty miles. I would never have been able to run that far if not for the game conventions. My breathing was honed by endurance, and I had a seventy-percent bonus to movement speed. That was why I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to reach, just a light jog.

  Drinking a Waterwalking Potion, I ran toward the marker. I hadn’t discovered that part of the map yet, so I couldn’t see exactly, but I was sure I’d find an island.

  After just half a mile, I hit the Exhaustion debuff. My health started to drop and, although the first tick removed just one percent of my life, the damage kept growing. A fearsome notification promised that, if I didn’t go back to the sandbox, I would surely die. Of course, I kept going. All I did was slam on curse of the undead.

  Just before I finished my run, dawn started breaking. Actually, the last part I had to swim because I ran out of potions, bringing my Swimming up to sixty-six.

  The guys were listening to me very carefully.

  “In the end I discovered the island. The system offered to let me give it a new name, or restore the forgotten name of its former inhabitants, Kharinza. I wasn’t feeling clever, so I just stuck with the old one.”

  “You should have called it Scyth’s Island,” Infect smiled. “Or Isle of the Awoken! You’re so clueless!”

  “Keep listening, smart guy. For showing respect to the original inhabitants, I got three hundred reputation points with a faction called the Departed. Hell knows who they are but it’s still cool, right?”

  “I looked into the game encyclopedia. Not one mention of the Departed,” Crawler immediately called back.

  “Nothing that even sounds like it,” Tissa shook her head.

  “Alright, keep listening. I walked and walked until I got to the marker on the map. There were some ruins with weird symbols, everything was super overgrown and hell if I knew what to do with it. I walked around it a couple times, but just couldn’t figure anything out. By that time, my brain had basically just given up. Anyway, I didn’t leave my character there. I went back to town and exited Dis. After that, I slept until lunch. I just about missed the Arena.”

  My clanmates spent some time digesting what they’d heard. On the one hand, I’d blazed a trail to the island, so we had a hope of building the temple. After all, we had teleport. But on the other... We didn’t have enough time and we didn’t really have a clear idea what we stood to gain. So before they made up their minds, they wanted more informati
on:

  “What level are the mobs there?” Tissa asked matter-of-factly.

  “How big is the island?” Crawler asked at the same time.

  “Dang!” Infect exclaimed. “There might even be a new dungeon there!”

  But Bomber kept quiet. He was sitting with his head low, thinking. He waited for everyone to finish, then boomed out in his deep bass:

  “We’ll also be able to farm there if, of course, there is anything worth farming. I mean...”

  “Not likely,” I said, not waiting for Bomber to finish. “Exhaustion stayed on me the whole time I was on the island. Of course, we could risk it and port out there together...”

  “Why not,” the guys all agreed easily.

  In less than three minutes, we were back to Tristad. As soon as we left the sandbox, their life started trickling away. We walked in silence to the tavern and soon were sitting back where we were before we jumped to the island of Kharinza. We even took the same seats.

  “Can I continue?” Hung asked coolly. Waiting for our nods, he spoke: “Good. So then, all of you except Scyth of course are thinking about this the wrong way. He’s actually being pretty smart. Do you remember what Behemoth said? There’s strength in unity. Once we finish the temple, we can become followers of the Sleeping Gods.”

  “Yeah and where are we gonna get enough people for that to do us any good?” Crawler asked.

  “Didn’t Scyth get twelve followers without us? If we had room, we could find takers, isn’t that right? Just grab some bots...”

  “Bots?” Tissa asked, drawing out the word doubtfully. “Are you serious? Tristad is a city of Nergal, they’re all accounted for. The hunters have their gods, and...”

  “We don’t need bots,” I interrupted. “A few weeks ago, I was talking with some noncitizen friends in the Olton Quarries. One of them dug up a copper ring for plus two strength. And you can’t even imagine how jealous everyone was! Even peanuts like that means raising their productivity and that means more income. And let me point out that Dis is how they feed their families. After all, they are not only miners. We’re talking cleaners, builders, masons, lumberjacks, carpenters...”

  “Sure, let’s say we can find some builders that way. There are plenty of noncitizen builders. It’s a popular profession. But what do you suggest? Fly off to some inwinova ghetto and yell about it on the street?” Tissa asked sarcastically. “Have you heard the good word of the Sleeping Gods? Convert, help us build a temple and get a boost to your attributes!”

  Crawler looked at her and smiled. When she was done sneering, he said:

  “Tissa, twenty seconds ago, Scyth told us he has miner friends. Their shift is already over, so we can talk tomorrow.”

  “Why wait until tomorrow? Let’s fly out today. I know where to find them IRL.”

  “Uh... Are you serious? It’s dangerous! Where?” they all exclaimed at once.

  “I’m serious. And it’s not very dangerous. We’d be going to Cali Bottom.”

  Chapter 29. First Temple

  IT TOOK US half an hour to all get together, then two hours to fly to Cali Bottom. We landed on the roof of Trixie and Manny’s building and went inside. It took us a long time to find the cubby where the Furtados lived, meandering the corridors aimlessly until we admitted defeat and gave a pack of gum to some kid to show us the way.

  Old man Furtado invited us to sit and drink tea. Well, he did his best at any rate. There were just two seats. One for me and one for him. While my classmates pressed up against the wall in fear, not participating in the conversation, I told Trixie’s grandfather my offer. He called the Almeida brothers: Manny and Hank (who, by the way, didn’t show).

  “My brother’s in that pod all day anymore,” Manny said to explain Hank’s absence. “The corporation offered him better money, but he has to spend a long time in Dis to get it.”

  Once he grasped the concept of unity and the Sleeping Gods, Manny got excited and called some friends and coworkers. A quarter hour later, old man Furtado’s little cubby was packed to the gills, so we decided it was better to all go out on the roof. It was us, Manny, his brother Hank, Trixie and his grandpa plus another five people, who all worked in our sandbox. If we would have opened it up beyond that, the whole neighborhood would have showed up.

  Thankfully, it was nice out, so we took over the playground, the men chasing all the kids off. We were left alone.

  “You all know Alex!” Manuel started profoundly. “The late Clayton had a good opinion of him. He helped me and was always respectful to every one of us. In Dis he is Scyth, you have probably seen him before in the Bubbling Flagon. He has earned our trust and... our help. What’s more, it’s mutually beneficial! Who knows, this could just be your lucky break. Haven’t we all dreamed of moving on to a better life? Anyway, everything in its due time. Alex also brought his friends...”

  My classmates introduced themselves and Almeida continued:

  “Everything you hear today has to stay between us. Not a word, even to your relatives! If this gets out anywhere, even if you hint at it, it will all come crashing down! Do you all understand?”

  They reacted positively. Then Manny asked me to repeat what I’d told him.

  “Uh...” I started unconfidently. “Hello, everyone! Here’s the situation. New gods have emerged in Dis, the Sleeping Gods. And now they gave us a quest to rebuild their temple. But the location is outside the sandbox and we cannot get there because our characters are tethered to the Tristad sandbox until we come of age. Plus none of us are builders or masons...”

  “No crap,” a broad-shouldered man in a flat cap chuckled. “Why should you be? You’ve got us...”

  They shushed him, but I raised a hand reassuringly and turned to him:

  “Sorry, what’s your name?”

  “Gyula,” the man grumbled.

  “Gyula, how old are you?”

  “Forty-eight.”

  “Well I’m fifteen. The citizenship system was thought up by your generation, not mine. If you’re looking to someone to blame, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  Going crimson, Gyula spat, hissed out a phrase and walked away but Manny stopped him:

  “Hear him out, Gyu! I swear to god you won’t regret it!” Leaning over to me, he said quietly: “He’s a leveled mason! The only one we got!”

  Manny got Gyula back and started whispering with him. Tissa’s sonorous voice broke the awkward silence:

  “Anyway, we haven’t even done our citizenship tests yet! And you’re blaming us? You do know we want to help you, right? Everything is about to change for you!”

  Trixie, staring at her the whole time, suddenly hopped up in the center of the group and shouted:

  “Tissa’s a good kid! Alex’s a good kid! Hung’s a good kid! Edward’s a good kid! Malik’s a good kid! They’re all good! They want to help!”

  And he just kept repeating that. It felt like he was stuck in a loop. Everyone on the roof was now focused on us. Manny told the little guy to settle down and asked the others to quiet down. When it was silent again, I got to the point...

  About an hour later, we’d ironed out all the details. We found three reliable masons and one of them, Gyula in fact, already had a blueprint for a temple. We decided both he and Manny would be made priests of the Sleeping Gods. That way they could convert more noncitizens themselves. There wasn’t much left after that. We’d have to find construction resources on the island and provide security somehow. The miners’ characters were limited to level one. Even a little sparrow could peck them to death, if it turned aggressive.

  Not wanting to lose time now that it was after midnight, Manny, Gyula and I met in the Bubbling Flagon, walked over to a quiet spot and from there travelled to Kharinza. There was no point taking the former Dementors with me. They wouldn’t be able to hold out even two minutes, then they’d just die pointlessly.

  * * *

  On our first day, or more accurately night, in the depths of the island we managed to f
ind some rocky hillocks. There we discovered stones and some rare minerals. Manny sniffed professionally with his hooked nose, worked his pick and rendered a verdict:

  “The concentration of ore is unbelievable! Weird that none of the mining companies have made it here yet! There’s copper, iron, and tin, but that’s not so crazy! There’s gold! And I can see traces of mithril, but I cannot mine it. My trade is too low level, obviously. At copper mines, you end up plateauing after a while. There might even be adamantite here. As for gems, I bet it’s also rich... Ah, once we get the guys out here...”

  A furious roar broke his excited train of thought. Then we heard stomping. It was measured, booming. With every step, the earth shook harder until, breaking through a tall tree, we saw it. Or so we thought, but it turned out to be just one of its legs. When we quickly turned our heads up, we saw the whole thing.