by Pavel Kornev
A few feverish heartbeats later, the scout’s sword got me again. My vision darkened. With my last ounce of strength, I tried to confuse him in order if not to escape then at least to break even and see the color of his blood.
Pointless. My penalty to open combat rendered me totally useless.
A whiff of death came from the graveyard. Dust devils rose into the air. Skeletal hands reached out from below, ripping through the dry ground. The Elf scout glanced in the direction of the emerging skeletons, giving me a perfect opportunity to attack. I stabbed him in the side, right under the edge of his short chainmail shirt, burying a good third of my black dagger in his hip. I literally could hear it grate against the bone — but no crippling injury was registered.
Damage dealt: 124.
Health: +6 [67/211]
Shit! 5% to vampirism was peanuts! Not even enough to close the cut on my stomach!
The Elf fighters turned against the skeletons, hacking them to shreds with incredible ease. The low-level undead just had nothing to offer against them.
Growling his fury, the scout turned back to me.
A long, thin arrow pierced his back. And another.
A dozen Black Tracker archers materialized out of thin air. Before I could blink, they had turned my opponents into as many pin cushions. Not only were the Chaosites more numerous but their levels were considerably higher: 60+ against the Elves’ 30 to 40.
I didn’t even get the chance to finish off the scout, so quickly had they dispensed with him. Only the archer had managed to roll to the bottom of the ravine which didn’t help him much: they found him and finished him off.
“All clear!” said a vaguely familiar voice. “The Lights have given up and retreated!”
While the Trackers expertly looted the bodies, a half-Elf walked over to me, his shaven head covered in a complex blue and green tattoo.
“Victor!” I exclaimed, breaking off the shaft of the arrow stuck in my shoulder. “Fancy seeing you here!”
His eyes rounded in disbelief. “John? But how, in God’s name-”
“Don’t ask. They reset my char to zero, didn’t they?” I replied in all honesty. All of a sudden I felt sick. My head swam, my legs turned leaden.
“No way, man!” Victor scratched his shaven head. “Never thought I’d hear that from you!”
I forced a smile and crouched, pretending I was about to frisk the dead Elf scout. “You seem to be doing okay.”
“You could say that,” he said with a smile which wasn’t particularly happy.
Why? Last time I’d seen him, he’d been a level-38 ranger and now he was a level-68 sniper ranger. Not bad for six months!
The others were already finishing frisking the bodies so I asked, “Do you mind?”
Victor shrugged. “Of course not. Help yourself. You’ve earned it.”
He was dead right there. I’d earned it and had a mangled, feverish body to prove it. Why hadn’t I thought of buying some healing potion from Lloyd while I still could? The measly XP I’d received for detecting the dragons wasn’t enough to earn me a new level, so all I could do now was wait till Regeneration brought my health back into the green.
Victor left me and rejoined his buddies. I gave the dead scout a quick frisk, poured what few coins I’d found on him into my inventory, then pulled off his chainmail shirt fashioned out of some matte metal. It was punctured in three places which had admittedly affected the item’s durability but at least it didn’t seem to need any urgent repairs. The holes where quite small and neat: it wasn’t as if he’d been cleft in two with a broadsword.
The Chainmail Shirt of an Elf Scout
Armor: 15.
Stealth: +1.
Not bad at all! No way I was gonna sell it: I’d rather wear it myself.
But what pleased me even more was a tiny vial of the minor healing potion. I pulled the stopper out with my teeth, poured the tasteless liquid down my neck and breathed a sigh of relief. It didn’t restore my health entirely but at least I could breathe freely now, free from fatigue and agonizing pain.
In the meantime, the Trackers started vanishing into thin air. They must have arrived here via permanent passages — not portals — which worked a bit like wormholes. Quite a nasty surprise for any enemy.
I slipped into the chainmail and put my leather jacket back on. I felt much better now. More secure. By then, Victor had finished and walked over to me.
“Let’s go, then,” he motioned me toward the city.
“How are things, overall?” I asked as we walked past the graveyard.
“Can’t you see?” he chuckled. “They’ve besieged us and are trying to crush us, not allowing us a single breather. We keep holding them back for now, but I’ve no idea how it’s all going to pan out.”
I nodded. “Your clan has grown much?”
He shook his shaven head. “Not at all. New guys come all the time but old timers quit just as fast. Not everybody likes non-stop slaughter. And we’re stuck right between the Lights and the Darks...”
“At least you’ve grown in level quite nicely,” I said.
He nodded. “Typically, the attackers’ losses are three times those of the defenders. And that’s exactly what happens here. A classic, if you want. Plus the Tower’s Mistress protects us. I can’t complain. Still, we’re not in it for XP alone.”
“You don’t mean it,” I said sarcastically.
Victor turned back, taking in the smoke-strewn prairie with a practiced eye of an expert archer, and nodded. “Oh yes I do. I think it’s about time we get the hell out of here.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? I’ve had this matriarchate up to here!” he snapped. “I didn’t swear my allegiance to Chaos to serve some smug bitch! Please don’t get me wrong. No one can call me a male chauvinist. But I do value justice. You should promote those who deserve the honor. And what did they do? They got rid of the old clan leader and replaced him with some stupid Valkyrie who immediately brought her own buddies in, so half our co-chairmen are her cronies now! I am technically the one in charge of all the archers but in reality, I have no status at all.”
“Is it so bad?”
“Isabella tried to interfere but she’d very nearly got herself kicked out.”
I shook my head. “So where do you wanna go?”
He shrugged. “No idea. As far from here as possible.”
“Wait a sec,” I snapped my fingers. “I have a bit of a plan brewing so I’m looking for good fighters to join me. You never know, my partner might actually hire you fulltime.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Know Isabella’s boyfriend?”
“Yeah right! He’s a Darkie, ain’t he? Like hell he’s gonna hire me!”
“Why not? There’s no rule against it.”
“No, but it’s still not acceptable.”
“I’ll try and find out for you,” I said.
We parted ways by the gap in the city wall. I opened my map in order to check Isabella’s location but just as I did so, I saw the flash of an incoming message. It was Isabella, telling me to go straight to her apartment.
I thought I knew the way but still I very nearly got lost in the maze of narrow streets blocked by all the ruins from the dragons’ “air raid”. Her own house, however, hadn’t suffered at all. I climbed to the third floor and knocked on her door.
“Come in, you,” Isabella’s voice said.
I swung the door open and froze in disbelief. The apartment’s opposite wall was missing; the room seemed to end in a giant window which offered a view of smoking ruins, overcast sky and the dim circle of the sun overhead.
Isabella reclined in a wooden bathtub filled with soapy water, admiring the spooky landscape. Her armor lay strewn all over the floor; she’d removed her stiletto hair pins, allowing her hair — which was scorched and visibly shorter on the left side — to fall over her shoulders. But overall, she seemed quite pleased with herself.
“Come in, ki
tten, don’t just stand there,” she said magnanimously as she continued lathering her shoulders.
I closed the door behind me, crossed the room and perched myself on the edge of the bed. Last time I’d been here, there were two easy chairs in the room but they must have been blown out during the blast.
“You sure know how to have fun,” I muttered, trying to collect my thoughts.
She sniffed. “You don’t know half of it yet!”
“You think you’re gonna hold out?”
“Maybe.”
I chuckled. “Famous last words. No rats fleeing the sinking ship yet?”
“Some come, some go,” she said, avoiding the answer. “Just one of those things.”
I could see she wasn’t in the mood to discuss any internal affairs, so I moved straight to business. “I need to see Lloyd.”
She shrugged her shoulders sticking out of the water. “Go ahead. Just don’t ask anyone to bail you out when the shit hits the fan.”
I squinted at her. “Why not? Just don’t tell me I haven’t earned being rescued. After you turned me into a stool pigeon...”
She laughed. “It’s not as if the enemy jumped at the bait!”
“Listen,” I frowned. “You know very well I’m not asking for myself. You have your own little profit in all this, so please stop playing hard to get! I need to ask Lloyd to help me hire some mercs.”
“Profit?” Isabella said slowly. “Kitten, please. I’m just helping Julian and Neo for old times’ sake.”
“Of course you are. Pull the other one.”
She scooped up some soapsuds and threw them at me. Only a few of them reached me, so I didn’t even cringe. “So will you open the portal for me or not?”
“I’ll think about it,” she said. “Anything else?”
I nodded. “Some of the Black Trackers would like to leave. Would it be a problem if they take part in the attack on the lighthouse?”
She tensed up. “Who do you mean?”
“Does it really matter?”
“Kitten, don’t wind me up. Who did you talk to?”
I paused, then decided to own up. “Victor.”
“Who, the ranger?” her voice rang with a mixture of contempt and relief. “He’s not a big loss.”
“Who did you think it was?”
She gave me a funny look. “If ever you try to poach Grakh, I’ll cut your balls off and hang them out to dry. Is that clear?”
“Firstly, I didn’t poach anyone. Secondly, if Grakh wants to quit, it’s your problem. You sort it out,” I paused and added, “You and your flippin’ matriarchs!”
Her laughter filled the room. “Kitten, do me a favor! Anyone with a bit of a brain can survive in any situation! Our vipers’ nest is no different in this respect from any other clan. But fools always rush in where angels fear to tread...”
“So what about Victor?” I repeated. “You don’t think Shadow Puppeteer would complain? Like, Chaos can’t be against Chaos...”
“Chaos is against everyone and everything,” she assured me. “Just tell Victor to leave the clan before the attack begins. That way there shouldn’t be any problem.”
“I’ll tell him. How about Lloyd? Can you help me?”
“Don’t be such a blockhead, kitten. Just PM him. You have no business visiting the Darks.”
I nodded. She had a point.
Isabella sat up in the tub and started putting her hair up in a bun, apparently unconcerned by the fact that the water in the tub only reached up to her waist and that the lather that dripped down her ashen gray skin failed to conceal her breasts.
“Mind rubbing my back, kitten?” she said with a charming smile, apparently pleased with the effect.
“I’ll give it a miss,” I said.
“Or really? Is your, er, circulation still a bit suspect?”
“It’s just that I don’t approve of interspecies intercourse.”
She grinned. “Ah, so kitten is a human chauvinist? Or maybe kitten is just afraid of Julian?”
“I am,” I admitted as I stretched on the bed in my boots and stared at the gloomy sky. “We’re in different weight classes.”
“So what if he kills you? It’s only a game!”
“Is it? I really can’t tell the difference, especially when it comes to physical damage. Full immersion, dammit!”
“You didn’t seem to have this problem before.”
“Before, I was dead, in case you didn’t notice. I just didn’t give a damn.”
She laughed. “Relax. Julian and I are in an open relationship.”
“The question is, does he know about it? Or is it supposed to be a surprise?”
Isabella giggled and climbed out of the tub, her bare feet slapping on the floorboards. I didn’t turn toward her. She wrapped herself in the skimpiest of bath robes, walked over to me and perched herself on the edge of the bed. Not to flirt with me — but to warn me.
“I shouldn’t wait too long to contact Lloyd if I were you.”
Her body began to flicker. Then she disappeared. Logged out.
I sighed and opened the menu.
She was right. I shouldn’t wait too long.
01 day 12 hrs…
MR. LLOYD DIDN’T let me down. He did everything in the nick of time. If the truth were known, the longest part of it was spent trying to agree on his honorarium. In the end, even Prince Julian was forced to join our heated discussion, but even he couldn’t talk the demonic alchemist into any sort of compromise. His fee was 3% and not a penny less.
At least we managed to save some money on archers. Neo was more than happy to admit Victor into the order who in turn brought with him ten more Black Tracker archers. He would have poached more but unfortunately, Grakh got in the way.
“Stubborn idiot!” Victor cussed. “You just couldn’t shut him up, could you? ‘Everything will be all right, things will get better very soon!’ And those morons believed him!”
“It’s okay as it is,” I said absent-mindedly as I confirmed the transaction.
Prince Julian wired me a hundred grand which I promptly forwarded to Lloyd’s merchant account. As soon as he’d received it, he started confirming the contracts with the mercs. At his suggestion, I didn’t form a complete group: it was much better, he said, to first take our bearings and adjust our needs as necessary. And that was exactly how we decided to proceed.
Theoretically, getting to Stone Harbor was as easy as walking over to the Tower of Power and paying the teleport fee, but that would have bound me to Shadow Puppeteer’s place of power which didn’t bode well in case of any complications.
That’s how it happened that Neo offered me his portal to the ex-Temple of the Silver Phoenix, the one where we’d had to battle the demonic Nest Hunter. And seeing as it was quite a long way from Stone Harbor across the forest orcs’ lands, Neo entrusted me to the care of his new assistant, the dark paladin Robert Yard.
Judging by the man’s sour face, he wasn’t looking forward to a hike across marches and virgin woods. Still, he knew better than to question his commander’s orders: all he did was smooth down his white hair and breathe a heavy sigh.
Against the backdrop of his black armor, his albino skin looked snow white. That, and his red eyes. In all other respects, my new guide didn’t boast any distinguishing characteristics. His features were bland, nondescript and generic, a typical newb face, making me wonder how he’d managed to reach his current level without customizing his appearance even once.
“Don’t look so sad, Rob,” Neo asked him. “You’ll have air support. Uncle John, I put Scarecrow under your control.”
The black phoenix landed heavily onto the temple fence, focused his blind dead eyes on me and squawked an ear-rendering Craaah!
I frowned, trying to bring him under my control, but I didn’t even have to make an effort: he obeyed me most naturally.
Pet: a Black Phoenix (Scarecrow)
I closed the message and turned to Rob. “Off we go, then?”
> With a nod, he headed toward the restored bridge across the chasm, then up the steps cut into the cliff. We passed the orcs’ bulwark without a problem: the creatures seemed to ignore us. Soon we entered the virgin forest and kept walking for what felt like an eternity while Scarecrow soared above us. Not that his company was of any help to us: whenever I switched to his eye view, all I could see was an ocean of tree tops.