The Gene of the Ancients (Rogue Merchant Book #2): LitRPG Series

by Roman Prokofiev

  “I don’t like this,” Astr grumbled. “The money’s good, but we won’t be able to fly up fast.”

  “Be cool, man,” Keith replied. “It’s peace and quiet here. Guarded carebear lands. We’ll get it in and get off. Ready the anchors!”

  * * *

  “I’m bored, “ Stabber yawned. “Somebody, tell me, why are we watching this place again?”

  “Ask Tao,” Snake snapped. “He’ll tell you everything real quick.”

  “Well, I like pushing carebears around,” Sulphide said. “Seven kills yesterday, three caravans. Not so bad.”

  “No way to move the loot, though. We really should figure something out, “ Mercaptan backed his brother up, as usual. He and Sulphide were twins in real life and created similar characters in Sphere as well.

  “And today, zero!” Snake piped in once again. “Tomorrow, too! They’re no fools. They must have realized we’ve blocked this place for good and fled to their masters with their tails between their legs... By the way, Tiall, is everything all right there?”

  Tiall was a halfling rogue and a scout, a member of the seventh constant party of PROJECT HELL. Currently, he was busy circling his clanmate’s camp. Simultaneously breathing fresh air and using Search, he was checking the surroundings, seeing if anyone alive found their way nearby. The task of the seventh and the eight constant parties was to completely block any movement in that region — and for three days straight, they were quite successful.

  Tiall: Everything’s clear. Not a soul in sight. There are two random dungeons, Wolf’s Lair and Forgotten Crypt. Wanna go?

  The twins nodded in unison, while Snake cursed. At this point, dungeons were a real pain in his neck, as boredom could transform even the proud PvP lovers from HELL into farmers.

  “Snoozefest,” Stabber yawned once again. He pulled a huge two-handed sword from the sheath and started stroking it with a sharpening stone. It never hurt to increase your damage by a few points. Snake scowled at him and turned back. Both brothers, the necromancer and the black healer, quietly sat by the tent, cowls on their bald heads. It really was boring as hell.

  Snake: Tiall, could you maybe go check on the carebears? It’s late, but some of them might be farming the dungeons. Search around.

  Tiall: Roger that.

  The border of the Wild Lands wasn’t far, and in just thirty leagues’ distance, there was a big outpost of local dwellers: a level three outpost. Half an hour later, the scout came through.

  Tiall: Alarm, guys! They’re all online, gathered around the outpost. Forty players, getting ready for something.

  The PROJECT’s party got excited, a shadow of hope appearing on Stabber’s bored face.

  “Maybe they’ll try breaking through,” he said dreamily.

  “We’ll crush them, then,” Snake mumbled. “But they’re clearly up to something.”

  Snake: Tiall, could you go closer in stealth and find out what’s happening?

  Tiall: Guys, you won’t believe it! An Astral van is here.

  Snake: What? What van?

  Tiall: Whatitsname, a nave. It’s going to land next to the outpost. I guess they’ll try to load it up. Here, look at the screenshot.

  For a few seconds, the PROJECT fighters were at a loss for words. An Astral nave was a rare and expensive beast, hard to obtain; a real trophy for anyone’s kill rating.

  After that, everything happened fast.

  “Call to arms! Wake everyone up, send mass messages! Contact Tao!”

  “Call the portal masters. Who’s at the castle today, Alkaron?”

  “The first const party’s on board, Svoy as well, Peacemaker’s close!”

  “Tiall, can you light a pentagram?”

  * * *

  As usual, shit happened suddenly. Whoosh, and you’re up! Keith remembered pretty well how he had driven into the rear end of a bus that suddenly stopped dead in its tracks. That’s what it felt like right now.

  A blood red pentagram flashed just a breath away from him. Iridescent glow poured out, and straight lines of players fully equipped for battle stepped out: clan PROJECT HELL.

  Borland felt as if someone had shoved a pile of shaved ice under his shirt. He dashed to the steering wheel, opening the ship’s interface. The main thing was to activate the Dome...

  He made it just in time. A bluish sphere enveloped the nave anchored just thirty feet away from the ground. The gangway, the piles of cargo ready for loading, and the surrounding players all got swept away, scattered over more than a hundred feet.

  Keith Borland: Alarm! Astr, turn on the engines! Throw in more ellurite! Nox, cast the anchors! Cut them off, for God’s sake! Ellaria...

  He stopped short. Ellaria’s hit bar was empty, as his companion had been caught outside of the ship, smack dab in the way of the PROJECT’s raid.

  The nave shifted, free of the tether. Firing up such a beast quickly was impossible, but slowly, inch by inch, the ship started flying up.

  Around it, battle raged, as locals fought PROJECT. Their attempts proved unsuccessful, as they had no time to muster a resistance, and almost a third of them had already been sent to the resp point. The others were retreating behind the safety of the walls, as mage cannons started firing from the towers, spewing white balls of fire.

  The Dome, idiots, turn on the Dome — they’re going to break into your fort, flashed in Borland’s mind. Or was the command room of the Magic Shield empty? How lax...

  Inside, between the unprotected walls, the ground swelled up in a dozen bubbles. Strange creatures climbed out of them, hurling around lumps of dirt. They resembled dead trees, animated by magic and had thick warped wooden branches for arms and roots for legs. Those were elder treants, the advanced version of a common treant: apparently, PROJECT had a druid capable of casting a powerful summoning spell. Cries of horror came out of the fortress, and at last, a Dome shot up. Yet it was far too late, as fighting had already spilled inside, and elder treants flung the enemy players like balls, crushing them against walls and towers.

  Keith grit his teeth. Carebears would be of no help to him; half of them were already dead, and the others were locked inside the fort by the summoning. The PROJECT raid engulfed the slowly rising astral ship, focusing their fire upon it. Colossal spectral swords started hitting the Dome one after another, removing at least five percent of its hit points each: Keith’s enemies had either good mages or powerful scrolls. Slowly but surely, the defenses gave way.

  To turn on its spelljumper and escape via its own Astral Portal, a nave needed to gain the maximum altitude. Octopus increased the output of engine elementals to the max; roaring wind almost burst up the sails, but boosting the overtonnaged vessel quickly was all but impossible.

  “Fire!” Borland growled. “Shoot them down!”

  And the NPC gunners, bent down to the scopes of four ballistae installed on rotating platforms, opened fire. Some of them even managed to shoot someone down, but the actively maneuvering PROJECT raid, mounted atop birdies, was protected by Swirling Shields, and clung to the nave like a tail.

  Resigned, Keith extracted a scroll of Great Web out of its case. The purple outline of an epic spell flashed before his eyes. He kept it as a last resort — the mage who had sold him the scroll had assured him that the Web could slow down anyone and anything.

  The main thing was to have enough mana to cast it. With his teeth, Borland pulled out the plug of an ellurite potion and swallowed it down in one gulp. The magic elixir worked immediately, increasing maximum mana by 500, but it came at a cost. Addiction kicked in, triggering impaired coordination and a thirty-percent loss of resistances and physical defense. Well, nothing in life ever came free.

  The Web hit the area of effect, ensnaring his opponents in a myriad of sticky threads. Stuck in a misty haze, they moved only at ten percent of their speed. The birdies flapped their wings, but could barely advance, trapped in the spectral tethers.

  Yet in less than thirty seconds, they regained their speed. The sp
ell was down, thanks to PROJECT’s savvy black healer, who had the perfect timing with their Great Cleansing. That hex was able to remove all buffs and debuffs from everyone around the caster, as Keith’s enemies had decided that losing their buffs was worth catching up to the vessel.

  Still, he was hoping to get away. They didn’t have harpoon guns and their DPS wasn’t enough to quickly break through the nave’s solid shield. Slowly but steadily, the Crabstrocity ascended.

  * * *

  Hashem: The summons are about to take the fort!

  Tao: Quiet. Ruth, how many scrolls of Swords do we have left?

  Ruth: Five. We used up seven.

  Tao: We can’t get to it. We need more DPS. Svoy, get down, summon Dorten!

  Svoy: How?! We need a sacrifice!

  Tao: Kill anyone around you.

  Svoy: One of ours? A sacrifice drains a random attribute!

  Tao: He’s escaping. We. Need. DPS.

  Svoy: Got it.

  Seeker: Why me?! Well thank you guys so much!

  Seeker is banned from speaking on the channel.

  Tao: Come on. Come on! Come on, you bitches!

  * * *

  Fly, you fools! His legs spread wide, his hands firm on the steering wheel, Keith was raising the Crabstrocity higher and higher. The spelljumper icon was going to light up any minute, and he had forty percent of the shield left. He will escape, just as he always has, goddammit, or he’s not Keith the Octopus!

  A sudden blow shook down the nave’s hull, throwing it off its course. In an instant, the Dome’s hit points were down by a half and started to drop at an alarming speed. Borland looked back. A greenish thread of necrotic energy was tying the vessel to a giant figure in a ghastly jade aura that had just appeared on the ground. It was a deity or their projection, the captain realized. The tricks of true priests. A shiver ran down his spine. Seventeen percent of the Dome left, sixteen...

  “Astr, heat up the shields! Heat up the engines! HEAT UP EVERYTHING!” Keith yelled to his engineer in the reactor room. The elementals were already halfway burned, but he had nothing to lose. They needed to save their souls.

  The ugly figure below — it looked kinda like a gigantic warrior in spiked armor, green light emanating from its slits — swung its monstrous jagged axe, and another necrotic thread hit the nave’s stern, shaking it and knocking down everyone on the deck. Six percent of Dome...

  Keith realized he had no chance of escaping. Summoning up his courage, he decided to use his last opportunity and contact the enemies. If they were true PvP lovers, they had to have a code of honor of some sort. And according to it...

  * * *

  Tentacle: Tao, are you reading what this carebear’s writing in the general chat? A ransom?

  Tao: Stop DPS! I do. He wants to buy out his hide and the ship. Three hundred thousand... Somebody, how much is an astral nave with all the stuff worth?

  Alcaron: Around half a million. The equipment’s no less than two hundred thousand.

  Tao: So he’s offering us half. Your thoughts?

  Alcaron: Hurry up, he’s almost at the peak. He’ll teleport!

  Tao: Money is dust. A fine kill is priceless. Finish him up, guys! Fire!

  * * *

  Several days later, the Watchers’ clan meeting.

  “What the hell is happening?!” Komtur shot out, nervously pacing the clan hall. “We need to farm Helt Akor! We need to defend Eyre — orcs have taken three forts on the northern border! And we have hell breaking loose right under our noses!”

  “Yeah, the carebears are whining. They’re all over me,” Olaf nodded. “By the way, about the Paths — how about we add Cat into the raid? His sword could help against hard bosses. I’m getting tired of wipes.”

  “Let’s talk about it later. Have you seen the kill rating? PROJECT dropped an astral nave in our territory! How is this even possible? And PKers have lost all shame! Balian, why are you silent?”

  “We can’t catch them,” Balian grumbled. “They won’t let us. All they do is rob caravans. Freaking wimps, afraid of real PvP! As soon as we try hunting them, they log out and hide.”

  “Go destroy it, for Heaven’s sake! Send a fake caravan, open a pentagram!”

  “Tikhon, go teach a fish to swim!” the Raccoon flared up. “We’ve tried it thrice, and they aren’t taking the bait! But you must realize we can’t guard all the caravans.”

  “Everybody’s tired of running on empty. No fun, only wasting ingredients on pentas,” Damian added. “And our guys are getting restless, too. They say they aren’t obliged to escort peddlers in the borderlands.”

  “My opinion is we have a spy in our midst,” Olaf said quietly. “They’re dumping info about our events, that’s why they aren’t taking our bait.”

  Everybody looked at Abel. The shortie shrugged.

  “I ran a check on those PKers. They came from the south, where Alex Token forced everyone into submission,” he said. “Those guys were against him... I know some of them, too, like Arrow. They aren’t willing to speak.”

  “Yes, I know them, too,” Komtur nodded. “They’re reckless.”

  “Too reckless! If we enlisted them, they could be useful.”

  “No, we can’t set foot in the same river twice. I don’t want a traveling circus in my Watchers. I have enough clowns as it is. All right, moving on. Does anyone have any specific suggestions? We need to figure this out.”

  “Cat has an offer,” Olaf said. “And I think it makes sense, considering the situation. The gist of it is, we need to unify our trading. Abandon isolated NPC caravans. Start buying out everything from our tenants locally and send the goods directly to the Bazaar in bulk.”

  “Setting up such a scheme would be a hell of a task. Who would do it?” Balian snorted.

  “Cat was the one to propose it. He’s taking it upon himself.”

  “He’s probably itching to help us, no strings attached!” Komtur chuckled. “Olaf, there’s a catch. Knowing Cat, a ton of them. What say you?”

  “Yeah. He’s definitely stirring the pot. He’ll probably start buying way cheaper and take the extra money for himself. I’m no pro, but I estimate his profit to be ten percent. For a million-gold turnover, it’s a lot.”

  “Whoa! Are the carebears ready for such a deal?”

  “What choice do they have? They need to move the goods. Their warehouses have limited space, they need to pay NPC miners and for outpost upkeep. Time’s running out. And all in all, it’s convenient for them, too. They won’t have to waste time hiring NPC caravans, buying and selling stuff — they’ll sell everything at once and get their money. Cat’s asking for access to our third account for this. He doesn’t have enough money to buy.”

  “Okay, now that’s something. Do you think it could work out?”

  Olaf paused to think, twiddling his blonde beard.

  “I think it could,” he said finally. “But only if half the profit would end up in the clan treasury. It you put A and B together, you’ll realize who’s at the bottom of it all. But...in the end, what do we care?”

  Chapter 15

  FOUR HUNDRED thousand. That was the amount in my account. I had five or seven more in buying and selling lots in the Bazaar, but I wasn’t even counting that small potatoes. Not bad for my four months of playing. I would even say, great.

  “Heya, Cat! Looking good!” AlexOrder said, coming up from behind me and clapping me on the shoulder. “Nice set you got.”

  Of course I did. Wandering Merchant Set was a set of four items worth twelve thousand gold. With a smile, I patted the shining black skin of the slim-waisted jerkin that tied together with similar boots and gloves. Dressed in it, I looked quite respectable. Mostly, I didn’t care for gear, but that set truly inspired me: it was Light Armor with high resistance and physical defense values, but most importantly, it significantly boosted Charisma, added around 100 SP to Leadership and Persuasion, and increased inventory space and weight limit. It went well together with the cape fro
m the temple of Tormis.

  The only problem was that the set wasn’t personal, which meant that it could be dropped. I could only wear it in safe places, and with my life, safety was an unattainable dream.

  The second set of items I had bought back during my first week of playing was still in my chest: cheap trash intended for ventures I knew would be risky. I also needed combat equipment, but for that, I planned on sponging off the clan warehouse, as full-fledged members got a free set of suitable armor before going into battle. I had just bought and moved from the Bazaar eight hundred sets of rare, “blue” armor just for that — to fill up the storage facilities of Condor.