“Diego, this is my nephew Alejandro. The lord punished him; the boy was born dumb. Forgive him for this flaw,” Hairo spread his hands in guilt, then quietly whispered: “Roj, take him away.”
The bodyguard had already gotten the message. Grabbing me painfully by the shoulder and keeping himself between me and the arrivals, he led me to the door into the building. Turrets emerged from the roof and turned with a whir to aim at the uninvited guests. Hairo continued fawning:
“We don’t want any trouble, respected Diego. We’re running a little business here that wants no outside attention. But we’re willing to do our part for the good of Cali. Just say how much and who to, and we’ll be sure to…”
The door slid shut behind us. We went down to my floor, and I finally remembered where I’d heard the name Diego Aranzabal. Manny told me about him that day when the infected miner attacked me. That was right after the escape from the Modus castle. Aranzabal was that same gang leader who kidnapped citizen children. That same womanizer whose palace and harem were the envy of Bomber.
“What’s up with him?” I asked Roj in confusion. “That Diego is a criminal! Why is Hairo so subservient to him?”
“A tactical maneuver,” the bodyguard answered impassively. “We had to get you away from the center of attention.”
“He was very convincing.”
“Experience,” the bodyguard shrugged. “It’s always the way in the army — there’s always someone above your rank.”
I couldn’t log into Dis until I found out what Aranzabal wanted. I sat with Roj and Maria until both security officers appeared. Sergei and Yoshi came in behind them. I jumped up from the couch to meet them, but Hairo spoke first:
“Diego wants twenty thousand a month. If you’ve found money for the building, you can find it for taxes, he says.”
“Just twenty thousand?” I sighed in relief.
“You can’t pay,” everyone else in the room said almost at once. “Slippery slope,” Willy added.
“That’s right,” Hairo nodded. “He’s just testing us, feeling us out. If we show weakness and pay, then he’ll come back tomorrow asking for more. And more, and more. It’ll all end in a bloodbath and they’ll take everything we have.”
“And that means we make it a bloodbath first,” Willy grinned, rubbing his hands. “Preemptive strike.”
“Yeah, but first we need Alex’s agreement.” Hairo stared at me. “You remember me telling you about the Wild Ones? Non-citizens with nothing left to lose. They live in ruins in the Zones. Willy and I have friends there. The people there are desperate and know how to fight. Some are vets. They have enough people to populate the lower and upper floors. But they can’t pay rent.”
“Will they play?” I asked, thinking that we’d need to buy a lot more capsules if we were getting more people.
“Some, not all. We have a little war brewing with Aranzabal, so don’t rely on them in Dis for now.”
“You have my all-clear.”
“Then here’s a list for confirmation.” Hairo brought up an expenses sheet from his comm. “Medical capsule, autodocks, equipment, two Sharks, guns and rounds, equipment…”
When he finished listing the items and announced the total cost, Roj whistled:
“Enough for a small army…”
Watching as the intragel quickly filled up my capsule, I decided the first thing to do was set up that meeting I’d promised to Crawler and Irita, to discuss raising the clan’s income. Our expenses were going up, and most of them weren’t one-time deals, but ongoing.
But as soon as I logged into Dis, Hinterleaf messaged me: “The Supreme Corpse has left the desert. He’s headed for Vermillion.” “On my way,” I answered, activating Depths Teleportation.
Sorry, clanmates, we’ll have to meet another day.
The first phase of Operation Anti-Undead has begun.
Chapter 12. Don’t Look For Meaning Where There Is None
LEVEL FIFTEEN Imitation gave me the ability to turn into whoever I wanted. I could choose any game race, class, nick, clan and even appearance. I could only guess what the next level of the skill might offer. But when I saw it with my own eyes, I canceled my teleport cast to the desert in shock.
The level-up came right after I came up with a disguise as a humongous barbarian called Seamus, wearing a bearskin, with hair down to his shoulders and bulging muscles:
Imitation level increased: +1! Current level: 16.
From now on, your imitated or invented form is capable of fooling even identification artifacts. But be careful not to abuse this ability; the gods and the Celestial Arbitration see your true nature.
I doubted the gods and Arbiters would be waiting for me in Vermillion. To save time, I decided to meet Mogwai there. I told Hinterleaf what nick I’d be using and headed straight for the fort, where I was supposed to be met and backed up by a Modus observer — just in case the situation started to go off plan.
As soon as I appeared at the town hall, a piercing cry rang out, deafening even the sound of the alarm bell:
“Praise Fortune, more reinforcements!”
The shouter was a city watchman who thought we were going to be fighting shoulder to shoulder. Yes, we were reinforcements, but my help would come in a different form.
I looked around, seeking people from Modus, but the street was empty. Everyone seemed to be off defending the city walls.
In the meantime, the watchman who had praised Fortune came closer, raised his helmet visor and wiped the sweat from his brow. He looked me up and down and spoke:
“Hey, newcomer! What’s your name… Seamus, huh? Level hundred and seven? Ah, too low…”
“It’s all I have. What about you?! You’re only seventy-eight,” I murmured. “Where’re the undead?”
The watchman pointed the way, but I studied the man himself. His name was Ehehe. Memories of my first day in the desert swam to the fore… That’s it! This was the same man Zoran and I met in the Vermillion city council. He’d been walking around in nothing but underwear back then. Now, judging by his status, he’d joined the city guard, and nothing was left of the much-ganked shaman.
His high-quality rare equipment, which looked like it had been issued by the garrison quartermaster, was clean enough to use as a mirror. A rough green wooden shield hung from his back, which didn’t seem part of the equipment set given to the guard. Or maybe he just got whatever was there. As he kept talking, his constant hand gestures made his sword dance out of its basilisk-skin scabbard and hit him in the side:
“The big boss legate is bringing his horde here, Seamus. We asked Darant for aid, but they don’t seem in a hurry to get here. Have you come to help?”
“Sure have… Listen, you’re a player, right?” I feigned surprise. “How did you end up in the watch? I mean, why? You can’t even leave the garrison. That’s no game, more like…”
“Army service. Right. I’m serving and gathering Honor Points,” Ehehe answered. “Watchmen get a three-times bonus… Anyway, enough talk. Head to the walls, soldier. When you see a fountain, keep heading for Fortune’s temple, and from there to the city walls.”
“What about you?” I asked.
A tall elf in a green mantle soundlessly jumped down from the roof of a nearby building — Koba, a hunter from Modus. He tapped his wrist and I nodded slightly to show I understood.
Ehehe didn’t notice the gesture.
“I’m completing a quest,” he answered. “I wouldn’t be much help on the walls, so the chief told me to point the way for any new arrivals.”
A group of heavily armored players walked out of the town hall. Ehehe planned to go meet them, but I placed a hand on his shoulder to hold him back:
“Wait! I’m glad things ended up well for you, Ehehe.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Nothing…” I fell silent, deciding not to admit outright that we’d met before. “By the way, thanks for the beer you treated me to! Remember Murphy? Take this, it’s a g
ift.”
I pushed a legendary shield that had been lying around in my bag into the stunned guard’s hands and winked to him, then threw on Cloak Essence and shot up into the clouds. When he realized what had happened, he shouted something and waved, but I was already soaring into the sky and couldn’t see the details.
From a bird’s-eye view, a cloud of dust was clearly visible, streaming across the ground as if a dust storm galloped toward the city. I saw flashes of wings, paws, heads, tails. Raised basilisks, scorpids, desert hermits, a couple of rotting giants, several gigantic worms and two dozen vultures, loyal to the Supreme Legate of the Destroying Plague, careered toward the fort and swept aside all in their path. It was hard to count precisely, but there were around a hundred beasts, which meant Mogwai had leveled up Plague Reanimation to level 10. Worse, he was almost at level 500! He worked fast. It seemed that after suffering so many defeats, he decided not to keep banging his head against a wall, but instead to gain enough power to exceed mine, and only then pay me another visit — Kharinza wasn’t going anywhere, after all. And if I didn’t show to defend the temple, I’d lose both it and my abilities from the Sleeping Gods. I understood his thinking.
Thanks to my heightened Perception, I didn’t have to get close to copy his form. A second later, there were two Mogwais in the location. The second, fake one dropped down like a stone on the original, activating Depths Teleportation a second before impact.
A moment of travel — and Mogwai and I were in the blocking cell in the basement of the main Modus castle. My stomach leaped into my throat from the sickening stench emanating from the dead man in my embrace.
“God damn it, no! Not again!” Mogwai erupted, trying to break away from me. “You bastard, Scyth! Asshole! You’re all done for! You and all your…”
Before the undead druid could do anything, I fired off Hammerfist and flattened his already rotting nose into his skull. The second strike I delivered as an uppercut to the chin, crushing it and driving shards of teeth into his brain. Mogwai felt no pain, but growled and fell silent — it was hard to yell with a crushed jaw.
Yary the Knight and Sayan the Paladin snapped a spiky metal Collar of Subjugation around his neck and bound his limbs in manacles. Only then did Mogwai, looking around, realize who was helping me. But his reaction surprised me — he burst into screeching laughter and shouted, slurring his words:
“You got into bed with Modus? You idiot, Scyth! They’ll chew you up and spit you out! You’re even dumber than I thought if you trust Hinterleaf!”
“Want me to shut him up?” Sayan asked.
“No need, let him shout. Maybe he’ll tell us something important,” Yary answered.
Mogwai kept on ranting, but I had places to be. I exchanged nods with the Modus officers, then climbed out of the cage. Yary and Sayan stayed behind — the paladin wanted to test some spells from his arsenal of light magic on the legate.
In the dull dry corridor lit with torches of True Flame, Blackberry was waiting for me. I’d already been here twice: while saving Crag, and the previous night, when Hinterleaf showed me the blocking cage for Mogwai.
Smiling a little guiltily, Blackberry nodded for me to follow her. At the exit from the basement, Hinterleaf paced the corridor anxiously. He gasped when he saw me disguised as Mogwai, stopped and stretched out a hand shrouded with threatening sparks.
“Two crocodiles fly…” the gnome began the code phrase.
“One green, the other northwards,” I finished, and he relaxed and broke off his cast. “Dumb password,” I said. “What does it mean?”
“Don’t look for meaning where there is none,” Hinterleaf smiled. “How did it all go?”
“Piece of cake. He wasn’t looking up at all. Mogwai is done. We’ll bait out the others next. Any news on Eileen?”
“We’re looking,” the gnome answered. “What about the others, where do we send them? To the goblins? We can’t split our forces, but if necessary, we can prepare two cells in other castles.”
“If the League has enough time to make cells for them all, then yeah, the goblins. What about the Travelers?”
“They’re involved,” a thick, low voice said from the shadows behind a column. A massive orc with sharpened fangs emerged into the light. “Nice to meet you, Scyth. I’m Horvac.”
“I know,” I answered, shaking his club-like hand. “We’ve fought before, Mr. Onegut.”
Chapter 13. Kill the Dead Man!
THE BIGGEST MARKET in Dis was the Kinema Bazaar, but Darant’s Market Square, though smaller, had about the same density of sentients per square foot. From a bird’s-eye view it looked like a murky seething river, but the lower I flew, the more details and colors I made out. First I could pick out bright hats, then heads — long-eared, bald, furry, mohawked, adorned with tiaras.
I chose the center of the square as a landing site, next to the well. The crowd’s attention was on me the moment I landed. Voices rose. The people whispering to each other: Mogwai, The dead man!, The undead are here! I had to wait a couple of minutes for it to die down.
Glancing at myself, I grimaced. I’d forgotten to turn off my sense of smell, and now I could smell my own stinking flesh. Squelching rot, open sores, guts falling out of a disemboweled stomach, ribs shining through — it wasn’t a good look. I’d win no beauty contests.
It was a miracle the people didn’t flee: curiosity (or stupidity?) overcame their common sense, and only a few sentients started to leave, pushing their way out through the crowd. The people grimaced and covered noses with handkerchiefs, looking at me in disgust. Someone was noisily sick. Look while you can! I thought, getting mad. Fat, happy… None of you have any idea how terrible the Destroying Plague can be, what a single one of its legates is capable of!
At first I was surprised by how calmly the state leaders took this appearance of the undead faction. Then I realized — they weren’t moving because Nergal was behaving as if there were no undead. The god of light was deliberately giving time to the Nucleus he had created, to let it grow and do as much harm as possible to the sentients. Only then, in an aura of sunlight, Nergal the Radiant, the great savior, would appear, drawing into his ranks those sentient followers who worship other gods. And of course, Nergal wouldn’t kill the Nucleus — it was too convenient an enemy. He would just banish it to the frosts of Holdest and relative freedom.
The people of the Commonwealth and the Empire had to see with their own eyes what the Destroying Plague was. My idea would be impossible if I hadn’t stocked up on Plague Fury scrolls on Terrastera. But I’d inscribed enough to put on an educational horror show.
Emitting a guttural roar, I slowly turned my head, looking out from beneath my brows and baring blackened teeth, letting as many people see me as possible.
“Nergal the Radiant, what a monster!” a merchant in a bright apron spat, hitting the foot of a hunter standing nearby, who dropped a multi-story structure of choice words on him.
“Damn! Even uglier than your wife!” a warrior shouted, elbowing his neighbor, a hairy half-naked barbarian.
The crowd liked the joke, and insults began to fly in from all sides, all directed at me, or rather at Mogwai.
Soldiers began to stream in, weapons bare. “Make way for the royal guard!” they shouted. “Stand aside!” Shoving their way through and surrounding the well, they carefully waited to see what I would do next. Nobody tried to attack; they must have been waiting for reinforcements.
In the distance, by Nergal’s central temple, a pillar of light struck the sky. Royal battle mages began to appear with the snap of portals.
I waited.
And waited.
Someone in the crowd couldn’t stand the strain and shouted “Kill the dead man!” before throwing a knife at me, activating Equanimity and Sleeping Justice. A timer started from three and a half minutes. With Diamond Skin, enough for the whole operation. Without invulnerability, Plague Fury would have killed me just like everyone else.
My prepre
pared scrolls cast instantly. I activated the first, whispering: Apophis, White Snake, these victims I sacrifice to you… A hiss of approval came from nowhere, echoing into silence.
The flash of Plague Energy expanded in a killing wave in all directions. Those who had been spitting curses only moments ago, seeing me only as an amusing monster, collapsed into dust.
Summoning Storm, who took the form of a Crystal Wyvern, Mogwai’s mount, I took off and flew toward King Bastian’s palace. Below I could clearly see a three-hundred-foot circle of dead earth scattered with sand, the remnants of royal guards, battle mages, players and merchants. The explosion didn’t hit the entire market square, and panic spread outside the circle of death: people fled this way and that, shoving each other, trampling the weak and slow, screaming in a thousand voices. A deafening alarm bell rose, drowning out the screams and multiplying the panic.
Path of Spirit (Disgardium Book #6): LitRPG Series Page 14