“They’re here!” a shaman I didn’t know shouted, pointing at us. “The Awoken are here!”
“Yep, here we are…” Bomber muttered, gazing around in a stupor at all the famous top players. He couldn’t get used to the fact that our sworn enemies were now our allies. “Scyth, are you sure they aren’t going to tear us to pieces? I would have put my legendaries somewhere safe, just in case.”
“Me too,” Infect whispered, clutching his precious guitar to his chest.
Crawler just frowned and kept a careful eye out, preparing for the worst.
“And we couldn’t catch them? They’re just kids!” someone in the crowd shouted.
Laughter broke out. I summoned Sharkon. The Underground Terror dropped into the courtyard, his huge frame throwing mocking allies in all directions. Bones crunched, weapons snapped and groans of pain filled the courtyard. Bomber laughed evilly.
“Here we are, in the flesh!” he shouted defiantly. “I’ll challenge any of you to a duel! I’ll bet three legendary items against any epic!”
“Enough!” Hinterleaf boomed.
The tight rows of preventers parted, letting the Modus leader through to us. Yary and Sayan walked at either side of the gray-haired gnome, who looked serious, focused.
“Less bravado, kid,” Yary told Bomber. “You let the Threat give you a piggyback ride to the top. Big whoop. No need to brag about it.”
“We expected a friendlier welcome,” Bomber growled.
“We’re at war, warrior! This ain’t no Christmas party!” Yary barked, then bowed and said in tones of mocking formality: “Welcome! The Modus clan is overjoyed to greet the Awoken, clan of troublemakers. We’re overjoyed, aren’t we, men?”
“Oh, totally!” his troops answered discordantly. “Real happy!”
“Welcome, fearless warrior Bomber!” Yary shouted.
Laughter again. Bomb smiled embarrassedly.
“Greetings to the great bard Infect!”
“Bow before the magnificence of Crawler the mage!”
“Alright, alright, that’s enough! We get it!” the boys protested, grinning.
“Silence!” Hinterleaf erupted, raising his hand. He waited for everyone to shut up, then got straight down to business: “We have problems, Scyth. There are four of you, but five legates. I mean the ones who are already besieging castles. Laneiran, Cray, Angel, Criterror and Liam are taking down the castles of several non-alliance clans. We promised them protection. Each will pay us between three and six million. We have obscured, as it were, your intervention. We lay no claim to the money and will give it all to the Awoken.”
“Got a contract for you,” Yary said.
I turned to Crawler and he nodded:
“Send it to me, I’ll take a look,” he said. “I have authority to sign.”
“What do we know about the other legates?” I asked the gnome.
“Biancanova and Ronan have dropped off the radar,” he answered. “We have Mogwai, but he’s offline. Horvac is ready to take one…”
“I know, he got in touch. We need to visit the Travelers’ castle, unlock it as a destination for teleportation. How’s your shield? Will it hold?”
“It will for now,” Hinterleaf answered. “Sayan, what is your projection?”
“Fifty-four minutes at current damage per second,” the paladin reported.
“Then let’s not waste time,” I said. “But I see another problem — we only have two traps. The goblins promise another five by the end of the day, so we’ll have to send the legates somewhere far away. Any ideas where?”
The Modus officers exchanged glances. Yary answered unwillingly:
“Horvac suggested Holdest. But that’s their home. Is there any point? Considering they can use a Return Stone, I don’t see much difference. We could return them to the desert, or throw them into the Ursai Jungle.”
“We have to decide how,” Infect said. “Are we working in pairs or solo? If solo, then probably all of us but Scyth will die. Teleportation has a cooldown. I won’t say how long, but it has one. We won’t be able to get out right away.”
“Let’s take it one step at a time,” I said. “I can handle Criterror in the trap under the mountain, so let’s start with him…”
Yary took Crawler into his group and went off with him to pave the way to the cellar in the Travelers’ castle. Our mage had leveled up Levitation so much that now, just like me, he could literally drop out of the sky down onto his foes. Bomber and Infect would have to jump off their flying mounts.
I had to check the lie of the land. I flew into the air and looked around.
Criterror and ten servants stood in full view right before the front gates. The legate was on a small boulder, shooting arrows armed with plague energy at the shield dome. Familiar desert creatures and a few zombie giants standing in the moat to their waist, spread out to avoid area-of-effect spells. The minions gnawed and scratched the forcefield and the giants hammered it with their huge fists. The preventers rained down arrows, darts, spears and magic spells on them. The defenders all focused on a single target, and their strategy was working — one of the zombie giants fell before my eyes, but its fall only strengthened the others.
Having seen all I needed, I soared up into the sky, repositioned behind Criterror and flew toward him at full speed.
The legate of the Destroying Plague was deliberately placing himself under enemy fire, filling up on plague energy. His every shot buckled the forcefield, sending concentrated green-brown circles spreading across the dome’s surface. Some of the giants were already down, but several remained in the formation alongside the basilisks and vultures, now higher in level.
Criterror had made the same mistake as Mogwai. He wasn’t watching the skies, so when I dove down, activating Depths Teleportation as I fell, and teleported him to the goblin trap beneath Mount Mecharri, the archer was unpleasantly surprised.
I listened to him swearing in the dark of the cave while Depths Teleportation cooled down. He couldn’t do anything to me without his abilities. I attacked with my entire arsenal at once, grabbed his chainmail vest one-handed and lifted him up, pressing him against the wall and hammering my other fist down on his head, beating his rotten skull into his shoulders.
“This won’t… change… anything… idiot!” the legate hissed between my strikes. “The Nucleus has already summoned… Eileen! She will tell him… the Supreme Legate is caught… The Nucleus will summon him back! You… with your pathetic… attempts to stop us… will lose everything!”
His health points froze in the red zone. Once sure that Criterror wasn’t about to die, I let him go. He fell, his armor clanging as he hit the floor. Two white eyes gleamed balefully in the dark.
“You made Eileen the ninth legate?”
Realizing that he’d said too much, Criterror fell silent. I laughed, remembering how the Widowmakers leader and Mogwai felt about each other.
“Eileen is a legate?” I asked again.
“We couldn’t break the contract,” he admitted. “But she obeys Mogwai!”
“You’re going to have lots of time now, Crit, so use it to think. What use will you be to her once we’ve caught you all? She’ll be the only free legate in all of Dis!”
Depths Teleportation finished cooling down. Leaving the stunned archer beneath Mecharri on Bakabba, I returned to the Modus castle.
Chapter 22. Tough Gig
LATE THAT NIGHT, we finally arrived back at Mengoza, now our second home. We occupied a table laid with Aunt Stephanie’s culinary delights, covered ourselves with a Dome of Silence and began to swap our thoughts.
I yawned widely. The Roast Boar Leg in Spicy Sauce before me made my mouth water, but it was real food I was thinking about. Before we logged out of Dis, we had to let off some steam.
“It was a great hunt!” Bomber exclaimed, dropping his heavy mug of ale down on the table with a bang. “I thought Laneiran would claw out my eyes! She was screaming like an angry cat!”
�
�Hah! At least you got the elf girl! I had to grab that dwarf Cray — he’s small and square! I got tangled up in his beard!” Infect complained. “He’s already pretty rotten and his beard tore off…”
“Better the dwarf than Liam,” Crawler sighed. “That guy is such an asshole. I had to stop up his mouth with a Seal of Silence. Never heard so much shit about myself in such a short time…”
The boys continued discussing the successful operation. The plan had worked and then some — we even took Biancanova as she attacked the Ferals’ castle, and Ronan while he desperately rushed to the Supreme Legate’s aid.
Just in time, Kusalarix had reported that the remaining traps were ready. By then, Mogwai was in the Modus cellar, Criterror — under Mount Mecharri, and Liam had found his way into the Travelers’ trap. I personally sent Biancanova off to languish beneath a mountain on Kharinza, which I’d dubbed Peak Arno in honor of the deceased chef of the Bubbling Flagon. The rest were tossed into sealed cavities beneath the Nameless Mountains of Latteria, into the goblin traps.
Two of the legates managed to break through the domes of their target castles and got inside. The victims were the small neutral clan Happy Hotdogs and a clan of successful crafters, the Woodcutters. Bomber saved the Hotdogs by imprisoning Laneiran.
Infect nearly dropped the ball at the Woodcutters’ castle when he forgot to start casting Depths Teleportation in advance, and then his cast was interrupted. His first battle with the legate Cray ended in the bard’s death, but Infect came back right away, waited for the cooldown and took his second chance.
Before any of the Awoken turned up, the defenders had already died in droves under Plague Fury, but in the end the hordes of the undead the legates brought with them fell almost entirely — mostly thanks to us. The defenders couldn’t have managed without us, since the mobs had leveled up well from Plague Boost. Even I got a level from taking them down.
“We have to stay on guard,” I said once the boys fell silent, digging into the roast meat and chewing. “If the legates break free… I think they’ll change their priorities and hit Kharinza. We’re going to sleep in shifts.”
“Then you go first,” Crawler suggested.
I nodded, but didn’t have time to leave Dis before Hinterleaf messaged me: He’s logged in. I answered that I’d be there soon, then told the boys:
“Back soon. I need to check something.”
And jumped to the Modus castle courtyard. I hadn’t yet told my friends about Fortune’s gifts. First I had to see how my new divine skill worked. Mogwai seemed the best candidate to me.
When Depths Teleportation activates and shows a list of destinations, sometimes an extra list appears. It isn’t always clear how the system decides to split up zones, but with the Modus castle, there were three internal mini-zones: the grounds, the guest hall and the cellars. Maybe the structure’s owner could somehow set it, but I hadn’t been able to check for myself — our castle wasn’t finished yet.
This time I chose the grounds. I appeared in a square and ducked into an alleyway so as not to draw attention. Some of the troops had dispersed after the legates were captured, but there were still plenty of people around. NPCs rushed back and forth, a blacksmith struck an anvil, the pipes of tavern musicians cried dolefully.
I flew to the castle entrance and ran into Blackberry.
“Hurry, Mogwai might log out!” she said urgently.
“Why do you think he logged in?” I asked while we ran through the hall.
“Testing his options,” Blackberry answered. “Trying to break out. You never know…”
I couldn’t help but slow my pace in the cellar corridor, listening in on the conversation. Mogwai was saying something quietly to Hinterleaf:
“…I guarantee it.”
“Sounds tempting,” the gnome coughed, casting a glance at me. “But I don’t betray my allies.”
“Oh, all this politics! What, is your so-called ally here already? What are you hiding for, Scyth? Come out where I can see you, don’t be shy!”
Blushing, I approached the gnome. Blackberry remained in the shadows. The druid had fully recovered his health, deprived of Immortality, but the signs of his undeath hadn’t gone anywhere. The Legate’s Crown on his head glimmered with greenish light.
“There he is! Hello, Scyth!” Mogwai exclaimed. “You know, former legate, I’ve had time to calm down and think it all over…”
“There’s a lot more time where that came from,” I answered. “Think about it like me extending the holiday that you so didn’t want to come back from.”
“Ha-ha, very funny!” he said, his eyes glittering. “You’re a blast, not because you make good jokes, but because you really think your crap jokes are funny. Keep in mind, I remember everything. You’ll answer for every word. Now stick your rotten tongue up your ass and keep it there! You could have gotten anything you wanted, and now serve Modus! Degenerate!”
I smirked at him, said nothing. Instead, I tapped the gnome on the shoulder and drew him away. We walked almost all the way to the exit from the basement — who knew how developed Mogwai’s Perception was?
“What’s up, Scyth?” Hinterleaf asked, covering us with a Dome of Silence. “He could log out again any second!”
I hadn’t told him what I wanted Mogwai for, but I hadn’t called him away to shed any light on that.
“We can’t let him go into combat, Hint!” I answered. “Under any circumstances! He hasn’t figured it out himself yet, or he has and he’s trying to provoke us. If he’s attacked and he logs out of Dis, his character will be counted as killed.”
“And then he’ll revive at his respawn point. Got it. I’ll tell Horvac. He’s been planning to experiment on Liam. That one has already complained to his aunt, by the way. Elizabeth is putting the heat on Horvac, asking him to free her nephew. Speaking of experiments… What do you need Mogwai for?”
“You’re about to find out.”
Out of mischief, and so as not to reveal Wheel of Fortune, I returned to the druid’s cell in the guise of Blackberry. Hinterleaf was stunned for a moment and gasped, but then realized what had happened and just smirked.
“Where’s the loser? Went off to cry?” Mogwai asked us. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t care. What about my offer, Hint? Remember our past. Remember how hard I worked for Modus! Ally with the Elites and you’ll go far!”
“I must discuss it with my analyst,” the gnome said, turning to me. “What do you think, Blackberry?”
“It definitely seems like a solid offer,” I said.
Mogwai froze, listening with interest to what else I had to say. I targeted him and activated Wheel of Fortune.
Later, Hinterleaf would say that the cell shone with the light of divine presence — that Nergal the Radiant himself had appeared, picked up Mogwai in his mighty hand like a cub, weighed him and placed him back down again.
From my point of view, on the other hand, the walls and ceiling disappeared and Fortune descended from the skies. The goddess appeared not in the form I was used to, of a playful ginger girl in an airy dress, but in the shape that all the rest of Disgardium knew: an elegant mature woman with gleaming gold hair down to her waist. Two shining wings unfolded behind the goddess’s back and she held in one hand a horn of plenty overflowing with coins and gemstones, in the other a giant wheel to which Mogwai was as if crucified.
The Wheel turned, and the druid’s lifeless body fell to the floor.
Fortune has judged the deeds of Mogwai, level 498 druid, with extreme disfavor.
Punishment: Mogwai loses 2/3 of levels gained (total: 332)!
Fortune disappeared, the walls came back. Mogwai twitched on the ground. Numbers fell from him like damage, only it wasn’t health he lost, but levels.
I gestured for the others to move back, and held a finger to my lips. The illusionist mage put up a Dome of Silence and swore:
“Holy..!”
Even Yary couldn’t hold back. He glanced behind the bars, couldn’t
believe his eyes, shot a careful glance my way and whispered:
“Bullshit! How the hell..? If this goes public, and Mogwai is sure to talk about it, then the whole game is done. Who will bother leveling up if you can lose it all in a second?”
“You’re a terrible man, Scyth,” Blackberry breathed. I didn’t notice her walk over and place a hand on my shoulder. “Best not tangle with you…”
Path of Spirit (Disgardium Book #6): LitRPG Series Page 21