The Destroying Plague
a novel
by Dan Sugralinov
Disgardium
Book#3
Magic Dome Books
Disgardium
Book #3: The Destroying Plague
Copyright © Dan Sugralinov 2020
Cover Art © Ivan Khivrenko 2020
Art Editor © Vladimir Manyukhin 2020
English translation copyright © Alix Merlin Williamson 2020
Published by Magic Dome Books, 2020
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-80-7619-097-9
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the shop and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.
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Table of Contents:
Book 1 and 2 Recap
Chapter 1. Breaking Out of the Sandbox
Chapter 2. Plan B
Chapter 3. Saving Private Crag
Interlude 1: Wesley
Chapter 4. Home Sweet Home
Chapter 5. Fort Kharinza
Chapter 6. The Treasury of the First Mage
Chapter 7. Path of Courage
Chapter 8. Patrick Again
Interlude 2: Melissa
Chapter 9. A Still Unconquered Herald
Chapter 10. The Worms Will Eat You From Within
Chapter 11. Walking Dead
Chapter 12. The Awoken Assembled
Chapter 13. Nucleus of the Destroying Plague
Chapter 14. No Death in Service to the Destroying Plague
Chapter 15. A Stroll Through Darant
Chapter 16. Lake District
Chapter 17. Big Po’s Ultimatum
Chapter 18. To the Frontier!
Chapter 19. The Lakharian Desert
Chapter 20. Awoken Undead
Interlude 3. Yemi
Chapter 21. Nergal’s Summons
An Afterword From the Author
About the Author
Book 1 and 2 Recap
Planet Earth, 2074-2075
Our planet’s population has reached 20 billion, one-third of whom are noncitizens: those who are considered to be of no value to society, therefore having no right to enjoy the creature comforts of civilization.
The UN Department of Education requires every teenager aged 14 to 16 to spend an hour a day in Disgardium. Having made a mistake while generating his character which resulted in leveling problems, Alex Sheppard quickly loses all interest in the game. For over a year, he spends the obligatory hours sitting on a bench next to the sandbox tavern in the company of Eve O’Sullivan, a girl next door who has a crush on him.
His parents are about to get a divorce which would result in lowering their civil status (where “A” is the highest class of the world’s elite and “L” is the lowest, reserved for the dregs of society). This would affect their income so badly that they wouldn’t be able to pay for Alex’s further education, shattering his dream of becoming a space guide in the world where Mars colonization has become reality and the orbit of Venus is about to be moved.
Now Alex is obliged to play Disgardium - if only to pay for his own studies. He chooses Scyth as his ingame name.
In order to preserve the game’s balance and disarm any imba players, Corporation Snowstorm which owns Disgardium has come up with a policy of “threats”. Any player whom the artifact of True Flame identifies as a threat can be expelled from the game by performing a simple ritual. The threat’s eliminators would then receive a reward based on the threat’s potential while the expelled player gets a reward based on his or her current level. This makes any threat elimination much more interesting for potential eliminators (or “preventers”, as they prefer to call themselves) at an early stage before the threat gets the chance to properly level up.
The threats themselves have to focus on leveling, trying to survive undetected for as long as they can, simply because the reward they receive is based on their current level where “A” is the highest threat class and “Z” is the lowest.
In a reversal of fortunes, Scyth becomes a class-A threat. Several things coincide to bring him to the top: the curse he receives from an NPC called Patrick O’Grady, the first human whose consciousness was digitized and transferred to the game, while another NPC, a location’s Lich boss, is in fact played by a noncitizen, a certain Clayton. Clayton used to be a space shuttle pilot who lost his citizenship after a life-threatening accident. Seeing the stubborn boy die time and time again without giving up, Clayton finally fakes his own defeat, allowing Scyth to kill him.
As a reward for killing the location’s final boss, Scyth receives the Mark of the Destroying Plague which endows him with the ability to safely absorb all damage received. Together with Patrick’s curse, it allows Scyth to reach the unexplored area in the Mire and find the dying avatar of Behemoth, one of the five ancient Sleeping Gods.
Scyth makes friends with a group of Dementors: his classmates Ed “Crawler” Rodriguez, Hung “Bomber” Lee, Melissa “Tissa” Schafer and Malik “Infect” Abduhalim. Scyth helps them to win a bet against Big Po, the leader of the Axiom, the #1 clan in Tristad’s sandbox. Together they create a clan of their own: the Awoken.
The Awoken win the annual Junior Arena games bу building a temple of the Sleeping Gods on the desert island of Kharinza. Their victory attracts the attention of the recruiters of the Preventers alliance which counts dozens of the strongest Disgardium clans.
After their Arena victory, the school bans Scyth and his group from Disgardum for eight weeks, forcing him to fail the Nucleus of the Destroying Plague quest. In his absence, the Destroying Plague finds a new herald: Big Po. When Scyth returns to the game, Big Po opens the portal of the Destroying Plague, planning to conquer Tristad. Together with his friends, Scyth manages to defeat the undead and eliminate the “threat” of Big Po.
They’re joined by Tobias “Crag” Asser, an unlucky ex-ganker who’s now the favorite of Nergal the Radiant. His identity as a “threat” has been uncovered, so now Tobias is forced to go into hiding, both in the game and IRL.
Tobias turns to Scyth for help and gets accepted into the Awoken clan.
Now the schoolkids’ newborn clan will have to take on the entire world, virtual as well as real.
Chapter 1. Breaking Out of the Sandbox
“I’M ROOTING for you, Alex,” Tissa said in parting. “We won’t be able to talk, what with me being in the sandbox…”
“I’ll let you know as soon as it’s done, as soon as we break through and I leave Dis.”
“I’ll be waiting. Look after yourself. Good luck!”
The girl blew me a kiss and her hologram disappeared.
My parents had flown off somewhere, and the catdog AT and I were left to fend for ourselves. The pet, however, was thinking only of itself at that moment; so carried away with cleaning himself that it was as if he really was a cat, not just imitating one.
The projection of the Solar System on the wall gently hummed away, and if one zoomed in to look closer, one could see a column
of colonization shuttles flying to Mars. Months of travel separated them, but on the map the shuttles formed a dashed line. I’ll be there one day too.
Space… My dream to find the funds to study in university had almost become a reality, but there were a few ‘buts’ left. The winnings from victory in the junior Arena, the bet I’d won, the rewards for raising my potential to L and for eliminating Big Po — all this added up to over one and a half million gold. Unfortunately, the money was stuck in the game until adulthood. It wouldn’t arrive until I’d passed the citizenship tests, which I had to wait two months for.
Incidentally, Tissa and Infect had already received their artifacts for neutralizing the Threat. As for what I’d receive, I didn’t know yet. To find out, I’d have to at least log into Dis to start with.
I hadn’t visited Disgardium since the Destroying Plague broke through to Tristad. In the meantime, the former Dementors and I celebrated my birthday in a small family restaurant on the coast of the Pacific. Eve was invited too, by the way, but she said she couldn’t come.
The next day, once we’d recovered, we held a clan meeting with our new clan member taking part for the first time; Tobias Asser, also known as Crag. The former members of the Dementors, once kicked from the clan for ganking, kept quiet and didn’t even react to taunts from Hung and Malik. They didn’t go too hard on him. They knew how much Tobias would strengthen the clan.
Anyway, Infect had seen the battle machine he could turn into the day before, gaining a seven-times boost to all his main stats. We swept away the remnants of the Destroying Plague’s assault easily, as if we weren’t up against powerful mobs at level thirty or above, but a mere rat pack from the cellar of the temple of Nergal the Radiant.
We had a meeting on the balcony of Ed’s apartment and decided to go out into the wide world along with Crag. They’re expecting one Threat, and if something happens, a second could slip away. Thinking a little longer, we finally realized this was the only option. If they met Crag right after character registration, then the only way to get him out would be to group up and jump with Depths Teleportation. Because he might just not reach the Darant town hall room which was the real meeting place.
We summarized our short-term plans. Infect was supposed to be coming out of the sandbox very soon, while Tissa would have to wait two more months. Until then, we decided to keep building our nearly finished clan fort, investigate the island and level up in zones that match our levels.
We thought about moving to the dark side but decided to stay in the light. Our kobold adepts were in this area, and Patrick and his new trogg friends were waiting in Darant. Dangerous to show your face there on the dark side…
I took a deep breath and slowly breathed out. Then I grabbed AT, lifted him up and gave him a peck on the nose. The catdog meowed in indignation. Went back to his spot and resumed cleaning himself.
Time to go.
At that moment, our clan noob Crag was waiting for my signal so he could climb into the capsule at the same time and enter great Dis after completing the adult registration procedure. “Let’s go!” the message went to Tobias, Ed and Hung all at once.
Crawler and Bomber awaited us in the clan fort’s tavern, ready to celebrate our breaking out of the sandbox. We’re waiting. Jump with the noob ganker right after you register, Crawler answered. Bomber immediately chimed in. Don’t even think about leaving the guest room! There’s a whole rally of those damn preventers out there!
Throwing off my clothes, I approached the Altera Vita, my new capsule issued by Snowstorm for reaching class L, the maximum initial Threat potential.
They released the capsule in a limited-edition series. When they brought it in, dad shook his head in envy. I can imagine the dens of iniquity he’d love to visit if only he could use the capsule. The capsule used consumable cartridges to provide intravenous nutrition, hydration and first-aid. In addition, it could influence one’s emotional state, and an active intra-gel stimulated the muscles and massaged the body.
If I wanted to, I could immerse myself for several days. If I had someone to swap out the consumables, I could do even longer, but such long periods of immersion weren’t good for you anyway.
“Initiate immersion,” I commanded.
“Understood, Alex.”
In a capsule configured and trialed in test worlds, the immersion site was set to Disgardium by default. The intra-gel quickly filled up the space, the capsule took control of my body, and three heartbeats later I hung in a sterile vacuum of limbo.
A huge game world appeared underneath me, and the outlines of its six continents broke through the clouds.
Welcome to Disgardium, Alex!
You have reached an age threshold, Alex. Your character will be moved out of the sandbox!
You must regenerate your character.
Attention! Because you are a Threat, the game nickname Scyth cannot be changed.
Attention! Because you are a Threat, the game class Herald cannot be changed.
You can change your faction, race and appearance.
Deciding to change only my appearance, I enlarged the window with my character model. I saw that the system had updated my previous form of a fourteen-year-old boy; my face was rougher and harder, I was taller, my shoulders were broader.
Thinking for a moment, I dragged the age slider to the right, adding on another ten years. After a moment’s hesitation I changed my eye color as well. My real eyes are green, but in the game they’d be blue. This avatar would be permanent, and as it happens, people take adults more seriously not only in the real world, but in Dis too.
All done.
Character successfully generated.
The system showed me the character profile and moved on to the final stage of registration:
Scyth, do you want to claim a reward for being online or do you prefer a permanent +5% experience bonus? You can change your choice at any time in the future.
I chose the second one, because ‘payment for being online’ could earn you no more than thirty phoenixes a month, and only if you practically lived in the game. Five percent to experience, on the other hand, was a big advantage in the higher levels.
I skimmed the profile to make sure everything was alright. At the same time, I changed my privacy options, resetting them to the defaults. Only my nickname, class and level remained visible.
Taking a deep breath, I confirmed the selection. My interface disappeared.
I started to fall down, to the Latteria. The earth rushed up to meet me and I could make out the tall, colorful houses and broad streets of the capital of the Commonwealth. Suddenly, everything went black for an instant, then noise, light and smells crashed down on me.
Operation Breakout had begun.
* * *
The room smelled of dust and age, although everything looked clean. The high windows were overshadowed by the foliage of trees, not enough daylight got in, so lanterns burned on the walls.
In contrast to my first visit to Tristad, there were far more new players who had chosen Darant as their starting zone. Several hundred humans, elves, gnomes, dwarfs and other races of the Commonwealth bustled through the town hall’s guest room, pressed up against the registration desks or just staring around and feeling their arms in awe. The latter were always new players, in Disgardium for the first time.
Looking around, I felt a cold sweat. A huge area the size of a hangar, filled with lively players of all species, ages and genders, all shouting over each other. But even among the crowd, some high-level players stood out clearly, those from the three top preventer clans: Modus, Azure Dragons and Excommunicado. How? How, in the name of all the Sleepers, did they get here? Neither Crawler nor Bomber had said anything about this. Here they just saw noobs, and just calmly got their grade and walked out into the hall where they the preventers checked them by the fire of the True Flame.
I span my head trying to make out Crag but couldn’t find him. Judging by the active avatar in the clan list, he’d al
ready logged into Dis. Might be stuck on the character generation screen.
Artifacts of the True Flame flashed here and there around the hall. From level two hundred, the top players walked around the hall in pairs and scooped up any noobs over level one exiting the teenage sandbox. I don’t doubt that on Shad’Erung, the continent of the dark side, the clans there checked for those defecting to the Empire. And the variety of neutrals in the capitals no doubt got checked too. The stakes were too high, even for the top players who were ready to split it among the whole Alliance of Preventers.
Alright… Time to calm down. I looked around for the Depths Teleportation icon and sighed in relief: it was active.
Now the important thing was for Crag to finally get there. I’d group up with him and take him to Kharinza, the clan fort. Gyula and his brigade of rough workmen had just finished construction…
“Noob, twenty-six!” I heard from afar. I’d been seen. “Hey, you! Stay there and wait your turn!”
The nearest group of preventers got distracted by an elf that was asking for more money for the right to check her wrist. Banger split off from another group and headed toward me, splitting through the crowd like an icebreaker. He was a gigantic lopher, part elephant and part man, at level two hundred and twenty. A rare race. Who would want to live in a lump like that, and with a long trunk to boot? But people still took it for the racial bonus — high endurance.
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