The Destroying Plague

by Dan Sugralinov

  “Alright, let’s make a decision already,” Bomber said. “I got no idea what we’ve been doing the last few days. Where’s our good old power-leveling? Grinding? Farming? We’ve laid our path to the instances, Infect is coming out tomorrow. A full party. Sure, no healer, but to hell with it. We can roll over everything with an invulnerable tank and our cheat Crag. What do we have to do to turn undead? If you don’t transform us today, I’m leaving the clan.”

  “We’ll all leave,” Crag said darkly. “Let’s at least look at the race description. The bonuses, penalties…”

  I linked the description in the chat. To tell the truth, I hadn’t even had time to look at it all in detail the previous day. I was more concerned by my meeting with the Nucleus.

  Undead

  A variety of creatures in the world of Disgardium that are raised after death through divine or supernatural forces. This name applies to all creatures that function regardless of their life having ended.

  Spontaneously arising undead may be found all over Disgardium, usually in the form of wights or ghosts. The most well-known types of undead — zombies and ghosts — are people who have returned to life after death. They are usually bloodthirsty creatures incapable of rational thought and hostile to any living creatures they encounter in their path.

  The living dead were used as a weapon of war in the time of the Old Gods, when the first self-taught necrolytes learned to reanimate the corpses of fallen soldiers in the form of skeleton warriors. Later, this knowledge turned into a new type of magic called Necromancy, which is banned both in the Commonwealth and the Empire. The neutral races also have a zero-tolerance policy for this forbidden magic.

  The spirits of the living dead are poorly connected to their bodies. The dark magic that supports the undead state serves as a buffer that prevents the body and the soul from fully connecting. Therefore the undead do not feel pain or other tactile sensations from most physical stimulants, and it is also why Light causes the living dead such pain.

  Racial bonuses

  Ice or Flame, It’s All The Same… — +100% resistance to climate influences.

  Pour Me More of that Poison — +100% resistance to poisons and your blood is toxic to all life.

  Will of the Destroying Plague — full resistance to crowd control effects.

  Don’t Breathe! — you can spend an unlimited time underwater.

  Cannibalism — eat the bodies of your enemies to restore 5% health per second.

  Tirelessness — you need no rest and your Vigor stat is disabled.

  Racial penalties

  Absolute Evil — the intelligent races of Disgardium feel nothing but hate toward you.

  Murderous Light — +100% damage taken from light magic, and light healing spells deal damage to you instead of healing you.

  I Can’t Feel My Legs — movement speed on foot reduced by 25%.

  This Is For The Living — -50% effectiveness of healing and mana potions.

  What a Monster! — -75% charisma.

  It Reeks — the persistent stench of rotting flesh emanates from you.

  “Hey, at least we’ll stick together,” Bomber joked, reading the last one. “Ain’t that a comfort. So, are we transforming into undead or what?”

  “What about Infect?” I recalled Malik. “Let’s call him?”

  “What about him?” Crawler shrugged. “You can only be human in the Tristad sandbox. He’ll have to make his choice when he leaves, and for now we can only talk about us. Seems to me like we decided everything yesterday… But we should tell him. I’ll go call him and get him to jump here.

  “Excuse me,” Gyula approached and interrupted Ed. “Got a moment, Alex?”

  The boys nodded in understanding and I followed the builder. He went out onto the street and headed for the sanctuary.

  The fort looked lifeless and deserted. No buildings suffered except the tavern and the temple, and the bodies of the undead and mercenaries were gone. The blood, too. Nonetheless, the atmosphere itself felt heavy. Even the air seemed stinking and vile, possibly because of the army of dead people nearby. And that was strange, because when I became undead, I stopped smelling anything or noticing dead flesh even though I left the character settings at default.

  We got to the top of the pyramid which had served as a foundation for the temple that had still stood there two days ago.

  “Do you see the ruins?” Gyula asked.

  “Ruins?” I asked in surprise. “There’s nothing left here. Just some garbage, but I think that was here before the temple too.”

  “Garbage…” Gyula sighed. “You’re not a builder, so you don’t see it. Yes, the dead carried something off, but only what they found. I see more. Almost ninety percent of all the building materials are left: wood, stone, sand… We can either ‘mine’ them or ‘fix’ them. I can restore the temple, or, since we’re already on the evil team and aren’t planning to do that, I could break it down for resources.”

  “Leave it as it is for now,” I answered. “When the time comes to restore the temple, I’ll tell you.”

  “As you say. Can I borrow a few resources from here in the meantime? I want to repair the tavern.”

  “I think so, yeah. The tavern is the heart of the fort, we need it…”

  Chuckling, Gyula walked to the spot where the altar had been, took out some tools and started hitting the air with a pick. That’s what it looked like to me. So much for realism, I thought.

  The process of gathering resources interested me. I moved closer and saw that Gyula really was hitting the air. But the pick didn’t reach the piles of garbage; it hit some kind of resistance, striking against something, and each strike gave off a definite knock. Well, if there was a non-spatial inventory in the game, and when you looted a rat zombie you got its carefully collected innards in your bag, then it wasn’t a stretch to believe in invisible ‘ruins’ that only builders could see. It made sense the more I thought about it: I hadn’t seen any ore in the mine, even when Manny pointed straight at it. Rocks and stones.

  “When we first got here, were there ruins then too?”

  “There were,” Gyula answered. “But they couldn’t be repaired, so I just mined them. I didn’t have the design…”

  “Which?”

  “Sanctuary of the Departed. I dug through the auction house later out of interest, looked online — couldn’t find anything with that name.” Gyula suddenly stopping striking with his pick. “Alright, Alex… Step back…”

  Moving me aside, he started taking apart the invisible ruins. Suddenly, a body appeared, lying on the ground where a pile of garbage had just been.

  “I swear on Behemoth’s snout, that’s… That’s Anf!”

  It really was the dead insectoid’s body. And I was wondering where the guardians had gotten to! Even yesterday it occurred to me that the lich might have raised them and added them to his army, but I didn’t see anything of the sort among Shazz’s minions. What if…

  I targeted Anf’s corpse and activated Plague Reanimation, mentally thanking Shazz for the energy he’d given me.

  Raise Anf, level 307 colicoid, as an undead?

  Costs: 1,000 Plague Energy.

  Cost to maintain: 1,000 Plague Energy per day.

  Confirming, I got a new system message:

  Preserve the mind of raised Anf, level 307 colicoid?

  “Nether…” I whispered, feeling my lips curve into a smile. “Yes!”

  * * *

  An hour later, under a persistent light summer rain, the satyr, succubus, insectoid and raptor had all joined our clan meeting. Dead, with strips of flesh hanging off, rotting wounds and bones sticking out here or there, but alive! Gyula cleared the space by the altar alone, digging out all the bodies, and I spared no Plague Energy to raise all the former guardians.

  “I’ve climbed out of the deepest ass there is,” Flaygray muttered. He scratched himself desperately, although by all the laws of nature, nothing should be itching due to his dead nerves. “I
don’t even know where you’ve brought me, Scyth. We never agreed that I’d turn into this,” he pointed at himself. “I’ll be the laughingstock of the Underworld!”

  “Stop scratching, Flay, I’m sick of it,” the succubus grimaced. She was the best preserved of the bunch, but a part of her scalp was peeling, she had a hole in a cheek and a broken horn. You couldn’t call her beautiful anymore. Also, the guardians had lost all their abilities, gaining instead the standard “hit-tear-bite” from the zombie arsenal. “You have a phantom itch and you’re only making it worse with your claws. And unless you somehow missed it, you aren’t going to any Underworld. We’re bound to Scyth, sure as death, ha-ha…” Nega’s laughter could be called hysterical if it wasn’t so creepy.

  Calming down, the succubus stuck her tongue through the hole in her cheek and winced.

  “I don’t think they’ll let me into the Underworld Beauty Contest,” she said. “And how do I drink? It all leaks out!”

  “Does alcohol even work on these bodies now?” the satyr asked doubtfully.

  “I’ll be trying out all my body’s functions,” the succubus said threateningly, looking at me. “Now I understand what that lich was telling me, boss…”

  Crawler and Bomber had never met the living guardians — they were traveling to instances that day, and now they silently stared at them open-mouthed and stayed out of the way. Especially since Ripta and Anf weren’t silent, and their strange chittering and shrieking only added fuel to the flames. To put it mildly, the guardians were very unhappy. Particularly when they learned that when my supply of Plague Energy ran out, they’d fall down dead again. There was also the question of where they’d go when I logged out of the game, but there was only one way to find that out.

  I didn’t know what it did; whether the need to be subject to their Legate or the authority (unlikely) of the clan leader, but when I barked out Silence! — they all shut up. Most of all I was annoyed by the soul-piercing vibrating chittering of the insectoid, so I called Iggy over and sent he and his senior almost-relative Anf to talk silently in a corner.

  “The Sleeping God Tiamat can return you to your former selves,” I said. “And give you life back. At least that’s what Behemoth told me, and I’m inclined to trust him. So in the grand scheme of things, nothing has changed — we still need to build a temple in the desert, just like before.”

  Ripta emitted a short squawk and Flay translated everything for him.

  “Why not here?” Bomber nodded toward the temple. “You could consecrate it to Tiamat, right? She’ll take off your Destroying Plague marker, bring back your human…”

  “Under the lich’s nose?” Crawler interrupted his thought.

  “Who cares about the lich?” Bomber started arguing. “The mercenaries, the guardians, plus with Scyth here I doubt the lich will be invincible again…”

  “No,” I interrupted. “Just trust me, no. We needed two temples even before the undead invaded, and nothing has changed now. We’re nobody without the Destroying Plague, and the Nucleus won’t forgive a second betrayal. It’ll take away all our abilities and put a debuff on us. Even if we can deal with that, restore Behemoth’s temple, bring the god back, stop being undead and clear out the lich’s army… We won’t reach the second sanctuary, and since I have a portal to Holdest…”

  “What?” everyone shouted at once. Even Crag sat up straight, widened his eyes and stopped yawning in melancholy.

  “I found a lot in the treasury… Wasn’t that clear from the armor? Or by the artifacts I sent you, Crawler? Let’s figure out your faction change first, then start going through the loot. It would be very foolish to enter into a new confrontation with the Destroying Plague right now. We need to use the undead racial advantage. No climate or elemental debuffs can hurt us, you know? If we want, we can go explore Holdest, and nobody is going to be able to drag us out of there. But that’s a plan B anyway, because I doubt we can deal with the mobs there. I suggest we all transform into undead. I’ll change my appearance and lay a teleportation point next to the sanctuary in the desert. Then we can start work on the temple. If the builders agree, of course. As for us, we can go run through some instances and level up like we wanted to, plus try out the desert mobs. I just need to level up my one-shot ability first…”

  Two clapping sounds suddenly rang out: Tissa and Infect had jumped to us. Crawler gave them a quick summary. Once he was finished, I quickly spoke — the guys from the sandbox were losing health fast as we watched.

  “So, we’ve decided then? I’m transforming you into undead?” All you need to do is confirm it, then the character regeneration process takes a day. I’ll do the same with the non-citizens. They’re not in the clan, so we’ll need to contact each separately…”

  “That’s all well and good…” Infect said. “But I don’t know what I’m meant to be doing.”

  The thief was more nervous than anyone — he’d started chewing his lip and frowning. Tomorrow he’d leave the sandbox, and the boy was worried that he’d not only have to change his class, race and faction, but he’d also end up who knows where.

  “Stay a human when your character regenerates, Malik. Head to the bard trainer, learn the class skills and jump to Kharinza. Then I’ll transform you.”

  “Still with the bard idea?” the thief groaned. “God damn it…”

  “Gotta go, Infect!” Tissa said loudly. “It’s time!”

  The girl blew me a kiss and took Infect back to Tristad. I cast a questioning glance at the others once again, and, seeing no objections, transformed Crag, Bomber and Crawler into undead. They disappeared from the game.

  Then I spoke to the awake and sobered-up first priest of the Sleeping Gods. In the end Patrick just had to leave the clan, since he refused point-blank to become undead. Truth be told, I’d only invited him to the clan, so he’d recognize me. Patrick was scowling and frowning at the surroundings, occasionally gulping from a bottle.

  The guardians didn’t say a word, still silent after my command, but I saw Nega boiling over and Flaygray licking his lips as they looked at the bottle in Patrick’s hands. I realized the problem and gave them permission.

  “Speak.”

  An instant later I was already regretting it but didn’t shut them up this time. Nega shouted curses in one of my ears, Ripta shrieked into the other, Anf traded chirrups with Iggy at a rapid pace. Only Flaygray behaved rationally. He approached Patrick, pointed at the bottle and said something. The old drunkard laughed, and soon both of them were embracing like old buddies, sitting on a stall and having a friendly chat, interrupted occasionally by lip-smacking gulps of their fiery drink. Nega watched them a while, then broke away to dig through the tavern ruins. She soon returned victorious, waving some surviving bottles of wine. Ripta also couldn’t help himself and rolled a barrel of ale out onto the street, made a hole in it with his claw and set his mouth over the resulting fountain. Looked like the news made all the former guardians want to drink their fill. Well, that was understandable. I didn’t try to stop them.

  I still had to solve the problem of the non-citizens before I went out to the frontier. Inviting Manny, Gyula and Trixie, who’d just logged in, I told them of our need to build a second temple where no other race except the undead could survive at the current levels. I explained that if they changed their race, they probably wouldn’t be able to visit the cities of the Commonwealth, which meant they wouldn’t be able to find work with anyone but us. Sure, they could delete their characters and create new ones, but then they’d lose their leveled-up skills and the years of hard work that went into them. I showed the undead class bonuses to make them feel better. For the workers, Tirelessness was the deciding factor.

  “Alex, tell me straight, do you have…” Manny hesitated and pulled at his hair. “Do we have a chance? Never mind that we’ll look like dead men, that’s nothing, I’m usually covered in mud as it is. I don’t mind that we won’t be able to taste food either…”

  “Trixie loves tas
ty eating!” the dwarf protested.

  “Don’t worry about that,” I smiled. “You can change that in the character settings any time. Snowstorm isn’t stupid. They don’t make unplayable races. If you want to drink, eat tasty food or… hm, do other pleasurable things, you can configure all that. As for our chances, I’d be lying if I told you they were high. The whole world will be against us very soon, and I have no idea what that’s going to lead to. We’re too weak and we’re going to have to hide. A lot depends on how long we’re able to hide and how much we manage to grow. But the reward is worth the risks. There’ll be a lot of work, and we can mine rare ore, which means valuable ore. And you won’t just make a paycheck, but also a cut of all our resource sales…”

  The workers, and Manny and Gyula represented the interests of all Kharinza’s non-citizens, didn’t haggle. Initially I planned to offer them as much as half, but then I changed my mind. The clan had high expenses: equipping the fort, paying the miners and builders, buying materials for building the temple in the desert, security and transport through the continent… Long story short, we agreed to five percent of the total ore sales and I decided that we’d have to bring Overweight into the clan after all, to handle our trading. I’d also have to bring in her brother, Underweight, so we had someone to trade within the Commonwealth.