Putting down two more groups of cultists brought me to the first boss. As soon as I looked at him, I realized there was no point in trying — I wouldn’t take down over a million health if I hit him for a year. While I saved up plague energy for my next shot, the boss would recover his health, and there was no other way for me to scratch him. Unfortunately, I retreated.
I didn’t get any decent loot — just more scraps of Silk Cloth, a little gold and a couple of green pieces of gear. I didn’t throw them away, remembering how hard our workers worked for every gold they earned. This stuff was crap, garbage, but still a monthly paycheck for Trixie in the days of the Olton Quarries.
I sacrificed the zombies wandering after me before I left, so as not to waste plague energy on them. It cost enough to keep the guardians alive… or at least lively. The zombies weren’t much help in battle, they didn’t deal much damage and there wasn’t much use in them at all. Low level cannon fodder. I hoped that leveling up Plague Reanimation would let me raise more impressive beasts like the Bone Hounds.
With those thoughts, I stepped through the instance portal. Immortality still hadn’t ticked off, but I still looked like a human, if an injured one — my health hadn’t recovered yet.
“He’s here!” someone yelped as soon as I appeared the gates.
I heard the patter of running feet and the clank of armor. I sighed sadly. These guys didn’t look like evil gankers, just desperate loser. And each had ten thumbs if they couldn’t complete the instance at level sixty.
“You spent a long time in there!” the elvish mage with the fine figure said. I couldn’t help looking her up and down, but then I caught the girl’s hateful gaze and took hold of myself. “Did you think we’d just leave?” she said.
“Guys, can we just go our separate ways?” I suggested. “I can guess what you want from me, but I’m not sure you’ll get it.”
“Listen, buddy,” the priest said to me. “We’ve had a tough day, and now you’ve made us wait so many hours. Just give us everything you have and we’ll let you live.”
“What are you doing, guys?” the dwarf warrior rumbled. “That’s not what we agreed! Listen, Headshot, three pieces of gear, our choice, and we won’t touch you. Enzo needs your coat, he lost his epic inside. I need your pants, and…”
“Garran, what are you doing?” the elf girl interrupted the tank. “Are you nuts? Let’s just take him down and it’ll all be ours!”
“And who’s gonna give me my epic back?” Enzo the elvish archer spat.
“Gear is important,” I said, trying to calm the elf down. Epics were hellish to get for casual players like him. Some people saved up money in real life, sacrificing in the real world to make progress in Dis. This guy seemed like one of them. “What do you need a PvP flag for? Your nicks will go red, it’s a whole thing…”
“This guy ain’t wrong,” Garran said, suddenly stepping back and raising his hands, trying to reason with the party. “Let him go in piece, since we can’t come to an agreement…”
“Then why did we wait for him so long?” Enzo whined. “No, Garran, we have to get back what we lost!”
I couldn’t retreat peacefully to the Kharinza tavern using Return Stone, they wouldn’t have given me the five seconds to cast it. I could leave with Depths Teleportation, but… I was sick of running.
“What’re you standing there for?” the elf girl snapped. “Get him!”
Flame shrouded her hands. Black smoke began to emanate from the priest. I didn’t even twitch an ear when the rogue slipped behind me to cut off my retreat. Instead, looking at the elf girl and her sorcery, I spoke calmly.
“Your friend Garran is a little nicer than you guys. So, I won’t take his stuff. As for the rest of you…”
A fireball seethed through the air and exploded, covering my chest in plasma. The archer drew his bow, the priest spread his hands in a spell. Glancing at his teammates, the warrior began a Charge…
My Ghastly Howl pulled the rogue out of stealth, and I finished him off first with an arrow to the throat. I added a little plague energy, of course. Then I took three more shots, enough to kill the archer, priest and the warrior Garran. The elf girl recovered from Fear, saw her comrades’ corpses, went white and extended pleading hands.
“Don’t kill me!” she begged uncertainly. “You got it all wrong! We just wanted to scare you…”
“Didn’t work.”
An adamantine arrow pierced the girl’s stomach and the plague energy finished her off. I didn’t take any pleasure in it, but let it be a lesson to the novice gankers.
I doubted they realized what exactly had happened. It wasn’t their first death that day, so they wouldn’t be back soon. Looting the corpses, I filled my bag all the way. I left Garran’s things untouched as promised.
Then I went back to the Lake District, where I hid and watched out for a new disguise. Only then did I jump to Darant, to the Jolly Bear. Judging by the map, Trixie was still entertaining himself in the red-light district. I rented a room, left my character there and logged out.
The Lakharian Desert awaited me tomorrow.
Chapter 17. Big Po’s Ultimatum
SPRING CAME to the city. The snows melted, the air smelled of the first green shoots, hot asphalt and earth. We walked onto the landing pad under the weak hum of flyers taking off and went to join the queue.
“What do you think, is Mr. Riordan on some strong drugs? Sulfuric acid rain, of all things!” Hung shook his head. He shrugged off his coat, took off his sweater and tied it around his neck. “And acid clouds too!”
“Yeah,” Malik nodded in excitement. “And it’s plus one hundred and twenty degrees! Horrible! Now I know where Snowstorm stole the Inferno from!
The boys were discussing the last lesson in the colonization of the Solar System, in which Mr. Riordan explained why it was impossible to colonize Venus in the near future, unlike Mars, whose terraforming was just a matter of time. But as usual, even this topic got changed to Disgardium and the Inferno, a plane of the in-game reality unavailable to players and inhabited by demons. Flaygray and Nega called it the Underworld.
I missed Eve at times like that. She could discuss the colonization of the Solar System, expeditions to Jupiter and exciting news of distant space. In this company, I thought of the stars more and more rarely.
Tissa and I walked behind the guys. The girl was sharing her impressions of a new reality show that we just had to watch (and enter as contestants) together. I was shocked to hear that from her — nothing but Dis had interested her until recently. Although she couldn’t do much in the sandbox.
“Hey, Alex,” Ed called to me, turning and pointing ahead. “We have visitors.”
“Yep,” Hung said. “It’s damn Big Po in person!”
The friends stopped. Our clan had only bad memories related to Wesley Cho, although, to give him his due, it was his efforts that led to the creation of the Awoken. Seeing me, the former Threat waved happily and walked toward us.
“Hey guys! Tissa, you look more beautiful every day!” Big Po smiled and behaved as if he was our best friend. “It’s great to see you all!
I wasn’t burning with a desire to talk to him, so I stood silently next to Melissa and observed the clownery from this former leader of Axiom. To be honest, I expected nothing good from him, and even the fact that he was alone didn’t reduce my fears. Quite the contrary.
“We can’t say the same,” Malik spat through his teeth.
“What do you want, Wesley?” Ed asked.
“Actually, I’m not here to see you. I need to talk to Sheppard.” Wesley looked at me, still smiling broadly, but his piercing gaze meant nothing good. “What do you say, Alex? Got a minute for an old friend?”
I would have loved to refuse and tell him go to the Nether, but I knew he was a problem. I wasn’t sure what kind yet, but his huge body and narrow, drilling eyes boded danger. It was better to know exactly what you were facing and be prepared than bury your hand in the s
and like a mechostrich.
“Sure thing.”
Wesley and I moved off to the side. For the next few minutes, he claimed that I was the one that pulled Crag from the not so strong clutches of the preventers, as it turned out, and he knew where to find him. Moreover, he didn’t ask me to confirm what he said, understanding the consequences, but just laid out his conclusions. Once done, he got to the point.
“One million, Alex. I’m sure you got around that for eliminating me, if not more, considering my potential. It doesn’t matter if you return my money in phoenixes or gold, I’m not picky. I’m sure in the end you’ll earn a lot more if you increase your status…”
“Sorry, I can’t listen to any more of this nonsense. Gotta go.”
He stopped me, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me in.
“I’ll fly straight from here to Moscow. You know what’s there?”
“Uhm… The Red Square?”
“The Modus HQ, idiot!”
“I don’t think they’ll accept your application. And get your hands off me, Wesley. Those watchmen are already looking at us, in case you didn’t notice. By the way, how did you get here? Actually, I don’t care…”
The question was almost rhetorical, but he still answered.
“Axiom was a big clan. It had guys from your school too, so…” He suddenly calmed down and then smiled again. “You know what, you’re right. To hell with Modus. I think I’ll just go straight to San Francisco. The Triad is definitely going to want to hear about you…
He wasn’t joking, and it was my turn to worry. The preventers were bound by public opinion — if they tried to pressure me outside the game, in real life, they’d get a reputation hit up to and including sanctions from Snowstorm. Recently, Ed and Crag and I had done a lot in that regard. They’d never use direct threats or criminal means. But the Triad…
“How come? Because of your conspiracy theories? You think they check information from every idiot that thinks they know something?”
“I’m no idiot,” Wesley laughed. “I bought you all the proof, and it’s bulletproof!”
“Yep. Good luck talking to those gangsters.”
I turned to leave, but a phrase thrown at me as I left forced me to stop and turn around.
“What do you think, Sheppard, will anybody care about the fate of some drug addict inwinova who randomly finds himself next to your mom or girlfriend?” Wesley glanced at Tissa. “You know those guys will do anything for fifty phoenixes, right?”
That threat was far more serious than everything so far.
“Listen, Wesley…” I paused, carefully thinking over my words. Crag’s status was confirmed in any case, and it was better to speak only as if i was worried about Tobias’s fate. “Let’s get down to it. Even if we imagine for a second that you’re right… Don’t think I’m trying to buy time or anything like that, it’s just that everything we got for you is stuck in our in-game account. We can’t get anything from it until the citizenship tests. It’s in your interest to keep your suspicions to yourself, because if the people you contact learn your information too soon, you won’t get anything.
Wesley frowned. He didn’t take long to think. Pulling me by the arm, he moved us further away from prying ears and quietly, barely audibly whispered:
“You know, all this is getting even more interesting. Crag is a Threat, that’s a definite. You cover for him using your teleportation and imitation skills. There’s a high chance that you’re still a Threat too. I think you guys are cooking up something interesting. And either you are buying time to achieve something and then laugh at everyone from the top of Google Tower, or you’re being strung along. I guess I’ll risk… No, I want to get involved!” His eyes lit up as he barely held back his excitement. “I’m going into big Dis in the summer, and after the citizenship tests you’ll not only have to compensate me, but also take me into the clan. If I haven’t heard anything from you by midnight on the twentieth of June, my birthday, then I’ll sell you both to the preventers and the Triad.
Wesley walked away toward a flyer, whistling and dancing. I couldn’t say I was happy about his good mood. On the contrary, I wanted to run the guy down and beat the crap out of him. As if sensing my mood, Tissa gently took me by the hand and our fingers intertwined. Hung appeared on my other side and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Chill, bro, breathe deep…” he said, but his eyes tracked Wesley.
As we traveled, I used our ciphers to tell my friends what I’d heard.
“That’s the best outcome you could have gotten,” Ed approved. “We obviously won’t be taking him into the clan or paying him. To hell with him.”
“Why are you so sure he’s not lying?” Malik worried. “He could give us up to the Triad today if he wanted!”
“He won’t,” Hung shook his head. “I know this guy better than you. He can play dirty tricks, like when we all got beat up. But that time he just put the threat into motion — he warned that we’d have problems. If he’s promised Alex he’ll wait, then he’ll do that. What does he lose? To be honest, we could have made extra sure he’d shut up if we brought him into the clan…”
“Hell no!” Ed interrupted Hung’s thoughts. “What do we need him for? He’s an asshole!”
“He has his head screwed on,” Hung shrugged uncertainly. “Alex, are you sure you’re going to have enough time for everything? What about you, Ed? You live for instances! And we need to build up the fort, along with the clan. Malik and I aren’t going to have time for managing that stuff either…”
“Think about that later!” Tissa said. “We’re all under protection! For now, we need to finally decide whether you’re going to Distival or not.”
She was planning to go, and had even ordered herself an evening gown, but the boys and I were still thinking about it. In the end I concluded that it would be more suspicious not to turn up. We were teenagers, damn it! We should be jumping for joy at getting an invitation, at the whole world seeing us! Especially since the dress code meant we didn’t have to worry and could go in ordinary clothes. We weren’t old enough for dinner jackets and didn’t want to wear them either.
Ultimately, we managed to discuss another idea that came up when we were talking about how we were going to level up our characters.
“Do you know where we can farm rats, guys?” I asked.
“Well… In Glendale, just outside the city. There’s a cave there that even has its own rat king,” Ed recalled. “But why...? Oh, I get it!”
He exchanged glances with Hung, and they laughed. Malik’s eyes passed between me and him in confusion.
“Explain!”
“What’s to explain? Our buddy Alex wants a local rat Armageddon by infecting all those poor little critters with his plague crap!” Hung answered.
“Why?”
“To make Roast Undead Rat Chitterlings,” I smiled. “Have you forgotten how I leveled up in the Mire? Plus one thousand percent to skill gains, bro!”
* * *
Arriving in Dis, I found Trixie and he and I went to the auction house to buy a gift for Malik’s birthday. We’d figured out what exactly to get him in advance. He had a pet already, so I bought him a mount, a rare Red Bear. The bear cub wasn’t red so much as light brown, but the merchant promised that it would get redder as it grew.
Along the way, I stopped by a merchant stall belonging to a player like Underweight and sold everything I’d picked up from the corpses of yesterday’s gankers. The total value was unexpectedly high, and it paid for the gift.
Then we went to the city hall to meet Infect and welcome him to big Dis.
It didn’t take long for him to appear, looking embarrassed and unfamiliar. Infect had remained a human but added a few years to his character and changed his appearance. It still looked like Malik’s face, but the boy hadn’t resisted in making a lot of improvements, as it were — he’d added an inch or two of height, made his shoulders broader, changed his eye color.
He told us
that the preventers checked him when he arrived in the guest hall, but only quickly, and there were fewer of them than before. I gave him money for equipment and skills, then I jumped to Kharinza with Trixie, although he begged me to give him more time and let him stay with Infect.
By the evening of the same day, life in the Kharinza fort had begun to return to normal. After finally coming to their decisions, all the non-citizens had split into two groups. Those that wishes to change their race — all the builders and one group of miners — left to regenerate their characters. The others renewed their work in the mine. Shazz’s undead didn’t touch them.
The Destroying Plague Page 28