The Destroying Plague

by Dan Sugralinov

  Our powerleveling was actually going slower than I expected. Firstly, almost none of the guys were doing any damage, and that was a huge minus to experience. It was a good thing they were getting anything at all — in no small part because I was far lower level than the mobs, even if I was higher level than the other guys.

  Secondly, most of the experience went to me. And thirdly, I then redirected it to the pets. So in two days, the guys had only reached level one hundred, and I’d gotten to level one hundred and fifty. Millions of players in Dis who thought it was good progress to make level twenty or thirty in a year would have cried to see it.

  I had to admit, we had it good. I’d gotten a unique opportunity — I’d gotten a Threat status of the highest potential, and then everything went so lucky with Behemoth and the Destroying Plague. After all, if it weren’t for the Sleeping God, I would have lost my freedom of choice and I’d have been eliminated very soon.

  Seemed to me Bomber had had the same thought. Enjoying another swig of cold beer — thanks to the inventory, which kept consumables in the same condition they entered it in — the warrior asked:

  “All the same, Scyth… Why do we need a temple? Why do we even need the Sleeping Gods? By all Ed’s calculations, the Destroying Plague is way more imba than the swamp god. You think the head honcho of the dead is going to turn a blind eye to the new temple? Apart from anything else, it’s gonna ruin your relationship with the Nucleus…”

  “Say, do you have any cheese in your bag? Oh, great! Give it here…” I took a quarter of a wheel of Goat’s Cheese from the warrior and cut it into small pieces, answering him as I went. “I have a feeling, and don’t ask where from, that the Nucleus won’t learn about the temple. Or rather, it’ll learn about it, but not right away. And anyway… You know, if we let go all the sappy stuff about not wanting to see familiar NPCs as brainless zombies, the answer is simple: if the Destroying Plague reaches full strength, then the world will end. And my character too, because the Nucleus will take away my will, my control of myself.”

  “Are you serious? But how?

  “The same way the capsule makes you believe that you got stunned. Thank the Sleeping Gods, Behemoth managed to protect me from the Nucleus’ control. Apart from that, the source of the Destroying Plague’s power is the Nether. It will swallow up all Disgardium. And the Nucleus will gain strength very quick from the top players. The high-level players will be the first barrier before the legions of the undead, and they’ll be the first infected — if not by me, then by Shazz. What do you think happens after that?”

  “The same as in Tristad? The top players will lose their characters?”

  “That’s one possibility. It’s fully possible that some of them will maintain control of their characters and… The Nucleus will take those in and turn them into Legates. It sleeps and sees hundreds, thousands of followers from its lair! My ceiling, even if I max out Plague Reanimation is a thousand dead under my command. One Armageddon will destroy them all, you know that spell has maximum damage. So, the more Legates the Nucleus gets, the bigger the army it can assemble.

  “Oh, damn, I think now I get what that means for you…”

  “Woah!” I shouted in joy, because I’d finally managed to successfully make a new dish!

  All I had to do was use some logic and add what was usually put into things like this!

  Attempt to create new cooking dish!

  Successful! You created a new cooking recipe: Incredibly Tasty Cheesy Vulture Egg Omelet!

  You created Incredibly Tasty Cheesy Vulture Egg Omelet.

  Incredibly Tasty Cheesy Vulture Egg Omelet.

  Epic dish

  Ingredients: vulture egg, vegetable oil, salt, black pepper, goat’s cheese.

  This omelet is a very rare delicacy; it can only be created from the eggs of the most dangerous desert vultures. The inventor of this dish, Scyth, wasted many rare ingredients before he figured out he needed to add a little goat’s cheese.

  Special effects when eaten: +100 to main craft, +100% to work speed.

  Effects last: 24 hours.

  Cost: 600 gold coins.

  Cooking trade: +10. Current grade: Expert (272/500).

  I continued cooking — unfortunately I only had one egg left — and returned to our interrupted conversation.

  “Anyway, about the Nucleus. When it picks up more Legates, I’ll be just one of many, and my key ability, Immortality will be almost unusable, since I have to be the only Legate in an area for it to activate. Then my choice will disappear once and for all, because I’ll lose all my advantages and won’t be able to build or protect temples for the Sleeping Gods. All the continents closed to players right now, where we might be able to build a temple in an undead body, will be available to all the top players that take the side of the Destroying Plague…”

  We heard the clap of portals from below, near the workers; the guys returning from Kharinza. Crag waved to us.

  “Come down!” we heard his voice through the communication amulet.

  We’d bought them after all. True, ordinary ones with a range restricted to the current zone — they’d cost about ten thousand each. The absolute best communication amulets available on the market were epic ones that could hold an intercontinental connection and cost as much as a legendary flying mount. And the less said about the long-sight mirrors, the better.

  I gathered up all my cooking gear and Bomber and I walked down to join the guys. The workers had already surrounded them, waiting for them to unload the resources and give each worker dinner made by Aunt Stephanie.

  I pulled Gyula off to the side and gave him a couple of portions of my new dish.

  “Just in time,” the chief builder said. “Maybe with this speed boost, we’ll be able to finish tomorrow…

  “Just in time? Has something happened?”

  Gyula faltered, but finally admitted:

  “Um… I didn’t want to bother you… Basically, there are problems in the work gang. Can’t see it here, but in real life all our boys are sick. Temperatures of over a hundred. We’re on our last legs. Even I’m wiped out, to tell the truth.”

  “What does the doctor say?”

  “What doctor, Alex? We treat ourselves with grandma’s remedies, everyone with something different. There’s some kind of epidemic! Probably from the cold. We’ve had a few days of frosts; it’s been a lot of colder than usual.”

  “Say, are all your guys sick? I mean, everyone that works with us?”

  “Um… Well, my daughter in the tavern, ain’t a thing wrong with her. Trixie’s well too. But as for my guys, and Manny’s…”

  A vague worry stirred in my mind. I remembered how the Dementors suddenly fell ill when they got debuffs from the swamp needlers. The doctors couldn’t diagnose them, and the guys got better when the debuff came off. The memory of my own fever after I became an undead was still fresh…

  “I’ll fly to you tomorrow after school and bring my Home Doctor,” I said. “We need to figure out what the sickness is, and the diagnosis will make it easier to treat. By the way… you mentioned that the Sharks have been patrolling the district. Are they still there?”

  “Hard to say exactly, we haven’t been going outside recently, but I think things are quieter,” Gyula scratched the back of his head. “At least, the men haven’t mentioned anything.”

  “Alright, I’ll risk it.”

  Thanking me, the foreman switched to questions of construction. We also discussed the restoration of the first temple in Kharinza, which shouldn’t have taken much time — a day and a half, no more.

  After the conversation, Gyula joined the work gang and sat down to eat. I did the same, sitting down next to him.

  Eating quickly, the clan and I prepared to continue our farming marathon. First our boys summoned their needler pets to join Baloney and Iggy.

  Crag pulled out his cat — once small, fluffy and harmless, but now far bigger. We’d given it to Crag as a belated birthday gift. Seeing him s
taring at our needlers with a faraway look in his eye, I’d visited the auction house and bought him an epic battle pet. We all agreed to take the money from the gift from the clan treasury. In its adult state, the ‘kitten’ would become a deadly and very dangerous Ursai Liger, taller than a man at the withers.

  The group buffed up with practiced ease as soon as we’d all summoned our pets. First Crawler put his still weak shields on us: fire, air and earth. The mage decided to level up not only the fire element and had studied the tomes I’d gotten from the treasury. That was logical; he needed to make progress in various branches.

  Then Infect let loose a few of his short inspiring songs. It sounded terrible.

  “Da-a-a-arrk ni-i-ight, only arro-o-o-ws zip through the des-e-e-rt!” the bard howled. “Only the wind raises the sa-a-and, the stars glimme-e-er dimly…”

  Our ears tried to close up, but we put on a brave face and withstood the torture. After all, we were the ones that insisted that he change his class.

  After listening to our homegrown guitarist, Crag and Bomber added to our attack power with Battle Cry. And as a finishing touch, we polished off a portion of imba chow from Rat Zombie Innards.

  Crash was describing circles nearby, digging in and out of the sand, and my elite undead meandered around too: Sharkon, Toothy, Kermit, Birdie and It. In the distance, staggering and emitting groaning noises, my team of forty-one other nightmarish monsters waited. Counting the guardians on Kharinza, there were exactly fifty minions.

  “Everyone ready?” I asked, looking over the guys.

  My clanmates answered with smiles, anticipating oceans of experience.

  “Then let’s go!”

  The crowd of zombies advanced first. Behind, astride their newly purchased mounts, came Crawler, Crag, Bomber and Infect. Nobody had bothered to be original — they all chose the tried-and-tested mechostrich.

  After making sure that things were quiet and nothing threatened our workers, I began to go down after them.

  When a weak rustle came from somewhere off to the side, my ears pricked up and I concentrated on listening. Good thing I did; a scaly, triangular head on a long neck emerged from the sand in the treacherous silence. Yellow eyes gleamed in the dusk, and the huge creature’s wending body’s gleamed.

  Apophis, level ???

  Ancient Snake

  Global boss

  This was the first time I’d seen a snake like this here. The reptile reached a hundred feet in length, but at the same time it moved silently. Its snow-white scales gleamed in the glow of Geala.

  The snake quickly span itself into several huge rings and brought its head to my face. Its forked tongue slithered from its mouth and almost touched my lips. A sharp and foul scent made me want to throw up, although I smelled terrible myself. The huge yellow eyes burned right through me, and I watched them as if bewitched, not understanding why I wasn’t saying anything or attacking. My mind screamed that something strange was happening, but my muscles had turned to stone. I didn’t understand why I was losing control.

  Some of the guys realized that I’d fallen back and sounded the alarm. I heard the anxious voices of builders. I couldn’t even call my minions to help me — my gaze slipped past the command icons without focusing.

  “Can you hear me, Scyth? What the hell is happening over there?” I heard Crawler’s distorted voice through my comm amulet.

  I wanted to answer, but I couldn’t open my mouth. Raising its monstrous head above me, the snake froze. A droplet separated from a fang and fell onto my forehead — it felt as if a hot iron had been placed on my skin, and that was with my maximum protection against poisons. The reptile swayed back and forth as if deciding what to do, and then its maw opened and blotted out the sky.

  The world shimmered, I saw the glimmering ring of a portal and I collapsed.

  Interlude 3. Yemi

  THE LEADER OF THE AFRICAN clan Yoruba, a ju-ju class shaman and orc by the name of Yemi, had managed to do the impossible. He had taken control of the beast-god Apophis, the White Snake. Well, taken control is a little too strong, but he had gained the right to make a wish (within the bounds of the snake’s abilities, of course).

  You wouldn’t want to know what this cost Yemi. It all began when the shaman found an ancient tome that taught him all about how to talk to snakes. Simply put, he learned that skill. Since then, every time he’s seen a creeping creature, Yemi has listened to its hissing instead of rushing to kill it.

  At first, he understood almost nothing, just one or two words or half-formed thoughts, but as the skill grew, so did his understanding. After level ten, things really got interesting.

  Talking to snakes revealed the snake god to the Yoruba clan leader. The white snake showed some interest in him, and drop by drop, his reputation with the divinity began to grow. When Yemi reached the stage of thinking about building a temple dedicated to the god in the clan’s domain, their relationship moved to a new level.

  The white snake named the spellcaster his first priest and gave him the first quest in the divine quest chain. It was relatively easy: destroy a hundred White-winged Eagles and bring the same number of their eggs to the altar. The beast-god accepted the sacrifice, swallowing the offering with pleasure, and gave the next quest in return.

  Soon the shaman’s reputation with the beast-god grew to trust. Apophis taught the caster a couple of fun tricks that increased the clan’s capabilities, but the most important thing was something else. Yemi became a Threat with a potential of R.

  He hid his status as long as he could, but soon started getting uncomfortable questions from his officers. And when someone voiced the correct assumption, what happened happened — the clan members became subthreats. That brought the clan closer together, and now Apophis’s quests could be completed as a group.

  Where was it best to hide a leaf? In the forest. Yoruba began to position itself as a preventer clan, and even became quite a successful one. In just the last year, it had eliminated two impressive threats, which allowed it to be numbered among the top thousand clans of the world.

  After a couple of drinks, Yemi worked up the courage to contact Horvac from the Travelers, offering his services to the alliance of preventers in searching for a D-class Threat, but the arrogant bastards didn’t even want to talk to him!

  Grr, they’re going to regret that! Yemi consoled himself, deciding that the day would come when he would rise and sweep their castles from the face of Disgardium.

  That meant getting a high Threat potential, and to get that, the shaman would stop for nothing. When he went to Apophis for help and the snake demanded that he bring him nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine intelligent creatures in sacrifice, Yemi merely asked: “Any? Do kobold s and murlocks count too?” And Apophis said any would do.

  For several weeks, the clan captured intelligent mobs and NPCs all over Shad’Erung and sacrificed them, cutting off their heads where they stood by a portable altar. Blood flowed in rivers, but it was never enough for the White Snake. The situation became complicated; the first priest not only had to be present at each sacrifice, but he even had to perform the ritual.

  The same fate awaited noob players, only the clan disguised themselves from those. After all, Yoruba still had a reputation to maintain.

  Yemi was in a hurry. It was very important to be in time before the Alliance of Preventers or any of the lesser sharks caught the two highest threats in his memory: A and D. Nobody knew anything of the first. For a long time, there had been nothing but rumors of the second until the Alliance managed to capture one… and foolishly let him go. Yemi’s chance to find a man whose name resounded throughout Dis had increased substantially.

  Yesterday they made their final sacrifice of intelligent life. The beast-god had gained so much trust in the first priest by then that, albeit unwillingly, he shared some crumbs of power with him, entrusting him with unique talents. That helped Yemi to assemble a set of legendary class equipment, but he dreamed of far more than th
at.

  Yemi handed in his quest and froze, kneeling. He lowered his head and dared not move. The beast-god’s bloodthirstiness and temper sometimes led to a sharp drop in reputation due to an ill-timed word. But right now, the sated Apophis hissed in approval.

  “You have earned your reward, my first priest. I will not only find the one you seek, but I will deliver him here,” the snake hissed. “State his name!”

  Yemi hesitated. To find him, the beast-god would need the name, race and class.

  The bomb that exploded in the game community after the news of the First Kill of that boss in the Lakharian Desert had awoken Yemi’s anticipation and excitement. Of course, that could be the D Threat just making progress, but what if...?