by D. Rus
Figure "N3"...
Reading the analytics’ report, the lieutenant blindly groped the call button for the senior shift officer. Discovering a perma player back on Earth was the long-awaited Class A event that had a clearly-defined protocol.
"This is Analyst 7 reporting! Code Red, scenario Guest! I repeat, code Red!"
CRACK! The caked crust of the crater snapped, turning under my feet, once again trying to pull me into its radioactive bowels thirty feet down.
I managed to throw my body forward and fall on my stomach, losing hits and rather awkwardly rolling to the side.
Goddamn overload! I grabbed too much, after all! Wretched greedy pig...
I flipped over, jumped to my feet, and just barely managed to catch Zena who rocketed over the melted edge. This was typical of Snowie. Precision goblin-throwing just wasn’t his sport of choice, apparently.
The hound was the next to rocket past like some yapping, spotted cannonball. Tommy followed, successfully landing on his four feet. He proudly showed me the drops of blood on his claws which might have something to do with the barrage of cussing coming from below.
The last to climb up was the troll himself. His powerful soccer kicks left deep indents in the vitrified earth, leaving a makeshift staircase in his wake.
While he was climbing, I looked back and saw the remains of some kinds of buildings a few miles from us. Making sure everyone was present and correct, I waved my hand. "Summon your mounts and hit the gas pedal!"
To set an example, I blew into my bone whistle, quietly praying to everything that’s holy. What if it didn't work?
ROAAAR!
"Hummungus! My big lump! No time for a hug, brother, just move it!"
I grasped the harness, placed my foot in the stirrup, and in one leap threw myself up onto the high, knightly saddle. I mentally spurred the bear and opened vials of mana and hits as we set off. There was no time to meditate or use healing spells, so we used paid medicine. We were facing the unknown. And traveling with our life and energy meters at half was a very stupid idea.
Hummungus sped up famously. The automap barely managed to keep up with us, the odometer clocking up hundreds of miles of traveled distance. Nearby, the hooves of Fuckyall's unicorn rang out; Dan's large, camouflaged horse snorted while Zena's rideable swamp lizard lagged behind considerably. The earth shook and reverberated as Snowie was trotting by his own power, crushing ice beneath his mighty, size-thirty-seven feet. Tommy meowed indignantly, lagging behind. The snow leopard wasn't designed for cross-country: his element was rather a sprint to his prey. Well, he’d have to grin and bear. Our target was a little less than half a mile away. Once he’d leveled up a bit, we’d be able to add a few points to his Speed.
After a minute of traveling, we took refuge in the heap of concrete debris: all that was left of a former village. The radioactive DoT showed a huge decrease in radiation intensity, allowing us to slow our roll and not rush blindly towards our one objective: distancing ourselves from the source of radiation.
Zena jumped off the lizard, rubbed her battered behind, and shook her hands, readying for a cast. "Guys, stand closer together. We're going to have a group healing session."
Magic blazed: the blue sparks of Mass Healing, the green stars of the Strong Special antidote, and the turquoise glow of a fifteen-minute Regeneration.
All our aches and pains promptly disappeared. Our energy was once again in full swing, our usual state of perfect health beckoning for adventure. I just love magic! Thank you, Grim Reaper, Sir, for a kick in the right direction.
I stretched my wrists and looked around. Ruins and snow, snow and ruins... Off to the side I noticed the bumper of a car that had been crushed by collapsed building. I walked closer, crouched, tossed aside some debris and rubbed the ubiquitous gray concrete dust from the license plate: ALASKA VAB-831.
Fuck it! "This is Alaska, guys!"
From behind me I could hear the sound of stomping feet, broad shoulders jostling, and muffled cursing.
"And just why are you so outraged?” I demanded. “From Alaska to Russia it’s all of two and a half miles! On a clear day you can see it with a naked eye.”
Dan did not share my enthusiasm. "You mean the Diomede Islands? In that case, we would still need to get ourselves there. What I know is that Alaska is the biggest state in the U.S.—more than a million square miles. We would be walking and walking and walking...”
Fuckyall worked a bit of his knowledge into the conversation. "By the way, do you know how much Alexander II sold this land for, that was filled to its very core with gold, oil, and fur? No? Five cents a hectare! Incidentally, I have a souvenir dollar lying around somewhere. Anyone happen to have twenty hectares of Yukon gold to sell?"
I gave an ironic smile. "Yeah, right, they can’t wait to sell it back to you. Alright, that’s enough. The radiation levels are catching up with us. And I still intend to have kids, you know. Our immediate goal is to find out what part of Alaska we're in. Maybe if we clear out the wreckage and wipe away the dust, there will be an atlas in the car, or receipts or some kind of check."
Dan shook his head. "No, guys. Handling this dust is not a healthy idea. Inhale just one speck of it, and it will leak gamma radiation like a reactor. And then you’ll keep dying from lung cancer once every week like clockwork."
I involuntarily held my breath and stepped back from the heap of concrete. I looked skeptically at Zena. Is that true?
She just shrugged. "No idea. I'm not a freaking doctor, am I? I'm only a game cleric. Listen to the officer: it's his specialty, that’s what they’re taught in their academies. 'In the event of a nuclear explosion, the machine gun should be held at arm's length so that the molten metal of the barrel doesn't drip onto the government-issued boots.' Something like that. Dan, my boy, tell me. Can we get dressed already? I'm shaking something awful."
Fuckyall nodded his agreement, dancing in place. "I’ve never been so cold in AlterWorld. There, even our bare-assed Elves sleep in the snow. At most, they'd get a Frostbite debuff with minor penalties to hits and agility."
Dan thought for a moment, then began to wrap himself up, layer by layer, in the equipment he had removed earlier. Long underwear marked with the Veterans’ blue monogram, made in the clan's workshop. Fatigues: suede and silk. They were for comfort and for showing off, as they added nothing to your stats. A rogue's combat PvE set followed, all artifacts and rare items, along with a bunch of mismatched, bulky jewelry.
Looking at him, the rest of the soldiers also hurried to get dressed. The cold of the weapons greedily syphoned the heat out of our bodies, not causing any damage or even giving a debuff, but delivering a psychological discomfort and threatening us with a phantom frostbite.
Without thinking, I turned my staff to the nearest boulder and raised its temperature to several hundred degrees, hoping to warm up by this manmade radiator.
And warm up we did. The evaporation of the solid ice was explosive, causing micro-cracks in the stone, whistling granite shrapnel, and ringing metal fragments.
"Jesus Christ, Max! My passive shields are crippled!"
I shrugged and smiled sheepishly. "My bad. At least we're warm. Passive shields are going to expire soon, anyways. My enchanter's Bubble is already blinking and my wizard's Wall only has thirty-two minutes left. Only the Invisible Armor cast by Zena is still pretty fresh. After that, we'll have to go on to our personal shields and scrolls, but the latter are extremely low. Our reserves of parchment and consumables are very limited.”
Fuckyall nodded, offering his hands to the rock that was breathing heat. Then he shook his head in disagreement. "Well, suppose our consumables were no problem. I personally have three stacks of agate, lapis lazuli and amber for hit and armor buffs. In case of an especially fucked-up scenario, we have some first-class stones: ruby, emerald, sapphire, and other jewels. They will ensure my combat amok levels are at their highest. It's true that angels will no longer answer my calls, but the Nightshadows have a
passion for blue diamonds. They're moody creatures, however. They only want the best of the D-IFs with a fifty-five facets Marquise cut."
Snowie butted into the conversation, "Don't forget about me! Bomba personally packed four tons of supplies!"
That made me wonder. No one really controlled the albino's inventory and his characteristics were calculated only by indirect stipulations. Did that mean that his strength was over four thousand? Holy hell!
"What kinds of supplies?" Dan asked.
Snowie smiled proudly and began cheerfully unbending his fingers, counting.
"Gamy meat in red-eye marinade: fifteen hundred pounds. Flour worms," the albino greedily gulped and continued, "marinated, four hundred pounds! Stale beer with a moldy residue: three barrels. By the way, it's quite pricey at the Tumbleweed Inn: a piece of gold a mug! So, guys, we're not going to die of starvation, and we'll certainly find something to drink! You can see for yourselves what kind of worms they are so you know I'm not exaggerating—no dead ones, only the highest quality. Cool, huh?"
Snowie shoved his hand into his bag, producing a handful of sluggishly wriggling pale worms sprinkled with a white powder.
Suppressing my gag reflex, I nodded a reluctant approval. "Well... OK... that's a great snack with beer... Maybe... But don't forget, Snowie, we have Elves here, goblins, and humans. Stale beer might not agree with some of us. So you'll have to eat and drink it all yourself, somehow...”
Dan waved his hand in desperation. "Just think they’ve loaded him with wretched food! With his Capacity, he could have carried a third of an alchemical warehouse complete with vials!"
I pulled out a vial of mana from my quick-access slot and looked through it at the sun. It was turning pale, de-energized. "Yeah, and you know what would have happened? All our reserves would have gone bad. This magicless Earth siphons mana like a sponge. By the way, maybe we are the ones who’ll have to fill the universe with magic via stationary portals. We could fling them open and wait until the levels of magic even out. Not now, of course, but it’s probably a good idea to patent a company offering "Terraformation of the Universe—your money, our mana!"
"Freakin’ dreamer...” Zena muttered, then pointed at the hound standing tensely. "Look at the doggie. She must have sensed something!"
Startled, I returned to reality and reached out my mind to Belka. She whispered, almost inaudibly, in my head.
"Magic... A strange, foreign and yet... familiar?"
My attempt to join the flow of her magic vision only gave me a headache. It was a continuous chaos of shadows. And I was no Eskimo with forty words to describe the color of snow. My perception palette counted the standard sixteen colors. Leave the two hundred and fifty-six shades of gray for computers and hell hounds.
Grimacing, I pointed to the west. "Belka... or is it Strelka... the dog, anyway... she sensed some kind of magic over there. Something strange, but with a touch of Inferno. Shall we take a closer look?"
Dan nodded his agreement. "The West is good. That's where we'd normally find the Bering Straits, Chukchi Peninsula, and our border guards. Let's go. But we should improve our group invisibility using one of wizards’ scrolls. That’s the only way we can camouflage our mounts. Personal spells won't work there."
"OK."
I gathered everyone into a group, broke the seal on a ten-gold scroll, then watched as the figures of my clanmates rippled, acquiring an eighty percent transparency. To me, they were just as visible as before, but all an outside observer could see were clouds of exhaled air and our footprints in the snow. As for other wavelengths like thermal and magic, I wasn’t really sure. I'd never tested it. I supposed that an average infrared sensor would be able to detect our movement.
Magic camouflage is great for petty crimes: you can shoplift till you drop or pay a visit to the girl's locker room. But against serious security sensors with their multiple sensors—seismic, audiometric and the like—it was a joke.
We kept moving. Our cruising speed was fourteen miles per hour. Zena's wretched lizard just couldn't go any faster, not to mention it had begun coughing suspiciously. Was it getting a cold? Zena listened anxiously to her swamp pet's hoarse coughing, but she couldn't do anything on the move other than shrug and whisper something soothing. Dan scowled. The sneezing reptile would give us away. However, only the deaf would fail to hear the snow crunching under our feet and the rumbling of our cavalry. I don’t even mention the trail of footprints that stretched through the pristine landscape in or wake.
After half an hour, we re-upped our invisibility and continued onward. Soon, a dark strip of enormous, sluggishly rotating clouds appeared on the horizon. The hound confirmed: this was our target.
The cloud grew as we approached, stretching out in a perfect circle with a radius of no less than two miles. Still at an unhurried pace, we plunged into the manmade darkness.
Dan craned his neck, evaluating the altitude and density of the overhanging blackish-red mass unmoved by the winds.
"This is Fog of War. Someone really wants to evade outside observation."
"I can see a castle!" Snowie rumbled, being the tallest and biggest-eyed.
"Where?" Dan stood up on his stirrups and activated his Zoom. "Whoa...”
Following suit, I stood up on my saddle, threw a veil of Eagle Vision over my eyes, and stared into the distance. Whoa...
I saw a landscape of black and crimson, lava streaming amid the floating lines of an unfamiliar architecture. Floating high in the air was a cluster of flying islands shackled together by huge chains, and tiny ferries scurrying between them.
Fuckyall smiled, recognizing the virtual world. "If this isn’t Virtual Heroes of Might and Magic! The Castle of Inferno! There’s the Capitol. A little further is the Kennel of Fury. That means the players have opted for the Cerberus version, not the Hell Hound one. I’d argue this decision but whatever turns them on. The Hall of Forbidden Desires. That's where you can hire beautiful Lilim virgins. The Hall of Agony. That's for hiring Fiends. That's it. Luckily for us, he didn't have time to build up more. The castle is only about a week old."
I looked at my friend, dumbfounded. I was absolutely stunned by his hidden talents.
Fuckyall shrugged sheepishly. "College lectures are long and 3D-Goggles are virtually indistinguishable from regular glasses. The most important thing is not to twitch when you're battling. You should remain still on the outside."
I nodded, and once again gave the order to move. We slowed down. Our mounts took softer steps, giving us time to observe and lower the overall noise level of the group. The sneezing lizard had finally got some first veterinarian aid and now just sported an occasional sad sniffle from its snotty orange nose.
It was Fuckyall who noticed something wrong with the castle, which wasn't surprising. He frowned, peering into the distance and standing up in his stirrups, and then said resolutely,
"There's an extra building that doesn’t fit! Most of it is hidden from us by the wall and the corner tower, but part of it is visible, nonetheless. The color stands out, as well as its structure. And overall, Inferno isn’t the right place to build, er... white pyramids."
Once again I peered into the distance, ruining my eyesight. Finally I shrugged and clanged my visor shut. "There's something there. Never mind. Once we get closer, we’ll take another look."
A mile from the looming enormity of the castle, we came across the first patrol. There were a dozen Maniacs, fiery lashes in their hands, jingling in chains, along with three three-headed Cerberuses. We barely managed to keep the hound from attacking them on sight.
We could take on the creatures with one hand tied behind our back—the Maniacs ranged from levels ten to twenty, and the Cerberuses to level forty. Those with higher levels had clearly tasted blood long ago. They had battle scars on their bodies and morbid decorations on their belts and collars shaped as fresh skulls or necklaces of blackened human hands.
Fuckyall forwarded his own thoughts into the chat. “These are
first and second rank units—dumb pieces of meat and dangerous only in large formations. Apparently, the oldest beings in this castle are of fifth rank. If I correctly understand the conversion factor, that's levels fifty to one hundred, respectively. It seems that the AlterWorld engine has calculated this level of danger for us."
I narrowed my eyes. "We'll cut through them like a hot knife through butter."
Fuckyall didn't agree. "Bigger legions rule in Heroes. The game is already three years old. There, the earth shakes when those armies walk. They'll put you up against about a thousand Maniacs and just as many Cerberuses, plus fifteen thousand other monsters of higher rank, and then five hundred level 140 Lords of the Abyss on top of that. But the cherry on top will be a hero-player who will have a cheat book of spells. Either these legions will begin to clone themselves every thirty seconds or Armageddon will fall from the sky to the earth. Then all you’ll keep doing is biting the dust."
As always before a big punch-up, I felt an itch in my eyebrow scarred when I was still a child. Checking out the trodden patrol path, I glanced at the trail we’d left behind. Now was the time to come to a decision. If we crossed the path—even if we activated Levitation and advanced hovering above the snow—the Cerberuses were bound to catch our scent. Weren’t they magic dogs? Their noses were twitching already. One head took the lower scent, another took the upper, while the third one was busy feeling for the auras and catching magical undertones.
Snowie impatiently fidgeted in place, holding the silently wheezing hound by its choke chain. He looked at me with hope. "Are we gonna brawl?"
Zena spoke. "Can we go around them? Do we need to? We're just a recon group, after all."
Fuckyall frowned. "An active recon group! We need prisoners and trophies: artifacts from outside of AlterWorld, breaking the balance of strength! Plus, we're testing our soldiers in Earth's conditions and surveying the terrain! We may not even meet another living soul over the next three hundred miles. This is Alaska, after all! And the most important thing, Inferno's castles are connected by portals. If we capture this one, then we can jump to another, maybe even to the suburbs of Moscow, the Fallen One willing...”