by D. Rus
Play to Live
by D. Rus
Book 3
The Duty
Play to Live
Book 3: The Duty
Copyright © D.Rus 2014
Cover Art © Kadziro
Translators © Irene Woodhead, Neil P. Mayhew 2014
All Rights Reserved
Also by D. Rus:
AlterWorld (Play to Live: Book #1)
The Clan (Play to Live: Book #2)
From the AlterWorld Wiki automatic update:
Lloth: ex-wife to Corellon—the head of the Elven pantheon and creator of the Elven race. For millennia Lloth had schemed to overthrow her husband until her war on him ended in her rout. She was turned into a giant spider and plunged into eternal oblivion while her Elven supporters were cursed, thus giving rise to the Drow race.
Lloth likes to appear in the guise of either a Black Widow or a beautiful Drow woman, sometimes morphing the two images. Often she manifests her presence as a woman's smirk upon the nearest spider.
Any sighting of the Spider Queen is ominous for she is cruel and spiteful, knowing no authority but her own. Lloth incessantly weaves a web of intrigues, pitting her priestesses against each other.
Lloth despises the lesser deities of both Drow and Elven pantheons. She hates her own son Vhaeraun—the patron god of all men—who attempts to put an end to her matriarchal regime. She incessantly challenges Shar while despising her own daughter Eilistraee who strives to bring the Drow back to the realms of Light.
Chapter One
Crack! My shoulder joint popped in sickening agony. I collapsed face down, flattening my nose against the rough flagstones.
Snap! Another rib succumbed, unable to support the pressure of the giant spider's armored foot.
"I hate you," I blabbered into the pool of blood pouring out of my very mangled face.
The sight of blood wasn't frightening: if anything, it had driven me mad. Red ink was cheap in AlterWorld. Here, a top-level rogue's fencing exercise looked akin to taking a blood shower, his every combo producing fountains of red-tinted pixels while his victim was suffering severed arteries and other critical damage.
To a degree, I could understand the game developers. Pulling at consumer's heart strings was no small feat these days as their yawning target audience munched on their popcorn while watching a NC-17 dismemberment flick. The game makers' job in arousing our emotions grew ever more difficult as the world faded into a comparative gray next to the media's riot of color and hot photoshopped bodies.
If you think about it, only a few generations ago a child's day was complete if he or she managed to spend a few hours pushing a rusty hoop along the street with a stick. Fast-forward to today's spoiled brats bored shitless in front of computer screens crammed with the latest entertainment hits. If that's not degradation...
Crack! my second dislocated shoulder brought me back to reality.
At that point I realized how much I hated spiders. And Drow princesses. Never mind. He who laughs last laughs longest. I just happened to have absolute memory. Considering I was planning to live for a very very long time, I fully intended to remember every broken bone and drop of blood some millennia from now.
The spider's armored paws held me in a kneeling pose best described as the Respectful Position of Ultimate Humiliation. No idea what kind of anatomy it had been designed for: not human, apparently. My ligaments twanged with tension, my convulsing muscles shaking as the occasional joint or bone gave up the ghost, snapping in fireworks of agony and sending waves of cold sweat rolling over my body.
Was I just freaking out with fear—or could the Halls of Gloom indeed have a higher pain threshold? I really, really didn't like it.
Two enormous spiders froze behind my back, their four hind legs splayed, their free limbs currently busy shaping my flesh into an arrangement worthy of Lloth to behold.
The Spider Queen's subterranean palace must have been born of agony. Its melting walls were running, transforming—as if inspired by some of Salvador Dali's finest compositions. Gothic moldings were rising in gray stone; further on, the classic marble was crumbling, revealing the rusty steel and drab concrete of an underground bunker.
It looked like Lloth was still new in AlterWorld and equally undecided about her dwelling's interior design. Wonder if she was trying her hand at it or had she simply failed to rise to the task?
The Fallen One, where are you! He'd better hurry up, really, while the Drow goddess was still weak and his own priest still lucid and relatively in one piece. I had no desire whatsoever to star in a horror movie featuring the human customer of an eight-legged inquisition.
I didn't think he'd heard me though. Most priest skills were blocked in Lloth's lair.
Don't get me wrong, please. I didn't lose faith, activating Appeal to Gods time after time, secretly hoping for one-way communications. In doing so, I reminded myself of a field radio operator in one of those old war movies when he keeps repeating into an ancient transmitter, "Hullo! Hullo, do you read me? Send in reinforcements! Over and out!" I could use some reinforcements, I suppose.
Pop! As if in answer to my prayers, the acoustic wave of opening portals hurt my ears.
"Ah, there he is! What's that for a cross between an ostrich and a spread-eagle? Why are you burying your head in the concrete floor? Or is it granite? Ah, whatever."
I could hear a note of relief and a badly concealed threat behind all the sarcasm in the Fallen One's voice.
I strained my unyielding muscles like a rusty robot, turning my neck until it crunched. Only now could I finally take my eyes from the chaotically mutating choice of Lloth's floor tiles and struggle to focus on the Fallen One complete with Macaria.
I braved a smile, showing my joy at seeing the happy duo. Then I motioned with my eyes to the spiders behind my back.
Click! Another broken rib added weight to my request.
The Fallen One's nostrils flared. Macaria gasped with compassion. With a sweep of her hand, she sent the arachnids flying through the air, ramming them into a nearby wall and flattening them into green blobs.
Christ almighty! Struck by an invisible baseball bat, the spiders hadn't had the chance to let go of my wrists. Now I was writhing on the floor minus both hands. Thanks a lot, Macaria!
"Sorry!" the goddess of suicide flustered, her healing hand waving me back to health.
"Sorry won't cut it," I mumbled, scrambling off the crystal floor and kneading my fingers, welcoming them back after their brief but impressive departure.
Congratulations! You've received Achievement: Stoic.
You've spent an entire hour in endurance training, testing the limits of your mental and physical health.
Reward: +10 to Agility, +10 to Constitution, +10 to Intellect.
In order to receive Achievement Stoic II, you will need to increase endurance training to three hours. Would you like to proceed now?
I don't think so! I waved the message away, amazed at the Admins' sick imagination. Or could it be the laws of magic reacting to new events that weren't in the script?
The shuffle of many feet echoed from a tall vaulted archway. My mind reluctantly registered something shrinking inside me. Those bastards had apparently taught me a lesson in arachnophobia.
I barely looked up at the raging goddess in her classical image of a female-torsoed Black Widow surrounded by smaller spiders.
"Who's done that?" she hissed.
Crack! Snap! History repeated itself as a powerful force molded me into a spread-eagled snail.
It hurt. I blinked away unwanted tears, promising myself to crush each and every spider on my way to a similar mess from now on. In the meantime, the force changed direction,
unbending me the other way.
"He... is... my... servant!" The Fallen One managed through clenched teeth.
"He is my slave!" Lloth barked, burying me back into the floor.
Crack. Snap.
"He's mine!" furious, the Fallen One dug deep into his power resources, turning me back to him.
Snap, snap, my vertebrae complained. Yes, yes, I did know you couldn't bend at that particular angle. But our Chief God was too preoccupied wrestling his competitor's arms to be concerned with such sensitive issues.
The gods were indeed in the middle of a celestial tug-of-war, fighting for dominance—with me as the rope. A very sympathetic Macaria healed me with an inconspicuous wave of her hand after some particularly tough tugs.
My injuries hurt a lot. They bled, too. And still you couldn't die in the Halls of Gloom as your life bar turned gray like an indestructible slab of concrete, irresponsive to the damage received.
The divine standoff was drawing to the point where I'd learned to tell their respective mana flows apart. The gods' extreme concentration had made them visible to the naked eye: Lloth's was purple, the Fallen One's black and Macaria's was silver.
This spider bitch has some powers, I thought watching the claret streaming from the Fallen One's nose. It was his power and status as a leader of his pantheon against an ancient and equally powerful deity.
Macaria, too, had noticed her boyfriend bleeding. Furious, she cut into the fight. Ignoring any Queensbury rules, she applied the same air sledgehammer she'd already used, only tenfold stronger this time.
Lloth's entourage flew every which way, losing limbs and bits of armor as Macaria squashed them like eggs in a powerful fist. Lloth took cover behind a magic shield. But even despite her quick reactions, the sheer brute force of the blow was such that it splintered the edges of her protective sphere, deforming the extremities of the shield and exposing Lloth's head and limbs. The power dragged her across the glass floor, ripping out the claws that dug deep into the crystal. The goddess's fair looks had suffered somewhat; she now resembled a zombie with half her face chopped away, exposing an impeccably white skull.
Not that the injuries sustained had stopped her: Lloth seemed to treat them as an exchange of face slaps in the heat of a cat fight. You could say she'd gone mad, the remaining half of her face distorted by pure hatred. The other half looked equally terrifying with the twitching of its exposed muscle and the scowl of fangs.
New claws sparkled with adamant, snapping open on her damaged paws. The Fallen One startled. I didn't need any more tips: I scurried aside, thankful that the gods seemed to have abandoned their human plaything as they rolled up their sleeves and moved on to the next stage of their dispute—the one that involved bleeding noses and knuckles raw from punches.
In the meantime, Lloth reinforced her defenses. The mithril's purple glow filled her thickening armor as its durability grew tenfold. Macaria's outline sparkled, the air around her shimmering with accumulated strength.
She raised her hand to deal a blow and froze, unsure about bringing the conflict to a new level. She glanced at the Fallen One, waiting for his approval.
I knew what she must have felt. Even something as mundane as a knife in your pocket still makes you think twice before producing it as it has the power of turning an ordinary scuffle into a life-changing encounter.
Tense as a taut string, the Fallen One shook his head. "Enough! Lloth, can't you see you can't handle the two of us? Or do you want to go back to eternal oblivion?"
By now her face was already hidden under a mithril mask made even uglier by the extended mandibles dripping colored droplets of venom. The creature hissed, spouting clouds of purple smoke from her armor's nasal slits.
"Did you think you could get rid of me so easily? Think again! I've bound myself to the Altar. By destroying me, you'll destroy the temple. How many of them will you have left then, one?" she laughed a spider's screechy laugh. "With the added beauty of ending up on the Drow's enemy list. Do you really need that?"
The Fallen One pursed his lips, then attempted to appeal to the ancient deity's reasoning, "Listen, Lloth. We're on the same side of the barricade, can't you see it? There're sixteen Gods of Light against three Dark ones! They'll be only too happy if we go at each other's throats!"
Her massive belly shook with laughter. "You stupid fool! You celestial maggot! You draw this imaginary line dividing the world into friend and foe. What you forget is that the world is too complex for such duality! You, I and the Gods of Light—we're all standing on our own sides of a triangle! I'm oversimplifying it, of course, to help your feeble mind grasp the nature of the problem. It would take you thousands of years to even begin to fathom the actual number of the world's realms."
The Fallen One shrugged, skeptical. "Very well. You may think what the hell you want. As long as you don't forget that your triangle balances on the First Temple's fragile foundations. I somehow don't think that the army of Light would bother to differentiate between the various shades of gray and their relationship to Darkness when it comes to blows. So for now," he shot one arm out, pointing at me, "let my priest go! Or I swear to you by all the power I possess, he'll be the last soul ever to enter the Halls of Gloom!"
Hissing, the Spider Queen jerked in indignation. She crouched on her four hind legs, indicating her readiness to fight. Strands of darkness thickened in the Fallen One's hands, forming a shield and the anthracite sword I'd already had the honor of meeting. For a moment the two locked each other's stares in a duel of silent resolve, both prepared to die rather than admit their defeat.
With a disappointed snort, Lloth eased up. Her helmet's visor plates opened, revealing a completely reconstituted female face. "Very well. As a favor. Just this once."
Whew. I breathed a sigh of relief, aborting my attempts to bury myself in the spider remains strewn over the floor. Was that it? Could I go now?
"I will only keep him for a hundred years. He hasn't earned an eternity in the shadow world... yet."
'xcuse me? Did she say a hundred? A week sounded about all my challenged psyche could take!
The Fallen One seemed to agree with me. "One year and not a second more."
One what? Was he serious or just faking it? How about having his balls jammed in a door just for one year? Or no, thank you very much!
I cast a desperate glance around. They'd already eyeballed my attempts to take cover in the spider heap. Then again, I had a funny feeling I somehow wouldn't be able to hide from them even if I'd buried myself a hundred feet underground.
In the meantime, the divine haggle was in full swing. "Forty, and not one day less! His soul is bound by ancient ritual! I'm his lawful owner!"
"Five days! The same ancient laws say that the soul of an allied priest can't be released to a third-party god!"
"Thirty! First time I hear about it!"
"Six! You need to get out more! Haven't you read the Eva Vulgaris amendment at the Ninth Summit of Higher Beings?"
His outrageous bluffing made me uncomfortable. The talks were taking a surreal turn. It was about time I took the whole matter into my capable hands.
I cleared my throat and raised my blood-stained hand like a good A-student. "I suggest a substitute."
"You what?" both turned their godly heads to me, annoyed by my intervention. Lloth wrinkled her forehead, staring in confusion at her talking plaything.
"I suggest a substitute," I repeated. "I myself was substituted for a certain Drow Prince, wasn't I? How about we do the same thing again?"
The spider's eyes glinted with interest. My suggestion allowed her to comply with the Fallen One and still save face. She smacked her lips and began talking up the prices,
"The substitute soul has to be equally special! You have a good dozen marks on you and a very interesting skill collection. It won't be easy to find another one of the same caliber!"
What did she think she was, a stamp collector? Well, I was no rare postmark! Having said that, I did posse
ss what could probably pass for a collector's piece... "I think I have something you might like. The soul of a Patriarch of Light, the man as powerful as he is influential in divine circles. Incidentally, I've got his mark on me too."
I sent my apologies to the old man—no matter how nasty he was, it probably didn't justify ending up in Lloth's hairy claws. Well, then he shouldn't have cursed me, should he? Not on his own life, anyway. What was it he'd said?
The Curse of the Sun God's Patriarch!
Daylight causes mana regeneration to drop 90%!
Duration: as long as the High God or the Patriarch are still alive.
Well, he'd been asking for it. It wasn't even the curse itself—the altar's mana flow could easily cover up for any amount of penalties,—it was the sheer cheek of it!
Lloth paused, considering my offer. A soul like that could generate an impressive mana flow—and of a shade so admittedly rare in these parts of the world. Also, it was a great chance to cut the Sun God down to size while syphoning off some of his enormous power.
"Not good enough. The proposed substitute is inferior. Still... I'm feeling in a merciful mood today."
A weak whimpering interrupted her speech. A barely conscious spider dug his way out of the heap of her entourage's remains and limped over to her, taking his place by her side. Two of his legs were gone, his face a thick dripping mess of saliva, venom and phosphorescent blood that ate right through the precious floor tiles.
"Shut up!" in one stroke of an adamant claw Lloth ripped through the crying creature's shell, finishing him off.
She flicked the blood from her paw, sending drops flying onto everyone present. "What was I saying?" she half-smiled, half-smirked. "Oh yes, I'm feeling merciful today. So I'm going to accept your substitute. I will let you go. On one condition," she smirked again.
I tensed. I had a bad feeling about this.
"The death ritual has bound your soul to the Halls of Gloom. You can't destroy the bond without destroying the soul affected."