Cat's Quest

by Roman Prokofiev

  I was there first. The scroll vanished in my hand, and Alex and I were enveloped by a half-translucent shimmering dome, shining pearly grey. Moments later, the flaming arrows, lightning bolts, and icy spheres of PROJECT’s raiders smashed against it, as they rained down all of their power on us. The Greater Shield of Shadows protected us from all types of physical and magical damage. I took a step forward, and the dome moved with me, knocking down a HELL fighter, who was trying to crush it with his warhammer.

  The icon that had appeared when the scroll was activated informed me that the Greater Shield would work for ten minutes or until ten million damage was absorbed. It seemed like an enormous number, but in less than a minute, the PROJECT’s raid had dealt almost a hundred thousand. I had to hurry!

  Once again, we saddled our mounts and moved forward, first slowly, and then growing in speed. The grey semi-sphere rolled down, scattering the HELL warriors blocking its path seemingly effortlessly. That said, pretty soon, they lost all interest in us, as Pandas descended on their formation from above, and everything mixed together in a furious battle.

  Fireballs flashed around us, leaving fiery trails, and Great Lightnings exploded, while Icy Needles showered everyone with freezing chunks. Everything rumbled, burned, and sparkled. Suddenly, half the sky was covered with a colossal shadow, and a giant globe of flame burst above with a thunderous booming—somebody had started using epic, if not legendary, spells. The players at the epicenter of the explosion were probably incinerated together with their birdies, and even the Steel Guard’s juggernaut seemed to change course in the wake of this retaliation, gaining altitude.

  We would never have survived the inferno. Our mounts carried us across the battlefield, through the blazing flame of Grand Fire and the fragments of the globe of flame falling down from the sky. Leaving trails of smoke behind them, they crashed into the ground, creating charred craters.

  The shield was fading at terrifying speed. Only a third of it remained, when we finally broke away and urged our horses into a gallop, rapidly losing stamina. We rode through the steppe toward the Order’s stronghold that seemed to grow in size with every second that we gained ground.

  The foothill eclipsed the sky. Dark red walls and bastions loomed just a short distance away, and all we had to do was traverse the three loops of the spiral road that coiled around the hill.

  An enemy without access to air carriers had little hope of taking the stronghold under siege and conquering it. The narrow, bumpy road—no more than three riders squeezed together could travel along it—that encircled the rocky outcrops was also within easy distance of the arrow-slits in the stronghold’s tall bastions. It was not hard to imagine the devastation that fire from these walls and towers would cause to any attacker. I turned my head, examining the inapproachable basalt fortification, and then turned back to look at to the battle that raged behind us.

  The higher we climbed, the grander the view from the top became. The Stormbringer, Pandorum’s flying ship, fired all cannons (or whatever it had) at the PROJECT’s maneuvering raid. Time and again, thin purple-azure rays connected it to the ground, causing a series of explosions. Fires blazed across the entire steppe, and the cover of smoke hid the minutiae of the battle from sight. PROJECT was not giving up easily, though. They released spectral many-winged monstrosities I had never seen before, and a giant shadow appeared on the ground among the tiny players, almost invisible in a cloud of smoke, slowly growing with each second. I noticed a familiar shape: spiked armor, horned helmet, green glow... Had one of the black priests summoned Dorten again?

  The black figure let out a bone-chilling scream—its echo even travelled as far as to reach us—and swung something resembling a huge deformed axe. A green lightning flashed above the field, linking the Steel Guard ship and the summoned God of Darkness with a pulsating thread. The juggernaut jolted with the hit, reluctantly straying off course, and the green necrotic energy poured all over it, enveloping the spectral dome that protected the astral ship.

  “It’s an incarnation, not the god himself!” AlexOrder yelled as we rode onward. “They won’t defeat the Pandas!”

  Visually, PROJECT was outmatched by Pandas. I could not tell their exact numbers, but even at first sight, it seemed Pandas numbers were several times higher, and they were definitely at least as well-equipped and as experienced as HELL. The outcome of the battle was inevitable.

  The cloud of dust carried by the wind completely concealed the battlefield, the engaged raids, the shifting giant god, and even the Steel Guard juggernaut. A white dot broke away from the black mess, glowing white, and flew toward us, growing in size.

  The Greater Shield of Shadows dissipated, its work done. Alex cursed, gesturing to me to speed up. We were already on the home stretch, and all we had to do was cross the long narrow stone bridge. Behind it loomed the welcoming breach of the stronghold’s open gates. Alas, Snowflake’s stamina was almost out, and the horse moved slowly, almost stumbling.

  We had already covered half the distance, when a white shadow flashed above us and landed ahead, right next to the gate. Stone fragments spattered everywhere, raising dust. When it dispersed, we saw who had caught up with us.

  No surprises there—it was Tao. The wings of his thick white cloak were folded behind his head, the flat side of his black blade resting on his shoulder. His long silver hair was fluttering in the wind, and his face was hard and unrelenting, the demonic pentagram in his right eye pulsating bright blue.

  “I know this is irrational,” he said softly, “but I can’t let you go. You’ve wounded my honor.”

  We dismounted without a word, and drew our weapons. Death in Sphere was never pleasant, but it was always better to die fighting and wielding a sword than unarmed.

  AlexOrder: I’ll try to stop him with runes. When stun is over, strike.

  AlexOrder: Don’t look him in the eyes, it’s Demon Sight.

  The gate was only ten steps away, but Tao blocked the path, a figure whose name in the combined kill rating was marked gold—he was one of the top 30 killers in Sphere. I wondered where the local guards were. Perhaps, they only reacted to aggression inside the fortress.

  Still, it didn’t matter anymore. AlexOrder leapt at Tao, threatening him with his sword, but it was no more than a feint designed to distract him, as a Rune of Chains jumped from the rune master’s hand, quickly followed by another. I attacked Tao straight on, hitting him as fast as I could, trying to confuse him with a series of bluffs, and to pierce his defense after the rune immobilized him.

  The helpless blue glow of both runes was snuffed out by Tao’s armor. It was as if the PROJECT leader did not even notice them. He easily blocked Alex’s attack, then met me with an instant Counter Parry.

  Not many players could use the ability correctly, even if it was available to novice swordsmen archetypes. The point was to activate it when the opponent was attacking in earnest, not feinting. Then, the swords clashed with each other, and the attacker with higher Strength pushed the other one back with a good chance of dazing them. It felt like I had just stabbed a granite wall, and all at once, Tao’s blade and face appeared very close to me. His demonic sword emanated a cosmic cold. I looked at the white knuckles on his hand, repeating to myself, not to look him in the face.

  With full force, the granite wall struck back. Aelmaris clinked pathetically, and I was knocked back a few feet, hitting the stone border of the bridge, legs up. I was also dazed; my head was buzzing, and my sight was blurred. Spitting out rock dust, I scrambled to my feet with great effort.

  At the edge of the bridge, where Alex had stood was an ice statue of a fencer preparing to strike. Right before my eyes, Tao hit it with his sword, breaking it into a million pieces, and then kicked the shards off the bridge. My friend’s icon in the group turned red. He was dead.

  “So, what now?” Tao chuckled. “Ready to die?”

  My sight was set beyond the PROJECT leader’s back. Aelmaris froze, prepared to strike. Trying to keep
it cool, I shouted cheerfully,

  “Oh, here comes the help!” Tao noticed my surprised look focused somewhere beyond his right shoulder and smiled.

  “You think I’m going to fall for that cheap trick?”

  He did not have time to say anything else. A blow knocked him off his feet, stamping his face into the dented stone tiles. Tao’s body dissipated in a pinch of grey dust and was immediately scattered by the wind. Smoke billowed from the charred pieces of equipment left at the site of his death.

  A figure in a crimson black cloak came out of the shadow of the gates and lowered his weapon, a double-bladed two-handed labrys, a poleaxe with two symmetrical round blades.

  “Follow me!” I heard muffled voice say from under the hood. Then the stranger turned around and headed back inside the gates of the Order’s stronghold. I followed him, fascinated with the vicious curves of his weapon’s blades, shaped like a butterfly’s wings, as they burned the same bright blue color, casting off the same silver sparks as the item I knew so well. The stranger wielded a weapon forged from star metal.

  * * *

  I lingered for a minute, collecting the items dropped by Tao and Alex. Looking at the loot left by the PROJECT leader, I almost choked with delight. I closed my eyes, then opened them again, but the icons in my inventory did not change. The time for celebration had not yet come.

  A long dark passage led through the wide gates. An arched corridor of the entry barbican was fitted in accordance with all the rules of medieval fortification: thick iron bars, ready to slip out of ceiling gaps; round funnels for pouring oil or tar on the heads of invaders; arrow-slits peppering the ancient walls with dozens of small holes.

  My guide’s back, covered in a dark red cloak with gold trimming, loomed ahead. He had not turned back once, confident that I followed on his heels. At the interior of the gates, guards stood watching—heavily armed armigers, unmounted. They were wearing armor and carrying shields, their capes decorated with three-leafed lilies.

  The guards did not move a muscle or turn their heads when I went through, trailing the stranger. He crossed the courtyard, his stride long, and started climbing the staircase that lead into the central citadel. I did not have any other option than to hurry after him.

  On my way, I saw stone corridors with ominous archways, passages and stairs, magic smokeless torches hanging on rough-hewn walls, with guards—armigers, militiamen, and knights—watching each entrance.

  At last, we reached high oak doors studded with lily-shaped rivets. The stranger opened them with a huge elaborate key and entered, waving for me to follow. Inside, he circled the room, lighting the torches and candles on the walls, as it would soon be dark outside. Magic fire blazed up almost immediately, illuminating a vast square hall with an arched ceiling and narrow arrowslits instead of windows, and stained glass decorated with intricate images. An impressively massive oak table stood in the center with chairs to match. A smaller locked door led to another adjoining room.

  The stranger went up to the fireplace in the corner and threw a few pieces of wood on it, then stoked up the fire. I sensed a pleasant heat emanating from its depths, and the hall gradually started to warm up.

  The man removed his hood and looked at me. He was tall and elderly, broad-shouldered and light-boned. He reminded me of engravings of Roman patricians I had once seen—the same dry aristocratic face with deep furrows, the same short grey curls above a tall forehead. With the piercing look of his lively, slightly narrowed, eyes, he resemble a bird of prey.

  Rayon, the Magister of the Order of the Lily on the Sword—with his hood off, I managed to learn something. So, this was the Magister who had sent me the letter, the one I had found on the body of a paladin in Eyre.

  “Sit down, what are you standing in the doorway for?” He grumbled, pointing at one of the chairs. “You want to ask me something, don’t you?”

  “Yes. You sent me a letter...” I handed him the quest scroll. At last, I could complete it.

  The magister unfolded the letter, re-read it, moving his lips, then carelessly threw the scroll into the fire. Hungry flames turned the paper to ash in a matter of seconds. The quest was indicated as completed, and I got twenty-five thousand XP. So that was it? What about information? About “varies”? Where were my goodies?

  “So...why not a sword?” I blurted out awkwardly, staring at his labrys. The two-bladed waraxe belonging to the Magister was forged out of star metal and looked like a brother—but not a twin—of my flaming sword. They had been created by the same craftsman and in the same forge, going by the material that officially did not exist in Sphere, the style, and the mithril lining of the cross-guard and the grip. I was quite sure that it was the second, or rather the first, weapon of the Seven discovered in the game, the event announced in global chat a few months ago.

  “Why does everyone think that all the seven weapons should be swords?” The NPC chuckled.

  “Do the Seven have different weapons to suit every hand? A sword, an axe, a bow...even throwing stars and a magic wand?”

  “Yes, and they have different properties.” He said with a nod, answering my silent question. “But that’s not what you wanted to ask, is it?”

  “So, you’re one of the Seven as well?” I asked, indicating the labrys with my eyes.

  “Yes. Just like you.”

  “Was it wise to kill Tao back on the bridge with that weapon? You exposed your axe...”

  “Should I have let him finish you?” Rayon smirked. “Calm down, I haven’t exposed anything. Look at the kill list.”

  Without thinking, I opened the kill list, the results of the battle against Tao. It showed three participants: Alex and me, who had dealt about 0.3% of the total damage, and the third character, who had dealt 97.7%. His name was displayed as strange symbols. His damage type, nickname, status, the rest of it—just question marks. I didn’t get it. Wait. Had an NPC just asked me to open the kill list? How was that possible?

  “So, are you happy, HotCat?” The Magister asked me. “Or should I say, Oleg Rashidov?”

  CHAPTER 30 THE MAGISTER

  He put two cups down on the table, then a heavy bronze pitcher, covered with steam. A thin stream of dark red, almost black, wine flowed into the glasses. The Magister raised one of them, watching my emotions with some curiosity.

  I was gobsmacked. The Magister was an NPC! He had spoken my real name, and he could have known it in one case only: he was part of Sphere’s administration, and not just an ordinary staff member, game master or customer support figure, but one of the high-ups, who had access to the secret stuff. Each player’s unique ID was stored in a data center, together with all their data and payment history. It was confidential information that admins were not allowed to distribute. The wine turned out to be cool and sharp. I was not a big fan of red wine, but I had never tasted such a bouquet.

  “Order Crimson,” said the Magister, pouring some more into the now empty cups. “It’s a copy of Chateau Lafite, vintage 1963. The fragrance is marvelous, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Are you an admin?”

  The Magister laughed. He was clearly a real person wearing an NPC skin, for some reason. But who was he, what did he want, and how was he connected to the weapons of the Seven and my quest?

  “An admin? Yes and no, my young friend.” He replied. “I used to be an admin, I suppose. My name is—or rather, was—Andrei Balabanov.”

  Balabanov, Balabanov... Then something clicked in my mind, and I remembered. that Balabanov was the legendary first developer of Sphere, a Nobel Prize winner. He and his team had crashed or, rather, gone missing in a flight accident a few months ago. The entire net was abuzz with the news at the time.

  “Balabanov? That’s impossible. You’re playing me. Balabanov died six months ago.”

  “That’s correct.” The NPC’s lips curled into a smile. “Balabanov died six months ago. Still, I am Andrei Balabanov. Tell me, Oleg, have you ever heard of the digitization of identity?�
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  Digitization. Finally, it became clear. Of course I had heard of it. With the invention of associative AI, it had become possible to create a “mold” of consciousness assumed by a machine. I did not know much about it, but in essence, an AI was programmed to have the same personality traits, behavioral patterns, and psychological profile of the original person, making it their electronic clone.

  I had seen this technology used in VR entertainment shows like “Talk to Napoleon”, “Stalin: AMA”, and so on. A few “digitized” AIs hosted popular TV shows. It was amusing enough. And the more information there was about the original person, the better the copy was.

  I had read that modern brain scanning methods facilitated the creation of almost 100% correct digital molds. Still, the technology was banned, and the scanners were controlled by government agencies. The official version was that during a brain activity study via special radiation, several subjects had died or gone insane, but hey... Also, digital immortality was opposed by the adherents of almost all the world’s religions; only digitizing the deceased was permitted. With just the psychological profile, and no brain activity mold, only a rough clone could be created, and it cost a pretty penny, too. Only millionaires could afford it.

  “I’m a complete, one-hundred percent digital copy made a few hours before that flight.” The Magister confirmed. Or was I to start calling him Andrei or Mr. Balabanov? “Using the best up-to-date equipment, too, so you’re basically talking to the real Balabanov.”

  “As you can see, I left a backdoor for myself in this world.” He continued. “For myself, and a few others.”

  “I don’t get it.” I confessed. “You’re Balabanov’s digital copy made by himself a few hours before his death. So why doesn’t anybody know about this?”

  “Why would they? Lots of unnecessary questions and no point,” the Magister replied. “I was quite content with the role of the Magister...until my body becomes alive on the outside.”