Clans War

by Mahanenko, Vasily

  Regimented!

  My heart skipped a beat with anxiety when I swiped aside all the projections that remained before my eyes, trying to bring my idea to fruition as quickly as possible.

  Who said that I first had to form the stones and then apply the images to them? Why not try to do everything in reverse? For instance, form a huge pool of virtual names, and then apply the image of the stone to it? I have no idea how to do this, but I liked the idea. I had to try it.

  Complications popped up right off the bat. The first question that I hadn’t an answer to was how to visualize the name? It’s a simple name, with no attributes regarding gender, class, appearance, race — a name that is associated with a player only due to the fact that’s it’s always hanging over their character’s head. How could I make the system understand that this player was closely entwined with another one, of whom I knew nothing but his or her name, even if that was a unique one in Barliona? And Barliona as a whole? Was there a chance that the names were only unique as far as the continent went? A good question. I’d need to work it through carefully. But something else was important at the moment — how?

  Hmm…Maybe, I’m posing the wrong question? Maybe instead of asking ‘how?’ I need to be asking ‘why?’ Why do people decide to be together? Why are people prepared to spend a week of their time in-game to be able to communicate with another person more intimately? Love? A pretty answer — perhaps even the correct one — but one that bore no relation to an item. For some people, love is being constantly beside each other. For others, it’s a minute-long meeting once a week or a fleeting glance of two passersby on the street who may never speak with one another — or even some common activity, common thoughts, common interests. The individuals who want the Pendant are incredibly different and it’s impossible to come up with some universal principle that ties each one with a concept of ‘love.’ In that case, we’ll return to the original question — is love really the matter here? Is it simply for love that the players want to be able to communicate telepathically? The chance to be closer to one another? The option of using a channel of communication that remains closed to everyone around them? The desire to share not only words but also emotions with the other person?

  Despite the fact that I was surrounded by design mode and Barliona, shivers ran along my body. Physiologically speaking, a game avatar doesn’t have something like ‘shivers,’ and yet no one had removed the nervous system of the real person — I suddenly realized what unites those who wanted the amulet! My first thought had been accurate — it was love after all — but that was also the tip of the iceberg. If I hadn’t had Anastaria, it would’ve been really difficult to reach this conclusion.

  The first batch of fifty orders was sent to the trash can. The bright glow of design mode no longer bothered me — I didn’t pay it any attention. If I was going to work, I’d work with the full list and nothing but the full list. What’s the difference whether one couple needs a Pendant or eighty-seven thousand couples? In its current formulation, the number of Pendants played absolutely no role.

  What mattered was something else — unity!

  We’ll take that as an axiom — that two people love each other. What does this mean? The manifestations of love, as I already understood, could be diverse. Even though Stacey loved me, before the Cataclysm, she did absolutely terrible things to me. But that was still love, as odd as that may seem. Why did she do this? Because she simply likes masochism? Yeah right! She did everything in order to protect me from an external threat. And she did it the best way she knew, but she did it. The question that follows is ‘why?’ but I already have an answer to it: because a person in love doesn’t feel whole without the other half. The very expression ‘second half’ suggests that only together does the new, single whole form. It’s referred to differently — a couple, a family, partners — but the gist of it doesn’t change. At a certain point in time, people who love each other feel like a single whole. Why ‘at a certain point in time?’ Because you can’t ignore the possibility that people might fall in love with someone else. Anything is possible, but this has no effect on the creative process.

  I need to split the Diamond into its parts, polish them, and combine them with the names…This approach could work too, but it’s not the right way to do it. I need to learn how to work with the names. I need to take any two names (as if reading my thoughts, the names of a couple appeared before me) and create a single union from them. Intertwine them in such a manner that only the High Priestess could untangle them and with her might tear the bonds between the players. They want to be together? Let them be together then!

  Without understanding myself how I did it, I associated Rosgard the Annoying with my right hand — and Cyree the Defender with my left. I brought my palms together, and intertwined my fingers, locking them. Forever and anon, I declare you a couple! The two names before my eyes clashed together, mixed, forming an indescribable mixture of letters and colors and formed a shining sphere. The Pendant for one couple was ready.

  Looking up at the list before me, I already knew what to do. Associate with the right, then with the left, form the lock, the mixture, the shining sphere and…

  “MAHAN!” Favaz’s hysterical shriek reached me even within design mode. “HOW MUCH MORE OF THIS?!”

  I guess I’d done something terrible, but I could look at what had happened because the ‘Paralysis’ debuff blocked this for the next 48 hours. At the same time I realized that I was lying on something cold and terribly uneven, as if someone had piled a bunch of stones on the ground and then dumped me onto them.

  “Shaman Mahan! You are under arrest for destroying the Jeweler’s workshop and sending 52 Free Citizens to the Gray Lands!” The gnome’s shrill outburst was joined by the menacing growl of the Anhurs City guard.

  “Stacey, I need help! ” I managed to think as the cold, iron collar clapped around my neck. They were about to escort me to jail in chains. “The guards got me, they’re taking me away…”

  Barliona jail is a fun place. On the one hand, I didn’t see a thing beyond the darkness — the ‘Paralysis’ debuff kept me blind. On the other hand, I’d been in here before as a Hunter, so I could imagine my surroundings just fine. Stone walls that blocked not only all chat communication and Mage summons, but even my telepathic link to Anastaria. A small window with a rusty grate that could somehow stand up to a battering ram. A wooden door that separated the player from the outside world. Everything as usual in other words and I was even grateful that the debuff kept me from beholding this dour place.

  No matter how hard I tried to bring it up, design mode didn’t work in jail. All I could do was sit there and wait for Stacey. If she paid my bail in a half hour, I’d leave the jail, exit the game and go dig around the forums to find out what the hell was going on.

  * * *

  “Come on out, Mahan!” Twenty minutes later the door slid aside. The guard regarded me grimly, scanned me up and down, and added with barely-disguised contempt: “You’ve made bail this time around, you murderer! Be grateful that our Empire has such lenient laws.”

  The two points of Attractiveness I had with this fellow suggested that the guard could barely keep himself from sending me to the Gray Lands. What’d I do to him? Had I killed an NPC with my accident? That couldn’t be the case — they’d never let me go to begin with. Anyone who killed an NPC within city limits was punished with the full weight of the law. All of Barliona was built on this principle. Although…What killing? The rules forbade it!

  “Criminal!” growled the guard, delivering me to the jail warden. Right then, my vision returned to me — the system informed me that Anastaria had dispelled my debuff. I found myself in a small office, with a grizzled NPC behind the desk. His black mustache appeared like a target against a white background. Stacey was standing a bit to the side, watching me with a wry expression. I knew this smirk — it didn’t bode anything good for me. It looked like I really had managed to cause some trouble.


  “How many times do I have to tell you, sergeant,” said the NPC warden wearily, “criminals stay in their cells. As soon as a sentient is set free, he or she ceases to be a criminal. You’re dismissed!”

  “Shaman Mahan,” the old man began as soon as the guard had left the room, “in the name of the Empire, I hereby offer my apologies for your detainment. We had no right to take you under guard. The Herald and Anastaria already explained everything to us. You may go now.”

  “I don’t understand a thing,” I muttered in surprise. “Why did you detain me then?”

  “You, my darling, managed to destroy the workshop. Again,” Stacey explained.

  “I destroyed it last time but there wasn’t a punishment!”

  “Last time you didn’t destroy 52 Free Citizens along with it.”

  “But killing other players is blocked. I couldn’t do anything physically! Barliona should’ve barred me from harming them!”

  “And yet you did it anyway. You have a PK marker on you. Or at least you had it when you entered the office. But there’s no penalty as such for your murders. It seems the Emperor himself didn’t understand how you managed to do it. They wanted to imprison you for something else.”

  “For destroying two squads of the Anhurs city guard,” the warden spoke up, entering our conversation. “By your hand, twelve worthy warriors were sent to the Gray Lands and only half of them bore the marks of death. Six recruits hadn’t yet earned their marks and now never will. This is what we wanted to punish you for.”

  “Two squads?” I whispered surprised. “But how?”

  “One of the recruits was the brother of my sergeant,” the warden went on, ignoring my question. “They grew up fatherless and their mother asked the older brother to look after the younger one. He was recruited into the Anhurs city guard, one of the safest possible stations to serve, and yet Shaman Mahan showed up and proved the opposite. You should be proud — your name has entered the annals of Anhurs city history.”

  “Stacey, what’s going on? What’s with the guilt trip?”

  “I think everyone’s just in shock. No player has ever managed to kill a guard before. Typically they collapse to the ground with 1 HP, but in your case, as always, the typical outcome didn’t happen. Send me your logs — I want to see what you were up to.”

  “Could I help in some way?” I asked the jail warden carefully, sending Stacey the logs of my Pendant crafting. The next time I begin combining them with the gems, I should first go somewhere far outside of any populated area.

  “With what? His widow shall receive gold. She’ll never know hardship again, but that won’t bring back her son. You, the Free Citizens, only know how to do one thing — kill. Those who bear the mark of death cannot understand the grief of a mother who has lost her son.”

  “Stacey, here’s a global question for you that stuns me with its novelty — is there heaven or hell in Barliona? A place where dead NPCs go? The Gray Lands are only for the players, aren’t they?”

  “Erm…Every god has a different set-up. This guard was probably a follower of Eluna, so after dying he should enter Erebus. It’s a place of non-being — where the souls mix and dissolve into one another, ceasing to be individual entities.”

  “Is the transition instant? Do the souls immediately dissolve, or does it happen over a period of time?”

  “Please don’t tell me that you’re thinking of going after the guards, Dan. It’s not possible.”

  “An amazing woman once told me: ‘There are no impossible things. There are only the fetters of your consciousness that forbid you from doing what you wish to do.”

  “I never said anything of the kind!”

  “Who said anything about you? I was talking about my mother…When are we going to attempt the Tomb?”

  “We’re starting tomorrow.”

  “So I have an entire day. Excellent!”

  I sighed deeply, gathering my strength and then blurted out:

  “The death of your sergeant’s younger brother is my fault. I won’t ask for forgiveness, I won’t act like nothing happened, and I won’t promise the impossible. I can only tell you one thing — I will do everything in my power to bring him and the other guards from Erebus. I give you my word as a Shaman!”

  Stacey shook her head as if deciding which mental clinic she had best check me into, but as she did so the following notification appeared before me:

  Quest available: ‘Who will guard the guards themselves?’ Description: Bring back the Anhurs guards from Erebus…Time limit for completing the quest: 24 hours. Quest type: “I knew you’d choose this option!” ~James. Reward/Penalty: Variable.

  Chapter Three. Erebus

  “Mahan and Anastaria!” Elizabeth said in a surprisingly cold voice as soon as we appeared before her. The completed quest allowed us to avoid a long waiting line and we were ushered directly into the office of the High Priestess of Eluna immediately. “To what do I owe the honor of beholding the Harbinger and the Paladin General?”

  Reward received: +2000 to Reputation with the Priests of Eluna, +1000 to Reputation with Goddess Eluna.

  “Your highness,” Stacey and I said at the same time as soon as the reward notification appeared before us. We bowed at the same time too as if we’d been practicing all this for a long while, exchanged surprised glances and burst out laughing.

  “I can see that the time you’ve been spending together has done you good,” Elsa remarked in the same chilly tone of voice, ignoring our happiness. The astonishing thing was that I’d never encountered such a frosty attitude from Elizabeth before. I was really trying to stop laughing, but nothing was helping — the pressure of having been imprisoned earlier was now channeling into my laughing fit.

  “High Priestess we have come to see you on business,” Anastaria was the first to get a grip on herself and, sighing several times to dispel her laughing fit, addressed Elizabeth. “We’ve completed the first part of your assignment and proved that our family is a strong one.”

  “So strong that you interrupted your studies with my priestesses and ran off to pull Mahan out of jail?” Elizabeth raised an eyebrow eloquently. “A couple hours were so critical for you that you decided to disregard my gifts?”

  “Dan, we’ve got to get out of here immediately! My Attractiveness with her has fallen to 50 points already. There’s something off about her ,” Anastaria’s urgent thought flashed through my mind.

  “Elizabeth, it’s my fault that…” I began, but the High Priestess cut me off:

  “Of course it’s yours, who’d even argue that point,” Elizabeth turned to face me. I noticed with astonishment that my 100 points of Attractiveness with her (which I had always been quite proud of) had dwindled to 70. This was still a pretty hefty number for an average player, but for me it was entirely unacceptable. My laughter quit me in a flash. What happened?! “What upsets me the most, is the instability around you. If there are any problems, then there’s always a high probability that Shaman Mahan is right in the middle of them.”

  “High Priestess,” I continued stubbornly, despite Anastaria’s best attempts to pull me out of the office. “We have lived through many trials, both good and bad. We’ve watched each other’s backs and saved one another again and again, so please explain to me what has caused your displeasure…”

  “Explain?” An expression of false surprise appeared on the NPC’s face. “Why are you so suddenly interested in explanations? Especially those of others and not your own? Isn’t your motto: ‘Onward and only onward!’ Without ever looking back?”

  “It seems like you’ve confused me with someone,” I parried. Anastaria failed to budge me from where I stood, so she muttered something but remained standing beside me. “During the duration of our acquaintance, I haven’t once done anything without good reason. No one can accuse me of that.”

  “Oh really? Literally two hours ago, a Shaman sent six future guards to their eternal rest. They were young, inexperienced, untrained! Of course this
was done completely consciously and with full awareness of your impunity. Good work, Mahan! You barely even noticed it! And you’re going to tell me that you can always justify your actions?”

  “That’s exactly why I’m here,” I began to explain, but Elsa interrupted me again:

  “You’re betting on my kindness and understanding? You wish to escape your deserved punishment? That shall not be…”

  “Why, I couldn’t give a damn about my punishment or who metes it out!” No one thought I knew how to yell. Most of all myself. Elsa went quiet with a look of surprise on her face, allowing me to go on: “I’m prepared to suffer any punishment right this instant! But before you make any decision, tell me how I can enter Erebus!”

  Elizabeth collapsed in her chair, as if her legs had failed her, and a deep silence descended on the office.

  “You cannot bring back the dead, Shaman,” Eluna’s melancholy voice let me know that a new visitor had appeared in the Priestess’s office. “Even a mourning mother, like Elizabeth here, cannot allow that to pass.”

  “WHAT?!” Stacey and I blurted out at the same time and began to turn our heads from Eluna to Elizabeth and back in stunned amazement. Elizabeth was the mourning mother? Something had happened with Clouter?

  “Avtondil hadn’t yet received the mark of death,” Eluna went on, as Elizabeth stared grimly at the empty sheet on her table. “He was so eager to be of service to the Empire that he signed up to be an assistant guard. The explosion, which you accidentally caused, happened precisely as Avtondil’s squad was passing alongside the workshop. Six dead. Six young and inexperienced subjects of the Empire. And among their number, the son of my High Priestess. There is nothing I can do, Mahan. Just like you.”

  “I have twenty-four hours to bring them back,” I said stubbornly. Eluna’s authority in these matters weighed on me with the weight of a stone slab, forcing me to reject this venture, flee to some remote corner of Barliona, delete my Shaman and generally forget what a capsule even looked like. If the goddess says that it’s impossible to bring back the dead, then there’s no sense in getting myself into this. However, the quest entry in my quest list forced me to go against one of the most powerful creatures in Barliona and, clenching my fists, insist on my position. Clouter had to be returned to this world and the quest suggested that he could be too.