“War!” Alex dropped the bomb. “The Lady’s gathering her armies!” That was something new. The entire House of Darkness was gathering here!
PROJECT made their presence known around the Weeping Devil, their castle. Several birdies were following our ship, keeping a respectable distance. That made me rather nervous; we were in full view of the castle crystal. They couldn’t attack us outright due to the agreement, but they were quite capable of pointing us out to someone else. That said, a battle frigate was no trifling matter; one could easily choke on it. Still, we quickly disembarked and entered the dungeon.
The reddish light of the well between the layers, the colossal spiral staircase winding down along its wall—nothing had changed since our previous visit. Even the fractured shadows cast by torchlight still flickered grotesquely on the stone. After sending out scouts, we descended in a battle formation. Only one thing was different: thirty bearded, broad-shouldered dwarves marching in the center, tools bundled on their backs.
Right on the staircase, we stumbled into our first random encounter: a small site Abbot nicknamed the Stone Garden. It was quite harmless by the standards of Endless Paths, a dozen ten-foot-tall animated stone statues. Our mages put them down almost immediately, strewing the floor with shards of rock. I didn’t even examine the loot: some Hearts of Greord, Glowing Crystals, and other rubbish. Sphere had a lot of items, and all of them were used for something, such as complex crafting chains, rituals, and spells. One could spend years studying the game without learning one-hundredth of its aspects—that’s how big it was.
In the meantime, we reached the bottom of the well and entered the triangular corridor leading to the Crossroads. So far, everything went smoothly, and I was even happy with such luck. Still, the further developments showed that in Helt Akor, you always had to be on your guard. Any moment, it could show its true face to you, and that’s what happened to us.
Strung out in a line, our raid almost finished pulling into the colossal space of the Crossroads with only the rear guard still in the tunnels when Courier exploded with messages from our scouts.
Abel: Check! Signals, lots of them! They’re getting closer!
Inker: They’re fast! I don’t get where they’re coming from!
Abbot: Analyze, quickly! Who are they?
We didn’t need to reply, as the Crossroads came to life, forming an egg-shaped “elevator.” However, it wasn’t empty; I could make out a crowd of some creatures through the furiously spinning arches. Who were those people capable of traveling via the Crossroads?
The spinning slowed down, and we finally saw our guests.
Komtur: Shit! Abbot, I’m the RL! Equip PVP sets if you can!
Chapter 6
THEY WERE PLAYERS—players and pawns, a ragtag team from several clans with the same alliance tag. Through the elevator’s open cells, we saw a closed ring of shields, bristling with spears, steel helmets sparkling above. Most of our opponents were unusually tall.
Olaf: HIRD!
I had heard about that alliance. They were considered the largest Russian-speaking community in Sphere and united lots of clans under their wing. Most of them were farmers and carebears, but they did have a PVP wing capable of assembling a thousand hardcore players if the situation called for that. We were neutral to each other, as our interests didn’t intersect; Hird didn’t have any holdings in Dorsa.
Nobody offered to go his way in peace. A neutral encountered in a dungeon was an enemy. Kill or be killed!
Komtur: Cast Cloud of Darkness on them! Mages, AOE, AOE in the center! The others, target anyone who runs out! Tanks, intercept!
We had an advantage: we had been waiting for them and had the time to regroup, while the Hirdmen were crowded together, as the egg-shaped elevator of the Ancients had only two exit points. They were immediately shrouded in a blob of ink-black darkness and showered with Grand Fire, Rain of Ice, and Great Lightning. Blinded, the Hird raiders found themselves in the midst of hell broke loose. The first person who left the Cloud of Darkness stumbled and rolled down, caught in throwing nets and promptly studded with arrows. The ones who followed met the same fate. The Watchers one-shot all targets, not letting them get closer.
Komtur: Take ‘em, take ‘em, take ‘em! Get to work! Don’t forget to finish them off!
Nobody noticed when everything changed. Our mages yelled in Courier like cats in heat.
I’m not doing any damage! It’s useless!
They’re under a shield! Purify them!
Komtur: Dispel, dispel, dispel! More damage!
Olaf: Nothing’s working!
I was standing next to our support group when a wave of enemies bathed in a bluish glow burst out of the fading Cloud of Darkness. One of them, a stocky dwarf in splint mail armor, suddenly appeared next to us. Deftly dodging the nets and knocking back Tooth with his square shield, he ran into the crowd of buffers. Our arrows simply bounced back from his armor, and a Stream of Fire shot point-blank splashed around him, not dealing any damage. What devilry was that? I rushed to intercept him, but a sharp blow out of nowhere hurled me aside, pinning me to the wall.
Stun! Daze! I woke up on all fours, shaking my head in confusion. Half of my health was gone; I was giddy, and my vision was swimming. What had they used on me? Swirling Fist? Advanced Telekinesis? A five-second debuff was grimly counting down, and the interface informed me about an injury and reduced mobility. Blurred silhouettes kept darting around me, and when one of them got close enough, he finished me off with a casual stab. I felt a sharp pain, and the screen turned red with a nasty message.
You are dying! 60 seconds left till final death! 59…58…57…
What could I do? Only send a “-” to the raid chat and wait for help while holding out hope for the Soul Forge Gem.
Komtur: Assist! Heal! Nobody should die! You hear me? Nobody! Use Antimagic Sphere!
Abbot: It doesn’t help! This crap can’t be dispelled!
Olaf: Aura! This is a supreme protection aura!
Olaf: They’ve summoned an avatar of Throgg!
A translucent blue silhouette towered above the Hird raid, a giant zwerg clad in intricate armor, a warhammer raised above his head. Blue coals of eyes glowed through his elaborate visor. The figure grew in size, and the light coming from it enveloped all warriors of Hird. It made them invincible—neither spell nor steel rained on them by the Watchers could deal more than a hit point of damage. I had already seen something like that. The enemy raid counted a True Priest among them. These guys were capable of very dangerous magic, summoning a projection of their deity via a special ritual. It was just an avatar, of course, not the deity himself, only his reflection, but it could still do a lot.
Komtur: Healers, keep up!
31…30…29…
Damian raises you with Resurrection! Your HP: 1/780.
I was raised and almost died again, barely managing to dodge a charging enemy and reflexively jumping to the Shadow Plane.
The scales of battle wavered and froze. The Hirdmen stopped dying, but Watchers started to: several icons in the raid faded at once. The growing divine avatar crashed its spectral hammer against the ground, and the blinding flash made the floor shake as a short-range Earthquake knocked all of us down. The Watchers and Hird clashed against each other, transforming the battle into a chaotic free-for-all where the one left standing would win. But the enemies had a huge advantage—the invincibility granted by the divine aura. The avatar of Throgg started raising its hammer once again, and I saw arrows and spears go through the incorporeal projection, not dealing it any damage. I had no idea how to fight this thing or how to beat it.
“Throgg! Throgg! Throgg!” the Hirdmen cried out in a frenzy.
The hilt of Aelmaris found my hand. That chance encounter threatened my entire operation. A loss was unacceptable! I pointed my blade at the enemy, preparing to fire a Bolid after emerging from the Shadow, and then lowered it. Too dangerous. I was too close to the elevator, and True Fire was mercil
ess, destroying everything in its path. It could easily damage the artifact mechanisms of the Crossroads.
Komtur: Kill! Kill the [censored] of these [censored], or we won’t make it! Damage it, everyone! Abel, Inker, Fanboy—try it!
Olaf: We can’t do it while it’s invincible. We need to interrupt the ritual!
Abel: Got it! Mark the priest. MARK HIM, I SAID! Or link the nickname!
Olaf: Mark up. Oh, this is Dar, our old friend!
The next second, I saw a new player appear in the Shadow Plane. I recognized Abel only by his small stature and dual daggers—that’s how quickly he moved. Those were the moves of a true master! The hobbit burst into the thick of battle and emerged from the Shadow right behind the warriors of Hird, hiding behind their bodies so nobody could see him. I managed to notice him leaping like a tiger and dealing a furious blow accompanied by the howling of the Hirdmen.
Throgg’s spectral projection flickered and disappeared. I lost sight of the hobbit in the midst of our enemies, and his icon went dark. Still, he had fulfilled his mission, and the blue glow of invincibility wasn’t protecting the Hird anymore.
Komtur: Gotcha! Kill the supports, guys! Summon the pawns! Melees, stop running around like headless chickens! Interrupt the targets, [censored]! Healers, step back, max range. The others, assist me. Mark’s up on the first target. Mark’s up on the second target. Work, [censored]!
Truly, raid leaders were something else. How could Komtur see anything in that complete chaos of battle, not to mention carry out maneuvers? However, it worked: our raid began working together like clockwork, quickly taking down enemy players. Hird, on the other hand, had lost one of their commanders and started coming apart, one player dying after another. I used the opportunity to exit the Shadow, heal myself with potions, and take my place in the battle formation. Apparently, I wouldn’t need the Bolide.
A few minutes later, more than half of the Hirdmen were down. After losing their healers, our enemies finally gave out, and soon, we finished off the last of them. Without their invincibility and supports, they turned out to be easy prey. As they fell, most of them typed “GF” into the chat, congratulating us for the victory.
Komtur: Great job. Great job, everyone! That was a beautiful win! And now, loot!
The best part of winning a battle was looting the fallen enemies. The clan leader immediately warned us that all dropped epics and above had to be offered to their former wielders for buyback—such was the code of honor. Of course, it only applied to fair fights. The unwritten rule of Sphere: nobody was immune to death; one day, you were bound to get looted as well.
Olaf: They’re packed with loot. Great luck; we might as well go back.
Komtur: Indeed. They’re sending me Good Fights via PM. Offering to buy everything back.
Olaf: Say yes. No need to sour our relations with Hird.
Komtur: They’re also asking not to tell everyone about the elevator.
Olaf: Now, that’s an interesting topic. Add me to the chat.
* * *
In Sphere, all items and buildings had durability and could be destroyed in one way or another. I was afraid that multiple spells used during the battle might have damaged the Crossroads’ mechanisms, but fortunately, everything was still working. The Ancients had done a bang-up job with their construction, or maybe the Crossroads were indestructible in the first place. In any event, the egg-shaped elevator appeared as soon as I put my hand against the call button.
“Sin-da” was the code of the Crossroads we needed. The icons flashed blue like elevator buttons, preparing to send us to the mysterious depths of Helt Akor. The bearded Jordi swore under their breath, holding each other—I had preemptively cast Mass Blind on them. That said, they had seen the arrival of the Hird, anyway...
As Olaf glanced at the miners, he asked me in a low voice, “I still don’t understand—why do you need them? How are you going to get ellurite out of here? It’s not like you can carry it in your inventory. We don’t know any designations of other Crossroads. We can’t even return here!”
“What if we make a wild guess?” I asked.
“More than five hundred icons. Can you imagine how many combinations there are? On top of that, my theory’s that the number of icons depends on how many threads connect the Crossroads. There are two exits to the Crossroads where we’re headed, and the cipher has two icons. Coincidence? I think not.”
“What about the Layers? The third, the seventh?” I replied, confused.
“You shouldn’t think about Helt Akor as a classic dungeon going deeper,” Olaf said, shaking his head. “It’s more akin to a three-dimensional web that runs through the whole of Sphere, where Crossroads are the intersections of threads. They are stable, but the picture around them is constantly shifting. Do you understand me?”
“Nope,” I confessed. I did have my own plans for shipping ellurite out. I remembered a certain someone saying if I helped him, he would help me in turn. That was his own promise.
“In short, there are hundreds of thousands of options,” Olaf concluded. “We can try brute-forcing it, but really, there’s no telling where we might end up. It would be nice if the Crossroads we find is empty. But what if we fall into a trap like Hird today?”
He chuckled. We had looted a lot from Hird. Battles like that were always sweet—as long as you were the winner, naturally.
Just as expected, the cavern didn’t change. The collapsed Ziggurate was surrounded by a lake of ellurite, and pointed spires of the Temple of Shadows loomed in the distance. There was one difference, however—the cave was infested with poisonous ellurite slimes slithering across the bottom of the lake.
While the Watchers gathered loot, searched the Ziggurate, and cleared the cavern from the slimes, the Jordi set up camp, getting ready for a long stay. They would have to spend more than a few weeks there. Some were already using their pickaxes to test the nearest boulders and edric stalagmites. They seemed content, going by the tone of their non-stop swearing. Djarvi came up to me.
“There’s lots of other good stuff on top of ellurite and edra,” he informed me. “Greord, malachite, maybe even silverite, judging by the presence of mornlode crystals. Can we mine them too?”
“As long as it doesn’t hurt your main job. We’ll split the profits fifty-fifty. Transportation at your expense.”
“You bet!” Djarvi nodded, satisfied.
“How curious.” I heard a familiar voice coming from behind me. When I looked there, I saw nobody, even with my Shadow Sight. Where was that midget hiding? How did he manage to sneak up on me every single time?
I sharply turned 180 degrees and finally caught the snickering Abel with my eyes. The Watchers’ HR was playing with me, skillfully staying out of my sight. What a trickster!
“How are you doing it?” I asked.
“I’ll show you if you tell me about your archetype. Are you a servitor or a priest of Tormis?”
“I’m not sure myself,” I replied evasively.
“Show me your profile; I’ll have a look.”
Hmm. The profile was basically a virtual ID card of my character with all of his stats, abilities, SP count, and gear. Usually, it was used by the clan leaders when evaluating candidates for joining. Sending a full profile basically meant disclosing all data about your character, including your inventory, storage, financial transactions, and personal messages. Thankfully, you could pick and choose what to show by unchecking various sections. After fiddling with it for a bit, I sent Abel a stripped-down profile with only my attributes and archetype abilities.
“Wow, a proxy? Shadow Listener? That’s really cool, HotCat! I’m a Master Thief. My abilities are very different, and you got the perception and control branch. It kinda resembles Shadowmaster but not quite. How long can you stay in the Shadow?”
So what was the Shadow Plane? As I read the forums, I had tried to figure it out, but no such luck. Apparently, the world consisted of three dimensions: the Material Plane, the Shadow Plane
, and the Plane of Dreams. Shadow was considered to be a reflection of the Material Plane, a “lining” of sorts. It was a two-dimensional space saturated with various shades of grey. Those who entered the Shadow using special spells, abilities, and items could move much faster, covering great distances and reaching hidden, inaccessible places. They could also see its quasi-alive inhabitants, shadows, and speak their weird tongue, Shadowspeak. Access to Shadow Plane was unlocked via epic archetypes, legendary items, and rare rituals; it was unavailable to ordinary players and gave a huge, almost unfair, advantage. Libra, the Plane of Dreams, was even more complicated; I decided not to bother. I wasn’t sure why developers needed gameplay elements of such complexity.
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