Holy War

by Sugralinov Daniel

  Path of Desolation unlocked yet another new bar— Hatred points. When it filled up, I transformed into a real Hulk—absolutely all my stats, including my health and mana, my base damage, defense parameters, dodge, critical damage, movement speed—all of it was multiplied by ten. Not right away, of course, but only when the Path was complete. The ability lasted exactly ten seconds.

  The growing numbers in my profile offered me some entertainment, but they were useless in battle. I was still far lower in level than even the smallest fish.

  No matter how badly I wanted to save time, sometimes I couldn’t help but take a break from farming and do something else. Cooking, for example. I even managed to invent lots of new recipes, although unfortunately, none of them could help me farm more shards. Only one seemed useful— Burning Reaper Chili Deviled Sea Soup. I wandered into the Burning Reaper Chilis in the northwest part of the island when I noticed some shapeless smoldering flower buds. They grew on a strangely perfectly round meadow. The flowers turned out to be chili peppers, and soup made with them turned ‘hellish/ And it changed the dish’s effect too; instead of +20% movement speed, it tripled the duration of buffs. Shame I hadn’t found this pepper sooner; it made my fanning three times faster because I could stand in the water with invulnerability for over ten minutes.

  By the end of month two, I’d collected a third of the shards I needed and gained nine levels of Resilience. I had to level up Stealth again, since Beta had managed to steal it from me, but it didn’t take much time.

  My ninth path was the Path of Sacrifice, useless for me because I had no friends with me. I’d completed the Paths of Justice, Reflection, Equanimity, Stubbornness, Life, Torment, Desolation and, finally, the Path of Sacrifice. When that happened, a tenth Path unlocked, and even from the description I could tell it was the last rank of Resilience.

  After the first reading, it seemed like some kind of bug that must have emerged in the beta. In contrast to all the others I’d already received, the last Path was nonsense.

  Path of the Absolute

  Resistance to all damage types increased by o%.

  Not counting the zero instead of one, it repeated the first description of Resilience that I saw after unlocking it in the Crypt of the Temple of Nergal the Radiant. Shaking my head, I closed the window and went back to grinding shards.

  The Path leveled up extremely slowly. After a few days of uninterrupted farming, I was still at rank one. When I got to rank two, nothing changed in the skill description. Still zero percent resistance. I decided it had to be a development bug, and forgot about it.

  I only figured it out when I got the Path up to level ten: Resistance to all damage types increased by 1%. Along with the ninety percent I already had, I d gained a pathetic additional percent. But…

  After a month of constant self-torture, that would grow to completely cap out my Resilience, increasing my damage resistance to ninety-nine percent—practically complete invulnerability independent of the Sleepers or the Destroying Plague.

  Soon I reached the limit of farming on Kharinza—I had over half a million shards, blit my level was over sixty-five thousand, and shards were no longer dropping. As it turned out, the game mechanics only let them drop when the mob was stronger. I could deliberately drop my level with a couple of death penalties, but two things stopped me: not wanting to lose progress, and the dumb mechanics themselves, which based the shard drops not on my current level, but on the maximum I d reached. Figuring that out cost me around twenty thousand levels. So that was why it was so hard for the beta testers to farm shards.

  For a while, I found suitable mobs by swimming away from the shore—local variations of sharks and octopuses, monstrous creations that had morphed and mutated many times. In the depths I met truly nightmarish monsters, and I didn’t just get grabbed many times, but also killed. Yes, killed, in spite of my rank-ten Resilience, and sometimes I couldn’t escape to shore even with the speed boost from Path of Time. Soon it became clear: I had exhausted the island. I was losing levels and not gaining shards.

  I had to move on.

  Hundreds of islands were spread around Kharinza, if not thousands. Big, medium, little and tiny.

  The ocean teemed with massive hungry fauna, so reaching any of the islands was problematic. Swimming, which I had to level up fresh, was at rank two. That meant I could breathe underwater and swim at the pace of a run, but even then, I couldn’t reach another island. After all my invulnerability effects dropped, it took those sharks just one bite to send me back to the respawn point. The problem was that while one chewed on me, the others just hovered around nearby and took no damage from Reflection.

  After a series of deaths, just as I was beginning to despair, I finally made it to the nearest island. It turned out to be tiny and lifeless, but not far at all from other islands.

  One of the islands was far larger than Kharinza, and home to life. There were not only mobs there, but even a small tribe of reptiloids—not raptors like our Ripta, or snake-people like the Naga, but with bodies almost human. Scales covered them, and their heads were like from a turtle or komodo dragon. The system called them Iizardfolk.’

  In battle, the Iizardfolk inflated their fatty collar of skin and spat out something disgusting, aiming for the eyes. Their average level was beneath a hundred and fifty thousand, but that was more than enough for me. More shards fell from them.

  I missed communication so much that I tried to talk to them many times, but the wild people aggressed as soon as they saw me. Although they wielded stone axes, spears and primitive slingshots, their damage measured in the trillions. The important thing was to aggro the entire tribe at once, so they killed themselves while my invulnerability was active.

  I spent a few days genociding their entire population. Thankfully, they respawned fast. They dropped poor loot, but in the hut of the tribe chieftain, I found a legendary helmet, Helm of the Summoner Father. It wasn’t suitable for me, because it said clearly in the description ’Only for shamans.’ But it did have interesting properties. On activation, the helmet summoned Ghost Snakes, which can’t be killed. Breaking the chain, they disappeared on their own. I decided I’d give the find to Ryg’har, the kobold shaman, if I could get it out of here.

  Actually, I had a fun and interesting time of it, then. There were all kinds of curious and whimsical wild snakes, birds, monkeys, tigers, rhinoceroses. Altered by the magical mutations of the beta version, of course. The winged black-green tigers had long segmented tails, with freezing spines at their tips. A far cry from an ordinary tiger. And the rhinoceroses walked on their hind legs. I decided after a couple of tests to leave those alone; their stats were insane, their defenses powerful, and fighting them took a long time and caused me too much pain for too few shards.

  By a lake in the center of the island, I met Crystal Turtles— now there was another struggle. The turtles were tough, and they reflected damage just like I did. And even the reflected damage flew back like a boomerang! The trouble was that this back-and-forth only went on for two hits, and in the end I took the damage—and that’s how I died, with my mouth open in surprise. I didn’t bother the turtles again.

  I also happened upon an instance.

  A dungeon hidden within the undergrowth. I only found it thanks to my increased perception. First I decided that the glimmering spot in the bushes was a sunbeam, but then I remembered that the sun had no such effect here.

  The instance was home to sentient arachnids starting at level two hundred thousand. I could already imagine how fast I’d level up there. Holy Nether.

  The first cave teemed with Phase Spiders, which were too strong for me. One of the beasts dragged me into a pocket dimension and left me there to ferment. The dimension turned out to be a small strip within a cliff face whose entire surface stirred and seeped acid. There was nobody to reflect the damage back to, and I died slowly. I was digested. Theoretically, I could have broken the gleaming red crystal, a glass ball in the center of the ground—a L
ock that closed off the dimension and prevented it from unfolding—but I was a long way to that level. It had too much durability. As I died, I vowed to come back here with my friends in normal Dis and burn this arachnid lair to the ground.

  Over the next few weeks, I leaped up past level hundred thousand, my shard total was at eight hundred thousand, I’d found more ruins of the Departed, leveled up Stealth, invented a dozen dishes from local game… All was well, and I was confidently moving toward my goal. But then Nine found me.

  She appeared when I believed that I’d be knocked out of the Nether very soon. She got lucky. With my enhanced perception, I saw a tiny dot against a cloud. I paid no attention. But subconsciously, I tensed—the oddity kept scratching at my brain, and at the very height of my battle with a tribe of reptiloids, I realized that the dot was no dot. She’d seen me too, and begun to quickly descend.

  With my increased speed from Path of Time, I ran as fast as I could into the cave where the tribe lived and, running by frightened females and hatchings, I jumped down into an abyss. I fell thirty yards, but never hit the bottom—Depths Teleportation finished casting.

  And I was on Kharinza again.

  I had to be veiy careful for the next few days. My shard farming rate slowed, but I couldn’t let her catch me. I didn’t know if my Depths Teleportation scroll would work in Nine’s castle. It was certainly possible that her castle shield suppressed not only abilities, but scrolls too.

  During one of my raids to the reptiloid island, emergency exit activated and I was thrown out of Dis.

  * * *

  I woke up in full darkness on the floor of my capsule. The back of my head throbbed, I felt blood pulsing in my temples, causing ever sharper stabs of pain. At first I didn’t feel my body, but then I tried to get up, fell down and felt pain—real, not virtual. Millions of needles pierced all across my skin like a hellish sewing machine from head to toe.

  Lying and waiting for my pulse to return to normal and the bloody circles in my eyes to disappear, I finally heard the voice from the capsule:

  “Attention! Life-support cartridge reserves exhausted… Attention! Detected excessively high heart rate! Attention! Subject dehydrated! Attention…

  The indicators on the control panel showed o% for each cartridge: hydrosalts, nutrient mix and medical. They’d run out after twelve hours? I’d replaced them all for new ones the day before, and they should have lasted more than a week… I could only surmise that the stress on the brain was so great in the beta world that the body needed more energy… but five hundred times more? It didn’t make sense. I’d spent a year in the Nether the first time, and this time less… Although back then I’d spent most of my time in the meditative silence of limbo, whereas this time I’d been active. Maybe that was it.

  I quite literally crawled on my arms to the kitchen. My jelly legs dragged along the floor. I didn’t have the strength to bend them and move faster. Surprisingly, even in this condition the thought flashed up: It’s a good thing my parents are on the Moon and don’t have to see this.

  I spent the next few minutes choking down water and orange juice. Next I tossed back a chocolate bar, three bananas and some synthetic milk. I spent another quarter of an hour healing with the Home Doctor. I was starting to feel better. I brought up the latest Dis news on the holoscreen and… froze.

  The Alliance was streaming the start of the battle against Shazz’s undead army, and Mogwai, who sounded exhausted, stood alongside Criterror and Dek. They were finishing off the last sliver of durability on Tiamat’s temple!

  The lich could handle himself without me. My presence would kill one of us, probably me. It would be silly to risk my Threat status a second time by appearing near him and the preventers. But the temple had to survive!

  My comm was full of missed calls and messages from my friends—they were all worried about me and spoke of the coming battle with rising alarm. Only Karina calmly asked about my plans after school… School! I’d missed my lessons while I was unconscious in the capsule… Damn, damn, damn!

  Ed suspected that I got stuck in the Nether again. As it turned out, the boys came straight form their final lessons and flew to see me. The last message from them wasn’t long ago at all, so I contacted them and heard as I walked: “How are you? Are you okay, Alex? What should we do?” My friends alarmed voices spoke all at once.

  “I’m far from okay, but I think I found a way to get us out of this,” I answered. “Fly home, I need you all in Dis.”

  “Will you make it in time? The fight’s already started!”

  “I have to. See you there!”

  I had no time to safely switch off the Home Doctor. I pulled the needle connectors out and ran into my room. I quickly replaced the empty cartridges and climbed into my capsule.

  Back into the Nether…

  Synchronizing…

  Scyth ran along in combat with mobs hanging off him, and the minimap showed this was happening on the reptiloids’ island. In the several months of my absence—when I was l>ing in my capsule unconscious and then bringing myself round,—my alter ego had had a very hard time.

  Nine finally came to the conclusion that Scyth was hiding on the archipelago’s islands, and got Three and Twelve involved in the search. All Scyth could do was farm shards right beneath their noses, leaving with Depths Teleportation to any other island at the last second. All the betas that pursued him could fly, but not fast enough to beat instant jumps from island to island.

  Once, sensing that he was being watched on every island, Scyth jumped to Tristad and ran from there to the Mire. That provided a good boost of shards but in the end the mire beasts killed him, and he revived on Kharinza again. And Nine w^as waiting for him there.

  Scyth was immobilized, taken to the castle and his tortures renewed. Nine dropped his level, but not beneath one thousand, so he still had all his ranks of Resilience.

  The divine Treasure Hunter’s Bag successfully protected my property, and not only from dropping after death, but also from the Theft that Three attempted. So Scyth kept everything made by Inscription, although it took an entire month before he was left alone for a minute to escape using his Depths Teleportation scroll.

  Three days later, he fell into the frying pan again. Scyth’s consciousness melded into mine and I took control of the character. I needed less than a thousand more Smoldering Nether Shards to make a rift!

  Hesitating a moment, I stopped, looked back, then started running again.

  A lizardfolk shaman blocked my path. He magically raised up a rotting log overgrown with sparkling mist and smoking mushrooms and launched it at me, shouting:

  “Sh-sh-sh-shakh!”

  Flashing with scarlet light, the log flew toward me at high speed. I deflected it with Hammerfist and it crashed into the chest of a massive reptiloid warrior, exploding in a shower of rotting wnod. The warrior flew back, crashing an imprint into the cliff and slowly sliding down it, leaving a bloody trail. My enemies’ speed was so slow that when I ran past the warrior, he was still sliding onto the ground.

  Once I got inside the reptiloid cave, I ran down the familiar route to the long drop, thinking as I ran. Where to jump to? The Mire, or Kharinza? I decided the island might be under observation by the beta testers—Scythes memory told me that this time Nine had gotten everyone involved in the search.

  The choice fell on the Mire. I could get the last shards I needed there.

  Finding myself on the pathetic spit of dry land where I once met the little puddle of protoplasm that was a Sleeping God, I looked at the sky first of all. It shone clear. I could get to fanning.

  “You’re very competent,” a voice said behind my back. “The scroll was clever. Nine is still kicking herself for not burning your scrolls.”

  My eyes lowered and I saw Three floating a yard above the swamp. Shining threads extended from his arms above his head, wreathing through the air, encircling the space around our little island of dry land and forming a dome of an unknown nature�
��opaque, flexible, impenetrable. Nine’s friend raised a hand, clenched his fist and released black needle-like beams from it. As they hit the top of the dome, they broke down into soot, sticking to the surface from within.

  My legs bowed under the weight of my inventory’ bag full of loot, and debuff notifications suddenly hit me. All my abilities turned inactive at once—that hateful and so familiar trio of buffs from Nine’s castle were applied once more: Pacified, Amnesia, Enchained. An hour-long teleport block joined them.

  I was half a step from my goal and I got caught again! Baring my teeth, I gathered my strength to resist, but it was already clear that Three would give me no chance. All was lost!

  From my calculations, five minutes in real life was around forty hours here, but if Nine caught me again, she could create a prison from which I would never escape.

  Alright, I decided. I have to do everything in my power. But if I can’t get out in the next two or three dags, there’ll be no point in hurrying.

  Then I just spoke to Three as if we were old friends meeting at… uhm… at a bar, let’s say. What was it Uncle Nick used to say? Show genuine interest in what people say to you. My interest couldn’t possibly have been more genuine.

  “Hev, Three,” I said as calmly as I could. “I didn’t know you could burn scrolls in another player’s inventory. How?”

  “A trick of dimensional magic,” he answered happily. “Not something Nine has ever been into, but she’s never needed to be. She just has so many abilities that she doesn’t always make effective use of them all. There are other options. For example, forcing you to pick up an item with a special enchantment.” Three descended to the ground and sat, patting the space next to him. “Where I’m from, they say there’s no truth on legs. Sit down, Scyth. There’s no hurry. Let’s have a talk.”