“Hey, boss,” Nega tilted her head and waved at me. “Party time?”
Ripta shrieked out a greeting and Anf chirruped something that sounded like ‘dratuti/
“I heard you got kidnapped,” Flaygray added. “Glad to see you well. Show us the crazy people that took you.”
My heart warmed as soon as I saw the guards, especially Sharkon’s huge body. He was already starting to tunnel his way into the stone out of habit, and just as easily as into sand. I knew that every second counted, that Eileen was probably already on the phone. The whole Alliance would be here soon. All the same, I couldn’t help myself. I descended, hugged the stunned satyr, carefully stroked the insectoid’s chitinous plates without cutting myself, then shook the raptor’s clawed forearm. The succubus was blown away by my sudden attack of tenderness. I hugged her impressive curves last.
I quickly shared my plan with the guards, received unanimous approval, then pointed at the lock and ordered:
“Sharkon, little buddy—dig!”
My ‘little buddy’ aimed his diamond-drill body at a forty-five degree angle and shot into the stone, leaving the smoothly polished walls of a spacious tunnel behind him. Before I rushed forward, I glanced at the faces of the nearest guards up on the wall, focused and saw their surprise.
I was wrong in my guess that the forcefield dome was really a dome and not a sphere that fully surrounded the castle even underground. Even a select raid group of top players would have needed more than a single hour to break it down. But it was a rank-three shield, designed to take damage from players beneath level four hundred. I was at five hundred and sixty-four. All the guardians, including Sharkon, were above level seven hundred. It took the diamond worm only a few seconds of drilling against the magical shelter for the defensive sphere to break apart with the sound of ringing glass.
Once through the obstacle, the monster changed his drilling angle. The tunnel began to rise, and soon Sharkon burst through to the surface, roaring within the fortress walls. We ran out next, covering each other, right into a hail of enemy fire. I activated Spirit Shackles to keep anyone who died from reviving in the clan graveyard.
The dark elves and vampires, minotaurs and werewolves, trolls and ores held back their panic. In a clan at this level, castle defense was honed to a science. Everyone knew what to do.
But they weren’t ready for this. They focused their attention on the gigantic terrestrial shark-armadillo, which meant that too few reacted to the satyr, who ran out of the tunnel first after Sharkon. By the time I got out, Flavgray was starting to cover the whole area in hellflame. In mere moments, the castle defenders melted away as they tried to form defensive ranks.
Nega lashed the soldiers at the front with her whip and took control of one of the enemy mages at the rear. She made her subject release a mass spell, hitting his comrades from behind.
In a feat of stunning acrobatics, Anf and Ripta made it up to the castle wall and started sweeping away ranks of Widowmakers so smoothly that I could only shake my head in amazement. I wasn’t even needed. I could barely see through the smoke and fire, so I took off into the air, flew toward the castle entrance.
My heart filled with satisfaction when I saw the Widowmakers’ confidence and calm collapse. More and more chaotic movements, panicked screams and cries of pain. I caught plenty of hits, but my health hadn’t fallen by even a single percent yet— Diamond Skin of Justice had activated.
Only in the air did I remember my pets, who were now at my level. I summoned Iggv the swamp needier and Storm the dragoness, and together we rushed to help the raptor and insectoid clear the castle walls—I needed to stock up on my supply of Serendipity and level up Reaper’s Scythes. I didn’t count on getting much experience. I was at least a hundred and sixty levels above the castle defenders.
A shimmering semitransparent circle moved along the earth before me, showing the effect of Spirit Shackles: the ephemeral shadows of the fallen were pulled into a barely visible black dot in the center of the circle. My inventory was constantly taking in new items. My logs reported thousands of Serendipity points coming in with each kill.
“Watch out, boss!” Nega shouted from below, pointing out the danger.
A stone pillar covered in gleaming runes was growing right beneath me, tongues of flame running along its length. They rose in circles from the foot to the tip, where they melded together into a growing fireball.
Innoruuk’s Burning Pillar of Hatred, castle of the Widowmakers, level 395
Divine defensive structure.
I dashed away from the defensive artifact, but pillars just like it began to break through all over, surrounding Sharkon and the guardians.
“Sharkon, smash!” Flavgray shouted, pointing at the nearest pillar.
In that same instant, the charged artifacts shot out strings of blinding white plasma, hitting all of us. The health of all the guardians except Sharkon fell into the red zone. And the pillars began to charge up again.
Diamond Skin took the damage that hit me. It was in the last few seconds of its timer, and it was a chance to attack the nearest Innoruuk’s Burning Pillar ofHati’ed before Immortality had to activate.
The guardians followed, attacking the closest pillars to them, knowing that if they weren’t quick enough, they would die forever. Sharkon opened his mouth and span his drill head stubbornly, trying to break open another pillar.
My fists shrouded in Reaper’s Scythes fired off a full Combo series mixed with Stunning Kicks until the pillar’s light died before it could fire off its plasma beams. The guardians also managed to neutralize their own, and the rest were too far away to hit them.
I took off and counted nine more Innoruuk’s Burning Pillars of Hati’ed. And they were all charged. Castle defenders were clustered beneath each of them, pressed against each other.
The battle paused for a few seconds. The guardians were waiting for my command, Sharkon covering them from enemy fire. A tall elf girl with a familiar snow-white braid on her shoulder separated from a group of Widowmakers. Eileen.
“I want to talk, Scyth!” she shouted loudly.
“We could have talked yesterday,” I muttered, soaring away behind her.
“A hundred million if you leave the castle and go!” Eileen screamed. “Right now! And fifty more as compensation for the kidnapping!”
“Agree, boss!” I heard Nega shout from below, apparently unaware of the chain of command.
She shouted something else, but two explosions in a row— Plague-Fury on the Burning Pillars and Sleeping Vindication to kill the players,—drowned out both the succubus’ advice and Eileen’s voice.
The white flash uprooted the columns and carried them over the castle walls, obliterating them in flight. The invisible lash of the Sleepers whipped the preventers into a bloody dust without hitting my minions.
They roared in ecstasy and raced after me to finish off the survivors.
A few minutes later, I floated above the castle, seeing who was left. Storm and Iggy were patrolling the perimeter of the clan graveyard, killing anyone who avoided Spirit Shackles and managed to respawn there.
The castle with its grounds was several times the size of our fort. I flew around a while, cleaning up the hunters turned hunted. I spotted some merchant rows, a little market square, a small but imposing temple to Nergal, a farm, storehouses… The Widowmakers castle was like a small town, home not only to players, but NPCs as well, laying down their lives for the defense. It felt a shame to kill them, but there was no way around it—the NPCs aggressed on their own, and they were furious. I raised the dead and sent them to patrol the streets. Worst case, they’d die and strengthen the guardians and Sharkon.
My supply of Serendipity exceeded eight hundred thousand out of the million I needed. Reaper’s Scythes had reached level six. I whittled the defenders down to mercenaries, NPC guards and the Widowmakers themselves. It seemed Eileen couldn’t publicly admit that I’d escaped, and didn’t ask for help when we showed her
we intended to attack. Why hadn’t she gone to the Children of Kratos for help? Was she too proud to admit to weakness?
My surveillance flight ended before I could figure it out. No one remained alive as far as I could see. The graveyard stopped emitting Storm’s roars, Iggv’s rattles and the pained screams of players.
Burning with petty vengeance, I sent Sharkon to destroy Nergal’s temple, then took the guardians and walked into the castle. Although ‘walked’ isn’t quite the word—first we had to break down the massive adamantite entrance doors, reinforced with a mass of defensive spells.
“Let me, boss,” Nega said, moving me aside.
The succubus cracked her whip, sending golden sparks all down its length. The charges flowed into the door, spread across its surface and… The doors opened.
“Any time,” Nega said, curtsying.
Not long ago, with just this kind of event in mind, I’d asked Gyula to show me where the control crystal is housed in castles of various levels. Any castle grew from a fort, which had the control crystal in the headquarters. Our headquarters was in a separate, but in the ‘castle’ level structure, it was at the heart.
If the Widowmakers’ fortress was built with a typical design, the path to the control crystal would start at the clan leaders room and pass through a narrow and hazardous tunnel filled with traps, defensive artifacts and, possibly, golem guardians. Nobody had achieved rank four in artifactology or golem construction, which meant the golems here were level three hundred and ninety-nine at the most. We should have no problem with them. But the traps… Destroying Plague Immortality wouldn’t stop me from falling into an abyss or getting sent to some astral plane.
We wandered the corridors, finishing off hiding Widowmakers as we went. With my silent consent, the satyr and succubus looted the preventer clan from top to bottom, not sparing even the paintings. The system showed them as common rarity, but Nega explained: “Items of art. Only experts can tell us their true value.”
“It’s like with Elvish wine, boss,” Flaygray added. “It all tastes awful, but different types have different costs.”
I doubted that Eileen had hung any particularly expensive exhibits in the freely accessible corridors, but I didn’t argue with the succubus. Now that she’d died and lost hope of negotiating, Eileen was most likely calling in reinforcements.
The castle wasn’t typical. Only thanks to my heightened Perception did I notice a door in one of the walls. We didn’t check it right away, but once we hit a dead end, we turned back to the hidden door.
There were no visible locks on it, but Flaygray the old burglar and treasure hunter put his experience to use. Taking a generous swallow of some kind of orcish hooch from a clay jug grabbed from a wine stall, he felt out the keyhole, dug around in it with a long black fingernail, made something click inside. A crack appeared in the wall of marble slabs and expanded into a small passageway. And chittered, Ripta translated, Flaygray retranslated: “The bug won’t fit. He’ll stay here to guard the entrance. The raptor will stay with him.
The three of us continued on. Flaygray took the lead. Suddenly, he froze. Nega walked into the satyr’s back and I walked into her curves.
“Not now, boss!” she whispered flirtatiously, turning around.
“Quiet!” The satyr cocked his head, listening. A sound ahead like the rustling of thousands of feet. “Get back!”
I didn’t ask questions, just turned and ran. Flaygray was no man… uhm, was no satyr to sow unnecessary panic. Once we reached the entrance, I couldn’t help but glance back to see who we were running from.
All the corridors surfaces had come alive, transforming into a writhing mass of thousands of blue spiders—small and lightning-fast.
Once sure that Nega and I had escaped, Flaygray turned, fired his most powerful skill at the spiders— Hellflame. All the air in the corridor lit on fire instantly and a gust of wind whipped into the secret passage, throwing me onto Nega, who purred happily. Anf was thrown into the corridor and got stuck in the entryway, breaking a couple of limbs. Ripta, with the best reaction speed, withstood the danger by digging his claws into the floor.
The satyr pushed Anf out and stood before us, his arms proudly crossed, covered in soot, his face black and two cunning eyes shining out.
“Frigid Spideriings” he said. “I’ve seen them before. One bite and you’re frozen, doesn’t matter what you are. They were popular in guard systems in my day. The master returns home to find the frozen corpses of robbers—wonderful! No blood, no body to carry away—just hit them with a hammer, job done! I remember one time…”
“Time presses, Flay,” I cut the satyr off. “Come on.”
Five elementals guarded the control crystal room alongside just as many golems—nine-foot-tall warriors cast from adamantite in the image of the titans. The elementals took no physical damage and magic didn’t affect the golems. On top of all that, sharp spikes dripping with poison extended from the walls, which began to close in, turning the room into a gigantic press.
At the same time, one by one, the icons of my pets were covered with a skull, and suddenly, as if someone one-shot them. Reinforcements must have arrived from the Children of Kratos, I decided, hoping that nobody else would show up. We couldn’t teleport out of the castle because of the block. All I could do was forge ahead and capture it. Sharkon was still alive, and I hoped they’d decided not to tty and take him on.
I put down the golems and the satyr and succubus handled the elementals. It was an unfamiliar feeling, killing top-level mobs with one or two hits, and that was before I’d even invested the two hundred or so extra stat points I had! The huge number of new adepts helped too, of course—kobolds, troggs, Morena’s cultists. Although the bonuses from them were distributed randomly, they were still fairly proportional across my stats.
One last door remained. Flaygray fiddled with the lock, shook his head, muttered something about Azmodan’s cock and walked away. The walls hit the adamantite corpses of the fallen golems, sticking and moving with the screech of metal on the floor.
Nega took the floor. She closed her eyes, touched her temples. Invisible streams of mind magic flowed into the door and appeared in the shape of a symbol—a vertical line with sharpened ends.
“The Isaz rune.” Nega opened her eyes. “That’s why you couldn’t pick the lock, Flay.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, looking between them anxiously. Was that footsteps in the corridor, or did I imagine it?
“Time is frozen in the door’s structure. I will erase the rune. Flay, be ready. It will recover quickly. You’ll have to be fast.”
The satyr was fast. His high-level lockpicking skills were a surprise to me. I have to admit, I doubt I would have made any progress without him. I wouldn’t have even gotten to the lock before the preventers arrived.
The door flew open and there, at the center of a small room, the blue crystal shone. It didn’t look at all like a headquarters. Just a cell with a generator.
I placed a hand on the crystal, feeling its warmth flow over me. It pulsated, flooding my bones and making my teeth vibrate unpleasantly.
Howling Winds Plateau Castle Control Panel
Owner: clan Widowmakers.
Begin castle capture?
I confirmed. A bar appeared in the air before me and began to slowly fill with red. The percentage at its center slowly grew: i%… 2%…
“Get Ripta and Anf here,” I ordered Flaygray.
The satyr rushed to fetch them. Whoever had come to help Eileen, I wouldn’t let them kill my guardians. The main thing was to capture the castle. The game mechanics would do the rest; throw out all the outsiders and encapsulate the castle grounds for an hour, rewarding the capturer with looting rights.
Judging by the claps, bangs and cries, there was a battle underway in the castle, and a fierce one. My guardians weren’t having an easy time. Their health hadn’t yet recovered, and the preventers, knowing who they would be fighting against, had come armed
to the teeth. With divine artifacts, that was certain. Anf, already injured and barely moving on his broken limbs, survived only thanks to Nega. The succubus took control of Vivian just when she was about to activate an artifact, and hit Joshua in the back through her. I didn’t see any of that, but I studied the logs, saw ten million damage. More than enough to send the leader of the Children of Kratos, already barely alive after Anf s deadly venomous spiderweb, to the graveyard. Joshua’s spirit didn’t fly far; it got caught in Spirit Shackles.
I ground my teeth as I saw what was happening to Sharkon. Judging by his blinking red icon, the most powerful weapon of the Awoken was living out his final moments, and the damage dealt to him was from… Modus fighters? Where the hell did they come from?
The guardians took advantage of the enemy’s confusion to run, and Flaygray even managed to shut the door to the secret corridor tight behind him. When my friends appeared behind me, the castle was nearly captured.
An invisible horn sounded out a long tribute, declaring the change in ownership. The Widowmakers flags hanging on the walls flashed up and burned away into ash, the banners of the Awoken unfurling in their place—dark green, with a golden hippopotamus snout, a symbol that we’d never changed since the clan was registered.
The hour began. After confirming that Sharkon had survived and was still within the castle grounds, I dug through my packed inventory and found a gold coin bearing the emblem of the Goblin League. I rubbed it, tossed it up from my thumb… and Grokuszuid’s coin stopped, hanging in the air. This was the first time I’d contacted my auctioneer this way, so I watched what happened open-mouthed.
Grokuszuid’s head appeared opposite me, looked around from side to side curiously, nodded.
“Mr. Scyth! I see you have escaped from the unpleasant circumstances, for which we were partly to blame, not only with honor, but with profit. I dare say that the High Council would be willing to compensate you generously for our negligence.”
“Hello, Mr. Grokuszuid. We’ll discuss that in another time and place. Right now I want to offer you a castle that used to belong to…”
Holy War Page 25