Holy War

by Sugralinov Daniel

  “You’ll get used to it, Rita,” I promised. “Or Overweight? Which do you prefer?”

  “Take a look,” the girl smiled.

  I stopped looking her in the eyes and let my gaze drop, looking her up and down—practically an identical copy of her real self, with a few cosmetic improvements. Of course, that’s how I recognized her… Oh, that’s what it was! Overweight wasn’t Overweight anymore!

  Irita, human, level 18 Merchant

  Hmm. We hadn’t taken her into the clan after all. Tissa had promised to do that, but maybe she hadn’t found the time… or didn’t want to.

  “You changed your nick?”

  “Yep. It wasn’t right anymore. I don’t have any extra weight, on the contrary, my weight’s just right.” Her tanned face lit up with a gleaming smile. “Rita, Irita, call me what you like. Are you going to show me around? Oh, by the way, here are the artifacts and your change. I feel kinda scared walking around with all this. Responsibility, you know.”

  Irita it was, then.

  I took the identified artifacts and quickly looked them over.

  Ehis’ Inspiration

  Divine artifact.

  Unique item.

  Ebis, God of Fishing, is always with you. You always get a bite!

  Chance of loss after death lowered by 100%.

  Isis’ Blessing

  Divine artifact.

  Unique item.

  Isis, the old goddess of fertility, placed a particle of her being into this ancient artifact.

  For a day, cr’eates perfect weather within a 50 yard radius. All life within the artifact’s area of effect grows three times as fast.

  Cooldown: 7 days.

  Chance of loss after death lowered by 100%.

  Elemental Concentration

  Divine ring.

  Unique item.

  The bearer of this ring gains +50% immunity to magic of fire, water, earth, air and electricity.

  Chance of loss after death lowered by 100%.

  Durability: indestructible.

  Thunderbearer

  Divine scalable trident.

  Unique item.

  Damage: 2256-4512.

  A weapon of the Old God of Thunder, Zeus. Holds an enormous supply of energy that can summon lightning to strike down enemies once per day (can only be used outdoors).

  On activation, summons a lightning bolt that deals 10,000,000 damage to the target.

  Cooldown: 24 hours.

  Chance of loss after death lowered by 100%.

  Durability: indestructible.

  “The trident multiplies the damage by your level with a multiplier of four to eight,” Irita rattled off quickly in her saleswoman voice. “The ring with immunity to elemental magic is dope. Similar legendaries rarely give resists to all elements, and even then, their numbers are far lower. The fishing artifact only seems like a trinket. Pro fishermen would sell their souls for it! As for Isis’ Blessing… I already have an idea for how to use that…”

  “Create fanning spots in extreme zones?” I voiced the first thought that came into my head as I held Isis’ Blessing, a worn and rough-hewm throne about a foot tall, cut from stone.

  “Well… something like that,” Irita shook her shoulders. “But it doesn’t matter to you, you’re undead, you don’t care about the weather. It would be amazing for normal players though. Anyway, you’re forgetting the artifact’s other effect—faster growth. Gardeners, farmers, professional pet tamers… I think we can start the bidding at ten…”

  “No, Rita, the artifact is staying with us. Thanks!”

  “There’s something else, Alex. It’s my fault for bringing you and Goosebumps together. She might cause problems.”

  “What?”

  “Karina has her own channel. She put up a video of you and her… well… together, and said she was your girlfriend…”

  “Was?”

  “Right. Like, she broke it off when she found out you were the Threat. She made out like she was sorry she didn’t identify you right away. Like you turned out to be an arrogant idiot blinded by your fame and all that type of thing.”

  Seemed like blondie Goosebumps had decided to have her cake and eat it; get famous and stay safe… Nether!

  “Not many people saw the video,” Irita said, putting a hand on my shoulder gently. “I noticed as soon as she put it up, my comm notified me, we’re friends after all… well, we were. I made her delete it all, and she doesn’t have many subscribers.”

  “How did you convince her?”

  “Secret,” she blushed. “Anyway, I think it’s all fixed, but if you plan to keep talking to her…”

  “I explained everything to her! I told her how dangerous it was to say that we even knew each other! I don’t understand people at all… Are you sure not many people saw it? Understand, I’m worried about her, not myself!”

  “Five people, all from our circle of friends. I explained to the guys how stupid Karina was and why they should keep quiet too. You’re welcome, Alex!”

  “Damn, sorry. Thank you! By the way… Accept this invite and… welcome to the Awoken, Irita! May the Sleeping Gods never wake!”

  “And may their sleep be eternal,” I heard from all sides.

  “Huh? What? One sec…” She raised a hand, opened her fist. Her eyes gleamed. “Unity… Is awesome! I can imagine how high your stats must be!”

  “Almost two thousand adepts, and that’s not the limit. Anyway, 111 leave you in Crawler’s capable hands…” I’d seen that Ed and Malik had logged on, which meant their capsules had arrived and Yoshi had configured access. “Find him. You and he will need to go through the legendary gear and put some stuff up for auction.”

  The girl nodded. “Alright.”

  “Oh, and we need to sort through the reagents we looted. Whole piles of them… and sell the culinary dishes I made. Not too many just yet. Investigate the demand first. Same deal with Hero’s Heart; Crawler disenchanted fifty legendaries, but decide for yourselves whether to sell the ingredient or not. And it wouldn’t hurt to find out whether it’s worth working with the cartography guild; I have maps of unexplored lands.

  “Sounds tempting. A whole new league!” Irita smiled. “I’ll get right to it!”

  “Great. Thanks! I’m relying on you. By the way, give this to Hung. He’s our only fisherman.” I returned Ebis’ Inspiration. “And now excuse me, I have to go. Every second counts…”

  I hugged Irita, kissed her on the cheek and left her looking around in awe outside the tavern. She stood surrounded by friendly yapping kobolds, growiing troggs and fierce ogres, trolls, ores, minotaurs and members of the other dark races. I thought I even saw a vampire cultist among them. I didn’t interfere with the fresh-from-the-sandbox girl as she met the fort’s residents. Rita was a sharp girl. She’d figure it out.

  Behemoth awaited me. His quest was delayed, although Tiamat’s temple had been built two weeks ago now. The quest didn’t count at first because the first temple was destroyed, and the quest giver himself, Behemoth, was floating in plague essence in the Nucleus’ lair. Then Patrick and I flew out for more adepts at Stone Rib, because all the faith was going to Tiamat, and the god couldn’t recover. We took on the troggs, but I got stuck in the Nether, and in that time, Mogwai and his companions almost destroyed the second temple. Now, finally, there was a moment of fragile balance: both temples were whole, and we had enough adepts for the Sleeping Gods to gain strength.

  “Hey, Scyth!”

  I turned in annoyance. Patrick emerged from the pig and whistle, dressed smart.

  “A moment, if you please!”

  “I have no time at all, Mr. O’Grady!”

  “Just a word, I won’t keep you long.”

  Patrick approached me with surprising confidence, upright and with the brave stride of an old soldier. Clear eyes, no smell of whiskey on his breath. Something was badly wrong. Snow would soon start falling in the jungle of Kharinza, at this rate.

  “Has the tavern run out
of alcohol?”

  “I don’t think so,” Patrick asked in surprise, glancing back at the door of the drinking establishment. “Listen, kid, you’re the big boss now, although you’re rotting away! Are you headed there?” He nodded at the temple. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Alex.”

  “Wait, what?”

  How did he know my name? NPCs never paid any attention to players’ conversations about real life. As if they had a filter in their ears.

  Patrick extended a hand. I answered likewise, stunned, and mentally gave the system a command to start recording.

  “Pleased to meet you, kid.” The handshake was firm. “I remembered after all. The Sleeping God cleansed my memory of the imprinted recollections—the false memories. A side effect was that my alcoholism is gone. As it turns out, that disgusting habit came from outside too. The future mage Jane was never in my life. I never fought the Swarm and never served in the Commonwealth army… But I lost both my legs in the Third World War. Back there, on Earth. On the real Earth, you understand? Back there, I had a bride called Jane. With my own hands I…”

  A tear rolled down Patrick’s cheek.

  “So Snowstorm transferred your consciousness into Dis?” I asked. Behemoth’s gaze burned my back. The Sleeping God was hurrying me, but I couldn’t just leave. “How?”

  “Yes,” Patrick confirmed. “As for the how, better ask them. I remember growing up in Brooklyn, fighting in North China. After sendee, I planned to join the Mars colonists, but I met Jane… I don’t belong to this world, Alex, but since life has given me a second chance and steady legs… Dumb to drink that away, right?” He laughed bitterly. “I say that so you that you know who you’re dealing with.”

  “Uhm… Patrick O’Gradv, veteran of World War III?”

  “No, I mean him.” Patrick looked at Behemoth’s figure, frozen outside the temple. “He isn’t some virtual game god. The Sleeping God is something more. Go, he’s waiting.”

  I ran the fifty’ yards to the temple, reading the conditions of Patrick’s quest, altered, but still there:

  Become a Man

  Patrick O’Grady, First Priest of the Sleeping Gods, fell in love with Stephanie Katon, landlady of the Pig and Whistle tavern, on the island of Kharinza. Help him ‘become a man’ again, returning his former reputation and authority in the community, so that he can win Stephanie’s heart.

  Rewards:

  — 2 million experience points — your reputation with Patrick O’Grady will increase by 500 The quest progress bars hadn’t gone anywhere either, showing in numbers exactly what Patrick had to strove for to ‘become a man’:

  Alcoholism

  Days without alcohol: 1/21.

  Appearance Charisma: 4/15.

  Physical stats

  Strength: 10/45. Agility: 8/35. Endurance: 9/35. Perception

  12/30.

  Reputation

  Stephanie Katon: 11/2000 (ambivalence).

  Thanks to all our followers of the Sleeping Gods, Patrick, as First Priest, had exceeded the required stats long ago, but apparently only his own attributes counted here.

  How could I help him? For the most part, it depended on him. All I could do was… Yeah, that was it. Overload him with work. The clan could use a supply manager available around the clock in Dis. His combat skills from the real world could come in handy too. We just had to level him up.

  Behemoth met me at the threshold to the temple. The Sleeper’s avatar wasn’t particularly nightmarish or large—a humanoid figure with the head of a hippopotamus and armor that emitted smoke. He nodded, disappeared through the doors. I ran after. An invisible dome covered the temple, fully cutting us off from the world.

  “Greetings, Initial. Make yourself comfortable.”

  A table and two comfy-looking chairs materialized between us. A crystalline jug of transparent liquid appeared in Behemoth’s hand. He poured it into a single glass.

  “Ambrosia of the Sleepers. You will be the first mortal in ten thousand years who has earned the honor of chinking it.”

  After carefully accepting the ambrosia from the god’s hands, I took a swallow. The drink vaguely reminded me of the one that Fortune gave me. The only way I could describe it is to say that it was the tastiest water in the world—crystal clean, and somehow unbelievably nice without any kind of taste…

  Ambrosia of the Sleepers.

  You drank of divinity and absorbed a particle of the true flesh of the Sleeping Gods. From now on, they will always be with you, and if it is their will, they will appear in your darkest hour.

  “The ambrosia’s effect is pretty ambiguous,” I said. “You could have warned me, Sleeper.”

  “The effect is clear!” Behemoth’s voice boomed to the rafters. “Now we will always be near, and if it does not violate the balance and harmony of the universe, then we will help. To business, Initial! Make your report.”

  Knowing the Sleeper, I just laid everything out to him, although he was already informed on some of it. From the events of the Nether and the restoration of Tiamat’s temple, to the fight in the desert, the death off Shazz and my recent battle against the legates. I fleetingly mentioned Irita joining the clan and Patrick’s news, so that my report was complete. It took a long time to tell it all. The Sleeping God listened carefully, asked questions about the Nether and the place’s strange nature. He asked less about the Destroying Plague and about what the Nucleus had become. He must have already done his own research in his time in the creature’s lair.

  “Eleven hours until the Supreme Legate revives?” Behemoth asked. “That is enough time for Tiamat to remove the undead curse from you and your friends. She can take shape here, but better you visit her yourself. She has more power in her own temple. In addition, Tiamat has gained enough strength to reward you generously for your efforts to erect her temple.”

  “Do I have to bring everyone with the curse to her? I told you what happened to our builders. In the other world, the one we come from, some died. Others are still alive… They can’t come to Disgardium while they’re undead, Sleeping God!”

  “They will have to risk it. Tiamat must see them all to remove the curse.”

  “Alright.”

  “At your request, I have developed a weave of silence,” Behemoth said, moving onto the next subject. “All those who have become followers of the Sleeping Gods will keep their mouths shut if the subject of us is raised. Even if enemies influence their minds directly, they will not be able to extract knowledge of where the temples are and how things are going in your clan. Torture won’t work either. The weave has been placed on all previous and current adepts, and will be applied to all future adepts.”

  “That’s good news, Sleeping God, but we were lucky that the portal didn’t lead to the island. If that had happened, the Nucleus would know about the temple on Kharinza…”

  “But that did not happen, because my influence has risen. I cut the route from the mines of Kharinza to the Nucleus, but the portal remained there. Now it leads deep down, to a Plague Vector, and it must be eliminated as soon as possible.”

  The speaker must have been talking about the instance the boys once found—on the day when Crag and I broke out of the sandbox.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Good. Go. Tiamat awaits.”

  I nodded, but didn’t leave. I was in the mood to take a risk…

  “Will you tell the Sleeping Goddess that I’ll come to her in ten hours? I have some unfinished business.”

  “Let it be so,” Behemoth boomed. “But hurry! Tiamat feels the forces of Nergal approaching!”

  And I hurried. I signaled a full gathering of the Awoken—the fastest grind ever awaited us; a grind of experience, achievements, and anything else we could get. It would take us three hours to get First Kills in the instances we found on H oldest, the reptiloid island and the Kharinza mine. Far less time would be needed to defeat the Montosaurus, the new greedy patron saint of the troggs.

  The hour
s remaining until Mogwai revived could be dedicated to something else, but for that, I’d need some help from Apophis and his priest, Yemi.

  I headed for the Yoruba castle.

  The world flashed black and the fort was replaced with a castle wall. The archers patrolling the walls reacted to my appearance surprisingly calmly. They didn’t even shoot. A shadow dropped down from above, landed nearby. The giant bat turned into a troll.

  Vampires weren’t always former humans in Dis. Francesca, for example, was a turned ore. This one was a troll. He kept his long stooping body and knuckle-dragging arms from his source race. His pale skin seemed to glow from within, and his bright red eyes were hypnotizing… but not for me. The vampire was silent, waiting.

  “I’m here to talk to Yemi,” I said.

  “To what end, Legate?” the vampire asked, raising his comm amulet to his mouth.

  “I want to help Yoruba become the biggest clan on Shad’Erung.”

  Chapter 17: Gods and Beast Gods

  “YEMI. SET ME UP A MEETING with Apophis, the White Snake. We’re going to Terrastera!”

  While the stunned mage tried to grasp my words, I remembered myself and thanked him for helping me escape from the Widowmakers.

  “Don’t mention it,” the mage darkened. “Without you, they would crush us. We were just saving our own skin.”

  The atmosphere crackled. The stuffy air felt strained as if before a storm. The frowning Yoruba fighters watched me carefully, even with a note of hostility.

  Something was bothering Yemi. Even the promise of farming on Terrastera didn’t summon up any enthusiasm in him, although the mage had enough patience to hear me out and answer. It turned out that summoning the White Snake was far harder to summon than Orthokon was for Bomber.

  ‘1 don’t feel him,” the mage admitted. “The serpent often sleeps outside of Disgardium. He appears in this world only to hunt.”

  “How do you summon him?” I asked, worried. “Time is running out. By tomorrow, we might not be able to do what I have planned.”

  “You young ones are always in a hurry,” Yemi said, shaking his head.

  Now that he knew who he was dealing with—a sixteen-year-old kid… It wasn’t that he was condescending, but there was no more sign of his admiration for the ‘Great One,’ as he’d called me until recently.