A mist of blood clouded my eyes, the world flickered, claws ripped against Diamond Skin. The monster ran another fifty’ yards and realized that he couldn’t pull me off. He fell to the ground and began to roll, trying to crush the pesky biting bug on his neck. Fun times…
“We’re here, Scvth!” Crawler shouted. “Be ready on the count of three!”
I stopped shouting out swear words to rasp: Okay! and started summoning pets. The swamp needlers Iggy, Watchamacallit, Little Trunk and Alien injected their larvae into the Montosaurus, reducing his health by twelve percent. Thunder roared and lightning flashed as Storm attacked the beast. My Immortality activated as Infect shredded his guitar.
“Two!” I heard Irita shout over the din.
I didn’t hear one yet! I thought, and the girl shouted:
“Three! Activating Balancer!”
Figuratively, I started to breathe easier. The Montosaurus, now lower in level, was many times smaller, now more like a velociraptor. Our weights were almost the same, and now I was the one holding him beneath me. I waited for each clanmate to deliver a strike, then fired a Crushing Hammerfist charged with both vindication and plague energy.
Incredibly, although we were fighting a mob at level twenty, and a single hit from any of us should have been enough to finish him off, he survived. His life dropped to one percent and fell no further even after my charged Hanmierfist for a total of four million damage!”
“One second left!” Irita shouted. I heard a note of panic in her voice.
“Why isn’t he dying!?”
“Because he is a god!” Movarak shouted out from the undergrowth. “The Great Reptile!”
The Montosaurus expanded, returning to its previous size, and rose. I lay on the ground, protected by Immortality, unsure what to do. If he was immortal and couldn’t be killed, then what…?
“Scyth, look!” Bomber shouted.
Turning, at first I saw the guys standing there with their jaws on the floor. Gyula was praying furiously to the Sleepers and crossing himself over and over. Patrick remembered that he was a priest and did the same. The brawny trogg chief fell to his knees.
I slowly turned to the Montosaurus, surprised by the descending quiet. My pets stopped attacking the beast god. I heard the measured wingbeats of the dragoness and the low buzz of the swamp needlers hovering in the air.
Strangely enough, the first thing I noticed was the green text in the Montosaurus’s profile. Only then did I realize that the beast god stood before me immobile, bowing to me.
A system window opened:
Attention! The Montosaurus, Ancient Reptile, has decided to become your battle avatar.
If you refuse, the Montosaurus, Ancient Reptile, will be disincarnated.
Accept? Decline?
Gifts like that don’t come every day. I agreed at once, and the beast god’s profile changed:
Montosaurus, level gog
Ancient Reptile.
Battle Avatar ofScyth.
“Hey, I dealt damage too!” Infect shouted. “Why is he Scyth’s pet?”
Your reputation with Montosaurus, Ancient Reptile, has increased: +5000.
Current reputation: adoration.
Unlocked achievement: Beast God Conqueror!
The beast god Montosaurus, Ancient Reptile, hid from the New Gods for centuries in a spatial pocket on the island of Kharinza, where he desti’oyed all life. The Montosaurus acknowledges only strength. Having lost a duel to you, he is rww your battle avatar!
Reward: Beast God Conqueror title, Beast God Conqueror perk (+10% reputation with beast gods).
“Ho-o-oly shit…” Irita approached the beast, stretched out a hand to pet him. The Montosaurus looked at me sidelong and lowered his head. “Good dino…”
“A shame you weren’t with us at Darant, chosen one of the Sleeping Gods and Conqueror of the Great Reptile,” Movarak said. “You would have found a way to take down Knock-Knock!”
Still pleasantly shocked, I opened my pet and mount window. Iggy, Storm, Crash and the nameless mechostrich had been joined by Ancient Reptile Montosaurus. The description said that the battle companion needed feeding and time to rest, tracked by a hunger and vigor bar. I gasped when I saw how much meat the reptile needed every day and turned to our supplier.
“Irita! I think we’re going to need our own farm. Or we won’t be able to feed this giant.” I raised my head, looked my new pet in the eyes. “I forbid you to eat the sentients that live in the fort. Got it, lizardbrain?”
The Montosaurus roared, but whether he agreed, or even understood, remained a mystery. However, judging by the fact that he wasn’t attacking my clanmates and the troggs, he wouldn’t touch any of my allies again.
“A farm is no problem,” Irita answered. “I’ll buy some cows, sheep and other animals. But where do we get a farmer?”
We returned from the jungle victorious conquerors of the terrible Montosaurus. He made for an uncomfortable mount, but I had a reputation to maintain, which meant I had to ride him back.
The news was already spreading through the fort—the troggs from the meadow beat their message out on their drums, telling the others. Everyone streamed out to meet us. Exulting workers, barking kobolds and roaring troggs mixed with the cultists of Morena, whose hands trembled. The dark ones always valued brute strength, and here they saw proof that they’d joined the strongest—those who could tame a beast god. And they didn’t even know about Orthokon.
‘Bring him to me, Initial!” Behemoth’s powerful voice boomed out over the fort.
Riding the Montosaurus down the street wouldn’t be the best idea. We’d have to rebuild the fort again after. So I mentally directed the dinosaur to go round, to approach the temple from the jungle. The square before the temple was packed with sentients. There wasn’t enough space for everyone, and many climbed onto the branches of the Tree Protector and the roofs of houses.
Behemoth descended the temple steps and approached us, stopping before the palisade. Space crumpled and the fence parted before the Sleeping God, who continued his march. With each step, Behemoth doubled in size until he towered over the Montosaurus.
“I warned you,” Behemoth admonished the beast god in a fatherly tone, stroking the top of his head. “No, reptile, your creator Leviathan is not yet here, but now that you are the battle avatar of my Initial, you have the protection of the Sleeping Gods.”
Both of them reduced in size until they were seven feet tall. The Montosaurus emitted a series of plaintive shrieks, and Behemoth answered:
“You will be this size only in ordinary circumstances. Look at it another way, reptile. You won’t need so much food!”
The beast growled something else.
“Worry not. In battle, your true size will return, Montosaurus.” The Sleeping God turned to me. “Take this, Initial. Now that he is your avatar, he has lost some of his divine being and is now mortal.”
“With no ability to resurrect?”
“His resurrection takes time. He must gain strength beyond the Barrier. That may mean a century, or… If you summon him after death, he will return, but at a young age.”
We’d done almost all we’d set out to do. All that remained was to convince the White Snake, but now I had one more ace up my sleeve for him.
*
First, two orange eyes appeared in the air around the size of small saucers. Their black vertical pupils hypnotized, and while I drowned in the abyss of the beast god’s eyes, his entire ghost-white body appeared.
There was an inaudible dialog between the snake and Yemi, at the end of which the First Priest of Apophis bowed low and disappeared from my field of view. A long forked tongue flitted from the snake’s mouth for a second, and I heard a hiss that formed into words in my mind.
My first priest tells me you have an offer for me.
“Yes, White Snake. What do you want for taking me to a specified point on Terrastera?” I opened the map and visualized the spot I wanted.
Apophis does not make deals with those that do not know the snake paths, death-deceiving emissary of Those Who Have Not Awoken. My first priest says he will pay for you, but that is not good enough. But I will listen to you out of respect for Those Who Have Not Awoken.
The structure of the phrases implied that the telepathy interpreted the snake’s language closely to the original, but not with perfect precision. All I could do was hope that the meaning wasn’t lost in translation in the other direction.
“A battle approaches, White Snake. The greatest battle of the living, the dead and those who follow the Sleeping Gods. I promise you that I will dedicate captured lives to you, Apophis, if you provide me this service and take me to Terrastera.”
The burning lands are dangerous, and your bribery means nothing. Even I do not go there,” the snake hissed. Do what you say you will aiid you will get your wish. Until then…
“Now, Monty,” I said, not letting him finish. Words wouldn’t be enough here.
The earth shook—the Montosaurus fell out of his dimensional pocket. That was where he had hidden when he ran away from me and when the undead occupied the island.
As soon as he appeared, the reptile went into battle mode and started to grow, his head looming over Apophis. He roared, covering the snake with stinking breath, steam and sweat. Apophis jumped back and hissed, his huge neck flaring. Acrid yellowish venom began to drip copiously from his fangs.
The two beast gods seemed to have forgotten about me. Apophis distended, becoming as thick as the reptile’s arm, stretching out, but the Montosaurus, after entering combat, had reached its previous size. I flew above both of them and felt the gazes of the Yoruba members, eager for the show, and the ores from the Broken Axe tribe who had come to speak with the Initial of the Sleeping Gods personally. I didn’t get to spend long up there—the tension between the beast gods twisted space itself, pushing me away. I descended, landed a little off to one side.
Yemi, not knowing what to do, hovered between Apophis’ altar and me, then grabbed me, shook me.
“Do something, Initial! But, I beg the Sleeping Gods, do not kill the White Snake!”
The beast gods hovered above the castle itself. The Montosaurus, standing a hundred and sixty feet tall, tore down the fortress wall with his tail. His weight made the pavement crack. Sinkholes appeared in the earth. But Apophis was no smaller, and his serpentine head with its flared neck cast a shadow all across the castle like a huge umbrella.
For half a minute, all we could hear was roaring and hissing, and then it all ended. The beast gods had come to an agreement. They went back to their normal sizes, and I heard Apophis’ voice in my head again.
I will do what you ask. My ancient enemy tried to claim that you are capable of subjugating me as well. I do not believe it, but I will not take the risk for the sake of one small service. Are you ready to go right now?
‘1 am ready, White Snake. Do you see the place I want?”
I see it. A place of power.
He wTapped himself around me to the chants of the African clan:
“Scyth! The Sleepers! Apophis! Montosaurus! Yoruba!”
“Broken Axe!” the ores roared. “May the Sleeping Gods never wake!”
“And may their sleep be eternal!” Yoruba cried.
The show had clearly impressed and surprised all present. Yemi, who had been making veiled threats and calling me ‘kid’ three hours before, shouted just as loud as the rest of them.
“Scyth! The Sleepers! Apophis! Montosaurus! Yoruba!”
The deafening cries cut off sharply. The w^orld started to shimmer and blink.
Your wish has been granted, Apophis hissed, releasing me from his grasp. Do not forget your words.
The White Snake disappeared into thin air.
The next moment, a smoking droplet of acid rain bored straight through the helmet of my ColdBlooded Punisher set and took away all my health, activating Diamond Skin. Resilience jumped up a point and Cartography leveled up to eleven.
The ultrasound chirping of some beast drifted from behind purple stone trees.
“Hey there, Terrastera!” I shouted.
Chapter 18: Aid of the Sleepers
TIME IS YOUR most valuable resource. That’s what our schoolteachers told us, what Uncle Nick said, and usually it met no objection. But only now did I realize how little of it—time—I had. If only I had a day or two more, I could have leveled up so high on Terrastera that I could have crushed Nergal’s army single-handedly. And if I could find Supreme Grand Master Oyama and get him to teach me that trick of hitting from a distance, defending Tiamat’s temple would have been a walk in the park.
But time was running out. Mogwai would respawn soon. I needed to level up the Awoken as high as I could, so that they overtook all the other players. The clan had to become strong without Scyth. Anything could happen to me, after all.
Anyway, there was less than a day until the battle in the Lakharian Desert. The Alliance of Preventers hadn’t declared their precise time of attack, but the world was already waiting with bated breath for the stream. All predictions said that the siege of Tiamat’s temple would begin one day soon.
I really didn’t want to bathe naked in acid rain, but I had no choice. I removed all my equipment, keeping only the divine Reaper’s Scythes and Legate’s Crown— as it turned out, the only items that didn’t lose durability to the fierce weather on Terrastera. Though it seemed indestructible, ColdBlooded Punisher was speckled with holes from the droplets of acid rain. I decided not to risk my equipment, hoping that the armor could be repaired.
Scyth, you have the right to name this new zone!
You can keep the old name (Abandoned Sanctuary of Doracant) or come up with your own.
As was my tradition, I left the old name, but this time I got no bonuses for it.
The sun couldn’t pierce through the flint-gray clouds, only highlight them with a din greenish gleam. Thanks to my advanced Night Vision, I could still see even in the gloom and even through the acid rain.
The new continent felt like a completely different world. Even beyond the Barrier, when visiting with the Old Goddess of Death, Morena, the foreign landscape didn’t seem quite so strange as this. At least the trees there seemed earthly, at least by Dis standards. But here… I remembered the stories of Mr. Riordan about Venus and its climate, with clouds of sulfuric acid… Maybe the game designers took inspiration from the Morning Star, as that planet was called in ancient times.
Beyond the bounds of the place of power, thick colorless strings stretched dozens of yards into the air—something like grass or trees. The surface of the land was like a sieve, peppered with multi-angular holes of various sizes. Living beams of light emerged from one of the holes, stretching and writhing as if feeling for something. Others emitted stiff strings of whitish syrup, as if someone was firing a water pistol below.
Creepy insects like dragonflies with long flexible worm-like bodies darted through the air. One of them flew into a geyser stream and instantly dissolved into the flow. Another hit a beam of light and grew in size, expanding and bursting, scattering in a shining cloud of dust.
I looked around dumbfounded, then it occurred to me to look down. Only smoking blackened bones remained from my feet to my knees. Flesh continued to slough off my body and dissolve, either from the acid rain or from the sprays of a pale-white geyser bubbling beneath me.
The place of power scared the mobs away. I saw movement behind a purple stone tree with rainbow sap seeping from its trunk. A huge… Nether knows what it was. A giant black three-foot-long cockroach with a tall vertical fin on its chitinous back and powerful mandibles that reminded me of an excavator bucket. Oily liquid seeped from the joints in its exoskeleton.
Barakata, level??? solitoid
So the mob was called a barakata, and its species was solitoid. Kind of like, ‘wolf, animal’ or ‘skeleton, undead.’ After the disgusting barakata, the mobs of the Lakharian Desert seemed cute and fluffy by compari
son. I wondered, would Shog’rcissars Protection work on solitoids? It halved damage from insectoids.
The game bestiary updated, informing me that the barakata was undiscovered in Disgardium. My Cartography skill leveled up.
My time in the Nether had taught me how important it could be to remain unnoticed to my enemies. I went into Stealth. The conditions here were right for the skill to level up, and rank one was approaching.
The skill’s experience bar filled up in less than a minute, and I begrudgingly decided to spend the remaining time on leveling up. Soon, I got what I wanted.
Stealth level increased: +1! Current level: too.
Stealth rank I reached!
The ability offered no Paths of development, just automatically took rank one, and a couple of minutes later—level one.
Stealth level l
Rank: I.
Chance to remain unnoticed by enemies at your level or below—100%. You can move and remain hidden. When you attack from stealth, you always deal double critical damage. When you go into combat, 1% chance to maintain stealth. You have a 1% chance to detect an enemy using this ability.
The game itself hinted that my days of reckless farming were at an end. Without Immortality, I’d have to play more carefully.
I crept toward the barakata to test my new Stealth capabilities. The cockroach sniffed, worked its mandibles, cluttered, opened its strange ’fin’ and emitted a cloud of orange smoke. The ’forest’ answered with a series of similar sounds, coming from all sides. I froze, but it was too late: Stealth check failed! Barakata detected you!
Soon, ten barakatas surrounded me. They clicked their mandibles threateningly, but refused to cross the invisible threshold of the place of power. I glanced at my watch—I still had time, but I couldn’t afford to waste it. First I had to check whether Reflection could kill the barakatas. If not, there was no point in bringing the others here. I thought of summoning the Montosaurus to help, but no—the dinosaur would be no good here. These barakata could be so much higher in level than him that they’d tear him apart, but the deadly atmosphere would kill him even faster.
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