“Tra!” I shouted, smiling.
“Kra?” the dinosaur quizzically, cocking his head.
“Ra?” the Watcher asked in confusion.
“You’re free, Monty. You were a nightmare for all the workers on Kharinza and a great battle pet, but I release you.”
Attention! Your battle companion, the Montosaurus, wants to leave you.
If you agree, then Montosaurus, Ancient Dinosaur, will once again become a beast god and settle on the isle of Kharinza.
Accept? Refuse?
I confirmed with a shaking hand, out of my habit of doing important things with a physical press of the finger instead of a thought command. The dinosaur grew larger, returning to its former size, and roared boomingly.
Nge N’Cullin ran a finger through the air – I saw two silver claws opposing each other like a beak. The air tore like a sheet of paper and a forty-yard-high rift appeared. I saw a familiar jungle through it. The Montosaurus gave an excited roar and shook the earth as he trampled his way into the portal.
“Thank you, Initial of the Sleepers,” Nge N’Cullin said, watching him go. “Neither he nor Sobek will touch you or your associates, but they will sniff out your enemies with animal precision. Both temples of the Sleepers will be under their protection. I will visit my old friend on Kharinza, so you and I will yet see each other again.”
Then he just disappeared, dissolving into thin air. The rift in space closed up. I left Clarity and wandered back to my friends, feeling a little bitter that I’d lost Monty. But it was nothing like the disappointment I’d felt when Despot the demon disincarnated; now, joy for the magnificent dinosaur’s newfound freedom won out.
When Nge N’Cullin disappeared, the final hour of Isis’ Blessing was running out. We had spent almost a full day on Terrastera.
Without going into details, I spent five minutes telling the boys about the Watcher, then we decided to grind at least a little more, but as it turned out, Nge N’Cullin had chased away all the life. There were no barakatas, no dalezmas, no spinners.
“Back to base, then?” Crawler asked.
“Yeah,” I answered, yawning. My eyes felt grainy. I desperately wanted sleep. This was my second (or maybe third) day on my feet, after all.
I said goodbye to Tiamat and she told me again not to use Self-Sacrifice except in extreme need. Then we jumped to the clan castle and logged straight out of Dis from there.
In parting, Crag reminded us of his desire to move to Cali Bottom and said he’d gather his things and his brains into a pile – to sign a mental contract. He’d been told before that that was a prerequisite.
Roj stood guard by my capsule. I smelled roast meat and baking from the kitchen. My stomach clenched and growled.
“Water, food, sleep,” I said to the bodyguard before stumbling over the edge of my capsule and collapsing.
The long day that had begun for me after defeating Abaddon had lasted nearly seventy-two hours, but now it was finally over.
* * *
Groaning and grunting greedily, I wolfed down everything that Maria had cooked until my hunger was finally sated. Thanking her, I went to my bedroom, collapsed onto the bed and closed my eyes…
But I wasn’t left alone to sleep. While we were killing mobs on Terrastera, the security officers brought Melissa Schafer and Rita Wood to the base. Hung told them I’d logged out, and both came to see me. I was happy to see Rita, of course, and perked up a little when she arrived, but nature can’t be fooled – my body was a wreck, my vision cloudy.
The girls walked in together, but behaved as if they’d come alone.
Melissa was in shorts and a baggy hoodie with the hood up, Rita – in a light summer dress. Two scents filled the lounge at once – a harsh, alluring aroma and a light note of summer flowers. I realized which came from which only when I hugged Rita. My nostrils filled with the scent of tulips and daisies as she quickly touched her lips to mine, then backed off. Melissa boldly embraced me too and kissed me on the cheek. I was exhausted and sleepy. I felt so awkward I wanted the ground to swallow me up.
“Hey, Alex,” both girls said at once and shot looks at each other like bristling cats arguing over territory.
“Hey, ladies. Welcome to the Citadel and so on. Sorry that I look like crap. Just got out of my capsule. Been in there for days.”
“Hung doesn’t look any better,” Melissa said. “He said Tobias is moving in too, is that true?”
“Willy’s going to fetch him tomorrow,” Rita said. She looked only at me as she spoke.
“How are your apartments?”
“I chose one with windows,” Tissa answered. “I get claustrophobic without them. Always have. Dad used to lock me in the trailer when I did something wrong.”
“I have the one next to yours,” Rita said. “It’s a little bare, but the clan set aside some money for decor, so it’s fine. Anyway, I’d better go. You need to sleep, tomorrow is an important day. Rest well, Alex.”
Tissa clicked her tongue. “Wow! So thoughtful!”
“Alright, that’s enough!” I said, raising my hands and starting to usher her out, pushing her to the door. “Don’t even start, Melissa, no sarcastic comments from you. Spit all your venom out into a toilet if you want a healthy social life here. Our clan is practically a family now, not what you got used to on the Amazon island. Any gossip, trashtalking, jealousy or any other bullshit from you and I’ll demote you.”
Tissa dug her heels in and turned around, laughter in her eyes.
“Alright, alright, Alex! I get it, I just couldn’t help it! It’s just funny when she goes into mommy mode and treats you like a kid! I swear I won’t even look at her again!”
“You will look at her, and talk to her too,” I said harshly. “Irita is important to the clan. And not just to the clan, but to me. So since you’re both living under the same roof, you’re going to have to learn to get along with her, got it?” It was unjust to single out Tissa, so I turned to Rita. “That works both ways!”
The girl shook her ginger hair, nodded and shrugged.
“No problem for me. By the way, Hung asked me to organize a party tomorrow when Crag arrives. That okay with you?”
“Sure,” I said shortly. “Now please, both of you leave me alone! Tomorrow I’ll be getting ready for a journey to the Inferno. I need my sleep!”
Chapter 10. Spirit Shock
“WHERE’D THIS HAPPEN? You been to the Ursai Jungle, or what?”
Wendel, the broad-shouldered dwarf and Grand Master of Blacksmithing hired by Crawler to work at our castle, scratched his ginger beard. My Cold-Blooded Punisher armor was laid out before him, disassembled, the metal pitted all over, with a huge ragged hole at the center, a parting gift from Sobek’s claw.
I exchanged glances with Crag, whose equipment looked even more ravaged than mine, and Hiros, who looked uncomfortable without his legendary cloth gear, having handed it in to the tailor before us.
“Exactly right, Mr. Wendel.”
“There are Sharp-furred Macaques there, Mr. Wendel,” Crag added in tones of an expert. “They spit acid slime.”
“You don’t say?” the dwarf said in surprise. “So many monsters on Shad’Erung! Well, I’ll get to work on fixing this, Mr. Scyth. This is some of the strangest armor I’ve ever seen. It’s going to take some tinkering. Come back in an hour. As for you, Mr. Crag, you’ll have to wait.”
“No worries,” the dwarf warrior said, waving a hand. “I’ll be chilling in the tavern in the meantime.”
Crawler and Bomber were due to show up soon. They’d stayed behind in real life to talk to Tissa and Irita. While I was at the Games, the boys had taken turns to keep watch on Kharinza, but now the problem of patrolling both coasts, and Mengoza too, had been solved.
I don’t know whose bright idea it was exactly, but when we returned from Terrastera, ranks of flying dark dwarves from the Black Whirlwind clan were patrolling the island. The bearded dwarves, who had abandoned their own gods to adopt th
e patronage of the dark deities, were perfect wyvern riders. At the sight of Behemoth, the entire clan then threw off the dark New Gods for the Sleeping God and settled on Kharinza. Now their battle squadrons cut through the sky above our two islands, seeking out undead. If they raised the alarm, all the clan officers would know it, including the workers’ foremen.
“Bomb said they’re going to throw some kind of party to welcome us and the girls to the base,” Crag said to Hiros. “You coming?”
The ninja’s eyebrows shot up. The guy needed bringing out of his shell and into the team, which was already ravaged by contradiction.
To tell the truth, I would have gladly spent some time hanging around with my friends and… former friends. But I didn’t know how yet how my attempt to get into the Inferno would work out.
First I had to find Rion Staffa, Chief Councilman of Tuaf. Unlike Wideacre in Tristad, he was a hard figure to reach, at least according to Nega and Flaygray. He wouldn’t meet with just anyone. I hoped my outstanding reputation with the Commonwealth would help, along with my newly skyrocketed charisma and high persuasion skill. Sure, Nergal hated me, and most of the world was still under his banner, but the game mechanics worked in my favor, calculating NPC relationships not with common sense, but according the principles of the game.
“Well, Tommy? You coming to the party?” Crag knew how to be pushy, I remembered that well. “Come on, it’ll be fun!”
“Hiros cannot answer for the man that controls him,” the ninja answered vaguely. “If you want an answer, Crag-san, ask the person by the name of Tomoshi Kurokawa. As for me, I must remain close to Scyth-san to help him with Astral Fury in Tuaf.”
“Heh, you sure got the schizo act down,” Crag chuckled. “Alright, I’ll ask Tomoshi himself when I fly in to join you guys.”
Just as he was about to leave, I stopped him.
“Wait. I don’t just need Hiros in Tuaf, but you and the boys too.”
“Why?” he asked, frowning in confusion. “The NPCs there are level 200. Can’t you handle it?”
“I don’t know, Toby, I don’t know. This Rion Staffa, aka Nettle, is the head of a global crime gang. Best to hedge our bets.”
“Well… Alright. Whistle when you’re ready, I’ll be getting a bite to eat from Aunt Steph. You coming, Hiros? Come on, let’s get to know each other.”
“Hiros does not object,” the ninja answered, looking at me.
“Go on, I still have things to do.”
Crag and Hiros headed for the tavern.
It would take an hour for my armor to be repaired, and I wanted to use the time well by going through my messages. Trouble was, in the last few days I’d received nearly a hundred thousand emails, and of them, around sixty got through the filters and were marked ‘Important.’
I headed for the Tree Protector to find solitude, but found Ryg’har instead. The old kobold shaman was puffing on his eternal herbal cigarette, chewing something and gabbling in paranoia all at once:
“Chosen One of the Sleepers! You are in danger! The Montosaurus has returned! But the dinosaur doesn’t attack us, which means he isn’t the danger threatening you! We have added to the supplies of divine excrement! Yesterday I had a dream that you were being devoured alive by demons!” the shaman wheezed dramatically. “There was hellspawn everywhere, and an enormous demon with horns and wings towered over them all. First you were cooked in a pot, with black smoke coming from beneath it! Spirits… Excrement… Demons…”
“Lieutenant Ryg’har!” I snapped, losing my train of thought and remembering that he was an officer of the clan now. “Report your vision by the book! In writing!”
The shaman suddenly closed his mouth and gave a questioning growl:
“Rar?”
“Get to it right now, Spirit Speaker!” I ordered. “The followers of the Sleepers attach great importance to dreams, and as their Initial, I need to know what you saw!”
“It will be done, Chosen One of the Sleepers,” Ryg’har wheezed, bowing. “I cannot write, so I will ask the new scribe Zabiac for help. He’s usually at the Pig and Whistle.”
Having relayed this important information, the shaman scratched behind his ear with his toe and limped off toward the merchant stalls, leaning on his gnarled staff. Three young kobolds walked after him, coming out from their hiding places behind the Tree Protector’s huge trunk.
Crawler had told me about the scribe Zabiac in passing the night before – apparently, Irita had advised that we hire various NPCs to ‘liven up’ the fortress.
We even had our own town crier now, by the name of Emtes von Megalino. He was a hoot. Bomb wouldn’t have been Bomb if he hadn’t ordered the guy to shout out all kinds of crap. Like “Kneel before the great Trixie, wielder of the watering can, and bow down to the ground before him thrice when you meet him!” or “From now on, every resident of the Kharinza fortress must sing ‘Give us a copper, Holy Uncle Patrick, in the name of your god Bacchus!’ upon meeting the aforementioned Mr. O’Grady.”
The NPCs were stunned at first, but they took all announcements from the authorities seriously, so they did their utmost to follow the instructions, bowing dutifully before Trixie and asking Patrick for a copper. The former immediately started puffing out his chest, the latter scowled.
Smiling at Bomber’s imagination, I started going through my mail.
The first message I opened was from Irita, surprised that she’d messaged me given that we were in the same place now. The reason turned out simple. Short lines informed me:
Alex, the goblins keep inviting me to the auction for special sales, and I found something interesting there. I figured an exclusive item made by Wing’Chunu himself is sure to come in handy to you!
Kisses, your Irita.
The attached item was something I would never have thought of buying myself. But I should have! I’d seen one just like it at Master Sagda’s!
Authentic Mu Ren Zhuang
Legendary dummy.
This training dummy for masters of martial arts was created with fallen bark from Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, by legendary Wing’Chunu, a Grand Master of both hand-to-hand combat and carpentry.
It is always 1 level above the practitioner. Against the dummy, your skills and moves will level up at a third of the usual speed in battle against a real opponent.
Durability: indestructible.
Boy, oh boy! Way to go, Irita! I remembered for sure that Sagda’s training dummy leveled up Unarmed Combat at a tenth of the normal rate, and his level was the same as mine. Irita’s gift was way, way better! I didn’t want to try it out in front of everyone, so I teleported to Scyth’s Place.
I activated Irita’s legendary gift, placed it in the corner and started firing off strikes at it right away. Unlike Sagda’s wooden dummy, this one made angry faces, dodged my strikes with lightning speed and attacked back with its stick appendages – I had to duck and jump! I beat on it for another ten minutes until I saw a little progress on the Unarmed Combat bar. Sure, it would be faster to grind the mobs on Terrastera, but when there weren’t any to hand, the dummy would really help. No blood, sweat or tears – just stand and punch until you get bruises.
Done training, I jumped onto the bed, stretched out and settled back in to my messages. More payments from the cooking guild, requests for new ingredients from the hobbit Jenkins, a short message from Polydeuces: Thanks for letting me join the clan and be a follower of the Sleepers. Big Po. And another from him, sent yesterday: Unity is something else! I’m going to try and break Tissa’s record!
One of the messages was a physical letter from King Bastian the First, inviting me to an audience with His Majesty. A royal portal seal gleamed at the bottom of the heavy parchment paper with gold leaf trim. The letter indicated a recommended arrival time on any day convenient for me. I thought for a moment, then decided to delay the meeting. We couldn’t talk specifics until I had the Coals of Hellflame in my hands, and the king wouldn’t send his troops into the frost until
he was sure they’d survive.
Auctioneer Grokuszuid had written to ask when would be a convenient time for me to attend the private auction to buy the extremely rare items that could only be obtained by winning the Games. So my co-competitors had already given him their essences? That I couldn’t put off. I thought about bringing Irita with me, but decided I could handle it. As the clan leader, I had full access to the treasury anyway.
In another message, Joker the engineer sent me some top-tier designs for defensive mechanisms. I forwarded them to Crawler. On top of that, Joker also sent an epic Summoning Scroll for a flying mechostrich. I thought for a moment, decided not to use it for now. Flight and Storm were enough for me.
Enemy of the Inferno (Disgardium Book #8): LitRPG Series Page 19