Just before Guy Barron Octius was about to go onstage, his comm bleeped with a short message marked ‘Burn after reading.’ It was from a sender who called himself Scorpio, and it contained just two words: “CoC, Octi.”
Octi… There was only one man left alive who still called him that.
Chapter 14. Venus Is Ready
MY NEW ASSISTANT Donald had left me five minutes ago, and I was already sitting on the floor, leaning against my capsule, trying to think rationally.
What would happen if I didn’t complete Behemoth’s quest and destroy the Nucleus of the Destroying Plague? For me personally — nothing. I might even raise my Threat level to the maximum as a result, build all five Sleeping Temples, get a reward from Snowstorm and go on to live a quiet life. I’d go home, finally see my parents after missing them so much, then go to university…
From Alex Sheppard’s point of view, whoever he was half a year ago, nothing deadly had happened. So what if I got knocked out of the Demonic Games? You couldn’t win them all, and the prize wasn’t all that important. How much had we prepared for the Holy War, how many hopes had we pinned on our victory, and for what? We gave up the temple without a fight, then easily got it back. There must be a chance that something else could be used in place of Concentrated Life Essence. Although, when I thought about it, I didn’t even have to stress too much over that. I could just let events go where they may, but spread a warning through the internet for all non-citizens: don’t turn undead! And that would be that, the problem of the Destroying Plague solved. As for what the Nucleus would do in the game, that was none of my concern. If it was so important to the Sleeping Gods, they could find themselves a new Initial.
A little calmer, I got up and started to get dressed. But all the same, my relief felt petty, pathetic. As if I was walking away from something important.
As I headed for the exit from my immersion room, I put my hands in my pockets and felt a crumpled piece of paper. I grew wary; there shouldn’t be anything there. Just in case there were monitoring devices, I climbed back into my capsule, unfolded the note and read the message, hurriedly written on a napkin in a thick and uneven hand:
The greens have a divine for jewelworking. Kusie ready to split for three. +2 to current craft rank, need 2,000 perception. Venus is ready.
Right. Apparently, Irita or Crawler had gone to Kinema and found some mighty artifact for Meister. Just a shame it was all for nothing now. My ambitious plan had failed before it even started, and all thanks to my own impulsiveness! I could have easily contacted my friends another way! What was stopping me from passing a coded message during an interview, letting my friends know how and where to contact me? Idiot! Halfwit!
That rare insult that Navalik the goblin had hurled at me in the Ordeal reminded me that it was time to wise up and not mess things up any more for Kerry, who had already lost her job because of me. I stepped into the bathroom, read the message again, crumpled up the paper and flushed it down the toilet. Thanks, Kerry! It was no help to me anymore, but even if I was thrown out of the Games, I wouldn’t forget the help and I’d try to somehow repay her.
I walked over to the door to leave, then stopped with my foot raised. A thought was running around in my head like a nimble little mouse, and I couldn’t seem to catch it by the tail. I went back into the room, took a can of soda out of the fridge, took a sip of the tongue-tingling liquid and started thinking. The first thought was the obvious one. That the note was a set-up by Snowstorm. It was important to them that I got the answer, because just asking to make contact is nothing. Otherwise I should have been disqualified the moment I said hi to my parents. But I’d already gotten rid of the note, and I hadn’t taken it out within sight of the cameras.
Now was the perfect time to think about what the message meant, figure it out and make sure I wasn’t missing anything.
Alright, the Green League has an artifact for which Meister the jeweler, aka Joseph Rosenthal, theoretically might sell his soul. Kusalarix was willing to exchange the artifact for three… Couldn’t be million. For three priest positions? That must be it. Nothing else came to mind. But what about Venus?
Venus is an ancient Roman goddess of beauty and love. In ancient Greek mythology, she was called Aphrodite. My childhood girlfriend and neighbor Eve had that nickname in the sandbox. But what could Eve O’Sullivan have to do with anything? What was she ready for? I might have thought it meant Kusalarix, but the goblin woman had already been mentioned.. What else? I started to think of whether there were any languages in which the ninth legate Eileen’s name could translate to Venus, but changed my mind — Ed would have made a simpler association. Hell, I’m not as smart as the guys sometimes think either. Maybe Ed meant the ninja Hiros? They might have already brought the guy to the base… I wouldn’t be surprised if Bomber gave Hiros a nickname like that. But no, how could I know it even if he had?
I had to shift gears. Not the goddess Venus, the planet Venus. The second planet from the Sun… That was it! I remembered the boys and I discussing an astronomy lesson where we learned that the clouds on Venus are made of sulfuric acid, and there’s acid rain there. They were talking about Terrastera! Its atmosphere was like on Venus, and that’s where they were going to build the third temple of the Sleepers while I was gone. Great! Three temples meant I would get new abilities and the ones I had would be stronger… Plus, there should be a whole bunch of new positions for priests and followers of the Sleeping Gods. And the bonuses from Unity would be so high that… Nether! That was it!
I drank down the rest of my soda in excitement and opened another can. From the very beginning, Behemoth had taught me that even worst enemies can become allies. That might not apply to evil as absolute as the Destroying Plague, but as for everyone else…
Ed, Hung and Malik couldn’t stand me back in the day, and it was mutual. And the two thugs bullied Malik, from what I remembered. But now? The Nether with Malik, he could go through a Living Sieve for all I cared, but those two were my best friends!
And Crag the ganker, aka Tobias Asser, had seemed a total moron, but it turned out he was a good guy and a reliable friend.
Just like Trixie the idiot, who first attacked me and took away the donuts brought for Andrew Clayton. Not alone, of course, but with other inhabitants of Cali Bottom.
Like drunk Patrick O’Grady, who gave me a curse so strong that the game mechanics just gave up.
Like the lich Dargo, who killed me hundreds of times before giving me a Threat ability.
Like Otto Hinterleaf and Horvac Onegut. They had been the definition of sworn enemy to me!
Like Hairo Morales and Wesley Cho, who had both tried to blackmail me. The latter really had been our worst enemy in the sandbox; nobody else played so many mean tricks on us even in big Dis.
And now? Now I could call any of them friend, or at least ally.
And the more friends I had, the stronger the abilities from the Sleepers. Take Sleeping Invulnerability — the more people in my group, the less damage I take. And Unity — what was that if not a direct indication of what to do?
Without temples, I could gather thirteen followers. With one — a hundred and sixty-nine. With two — twenty-eight thousand five hundred and sixty-one. What about three? That depended on what the algorithm was, and I hadn’t figured that out yet. But we were talking about a minimum of almost five million. If we could bring in that many followers, then we won. Nobody would be able to resist us. Every priest would get a million points to every stat they had. With that much stamina, their health would be measured in the billions. And then it was good game, well played, no rematch. Dis would never be the same again.
And that meant I should use my final hours in the Demonic Games as fruitfully as possible — both for my future gameplay in terms of my strategy of turning enemies into allies, and as part of my goal of gaining Concentrated Life Essence. Because how could I make a deal with the champion once they were named? I’d be on Kharinza and in Cali Bottom, while th
e winner would be in the forest palace of elvish king Eynyon, inaccessible to me. And then probably in their own castle. And what would stop them from just drinking the essence right away? No, I had to act now!
My doubts and fears disappeared, no trace of my despair remained, it all burned out in the landscape of opportunity opening up before me. My emotions ebbed. I started to think rationally not only about the future, but about my own position in the Games.
Formally, the organizers were right, contact with the outside world is forbidden. But even from the few conversations that I couldn’t help but overhear, I learned that this rule was taken with a pinch of salt. Some used an assistant’s comm to call their children or answer business calls, some checked the comments on Disgardium Daily in search of messages from friends or family. Which is why, when I asked Kerry for the favor, I felt sure there was nothing strange about it. I wasn’t trying to get information on the Games or the other contestants, after all. In the end, I’d gotten no in-game advantage from contacting Ed.
Could I hope for help from the viewers? I doubted my meditation under the dome was much fun for them, but I gave them a show at the end of the day. After my fight with Abaddon, the viewers might be on my side. If it was aired, of course.
I opened my comm and went to Disgardium Daily to read the comments and get a handle on what the viewers thought of my play. I scrolled down the news feed, but couldn’t find anything about my battle, or the demon’s name that I’d revealed. But there was some news that stunned me: “Ian Mitchell, renowned journalist of this publication, has been hospitalized after an aneurysm.”
I felt cold sweat run down my spine. Had Snowstorm decided to get rid of the inconvenient journalist? I thought for a moment, then discarded the notion. Ian was too well-known a figure. Anyway, he had a love of alcohol and cigarettes, and he might not have had enough savings for the usual health procedures.
With me, on the other hand, the corporation wouldn’t stand on ceremony. But something stopped them from taking extreme action, so they were trying to get by with ‘game methods.’ Like today: Snowstorm saw the chance to get rid of me and took advantage of it. But, knowing them, I could say with certainty: they would be sure to not only turn it into a show, but also make a scathing example of me and try to get the public on their side. And that would give me my chance. Either way, I wasn’t about to give up like a brainless sheep.
That was the mood I left my room in, walking down the corridor toward the hall of ceremonies in the media center, toward what might be my final dinner at the Demonic Games. News spread fast among the contestants, and maybe Snowstorm had deliberately released a rumor — judging by the glances, the smirks, the whispers, I knew they knew about my upcoming disqualification.
In a group of contestants walking in from another wing of the floor, I noticed my savior of yesterday, the dryad singer Michelle.
“A che-e-a-ter is alwa-a-y-ys a che-e-a-ter!” she sang melodically in an angelic voice when she saw me. “Puni-i-ishment wi-i-ll co-o-me!”
Her friends laughed. One of them, a golden-eyed beauty with a thick ginger braid, sniffed:
“I knew this was going to happen to him. I’m surprised it took so long, actually! I wonder what they caught him doing…”
The group passed by as if not noticing me and started whispering, but I still heard them:
“It’s obvious what,” a middle-aged woman said conspiratorially. “Quetzal made a mistake when he saved him with that dome of his. The dome is permanent! So Sheppard decided to just sit there until he’s the only one left! Octius won’t have liked that one bit!”
This take didn’t hold up to criticism, at least because not only had I already been seen outside the Pitfall, but an attempt had already been made to kill me, although only the three participants and the viewers knew that, it seemed. As I watched Michelle (what a strange girl!) and her friends go, I slowed my pace and looked around in search of the person I needed.
I heard a cough behind me and turned. Meister! Speak of the devil!
The old man wasn’t alone. Curser Roman and poet Bloomer had probably been waiting for their informal group leader before they went to dinner. All the better for me.
Stopping, I turned away and quickly looked them up on my comm, to remind myself of their real names. Some other contestants from Marcus’s group forced their way between me and the three leaders of the non-combat group, pushing me away to the wall. I let them pass, ignoring their sinister chuckles, and walked toward Meister.
“Good evening, Mr. Rosenthal!” I said to the jeweler, nodding to the others. “Mr. Romanenko, Mr. Knowles!”
The group stopped. Joseph blinked, looking at me in confusion. Bloomer rolled his eyes, Roman measured me up with a frowning glance, his lips twitching in a soundless curse.
“To what do we owe the pleasure, young man?” Rosenthal asked.
“I’d like a minute of your time. In private. With all of you.”
“Fat chance of privacy…” Nico Knowles said, aka Bloomer the poet. “We’re all under a microscope in here.”
“I meant away from the other contestants. I think the viewers will be interested to hear what I have to say to you.”
“He’s right!” Roman’s face lit up with a smile. “We could go up to my room.”
“Agreed,” Joseph nodded.
“May it be so!” Nico declared triumphantly. “And this is a very good time, if you’ll allow me, to quote a few lines of my sonnet…”
The poet recited some decent lines on the way to the elevators, and again in the elevator, and finished only when we reached the door to Roman’s room.
“An aperitif before dinner?” the curser offered, and we all entered the room.
Nobody refused. On the contrary, Meister and Bloomer perked up at the prospect. Roman took a few bottles of wine out of the minibar. Joseph and Nico occupied the couch, Roman sat cross-legged on the bed, and I stood leaning against the wall.
All three looked overjoyed at the outcome of the day. From what they said, I understood that their group had made great strides. I didn’t go into the details — it didn’t concern me anymore anyway.
They chatted to each other a little as if I wasn’t even there, and then Roman looked at the ceiling and said loudly:
“Stop streaming! Reason: secret negotiations!”
“Confirming. Stream stopped, but recording continues,” came a male voice from the speakers. “Paused by: Roman Romanenko.”
“Uhm…” I said, a little stunned. I looked at the room’s occupier and asked a dumb question: “What, you can do that?”
“Sure! Otherwise there’d be no intrigue for the viewers! All they know is that we spoke about something, but the what will remain a mystery.”
“Apart from that, secret alliances and agreements need silence,” the poet noted languidly. “Otherwise the other contestants would find out about it by the end of the day, from the news. What, didn’t you know that, young man?”
I looked at Bloomer. It occurred to me that the image he projected, that of a refined and pretentious poet as if from another world, was nothing but a mask. He was just playing a role, like Malik deciding he was a musician. Steel-gray eyes, a powerful neck and broad shoulders… No, this poet only wanted to appear weak…
“Well, young man, say what you have to say,” Joseph demanded. “And without too much preamble. Dinner is about to start.”
The show of ambivalence did a poor job of hiding their curiosity. There was a five-second pause as I took a deep breath, then I spoke — quickly, persuasively and briefly, like Hairo had taught me:
“Once the Games end, you will go back to your ordinary lives. There is a divine quest chain that I need to complete, and it requires the champion’s reward from the Demonic Games — Concentrated Life Essence. Judging by what’s going to happen after dinner, there’s no way I can win now, so there’s only one option left. If anyone from your group wins, I get the essence. Believe me, I have something you want in exchange.�
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“I don’t get it,” Bloomer shook his head. “You think we have a chance? Sure, we didn’t do too badly today, but…”
The poet trailed off, and the troll curser picked up the thought:
“And even if one of our raid wins, why are you talking to us? Wouldn’t it be easier to make a deal with the winner when you know for sure who it is?”
Roman’s question was easy to answer, but I said nothing. It’s easier for people to give up birds in the bush when they have one in the hand. Especially when the one in the hand is bigger. To put it another way, they thought they were selling me thin air; none could be sure they’d win.
“Anyway,” Meister said, “I find it hard to imagine what you might be able to offer us of equal value, Alex. Three thousand bonus points to a priority stat… That’s a big boost!”
“A shadow of a bonus, Mr. Rosenthal.”
They said nothing, each wearing a mask of disinterest like a professional poker player. But even without Persuasion, I could see it. Despite the fact that they knew it all already, each one of them howled in the depths of his soul: Come on, then, surprise us! — After all, they were talking to the most successful Threat ever.
The Demonic Games (Disgardium Book #7): LitRPG Series Page 23