The Duty (Play to Live: Book # 3) Read online

  I saw one of the captured wizards grin as he jumped back to his feet, waving to the others. His actions caused a minor stampede akin to a Christmas sale at Tiffany's. After a pause, the wizard activated the portal, disappearing with four of his clan mates. Dammit! If it went like this, we could lose our choicest prisoners. At least the naked captives couldn't get to the ingredients necessary to create a stationary portal which forced them to use standard personal and group ones.

  I spoke too soon, didn't I? The teleport pad swelled, forming the archway of a stationary portal. My heart missed a beat. Had our enemy received reinforcements? So soon? It had only been seven minutes or so—no way they could have gotten their act together. A castle siege is a long and lazy job: even the simplest dome takes hours to remove. Hours, not minutes. No, somehow I didn't think that these were reinforcements. More like a quick check to find out what all the hullabaloo in the clan chat was about.

  The portal disgorged a level 270 bigwig in full gold-inlaid armor, his headgear tall with feathers, five bodyguards surrounding him.

  Both of us swung our heads around simultaneously as he took in the picture and I tried to assess this new danger.

  "Bagheera, take him! Widowmaker, send fifty to the portal pad ASAP! Lay the prisoners on the ground face down, quickly or they'll all escape!"

  Indeed this new arrival—some sort of crisis manager—had already weighed up their chances and barked something to the rest. A thin line of potential escapees hurried to the pad, struggling their way out of the crowd and pushing aside dozens of supplicant hands. The bodyguards set to work too, elbowing their way deep through this sea of humanity in search of some particularly valuable slaves who merited immediate evacuation.

  Naturally, Bagheera made it first. With his size and enthusiasm, he could cover forty paces in a few well-directed leaps—barely enough time for a victim to blink and shriek. Still, the manager must have sensed something. He turned around, receiving the leaping beast with his twin swords. Which was brave but utterly useless, a bit akin to a samurai attacking a line of Gatling guns. Temporarily paralyzed, his steel-clad figure was sent rolling over the flagstones right under his bodyguards' feet as they rushed to his help. Three of them stood in Bagheera's way while the other two grabbed their motionless boss under his arms, sweeping him toward the portal arch.

  That hadn't changed Bagheera's priority target, though. He tried to ram the annoying obstacle in one practiced charge, eager to get to the golden peacock whom his master apparently wanted. Instead, the bodyguards' stocky bodies sparked, rippling, as transparent power shields swelled around them, distorting space. They must have activated the invulnerability skills that guaranteed them a few more seconds of life.

  Bagheera freaked out. Straining his muscles, he shook his head. A powerful growl sent bits of froth flying from his mouth. Still, he overcame his initial urge, his enormous hind legs kicking his body into a flight over the bodyguards' heads. The two soldiers carrying the bigwig's body dove into the portal; the panther followed, scattering the dense waiting line of the chars about to jump to the other side. With a pop, the portal arch disappeared. End of show.

  Betrayed in their last hope, the gangsters collapsed onto the dusty flagstones. The slaves about to be pulled out promptly made themselves scarce in the crowd while the remaining bodyguards exchanged quick glances and activated their personal portals, disappearing in a firework display of visual effects.

  Bagheera must have ported somewhere really really far. His icon had completely disappeared from my interface. Still, we must have preserved some semblance of connection—I could find no other explanation to all the kill messages flickering through my mental view, followed by "change of faction relationship" warnings. No idea where he had resurfaced, but my pet was running amok and, judging by the quick succession of system messages, someone was in for a slaughter. One thing was for sure: now the gangsters had more important things than us to worry about, so we ought to make good use of the few extra minutes the panther was buying us. I just hoped they wouldn't trample him to death as I still didn't know his resurrection settings—come to think of it, I didn't even know if he could resurrect at all.

  Biting my lip to conceal my concern, I checked the battlefield. Snowie sat astride the gray-mustachioed ogre, twisting his arms until his joints crunched. He shouldn't overdo it, really. His actions weren't doing his enemy's life bar any good as it kept shrinking by rather large jolts.

  "Snowie, don't! Just pin him down, that's enough. No need to break his bones."

  The goblin was still busy next to them making a quick job of his opponents, escaping their grasp with a mongoose-like agility. Strangely enough he seemed to be the last one still standing. All the others were either doubling up on the ground or had somehow managed to pop their clogs. No idea if it had helped them escape; most likely they were now cussing under their breath somewhere within the crowd trying to merge with the slaves.

  A group of mercs was hurrying toward the human sea—not fifty but still quite a few, in fact whoever had been available.

  "Lie down! All of you, face down! Hands on your heads!"

  Just look at them—you'd think we were on a special-ops mission, not a gaming raid. Judging by the way they handled their prisoners, you could tell the mercs had seen their share of TV police shows and had a decent concept of the procedure—in theory at least. They fell upon the disoriented ranks, tripping up the reluctant and lending a helping shove to add some velocity. Rather rough, I know, but every spare second of meditation could allow the enemy to build up enough mana to escape which in turn could entail losses of both money and information, not to even mention other much more unpredictable consequences.

  I looked around, searching for Widowmaker. "Assign enough men to mop up the castle and take over the Control Room. Bring Oksana here, then you can start sorting through the prisoners."

  For the next twenty minutes I didn't move, watching the avalanche of reports and constantly waving away the kill messages Bagheera was spamming me with. He was having a field day, sowing fear in his wake and breeding respect for his unknown invader masters.

  An endless flow of slaves kept emerging from the castle's premises and dungeons as the mercs cleared the cellars of the browbeaten crafters who exited, scared and shaking, while squinting their eyes at the almost-forgotten sun.

  Dong! The gong's vibrations made me jump.

  Congratulations! You have captured a castle: Shui Fong 7!

  Estimated value: 3,400,000 gold.

  We remind you of your duty to pay the 5% Federal tax within the next 14 days.

  For your information: a looting option is available. In that case, the castle will be razed to the ground and all the gaming items and objects, including players' graves, will be destroyed.

  Congratulations! You've received achievement: Invader I!

  A raid under your leadership has defeated the enemy and captured their castle!

  Reward: +500 to Fame

  Raid leader bonus: Blitzkrieg. Your raid will need 3% less time to take over the Control Room.

  I clenched my teeth and lowered my eyelids, trying to restrain the dozens of thoughts that flashed through my head as my mind generated a chain of optimal solutions. "Widowmaker, we have two and a half hours tops. Then I'm going to destroy the castle."

  My sobbing greedy pig was swallowing sedatives by the handful. Widowmaker cast an appraising look around and shook his head, obviously upset. "Are you sure? You don't think we can hold it?"

  I detected a pleading note in his voice. I understood him, of course. A raid bonus of one-third of 4 million wasn't exactly the same as that of 1 million.

  "No, I don't," I said. "These are unknown territories. This clan is too strong for us. I agree it would be awesome to keep it as a potential bridgehead for future needs. But I assure you that by this evening the whole area under these walls will be swarming with the enemy. So go rip out everything you think you can sell, tapestries included. In the meantime, I'll
check their virtual barracks and hire as many NPC archers as I can to man the walls. I might get a hundred or two Elves if I'm lucky. Actually no, I'd better hire some human crossbowmen—I'm not entirely sure where I stand with the Drow at the moment. And while you're at it, have a look at the dome shield artifact and see if it can be restored. That's it. Off you go!"

  I switched to the staff channel. "Get me the Porter and the Mules foreman."

  A stocky Dwarf with impossibly wide shoulders came first. I gave him a friendly nod and glanced at his name tag before speaking,

  "You see, Burly, it looks like we've bitten off more than we can chew. But the least we can do is try to eat as much of it as we can and nibble the rest. We're gonna strip this place down to the ground. Your job is to move the loot to a temporary warehouse. I'm pretty sure I've seen this service on your price list, am I right?"

  The Dwarf lowered his eyelids in agreement, then squinted, studying the castle's workshops, barracks and lines of cellar windows with a professional eye. "Twenty gold per cubic meter of loot per twenty-four hours. May I ask you, Sir Laith, of the entire volume of work and the deadline?"

  I shrugged. "Twenty cube—well, make it thirty. Two hours."

  He was above ego games, I had to give him that. He didn't bother to cut me down to size. He just tut-tutted, breaking the news,

  "It's ten times that, Sir Laith. Two hundred cube—maybe three hundred. I've already done a quick assessment of all the cellars and warehouses. The gangsters used this castle as a classic sweatshop with five hundred workers—or slaves, or robots, you can't really find the right word to describe them—busy 24-7 forging the clan's economic power. Here you have at least ten cube of vials alone—all sorts, you name it, it's there. Can't even tell you how many grand ten cube would cost. So in my approximation, you have enough work for three days solid."

  I gritted my teeth to prevent my jaw from dropping and stopped my hand just in time from scratching my head. In the meantime, my inner greedy pig was dancing a jig with abandon while making desperate faces at me. Yeah, right. We'd laid our hands on a nice juicy morsel, but how were we supposed to swallow it?

  The Dwarf's sideways look hinted at a possible solution. So I didn't play hard to get. "What do you suggest?"

  "You know, Sir Laith, any business is a bit like that Through the Looking Glass story. It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. The moment you stop to catch your breath, you'll be outrun by all those yuppie types who'd already learned from your experience and added a bit of their imagination. That's how it is in our cargo business, too. We aren't humble mules any more. We offer a wide range of packing, storage, insurance and logistics services, to name but a few..."

  "Not to mention intelligence..." an ironic Widowmaker interrupted the Dwarf's sales pitch. I gave his words some thought and shuddered.

  Indeed, if all the humble mules lugging their cargo up and down mountain trails had learned to talk... they could have told lots of interesting tales to whoever they may concern. Every detail of every secret route, every name and cargo type, every password and... the mind boggles.

  The dwarf flashed us a shy smile. I'm not a good judge of character but even I hadn't believed it.

  "We could offer you," he went on, "a complete package of looting services. For a mere 10% of the loot, three hundred of our experts will take two hours to scrape the place clean to the last drop of lime between its stones. Even the poorest beggar won't find anything worth stealing here once they're finished so he'll be so stricken with grief he'll be forced to hang himself on his own girdle as he won't be able to find a length of rope for his purposes!"

  Oh well. He'd probably exaggerated it a little but not much. In any case, it would be great to get my mercs out of it. I had other things for them to do.

  "Agreed," I said. "Where's the dotted line?"

  I had my doubts this mule was a mere foreman. He grinned, pleased. "The secretary's office will send you the contract in a moment. Your Porter can find himself other things to do. Cargo transportation is our area of expertise. We don't need no amateurs."

  He stepped aside, looking for a sufficiently spacious place. Then he reached into his bag, producing a nondescript little rock, and placed it on the dusty flagstones.

  A Portal Beacon. Allows a player to teleport to the artifact location by following its light. When the beacon is activated, a corresponding teleport spell will appear in your spell book.

  Effect: Indestructible

  Wow. Can I have two, please? I was so fed up with my own limited mobility and my meager two portal points—the resurrection point and the Altar. I made a mental note to invest in a handful of little rocks I could then hide in all of AlterWorld's strategic locations.

  In the meantime, the Dwarf disappeared in a flash of a personal portal, only to reappear a moment later with a picturesque goblin shaman hung like a Christmas tree with artifacts. He cast a studying look over the castle court, then licked his finger, checking the direction of the wind (don't ask me why). Then he paced out an area where he began to draw, expertly and quickly, a complex pentagram, positioning colored candles in its corners. Five colorful whiffs of smoke swirled into a spiral, expanding into a massive arch of a cargo portal that rumbled open right in front of our puzzled faces. It breathed ice, granting a moment of aircon relief to this realm of sun and sand. The shaman adjusted something, causing the air flow to go both ways: the hot air streaming in and the fresh feet-cooling jet blowing out.

  The goblin rubbed his hands. "The clan's warehouses are located in a cave facility for maximum protection. Unfortunately, it's also cold and dank—we're going to heat it a little."

  How do you like it? Should I maybe send them a heating bill?

  In the meantime, the portal began disgorging organized ranks of solemn-looking dwarves carrying all sorts of tools—from hammers and crowbars to handcarts, pulleys and hoists. It looked like I had nothing to worry about on this particular work front.

  "Widowmaker, you can proceed to optional task one. Send groups of five to all the farming locations where the gangsters sent slaves this morning. I don't think such locations have more than one slave driver, but you need to take him alive. Release the slaves and bring them to the castle. I'll be feeding you new locations as I get their coordinates. We'll try to pull out as many people as we can. Follow me, time's running out!"

  We hurried toward the already-triaged prisoners. Widowmaker generated orders into the staff channel as we went. Dozens of corridors and doorways began disgorging reluctant mercs who'd had to part with the soldier's sacred duty of counting and pilfering trophies. The Russian man's mind is a mystery at best of times, amplified by the warrior's "right" to loot a conquered city. I had no idea how much stuff had ended up in their capacious backpacks—so probably the thought of calling in the Dwarf experts could pay for itself, after all. Sorry guys, no offence, you're already entitled to the one-third bonus. Actually, it was about time we did something about this shameful practice of lining one's pockets on the job. Too many thieves around. I remembered Russian stories of road cops at an accident scene "checking" wrecked cars or firefighters too busy "salvaging" stuff out of a burning house. Okay, these may be exceptions, but the fact remained that such stories didn't raise any eyebrows.

  In the holding camp, the tables had turned: those of the ex-slaves who hadn't tarnished themselves with fraternization sat comfortably in the shade of the castle walls. Their eyes glittered with hope and optimism as their stomachs were busy consuming whatever the kitchen stores had had to offer: I don't think they'd seen much chance to enjoy normal food in the past.

  The camp's elite lay face in the dust under the scorching sun, hands on their heads: officers of every rank, warriors and other unfortunates of today's events.

  Aside sat a small but visibly nervous group of informers and slave drivers from the ranks of the slaves themselves, including a few voluntary bed-warmers and other rats. I watched Oksana's passionate exchange with the slaves'
impromptu committee and the following banishment of Bianca, a buxom blonde who was kicked out of the first group into the latter to angry laughter and catcalls.

  Oksana gave a satisfied nod, then ran to the gangsters and began kicking them, bending down and asking each the same question. I didn't interfere. She'd earned the right.

  I headed toward the biggest group of slaves. After all, that's why we were here in the first place: to free them. I stopped, waiting for a wary silence to set in, then made sure the external communication was blocked before addressing them,

  "Congratulations on your newfound freedom! To tell you the truth, our raid was on a totally different mission. But once we heard of all the crimes against humanity committed here, we couldn't just ignore it. My first question is: do any of you know of other slave teams who are currently out farming and leveling? Those we could liberate within an hour or two by groups of five each?"

  The ex-slaves exchanged awkward glances. "Go ahead," I encouraged them. "It's your friends' freedom we're talking here."

  A hand rose, then another, followed by a dozen more.

  "Excellent. Now I want you to forward the location's brief description, including all the relevant maps and coordinates, to my aide Alorrienar, a.k.a. Widowmaker. You have two minutes. The time is on... now!"

  Not in two minutes, but somehow they managed to do it in the end.

  "I've received thirty-six locations," Widowmaker reported. "Twelve of them unique. We're all set. I'm sending groups out."

  "Thank you for your cooperation, everyone! Next, as a gesture of good will for your liberation I'd like to ask you to forward me the copies of full sets of all the maps you have. You have five minutes, then I expect to see 407 new messages in my PM box."