The Battle Read online

  It was quite crowded, and still people kept coming! They threw aside the curtains of their narrow bunks, rushed out of the relaxation shacks and the endless spiral of the dungeon. The place now felt like a sardine can instead of a submarine.

  Yet I had the politician’s role to play, and I really missed the guys. I spent half an hour with the warriors, finding something nice to say about each one and continuously exchanging handshakes and backslaps.

  A waiter droid bustled about in the crowd, offering everyone their choice of coffee, coffee, or coffee.

  Gimmick climbed out of his corner and noted with sadness, "The most useless droid, this one. No ‘Friend-Stranger’ chip, no attack or defense weapons. Knows twenty languages that its on-board translator has never heard of. Has formal event records from seven different races in this galaxy. Knows five hundred drink recipes, coffee being the only one of them which it can mix with the ingredients we have down here."

  I pricked up my ears. "And the fighter droids? Can you make some?"

  Gimmick chuckled. "I tried a few times, but as they say, pulling the trigger’s easier than pulling one on the cops. The boys started beating me up, cuz these droids are merciless! They see us as foes. This calls for re-programming. Or for a Droid Master ability. Where do you get something like that?"

  That’s how dreams get ruined, I thought. Oh, well, the castle’s dungeon is endless. We can store the disassembled droid sets for now. Never know when we – or our children - might need them.

  I pictured archaeologists digging up the ruins of the First Temple, and school kids on their field trips among the mossy boulders. And then, one of them would fall through the floor into the ancient dungeon. He’d turn on his flashlight to find scores of deactivated droids under those horror-flick-like clouds of dust.

  Gradually, everyone settled down and returned to their bunks and sofas. It was nighttime by the Crypt clock. In forty hours, a mass terror-raid was to be made on the Americans, whose star-spangled asses were responsible for half the bad stuff happening within the Russian cluster.

  A portal popped open – an odd thing for such a late hour. Couldn’t the real world guest just have waited ten more seconds? The active portal zone was marked yellow. An arch swelled up inside it. Quiet cussing came from behind the colored curtains in response to the unknown arrival.

  Turned out, it was my gang coming – the Analyst, Cryl, and Widowmaker!

  "Sir Laith’s better, at last! Damn, man, look at those muscles!"

  They punched me in the shoulders, checking out my new look.

  Then the Analyst grew serious and said, "Max, everything’s going according to plan. Another raid will start in seven minutes. There are matters for you to attend to, but out of the ordinary."

  He faltered, and I had to ask, "What is it? Tell me!"

  "Flint. The leader of the Light Bearers. He was desperately trying to get hold of you through all the available channels. Then he decided that we were stalling and just went..."

  "Went where?"

  The Analyst glanced around helplessly. "Max, you have to see it. Let’s go. He’s at the Remote Post by Tianlong. We have custom portal scrolls."

  "Alright, let’s see up."

  A man crawled along the stone road on his knees. His fingers would dig into his face, then stretch out in the direction of the First Temple as if he were praying. One couldn’t inflict damage on himself in AlterWorld. But he sought ENDLESS suffering in order to prove the true power of his faith and his willingness to do anything for the faintest chance of a miracle.

  And the world caved in. He left a bloody trail on the stones. Bones shone through the torn flesh. His cheeks hung from his skull in scraps.

  Flint’s eyes sparkled with childlike hope and a plea.

  We stood frozen in shock and silently watched the old man draw near. I say "old man" for a reason: through the features of a stern, stone-faced clan leader, we could clearly see the worn out elder.

  Flint crawled up to our feet. The Analyst kindly tried to heal him with a scroll. Yet his HP stupidly remained in the low red as if ignorant of the fact.

  The clan leader let his forehead hit the stone, daubing it red, and pled, "First Priest! I call upon you! I will give you everything I have and will be your loyal slave for all eternity! I ask but for one thing!"

  I tried to help him to his feet. But despite my newly acquired strength, I was unable to lift the praying man off the ground.

  "Come on, get up! What happened?"

  Flint lifted up his colorless, tearful eyes as he said, "Your auction! Making going perma mandatory! I beg you, help! My granddaughter... she’s the only survivor in my family after the Treating Pond terrorist attack! She’s completely paralyzed. Can’t even blink. Her eyes are hooked up to a moisturizing drip."

  I shuddered. Every Muscovite remembered the horrid events of the summer of ’32. Terrorists had managed to pour a few tanks of highly toxic pesticide into the water.

  People died while showering, got seizures while bathing. Entire families would poison themselves drinking their after-dinner tea. For the first time, Moscow saw ambulance traffic jams...

  "Help! I tried making her go perma three times. The last time, I lost balance on the edge and got digitized myself. My granddaughter’s among the seventeen unlucky percent with perma resistance! I should have read her more story books when she was little instead of leaving her in front of the TV!"

  I frowned, wondering how the hell he’d found me out. "What made you think it’s my auction?"

  Flint replied, "Our clan has handwriting identification software. It finds logical, stylistic, and grammatical patterns in anonymous traders’ writing. The amount of texts in your auctions is large enough for a complete analysis. It said there’s a ninety-six percent chance that you’re the one! And considering your First Priest status and your previous miracles..."

  Dropping his head, Flint prostrated himself on the ground. Grabbing my legs, he wailed, "I beg for your help! Anya has no guardian – just a nurse. Another month or two, and she’ll rot away in the hospice. Or the juvenals will find out, remove her from the capsule and take her to an orphanage, confining her to bed until she’s of age! I will see my flesh and blood no more! My pretty star will cease to shine without the AlterWorld’s sun! She will not survive staring up at the filthy hospital ceiling!"

  I sighed heavily. There goes my cover.

  "Alright, Flint, listen up! I will need your clan’s help, your influence in the Alliance, and complete loyalty! Know this: I can send a soul back into reality just as easily as I can bring it here."

  I was bluffing, of course. But what if?! I thought as I said this. On whom can I try this out?

  Flint looked up at me with hope. "Should I call my granddaughter?"

  "Yes, get Jane, or Jill, or whatsername over here..." I was rude simply to hide my confusion. It was hard to look upon a weeping, bloodied old man on his knees.

  Gradually, Flint regained his legendary steel character. Throwing the invisible cross off his back and breaking out of his chains, he rose to his feet and whispered something into his private audio-channel.

  A portal gate popped open very close by, indicating a fine job by the secret intelligence and an in-depth knowledge of portal coordinates.

  Hm, a regular girl of about fifteen. Her face was emotionless. Atrophied facial muscles, runs in the family. I wondered whether this was her real image. Real images were recommended in all the main forums for making going perma easier. She had no clan tag. Flint kept his weak points to himself.

  "Anya! Come here, sweetheart..." Flint said with love and tenderness in his voice. That was first time I heard him speak this way. Wow.

  "Do everything the First Priest tells you, please!"

  "Everything?!" the girl’s eyes lit up with indignation.

  You silly gramps, way to talk to a teen in her most contrary years!

  I squatted as my current size didn’t make talking to petite girls very easy. "Anya, I will try
to help you stay in the AlterWorld forever, to go perma. That’s what you want, isn’t it?"

  "Should I undress?" the little pest asked, unfastening the buckles of her chain mail.

  The heavy veil of steel rings fell to her feet. The girl stepped over it and, assuming a sexy movie pose, threw out her tiny breasts clad in silk, saying, "Do it!"

  "Anya!" her grandfather barked at her angrily.

  The girl merely chortled. I smiled and shook my head,

  "Don’t even dream about it, little princess. Just relax and quit sucking in your stomach and sticking your chest out. This ain’t the beach. Turn around, look at your grampa. Do you love him? Do you want to be with him? Look at the sky – how stunningly blue it is. Much better than the ceiling of a dusty orphanage. Think of pleasant things; friends, butterflies, unicorns!"

  The girl shook her head sharply and stepped back, wrapping her arms around her shoulders to hide her perky teen breasts barely concealed by the silk. "Sorry... I’m just... I dunno why I’m being so silly..."

  "I hear you. Everything will be all right. You won’t even have time to get scared, for I am the First Priest. This is a piece of cake for me. Believe in me and have no doubt. Ready?"

  She nodded. I closed my eyes, sinking into the anchored state of the first authority after the Fallen One. Mentally skimming through all the previously performed miracles, I called upon my confidence, my power over the world, and my understanding that I "had the right" to do this!

  I summoned the power of the Creator’s Spark within me, and reached out to Anya. "I secretly name you Daredevil!"

  The energy fell like an anchor cast into bottomless depths. It sucked the power out of me as if I were the ship, the anchor chain unwinding at my expense. Feeling the bitter cold rapidly creep over my soul, I frowned and hurriedly threw all of my priestly Holiness into the furnace.

  Still not enough! The fire flared up and instantly consumed the scanty fuel. I felt the joints in my legs grow cold.

  I don’t have the strength! Cutting the steel cable of a perma-resistant character is not the same as slashing the threads of regular players!

  I blindly felt for items on my belt. Grabbing a couple of Small Power Crystals, I squeezed them in my palms. The precious artifacts compliantly passed their accumulated mana on to me, then turned to dust. The energy transformation ratio was negligible. Even the Stationary Accumulator couldn’t have helped!

  My legs gave way. I groaned, blood welling up inside my throat and dropped to one knee. Flint’s eyes filled with panic as he watched.

  But then, the Power filled me to the brim again. Widowmaker, the Analyst and Orcus put their hands on my shoulders, thus forming the simplest Magic Circle.

  My clumsy brothers could hardly use their own Spark. Yet they made for decent batteries. Moaning as my muscles instantly unfroze, I got up again. Greedily drawing the new power, I affixed the girl to the AlterWorld with a single strike.

  "Live forever!" I said hoarsely, spitting blood along with my men.

  "Happy Birthday!" smiled Orcus, wiping his bleeding nose.

  Flint, profoundly impressed, dropped to his knees again. "I will serve you! With my whole soul!" Grabbing Anya by the hem of her shirt, he hissed, "Thank the First Priest!"

  The girl was quite stunned by our beat-up look, but her teen maximalism and her given name mastered her. "I’d better make sure first..."

  The old man jumped up, but I gave a weary nod, "She’s right. Log out. Don’t get cold feet, Daredevil!"

  Anya heaved a deep sigh. Her eyes lost focus for a second, then shone with unspeakable joy. "Grampa!" she cried, throwing herself into his arms.

  The reunited cried on each other’s shoulders, oblivious to the world around them.

  "A true miracle," uttered Orcus in a strangely pious voice, then secretly wiped away a tear and gave me a deep bow.

  I looked helplessly at my mates, but only to notice Widowmaker making the sign of the Holy Circle upon himself.

  Are ya all nuts?!

  Chapter Eleven

  The Kingdom of Poland micro cluster, vicinity of the capital city.

  Noobtown: 2.140 people on site

  "Ding!" said Tomash in a sad and doomed voice, turning to his fellow bunny-farming newbies. "I've done level ten!"

  "Dong!" someone said spitefully above his ear.

  A figure wrapped in a torn cloak came out of stealth mode. It sunk two daggers into his kidneys. Watching as a gravestone dropped on the ground, the figure wiped its daggers on its sleeve and said into the emptiness,

  "How convenient we just happened to be passing by!"

  Oddly enough, a light breeze replied,

  "Yep. And I thought everyone older than the ten-ruble banknote had been scared away. Well, nothing left to do here. Let’s hit sector 3-А."

  The Russian private winked at the Poles angrily flaring their nostrils, then went back into stealth. Nothing but the footprints on the grass betrayed the direction that the enemy rogues were headed in. The Anti-PK group that had been sent after them was instantly slain by three united terrorist groups. Strangely, no one had touched the Poles’ supplies.

  The Russian private was nearing Holy Unmercenary status.

  The USA cluster. DeepForest, the capital of the High Elves.

  A tired-looking man limped along a neatly paved roadway. He was wrapped up in a large plain cloak.

  Over the last twelve hours, he had visited nine cities and walked twenty-five miles. The stump of his right leg, which had gotten chewed up by tank tracks back in real life, now throbbed with phantom limb pain.

  Sure, he was in the AlterWorld, but still he KNEW that the amputated limb HAD to get sore after a thousand paces. It was this thought that caused him pain despite the fact that here both his legs were in one piece, shod in sturdy leather boots.

  Consulting his map, he whispered quietly, "It’s somewhere here." He glanced around.

  He found the sign Swords and Daggers exactly where he expected it to be. But the tiny hexagonal stone was lost in the corner of the picturesque sign, and no lightsider would normally notice it.

  There were no customers inside. Perhaps the gloomy orc with chipped fangs and torn nostrils was to blame. The echo of war.

  The orc must’ve been one of the few captives who’d managed to buy their freedom following a conflict among the firstborn races. Folks like him had nowhere to go. So he settled in enemy lands, finding peace in the gloom of a weapon shop, his beloved steel keeping him company. The outrageous prices kept customers at bay, and the vendor’s heavy stare would scare away those looking to sell cheap loot.

  The cloaked guest threw off his hood and fearlessly confronted the orc’s dull stare.

  "Nicholas Ratnikov," he said with a slight stutter, using his real name for some reason. "The Veterans clan senior officer, the Guаrds of the First Temple Alliance, priest of the Dark Pantheon. Praise the Fallen One!"

  He produced an artifact on a chain given to him by the First Priest.

  The orc straightened himself up like an old steed at the sound of battle trumpets. His eyes flashed, his ancient back creaked. "How can I help my master’s messenger?"

  The officer nodded, satisfied: the system was working fine. "The hour of the great battle has come. The Fallen One is summoning his loyal warriors. Hear his orders! You have twenty-four hours to prepare to move to a new residence. There is a spot for you and your shop in the Super Nova defending the First Temple! No point in supplying the Lightsiders with weapons when the Fallen One’s followers can use them instead!"

  The Orc lowered his head in agreement. Just one question escaped his scarred lips, "May I bring my family with me?"

  "Not may, must!" said the officer brusquely and left, nodding ‘goodbye.

  He still had six places left to visit. Laith’s rangers had accomplished the impossible: they had found several secret followers of the Fallen One among the cities of Light.

  Rubbing the treacherously aching limb, the man broke the se
al on yet another scroll. Godspeed...

  The echo of the portal died down after it carried away Flint and Daredevil. My mates and I wiped the blood off our faces.

  I pricked up my ears. As I wiped my nose with my sleeve, it felt as rough as sandpaper. Was my blood crystallizing? Wow, I’d gone quite far up heaven’s ladder.

  God forbid. Trust my clanmates to lock me up and drain me drop by drop. A one percent increase in immunity was priceless. They enslaved folks for even less in AlterWorld.

  I looked around slyly, then shook the sand off my sleeve and drew everyone’s attention away from the incident with a rhetorical question,

  "So, you say the Fallen One wasn’t eager to help?"

  A resentful chatter rose among the officers. They hadn’t expected such a mean trick from him. He always messed with the clan members when he wasn’t needed, sitting on the temple steps squinting his watchful eyes at the sun. But in a time of real need, he'd showed up but for a second only to grab his wretched female and disappear again!

  "There now..." I began promisingly, playing to my audience. I gathered up whatever confidence I had like one normally does before reporting to their boss, and made myself press the Appeal to Gods pictogram. "Fallen One!"

  Nothing.

  "Yo, boss!"

  Still nothing.

  I listened intently to the heavenly planes and finally made out the faint sounds of a family scandal that seemed to be coming from behind closed doors.

  Fuck, they’re arguing while I’m getting ripped apart?

  "311, fuck your crystallized godsoul!" I snapped in rage as I knocked down the invisible ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs. My clanmates flinched.

  "What?!" was the instant response I got, which dealt me an even angrier blow that sent blood spurting from my lips.

  Spitting crimson clots, I bared my teeth and said, "Leave your bitch alone: there’s a war! You nearly lost your First Priest! Lloth was fucking me over for nearly two months in her Halls, and you didn’t even respond, oh lord our master!"