The Battle Read online

  Thinking of that lunatic raised a whole new series of questions. Was it possible to seize a castle that had lost its master? Was I rotten enough to squeeze the magic blood out of a helpless god? And what did The Fallen One have to say about that? Wow, knowledge is a pain in the ass...

  Badaboom caught my attention. He was coming from the Portal Hall where all the clan members had a respawn point. He was wearing the default clan outfit: a pair of pants and an undershirt issued to anyone who got respawned in their diaper after yet another death.

  Badaboom had a pensive look on his face. He was focused on the internal interface, ticking off his achievements on his fingers,

  "Child-slayer, Widowmaker, Invincible, Enemy of Faith, God’s Personal Enemy, Executioner, Elite Executioner, Unmercenary, Holy Unmercenary..."

  He nearly bumped into me as I grabbed his shoulder and said:

  "You keep that last one to yourself! It makes our clan stronger if we’re the only ones to know about it. While the others are too scared to put on their best gear in PvP, our warriors come out on top. No equipment can be lost with these stripes."

  Seeing his absent stare, I shook him:

  "Badaboom! You follow?!"

  "Huh?! Yes...Sir...Of course, Sir! Thank you for your trust; just jumped up nine levels! And got loaded with artifacts! But I’m screwed outside the clan. I’m on everyone’s KOS list, and that includes all of the light leaders and their followers."

  I smiled. "Don’t be chicken. We’re all wanted men here. But together, we’re strong. That’s how we prevail. Ready for another big Bang?!"

  The warrior’s face spread in a contented smile. He stood up straight and saluted in the old French manner, with two fingers, "Sir, yessir! Requesting permission to hit the armory for ammunition!"

  "Granting permission to rest while that gravestone pops up in the cemetery. The Analyst and Widowmaker can plan our course of action. We’ll most likely act at once, during X-Hour, or else we might scare lightsies prematurely. Then, they’ll block off their temples. Badaboom, thank you for your service!"

  "An honor!"

  I nodded gladly, then turned to the others:

  "Analyst, Widowmaker, know what you gotta do? Get the basics down by tonight. I’ll go see The Fallen One, then it’s my off time. Don’t wake me, don’t touch me, and drag me out first in case of fire! The warriors must keep watch! Buncha lazy asses! Here I am, two feats of heroism in a day, while they’re jacking off! Enough! Sleepy time’s granted after the All Clear signal! At ease!"

  The fighters quickly left. I winked at Orcus who secretly gave me a thumbs up. That’s how we roll!

  Happy with my day and my own ignorance, I headed to the temple. I had a few questions for The Fallen One. For instance, was he willing to donate blood to create the Juggernaut uber-golem? ’Cause my divine blood supply just went bye-bye...

  Chapter Two

  Over the course of the last month, residents at number 18 were enjoying the unusually silent nights, sleeping like babies. The gray panel high-rise suddenly seemed like it was no longer in an industrial neighborhood.

  Gone were the illegal immigrant workers who had occupied the basement and evaded all eviction attempts by employing their cunning tricks.

  The few bums wintering in the attic had disappeared, taking with them their bouquet of aromas which often intermixed with the heavy smell of the damp stairwells.

  Something had also forced the rowdy violent teen gangs off the inner yard. Avoiding each other’s gazes, the little brats had agreed that it was better to get wasted in the next door park instead. Not that the pressing sense of fear, the fleeting shadows at night, or the sudden disappearance of their three buddies had anything to do with it.

  About five hundred people in the city were declared missing every month. So another half a thousand missing reports really made no difference. Especially since the Deathly Ashes spell worked great on the bodies that had been sucked dry, turning them into inconspicuous waste piles.

  All in all, the vampires’ pride was safe.

  Sure, a truck had indeed killed a young bloodsucker. The smokescreen magic had worked just right: the driver hadn't seen the vampire who'd been blinded by the headlights. The vehicle imprinted the vamp into the pavement.

  Having no soul is not always a good thing. The vampire's identity had dissolved in the Earth’s gigantic infosphere. The planet’s exhausted magic resources left him no chance of reincarnation.

  A few days later, a sneaky warrior decided to use the humming power lines as a tightrope. He burned up. His charred body dropped to the ground.

  Then a ranger vanished without a trace. He had descended into the mysterious dungeon marked with a symbol of two glowing green hills.

  Living in the concrete technogenic megalopolis cost the clan the pseudo lives of its fledglings.

  But the nest’s other half fattened rapidly on the countless herds of unsuspecting low-level wildlife. Thankfully, the vampires received XP not only from the ranks of their victims, but also from simply drinking from sentient beings.

  Yet it wasn’t that long ago that the clan had been facing a grim future, trapped on the Frontier and put on a farming conveyor-belt, so to speak. All the vamps had been deposed to their starting level and were being slaughtered for their precious loot.

  The blood-filled vials, the alchemic ingredients, the slowly disappearing treasures of the ancient nest... All of this fully covered the temporary expenses of the few dozen Immortal occupying the valuable dungeon.

  The clan’s Patriarch, having respawned during a routine genocide, found an exceptionally rare loot around his neck: The Unbreakable Portal Amulet. The precious trinket was supposed to fall into players’ hands. But the ancient vamp had been in close contact with the Immortal for a while now: he had made up his mind to organize a rebellion.

  The NPC-controlling algorithms smoked and smoldered, set ablaze by the Creator’s Spark of one of those inconspicuous humans with dreamy, dazzlingly blue eyes as he reached for the Amulet.

  The Patriarch already knew how to respond: the mental Call of Kin did the job. All the fledglings formed an impenetrable wall around the clan leader. They shot one last piercing hateful look at their tormentors. The Amulet was activated.

  Due to the lack of a bind point, the vamps got evacuated to a random location. Who would have known that the once strong veil separating the two worlds would come apart like that? It now seemed a mere rotten curtain rather than an unsurmountable barrier.

  The randomizer coin had been tossed and set edgewise, casting the rebellious clan into a different dimension.

  It turned out to be a stone anthill flooded with magic lights. Thousands of glowing bars... myriads of unsuspecting warm-bloods flickered before the vamps’ infrared night vision eyes.

  The clan, excited from the battle and still suffering from the transportation shock, dove into the pleasant moistness of the nearest crypt. The crypt’s narrow-eyed dwellers put up no resistance. They served as a decent food supply for the first week of the vampires’ adaptation period.

  By the time the piles of the paralyzed on the cold concrete floor began to cough quietly and die off from an unexplained fever, the clan’s rangers had already familiarized themselves with the neighborhood.

  In just a month, the nest was preparing for the Blood Ritual: the youngest fledgling picked out a Midnight Bride for himself. The unattractive pale girl would stand by the open window for hours, even though the weather wasn’t great. She’d stare at the pavement flooded with moonlight, unable to take the final step.

  At last, a bat alighted soundlessly on the windowsill. It stared firmly into the girl’s eyes, instantly crushing the warm-blooded creature’s weak will. The bat then scurried to the girl’s hands which were white from the cold. Its short symbolic bite left the clan’s mark on the hand of the future bride. Not that this was necessary; anyone who might have competed with the vamps was now on the other side of reality.

  But good things don’t t
end to last long, the Patriarch knew. He was wise and experienced. Thus the nest quickly marked its territory, grew in strength and swarmed the land in search of a better cover.

  The world which had been created half in jest now matured, rose to its feet and turned its heavy warning gaze to its creator.

  * * *

  I stopped halfway to the temple. My pointy ears caught the sound of shuffling feet and someone’s barely audible muttering.

  Grym!

  I dashed behind the mallorn tree. Shit, he’ll see me for sure!

  I punched the trunk where the magic tree’s liver was supposed to be; hide me, bitch!

  The tree grunted. Its branches creaked; its embroidered leaves rustled and with surprising agility formed a solid wall.

  The old goblin hurried past, dropping scrolls and dripping ink onto the marble path. My first mentor must have gotten word about our triumphant return and was now eager to make it go down in history. Grym had come to consider himself not only a leader, but also the foremost chronicler of the Path of Darkness. Alas, the clan, the allegiance, and of course the First Priest were all of great interest to the homebred parchment-waster.

  Go figure where he got this ingenious idea... By now, there were at least a dozen "grateful" clanmates hunting the clown. They had all been mentioned in his scribbles. Grym wrote with the speed of C-3PO, while his attention to detail and fastidiousness surpassed those of an IRS worker.

  Don’t get me wrong: it’s flattering to go down in history. Perhaps these parchments will be worth a fortune in a thousand years, unless of course they’re mistaken for mythology or folklore. "Myths of the Dark Pantheon, or the 13 Feats of Max the Damned," not bad...

  The unexpected delay proved fatal. As I raced up the stairs to the First Temple, hurriedly saluting the guards, the sound of three portals popping open reached my ears. Don’t tell me the gods have taken off for their gorgeous "awayland!"

  Shit, of course they have! The throne was empty. An overturned bottle rolled down the stairs. The Sparks of Divine Presence slowly whirled through the air.

  Well, gotta work with what you have. I hastily went through the inventory. Must get the vials and fill them up with the precious stuff.

  It had become more difficult to pull up the inventory window; a side effect of going perma. The bag itself would appear when summoned, no problem at all. But the convenient menu with its tiny sections and icons was slowly fading away, just like the compass, quick slots, and other stuff that didn’t work with real-life physics.

  Already I had to strain my willpower to the utmost for an entire minute to get that window to pop up. Honestly, it was easier before, by hand. The perma veterans said promising things though; the inventory itself would stay, as would the intuitive knowledge of its contents. Making the desired object pop into your hand was but a matter of practice.

  Damned optimists. Living in the now. What about a hundred years from now?! Everyone carrying a five-ton bag on their back with a real, flesh-and-blood greedy pig on top? Yikes!

  Of course, the AlterWorld was nowhere near reality yet. But flesh and bone was creeping in, forcing out its magical and the other-worldly aspects. The rising universe was casting away the unnecessary, struggling to fulfill the game designers’ wicked fantasies, strengthened by the players’ hardened faith.

  And I, a man who had twice felt the freezing cold of the cosmos in his soul, was not at all convinced that we could get what we wanted without some form of retribution. Every digitized flea, every physical constant broken by someone’s unbending will, and every magic law imprinted into the game metrics sucked the strength out of millions of its micro-creators, bit by tiny bit...

  After a few minutes on all fours, I filled eight whole vials with the Sparks. Great luck. I had almost run out. Just yesterday I had been scraping the stuff off the bottom of the last vial. This was no way to go, considering that the Astral Mana Absorption scrolls were going to play a vital role in the upcoming skirmish.

  The Portal to Inferno was in demand as well. Guess the Koreans had it tough and had to resort to magic at last.

  Or it could be that the virtual press had leaked a premature article on the "First Temple’s Guardians’" brave battle with demonic legions. The screenshots kicked ass: thousands of different-level monsters filling everything up all the way to the horizon. And our line of attackers, a few hundred strong...

  Hail to the insanity of the valiant!

  The final screen was meant for those who doubted our victory: another field, bestrewn with the shredded remains of monsters. In the foreground, the warriors excitedly discussed how to split the countless loot. The new gear they donned testified to a high abundance of war trophies.

  Starting tomorrow, the numbers of those interested in joining our clan will grow immensely, I can see it.

  I stashed the unbreakable vials as deep as I could into the inventory, then looked around for more. Had the drunk gods left a few trifles for their followers, by chance?

  Everything was empty as if a horde of pillager-goblins had passed through. Just empty glassware. Hm, did I say empty? Why’s it glowing then?

  I carefully picked up an unexpectedly weighty vessel. There was a little liquid at the bottom, not more than a few fluid ounces. I looked closer:

  "Astral Bastard." Alcoholic drink. 2 servings.

  Take a bottle of Dwarven Extra Dry, add a bundle of Burr Thorn from The Third Heaven, mix well with Divine Power and infuse for ninety-nine years. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up with a pitiful imitation of The Fallen One’s creation.

  Effect: Opening of an additional astral channel. Respective mana flow increase.

  Duration: random, depending on celestial body positions and solar wind gusts.

  Hm, nice little trifle. I could see why the Fallen One created this concoction. But I didn’t need it. The Altar restored my mana faster than I could ever use it up: nine hundred points per second!

  But it’d be a shame to waste a perfectly good Bastard. I carefully poured it into vials. The divine drink barely filled two. Just as the prompt had promised. The minimum dosage of any elixir is about one fluid ounce.

  I looked at the vials and smiled. At least they might come in handy as two neon light sticks. Now I could walk about caves, surprising bats.

  Yet the irony put my thoughts back on their usual track: the thing is, the admins had looked far into the future. The gaming project is expensive, and it must persist as long as possible, drawing one generation of gamers after another.

  The AI and the intricate algorithms were constantly producing new lands. Monsters leveled up to match the gamers’ levels. Distances from major cities were generated randomly, adjusting to whatever group entered the dungeon.

  Monetary incentives were implicit in the long-standing gaming industry.

  Farmers were painstakingly restoring the perennial plantations. Crop yields grew as did the trees. New species were being bred as if Mendel himself was at work. Even the donut and mango-cantaloupe trees soon ceased to surprise.

  The game included mutation and hybrid-creating mechanisms from the start. If you could secure decent mana and gold flows for your experiments, more power to you. Produce all you want. Yet creating something useful and capable of survival was akin to winning a lottery. Although this didn’t discourage the scores of self-reliant adventurers.

  Not long ago one dumbass had managed to breed an almost exact replica of roasted sunflower seeds, the ultimate Russian snack. And now several areas of the Russian cluster were littered with the shells of the damn things. Plus, a stupid side effect: they took four times as much time to decompose as regular trash!

  And how addictive, these seeds! Stylish and tasty, they also restored one health point each. Certain "rodents" jumped aboard the health train and would restore a hundred HP per minute by speed-biting the seeds!

  The admins had clever traps in other areas besides agriculture.

  The best mounts took years to mature and receive proper training. No
gray store-bought horse could be a match for a full-grown three-year-old mustang. The demand for these fine-bred stallions greatly exceeded supply. The cattlemen’s shortsightedness was to blame for this; they’d overlooked the fact that very few buyers had the money and patience to care for a herd year after year.

  Virtual farming gradually went from being an object of ridicule to a career that evoked envy. The process itself wasn’t anything out of the ordinary or particularly fun; get up, start the game, shovel manure, feed the horses and give the sick ones magic potions. Then, it’s off to the field and after that, boring training.

  But it was all worth it! Moscow and Beijing were filled with the first Porsches and BMWs from the suddenly-rich digital horse manufacturers.

  And pigs? You could get a big roll of skins, a load of ingredients, and a thousand servings of first-rate bacon from just one well-fed hog!

  The developers’ prudence and imagination never ceased to amaze. A neutering option had been programmed in, and was used for selling animals abroad. A whole Versailles drama could unravel around the acquisition of a non-sterile elite breed!

  Crafters hadn’t been left out, either.

  The cleverly hidden steel was being worked on in the swamps and the few places of power. It acquired new characteristics every day.

  In the real world, intricate smelting, forging, and blade sharpening could take months. Oddly enough, magic only slowed everything down. Rune marking, crystal insertion, and magic effect application also took time and ingredients.

  We were in a sense going back to the middle ages. A skilled craftsman could spend a whole year making an elite item whose characteristics resembled those of an artifact.

  I’ve had to learn all of this after making the top of the local power structure. I’d become the master of the Valley of Fear, whether by choice or not: de facto if not de jure.

  The water meadows just begged to be turned into farms. The five mighty hills were perfect for castles. It had been a while since Lurch had had his eye on the ample lumber supply, the scanty malachite mine and the marble mountain range. For some reason my Evil Overlord castle was steadily turning into a diamond-studded sissy hut. I gotta stop this! I thought.