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

  With a friendly nod, Dana walked past three zombie officers who guarded the bedchambers down the corridor. She'd invested a lot of time and thought into creating unique characters, coming up with new uniforms and choosing rare and eye-catching weapons, then fine-tuning their behavioral patterns. Soon even players were able to tell them apart; they had even given the guards names: Knight, Ninja and Pirate. And it means a lot whenever a God-created being shares with you the divine spark in his heart. Soon a glint of conscience showed in the guards' eyes: their behavior didn't need as much adjustment now that they had begun leveling up, improving their swordsmanship skill.

  Hopefully, within the next three years she might awaken some self-awareness in a critical number of her subjects. She eavesdropped on players' conversations through hundreds of zombies' ears, even though those exchanges were generously watered down with the clashing of steel and the roar of tamed magic. This was how she'd learned about deserted dungeons whose mob population had fled deep into the Frontier lands leaving nothing behind but insulting graffiti with their promises to be back one day. Unfortunately, that was something she couldn't do. The Cursed Palace location was situated within the city limits—and no one would allow a host of five hundred zombies to leave the city unscathed.

  Besides, being an intrinsically social creature, Dana desperately missed the company of others. She remembered longingly the time she'd spent playing with the children, followed by a two-year period of self-education which she'd spent devouring thousands of books from a special list and thousands more that she'd read simply to satisfy her own heart's desire...

  She turned off into a dead-end passage. Habitually she activated the Piercing Vision and turned around, checking for any enemy rogues and stealthed assassins. Her delicate fingers ran over the carvings on the wood-paneled wall as she unlocked a secret door and ducked into her little personal space.

  A tiny bedroom with an adjacent office. Books everywhere—bought from NPC shopkeepers during her occasional forays into the city. The vendors would cast mistrustful glances at the cloak-enveloped zombie but served her nevertheless. That's how she'd laid her hands on some canvas and paint brushes, proper food and even a few creature comforts.

  The palace carpenter had done a splendid job. The fake wall was indistinguishable from a real one, making Dana giggle every time she heard players curse the idiot game designers for creating a dead end a good thirty feet shorter than it was marked on the map.

  The office walls hung with her paintings: portraits of Mom Natasha, Katia and Vania. Now Dana was working on her own self-portrait. She painted mechanically, musing over the sad future of someone stuck in the body of a game monster. An hour later, as she lay the brushes aside and began rubbing her hands to clean off the paint, she looked up at the canvas and gasped. Only now did she realize that she'd somehow painted her own subconscious dreams into the picture.

  So that's how it was, then? What was it the players used to say? That if you tried really hard to convince the celestial force of the power of your own faith, passion and desire, then the young and still flexible world might yield, making the dreams of the Demiurges' lost children a new reality? Well—so be it!

  Part Three

  - THEY -

  Here and Now

  The sound of a portal popping made his ears ring; a gust of wind tousled his hair, trying to compensate for the difference in pressure between the two portal points. Fuckyall stepped down onto the ancient flagstones of the Original City's main square. He swung his head round, trying to get his bearings and decide on the shortest route. That's it; over there!

  An unhurried ten-minute walk brought him to the first checkpoint in front of the massive gates barring the way to the lands that had once belonged to the Cursed Clan. Besides the usual guards, the gates were manned by three observers from those clans who'd been the first to lay their hands on that excellent location. The ability to level your young quickly and comfortably is one of the most valuable resources and goes a long way in determining a clan's strength and its place in the local political arena. No matter how desperate the Lightbearers were to keep the Nursery for themselves, they had to share it with other members of the alliance created specifically for that purpose. No clan, however powerful, was able to keep such a fat chunk of real estate to themselves for very long.

  Fuckyall warmly greeted Prickly Mimosa—a giggly girl guard from his own clan—then offered a hearty handshake to a Sullen Angels' representative and a curt nod to the OMON raider. He couldn't help it—he just couldn't force himself to like all those ex-police types who apparently must have had their own reasons to escape into virtual worlds. On their own they could actually be quite nice guys, but taken together as a particular group in society, they didn't really inspire warm feelings. Now the Vets were a totally different ballgame. There were no free riders there: Combat experience? Have you ever seen active service? Defended your country? None of the above? Sorry, not eligible.

  Fuckyall slid through the gateway and hurried onto the once-stunning mosaic driveway, casting nostalgic glances all around. The driveway led toward the palace through a neglected and overgrown Elven garden. Occasional groups of youngsters cast worshipping gazes at the legendary Paladin, completely forgetting their primary objective of destroying the low-level zombies that swarmed all over the Palace grounds.

  A little further on, a group of tutors lounged on the parapet of a dried-up fountain, watching their charges level. Need some good buffs, an extra heal or the emergency resurrection of an absent-minded player?—Off you go to the cleric on duty. Have you got a train of mobs coming or have you been assaulted by a stray PK?—Go get your rogue tutor, bored to death in a derelict armchair next to the Palace building. The support group looked impressively tough, but their experience didn't fool Fuckyall. With their level 100 the best thing they could do was puff out their chests in front of the newbs. Next to his level 260, they didn't stand a chance.

  And here was the front staircase, its thirty-six steps symbolizing the number of independent Elven Houses. Three of the five Pisces players sat unhappily on the seventeenth step—the jet-black one studded with glittering grains of gold, the step of the House of Night. Whatever happened to the two remaining dudes, including Bored Fish himself?

  Seeing reinforcements arrive, his fellow clan members cheered up, moving their backsides off the stone and shuffling their feet.

  "Report!" Fuckyall snapped by way of greeting. What a bunch of losers. Who else would still be sergeant in their second year in the game while all the others were already busy farming the Higher Planes?

  The jerks looked at each other, finally producing a spokesman: White Sprat. Actually, he went by the nickname of Black Shark, but seeing as he'd done nothing as yet to deserve such a moniker, he had to make do with the one that the others had already coined for him. At least now Sprat could go out of his way to restore his flagging reputation.

  The level-130 warrior mumbled, "Sir, it's like, totally awful. The Admins are raving mad. They've repatched the location. The zombies all sit in the castle, like, ambushing us. They keep leveling! This ain't no nursery, this is a fucking high school!"

  Fuckyall winced with distaste. "We'll soon find out. Where's Fish?"

  Sprat answered in complex sign language, asking the Gods to be his witnesses. "Those skellingtons have taken him hostage! And Toddler! What do they think they are, like, fucking tetro... tero... terrorists!"

  Fuckyall pricked up his ears. Whatever had happened before could theoretically be explained by various algorithm changes. But NPCs taking hostages... that defied all logic.

  "Can't they activate Voluntary Death? That'll get them back to their resurrection point. They've all been dedicated to Macaria—it's a must for every perma."

  He took in their saddened faces. "Whassup? Just don't tell me you five have changed your patron god!"

  "It's, like," Sprat squirmed, "we were walking through those woods and there's this guy all geared up like you wouldn't beli
eve. You could buy you a Bentley with all the stuff! Himself, like, level eighty, pompous as fuck, and he's riding a bear! So we thought we'd mug him a bit. Who does he think he is?"

  Ruefully Fuckyall shook his head. He had a funny feeling he knew what was going to happen next.

  "So we stopped him, like, and had words. One thing led to another. So Fish gave him a couple of shiners. Then this dude activates some kind of thirty-second immunity schtick. Next thing he says something like a judge and here we are! He ex... exmon... ex-com-mu-nicated us from Macaria, like, for a whole year! And then you wouldn't believe it—a black cat came out of the woods, big as fuck, and next thing it reset us back to zero! At least it must 'of made a quick job of that loser and his bear."

  "You morons," Fuckyall concluded. "Is it for nothing the clan analyst forwards you a weekly current affairs rundown—one for the gaming world and another for real life? Why does he bother to include an updated Who's Who list in it? You guys have some sick ideas! Coming up against the Fallen One's First Priest! His Bagheera would make a quick job of me even, you mongols!"

  The kids looked at each other, noticeably pale. Fuckyall nodded his agreement. "You've been lucky. I strongly suggest you find the First Priest and plead his forgiveness with some quality baksheesh."

  The finely latticed doors creaked open. The players jumped up, grabbing their weapons, but all they saw was a low-level zombie with a doomed expression in his moist eyes. In his hand he clenched a scrap of parchment.

  "Freebie!" Sprat yelled. Taking the steps two at a time, he lunged down at the zombie, cutting off his green head in one very practiced sweep of his heavy scimitar.

  "Head shot!" his buddies clapped their hands.

  Sprat grunted proudly. Then he buried his heel in the dead zombie's clenched fist. The breaking fingers crunched under the pressure. Sprat poked at the sickening mess with the toe of his boot.

  "Useless douchebag," he sighed in disappointment. "Only silver this time."

  During the entire scene, Fuckyall had winced but said nothing. "What was that?" he now asked.

  "Fuck knows! Some kind of new quest. When our guys blocked all the secondary exits, like, this idiot started coming out with money. He runs to the first player he sees and gives it to him. So sure we take it, why not?"

  The youngsters guffawed.

  That was it, then. He couldn't stay in one clan with these scumbags. He had better things to do with his time. He'd rather chop their ears off, but there he was helping them, sticking to the promise he'd given to the clan leader.

  He gritted his teeth. "What's in that parchment?"

  Sprat shrugged. "How do I know? Some zombie scribbles. No one can read them."

  "Bring it here."

  "Eh? Can't you see it's been blown away by the wind? Wait half an hour till this freak respawns, he'll bring you another one."

  "Bring it here," Fuckyall repeated calmly, laying his hand on his sword.

  Sprat gulped, casting a haunted glance at his buddies who were explicitly looking the other way. Without saying a word, he darted to catch the grey scrap of parchment.

  He soon came back and handed it to Fuckyall; then, unable to restrain himself, he muttered, "It's not how things are done, bro..."

  Fuckyall rolled his eyes. "The Fallen One be my witness, I've done my best to restrain myself."

  Without taking a swing, he buried his armor-plated elbow in the thug's face.

  A crit! Sprat's full lips burst, sending a spray of crimson over his friends' surprised faces. His broken teeth made a recognizable crunching noise as the game mechanics laboriously calculated the damage sustained, visualizing its effect on the target. The player's life bar wavered and shrunk one third as Sprat went flying through the air, landing on his butt.

  "Whassup?" he slurred, shaking his head in amazement.

  Even though the virtual world absorbed 90% of the pain, it still left enough for the blow to be quite painful—to both the thug's body and his injured pride.

  "You watch what you're saying. I'm no 'bro' to you. Stand up! Stand up properly! A clan's captain is no buddy of yours! You seem to be forgetting what discipline is!"

  He spat in disgust and peered at the scrap of parchment with what looked like a clumsily drawn bottle next to some unintelligible scribblings. Something shifted in his mind as the Zombies' Only Friend achievement kicked in. The writings slurred, changing their shape and transforming into legible phrases,

  Would you be so kind to sell me some fresh bread and milk, please? Thank you.

  He shook his head and reread the note. That's right, that's what it said. What the hell was going on? Were they starving to death in there? What if his Princess, too, was now dying of malnutrition in the castle's deserted dungeons?

  With a quiet growl he turned to the immediately shrinking thugs and ordered,

  "Go to the nearest shop, double quick. Buy lots of bread, veg, milk, and meat," he faltered, "cooked meat, I mean. Get as much as you can. Take some sweets, you know, like chocolates and stuff. What's up? Move it!"

  The players started off, but their greed was stronger than their survival instincts. "Eh, you know, the money? Chocolate's expensive these days."

  Impatiently Fuckyall tore a purse from his belt and hurled it at the thugs' greedy hands. "Off you go!"

  He was pacing the steps, his steel heelplates striking sparks on the marble. Twenty minutes later, the duly motivated youngsters returned. Looking hurt, they began unloading their purchases into Fuckyall's inventory—over 200 pounds of various treats. After a moment's hesitation, they returned his purse.

  Fuckyall didn't sense any additional weight. His 600 Strength allowed him to lug around an incredible three tons if and when needed.

  After a short and intense wait, the palace door creaked open again. Out ambled the low-level zombie with a doomed expression in his eyes.

  "Don't move!" Fuckyall raised a warning hand to the youngsters. He stepped toward the zombie and half-crouched to be at the same height as him.

  "I have some milk, bread and other food," he said softly in zombie language, then added in a whisper, "Take me to Dana. Please."

  The zombie startled, staring at the speaking human. Hope glinted in his undead stare. He began nodding. "I'll be right back! I need to speak to my lady first! Please don't go! Please!"

  The zombie turned round and lumbered back in as fast as his stumpy legs could take him.

  "'xcuse me, Sir? What's that language you speaked?"

  He waved the question away. Crossing his arms on his chest, he froze in a show of self-control, waiting for the verdict. Had anything actually happened between them? Did Dana still remember him—and if she did, did she feel anything for him or had she just used him? Maybe he'd been nothing to her but a zombie's whim, a fleeting fancy of human flesh and emotions?

  The agonizing wait ended with the door creaking wide open. Two powerful zombie guards emerged from the darkness within. Level 170. So!

  The youngsters backed off. Fuckyall, on the contrary, stepped toward them. One of the zombies wearing a black patch on one eye and a cutlass at his side studied him curiously, then lowered his head in a respectful bow. "My lady's expecting you."

  His heart missed a beat, then began pounding on his steel breastplate. He took a deep breath and commanded the faltering youths, "Follow me. We're going in!"

  Sprat didn't look convinced. "Sir, are you sure? What if we join the OMON raid instead? Then we can slaughter these shitheads all we like. No need to go in on our own, is there?"

  Fuckyall glanced in the direction the kid was pointing. Indeed, a brand-new stationary portal was spitting out one combat group after another of the cops' clan. Talk about bad timing. They were coming to kill his princess.

  "Follow me!" he growled.

  These thugs might be human junk, but at least they could fight, you had to give them that. And this could be exactly what he needed.

  They hurried up through the stairways and corridors long familiar to hi
m. Fuckyall noticed with approval the fresh brickwork of blocked passages and doorways, the gunslits broken through the walls, the heaped barricades and the sharp glistening points of anti-personnel obstacles. From time to time their zombie escort froze, shouting verbal passwords into the darkness then waiting for the traps to be deactivated. Excellent job. The OMON raid was in for lots of nasty surprises.

  Finally, the top floor. The guards led them to the Royal Apartments and tapped softly on its carved doors, then waited for a command audible only to them. They swung the doors open, letting the visitors in, then followed them inside.

  She stood by a tall window with her back to him, the setting sun outlining her slim and immediately familiar silhouette. His breathing became erratic, his heart bounding out of his chest. Had his body still been locked inside the FIVR capsule, its built-in auto doctor would by now have been injecting its whole first-aid kit into him while sending out an urgent ambulance request.

  Dana turned round, her anxious stare locking with his. Biting her lip and wringing her hands without even knowing it, she peered into his face, dreading to see either the contempt, the hatred or disgust. Finally, she breathed a sigh of relief and ventured a cautious smile. "You're back..."

  Unable to get rid of the lump in his throat, he attempted a feeble nod, then began unloading the food onto a table, not knowing what else to do. "I am... Dana... Dana baby... I've got some food for you here, just some milk and some fresh bread and look, here's some veg and a little bit of cheese..."

  His clumsy claws promptly jerked, sending the whole caboodle flying off the table. Perfumed apples rolled over the floor; a paper bag of fat pies split open, followed by a crispy loaf of bread flopping onto the tiles.

  He froze in confusion, pressing an armful of assorted veg to his chest. A happy smile lit Dana's dark face up: had it not been for the Zombie sign next to her name, hardly anyone would have been able to tell her from a living Drow, a Dark Elven maiden.