The Duty (Play to Live: Book # 3) Page 4

  Tears of Stone. Same shit, only weaker. Available characteristics, +1 to +20, action bids vary from 5 to 500 gold. The best thing about them was, I had lots of them. Too many in fact—well enough to saturate the market and make prices tumble as the Castle—or should I say Lurch in his vulnerable emotional state—had sweated tens of thousands of Tears bemoaning the baby dragons' motherless desperation. I could always dump them at an opportune time and make a couple of million but I wasn't sure I was capable of destroying their heartwrenching beauty: at the moment, the castle sparkled like a Christmas tree, defying the myths of the Evil Overlord. Besides, I wasn't sure Lurch would appreciate my stripping the castle walls down to the original stone, so proud was he of his charge's new appearance. He could easily go bananas with shock and having a crazy AI around was the last thing I needed—not to even mention the fact that in him I risked earning myself a very nasty enemy. Last time I'd leafed through my daily financial report I'd discovered a new expense item: interior design, as the narcissic Lurch had subscribed to all and sundry interior design magazines and newsletters. It had to be some sort of post-traumatic syndrome after living the last eight hundred years in ruins. And still we'd managed to strike a shaky compromise. On Lurch's orders, a small goblin team supervised by Harlequin could now prize the precious crystals out in the most inconspicuous areas, providing the castle treasury with its first diamond vault. The only problem was, the little dragons had the habit of wandering about the castle, foraging for the stones and munching on them. Everybody did their best to shoo them away but still they'd made quite a dent in the castle walls.

  Now the little dragons were my personal pain in the neck at the moment. If anything could drive my inner greedy pig to a heart attack, it had to be Draky and Craky. I dreaded to even think how much those two had cost us: the magic egg shells, tons of precious mithril and the yet unknown consequences of the events in the main square of the City of Light. We'd mowed down our fair share of people that day, earning ourselves some high-flying enemies not to even mention the Patriarch of Light himself! On the other hand, even though I'd never admit it in public, I just loved the little bastards. And I also knew that those cunning little shits could sense my love for them, manipulating my weakness the best they could. What was it their Bone Dragon mother Vertebra had said? They were going to be the first mithril Phantom Dragons in the whole world. The baby dragons were prime examples of the old "you are what you eat" adage. With people it was less noticeable, but still something to consider when placing your order in a fast food joint spiced up with half the periodic table—what kind of building blocks might you be feeding to your own body?

  To sum the baby dragons up, I also nurtured the humble dream of one day growing them into some Godawful armored fighter craft. Touch wood, of course. I knocked on the mallorn's slender trunk, then had to shoo the curious tree away as it grew a small hollow at eye level in an apparent attempt to see what was going on.

  What other strategic supplies did we have left? Mithril. I sent a quick request to the clan chat.

  The dignified zombie dwarf stumbled in, delivering his report—hand-written on a piece of parchment, of all things. I turned it around within my hands, trying to work out how to digitize it back, then glared at the dwarf. He didn't bat a hair—actually his face was devoid of any kind of growth, long scorched off in the flames of ancient battles. He stood there, august like a king in exile, stroking habitually his non-existent beard as he stared above my head at the horizons only he could see.

  So, what did we have here? Nearly nine tons of various alloys plus about thirteen hundred pounds of pure mithril, seven million gold in total. That's not counting benefication losses that should be quite considerable. Still, I wasn't in a hurry to dump it onto the market. I really didn't feel like swapping precious metal for any amount of virtual "funny money". What kind of warlord would I be without my own gold reserve? Better to hold on to it. Hopefully, I'd never have to sell it: I was looking at an eternity in which at some point I might have to clad countless Dwarven hirds in that same mithril.

  I rolled the parchment up and shoved it into my bag, momentarily distracted by the Castle's utility menus. Ah, there it was: the storerooms. Status, filling percentage, contents report... it had everything I needed—little wonder as these were the contents of my own storerooms, after all.

  I checked the parchment against their data. Everything looked hunky dory even though I had every reason to doubt the dwarf's submissiveness: he must have found it hard to come to grips with the fact that everything around him actually belonged to somebody else. I remembered passing the outhouses once hearing the clanging of metal and the sound of a hammer bashing away against the anvil. He must have had his own agenda, that one, and somehow I doubted he'd bought the metal with his own money. It's true that some jobs don't even need wages as the workers earn more just from what sticks to their hands. So I wasn't going to make a fuss about it. He was a good worker who kept my storerooms in perfect order and more importantly, those goblin hoodlums seemed to have a serious respect for him.

  I wondered if he had access to internal interfaces. If you think about it, NPCs were part of the game and as such didn't need all the crutches in the shape of maps, radars and quest tabs. But he'd just received my message sent through the clan chat, hadn't he? He knew how to use the inventories: Lurch had already forwarded him long lists of the stocks he needed for the castle. Did that mean he was faking it?

  I frowned. "Sir Durin, I suggest you spend some time familiarizing yourself with digital paperwork solutions. One can't be a good manager without knowing how to use them these days. You may go now."

  He tilted his head in a barely perceptible bow and turned around, hurrying toward Wing Two. The place was in the middle of some large-scale renovations. Doc had some truly Napoleonic plans aiming to turn it into a cross between a children's holiday center and a boarding school. The breeze brought an occasional screeching of saws, the slapping of hammers and the inevitable cussing of the workers.

  I glanced at the children who seemed to have laid their grubby little hands on one of the puppies and were now busy covering him in sand, making him into a statue of the Sphinx. I just hoped their parental controls were activated otherwise they would learn to cuss before they could read. On the other hand, in perma mode they'd have no access to the capsule's initial settings which meant that they'd stay forever in this PG-mode, hearing beeps in place of all four-letter words and seeing blurred pixels of gray in place of human blood. And even... God forbid!

  I jumped, realizing that it also meant their inability to engage in sexual activities. The consequences it incurred made me shudder. What could I do? Should I PM Doc and tell him to change the parental settings? Having said that, I could always test them first...

  I clapped my hands to attract the kids' attention. "Children! Please look at me everyone!"

  Once they'd looked up from the sandbox in my general direction, I said, "I would like you to repeat what I say. @#$%#!!!"

  Lena's face turned to crimson stone. Macaria flashed an embarrassed smile. The Fallen One guffawed.

  In the silence that followed, the kids' voices chanted in unison, "@-#-$-%-#!!!"

  Lena's face turned the hue of a ripe tomato. "Are you raving mad?"

  It was my turn to blush. "I'm terribly sorry, ladies. A bit of a check, that's all. You could call it a test, I suppose. An experiment if you like."

  A blue-eyed three-year-old Katia raised her hand diligently. "Uncle Max, what's @#$%#?"

  "You piece of-" Lena pointed a condemning finger at me, speechless.

  Well, I had to bluff. "Children! That was a very, very bad word. I didn't mean to say it. Please forget it. Now back to your sand pies before they get cold! You could feed them to that Sphinx of yours, I suppose. Oh no, please don't, you'd better let him go before you strangle him. Lena, what's all this anarchy in your zone of responsibility?"

  Thus hiding my embarrassment behind the mask of a control freak boss
, I returned to my musings admittedly pleased with the result of my experiment.

  Cash. Here, things were looking up: just short of three million gold. One million for the scroll, another for the coordinates of the Gigantic Fly Trap field, plus another hundred grand from the Vets: the advance for Taali's little op which they'd then paid back as a return gesture for my invitation to join the Guards of the First Temple alliance and offer to ordain the entire clan's leadership. Finally, last but definitely not least, almost eight hundred grand for those few unlucky customers who'd happened to be the first to pay for being dedicated to Macaria. That was basically all of the clan's available operating funds as well as my own. Now the expenses.

  The 5% Federal tax on virtual property. I forwarded a standing order to the bank: take it and piss off. They needed the money, sure: somebody's mistress was probably only driving a humble Lexus so she needed a Porsche ASAP. Never mind. They'd get their comeuppance one day. A Big Nuclear Bang or something similar might end their reign, starting the era of the little man with a big gun who'd have fun using their limousines as target practice.

  My first mortgage payment on the castle was due in a couple of weeks. That's two million. I just wished this umbilical cord that was supposed to connect our worlds would snap sooner—that way I could simply ignore the mortgage. If you think about it, who was going to use my money then? The admins? So who was I supposed to pay once they stayed behind on planet Earth? Then again, somehow I had my doubts that the financial laws of our world would be that affected. They were too deeply integrated in the AlterWorld's economy. Most likely, if I stopped paying I'd simply lose my control of the castle—even if the money itself was being channeled nowhere.

  I had the mortgage money, short of a few peanuts, but that wasn't the main problem. I was about to embark on a raid while the castle was sucking in gold like a ten-dollar whore; besides, the hundred grand transfer that Doc had made was already running out and I really didn't feel like mentioning money to him any more—I was quite capable of taking care of his kids. In other words, time to raise a few pennies.

  I opened the auction tab and checked the auto buy happily flashing with 207 new messages. It also informed me of the successful purchase of two Reset Potions and almost a hundred Sparks of Dark Flame at the giveaway price of fifty gold compared to their true value of five grand. Apparently no one was the wiser about their true role as a Priest's raid buff ingredient. Excellent. That still gave me a bit of time to cream my share off.

  The auto buy ended its report with a shy request to top up the account which was almost depleted. Another leech sponging off me.

  Talking about potions. I transferred the precious vials to the inventory, then rummaged through it producing a pot of characteristic-boosting elixir and another of skill-boosting. You should never forget this sort of thing. I jarred out the stoppers with the gesture of a hussar opening a champagne bottle and gulped their contents in one swig. It did taste good albeit expensive: five hundred fifty bucks for a moment's pleasure. Having said that, it was the aftertaste that mattered. I opened my characteristics, adding 1 point to Constitution, then invested the skill point into the Bone Shield spell. Not the smartest choice probably, but at the moment I had to take care of my survival, not how to look cool in combat.

  I checked my emails, mainly questions on my latest notorious auction offer, Portal to Inferno. Sorry guys, I really didn't know how it worked. How about you buy it and see for yourselves. Judging by the bids and the speed at which they were coming, I could wake up the next morning another million richer. I fed whatever scrolls I had to the broker with the instructions for automatic item renewal. Then I rubbed my hands. All's fish that comes to the net.

  Next I discovered a string of messages from the Gold Net trade clan. The kids had been so impressed by my demonstration of the mana absorption magic in the town square that they were now begging and pleading—and in their last messages, also insisting and demanding—that I sell them the scroll they apparently needed oh so badly. The degree of their hysteria kept growing from one message to the next so in the end, they abandoned any earlier attempts to talk down the price. Apparently, the grudge they had for the OMON police clan justified their impatience.

  In contrast, the letter from the Minediggers breathed ice—of a deadly nature. Their security man was asking very civilly whether it would be possible to acquire another scroll, preferably ASAP. Judging by the fact that I hadn't heard anything in the news about their retaking of the Silver Citadel castle, the Ninja Looters were in for a big surprise. Oh well, one shouldn't be tight-fisted in a noble cause. I created two private auctions, sending the links to the two impatient clans.

  Now. Another moneymaking idea I wasn't going to give up so easily was the dedication to Macaria. The headstrong goddess hadn't made her priests' life any easier by swapping their financial and leveling benefits for the free-for-all dedication and the virtually instant flow of thousands of new followers it had given her. But even her ability to complicate everything she touched didn't affect the clerical profession that much. Any clan clever enough to level up their own priest would have one hell of a raid buffer with the added authority to bless, excommunicate and anathemize. A quick guesstimation promised +5% up to +7% to raid strength. And still I knew I must have missed or overlooked something useful, so I added, unflinchingly, "+10% to raid strength" to the item description. A figure like that meant a lot to those in the know. So come and grab it if you think you can! Last delivery this season!

  I massaged my hands, tired of having to dangle them over the virtual keyboard, then chose the auction closing date and pressed Submit. I just hoped it would catch the eye of some of the savvier customers eager to outbid each other for an uber waffle like that. No fakes in my shop—only authentic schmatter!

  Finally, miscellaneous odds and ends. Let's test the market and its demand for wholesale quantities. I dumped a few handfuls of Tears of Stone into the auto broker, generating a few renewed one-off auctions. Then I split 25 pounds of depleted mithril ore into several small lots just to see the potential interest and bids.

  I fiddled with a rectangular bulletproof plate the goblins had unearthed in the heap of scrap junk. 64% mithril content. No. My inner greedy pig whined like an aching tooth, reaching out to it with his shaking little trotters. I handed him the treasure, with compliments to him and my own hoarding instincts.

  That seemed to be it. For the next month at least, my financial wellbeing was provided for, offering a flimsy bridge over the economic precipice. Time to get working on that Lost City raid.

  My attempt at military planning, however, had stopped before it even started as I encountered a problem. When zoomed out, the map of AlterWorld turned out to be blurred. The thick layer of clouds only opened a crack above the Russian cluster revealing a few gaps the size of a pea: the City of Light, the Original City, the Dead Lands. That was about all I'd had covered.

  So where was I supposed to look for my lost Eldorado?

  I buried myself in the Wiki rummaging through the wealth of its collective wisdom. It didn't let me down: a ranger editor had described the suggested path to the location as about fifteen hundred miles to the south. Yeah right, give or take a few feet.

  From there, a reference link led to the promised location map. Gotcha! I clicked it, then sniffed in indignation at an opened auction window. The ranger guild's auto trader welcomed me with the confirmation of the availability of the requested map, detail level: basic. Which meant it had been taken by some stray ranger hurrying past with his stealth and acceleration all maxed out before he'd run into a mob endowed with the Piercing Vision and beat a very hasty retreat.

  For something of this doubtful quality they wanted the unexpected sum of two thousand gold. Were they charging per mile like some greedy cabbie? Still, I had no choice. I also needed the maps of all the locations on my way to the Lost City itself. Should I maybe just buy the whole lot? It's not as if I couldn't afford it. Information was the best investment
, after all.

  I queried the trader. It paused, calculating the price of my generous offer, then ran lines of print across the interface,

  A wholesale lot offer: 1,511 maps of dungeons, cities and unique locations.

  Surface coverage: 14% of AlterWorld's entire territory

  Price with discount: 31,812,477 gold

  How much? I choked, literally. They didn't want much, did they? No, I had to cut my appetite down a bit. I obviously couldn’t afford the entire results of the ranger guild's two years' worth of work. I had to try a different approach. In order to decide which maps I needed, I first had to find the portal nearest to the location.

  I contacted the Ferrymen operator. After grilling me about the prospective jump's parameters, they put the chat line on hold. About five minutes later, the missing operator finally came back with the news that he was about to transfer me to someone else. Oh well, go ahead, then.

  Greetings, Sir Laith. As per your request re: transportation of three hundred sentients to the location specified, we have to inform you that the aforementioned coordinates are located in a virtually unexplored part of the Frontier most of which lies within the Asian cluster's area of responsibility. As such, it is not well served by teleport points, the nearest being two hundred and fifty miles further north. Price for teleporting a five-man unit, 300 gold. Creating a 10-minute stationary portal, 9,000 gold.

  That got me thinking. If we took a top raid group's average speed as 10 mph that would be a forty-eight hour hike to the location, plus another twenty-four—no, double that—for any emergencies and eventualities. Then they had to purge the city and the temple, and God only knows how long that would take. This raid was going to cost me a lot of money.