Inferno (Play to Live: Book # 4) (16 page)

Wretched Tavor. Wait till I found him. Lloth's place would seem like a pleasure cruise.

A bit later, Flint sent me an overly polite and carefully worded message. He'd either learned his lesson or harbored his grudge very deeply. At this point in the game, I was way out of his league as I could very easily abort his plans of immortality by presenting the museums of the future with a fine flint statue of himself. And what could he do — put me on the clan's PK list? Scheme behind my back? Grumble under his quilt in the middle of the night? Yeah, right.

The alliance was making a rather adequate offer: a hundred thousand gold a year with a down payment of ten years' rent. A million wasn't going to build Fuckyall anything half decent, but one had to start somewhere. In the meantime, his clan could live in one of the First Temple's eight wings — and renovate it in the process. The down payment should be enough to start the dwarves working on his new castle. In the meantime, his zombies could join in our mine-digging efforts and hopefully unearth enough stuff to fund the castle construction works.

Immediately, Dana's homemaking instincts kicked in. At my suggestion, she contacted Lurch and spent the rest of the evening discussing various architectural excesses with him.

The men spoke unhurriedly, drinking three-hundred-year-old wine and occasionally excusing themselves to answer their beeping inboxes. No peace for major leaders like ourselves...

Next morning I stood in the courtyard of the First Temple, nervously biting my lip at the sight of the meager line of surviving Ear Cutters. Seventeen Drow. The best of the best.

Their contract was expiring in nine minutes. Renewing it would be too expensive. But losing these guys, damning them to eternal oblivion, was something I couldn't do.

So I decided to risk it.

I took a deep breath, opened my heart wide and began walking along their line, crunching the gears of my absolute memory and filtering through the images of yesterday's battle.

"You! I saw you yesterday fighting over the body of your paralyzed friend, not letting five enemy warriors near him, thus granting him the precious seconds needed to restore his powers. Worthy of glory! I hereby name you Glorious and promote you to the rank of sergeant. You'll also receive a bonus of fifty gold. In case you ask, Mother Clo's is the best brothel in town. Treasurer! Give this man his gold!"

"Now you! An enemy pyro wizard burned your face, only leaving you one clouded right eye. And still you got to his throat, extinguishing your burning armor with your adversary's blood. How are you feeling now? I can see our doctors have done a fine job on you. Your eyes are of different colors though."

Ear Cutter jumped to attention, glittering his red and white eyes. "Nothing can happen to me, Sir!"

"Well done! Thank you for your faithful service! I hereby name you Nelson and promote you to sergeant major with the right to wear a red band on your sleeve!"

Next one!

"You! You and your hell hound worked miracles yesterday. I've never seen such choreographed attacks before."

The young man smiled shyly, "They understand everything, Sir. Better than battle spiders. You don't even need to think anything out aloud, just wishing something is enough for them."

"Excellent. You can continue working together. I hereby name you K9 Handler and promote you to the rank of sergeant with the right to wear a badge with a dog's head."

I glanced at the clock and hurried on, quickly listing their feats of valor and giving each a name and a unique trait. The universal cold was expanding inside me, freezing my heart solid. The Creator's spark generously shared its heat, hurrying to breathe life into seventeen game characters.

"You! Sampson! You! Amazon! You! Mona Lisa!"

I bestowed the latter name on the last warrioress in line and shook my head free from her mysterious little smile. I stepped back, taking in the ranks of fighters, and crossed my fingers behind my back. Ten seconds. Five. Three. Two. One.

Pop. Pop.
The air surged, rushing to take the place of two missing figures. I was greeted with fifteen pairs of expectant eyes and one little smile full of promise.

Chapter Eight

F
uckyall stood by the mirrored portal arc in the spacious courtyard of the First Temple and watched over his clan's deployment to the Dead Lands.

Oh well. Not the best of warriors — neither humans nor Drow even, just some dreary zombies. Besides, the bulk of them was comprised of low-level servants, odd-job men and other Cursed Castle staff. As for the external and elite guards, he hardly had fifty of those. But even they still had a lot of leveling to do. Luckily, they didn't need to do it on the sly any more, killing rats and other critters in dark corners. But on the other hand, they weren't going to get anywhere near the generous flow of xp earned by killing a real player.

Actually, no one prevented him from doing the same thing that Max had done, gaining power by gathering various mobs and NPCs around him. His clan, of all people, was more than entitled to go through AlterWorld with a fine-toothed comb, making all zombies submit to his rule. A zombie empire, how cool was that! He wouldn't say no to a couple of dragons, either. The hell hounds too were a dream. And as for Snowie...

"Wretched game designers," Fuckyall murmured, watching a particularly appalling decomposed zombie peeping cautiously out of the portal arch. Compared to him, the others were admittedly greenish, with pale faces and particular gastronomic preferences. But this one must have been conceived in a true creative agony of a hungover artist, complete with peeling skin, white ribs flashing through the gaps in his rotting flesh and especially the flies.

Fuckyall just prayed that their genial hosts didn't show them the door. No good the children seeing a scarecrow like this.

Actually, the children's psyche proved remarkably flexible. A few of the younger zombies had already joined in their games. They could hide in the grass like no other, cunningly using their night vision and a truly animal sense of smell. And as for little Screwyall, he was the star of the show. There was much intrigue within the children's groups who contrived to make him join with them. They would, wouldn't they? A real prince who'd fought in a proper battle — and he had his Mom and Dad with him too! Wasn't he the lucky one.

In any case, Fuckyall didn't intend to wear out his hosts' warm welcome. He may not have been an expert, but one thing he knew for sure: a man couldn't have his castle on somebody else's property. If you still crashed at your parents' house or your wife's — without a house to your name you were a mere lodger with the status to match.

The night before, Fuckyall hadn't deprived Dana of the pleasure of creating the project of their future palace. She'd put heart and soul into creating a most unimaginable hybrid of the Versailles and Peterhof taken together. But once she'd forwarded him the finished draft, he immediately set about editing it. All those curls and swirls, the French tiles and fancy moldings had been deleted in favor of functionality and defensive potential. The walls had grown considerably, both in height and in thickness. The number of watch towers had tripled. Thank God for the excellent modular construction software. All you had to do was sit back and click the virtual cursor, watching anxiously the building's class grow.

A Fort... a Bastion... a Citadel... a Stronghold... a Colossus... enough. He was a bit too greedy for his money. He clicked back, stopping at Stronghold where a whopping half of all available points were invested in defense. The Ballroom and the Fireplace Lounge would have to wait. Neither had done them any good when the invaders' boots had trampled over their waxed floors.

That's that done! The problem was, the Admins seemed to be in a permanent coma. They ignored both his castle request and his land purchase enquiries. Sitting opposite him, Max sipped his wine thick with age, and squinted at him ironically. "Creative block?"

Fuckyall nearly spat on the floor in desperation. "Those motherfuckers! They just ignore it."

"Then it's about time you stop asking Big Brother's opinion about what you can and can't do. You'd better speak to the Valley's actual owner. He's not going to shortchange you. As for building a castle, the dwarves are quite capable of doing it themselves. Aulë's word means much more to them than a hundred ink stamps on a scrap of parchment."

Fuckyall had a funny feeling he knew what this shrewd First Priest was trying to imply. "And the owner of the Valley is..."

Max flashed him a disarming grin. "Me. Actually, I've already found an incredible hill to build your castle on. The views are mind-blowing. I could spare you some land to go with it, too. Would a hundred be enough?

"Hectares?"

"I was rather thinking square miles. You're not building a garden shed, are you? In return, I want you to swear an oath of allegiance and join the Guards of the First Temple alliance. You can see for yourself it's not much fun being on your own in this world, whether you're a person or a clan. I'll take you to see the dwarves tomorrow. Make sure you negotiate hard and proper. They're a very special kind of people."

Indeed, the very next day after Fuckyall's clan had installed themselves in Max's Super Nova castle, a giggly servant girl told him that a representative of the Masons Guild was awaiting him in the Small Guest Hall.

A middle-aged dwarf with bushy eyebrows lounged in the soft chair as if he owned the place, sipping on the free beer. His fat and seemingly clumsy fingers were twiddling a lead pencil.

"Where is it?" he proffered Fuckyall a digger shovel which somehow passed as his hand.

"Where's what?"

The master gulped indignantly into his bucketlike mug, wiped the froth piling on his mustache and stared at Fuckyall. "The castle plans, what else? We're going to draw up the cost sheet. Decide on the budget and schedule, that sort of thing"

"Ah. I see. One moment."

Fuckyall restarted the 3D construction software, found the saved project and paid nine gold for printing out a hard copy.

"There," he offered the dwarf a hefty stack of parchments. Then he made himself comfortable in a nearby chair and winked at the blushing servant girl, asking her to fetch him some beer and crackers. He just couldn't stand the appetizing sounds of the dwarf's sipping and crunching any longer.

In the meantime, the dwarf kept making notes, using an ancient abacus to help with his calculations and praising Aulë under his breath for "bringing him all these idiot clients with pockets stuffed with gold."

No idea what he could have thus calculated in less than five minutes, but soon he slammed his heavy mug down on the table and announced happily,

"All done! Nineteen million and not a copper more!"

Then he added sternly, "And a hundred percent deposit."

Fuckyall raised his eyebrows in indignation. So! And this was supposed to be a friend's price? He frowned, trying to stare the contractor out. "Are you sure, Sir? This isn't a Super Nova I'm paying you to do."

The dwarf took offence. "I'm working at a loss as it is. I'm only doing it out of respect for you and the First Priest. There's not a single pair of hands available within a hundred miles around! The Valley's main projects have employed them all — even those with two left hands! The last apprentice charges me a master's wage!"

Fuckyall butted in with a suggestion, "I could send three hundred zombies to help you."

The dwarf gave a snort of contempt. "If you want them to be useful, better send them to collect honey from flowers. That way they can't break anything. Even cement costs three times its usual price these days!"

Fuckyall desperately rummaged through his mind for yet more arguments. In all honesty, he was never good at haggling. He could only think of one answer to the happily grinning dwarf's rhetoric: by burying his steel fist right into the master's square chin.

The prompt arrival of Max defused the situation somewhat. Yawning sleepily, he collapsed into the nearest chair and signaled to the servant girl, pointing at the others' mugs by way of ordering the same.

Then he shook Fuckyall's hand and nodded to the immediately tensed-up dwarf.

"Hi, man. Greetings, Sir Bavur. I can see you've already met. Now Sir Bavur, I'd like to ask you to consider the Prince of the Cursed House as one of our closest allies. His clan would be one of the first to confront any potential enemy wishing to destroy the temples of our gods. Currently, the defenses of the Valley should be our priority. It's not the right time to think about filling one's purse. Oh, before I forget. I'm going to meet with Aulë today. I think that the entire clan of Stonefoots and you in particular deserve the highest praise which I'll gladly relay to the Great Father. His grace is priceless, don't you think? Now what have you got here? Ah, the castle plans? Did you decide on the budget yet? How much have you got in total?"

The dwarf's yellowed fingernail fidgeted on the parchment, scraping away the first digit of the resulting sum. Then he jumped up and stared loyally at the First Priest with one eye while casting begging glances at Fuckyall with the other. "We've already discussed everything, Your Holiness! We're not some grubby Broadbeams, are we? We understand the importance of it all! We'll do everything we can for our victory! Some paltry nine million is all it's gonna cost. We'd rather do it at a loss to ourselves, but we won't sleep nights if it can stop the enemy from entering the Great Father's temple! If you could be so kind as to mention us to him, and me the humble Bavur in particular... With the Elder election coming soon, you know..."

Fuckyall watched the dwarf's performance in amazement. An idea occurred to him. He flashed a predatorial smile, "Oh yes, Max, this Bavur guy is a seriously good fellow. He's just offered to throw me some Dwarven-made weapons for three hundred men into this sum. So that they have something to fight with. Bavur? Am I correct?"

The dwarf gulped. His cheek twitched but he didn't dare object. "Everything as we agreed upon — three hundred swords, class: Rare and above."

Fuckyall shook his head in regret, "It was Unique we were talking about, wasn't it? It must have slipped your memory."

The dwarf's face turned purple as if he was about to have a stroke. The First Priest defused the situation again,

"Excellent. A good deed is worthy of praise! I suggest you commence the work immediately. The Prince will transfer the required deposit of a million straight away."

The dwarf gasped, nodded and hurried away before any new details of the contract had come up.

The Paladin watched him leave, then shook his head in admiration. "You're really something, Max! You've just diddled him out of ten million plus gear!"

The First Priest smiled. "I know. Not even a single fly can have a bunk-up in this castle without my knowing."

The Paladin paused, digesting this last bit of information, mentally blushing as he remembered his and Dana's previous-night exploits in the castle's guest wing. His little Princess was naturally active at nighttime which often decided their activity schedule.

Max guffawed. "Forget it. I meant it metaphorically. No one's spying on you."

"You scared me. Are you really meeting Aulë today?"

The First Priest grew serious. "Absolutely. No joking there. In the world of active magic and lifelong curses one should take one's word very seriously. And don't forget my reputation that I've so laboriously built up with these very broken hands of mine. I should take good care of it."

* * *

I awoke to the intoxicating aroma of field flowers and the hot touch of a girl's thigh draped matter-of-factly over my legs. I gingerly turned my head. Mona Lisa's smile remained just as mysterious even as she slept.

I crawled out of my royal four-poster — its size, softness, and the cost of all the trimmings made it truly worthy of a king. The buckles of my light everyday gear clinked softly as I dressed, admiring reluctantly the statuesque girly figure barely covered by the fine silk of the sheets.

Should I really give daily business a miss? Should I dive back into bed and- My absolute memory helpfully came up with the reminder of everything that a female Drow was capable of. Especially when the said Drow was eager to show her appreciation for the magical gift of life I'd given her. Oh no, thank you very much. At the moment, I had no time for another eight-hour sex marathon. Besides, it was never a good idea to allow couch room to a little kitty. You never know, she might always lay claim to it later. Then no amount of lawyers would get you out of the pickle.

I tickled the tiny pink heel peeking carelessly from under the sheet. The Drow girl sniffed her indignation, kicking her slim little leg and hiding it under the sheet's silky folds. So that's how it was, then?

"Corporal Mona Lisa, wakey wakey!"

Wham!
The bed literally exploded. A glimpse of a dark body, a glitter of steel — then the naked Drow sprang to attention in front of me with double sais in her hands. Wherever had she stashed them?

Once Liz realized we were in no immediate danger, her body relaxed in a lithe animal pose suitable for seduction purposes. With a predatorial glint in her eye, she reached out to me.

I gulped and recoiled like an idiot, knocking over a silver fruit tray which clanked deafeningly over the marble tiles.

"Belay that! Corporal Mona Lisa! You're an elite guard first and foremost! Get dressed and off to the barracks you go! The Ear Cutter group's daily task will be relayed to you all after the staff meeting. Carry on!"