Inferno (Play to Live: Book # 4) (3 page)

The young master's stare betrayed some interest.

"I'm going to give you access to our craft ingredient stocks. You'll work with Gimmick building battle golems!"

The kid's nostrils flared. Gimmick next to him stood up straight with his hands on his hips, wheezing importantly. But me, I stopped mid-word. What was I doing? What was I thinking? What an idiot I was, by the lacy gusset of Macaria! Dimka was a self-taught prodigy who followed his talent and his instincts alone. Gimmick was going to sterilize his gift, telling him what the kid could and couldn't do, forcing his skills to comply with the laws of gameplay.

"Wait!" I blurted. "We'll do it another way!"

I waved a reassuring hand to the indignant Dimka and frowned, returning to my musings.

At the moment, this young genius created his masterpieces solely on the strength of his willpower and his ignorance of the world's laws. The indignant universe had to grit its teeth and play along, ushering the kid into the path of least resistance, suggesting the right ingredients and nudging him toward the place of power where his work on creating a new artifact would cause the least conflict with the world's logic.

And that was the direction he had to continue in. No cookie-cutter crafting! And what if...

"Listen," I whispered confidentially, digging gingerly into my bag for the polished adamant mirror I'd received from the Chinese Mao clan in exchange for our Shui Fong prisoners. "You think you could take this useless thingy and forge it into something useful? Like a sword or a dagger?"

I crossed my fingers mentally. Yes, yes, of course it said "Indestructible"! And yes, I knew that only gods could handle adamant. Still, a hapless mortal unlucky enough to become a player on the gods' field could use a trump card like that up his sleeve... a trump card or even better, a pink-bladed dagger.

I handed him the mirror, then turned, making threatening faces at a very indignant Gimmick about to expose the extent of our ignorance. Shut up, you fool! As if I don't know!

The young shaman shook his head. "I can't forge yet. But I can shape it into whatever you want. Fancy a cube?"

Oh. I could probably turn a cube into a small hammer. Too light, wasn't it? Just over half a pound: just good enough to dish out a few bruises among the gods, not more. I ran a mental list of the various types of steel weapons: slashing, cutting, crushing... no, that wasn't it. Yes! A stabbing one!

"Dimka, I know what you can do! How about a sharp three-edged bayonet? I have a short staff about a meter long. If we carve the end of it into a socket and fit it with a catch, we could use it as a javelin or an icepick. A killer weapon!"

The kid nodded his agreement as he warmed the mirror in his hands, breathing on it and incanting something. We watched as the item began to melt, losing its shape, like a gallium teaspoon in the hands of a street magician.

Gimmick gasped. I rummaged through my inventory for my latest trophy. Our frontier raid had added quite a few top elite gear items to our armory. One day as I'd surveyed all these heaps of dangerous steel, I'd noticed this gnarly staff made from some weird wood and topped with a murky crystal emitting a weak light. Shadows had danced within the stone, reminding one of a watchful evil eye, while the staff itself had desperately tried to enshroud itself in the cover of darkness, avoiding my greedy hands.

Ouch! There is was! Touching it in my bag felt like being whacked by an electric shock. The Staff of Hatred held an imprisoned soul of a demon and was meant to bring fear and discomfort to everyone around. On top of all the usual class restrictions and hefty summoning and intellect bonuses, this Necromancer toy had one nasty double-edged ability: when equipped, the demon syphoned life out of all warm-blooded creatures within fifty paces, friend and foe alike. The former suffered less, both in terms of pain and damage, while the latter were literally crippled in agony.

The imprisoned monster kept some of the energy and forwarded the rest to his master, according to the agreement. You couldn't do much hunting or leveling with this kind of aura as you'd aggro every local monster onto yourself. But when it came to a large scramble — and that was all I'd seemed to be doing just lately — the artifact's owner could be looking at a quality energy fix.

While I was busy taming the malicious staff by lashing it with my mental willpower, Dimka had finished his modeling-clay class. "There!" he produced the bayonet.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. Not exactly straight and just a bit lopsided but very, very dangerous. I still remembered the Fallen One's face when he'd seen the adamant claws of Lloth's spider avatar. I, too, could use a weighty argument like this in case of any major incidents.

"Thanks a bunch, Dimka. Mind getting off that seat for a bit? Gimmick, your turn. Are you comfortable? Now take this."

I handed him the quivering staff. Gimmick hid his hands behind his back, shrinking into the safety of the throne. "I don't want it! It scares me!"

"Just take it, I say! I want you to make a hole in it with a catch next to it. Are you a crafter or just a pretty face? Or do you want me to ask this little boy to do it?"

Gimmick shook his head and said with a pained expression, "Max, you don't understand. This is a self-contained game item. It can't be modified. You could, I suppose, submit a patent request to the Admins and create a new recipe, and then..."

"What game are you talking about? Look at this kid! He lives here, and he does what he wants to do! He makes whatever takes his fancy! You're a perma too — it's your world, not the Admins'! Just forget their restrictions!"

Gimmick cast a helpless look around. "I need my tools, too..."

"That's your problem! Take this and drill a hole in it!"

I forced both items — the adamant blade and the malicious staff — into his hands. His shoulders stooped under my insistent glare. Then Gimmick pulled himself together and took in a couple of lungfuls of air, calming himself down and concentrating. He closed his eyelids and began mouthing something, copying the boy shaman.

The sharp tip of the bayonet dug into the side of the staff. It struggled in rage but Gimmick's calloused hands held the wood tight, pressing the bayonet harder, turning it slightly. A thin shaving of black wood dropped into his lap.

Ding.
High in the sky yet another thread snapped, weakening the bond between our two worlds.

Chapter Two

T
he City of Light. The Temple of the Sun God.

The Sun God's personal quarters.

The girl's heart contracted one last time. The wet rattling noises in her throat finally stopped.

Normally, paralyzation immobilized a sacrificial creature but it didn't lower his or her pain threshold. For two reasons: firstly, because it greatly increased the victim's energy output and secondly, it was more fun this way.

With a benign smile, the Sun God shook off the scarlet drops that covered him to the elbows. Today had brought him one step closer to perfection. He'd managed to take the altar-bound junior priestess apart into nineteen separate fragments, stretching out her organs while still connected to her body by the veins pulsating with the life-giving blood flow.

He gave the ritual a name: Crimson Sunset. In his last reincarnation, the Sun God had lost his battle against the forces of Chaos, unable to withstand a direct attack from Blood Magic backed up by their enormous sacrificial ziggurats. Shame. That particular world had shown lots of promise.

The Sun God never failed to learn from his mistakes. He eagerly welcomed any opportunity for potential growth in power. On that day he'd taken a peek over at the Dark side — and perceived the true Force lurking in the torrents of Chaos. And very soon Chaos had noticed him too...

The Sun God nodded to the Patriarch waiting patiently next to him. The withered old man with an unpleasant squint in his pale eyes immediately set about removing the ravaged body, cleaning the altar and fetching the incense bowl and a pitcher of warm water to wash his master's divine hands.

In the meantime, the High God listened to the celestial spheres. Excellent. The young priestess had failed to resurrect, forever losing her identity. What an unexpectedly good side effect! He absolutely had to try this ritual on the Immortal Ones. What an annoying race! How unbelievable was that — the mortals getting access to divine power, stripping him of his main instrument of fear: their dread of death and his choice of their afterlife. It had been so much easier in other worlds!

Never mind. If push came to shove, he could always summon Hades, God of the Underworld. Zeus' brother would surely bring law and order unto the world. He could use the occasion to lure some of the Fallen One's dwarves away. Hades had plenty of underground treasures to tempt them with. One word to those mine-diggers and they'd come running, losing their picks on the way!

The Fallen One. Furious at the sheer memory, the Sun God gasped, breathing fire. The Patriarch's exposed skin turned red and blistered as he poured water onto his divine master's hands. The sun glistened through the pink droplets. Taken by the sight, the Sun God immediately desired to immortalize it. He snapped his fingers, turning blood into rubies. The Patriarch staggered, wheezing, as the spell grazed him, immediately dwarfing his sunburns into insignificance. Any human surgeon would have fainted at the sight of an autopsied body whose arteries were clogged with rubies; any jeweler would have been more than happy to lay his hands on them.

Noticing his faithful servant's sorry state, the Sun God snapped his fingers again, generating the Revitalizing Wave. Instinctively the Patriarch pulled at the collar of his robe, gasping for air, as everything around him sprang to life. The wilting flowers in a vase perked up; back in the temple's kitchen the already-plucked chickens quivered back to life. The God never bothered to pace his power, preferring to awe into submission everyone who beheld his divine might. His type isn't uncommon among humans, either, like those who proffer a bone-crushing handshake to their potential opponent.

"I thank thee, O Great One," the Patriarch lowered his head, hiding his reddened eyes blotted with burst blood vessels. He hadn't profited much from the healing overdose. In the past, people had been known to explode in a fountain of blood from a surfeit of mana.

The Sun God gave him a benign nod. "Enjoy a new lease of life, you maggot. What do we have on our army that combats so much evil? How many followers of Light do you think you can raise to mop up the Dead Lands?"

The question seemed to surprise the Patriarch. "As many as you wish! To my estimation, we have well over forty million Immortals in our ranks. Thirty million of them are active, meaning they've prayed at least once in the past month. Plus all the locals and the numerous creatures of Light indigenous to this world. Your one word would be enough — with enough Faith points offered to the Immortals and just a drop of Divine Power for everybody else."

The Sun God winced. He hated sharing his mana resources with anyone. The moment his inner reserves dropped a notch, he felt vulnerable: this could be the difference between life and death in the case of a surprise attack. You could say what you want, but twenty-seven reincarnations could make anyone paranoid.

Faith points weren't so easy to come by, either. They were well and truly limited, by far not enough to go round a million-strong army. True, he'd managed to save quite a few by allowing his priests to spend their own resources. This stash should be enough to get two hundred priests to the Tenth Circle — the highest one.

And this was a trump card indeed, especially while it was still secreted up his sleeve and not lying on the table for everyone to see. Oh no, he wasn't going to waste this wealth by spreading it thinly over a hundred thousand Immortals. They'd have to do without. Immortal animals! The world had gone mad! In his previous incarnations, his one sidelong glance had been enough to send entire cities onto funeral pyres to willingly burn themselves alive with a song and a blissful smile on their lips. Here though, you had to pay for everything — even worse, they'd study your gift all over, using some weird, what's-the-name, stats calcu... calcal... cal-cu-lators, only to toss it aside and move on, browsing through the market's best offers.

Never mind. One day death would sort 'em all out.

The Patriarch had patiently waited for the pensive shadow to leave his God's brow before going on,

"The numbers of the Dark followers are a fraction of ours. However, the local creatures they've recruited are indeed legion. Little wonder: this is a new world crawling with all sorts of evil spirits. Whether the Fallen One is strong enough to summon them to help him is a different matter entirely."

The Sun God waved the suggestion away. "A newborn god! How old is he — two, three years old? I've spent more time just wiping my ass in any of my reincarnations! I'd spent twelve thousand blissful years in the Mayall's system alone until the planet's sun finally exploded. And when several billion sentients die believing it was their Sun God punishing them for their sins... You know, I very nearly made the Creator level then. I was missing one petty bit of data, a tiny little key opening the Heavenly Gates."

He fell silent, deep in thought, while the Patriarch stooped in veneration, mopping the God's groomed hands with a soft towel. Finally, the god awoke from his musings,

"To recruit the army, you should use all the right words in combination with some flexible thinking and bags of gold. Gold is something everyone wants — it's replenishable and we have lots of it. The Pantheon will only step in in case of an emergency. Everything has to be done by the hand of the mob... er, of our flock. The Universal balance is not exactly reliable. It loves taking the side of the underdog. In this situation you never know how it might backfire. You kill a lone Dark hero, and the next thing a great general will arrive at your walls with an army to match! No, we can't take that risk."

The God concentrated, listening to the Altar. It was packed, the surplus of mana now being channeled over to his priests for some quality miracle-working and demon-fighting. With a bitter smile, the Sun God scooped up a handful of free energy and looked around for a suitable target. A copper statue of a warrior guarded the entrance to his personal quarters. Good enough. Concentrating, he forced the raw mana into the copper's atomic structure, shuffling its electrons, protons and neutrons around. The statue blurred, heating up and melting, exuding gamma radiation.

He struggled, straining, for a minute or so. The air in the hall had grown considerably hotter. With a sharp gasp, the God reached into the Altar again, scooping out the last of its stocks. Not enough. Disappointed with his miscalculations, he reached into his personal reserves. Once initiated, the transmutation process couldn't be aborted. The energy released was comparable with that of solar plasma — enough for one hell of an explosion.

His face a mask of fake nonchalance, he turned to the priest,

"There, take it. There's about a ton of gold here. Use it to mint some coinage to advance the mercs for the upcoming raid."

If the truth were known, this wasn't the best gold in the world. It had turned out to be too unstable, with a half-life time of only a hundred and eighty-six days. Not his problem, anyway. It made it all the more easier to locate hidden treasures — provided you knew what to look for and how to go about it...

* * *

The quiet buzz of an incoming call forced my stare away from the staff that was being forced into submission. I focused on the interface aglow with all the menus and chat boxes like I was some goddamn cyborg.

Only those closest to me had the audio session codes. I'd done so in order to protect myself from all the spam and cheating when enemies flooded your channels with all sorts of useless junk.

"Max, the morning staff meeting is in six minutes. You're late. Your Russian salad's already waiting!"

My quiet groan was drowned out by the happy trills of Elven laughter. "It's your own fault! You've got the servant girls hooked on all that gold, so now you'd better eat it and say thank you. Actually, one of them has just submitted a request to buy herself out of her contract. Whoever gave her the idea! Formally, the contract makes no provision for a bailout so we're not really obliged to do anything about it. Still, the staff are all restless and excited waiting for our decision. The suggested sum for contractual termination — seventy-three gold and a handful of mithril — is actually almost twice as much as her de facto wage. Are you into dealing a bit of ebony these days, chief?"

What a cheek! Had she just called me a slave trader? "Amara, I've been meaning to ask Dennis to limit your access to that wretched zombie box. You seem to be a walking collection of TV memes. What my Master Analyst needs is peace and quiet, not some blinking 3D image surrounded by four blabbing zombie heads as speakers."

"But..."

"Sorry, Snow White. Over and out."

Heh. Her name
Amara
in fact meant Snow in Ilitiiri. And still calling a Drow white was bordering on offensive.

Never mind. Let her fume and plot her revenge at her leisure. Nothing I hadn't survived before. All I was doing was following up on a request made by the newest addition to my clan: my Master Analyst that I'd so cunningly stolen from the mercs.

The thing was, Amara was an NPC. A perma, definitely, who couldn't care less about algorithms, every bit as autonomous as the evil Princess Ruata — but an NPC nonetheless.

For the last few weeks we'd been busy trying to expand her emotional background by exposing her to our cultural environment through hundreds of books and terabytes of classic movies. We were attempting to humanify Dennis' girlfriend.

Actually, Dennis' going perma was a story and a half. If I could put it in gaming terms, the Gods had played a cruel joke on the kid by investing all of his starting characteristics into Intellect alone. He was a doubled-up quadriplegic, his neck craned at a scary angle, who could just about control three fingers of his left hand. At the feast of life he was an unwelcome guest.

Well, we're not in Sparta any more, meaning no one throws our sickly newborns off cliffs. Which was why Dennis' parents had chosen to legally disown him in the maternity ward. In a way, he'd been lucky, ending up in a high-flying children's home controlled by some governmental top brass: a convenient show place to demonstrate to various committees investigating the use of public funds, donations and foreign grants.

A cute blond baby in a custom-made wheelchair gazed at the visiting officials with his huge blue eyes, his piercing stare making the seasoned corruption wolves stumble and look away.

With a mental shrug, the boy would return to his usual occupation.
Click, click, click.
The children's home teachers smiled behind his back, watching him leaf through the electronic pages of high-brow books: let the kid have his fun.

He hadn't been having fun. He'd been reading. Twenty seconds a page, an hour and a half per book. His unique photographic memory allowed him to quote any part of any book at random.

At the age of sixteen, he'd discovered the world of online poker games. And once he'd become a runner-up at a few serious tournaments, his financial problems had become a thing of the past.

At seventeen, he'd become addicted to math. He'd made considerable progress in solving the problem of the millennium, Riemann's hypothesis. He'd even sent his notes as far as Moscow University, to the dean of the physics faculty. He never received any answer — unlike the professor himself who'd enjoyed a lot of praise for an article he'd later written for a specialist publication. Had Dennis had the chance to read it, he'd have immediately recognized the chiseled filigree of his own calculations. The unscrupulous number-cruncher was packing his bags, heading for Cambridge, Massachusetts to pick up his Millennium Prize, while the young man had already found a new interest: cosmology.