Inferno (Play to Live: Book # 4) (33 page)

May the world shine the color of noble gold in His name!

Status restrictions: Only Priest

In exchange for 1 Faith point, this skill will plaque 10 square ft. of any inanimate surface with a fine layer of gold leaf.

Aha. Now I could see why their temples glittered like Christmas trees. And why their warriors were parading around in precious armor!

Whack
, time regained its momentum, ending the slow motion effect of the emotional surge. Dozens of temple guards sprang into action, sinking their swords into their victim.

I managed to duck successfully a few times, ricocheted a bullet off myself and even managed to parry a crossbow bolt. None of which saved the situation. Within the first second, my hits dropped 25%.

I hurried to activate a new 30-second immunity stretch and gestured to the wizzies... time to leg it! A random exit portal demanded a lot of open space so it didn't work within city limits. We had to use a classic one.

There were only two wizards left standing. The other two had been hit by the raging Basilisk. Never mind. One was plenty.

Somewhere out of focus, the interface counted down seconds — both to the jump and to the end of my immunity period. In the meantime, I was having a field day, frolicking about in the thick of the charging guards with a wide grin on my face. A jab! A blow! A lunge! And again! I just wished I had time to pick up the loot. Such high-level bodies were bound to have some yummy items on them. What a shame that my Holy Unmercenary skill only worked in battle with other players!

I had mere seconds left until the jump. Who else could I impale on my spear?

In front of me, a portal swelled open, sending colorful snowflakes flickering in the air. My brain failed to register the appearance of the Sparks of Divine Presence. I wielded my pink dagger on autopilot, slashing through the furious face turning to me — the face of the Sun God.

He was barely within my reach. It was also possible that my hand had quivered at the last moment. Why would I lie to you? Have you ever tried to punch a chief of police in the face? And he's only human, mind you. I — I did it to a
god
.

The tip of the dagger sliced through the divine cheek from ear to chin, leaving hanging a whole sheet of skin and muscle and exposing the Sun God's scary scowl.

The soul of the demon imprisoned in the staff cried out in disbelief and chomped greedily, choking on the drops of blood that dotted the pink blade.

The infuriated god bellowed. Croaking an unintelligible curse, he slashed with a fiery sword that had appeared in his hand out of nowhere.

It took the heated plasma a split second to smash through my immunity but that was all the time I needed. The portal popped, pulling me out of its deadly way. Saved by the bell.

The last thing I noticed was Badaboom grinning happily as he raised his hammer over a 500K GP bomb which he'd dumped right on top of the altar.

Teleport! A physically impossible echo of a gigantic
Boom
rushed overhead. My men shook their heads in awe. Me, I rubbed my cheek grazed by the plasma sword as I peered at a new system message,

Status alert! You've received new status: Arch Enemy to a God.

End of Book Four

From the author:

Dear reader! Thank you for your loyalty to the AlterWorld. I am glad that you’ve grown fond of Max’s story. Just like you, I want the rest of the books in the series to get published as soon as possible. But the publication process is being hampered by the expenses and the time-frames associated with translation.

The cost of translating one book ranges from $5,000 to $10,000. The translation itself takes up to 4 months.

There are currently 7 books in the series that are already written, plus additional stories. I am also working on a new LitRPG series about outer space.

In response to the readers’ demands, I am opening a crowdfunding company to raise capital for translating the rest of the books.

Link to campaign:
http://igg.me/at/rus

If we raise enough money, I will hire a second translator to speed up the process and get the books out twice as fast! The new volumes will be released every one and a half or two months! If we only raise a portion of the funds, this will in any case help shorten the waiting time between the book releases. After paying for the translation of one book, it is quite difficult for me to find another spare $7,000 in order to instantly get the next book translated. I am forced to save… which is long and painful…

There are no risks involved; the books are ALREADY written. The only issue is translating them.
Every dollar counts; it will be put to good use! A single dollar shortens the waiting time by 10 hours!

Everyone who decides to help out will receive a few wonderful volumes from the AlterWorld series as a thank-you gift: 
The Sense Of Duty,
 which recounts the story of the Doc and the hospice, and also 
The Three Bears And The Zombie Legion, 
the story of how the Inferno powers came to Earth.

Those who give $10+ will have their names printed in the Acknowledgement Section.

Those who give $30+ will receive the first book in the series with my autograph!

Those who give $60+will additionally receive 3 autographed volumes!

If you can’t afford to donate, it’s no big deal; I am still endlessly grateful to all of you for falling in love with the world I have created! Besides, there are other ways to make major contributions; you could recommend the series to your friends, write a review, or share a link to the books on Facebook or Twitter.

Thanks again for your support!

Yours truly,

Dmitriy Rus

MMORPG Glossary
[ii]

AFK

Away from keyboard

Aggro

As a verb, it refers to a hostile mob that has noticed a player and is actively trying to attack that player. As a noun, it refers to the amount of “hostility” the player has generated on the mob. In typical combat strategy, the fighter tries to take as much aggro as possible away from weaker players such as healers and mages.

Alt

Short for "alternate". It refers to the alternate character a player has from their main character. This is not a stable category as sometimes alts can outlevel mains and sometimes mains become moth-balled.

Alt Tab

The act of using the ALT+TAB keys to jump from application to application

Bind

In certain MMOs, characters are teleported back to a safe spot when they die. This spot is predetermined by the user. The act of determining the safe spot requires an explicit action by the user. That action is known as a bind. The spot is typically referred to as a bind spot.

Bind on equip

This term refers to items that become soulbound to the player after they have been equipped. In other words, the item can be traded as long as no one equips it.

Bind on pickup

This term refers to items that become soulbound to the player after it has been picked up from a monster. In other words, the item cannot be traded once a player picks it up. BoP items commonly cause looting conflicts and disputes during game-play.

Bokken sword

A wooden training sword

Buff

Temporary boost to character attribute or combat ability

Camp(ing)

The act of waiting in an area to hunt a specific mob or a specific spawn

Caster

A mage or a wizard

Char/Toon

A player or their character.

Class

Professional archetypes. In D&D games, these would be warrior, healer, rogue and mage. The most typical class types are: close-range damage, ranged damage, healing, crowd control, support.

Cleric

Typical healing class in D&D style games

Combo

A combination of hits, especially causing severe damage like paralyzing or bleeding

Corpse

In certain MMOs, a corpse appears where the player died. Sometimes all the player’s items and money are left on the corpse and the player is teleported back to their bind spot. Corpses typically will decay after a certain time proportional the character’s level.

Corpse Run

The act of retrieving your corpse after you have died. This is typically a dangerous thing because people tend to die in dangerous places rather than safe places.

Crafting

A general category of skills that allows players to manufacture objects from raw resources

Crit

"To crit" refers to landing a critical hit either with melee or spells. Effective damage is usually increased from a base of 150% to upwards of 250% with extra talents/skills/buffs.

Crowd Control

Refers to a set of spells / abilities that temporarily paralyze or stun other mobs or players. Crowd control is an important group support ability when fighting multiple mobs.

DD

Direct Damage. Used to refer to a class of spells and abilities that allow players to damage enemies from a distance. The firebolt is the archetypal DD.

DD/DPS

A character whose primary role in a group setting is to deal damage to the opponents.

Debuff

The opposite of a buff. An offensive spell cast on enemies that weakens an attribute or combat ability.

Donator

A player who invests real money into virtual gear

DoT

Damage over time. Refers to a class of spells that deals damage over a period of time. These spells typically do more damage than DD spells overall.

DpS

Damage per second. Used when figuring out weapon speed and damage.

Drow

A Dark Elf race

Druid

Hybrid class in D&D style games — part healer, part support, part fighter.

Enchanter

A mage specializing in buffs

Epic

An extremely rare item or quest. Has come to mean something exceptionally cool and hard to get.

Experience

A quantity gained when completing tasks/quests, killing mobs, or various other achievements in games. When enough experience is accrued, characters often “level up” and become more powerful.

Familiar

Same as pet

Farm(ing)

The act of accumulating currency or a specific item by repeatedly killing a mob or repeatedly performing a series of actions

Gnoll

An NPS (AI-controlled character) race of humanoid hyenas

Guilds

Semi-permanent player groups. In typical games, players must use a substantial amount of capital to start the guild.

Health

A base attribute of characters

LFG

“looking for group”

Lich

A race of the undead

Loot

Currency or items that are dropped by a mob when it is defeated

Mana

A commonly-used pool of magic potential (magical analog of health points)

MMORPG

Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

Mob

An AI controlled monster. 'Mob' originally comes from the MUD era, where it was short for 'mobile', to differentiate monsters that would patrol a set of rooms as opposed to monsters which would stay in one place until killed.

Mount

Any riding animal from a donkey to a dragon

Newbie

A new inexperienced player

Newblette

A new and inexperienced female player

Noob

The pejorative form of newbie or an unskilled arrogant player

NPC

Non-player character (ie. controlled by AI)

Nuke

Refers to casters, to cast the highest damage spell or spell combo to effectively pull or finish of a npc. Mages usually are the most effective class in highest burst damage.

Nuker

A caster who throws a lot of damage spells on a target.

Perma

Permanent, permanently

Pet

A creature that can be summoned to help and defend a player

PK

Player Killer — a derogatory term — as in a person who primarily plays to kill other players

PK counter

Shows the number of players already killed by a PK and allows to calculate the chances of his dropping an item if killed by another player

Port

Short for teleport. Used as a noun and a verb.

Powerlevel

Same as rush. When a higher level player tries to help a lower level player level faster. Most games have mechanisms that prevent power leveling.

Pull

A standard hunting strategy where a player lures a single or a group of mobs to the group so that the group can hunt from a safe area instead of hunting in areas where new mobs may spawn.

PvP

Player vs. Player combat

Quest

A set of tasks of a player to complete

Quest item

An item needed to complete a quest

Race

Typically fantastical creations, such as Elves, Trolls and the like.

Raid

A more substantial engagement involving a large organized group of players typically set in a dungeon and involving difficult mobs