The Citadel (Mirror World Book #2) (5 page)

BOOK: The Citadel (Mirror World Book #2)
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The Dwand nodded. "I couldn't have said better myself."

"Good," I said. "Now allow me to elaborate a little. If you're sitting here trying to talk me into it, I presume you can't get those hearts at auction."

"We can't," the dwarf patiently explained. "They're non-drop. Their owner can't pass them on to anybody else. That's the whole thing. Basically, the job is simple. All you need to do is follow us into the instance and pick up the hearts."

"Wait a sec," I interrupted. "What do you mean, follow you into the instance? I'm a Grinder, aren't I?"

"How long have you been in the game?" Dan the Dwand sounded amazed. "Have you ever mopped up an instance as part of a raid?"

I shook my head.

"I see," Dan said. "You see, when a quest is partially tied to a Profession, raiders can accept Grinders into the group. Herbalists, fishermen, you know what I mean. Any kind."

"And what if they don't join the group?"

"Forget it. A quest resource is only available to group members. A lone Grinder just won't see it. He needs to join first. Your job is to pick up the hearts and hand them over to us."

I paused, thinking. "Oh. That's clever."

"We know how busy you are," the dwarf repeated. "Why would you bother? But we can pay you well. Say, ten gold per heart, how about that? Naturally, we'll get you buffed to the teeth. Dan has some wicked incenses. It's on us."

The Dwand smiled. "All you need to do is sit there in the shade and twiddle your thumbs. Every once in a while you hand us a heart, that's it. It's only for a couple of hours. Come on, say you can do it."

"But why me?"

Dan grinned. "Do you see any available Mine Diggers of your level here? We should be kissing Mister Random's feet for sending you our way."

"To prevent any doubts on your part," the dwarf kept applying pressure, "allow me to send you a copy of the quest. Just so, you know, that you don't think we're trying to take you for a ride. It's two hundred gold, nothing to sniff at."

I shrugged and agreed. Let them send their letter. "I need to think about it."

The Dwand opened his mouth to speak. The Dwarf buried an elbow in his ribs — properly this time, judging by his brother's beached-fish expression.

"Absolutely," the Dwarf said, smiling. "We understand you're new to this."

I nodded my appreciation and began reading. What a shame the game had no Internet access. I really needed to look into it. Could it be a trap? I cast a furtive glance at the two brothers, studying their faces. No. Too simple for Shantarsky. Also, judging by the way the quest was worded, everything seemed hunky dory. I couldn't smell a rat.

What was my problem, then? Of course, had I had access to the Internet's collective wisdom, I might have found it easier to weigh up all the pros and cons. But now... the only possible catch might be the price they put on my participation. This I found very easy to believe. They had probably guessed that I couldn't log out. I really had to check out a few forums before making this kind of decision. Unfortunately, for the next month I couldn't afford the luxury of the Internet.

Never mind. I'd have to work with what I had. Let's begin with the dwarf. Judging by his heavy armor, he must have been what they called a tank. He must have had some monstrous shield and poleaxe in that bag of his. Let's have a look.

His characteristics were hidden, just like mine. But his breastplate or, say, arm braces could tell me the name of his kit.

I opened the auction and searched for "arm braces". Restriction: below level 120. No, I'd better check his breastplate. Arm braces, gauntlets, helmet and pauldrons were normally the most expensive parts of any suit of armor.

That's it, then. I pressed
Enter
. Pictures of breastplates flickered before my eyes. Found it! I cast another furtive look at the dwarf. Exactly. Now: his breastplate, as well as his greaves and the chainmail were from the Giants Slayer kit. Color: blue, Class: rare. Not the cheapest one but still quite affordable. Okay.

Now the arm braces. Just as I thought. Part of the Titan kit, Color: green, Class: quality. Ditto for the dwarf's pauldrons and gauntlets. His helmet and weapons must have been in the same vein. Okay. An average tank.

Now. Judging by the absence of the clan's logo, he was a loner. Or should I say, he was quite happy with his brother's company. Rank: Soldier. Such a lowly rank in combination with his high levels meant that he'd leveled himself up by killing mobs. From what I'd worked out already, a player's rank directly depended on his Valor levels which were only awarded for killing Darkies.

I thought I knew what these two were doing here. They'd arrived at the Citadel just like I had. Only I'd come here to level up my Rep and they were after the Darkies' scalps. It looked like our meeting up was indeed accidental. They'd seen me and decided to close an old quest.

I cast another furtive glance, this time at the Dwand. A wizard. His gear more or less in the same league as his brother's. If I wasn't mistaken, by Mirror World standards these two were distinctly average: two run-of-the-mill players who'd leveled up nicely but had failed to keep up Valor.

I remembered skimming some blog post about Valor. Apparently, the whole thing was rooted in a system of ranks. A military analog of Reputation which allowed access to Mellenville's Arsenal. From what I already knew, the Arsenal armor was the best in the game apart from some truly unique or relic items.

I reread the quest. My head was about to burst as new ideas kept assaulting my brain. Had Dmitry found out at least some of what I was contemplating, he might have had me locked up here for a year at least. Heh! He wasn't here, was he? But the details of my plan had already started to take shape.

I finished reading and looked up at the two brothers. They smiled in unison, apparently reading my answer in my face. No good disappointing them.

"So where did you say those creatures were hiding?"

 

 

 

 

Chapter Four

 

 

A
s a matter of fact, I didn't have to ask. My bot had already provided me with all the information about the Kardachs' whereabouts. Apparently, quite a few locations had instances called the Swamps which were the Kardachs' natural habitat. The game developers' imagination must have failed them, but then again, they probably knew the importance of keeping it simple.

The nearest swamp was part of a rather large location known as Eyten City and Its Environments. It was to the south of Drammen. In order to get there, you had to use the portal. Perfect, if you asked me. All this constant rain and damp had already begun to get to me.

Dan confirmed my speculations. "The nearest one is in Eyten. The weather is marginally better there, too."

I chuckled. "You two sound as if you're fed up with this quest already."

"Hah!" the dwarf grinned. "You can say that!"

"Nothing is as annoying as a pending quest," Dan added. "And we have about thirty of them."

"Any more calling for Mine Diggers?"

The Dwarf nodded. "A couple. It's a shame because you won't be able to help with them."

"You need a Master Digger," I said in an expert's voice.

"Yeah. Pending quests are a pain when you need to move on."

I smiled. "Why pending? If you join a strong clan, I'm sure they have their own Masters."

The Dwand sniffed. "Yeah right. As if they're going to help us. I wish! Their Masters have too many orders from the clan's elite. It's so complex, Sir Olgerd, you can't imagine."

I suppressed an inner smile at Dennis' switching gears, calling me "Sir". That was already a plus.

I'd spent most of my life on the road, traveling the world. Naturally, I'd had to follow the protocol which hadn't been easy for me for the first few years. I'd had to deal with too many people, some of them selfish bullies.

I remembered my student years. Our business etiquette teacher had told us that bullies came in several types. Some were just psychos — and, provided they'd already had a taste of power, were incorrigible. You'd have to put up with them while tending to your own interests, like hiking up your rates. That way one might find it easier to ignore their liberty-taking.

But some bullies weren't bullies at all. This was just a defense mechanism they used to protect themselves from the world. They found it easier to get along with people this way. One needed kindness and civility to bring their barriers down, demonstrating you weren't trying to make fun of them. You had to treat them with respect. Admittedly, I'd been burned quite a few times trying to put my teacher's theory into practice in the naïve belief that psycho bullies were few and far between. My youthful love of humanity had played a bad joke on me. But as the years passed, I began to accrue experience. I'd learned to see in people what others couldn't.

I hadn't been mistaken in Dan, either. All his boorish ways were gradually falling away like the skins of an onion, revealing the nice guy within.

"Complex or not, we won't know it until we try," I said. "Seeing as you're here anyway. The way I understand it, you've come to the Citadel to level up Valor, right?"

The two looked at each other. "What makes you think so?" the dwarf asked.

Yeah, I got the picture. You need to go some to pull the wool over my eyes. "There're lots of others like you in this inn," I nodded meaningfully at the players sitting at the tables.

The two brothers tensed up, eyeing the room. I might be a noob to end all noobs but I strove to make the best use of available information. "In my opinion, most of them have arrived to fight on the Citadel's walls."

The dwarf shrugged. "You're right. That's exactly why we're here. Once we've leveled up a bit, we can go out on raids in No-Man's Lands. We're not good enough yet to tackle PvP instances. There, we'll be everybody's whipping boys."

"You could say that," I agreed. "Reminds me of a Plateau battle I watched a couple of days ago."

The Dwand whistled in amazement. "The Plateau! Please. That's only for the elite. There're other instances, easier and not so posh. Still, even they aren't for the likes of us. Leveling Valor is an expensive business."

"It might be, but we know from experience that this characteristic is highly prized in Mirror World," the dwarf said. "Basically, the admins have done everything in their power to make sure people donate as much as they can."

"All right," Dan said. "We can talk about all of this later. Time's an issue. You agree to help us?"

I smiled my acceptance. "I have nothing to do until tomorrow night. If we could do it today, that would be great."

"Deal," the dwarf said, beaming openly. "I'll send you a temporary contract straight away."

 

* * *

 

As I left the Eyten portal station, I eyed the evening sky with relief. Not a single cloud. You couldn't believe how fed up I was with all the rain! To spend a few hours away from all the slush and mud was worth the time spent on this little adventure. Especially because I wasn't losing anything. On the contrary. This was much better than spending the whole night stuck in my room. Plus the two hundred gold. I won't lie to you: I was more than happy with this extra bit of income.

It took us about thirty minutes to get to the Swamps. Admittedly, traveling in the company of level-120 players felt good. The roads didn't appear so dangerous. It was true that my bot had been on its best vigilant behavior, but still. I didn't have to fear triggering the aggro zone of any monsters that might jump out at me from the nearest bushes.

As we were about to enter the instance, the dwarf created a group, then sent Dan and myself invitations to join. Much to my surprise, it worked. Honestly, I'd refused point blank to believe in the feasibility of all this. My last doubts were dispelled when Sasha granted me transfer rights. Now I was in charge of the group's loot. That's what they'd hired me for.

We accessed the Swamps via a wide trail snaking through a copse of trees. The already-familiar "parking meters" stood in front of the instance's entrance for Grinders to declare the resources they'd farmed. But today I had no need for them.

Here, we were in for a surprise. Or rather, I was because the other two were apparently used to it. The entrance to the instance was busy. Several players stood there, engrossed in an animated discussion. I counted six of them, their levels not as high as those of my new friends. They too must have had a quest, otherwise what would they want with this low-level location?

The two brothers spoke to the group leader: a thick-set level 110 warrior. I focused on him.

 

Race: Human

Name: Wolf

 

Admittedly his and his group's gear was even worse than that of my friends. I stood slightly aside without trying to eavesdrop. I just observed them.

Having exchanged a few phrases with Wolf, Sasha turned round and headed toward me. He was smiling. It must be good news.

"They're busy sharing the loot," he explained curtly. "When they heard about us, two of them asked to join us," he confirmed my hunch. "They're leveling up the Lotus Rep too. There they are. The dwarf and the Alven girl. I told them about your price. If you want, you can make another two hundred gold. What do you say to that?"

"What can I say? I'm all for that," I answered.

"Goody goody," Sasha nodded. "It'll be cheaper for us too."

Once we were done with all the signing of the temporary contracts with the gnome and the girl, Sasha accepted them into the group. Business was done quickly here. Which suited me just fine.

As I crossed the invisible line separating the instance from the world outside, I received a system message,

 

Warning! You're about to enter the Eyten Swamp!

This location can be too dangerous for players of your level!

Please turn back.

 

The message was followed by the offer of downloading the instance's map.

I ignored the warning but installed the map. While I walked down the trail, I checked out the Swamp's layout. It consisted of six smaller marshes and a large one. The latter was home to a level-95 boss whom we really didn't need to kill. Our quarry were regular level-80 Swamp Kardachs. Heh! The presence of four high-level warriors who could do this instance with their hands tied behind their backs was admittedly reassuring. There I was, calling mobs "regular" — me who wasn't supposed to cross their paths at all! One such Kardach could make quick work of any quantity of Spider Queens and their retinue.

Finally, the copse ended. We walked out onto the shallow bank of a boundless swamp overgrown with gray and green weeds. The telltale stench of hydrogen sulfide assaulted my nostrils. Actually, that was a good moment to check out my idea.

"Guys, can you smell anything?" I asked.

"It smells of our lake back home," the dwarf said.

"It does," his brother agreed. "Dad used to take us out of town a lot when we were little. That's exactly how it smelled."

"It smells of hydrogen sulfide," the gnome said.

The Alven girl didn't say anything. She'd only uttered a few words the whole time. You wouldn't call her the soul of the party. Her nickname spoke for itself: Shadow.

I could see though that she was hanging on every word we said. She might be just shy. What did I care, really?

Unlike her, the gnome quickly found common ground with the two brothers. He'd just gotten a new level and was happy and cheerful because of that. He was already 119.

He wore the same kind of heavy armor as Sasha, only not as good. Actually, I'd underestimated the brothers' gear. Next to the others, their stuff was quite decent. Especially in comparison with the Alven girl who looked as if she'd just joined the game. Despite her high level, her clothes were rather shabby. It was probably because her class — Archer — wasn't very popular with groups. Then again, I might have been mistaken. Who was I to know?

Despite her reserved looks — cold even — I felt sort of sorry for her.

"Why did you ask?" said Borin the gnome who'd actually introduced himself as Boris.

"Just checking a theory. About my subconscious playing up. I've been in the marshes before, you see. I know what they smell like. And that's the catch. I call it the Mirror World effect."

Dan chuckled. "You could say that. Are you ready?"

 

* * *

 

How strange. It had all happened exactly as Dan had predicted — never mind it had been a joke. I was sitting on top of an enormous rock overgrown with dark moss, watching the group smoke yet another Swamp monster.

They did it with remarkable ease. The monsters died quickly. The difference in levels spoke for itself. In a way, I felt sorry for these Kardachs, even though their appearance wasn't exactly pleasing to the eye. The game designers had taken care of it. The creatures resembled a cross between a lizard and a gigantic toad.

The group members acted in synch and with remarkable ease. Their movements seemed choreographed. They fought in silence, which admittedly scared me a little. I knew of course that they must have been using a private communications channel. They probably spoke to each other non-stop, but still it looked spooky.

I'd never been on a battlefield before, if I may call it so. I was actually participating – passively, but still. The scheme was simple. The dwarf and the gnome approached the water's edge and, using their terminology, "aggroed the mob and pulled him", getting him out of the water closer to the wizard and the archer girl.

In other words, the heavily armed players triggered the swamp monster's aggro zone, predictably forcing him to attack them. The tanks would promptly step back, wary of aggroing other Kardachs nearby, then deal their monster several heavy blows to make sure he only attacked them — no matter which one as long as the mob ignored the lightly armed wizard and archer. If they did everything right, the rest was easy.

Once the monster was slain and his body was fading into thin air, the quest item remained lying on the ground. This was when I came into the game. Until I picked up my first heart, I hadn't believed it would work. It was probably time I addressed my paranoia.

There! They'd smoked another one.

"Olgerd!" Sasha shouted. "Your turn!"

I peeled myself off the stone and walk energetically toward the dematerializing monster.

"Throw it to Dennis," Sasha nodded at the stone heart on the ground. "It's his turn. We'll take a thirty-minute break now. It'll give the mob a chance to get closer to the bank. I don't want to pull two or three at once. The difference in levels means there's no loot. We'll only be wasting elixirs," he turned to Borin and Shadow. "How many more do you still need?"

"Three each," the dwarf replied for both.

"I just hope you stay put once you get them."

"Sorry, man," the dwarf took offence. "A promise is a promise. We'll see you through."

BOOK: The Citadel (Mirror World Book #2)
12.54Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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