The Duty (Play to Live: Book # 3) (24 page)

Bagheera's blurred outline sparked as he ran enveloped in colored auras while activating his skills and personal buffs.

Bang!
He rammed the monster, dropping it to its hind legs and forcing it to face him and pay attention. The sturdy scale armor burst, sending translucent scales flying, each the size of a serving dish. The basilisk struggled like a fish in an experienced chef's hands.

Its blood, black as crude oil, gushed from its deep wounds, poisoning the earth around it for centuries ahead. The relieved mercs withdrew from the creature's head and fell in on the flanks which was a considerably better position offering less damage and a higher chance of dealing a crit.

Things got rolling. The monster's life bar shrank as you looked at it. Happy for the breather, the clerics choked on their vials. They could finally switch to secondary tasks and cast a buff or two instead of the constant life-saving jobs they'd been doing; they could even take a good poke at the enemy from the healers' meager arsenal.

I anxiously watched the panther's life bar. Bagheera alone was a poor match for a basilisk. My kitty only survived on the strength of the enormous amount of special skills that exceeded his original makeup twentyfold. While he wouldn't have lasted a protracted combat, now he was using his entire arsenal of shticks, dealing more damage in split seconds than the raid in its entirety.

Widowmaker perked up, his eyes glittering with hope. The analyst fell silent, absorbing the new information. The ranks arched, filling with the hum of anticipation. The whole scene resembled the last seconds of a soccer match when a forward darts for his opponent's goal and gives the stands a microscopic chance of victory.

The balance tipped with the barely discernible hint of our triumph. Now even the lower-rank raiders saw the light at the end of the tunnel and stopped making a dumb show of brandishing their swords. They reached into their stashes, activating 24-hour skills, expensive elixirs and special-occasion scrolls.

My phrase in the common chat triggered the action,

"The group is getting one-third of the loot! Don't skimp, guys, press whatever buttons you have!"

The raid answered with the clangor of steel, the whacking of war hammers, clubs and staffs, the twanging of bows and the roar of magic twisted into well-organized spells.

Thirty percent... twenty... ten... got him!

Boom,
the skies echoed with the gong, reporting the breaking news.

Victory alert! Deep in the Frontier Lands, a Russian raid group under the leadership of Laith the Death Knight, has exterminated the last of the Ancient Basilisks!

The world has become poorer... the world has become safer! We welcome these heroes!

Oh well. Talk about glory finding you. The Chinese must be going completely berserk at us making history
en passant
.

Wow! A new system message obliterated the view.

Congratulations! The extermination of the last specimen of a species doubles the loot. The rarity of the loot increases x10.

Holy mama mia! My inner greedy pig was chattering his teeth against a glass of sedative while I peered at the raiders' happy dumbstruck faces as they received an identical message.

Gradually their stares focused on me. The raiders stirred, stepping aside, clearing the way to the monster's body. Their actions spoke louder than words.
Come on, leader, don't drag it out. What's this creature got inside?

Chapter Fourteen

Fuckyall's Story

Part One

- HE -

Current Time

F
uckyall was furious!

To start off, the previous day he'd run out of cigarettes. At the worst possible time—as always. Those slick-ass motherfuckers in their so-called Tobacco Alliance had tricked Laith, the unique recipe's creator, into signing what was essentially a sweatshop contract. Then they promptly monopolized the production of what they demurely marketed as "incense sticks" under the code name of "The Emperor's Smoldering Delight". And they were still busy trying to sort out the production and logistics! Their current output wasn't even enough to cover the needs of the member clans; as for all the others, they had to make do with all the wool pulled over their eyes and be grateful for the occasional freebie as a gesture of diplomatic goodwill.

Fuckyall was the Russian cluster's strongest paladin—who had in his past life been a rather promising university student going by the name of Andrei. At the time, he'd moonlighted as a guard in a top-range office supplies store and had a special penchant for the night shift. He shamelessly abused his position by overindulging in their display equipment—to the point where this particular opportunity had become his main motivation to show up at work, even more important than being paid.

That was only natural. The antiquated 3D porn paled in comparison to a top-of-the-range FIVR capsule stuffed with electronics like a good C-class car and with the price tag to match. And if you fiddled around with it for a bit, disabling a couple of blockers and installing a jailbreak chip—then all the junkies in the area would weep, envying the reality of your trip.

But if the truth were known, it wasn't the porn he was after. Even though the virtual sex had its merits, the initial attraction of its FIVR surrogate had worn off fast, replaced by his discovery of fully developed virtual worlds.

The first time he'd dropped out of real life for a week was when he'd discovered a box in the games aisle with a brand new version of a tank simulator in it. He'd spent the first night fighting the heated and bloody Battle of Kursk, burning alive dozens of times inside his legendary T-34 before he half-heartedly abandoned it for a heavy KV-1. In the morning, he downed beer by the canful, casting suspicious glances at the unaggressive passersby and cars which scurried past as his brain exploded with phantom hallucinations. He choked while coughing, his throat rough and scratchy, his eyes still watery from the cordite fumes that took only seconds to fill the tank's turret. The extractor couldn't keep up and would die with infuriating regularity whenever the first couple of rounds had struck the vehicle. His hearing had lost its usual acuteness, deafened by the gun's constant discharge and the churchbell-like clangor of shells. His right cheek itched like hell from the red-hot iron clinkers that slapped his face every time the turret was hit.

If the truth were known, he'd been incredibly lucky. So many young guys like himself had become stuck in their respective realities, their minds quitting their flawed mortal bodies only to become trapped inside various simulators and zombie shooters. Now that he had a much better understanding of what had happened to him, Fuckyall habitually knocked on wood and drank to the memory of those who still had to roast and char inside tank hulls hundreds of times a day, tumbling ass over tit in a dislodged turret or evaporating in the flash of detonating HE rounds.
Not good. This is to you, guys!

The Battle of Kursk had given him enough experience to learn all the differences between the enemy vehicles' silhouettes. He didn't fire impulsively any more: he studied current armor schemes and took his time while taking aim, looking for vulnerable spots. Even the stocky SPGs couldn't hide in the undergrowth from his fury. Fuckyall fired at the muzzle flashes, quickly feeling the enemy out—so after his third shell he opened rapid fire, turning the pride of German engineering craftwork into a perforated smoldering coffin.

Still, he'd paid a price. Hundreds of hours spent in perfectly lifelike non-stop tank combat complete with a succession of rather unpleasant deaths had taken their toll. His fellow students started casting wary glances at him as he stared at them with the same squint in his eye—the squint of a hunter taking aim. His nostrils flared whenever he passed a Mercedes on the street while a Maybach—the former manufacturer of Tiger tank engines—aroused a whole range of emotions in him.

At that point, the ex-student had realized it was time to take a break. He didn't have to look long for a new virtual world. AlterWorld was loud and aggressively-marketed enough to draw his attention. It had just been launched simultaneously all over the world in a razzamatazz of expensive advertising that filled the screens, pop-ups, stickers and stretch banners. You had to give the developers their due: they didn't try to put lipstick on a pig. Oh, no—the Alternative World was every bit as uniquely beautiful as they claimed it to be; it wowed everyone and guaranteed to have you hooked, addicted and dependent after the first visit.

The world of sword and sorcery, of beautiful women and limitless opportunities. Here, hen-pecked little men became rugged warriors; suburban housewives turned into Elven maidens. The same world had turned the humble student Andrei into one of the Russian cluster's most powerful knights. The fact that he'd been one of the first to join the game and his leveling rate of eleven hours per day had now paid off.

There was no official explanation of the perma phenomenon. Neither had Andrei any access to military files or special-security research results. The only conclusion he could draw from the vague statistics and WHO recommendations, including new hardware standards, boiled down to the following: a three-hour period of uninterrupted full immersion held a high chance of the player's mind bleeding into the virtual world and merging with his avatar—provided the target world fell in the necessary authenticity category.

Humanity had been plunged into deep shock when the initially small numbers of players discovering their logout button had ceased working grew into thousands. Andrei smiled sadly every time he imagined the office supply shop workers arriving at work the next morning to discover his still alive but totally irresponsive body inside the display FIVR capsule. He was pretty sure they'd already laid him to rest in some anonymous grave in a far corner of the local cemetery. That had been before they started building those enormous medical centers, both private and state-owned, to harvest all the thousands of comatose bodies. Officially their purpose was to provide due care and medication while looking for a cure for this weird condition. The only thing that worried Andrei was the fact that, according to the reports in the real-world media (which could be easily accessed from here), the last two years had seen a significant drop in hospital waiting lists for transplantation surgery. The price of transplant organs had been decimated, allowing alcoholic millionaires to have their livers replaced every year if they wanted to.

But in all honesty, those who quit reality of their own free will couldn't have cared less about these technicalities. And they were many, their numbers growing, as more and more people tried to escape sickness, hardships and old age, to say nothing of unadulterated crime. Perma players enjoyed eternal youth, absolute health and immortality, their abilities unlimited in these new uncharted lands.

Fuckyall never regretted what had happened to him, even though he struggled to wrap his head around two particular words:
life
and
eternity
. But now he was seriously livid. His craving for a cigarette was going through the roof; his hands were mechanically fashioning a roll-up with a few dried-up bits of herbs. To make it worse, the surrounding view did little to cheer him up which was the second reason for his shitty mood. No later than yesterday, some rooky ranger had offered to sell him the coordinates of a Mature Manticore's Lair—a one-off dungeon perfect for a well-tried team or a cavalier loner like himself. The man had some screenshots that confirmed his words; the lair's age made you drool in greedy anticipation while the coordinates quite logically pointed to somewhere deep within the Frontier's uninhabited badlands.

One portal jump and four unhurried hours of unicorn riding later, his wallet a thousand gold lighter, Fuckyall had finally found the lair. But WTF was that??? Someone had already broken into the dungeon: in fact, another group was mopping it up right in front of his very eyes!

He'd been waiting for them to come out for three hours sitting on the bare rocks at the mouth of the cave, just wanting to ask the newcomers a sole question: how had they managed to lay their hands on the dungeon's precious coordinates? That smartass ranger had better pray he hadn't double-crossed him!

His indignant imagination helpfully offered him images of various forms of punishment, his favorite being that of the recently discovered giant herbivorous dinosaur. He'd have the ranger bound hand and foot, then coated with a generous layer of Vaseline and shoved up the dinosaur's capacious ass.

And what do you want? Fuckyall had his reputation to maintain. If you let the bastards get away with it just once, the next day someone might just show up to make sure Fuckyall was indeed past his prime. Somebody wanting to check out if they could help relieve him of a stack of his unique gear.

The PM icon flashed. Fuckyall focused on the game interface that still functioned well, making his life in this new world so much easier. He swiped the icon with his gaze, opening the incoming message. Shit. The recognizable flourish of the clan leader's digital signature wouldn't allow him to ignore the message and "accidentally" move it to spam.

Normally, his clan did their best not to pester him unless absolutely necessary. He was, to a degree, their front man and their spokesperson, adding weight and authority to the Lightbearers' media image. All last week, the clan's combat section had been busy farming the Planes of Fear. Fuckyall had declined the offer knowing that he'd already farmed all the cool gear one could get there. Besides, he never enjoyed playing the supporting parts of a substitute tank, a buffer or a healer lurking at the rear. That was the bane of the hybrid classes like himself: a paladin was a cross between a cleric and a warrior, unable to generate proper aggro and keep the monster focused on himself. He didn't have the same armor and hits stats as the clan's main tank custom-made for the job—but neither could he guarantee the group's survival the way a pure healer could. He was, however, an excellent solo leveler, too tough for words in combat—perfect for seeing off various nasties. He reminded himself of a tool that was only good for specific tasks.

His clan leader was begging him to go check on their Nursery and try to finally find out what the hell was going on there. The local mobs seemed to be growing a mind of their own; they were changing their behavior patterns to the point where they seemed to be leveling up. The young players busy training in the clan's nearby location were dying like flies, freaking out and apparently unable to keep up with their characters' average leveling pace. To add insult to injury, the five guards of the top-level Pisces combat group that had been on nursery duty for the last few days protecting the newbies from PKs and other aggressive types seemed to be in some kind of trouble—so now they were demanding reinforcements with just a hint of panic in their voices, begging for everything from heavy cavalry to gunship helicopters.

Basically, they were asking Fuckyall to sort out that particular mess. He sighed, glancing one last time at the cave's dark mouth still blocked by the thin but impenetrable film of a power shield. He had to go. None of the more trusty clan officers were available online and all the permas had gone off with Fang on that raid of his. Permas' average levels were considerably higher—no wonder as they were always busy leveling while normal players had to take breaks for sleep, work or study.

Besides, lately Fuckyall had taken a rather acute interest in everything that surrounded the clan's Nursery—or rather, the Cursed Princess' Palace that housed it. And now he was pondering over whether it was time to stop hiding from himself and try to have a better look at whatever had happened six months ago.

That day he had drunk alone, celebrating a rather controversial date—the anniversary of his going perma. After the first bottle of Dragon's Tears he felt he could take the world on. Strangely enough, no one at the arena seemed interested in accepting his challenge. Disappointed in human nature, Fuckyall had felt an acute need of female company. He was overwhelmed by frustration and he needed to get it out of his system.

He staggered across the night city trying to find his way to the Purple Light district. Most likely, sooner or later some good Samaritans would have guided him on his path to the places where an adequate fee could guarantee you a warm female body to cuddle up to. But fortune had decided otherwise. In the subdued flash of a hand lantern, a woman's slender outline flitted within a dark archway. A delicate hand peeked from under the folds of an expensive cloak, beckoning Fuckyall with a perfectly manicured finger.

He still didn't know which of them two had seduced whom. Or rather, he constantly chose not to concentrate on it, saving his own ego. Her cool but strong hand held him tight as she walked him—towed him, rather—staggering along the vaguely familiar streets. As they passed the abandoned Royal Gardens that encircled the Cursed Palace, he had a nostalgic flashback to his first days in the game. The zombies they met on their way—once the castle servants, gardeners and guards—deferentially got out of their way, causing the miserably drunken Fuckyall to puff his cheeks with pride: just think that NPCs already knew his face and showed him signs of respect!