The Duty (Play to Live: Book # 3) (27 page)

A few graceful steps, and she was standing close to him. Fuckyall felt his body shake. He took a deep breath and disconnected from reality as the long-forgotten smell of almonds and cinnamon enveloped his mind, reminding him of the magical night and resurfacing the feelings that had long been anchored in his heart. His grip slackened; his hands fell, adding a few generous strokes of green to the still-life picture on the floor. The rebellious Paladin stepped forward, enveloping his princess in his embrace.

He couldn't remember how long he'd stood like that, immersed in a sensation of absolute happiness like someone who'd found his long missing half and was finally able to piece himself back together.

A secret door slid open behind Dana's back. Footsteps pattered across the floor, followed by a surprised, "Ah! Mom, what's this?"

Fuckyall's eyebrows shot up. He prized himself away from the woman he loved, allowing her to step aside and reveal a chubby three-year-old who was frowning at a large red apple. Fuckyall concentrated, allowing a prompt to appear over the boy's head.

Crown Prince Screwyall, Dark Paladin, level 1.

Unbelieving, Fuckyall stared at Dana. She nodded and beamed—a smile so happy and more cheerful than she'd ever smiled in all those years of solitude.

Exhausted with emotion, Fuckyall dropped to his knees and reached out for the child.
"My boy... give me a hug."

Unsure, the child glanced up at Dana. Her eyes shiny and moist with tears, she knelt next to her paladin and draped one arm around his neck. Reaching her other hand out to the boy, she called, "Come to us."

The newborn world's gears crunched as more pieces of the universal puzzle dropped into place, entering new invariables into the world's physics. The first child begotten by a player and an NPC, the first nuclear family that had received the Gods' approval—and the first legitimate scream of
Daddy!
that resounded under its skies.

A growing clangor of steel disrupted their bliss. A zombie guard burst into the room, his armor chipped and bent.

"My lady, we can't deter them for much longer," he croaked, collapsing to his knees. "Soon the Immortals will be here! You need to take cover, or at least get your son away!"

"No, Mommy, please don't!" the little boy clung to Dana trying to shield her with his body. "They'll kill you again! You'll be gone a whole day! I'm so scared on my own!"

Fuckyall lowered his eyelids. To his surprise, he felt neither hatred nor ire. He was a father and a husband whose duty it was to protect his family. That left no space for any redundant feelings. Tousling his son's flaxen hair, he gave Dana a comforting kiss, then said softly,

"Don't be afraid. You'll never have to die again. That's what men are for."

He rose from his knees and activated the portal beacon, then slammed the mental alarm button. "Code Red. A Clan officer needs urgent reinforcements."

He slid his mithril shield from his back to his side and bared his Sword of True Light, then stepped toward the doorway, blocking the entrance into the rooms.

A portal popped open behind his back, followed by the stomping of many feet as a fast-response group burst forth. In front, he could already see the first zombies being squeezed into the corridor, followed by the OMON raiders, their faces grimacing with anger and strain.

"Action!" Fuckyall commanded.

"Akksshen!" the Zombie guard repeated, stepping up next to him shoulder to shoulder and raising his shield to protect him.

The celestial gears crunched again as yet another universal law wrote itself into the heavenly books, determining the pattern of the new world's development for millions of years from now.

Chapter Fifteen

L
ike a movie star walking the red carpet under the curious stare of hundreds, I strode, sinking in the sand, toward the slain monster's body. Stepping over the fuming black venomous pools of its blood, I finally got to the Basilisk's ravaged carcass.

What a shame this wasn't real life! We could have flayed the monster and kept its precious internal organs, its super strong claws and its excellent tusks which made perfect trophies. The hundreds of dislocated scales of its hide that were now perishing all around us could fashion enough armor for a whole army. I wouldn't mind fixing a couple of those smoke-colored plates onto my own shield just for their considerable resistance to magic and phenomenal endurance to cold steel.

On the other hand, it was good we weren't in real life. There, the monster would have hardly dropped anything apart from a mountain of reeking offal.

I came close and tilted my head trying to take in the sheer size of it. What a goliath! I'd like to know how they'd battle something like that back on Earth.

Would they send in a tank company and rip it apart with Kord heavy machine guns and thermobaric missiles? I'm afraid all the fun would be ended the moment the basilisk cast a fleeting glance across them, turning the vehicles into super-expensive coffins with petrified statues inside. Then how
would
you go for it? Should they maybe send in a drone, then shoot the monster with guided missiles from beyond the horizon?

Then what would be the efficiency ratio of technological weapons to magic ones? Would a .50 bullet equal a crossbow bolt? And what if the bolt had a mithril head and the crossbowman himself was level 200 with artifact weapons and all sorts of boosting buffs? Would it equal a tank? Then again, we'd had three hundred warriors like that and still we'd been losing the battle all along.

I sensed the raiders' growing impatience with my back. I searched for a relatively clean spot on its hide and touched it, activating the loot window. The developers deserved kudos for the rule of Master Loot which prevented any particularly smart ninjas from darting in front of the clan leader, then disappearing offline with hundreds of thousands' worth of loot.

Ding.
Forty pounds of gold and two hundred-plus of silver dropped into my bag. Quite hefty, literally. Almost thirty grand—it sounded like a lot but on the other hand, it was a puny ten bucks per head, not enough to cover the raiders' outlay.

And now for the best bit. The monster's body housed twenty-six items. Some ingredients which, although unknown to me, caused a quiet stir among our alchemists. A few ancient-looking vials of mass paralysis with a range the size of a football pitch. Half a dozen of what had to be quest items: a broken fragment of an ancient sword, an illegible scroll with a cryptic message, one odd lady's glove, and a child's rag doll. And finally tada!—twelve items of artifact gear of absolute rarity. The only problem was, you could forget selling it, the entire bunch fell into the "bind on pick up" category.

Little wonder: that was typical of all top items. The Admins were thus trying to protect the game's balance and the players' investments, with the added bonus of forcing folk to socialize (you couldn't farm items like that on your own no matter how good you were). So they'd labeled 99% of all artifacts as "no drop" to make sure no one could trade, steal or rob them.

I could almost see the merc's faces grin, lighting up behind my back: all of them had monitoring access to the loot so they were quite capable of predicting any further developments. All of them had to realize that we had to split up the loot there and then, handing the items to those who'd most deserved them.

Very well, I could include the loot in that castle-taking bonus I'd promised them. I still owed the guys over one million for this op, so now was the right moment to do all the bookkeeping. The only thing that worried me was that this pack of dogs of fortune wouldn't budge until the last artifact had found its rightful owner.

I turned back and saw what I'd most dreaded. The air hummed with more and more voices. I saw feverish eyes and the first attempts to use a right hook and a tug of a beard as arguments started brewing in the ranks.

Shit. God save me from being stuck here for the whole night. The Chinese gangsters certainly knew about the basilisk graveyard—and the universal message would have informed them of the fact that, far from jogging off home after the successful seizure of the castle to enjoy a quiet evening and a beer, we had brazenly continued on our little way through the Frontier lands right to the heart of the Asian cluster's area of responsibility.

That was bad. And that was only the first salvo of the problems I had. The second and most important one was the fact that the earth was already burning under my feet. Soon the First Temple's immunity would expire, resulting in an inevitable attack by the idiots of Light and their sidekicks: all sorts of justice seekers, idle boy scouts and other do-gooders. The Gods of Light had recently become far too active, apparently in anticipation of a good scuffle, generously handing out various quests to participate in the Last Crusade, to explore the Dead Lands and purge them of Evil. Tianlong already had a stomach ache from all the rangers and assassins that had become his staple diet, and still they exercised a remarkable perseverance in trying to penetrate our lands and receive the Big Prize for delivering our portal coordinates.

If the truth were known, our inaccessibility and our remote location were indeed our best protection. Just looking at my clan could make you weep: puppies, bird chicks, toddlers that the cuckoo-like Doc had left literally on my doorstep—and the crown of human evolution, Lena from Junior High. The one thing left was to stock up on toys and rename ourselves the Nursery.

The Bone Dragon wasn't necessarily going to get involved and take our side in case of any trouble. She had but to rise into the air and call her chicks, and you could kiss the whole lot goodbye. Her maternal instincts might well overpower her sense of gratitude.

Speaking about divine assistance, we had problems in that respect, too. The Fallen One was too cool for his boots, no doubt about that. But he was alone against nine ancient Gods of the Pantheon of Light. Macaria was too fickle to be predictable, and as for Lloth, allies like her could be bartered to enemies at the rate of two to one with a considerable surcharge. Shame there were no takers around, really a shame.

The mithril bombs were admittedly awesome, with one small exception: our enemies were immortal—and considering the current prices of the unique metal, our attackers would be rushing for the epicenter in their droves torso-bared in the hope of netting a few additional pieces of shrapnel. So all those fireworks, basilisk eggs and other bells and whistles actually testified to our poor state of affairs—our miserable attempts to take a leaf from the gangsters' book (speak not of the Devil): to surprise the enemy is to defeat him.

Because if even one out of every hundred players of the three million-strong Russian cluster decided to join the traditional Russian wall-to-wall street fight, then the Frontier's scorching sun would witness a battle of thirty thousand sentients, that's not counting mercs and NPCs. And God help us from any intervention from third parties and interested countries! I swear by Almighty Macaria's G-string that I don't really fancy seeing a half a million-strong army besieging the First Temple's walls even if I happened to lay my hands on a machine gun with infinite supply of ammo and a spare barrel.

I was distracted from my thoughts by a character who stood out dramatically in the anxious crowd. A skinny wizard merc in floral robes, he danced on the spot with his eyes closed and no apparent need for music, paying no attention to the others' ironic or envious stares. The guy was totally in a world of his own.

I turned to Widowmaker. "What's with the sudden manifestation of happiness? Had his mother-in-law just died leaving him her house in Moscow?"

He smiled. "Much better, Sir. The guy hit the jackpot. This is Student. He's been around for two years now, accompanying us on raids to learn some unique spell or other from the monsters. There's this quest skill called Scholar, it gives you a small chance of intercepting a formula. So he leveled one combat branch so as not to be a dead weight in raids, and poured everything into intellect and learning ability. And today his luck's finally in! The #1 ability, The Aura of a Basilisk—mass slowing and -50 to Strength!"

"So what now? He's gonna use it to scare the shit out of mobs in raids?"

He didn't appreciate my humor. "He doesn't need raids! That's it! He's sorted for life! He's gonna open a workshop where he'll be churning out scroll after scroll of this spell. Clans will line up at his door like there's no tomorrow! The kid isn't a perma. It's real life he's interested in, so he's looking at a nice house with a swimming pool, a cool ride and his pick of pretty girls, all in the nearest future. That's what makes him so ecstatic."

I felt embarrassed by my stupid question. The kid's business scheme was identical to what I was doing with the Portal to Inferno and dome deactivation spells. The only difference was, he knew what he wanted and had gone for it consciously, investing time and money into his idea while I'd had nothing but the pure luck which had dropped into my lap like a ripe piece of fruit into the hands of a disbelieving passerby.

"Congratulations. So what are we going to do about the loot?"

Widowmaker cringed as if his teeth were aching. "Sorry, Sir. This isn't a homogenous clan, after all. This is just a motley crew and you can see that the mercs are a bit overwhelmed by all the loot. Normally, they don't get anything from anyone. We don't have a particular raid point system so it's pretty unclear how to share it all. The sergeants will soon bring them to order but it's less than an hour till rest time. So I suggest, in order to avoid any covert sabotage, just order them to make camp for the night."

Oh well. Everything has its breaking point. Likewise, all these gaming folk who were playing the mercs had just discovered their market price: the chance to lay their hands on an item worth as much as a good car. No need to explain how much a mega goodie like that meant to a true nerd and his precious avatar.

"Very well, then. You can order a timeout. But seriously, I'm not happy about this. All these bonuses seem to be backfiring on me. I want your men to know that. They need to take things seriously. Now: double the sentry posts. Send the rangers out straight away. I need as many portal points as they can create. I wouldn't put it past the gangsters to attack us again. We've made a right mess of all this. Nor have we left many friends behind. Therefore, order #2: everyone is to change their bind point for the safest location they have. I'm afraid the wizard will have to set up a portal right inside the Guild building. I know it costs but that's on me. It'll still turn out cheaper than if we later had to retrieve them all from slavery. Tell your men to form small groups and take turns going for a quick ten-minute leave; they can change their bind points at the same time. I'll do so, too. Every time I think of those slave-trading thugs ambushing our camp sites, my eye starts to twitch. And that's exactly where we've set up our intermediate base, isn't it, in one of those very useful ravines..."

Widowmaker made an apologetic gesture and nodded. The PM box dinged softly—one of my close friends, judging by the tune. My heart missed a beat. What
now
?

Nothing special, as it turned out. It was only Cryl, overworked and overwhelmed, wanting to know what he was supposed to do with the three Chinese prisoners that had landed on his doorstep out of nowhere. He couldn't really take them to the Temple, could he?

Oops. My mistake. I'd simply forgotten to leave any instructions for the guards, simply sending the prisoners away along with the liberated slaves.

"Good job you asked! Listen up: you need to help them escape. Tonight. Doesn't matter why. It's politics. Just do it. I suggest you speak to Dan, he's the Vets' head of security... what do you mean, he's already there? Talking to everyone and taking notes? Excellent. Don't jump the gun, just listen and learn from the pros. Consider him your mentor, sort of. That's it. I count on you!"

Having finished with Cryl, I cast a quizzical glance at Widowmaker faltering impatiently nearby. "Anything else?"

"Max, you have the
droit du seigneur
, the priority in trophy sharing. My guys don't know what they can ogle and what they can't."

"No harm in ogling. I'll have a look now. It'll only take a minute."

A minute, yeah. It took me much longer than that—and every moment of it I had to fend off the desire to decorate myself with trophies like a Christmas tree, leaving the mercs only the items unsuitable for my class. Yes, it was high time I put my inner greedy pig on a diet and got him a gold muzzle!

Have you ever tried to have dinner under somebody's hungry gaze? And when if it's three hundred weapon-brandishing gorillas breathing down your neck? You'll probably know what I mean.

So I ended up appeasing them by choosing twin bracelets that fitted my current unkillable configuration like a glove.

Bracelet of Immortal Hero

Item class: Artifact

Durability: 300/300

Effect 1: +1500 to Life

Effect 2: The Spirit of a Basilisk. Every 1% Life lost will reduce any sustained damage by the same amount.