Apostle of the Sleeping Gods Read online

  Penalty for death: -550 experience points.

  I thought a bit and remembered the mechanic for calculating penalties: present level times fifty. Not pleasant, but bearable. That was what I’d get for killing about ten mobs at any level. It only became a problem if someone was stalking your respawn point.

  I dismissed the notification and checked my inventory. Thanks to my rare bag, all the loot from Evil from the Depths was where it belonged. I mentally composed a route, calmly reached the city walls and, from there, ran to the Bubbling Flagon like a coward. I wasn’t going to leave my room until I’d figured out all the letters, classes and plans.

  The city looked exactly the same though there were perhaps a few more people walking the streets than usual. I found out why when I got to the tavern. At the doors of the Bubbling Flagon, some level-twelve player was tearing his throat:

  “Vote in the City Council elections! A player is running for the first time, the famed and respected Polynucleotide! His main issue is increasing rewards for social missions! Beyond that, he wants to make it legal for players to acquire property in...”

  Astonished, I wanted to know the details but suddenly found someone staring at me stubbornly. I turned my head and realized I’d been spotted: a level-fourteen courier girl from Axiom by the name Cherry was silently moving her lips in front of a signal amulet. She made sure I was looking and pointed a finger at me, which I took to mean: “Stay where you are!”

  No, thanks. With a shake of my head, I walked into the tavern and went up into my room. I’d have to talk with them one way or another but preferably not like this, wearing only underwear and with unspent my attribute points. No, from a psychological standpoint, nothing good could come from talking like this

  In the room, I sprawled out on my bed and breathed a sigh of relief. Last time I was here, half a month ago, I was level six. Now I was eleven...

  Oh well, time to look through my presents. I opened the window and quickly scanned the names of the classes the system had offered: Solo Adventurer, Wandering Monk, and Herald. None of those meant anything to me, but I they would soon enough.

  I opened my mailbox and saw a bunch of unread messages and the most recent was by Tissa, sent just one day earlier:

  Alex!

  Sorry that I’m only writing here and now. Ed is paranoid IRL and we’re trying not to say anything until the time is right. To anyone, even you. I know it’s stupid, but it’s what we decided. Sorry again.

  By the way, Hung was right. DT gives two possible destinations at level three. And then it’s the luck of the draw.

  Obviously DT meant Depths Teleportation. Did that mean that they used it every day trying to escape until they were all in Tristad? I’d keep that in mind. But why not just tell me by comm? Or say it in school? All this secrecy seemed weird. I didn’t answer, having decided to talk one on one.

  Then I opened the next message. It came from Overweight:

  Hi, Scyth!

  I haven’t seen you in a while so I decided to drop you a line. Today me and Undy sorted through our stuff. Well, you know, like took stock. Basically, we found a set of equipment for level five. Undy set it aside for you. How’s it going, have you hit five yet?

  Overweight (Rita)

  Had I hit level five? I chuckled and quickly popped off an answer: “Rita, hi! Sorry, I haven’t been in Dis for two weeks. I’ll drop by one of these days!” I didn’t know if I’d buy anything from them, but I wouldn’t mind seeing her.

  The next letter came from Big Po:

  Sheppard!

  I know you were there. I hope you won’t wuss out when we meet and deny it. Your friends have already gotten their punishment and rightly so. In case you haven’t heard, the only reason you aren’t on our KoS list yet is that I wanted to have a talk with you before you go sour. Write me soon as you enter Dis and read this. Don’t draw out the inevitable.

  B.P.

  My answer to him was even shorter than to Rita: “One hour in the tavern.” He was right. There was no reason to draw it out. Best settle this issue before I made any plans. Honestly, I wanted to figure out my class and attribute points first. And see what changed when my potential threat to the world went up.

  And by coincidence, that was exactly what the next message was about. It all started with a familiar greeting:

  Greetings, fair Scyth, from the gods of Disgardium!

  The rusty gears of creation have turned over and given a push. A great number of independent events have culminated in the impossible. Now, two horrifying scourges of the old and new worlds have met in one intelligent creature!

  I haven’t seen a threat as fearsome as what you could become since the Rending of Worlds!

  Potential class of your threat to the world: A.

  Present class of your threat to the world: Q.

  Threat traits: overt, Sleeping Gods, Destroying Plague, rending, pandemic, explosive character growth, global cataclysm, war of gods, hidden advantage against much higher-level enemies...

  That was followed by a text I had seen before. Warnings, penalties for disclosure and a list of rewards which were again not spelled out explicitly. But at the end there was something new. It said that for reaching class L – my previous threat ceiling – I would be given a state-of-the-art pod with full life support, massage and muscle stimulation and other important and less important features. For example, it was faster at reading data from the brain and sending it to Dis, giving the owners of such pods the jump on the others even if only by a fraction of a second.

  But that all faded in comparison with what came at the very end, where it said what I stood to gain for bringing the threat to maximum. The number looked to be made of pure zeros, and I had to count them two times. I got the same number both times but still I was in disbelief, just staring until the zeros wandering around in my vision.

  There were nine zeros after a one. I would be given a billion phoenixes if I could bring my threat class to maximum! But that wasn’t all. If I reached D or higher they promised a fully-fledged contract working as a consultant for Snowstorm’s threat department with an eight-figure salary. And that was before bonuses!

  My heart was beating so fast I could feel it even in Dis. Big Po, the Dementors, school and even Tissa all faded when I thought of the reward. That could solve all my problems! I could study on Snowstorm’s dime! My citizenship status would be C at minimum, millionaire level! A space guide? Ha, for a hundred million I could buy my very own brand-new space yacht and fly it wherever I liked!

  I pressed “Accept,” but that was only in Disgardium. I still needed to sign a contract in the real world.

  Not wasting time, I left the game, waited one minute in total darkness to readapt as the intragel returned control to my body, got out of the pod and opened my real electronic mail to sign the updated contract with Snowstorm. Getting right to it – how can you get distracted with something like this on the line? – I closely read all nine pages and placed electronic signatures everywhere it was required.

  Right after I came back to Dis, I wanted to pick my class, but there was someone knocking stubbornly in my private messages:

  Player Polynucleotide (Wesley Cho) would like to add you to his friends list. Accept?

  You may set privacy settings to determine friends’ information access level about your character.

  Wesley Cho, aka Polynucleotide, aka Big Po was reminding me of our meeting.

  Chapter 5. Too Many Pos

  THE PART of the Bubbling Flagon where Big Po was sitting leisurely looked almost deserted. The empty tables around him and the other Axiomites clearly had plenty of room, but still everyone tried to keep their distance.

  As it turned out, when I got closer, I ran into an invisible curtain. When I pushed it gave, but it felt like I was back in the thick muck of the Mire. My body was enshrouded with invisible pressure, my ears popped and it became harder to breathe. I couldn’t hear what the top clan was discussing over the table, but I could see Bi
g Po’s lips moving. The field disappeared and, out of inertia, I fell into the bubble.

  At the same time, almost all the Axiom players stood up and, a few of them hitting me with their shoulders, headed to leave the tavern. I recognized one of them by name, JJ, a level eighteen bard who used to lead the Night Stalkers. He and Big Po’s had joined forces, leaving him second in command of Axiom.

  Only two people stayed back. Next to Wesley Cho sat a girl with shaved temples and a long blue ponytail.

  “Wesley, Irina,” I nodded and, not waiting for them to invite me, sat at the table.

  They sized me up. Both the information available in my profile and what I was wearing. And I did the same to them.

  Polynucleotide, level-19 human

  Clan: Axiom.

  Real name: Wesley Cho

  Real age: 15.

  Class: Chieftain.

  Irina was a mystic two levels lower. And though I’d heard of hear class before, “chieftain” meant nothing to me.

  “Nice class you’ve got there, Big Po,” I drawled to break the silence, made deafening by the bubble. I could even hear my heartbeat. “Is it at least a combat class?”

  The leader of Axiom raised a pointer finger, calling for silence. Then without breaking his gaze, he leaned toward Irina. She whispered fairly distinctly:

  “Forty-four thousand experience points in the last week, plus or minus a week. An average of five thousand points per day. Class not chosen. By the looks of things, he didn’t have time. He was at six when he entered our ins. After the ins, he got an academic ban. The last five levels must have come the day before the ban. He was there.”

  He sat back forcefully, his arms now behind the bench back and turned to me:

  “You heard her, Sheppard. My analyst is sure you were with the Dementors.”

  “No ‘hi Scyth?’ No ‘nice to see you’ or, at the very least, a ‘we’ve been waiting a long time, Alex?”

  “Don’t be rude,” Irina said harshly. “You are nobody here and thus you have no name. Thank Po for his decision to be fair and hear you out before putting a bounty on your head.”

  “Deepest gratitude, Big Po!” I stood up and bowed like a jester. “So, why do they call you Big Po? Not Medium, not Little, but Big?”

  I didn’t know what had come over me. With the perspectives I was imagining ten minutes earlier, I should have been more polite. After all, his clan ruled this sandbox. Why fan the flames of an already tense situation? And I would have been polite, if they had been. What, weren’t they taught to say hello?

  “Polo. Pocketrocket. My little brother Polynuclear,” Wesley started counting, bending his fingers. “There are too many Po’s for one clan. I’m big. I’ve got a metabolism disorder. So that’s why they call me Big Po. Any more questions?”

  “Not for now. Thanks for answering,” I nodded in embarrassment. He had disarmed me. I expected anything right up to being added to their KoS list, a flareup of rage, an overturned table. Anything but a simple and clear answer.

  “Now you answer me. Were you in the ins?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just tell me one reason...” Big Po made a big pause to take a swallow of ginger beer, “why I should forgive you.”

  “Forgive me?” I laughed. “For what? It was your guy who let me into the dungeon.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “After that it was all easy. The ins got closed for maintenance and I left before they kicked me out...”

  “Hm-hm...” Irina didn’t believe me. “Keep lying.”

  “In the morning, I came back and saw that my toon was still inside. So I called the Dementors. After that, you know what happened.”

  “He’s lying!” the girl cried out dogmatically, turning to Big Po. “During maintenance, dungeons are completely reloaded. All players get sent to their res point.”

  “Look, Sheppard.” Wesley sat his big paunch on the table, squinting his already narrow eyes. “Crawler and his guys are finished. This game doesn’t exist for them until they get out into the big world. I guarantee it. And if they try anything funny, they’ll have problems IRL. They stole a First Kill from me in a very ripe dungeon. Such things are not forgiven. In big Dis, people get killed for less. So do you understand what’s at stake? According to our observers, you guys scooped up some gear in there, and it’s a bit nicer than low-level epics. But to hell with that. It can be bought. The ability to teleport is something we can never have now. You understand?”

  “Your disappointment – yes, but as for the ‘can never have now,’ no. Why should that be? You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. The day will come when you can get other First Kills.”

  “Like hell it will!” Po thundered his fist on the table. “The top clans control everything. If some noobs find a new dungeon, they’re better off selling the location to the big ten than trying to pass it themselves. It’s both more profitable and more reliable. The tops have scout networks that cover all known Disgardium, and they are meticulous! So if we happen to get lucky, there’s no guarantee what kind of First Kill we will get if we even can. I’m talking about teleportation precisely.”

  Po wrapped up his fiery speech and started sucking at his glass of beer. While he greedily wet his throat, Irina turned to me. She spoke quietly and measuredly, but every one of her words had a drip of poison:

  “Scyth, do you have any idea how much it costs to hire a mage who can open portals in big Dis? Depending on distance, one-way travel can cost as much as to ten thousand gold. It isn’t enough to be a mage. You need to specialize in spatial magic. The price of a full course with the required folios and scrolls can come up to a million gold. Plus that class is worthless in combat and are generally only levelled by powerful clans for their own private use. Stationary portals only cover the capitals and do not come cheap either. You and those idiots of Azkaban stole an invaluable skill...”

  “Aw nether!” Wesley cursed, describing how and in what positions he would perform coitus with Ed Rodriguez and his clan. Minus Tissa of course. “To hell with that Latin freak, but Hung! We’re practically related! If only I’d convinced him to join us before... Without a tank, Crawler would have just sucked down candies in the dungeon until he died and everything would have been fine!”

  Watching their revelations, I felt a certain disbelief. Sure, I thought their anger and indignation, grief and disappointment were sincere, but I’d never seen them act this way before. In general, they were strong, cold-blooded, calculating. I mean, that was why they were called Axiom! And now this whole spectacle? What were they playing at? Were they trying to make me feel so guilty that I would admit to something I didn’t do? If so, it wasn’t working.

  “So then, Sheppard,” Big Po snorted, watching my reaction the whole time. “You tell us what you really did in that dungeon. Tell us what loot dropped from the last boss and send us a full description of the ability it gave you. Then I’ll decide whether I should kill you or not.”

  Before he’d even finished talking, I had made up my mind. If they add me to their KoS list, I’d just run off to the Mire. Or just sit out my required hours in my personal room. Admitting what actually happened – and by the looks of things the Dementors hadn’t given me up – was not in the cards. And I couldn’t give a single hint of my true status either. After all Big Po had connections with preventer clans.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean ‘no?’“ Wesley asked in astonishment. “Don’t kill you?”

  “No, as in I’m not going to tell you. I’m really sick of Dis and I’m not planning to keep playing. I’ve got college, studies plus citizenship tests ahead of me. I won’t have time.”

  “We’ve all got the tests...” Irina muttered, gloomy.

  “So you understand. Ed, Hung, Malik and Tissa are my friends. I’ve known them since first grade. I’ve never met you before. If they didn’t talk, I’m not gonna either.”

  “Understandable,” Wesley nodded. “Accepted. I will not a
dd you to the KoS list.”

  “Are you serious? That easy?”

  “Absolutely. You were right when you said it was my guy who let you into the ins. He by the way is no longer in the clan. As far as I know, you didn’t promise him not to kill Murkiss, right?” He guffawed. Irina also smiled. “No then?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Then no further questions. You’re free to go, Sheppard. My apologies, but we are gonna watch you a bit... Discreetly.”

  “And that’s all?” I couldn’t believe my ears and was waiting for a catch. “You’ll watch me a bit and that’s it? No more problems?”