Apostle of the Sleeping Gods Page 6

  That could have been a lot more useful...

  Imitation

  Active class skill.

  Current level: 1.

  Heralding a new era puts you on an extremely difficult and thorny path. No matter where they go, the high priests of new gods and coming changes are always be subject to persecution. However, not every herald can take someone else’s identity, only the true ones.

  This skill works on everyone.

  Choose target to use (must be in line of sight).

  Imitated at present level: character class.

  I shot up out of bed, my arms itching to test this skill. I left the room and quickly looked down the hallway – clear. Even if Big Po had stuck someone here to spy on me, stealth didn’t work due to the special light fixtures here. If someone was on the lookout for me, it would be outside at the exit from the tavern.

  After careful examination, I went down the stairs. There was nobody there either. Walking along the wall, I slipped past the kitchen into the main room. I heard a measured hum coming from inside.

  I stopped at the entrance and took a cautious look in, trying not to catch anybody’s eye. I couldn’t afford to show my herald class to anyone. Even if it didn’t make direct reference to threat status, attention and interrogations were virtually guaranteed.

  Evening hadn’t come yet, and it was still relatively quiet in the Bubbling Flagon. A group of bards was rehearsing last night’s performance and chatting on stage. The two tables nearest me were occupied by workmen and, at the next one, a warrior and druid were having some sort of stormy discussion. I slid a gaze over the tavern. There was a thief, his face under a hood, a player with no class trying to get something through to him, a barbarian sucking greedily at a mug, an archer hanging around some cute waitress... Ah, the archer would do fine! Considering my bonus to ranged weaponry, that would make good cover!

  I activated the skill and every player in my field of view gained a green outline with a popup question:

  Imitate level-10 warrior Lumberjack?

  Imitate classless player Zuzuvela?

  Imitate level-11 archer Duplolas?

  Yes. I focused on the archer and pressed the button with my gaze. But that was not all. The system considered it necessary to give me one last chance:

  Only class can be imitated. Would you like the class Archer?

  Yes. I opened my profile to make sure the skill was working properly.

  Scyth, level-11 human

  Real name: Alex Sheppard.

  Real age: 15.

  Class: Herald.

  Displayed class: Archer (imitation).

  I felt like a stone no smaller than the crags of the Nameless Mountains fell off my neck. I was already imagining using Depths Teleportation to ditch this place so I wouldn’t broadcast my new class but, thanks to imitation, it was not necessary.

  Whistling a happy tune, I turned to the stairs and, going back up, ran into Crag on his way down, looking gloomy. In my surprise I greeted him:

  “Hey there! How are things?”

  After beating him in the Arena, I was expecting to be sprayed with curses but instead, he stopped and answered:

  “Decent. How about you? I haven’t seen you for a while...”

  He was still at level twelve, but his gear had gone down a couple rungs. Mismatched armor, a rusty sword, a beat-up gray shield on his back. Only the boots were blue quality, all the rest was gray, white and green. Seemingly things had not been going well for him since our duel.

  “They banned me in school because I was getting bad grades.”

  “Level eleven already... Archer?” His brows shot up in surprise. “I thought you’d be some melee freak.”

  “That’s exactly why I picked range. I’m sick of taking bops to the head. What about you?”

  “I see...” Crag faltered, not answering and wiped his brow looking at the floor. He muttered: “Could you spare some change? Just a coin or two? I’ll pay you back.”

  I sized him up. Things must have been going very poorly if he was coming to me for money. But I did have some – twenty-two gold from auction sales which had just so happened to go through right before my duel with him. And with the drops from the ins...

  “Please...” he added unconfidently.

  “No, Tobias,” I shook my head.

  He nodded and in silence headed for the tavern exit. For one second, I wanted to call out to him and give him a couple gold. It wasn’t that big a deal to me, but maybe it would mean a lot to him. But I shook that thought off. Why feel pity for a ganker?

  In my room, I got back to my class skills. The list contained Divine Revelation, which was written in gray. No description, no requirements to open, just one scant word in quotation marks – “spontaneous.” Although, what did I expect from such a buggy class? Spontaneous indeed.

  Reading the last skill description, I laughed. Aw nether, just what I needed!

  Herald

  Single-use active class skill.

  Raises level of any previously discovered skill, except class skills, to maximum value.

  It didn’t take me long to decide. I already had almost everything levelled to maximum. So... My field of vision filled up with notification lines:

  Mark of the Destroying Plague skill has been raised to maximum level: 100.

  Herald skill lost.

  Passive skill Mark of the Destroying Plague improved: +92.

  Chance to receive Curse of the Undead: 100%.

  Current level: 100.

  Mark of the Destroying Plague skill upgraded!

  Herald of the Destroying Plague

  Active skill.

  On activation, you receive Curse of the Undead. It will make you begin to rot alive, but not die, and all damage you take will be reduced by 100%.

  This curse will be active until you completely restore your health points or simply deactivate the skill.

  Okay then. I wouldn’t have to die ever again.

  * * *

  After studying my herald class skills, I was ready to jump past depression and get right to the final stage, acceptance. But I still wanted to dot all my i’s and cross my t’s.

  When considering whether to write tech support, I initially waved it off, afraid to gain a reputation as a problem player. At the end of the day, it was a unique class and the last thing I wanted to do now, after being given a fully controllable God mode, i.e. complete invincibility, was lose it. And there was a chance that would happen. Considering how OP and imbalanced it was, Snowstorm might just delete it.

  But still I decided to write now to avoid problems in the future. And I received an answer fairly quickly:

  Greetings Scyth! Your tech support claim has been received and reviewed.

  We have evaluated your claim. You received a unique class, Herald. Congratulations! What exactly seems to be the problem?

  As for bonuses and penalties, you could see them before choosing the class, and you were warned the choice could not be made again. If you merely want to change classes because now you regret your decision, apologies, but we cannot help.

  Please note that if we do not receive a reply from you within two days, your claim will be considered resolved and will be automatically closed.

  Sincerely,

  Snowstorm Incorporated technical support.

  Seemingly, they didn’t understand what I wanted. Plus, I didn’t get any warnings! I started seething, pouring my indignation into a reply saying the class was chosen automatically and the description was pretty clearly generated by a person, not some AI. I attached a screenshot of the class description, which I saved earlier. The corporation’s response was brief:

  Greetings Scyth! Your tech support claim has been received and reviewed.

  Let us once again remind you that game classes are not chosen, as you put it, “automatically.”

  Sincerely,

  Snowstorm Incorporated technical support.

  Not a word about the description being off. Furthermore,
right after receiving the message, a notification came in saying “claim resolved.” And that little quirk put me on guard. I was starting to feel like something was off, and my heart felt ill at ease. Something was really bothering me.

  My throat was so parched that I crawled out of my pod to drink some water and check my email. At the same time, I went to read the forums to find out more about unique classes.

  In the kitchen, I caught my parents eating dinner. I froze halfway to the fridge, but I’d been spotted.

  “Come to the table, Alex. You’re just in time!” mom ordered.

  “Join us,” dad added and cocked an eye. “Tell us how everything is going in school and Dis.”

  I didn’t say no. Who could say how many more times we would all be around the same table?

  For around an hour, we ate dinner then drank tea with an apple pie mom had made. Dad was hooked when I told them what classes I could choose, which I of course somewhat fudged. Then he started giving advice:

  “That’s a difficult choice, boy. On the one hand, I’d pick archer. Unlike complex ranged classes like hunters, they can do crazy damage against lone targets. In raids, archers are always among the top damagers. And it’s safer. You spend less time dodging in boss fights. But the monk class gives incredible plusses! They easily compensate the bonuses monks can’t get for following gods or joining factions. And the chance to kill in one hit? What a sweet class!” Dad shook his head in delight. “Pick that one, boy. It is the right choice! And forget about being a Solo Adventurer. You’ll never see raid dungeons alone and that means you’ll never get good equipment. Plus all the flavor of the game comes from playing with other people, whether clans or groups. Going solo will be a disadvantage.”

  Mom shot father a look of reproach, but didn’t say anything. Without any words, I already understood what she wanted to say: “You’re setting a bad example, Mark.” I think she still blamed Dis for their split. After all, if dad hadn’t submerged for days on end in raids, maybe mom wouldn’t have gone looking for consolation on the side.

  After dinner, I went back to my room. There were no new messages and I immersed myself in the forums, running a search for unique classes, including the two I was not able to choose.

  In the monk topics, and there were just a few dozen, the general tone was not about how sweet the class was, which nobody doubted, but how incredible it was to be offered it. No one could figure out how to get it. When regenerating a character, Wandering Monk was nowhere to be found, showing just a standard Monk instead, which had much less blatant perks.

  People had tried fighting only with fists or staffs, avoiding groups and staying out of cities. Nothing helped. After some consideration, I figured maybe the trigger was passing an ins alone. Or maybe it was something else that was only possible with such an OP skill as Mark of the Destroying Plague.

  Solo Adventurers were more common in the world of Dis, but they did not enjoy popularity for the reasons father stated. But for the record, the strongest solo adventurer in Dis was a level-three-hundred-eighty player named Dek. His very existence refuted all father’s theorizing. He could clear high-level dungeons all on his own. In a separate topic dedicated to Dek, I found a rational explanation for that. He had a “bubble” and sword with vampirism. Thanks to sky-high reputation with Nergal the Radiant, this adventurer could surround himself with an invisible shield for thirty seconds, which would fully absorb any damage. And he had a fast lightweight sword that gave a high percentage of lifesteal, meaning it would convert a lot of dealt damage into health for him.

  But Dek was an exception to the rule. Those who tried to copy his path didn’t consider how long it had taken their paragon to reach his goal. In fact, it had taken him years to pull off. But now he was actively hiring himself out as a mercenary, participating in castle sieges for this or that clan and charging extortionate rates as a bodyguard.

  There were more than a million search results for unique classes. Everyone dreamed of getting such a class when they started playing Disgardium and put forth a lot of effort to do so. They were also called epic, or legendary but never officially.

  Surprisingly, unique classes weren’t guaranteed to be super awesome. Technically, for the system to consider a class unique, it only had to meet two criteria. The first was at least twelve bonuses and penalties. And second, no player could ever have received it before. If someone else was offered a class and took it, it ceased to be unique. According to the forums, after that, the class would be given more often and with time become fairly popular. That was what happened with the White Necromancer, Crusader and... Wandering Monk. As for Solo Adventurer, it was a standard class from the get-go.

  My comm beeped, a new email. I brought up a projection before me and opened it. This one had a built-in “Burn after Reading” feature, but it wasn’t from Grant. This time the author was someone by the name of Cooper:

  Alex, hey!

  First of all, let me inform you that all information provided in this email is of an informal nature and cannot be construed as an official statement by or position of Snowstorm Incorporated, or any related corporate entity, including but not limited to...

  Par for the course with these mysterious folks. I scrolled past the intro:

  Thanks for letting us know. Don’t pay any mind to the answers from the tech support geeks. By the time they saw your claims they had been, let’s say, adapted.

  Sorry about how it turned out with your class. I laughed while reading Vlad’s final message. Funny story, but I used to know him.

  Right before Disgardium was released, we had crazy last-minute crunch time. We couldn’t move the release date, so unfortunately a few little bugs got left in. The thing is, the core of Dis cannot really be altered. We planned for the game world to take on a life of its own after release and, after a series of additions and bug corrections, to stop interfering in its core mechanisms.

  And that’s what happened. Now Dis does have a life of its own. Our intrusions are minimal and never alter the core. To be honest, it’s not doable. If we so much as touch the core, Dis will have to be rebooted and no one can guarantee it will be the same when it comes back online. And that’s if it doesn’t just go up in smoke.

  So we can’t change the description of the Herald class. The company does not fault you here but, if you’d like to change class, you’ll lose your threat status. I don’t even have to mention the fact that you shouldn’t be broadcasting the description, right?

  Those penalties are hellish, you have my sympathy. The assortment of bonuses doesn’t make any sense either. I get the feeling Vlad just cobbled them together at random. Not the skills though. They were packaged with the class from the get-go. I don’t know how you’ll manage, but I took a look at your growth potential and it seems pretty fun and promising. Just know that Charisma only works on NPC’s, and Luck defines every calculation with the word “chance” in it. Do you understand what I’m talking about?

  And don’t go looking for any “Vlad the Lisper.” He hasn’t been with us for a long time.

  Good luck!

  Cooper (not really).

  The writing style was very similar to Grant’s. Perhaps there were less jokes this time. I was left to guess who this person was and what position he occupied in Snowstorm. It must have been a high one given he had been there since the very beginning and could intercept my tech support claims.

  Alright. Now that I had Snowstorm’s approval, even if informally, I could finally start playing. I was just gonna set my attribute points and head off to auction for a bow. And then Patrick, Behemoth’s quest and a tough, shameless, solo levelling session in the nude.

  Just how I liked it.

  Chapter 8. The Birth of a Farm Machine

  IT’S HARD to constantly be surprised. Happiness is not infinite either, especially there’s always some new reason for it. I might even say it’s impossible.

  In biology lessons, we learned that any emotion a person experiences is accompanied
by a release of hormones which, in essence, are reactions to changes in external or internal circumstances. To marvel at or be astonished by something, to experience something that doesn’t square with prior life experience, that is also an emotion.

  And I was already weary of violent reactions so, when I read my profile as herald yet again, I noted how cool and awesome it was as if in passing. Any other player would have spent years working for something like this, completing endless quest chains without any guarantee of success. But I just couldn’t truly feel any joy or surprise.