The Destroying Plague Read online

— Sleeping Invulnerability skill

  — Sleeping Vindication skill

  Experience: +15000.

  Experience at current level (26): 33650/36400.

  Your reputation with Behemoth the Sleeping God has increased: +1000.

  Current reputation: trust.

  Your reputation with Tiamat the Sleeping God has increased: +100.

  Current reputation: affection.

  Your reputation with Kingu the Sleeping God has increased: +100.

  Current reputation: affection.

  Your reputation with Abzu the Sleeping God has increased: +100.

  Current reputation: affection.

  Your reputation with Leviathan the Sleeping God has increased: +100.

  Current reputation: affection.

  The reputation bar with the other Sleeping Gods was almost full. Another point and it would reach friendly. If everything kept going well with Behemoth, there’d certainly be no problems there. Another quest or two and my reputation with him would reach honored…

  Having finished the reward ceremony, Behemoth retreated and fell silent while I got to grips with my new abilities.

  Sleeping Invulnerability, level 1

  This ability’s level is always equal to the number of active Sleeping God temples.

  Absorbs 20% of any incoming damage. The remaining damage is split between all group members in proportion to their total health. A character without a group takes all the unabsorbed damage in full.

  Sleeping Vindication, level 1

  This ability’s level is always equal to the number of active Sleeping God temples.

  Damage absorbed by Sleeping Invulnerability stacks up in the altar of the main temple. This is vindication.

  Vindication can be cast in an area or aimed at a specific target.

  Range (depends on Perception): 230 feet.

  Unlocked a new stat: Vindication.

  The maximum Vindication you can accumulate depends on the number of Sleeping God adepts.

  Volume: 169,000.

  A new black bar appeared in the interface. So that was the color of vindication… Well, it wasn’t an undead curse with Plague Energy, but the potential was much greater! Without giving me time to study the rewards, Behemoth spoke again.

  “With every temple you build and dedicate to one of the Sleeping Gods, the power of your abilities will grow. When each of us gains in power, your invulnerability will become absolute. And in contrast to the parasitic creature and his twisted undead curse, the invulnerability will not turn you into a walking corpse!”

  Emitting streams of smoke, or perhaps steam from his nostrils, the Sleeping God laughed.

  * * *

  That evening, I never did quite get to going through my rewards for eliminating Big Po. Behemoth and I spent around another hour examining the options for completing his quest.

  Second Temple

  The Sleeping God Behemoth desires that you build a new temple in any of the places of power he indicates, and that you consecrate it to a Sleeping God: Leviathan, Abzu, Kingu or Tiamat.

  Rewards: unknown.

  What could be so hard about that? We had builders, money for using stationary portals, and I could hide my true image. The problem was elsewhere: all the places of power suitable for building temples except one were on other continents.

  Players had claimed only three of them, calling them Latteria, Shad’Erung and Bakabba. The first two were huge and separated only by the narrow Thunder Strait. They were the most explored and were occupied by the Commonwealth and the Empire. Those two largest factions of the light and dark races were divided not only by the strait, but also by expansive stretches of Unexplored Lands.

  By its nature, the neutral playing faction was never united. They comprised people who chose races that belonged neither to the Commonwealth nor the Empire. Geographically, they were spread across both continents, and those lands hosted the fiercest inter-factional conflicts on the Battlefields.

  On Latteria, the Lakharian Desert was still unexplored, stretching across the frontier. On Shad’Erung — the Ursai Jungle. The greater part of these lands was not only teeming with high-level mobs, but their environments also tried to kill people. The Unexplored Lands constantly constricted as the maximum level of players increased, along with their abilities to strengthen their defenses and resistance. Conquered lands were taken both by NPCs and clans, but it happened very slowly, and here is why.

  In the desert, even with maximum resists, players quickly baked as the heat debuffs stacked up. Sooner or later, they reached such levels that a single tick could kill you. The same happened in the jungle, only instead of heat, players died from poisonous fumes. Not to mention the aggressive flora, fauna and magical beasts, of course. Any mob in those lands could take out a whole group of top players.

  As crafting grades increased, and elemental resistance along with them, the lines of the frontier retreated, but each time everything depended on the next rank — the key factor in the entire system of abilities and moves. Once, by eating soup in the swamp of the Mire, I reached the maximum possible level of Resilience. But that was just the cap for rank zero. As soon as my level got over one hundred, the limit would lift. I’d need to level up my skills all over again, but the first level of the first rank would be stronger than level one hundred of rank zero.

  In all of Dis, nobody had ever reached rank four in a single ability, because not even any of the top players had reached level four hundred. The animalist druid Mogwai, who reached three hundred and ninety-eight and took a break from Dis, was still number one on the worldwide leaderboard.

  As for crafting, crafters could reach only rank three in their profession, with the corresponding grade of Grandmaster. Great Grandmaster required rank four.

  The only Great Grandmaster I knew of wasn’t a crafter, but a specialist in hand-to-hand combat, Oyama. A mythical individual who long ago went to meditate and never returned from his long travels through the astral plane.

  As soon as the crafters broke the threshold of level four hundred, they’d be able to create stronger potions and defensive items so that players could more easily withstand the aggressive environments of unclaimed zones. Then the frontier line would shift once more.

  There, beyond the frontier in the Lakharian Desert, was one of the places of power that Behemoth had marked. And it was the easiest to access.

  The others were spread around places just as far away, just as inaccessible to me as to everybody else.

  In Bakabba, the third conquered continent, the goblins called the shots. There were portals to Kinema, the capital of Bakabba, in Darant and Shak, the capital of the Empire, but to get there you had to complete a ridiculously long quest chain from the Goblin League to increase reputation with them to honored. I didn’t have anything to do there anyway, since those green little creatures had already built their own temples to their greedy gods in all the places of power.

  Another few places were on the three remaining continents. Only there was no sense in going after those.

  The snowy continent Holdest spread across the South Pole. The craft of global shipbuilding hadn’t yet reached the necessary rank even to sail there, not to mention conquer its lands. As for flying mounts, they got Exhaustion — they needed to rest on solid ground too. The gnomish airships could fly there, but the storms and vicious high-level creatures who dominated the skies over the ocean made such journeys suicidal.

  Meaz, a small continent in the southern hemisphere, was covered in an impenetrable magic veil, and no player had ever managed to get through it. The entire game community had tried every which way to find the key to those lands, but in vain.

  As for Terrastera, it was called hell on Earth, or rather in Dis. Creatures above level one thousand filled that dwarf continent’s coastal waters, skies and land. Not to mention its active volcanoes that regularly covered the place in lava, ash clouds and acid rain. With the current rate of level growth among players, it would take thirty years
at least to conquer Terrastera.

  One of the places of power was at the floor of the Bottomless Ocean to the east of Shad’Erung. I’d heard of underwater kingdoms, but nothing specific — they were hidden to players too, for now.

  That meant that the only realistic option left to us was the Lakharian Desert. With that not particularly comforting conclusion in mind, I left Behemoth and wandered over to my friends in the tavern.

  * * *

  “Don’t worry, I hid well,” Crag chuckled. Beer foam decorated his rich braided mustache. “They didn’t get Crag; they didn’t get shit! But you know…”

  He dropped his head, faltering. Finally, he gathered himself and burst out:

  “I really thought I was done for! In that guest hall, and while we were flying to the gorge, let alone in the gorge itself. I didn’t see a single chance. I was ready to accept their offer… But then when they dragged me into that castle jail… He broke again, speaking in fragments. “What I mean is… Thanks… Thanks for not abandoning me! You especially, Scyth! I remember our… disagreements. I figured you’d have an ironclad excuse for just leaving on your own. But you… Damn! I’m sure I’d have just left if I were in your position.”

  “All in the past,” I said. “Are you sure they won’t find you in real life?”

  “Yup. And I doubt they’ll look for me here either…”

  Crawler shook his head in disagreement. It was unusual and even a little funny to see him in the body of a gnome. But his choice was a good one, since gnomes had the best racial bonus to intellect, the most important stat for mages. Next to Crawler the gnome and Crag the dwarf, Bomber looked like a real giant, having chosen a titan as his character. Now he could use a shield at the same time as a two-handed sword, and also had solid bonuses to his defensive skills.

  “For the moment, sure,” Crawler said. “Kharinza is lost among thousands of tiny islands. But if someone decides to take a closer look at this zone, then believe me, they’ll turn it upside down. They have ships, flying mounts too. As soon as they figure out where to look, they’ll find us.”

  “Nah, I get that,” the dwarf said in agreement. “I mean in real life. The school stuff is solved, I switched to home-schooling. And I hunkered down so far into the sticks that the Eye isn’t even there.”

  The Eye was the name for the orbital crime identifier. It worked effectively anywhere in the world, at least according to the authorities.

  “Where’s that?” I asked in surprise.

  “I paid an old inwinova lady cash in advance for three months. Had to go into my savings. I’m out of money now, but that’s no problem. In the meantime, I’ll pass the citizenship tests and then I can transfer my earnings from Dis into real life.”

  “The old lady won’t give you up?” Crawler asked, echoing my thoughts.

  “The granny doesn’t see shit, doesn’t go online, just watches TV all day. She’s a strange one… She feeds me from her supplies too. I have simple tastes, I’m living off UNBs[3]. I can eat tasty food here anyway!”

  Crag sank his teeth into a boar rib in confirmation of his words. It looked tasty, and I followed my clanmate’s example.

  “That’s you sorted,” Bomber chuckled. “How about you, Scyth? Those preventers have some sharp knives in the drawer. They’ll put two and two together and realize that someone stole the Threat out from under their nose.”

  “We still have time,” I answered, not entirely certain of my words. “What’s the news there, by the way?”

  “Modus has lost all its castles but the main one,” Crawler answered. “Other leaders have joined the Alliance, but not all. Some of them teamed up with Modus. But that’s all speculation from journalists. Sooner or later the clans will come to an agreement and start digging. And when they realize that none of them captured Crag, but some third party… Eh, let’s move on to some good news.”

  “You mean the fort?”

  “Not exactly,” Crawler smiled mysteriously, exchanging a glance with Bomber. “The miners found an instance!”

  “What?!” I jumped up from the bench in excitement. “Here, in Kharinza?”

  “Yup! Basically, while you were running rings round the preventers, one of the workers in the mine got attacked! Yesterday the digging operations reached a large cavern, but everyone was too afraid to go deep in. We were preparing for your breakthrough, so we didn’t handle it right away. But today, zombies and skeletons started wandering out of it. We’re too weak to deal with them for now — their levels start at two hundred. So this morning we lured the undead outside and put them under Monty. The workers collapsed the passageway pretty thoroughly, but I saw with my own eyes a portal to an instance deep in the cavern! What do you think about your new talents, Scyth? Think with them and Crag, we can complete it?”

  “First Kiiiill!” Bomber sang, drumming his fists on the table.

  “I don’t know…” I thought for a moment. “If the mobs inside are above level two hundred, then no way. The level difference is too high, I doubt we’ll even scratch them. Even with Crag’s buff. And we can’t grind like in the Mire for now. Only twenty percent of the damage gets stopped, the rest will get split between the other group members like I said. If I’m solo… Then there’s no chance at all. Twenty percent damage absorption is less than what Bomber will give with his armor, parry and dodge stats.”

  “The key thing in the skill description is ‘in proportion to their health,’” Bomber noted. “I’m probably the fattest here, so most of the damage will go to me if Scyth is tanking.”

  “With Crag, we’ll all be fat,” Crawler mentioned. “But Scyth is right, we’re gonna have a rough time.”

  “But we need to try. I feel sure that Sleeping Vindication won’t miss. It was like that with Plague Energy. We’ll see. Right now it’s more important to figure out what to do with the preventers in real life. I can’t relocate like Tobias, so I want to apply to enter a program to protect underage children. Remember when they offered that to us all in tenth grade?”

  “That’s when they put a nanochip in you that constantly tells the police your lifesigns, precise coordinates and other stuff like stress hormone levels in the blood? And they see everything through your eyes too?”

  “‘If you think your life may be in danger…’” Bomber quoted Mr. Kovac. “Well, why not, it’s an option. I doubt the preventers will directly break the law. And if they try to pull off something like what Big Po did to us, the police will be there in minutes. But that’s before the citizenship tests. What about after?”

  “Hey, Alex!” Manny called out to me.

  He and Trixie, Gyula and the others sat at the next table discussing something, but apparently, they were listening to us too. Meeting Manny gave Crag a good dose of embarrassment, but he still managed to apologize for the incident in the Bubbling Flagon. The miner brigadier accepted the apology.

  I turned around. There was something strange in the gaze of one of the unfamiliar workers, but I forgot about it right away.

  “Yes, Manny?”

  “We can hide you.”

  “Where?” we all asked in unison. Even Crag’s ears perked up. It seemed life with the old inwinova lady wasn’t all peaches and cream.

  Manny left his group and sat at our table with his pint of beer. He took a theatrical pause, swigged his beer, wiped his lip and started talking.

  “Alright, kids. I don’t know what they teach you in those schools, but not all non-citizens are all that poor and miserable. If you think anything changed in society when citizenship categories were introduced, think again. There are still those that break the law.”

  “Hold on, Manuel, the Eye tracks everything!” I said. “And any crime for a non-citizen has an automatic sentence of death!”

  Ed and Hung smiled. Manny bared his teeth too.

  “Nah, pal. You just parroted what they tell you in school. Which is a kind of, let’s say, idealistic parallel reality where there’s no crime, or if there is any, then there’s al
ways an inevitable punishment. Maybe that exists somewhere, but not in the Zones.”

  I’d heard about the Zones, areas declared unsuitable for life. Cali Bottom was in one of them, with its higher than average radioactive substances in the soil, buildings and atmosphere. It was in those environmentally dangerous places that the government put up cheap high-rise warrens for non-citizenships. Affordable housing for any non-citizen. No job? No income? Don’t worry, you can take out a loan to live in an anthill. Can’t pay back the debt by the time you’re thirty? No problem, we’ll make you pay it off in the lunar mines or with your own organs.

  The world had reached a point at which human labor was cheaper in some places than robot energy. Nobody was in a hurry to do work like that, even desperate non-citizens, so the powers found another way to get the workers they needed. Vagrancy was outlawed before I was even born — you weren’t allowed to be homeless. If you get caught without a roof over your head, you had one destination — a recreational zone. I don’t know who had the sense of humor to give that name to labor camps from which none return. There are also rumors that scientists and pharmaceutical companies experiment on the poor, but there was no confirmation of that online.