We are the Sleepless! We see everything! And do not forget anything! Before touching at least one of our coins, look around, look at your friend – and whose friend is he? Yours, or a friend of the Sleepless?
My warning is simple – get off! Get off our land! Remove your dirty paws from our goods!
And also, I officially confirm the recently issued and hitherto secret order – all spies and secret fighters, awaken! The whole network is being opened! Take off other people's faces and tell the whole of Valdira, loud and clear— “I am with the Sleepless! And then start acting the way any Sleepless should at the sight of a rat – Take off scalps! Tear off their tails and cut their ears off!
That is all! Good luck on land and sea, Sleepless!
Chapter Seventeen.
Was not it too cool?
The next morning after the memorable passage through the Wall, we all felt like heroes. To understand how terrible the meat grinder and shipwreck turned out to be, it was enough to take one of fifty thick book volumes, open on any page, and start reading plain words and phrases.
The average elixirs of health were seventeen thousand two hundred and eleven times.
The average elixirs of mana were forty-nine thousand seven hundred and seventy-three times.
Large elixirs of health...
The storekeepers have written down everything. Then they counted it, summed it up and teleported a bunch of scrap paper to the bridge. The last volume, the thinnest, in a black leather cover decorated with a smiling silver skull with golden teeth, was brought to the Baroness personally.
The Baroness read the page dispassionately, nodded, went into a corner, lay face down, buried her forehead in a pillow, and was quiet for a couple of hours in this position. Her command was not required — we were at cruising speed. I understood that the BB read the total amount – everything spent on the passage through the Wall, and the recovery after. And the amount was so monstrous that, for a couple of hours, even the iron leader was knocked down. Personally, I am even afraid to guess the amount ... I read a couple of lines, but then decided not to spoil my nerves, and not to hurt my imagination. For example, I know how much one bubble of average mana cost. I have bought it myself. But I do not know how many forty-nine thousand such bubbles cost...
But the most important trouble was — the same elixirs for mana and health could be replenished. There was a whole squad of alchemists and herbalists with us. On the decks, there were boxes with plants. What worried me — Roska and Orbit were spinning around these boxes.
Any combat mage who works with magic spells in one hour of combat can drink up to three hundred bubbles of mana. And not for much. Give alchemists time – they would make up for the costs.
However, some consumables were irreplaceable, in our conditions. This applied to everything from alchemy, to repairing ships. We could cut down a tree on any island, cut it into boards and patch up holes. However, finding the right wood was not easy.
And elven spells?
The elves were completely wiped out. Their spells could not just be taken and written on a scroll. Let us say, a spell activating a powerful ocean current.
How would you record it?
The process was known.
It was necessary to take a thin cypress bark, to lower it into cool and crystal clear waters of a forest stream, and then, with the help of a blue goose-feather, to inscribe the words of the spell on a certain dull night without a single star! I mean – for the successful creation of a scroll with such a spell, you needed a real forest stream and an overcast night. Right, ... as if you could worry about such trivia. Finding a stream. And make sure that, in its cool waters upstream, no one had decided to dip their feet or wash their sweaty silk underpants in it. This was a problem! Many people on the islands did this.
The way of the spell "Elvish silence," imposing a seal of silence on ant space, I generally kept quiet about — for it should be written only in dead silence! Right...
The worst and most terrible news was that some of the resources expended could not be made up for during the Campaign. To do so, we would need a continent – an old one, with an established base, with workshops, laboratories and connections with the most powerful "local" blacksmiths, shipbuilders, jewelers, gunsmiths, artifact makers and others. Not everything could be built on the knee, with just one hammer.
Therefore, the BB came to her senses afterwards — we had spent too much of the so-called red list.
On the islands of salvation, it was possible to cut oaks. But in order to fix a fortress, we would have to stand in the sand for a long time.
The Baroness recovered quickly enough.
The orders came pouring down. The captain changed— the Baroness had suffered for a long time. A very long time. From before the end of the passage through the Wall. And then, having lied down after the news of the crushing expenditure, the head of Sleepless proceeded to spend some time on the front bridge, speaking with my father. When she returned, she brought a paper with her. She wrote something on it, crossed out something, took someone's name in quotation marks, and so on. And then the captains began to turn into boatswains or ordinary soldiers with cosmic speed. Still, their rank was not simply lowered, but with explanations.
Captain Fagiss Muerte – lowered for the failure to comply with the order to change course. And the order was repeated to him three times — but the captain preferred to be guided by his own considerations. In a team game like this it was unacceptable, sir. You were demoted. Go to the kitchen, and try not to overdo the soup with tears.
Captain Zorslava Jubilant – failure to comply with the order for an urgent departure from the ship attacked by the monsters. Thanks to her actions, she managed to keep a severely damaged brigantine afloat, but the monsters had time to cover the ship, the repair of which required such costs, that it would be easier to put the ship out of her misery.
Captain Gogral the Powerful. Temporary demotion to the senior assistant. The reason – a disparaging attitude to the training maneuvers, and the implementation of these with laziness.
I listened and sat quietly, trying not to be too surprised at my father. Oh how dashingly the digital captains flew from the bridges to the galley, into the holds and the kitchens and the baths ... no, Father, you're not sitting quietly, even in the game world.
Of course, I did not say a word. It was none of my business. They had their own kitchen and their own business – I had mine. And very few people like it when, while cooking, people reach over them, look into the pot, and advise how much salt to put and where to pour it.
Instead, I continued reading the Bulletin. The good periodical came to us with an enviable speed. Excellent reading on a hot sunny day, when the sun was hanging in the zenith and burning mercilessly — the reading grew sharper from it.
What was interesting — sometimes Klest, Malice, or Goldie visited me, and they sat down on my official bench, just flipping through the Bulletin, sharing sandwiches and gossiping with me. As for the drinks – there was compote, tea, coffee and unfermented juices. The BB had introduced a dry law – from the beginning of the day's transition to its completion. The sailors had begun to sometimes start their mornings with some sips of red wine. Or rum, in order to emphasize the sea spirit, as in pirate movies.
For what?
A black bandage on his head, a vest, spacious black trousers, a sword in a leather strap, a smile on the weather-beaten lips, and an open bottle of rum in his hand. Yo-ho-ho! Suck it. Now only the compote – it was clear that the digital alcohol did not cause any physical addiction, but the coordination of your movements collapsed. Several barrels of wind had already gone overboard. The Baroness ordered the offenders not to throw a life-saving ring around them, but to shoot them with an arrow.
But I was not interested in juice. And not sandwiches, either. Nor gossip. And not the newspaper, but to the internal information accessible only to a narrow circle. I did not get into the circle, but we became such friends that sometimes
I got a little information. But I had still not made friends with the Baron…
In addition, I did not intend to betray confidence. Who knows whether we would remain friends in the future, after the end of the campaign? I would say nothing. Though I really wanted to ... I learned a couple of facts, which made me very uncomfortable.
The rumors were ... horrifying. Being hundreds of miles away from the continent, the BB strained all her connections in Valdira's underside, the places where the light never went at all. As a result, the Sleepless managed to acquire valuable and unique things at bargain prices! Now, it was easy – after all, there was so much lawlessness was going on! Everyone was being killed — and robbed, robbed and robbed! Simple beginners, who did not know how much the diamond beads of the accursed King Namuh could cost, or the wooden mask of an angry lion that looked like total rubbish, but in fact was to be sold at a very steep piece. They did not know the real value and were in a hurry to sell the rubbish!
The Barad-gadur citadel under the siege opened the doors of the treasury and generously filled the pockets of merchants across Valdira with gold and precious stones! Everything was bought! The names of the players who sold the loot were carefully recorded — they took screenshots, and their clans were remembered ... The days passed, and the stream of ordinary and unique items sold for almost nothing reduced from a roaring river to the thin stream. And the BB ordered them to stop buying up items. After that, she ordered lists with the names of sellers and aggr-robbers, and distributed them to the clan mates, who began hunting for those people.
In a few hours, many ordinary thieves and robbers would exterminated. Needless to say, with complete confiscation of their property ... the lists were also solemnly handed over to guards in all cities – they say the intelligence of the Sleepless did not sleep for days, but managed to figure out the villains and murderers. Guardians were given the names and addresses of "local" merchants – before that they were gracefully robbed, completely devastating their underground safes and hiding places, whose location was calculated ahead of time with the help of banal observation.
The guards caught the scoundrels and began to torture them. The names of big buyers, underground barons and thieves and predatory business were also given. The Guardian then handed the most reliable clan of foreigners official contracts for the capture of criminals. The Guardian asked them to take the dark personalities to a safe place, where they could not escape. The Sleepless agreed and promised to lock up the scoundrels where they could not escape.
Now the most fun part — in all of Valdira there were only a couple really reliable places from which the criminals could not escape, and whose walls stood tall. One such beautiful place was the prison island of Al Dra Das. Which was slightly less than completely under the control of the Sleepless Clan...
Her burning eyes glittering, Goldie declared that they now had a real shit storm there, one which you could hardly describe!
How convenient it all turned out, having your own prison...
I was impressed, and did not particularly hide my emotions. It was cool. True, I nevertheless tactfully remarked that, if the truth opened...
Malice grinned and dragged a finger across his throat. All witnesses and involved "locals" would be sent to the next world. To prevent the emergence of a knowledgeable witness with the songbird syndrome.
I was especially impressed when I was told in a whisper that the cursed dagger of the legendary Ron the Killer of Kings appeared in the granaries of the Sleepless, and it was not clear that it had been there all those years. At one time he had slaughtered one of the many local kings, but the killer did not know that the victim was under divine protection and was cursed forever. Already dying, Ron got to the customers and killed them all, and then he himself got the unknown terrible disease... Collectors for the accursed dagger would have given much for it. I immediately remembered the demoniac Cedric with his maniacal passion for collecting. And if I offered him the dagger? Suddenly he would agree ... to anything. Perhaps.
The victims themselves did not even resist – the players were shocked by the betrayal of their faithful friends, with whom they had passed through fire, water, copper pipes and diamond graters. They could not believe that the one with whom they sometimes drank in the real world now suddenly declared themselves Sleepless and began to kill everyone indiscriminately. And not only to kill! The gates of the fortresses were opened, and massive poisonous and combat incantations inside the premises occurred. To other strongholds and castles, hosts of monsters and legions of demons were summoned. Along with the crimson flashes of teleports, in clan castles arrived nightmare guests, thundering hoofs and knocking horns twisted chandeliers from the ceilings. Those being offended issued a guttural roar, but they were answered by the mocking laughter of the traitor disappearing into the teleport and carrying with him a dozen very valuable objects…
But, as Goldie added, the other old clans began to hide themselves from themselves. Architects, Demons of the Millennium, Soul Thrill, Red Shields, Battle Legions and others. The old powerful clans endured for a long time, and everyone waited for the ongoing mess to settle by itself, hoping that the guards would be able to take control of the youths. But it did not work out. And when older clans began to join the bloody feast of the newcomers, the patience of the old men burst. Some continued to keep the trump cards hidden, but after the loud and terrible statement of the Black Baroness through the Messenger – they began to act.
The situation did not change completely, but a continuous scarlet veil of lawlessness began to be covered with green spots of induced order. The spots were still small and they were tiny, if you looked at the whole continent from a cosmic height. But with every hour, it turned green.
Having taken more than four dozen villages under their control, the aggrs were destroyed or dispersed. Several towns were liberated, fortresses of the guards were cleared of murderers, valiant defenders returned to protect civilians from the creatures. A massive attack of monsters and dark personas from the forest was repulsed — several mountain villages re-opened their gates to the players, and trade resumed.
The bright part of Valdira outweighed the dark, and the coming horror of the apocalypse was pushed back. Yes, many were not participating in the carnage for the sake of profit, but only for fun. However, many players began to think, and sometimes they changed sides, leaving from the dark side to the light side.
What struck to the depths of the soul was the famous aggr clan of the Red Demons, who, without any warning, stopped attacks on peaceful settlements and its residents. Moreover – the clan of aggrs began to destroy the robber players in large numbers. The Demon's fighting detachments united in two "wings" and walked along the area around Algora, along an expanding spiral, moving farther and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning the earth from defilement. Nobody could explain the reason why the most bloodthirsty clan of Valdira undertook the effort to restore order. The demon leader, the Blood Raven, was also silent, leading both "wings" in the extermination campaign. There was no comment – only the frequent sweeps of the sword and the axe. Already five hours after the start of the Crusade, the guards who hated the Demons stopped attacking them. After seven hours, the guards sent them supplies and alchemy. In nine hours, two game deities removed curses from them. Ten hours later, four gods of war imposed blessings the demon warriors. And it was for that – the Demons defeated the defense of eight captured villages, villages, towns and fortresses. Cut out all the robbers, and then left the fortress without taking a nail, but only after releasing the prisoners from the dungeons. The campaign of the Red Demons, led by the Bloody Raven himself, continued – fresh shifts came in to replace the tired. Only the leader rushed ahead of the troops, fearlessly attacking another fort or castle.
In any case – the night was again replaced by day.
But not everywhere.
The Lake District was still a complete mess. Fields, villages and cities were burning. There were no longer simple riots and robberies
. A real war began. Smoke began rising to the sky and formed a curtain impervious to the sun's rays, and black storm clouds joined the smoke from unknown sources. Cemeteries and burial grounds were raised by the undead, and broken gravestones flew to one sides. Bony arms stretched toward the dark sky, bare skulls appeared from the holes in the earth. And something quite terrible — a huge four-armed woman with gray skin and an ominous rumbling laugh was dancing on the smoldering burning earth, raising clouds of ashes. Hundreds of shrieking rock harpies were dancing over the head of the giantess...
A few dozen miles from Naykal were the advance detachments of the god Graharg. When he got to the great lake – you could bet that the water would turn red. However, it was unlikely that redness would be able to dilute the already clouded waters, which had become clouded by soot. Many villages and towns had been burnt to the ground, and almost every fishing village had ceased to exist. Soon we would have to remake the geographical maps of the world of Valdira...
On the same day of the expedition, towards evening, I was told about the fate of two hundred fighters who had come to the Wall and begun their partisan actions. The guys were very offended that they had landed overboard. And all the anger decided to splash out on any passing idiot… few passed by…
The newly baked partisans found it easy to find a semi-submerged cave located deep in the rock with several exits, where they created a reliable base with a place of revival. In the same place they stacked all the consumable supplies, and then began to fight ... soon, everyone decided to detour around them. Anything was better than watching beloved ships engulfed in flames.
On the water, in front of the zone occupied by the troops of the Sleepless, there appeared a dashing buoy on the waves and a sign on the bottom, warning everyone without exception: "Infected with Sleepless!” On the plaque, there was a bloody bulging eye with six legs and a long mustache. Klest said that the BB very much wanted to know who exactly got such an idea for this poster, and for such an inscription. She wanted to personally reward the genius artist after the end of the hike... I wonder what would be the reward? A drill approaching the knee at full speed?
The Way of the Clan 8 Page 37
