“Hmm... The orcs? No, they’re just savage. The nagas?”
“Sure, the nagas supported a dark deity, but do you know their prehistory? They had no other choice! They’d have all died otherwise!”
“Demons?”
“Yes, demons symbolize absolute evil, but! First of all they are not a playable race and second it is their nature! If you were born a demon and grew up in an atmosphere of harsh competition, in an overpopulated society controlled by an all-powerful dictator whose commands simply could not be disobeyed without getting disembodied...”
I was taking in the smell of Tissa’s hair as she spoke about the residents of Inferno when the doorbell rang and the front door opened. I heard mom’s voice. Tissa looked at the door, worried, but I reassured her:
“That’s father.”
“Ah, Mark?”
“Yep. Oh, now you can get to know my dad better. I’m sure you’ll have something to talk about! After all, he spent a few years in Dis just about nonstop! He used to lead raids back when...”
Buried in Tissa’s neck, I couldn’t see the door so, when I heard a different voice, it came as a complete surprise:
“Hi... Alex... Melissa?”
Slowly backing away from Tissa, I turned around. Standing in the doorway was a girl I barely recognized. In fact, it was damned hard to see even the slightest trace of Eve O’Sullivan now. I looked dumbfounded at the unfamiliar face, noting the results of the plastic surgery. And seemingly, I wasn’t the only one:
“O’Sullivan, is that you?” Tissa gasped.
“Eve, hi! You look,” I drawled, “great...”
My discomfort was easy to understand. Eve’s tight short shorts revealed a set of long, ideally smooth legs. A high-necked sweater ended below her chest, revealing a flat tanned tummy. Her bust, threatening to break her top wide open, had become larger, but it was all in proportion. I didn’t have much experience, but I was still certain I would need two hands to cover just one of them. Eve’s hair had been dyed as well, from bright red to light blonde.
But the biggest changes were to her face. And although her eyes were blue now, overall the doctors had managed to keep her unique features but reshape them to make her very attractive. Insanely attractive. I had a hard time looking away, so much that it embarrassed Tissa.
“Thanks...” Eve answered mechanically, not taking an eye off the guest wearing my t-shirt. In confusion, I moved my hand and stopped embracing Tissa. “And what... are you doing here?”
“Nothing special,” Tissa answered quickly and gave a crafty smile. “Maybe...”
I struck her with my gaze, asking her to keep quiet and not throw fuel on the fire, then shot up and grabbed Eve by the hand:
“This is awkward. Sorry, friend. Sit down!” I brought in a chair and she sat on the very edge despite herself, her arms crossed on her lap. “It’s just so surprising! Both your visit and... the way you’ve changed. I mean, sure, I knew it happened. We’ve been talking on the comm, but still. Seeing it with my own eyes... You look stunning! How was your recovery? Tell me everything.”
Eve bit her lip. Old habits die hard. I could see how severely upset she was. Only then I noticed she was fitfully clenching a small bag. Eve extended it to me.
“This is for you. A t-shirt. It’s a glow-in the dark replica of the night sky...” Eve pulled out her gift and unfolded it. “And it has a couple modes. You can change it to show the whole Solar System. In real time. Here, look... Touch any planet, it will get bigger. Pretty neat, huh?”
“I really like it!”
“I’m glad,” she answered with a lifeless voice. “I saw it in a souvenir shop at a spaceport on the moon and I remembered right away how much you love space.”
“Thanks, Eve. Wanna sit with us?”
“I’d love to, Alex, but I think I came at a bad time. I won’t bother you. Bye, Melissa.”
She got up from the chair, slid a gaze over Tissa and headed for the door. I went after her to walk her to the door and found myself admiring her gait, her raised head and splayed shoulders. By the looks of things, she’d gotten posture correction. The front door went up, letting the guest out, and she wasn’t even thinking of turning around.
“Eve!”
She stopped and looked at me:
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for dropping by. And for the gift.”
“It’s nothing, Alex. Good night... And you know something else?” she asked, her eyes glistening with tears. “Screw you!”
* * *
The next day after school, the five of us flew to the southwestern coast. I didn’t understand why we couldn’t just discuss our plans outside, but they were insistent.
Hung picked the spot, saying he knew a place where we could eat cheap Chinese food. A forty-minute flight later, we landed on a launch pad and, hoods down to stay dry in the heavy rain, ran into the snack shop. On the street, which stretched along a deserted beach, there were dozens of cafes and restaurants. One of them, stuffed to the brim with plastic tables and with a Chinese sign out front, was our destination. We came in and took a seat at the window.
“When I was a kid, father always brought me and my brothers here. This time of year they don’t get much business, so we’ll be able to see if any flying car lands in the parking lot,” Hung said.
“We flew a hundred and twenty miles for that?” I asked skeptically. “Was there really a need?”
“This is a different district, Alex. Now if any pre... kghuh-kghuh,” Ed made an unnatural sounding cough, “ven... kghuh-kghuh... ters are listening in and filtering conversations by keyword, they’ll at least get the wrong sandbox.”
First I thought their paranoia was over the top, but then I remembered what was on the line and mentally thanked them for the foresight.
A waitress came up, a sweet looking Chinese girl. Hung ordered for all of us, and in Chinese. After that, he said something else and she left. She came back with a wicker basket.
“Take out your comms and throw them in here,” said Hung. “You’ll get them back later.”
Looking at the others, I unclipped my comm and threw it in the basket. Hung nodded in satisfaction, then explained:
“We don’t know who we’re dealing with. If they can take over a flying car, they could easily be listening through our comms.”
“And even still, it’s better to err on the side of caution,” Ed added. “So look...”
He wrote on a napkin: “Threat – citizenship. Class – category. Preventers – teachers.”
“Got it?”
I nodded. Ed balled up the napkin and stuck it in his pocket.
“Good, so then tell us the nature of your citizenship, and how you got such a high category.”
Over my tale about my Category-A citizenship, Ed and Tissa were taking notes and making calculations on napkins. From time to time Malik, a real math-wiz, corrected their work. And Hung just sat there, his eyes partially closed and smiling mysteriously. In passing I mentioned the legendary Whistle of Summoning, which I decided to put up in the bet with Big Po. I felt Tissa, sitting next to me, find my knee under the table and give it a hard squeeze.
Their surprised eyes were constantly getting bigger and, by the end of the story, after the Destroying Plague, when I was getting to the Sleeping Gods and their bonuses, their jaws just fell to the floor. Crawler and Tissa turned on their analyzer implants and spent some time in deep thought, chuckling as they worked through the news about these divine entities. Picking up his jaw, Ed spoke first:
“The Sleeping Gods have much more potential. But! Scyth has hit the limit for accepting new followers, right?”
“How did you find so many followers for the Sleeping ones already, Alex?” Tissa asked anxiously.
“Don’t worry about that. For now, other than me, only mobs believe in the Sleeping Gods.”
I told them about the group of kobold outlaws, expelled from their clan and the Patrick mission. With pity, I finished:
�
��So I recruited the kobolds and now there are exactly thirteen including me. It’s a shame but, for now I can’t take you...”
“We didn’t know we’d be joining up either,” Tissa consoled me. “And the temple is beyond the edge of the sandbox. We can’t get there before we go into big Dis.”
“Yes, we need to build the temple,” Ed announced. “But let’s say it’s possible. If Po takes the bet then, for the most part, the Unity from the Sleeping Gods won’t give us an advantage in the Arena. Just Scyth as apostle will get ten or so extra attribute points. In the Arena, that difference will be easily compensated by one decent piece of gear, and we won’t see anyone there in green, I guarantee it.”
“Yeah, few enough people try their luck with blue,” Infect added. “Maybe at the qualifying stage.”
“So then, we need to take full advantage of the Destroying Plague abilities while there’s still time,” Ed continued. “We’ve got complete invulnerability, a respawn stone, and Scyth’s crazy damage on our side. And he can one-shot any boss. It’s a no-brainer. For levelling, it’s just a dream! We need an optimal route, locations, dungeons. Me and Tissa will take care of that. We can calculate a reasonable pace for time versus experience points. We can pick out a route between locations taking into account mob respawn times and dungeon cooldowns. Gold is of secondary importance. We can gear up in ins’s.”
“We can just use the plan from before,” Tissa noted.
“Yes, but you’re forgetting about speed. With Alex, we’ll basically be able to clear dungeons nonstop at supersonic speed. The main thing is not to show what he can do out in the open...”
“And we won’t,” Hung announced confidently. “He’s got Resilience at max and even without the abils he can tank better than me.”
“How awesome that his plague hits are logged as normal ones!” Malik exclaimed, tearing himself from the bowl of pork-fried rice.
“We’ll start farming tomorrow. Tissa, how’s your dad?”
“Back on his feet. After this, I’m headed home.”
“Then we’ll get started tomorrow!” Ed looked at me guiltily. “Alex, you don’t care that I’m taking the lead here, right? I mean, you’re clan leader...”
“But you’ve got more experience,” I answered. “So keep it up. But first check what I think. The way I see it, there are three things we should think about. First, about levelling. Ins’s are nice, but if one is constantly closed for maintenance, people are gonna get suspicious. Sooner or later, they’ll put two and two together. So I suggest we farm the Mire. Is there any way to help us not drown? I mean, for me I don’t care, but...”
“Water-walking potion,” Tissa said quickly. “One silver per stack, it’s one of the first recipes learned by all alchemists. The aucs are full of ‘em.”
“Great. As far as I know, just about no one goes to the Mire. Like, they do quests on the border by hunters’ camp, but nobody goes deep. And the mobs there are high level.”
“Uh, we’ll get crushed there, Alex,” Hung winced. “Are you sure? There are packs of crazy bots. And, you aggro one and half the location’s on your ass! We wouldn’t even go there before the conflict with Axiom, and now with our levels...”
Everyone went quiet for a few seconds, and all I could hear was the sound of chewing.
“We’ve gotta try!” Malik suddenly supported me. “No one has ever found a dungeon there, right? Who knows, maybe we’ll stumble across something. And then, maybe we die, but who cares? Alex can raise Tissa and she can raise everyone else. What, have we never gotten wiped before all of a sudden? Remember how many times we tried Evil from the Depths? We never got sick of running in from the respawn point! And here look: we’ve got an immortal one-shotter tank and a respawn stone! People dream of being able to pay for a chance like this!”
“Okay, we’ll consider it,” Ed summarized. “Alex, what’s second?”
“The temple. Without it, the number of followers is limited, as you know. So I’d put it as one of our top priorities.”
“The Sleeping ones quest is important, I agree. But there’s no easy way to get to the island for now. Once you go outside the sandbox in the ocean, Exhaustion kicks in. We might as well forget about the temple until we get into the open world. And where are we gonna get builders? And even if we do restore the temple, how do you think we’re gonna get followers in the sandbox? That will attract the attention of the ‘teachers’ right away,” he said, bending his fingers into quotation marks. “What next?”
“The Arena,” I said. “I’m meeting with Big Po this evening. I’d say you guys better not test his nerves by showing up. Anyway, I’m gonna put up my ghost wolf, which is worth enough to pay for part of my studies. How are we gonna work on teamplay to make sure I don’t lose it?”
“Oh, we’ve got that down pat,” Hung declared, snatching the last grain of rice with his chopsticks. “We’ve just gotta work you into it.”
“We will,” Ed said confidently. “But we need to rework our tactics completely. After all, Scyth isn’t just a damager. But first, Alex, let’s run around together for a week. I’ll look at your combat style and learn your attributes. It isn’t enough to just win. We need to win in such a way that no one can tell about your ‘citizenship.’“
* * *
I got home by evening. I sat with my parents while they ate dinner and pecked a bit at a plate of food, listening to mom’s lamentations about what a “poor girl” Tissa was and about how I shouldn’t dare let her down. Then I dove into my pod.
“You came...” the protoplasm of the Sleeping one moaned out.
“And left,” I answered, activating Depths Teleportation. “See you, Behemoth.”
I found myself, unfortunately, not in Tristad and, fortunately, not in the Olton Quarries either. I was in Gloomwood, but not far from town. I made it there without incident, went through the gates and headed for the Bubbling Flagon. On the central square, seeing a sign for the weaponsmith’s quarter, I remembered how I hadn’t yet trained any Unarmed Combat attacks, and decided to finally drop by the trainer.
Finding the building, lost among a jumble of others, was no easy task. Barkers, drowning out one another, shouted about unsurpassed trainers and discounts, and banners were vibrantly adorned with advertisements. I saw Master Kirito’s swordsman’s school, and “the Academy of the Art of the War Axe of the famous Master Figley.” No joke, that was what they called it. Based on the etching outside, he was a dwarf. There were also competing shops of armorers, weaponsmiths and blacksmiths at different levels of competence and for different sized wallets.
“Could you tell me where to find the school of unarmed combat?” I asked a yawning guardsman named Malone. “I think the master is named Sagda.”
“What business do you have with him, ragamuffin?” he asked, casting a sidelong gaze at my tattered gear. “I’d say you need a tailor! And a bath!”
“I want to learn to fight.” I replied, the living embodiment of patience. “So where can I find him?”
“The one who fights with his fists? Little Sagda?” Malone chuckled. “He closed his school. He had no students, so he had to find a different way of earning his keep. You can find him either in the back yard of the tavern, where Tashot does his underground fights, or in Madame Laquichie’s House of Pleasure, where he works as a bouncer. But you might be a bit green for that place, boy, missing hair in a couple spots. If you want, I can check if Sagda’s there now. But...” The guardsman leaned down and whispered: “Just so you know, it isn’t free to enter. Can you spare a gold?”
“Thanks, I think I’ll get by on my own.”
The house of pleasure... An age-old dream for many in the sandbox, but off-limits to all us kids. There were legends about it, but I had never so much as met a player who had been inside. We simply couldn’t enter: there was an invisible film over the doors that detected our age and stopped us with a warning. Interestingly, no one had ever asked why such an establishment was in a sandbox in the first pl
ace. But nevertheless, Tristad was considered a developed city, so there were bots who lived a normal and full life here, as well as workmen who could be served real ale in the tavern. They could also enter the House of Pleasure, it just cost.
I decided to go looking for the master tomorrow, and figured my Cooking experimentation could also wait. I had bigger fish to fry, namely Wesley Cho.
I went up into my personal room, dropped off the loot, took the Whistle of Summoning out of my chest and headed into the bar area. Big Po was sitting there surrounded by officers of his clan. Overall, from what I’d seen of his gameplay style, he spent much more time strategizing and leading than on his own levelling. However, it was completely possible that one didn’t impede the other.
Apostle of the Sleeping Gods Page 19
