Apostle of the Sleeping Gods

by Dan Sugralinov

  We walked through Packston’s Vineyards and the Mountain Dams, dropped by the Reeking Crypt, but the mount still didn’t drop. We took an excursion to a little waterfall where, once upon a time, we had started a journey together.

  And in the evening, we sat in the tavern with Goosebumps, Rita and Chris Wood and drank heavily. Earl had given us some of his cheer potion, so a good time was had by all.

  “The preventers are still keeping an eye on the city council building in Darant,” Tissa whispered to me. “Don’t forget, you still have to escape the registration room without them seeing you!”

  Thankfully, we had come up with a plan to evade the preventers already. Ed and Hung had pulled it off before. Depths Teleportation got around the block on using teleportation inside the council building.

  Just as we were about to part ways, there was a commotion at the front door. We heard screams, and that was when it all started!

  Arno appeared from the kitchen in a bloodied apron which, for the record, was not unusual. But this time, his face was also covered in blood! Of course, it didn’t exactly look realistic; this was still a sandbox after all. But we could tell that it was supposed to be blood!

  With a roar, Arno ran at Tashot and sunk his teeth into his neck. The tavern owner gave a blood-curdling howl. The chef tore out a fair-sized piece of flesh and stood back up, groaning and greedily shoving the gruesome meal into his mouth. His face looked crazed. His eyes were covered in a layer of whitish haze. They seemed dead, like they couldn’t see. A fountain of blood shot out of Tashot’s neck. With a shudder, he fell down behind the bar.

  “Undead!” a waitress whooped and turned to flee.

  Arno, his arms held out in front of him, dashed off after her. “So, he did turn after all!” I thought. But I didn’t know what triggered it. Did he die?

  A group of warriors got up from their table and ran off to pacify Arno, while everyone else scattered chaotically. Without a word, we jumped up from our table and ran out onto the street. There, we heard roaring, groaning and fearsome screams. Somewhere there was a baby crying.

  “An outburst of the Nether!” shouted guardsman Mills, pointing the way with a hand. “Foul creatures are flooding the square before the city council! Alert! Alert! Outburst of the Nether!”

  There were patrolmen and flurried players all running where he was pointing. The latter were happy and loudly discussing what kind of event this might be.

  But Mills was mistaken. It was not an outburst of the Nether, but an outbreak of the Destroying Plague. Someone had infected many townsfolk, then opened a portal and undead were just coming out of everywhere. And there were just always more people on the city square.

  “What do you think it is?” Tissa asked.

  I cast a gaze over my friends.

  “Rita, Goosebumps, Chris, you’d better exit the game. you’re too little. You’ll be eaten up before too long. You’ll lose experience, gear...”

  “It won’t work!” Underweight screamed. “We cannot leave the game during a global event!”

  Not waiting for him to finish, I took out my bow and shot an arrow into the eye of an approaching rotter. It recognized it as the owner of the trinket shop. Someone had definitely infected the townsfolk with the Destroying Plague!

  “Then better hide in your personal rooms and stay there until I write that it’s safe to come out. Alright, Tissa, Infect, after me!”

  We ran a bit and I stopped my friends. There was nobody around other than a pair of zombies, and we could talk. I didn’t want to hide from my friends that all our plans for the future could potentially come crashing down today.

  “Scyth?” they didn’t understand.

  “We have big problems. Huge ones.”

  We worked together to take down two living dead, pacifying them both and I continued:

  “Behemoth gave me a mission to prevent the Destroying Plague from conquering Tristad. If I fail, I’ll lose the status of Apostle of the Sleeping Gods. And I don’t have any cheater abilities as it is. You know what that might mean?”

  “You’ll lose your threat status?” Tissa frowned.

  “Exactly. We need to find where they opened the portal. And somehow get it closed. Then we need to clear the city of walking corpses.”

  “Then we’d better hurry,” said Infect, looking at the undead coming in our direction.

  Not splitting up, we ran down the street, killing all the mobs we encountered. Apart from turned townsfolk, there were also monsters, all over level twenty. Our toughest enemies were called Plague Vectors, which looked like gray blobs just crawling on the paving stones. They didn’t take physical damage, but Hand of Nergal could splat them to death easily. There were also Dead Hounds, which mostly attacked in packs and, with them, we couldn’t afford to lose concentration for even a second. If one caught you, all the rest would fly at you. Before our eyes, a pack of hounds tore apart a guardsman in full plate armor.

  In the weaponsmiths’ quarter, we encountered our first Foul Quease, a monster cobbled together from various human and animal body parts. I’d seen one before in the Crypt of the Temple of Nergal the Radiant, so I wasn’t scared when I saw it was level thirty, just calmly shot it from a distance. Tissa helped by calling down bolts of light from above, but Infect didn’t even get close.

  Running straight into packs of mobs, tossing them around with my fists and sticking them with very costly arrows with enchanted explosive warheads, I was acting as if I could flip on curse of the undead at any moment. When I realized that I couldn’t, I was surprised at my own lack of rationality. Old habits died hard but, in many ways, my recklessness was what allowed us to clear the quarter and get its residents to safety.

  Seeing the apparent ease with which we were handling the monsters, a group of men, headed by Guardsman Mills, started gathering up and protecting the women and children. I was told that Tashot had also turned but, since he and Arno were laid to rest, the tavern had been clear. So that was where we established an evacuation point.

  I felt a lump rising in my throat. A few hours earlier, I had hugged Mr. Arno... Was this it, I’d never see him again? What about Tashot? He may have been wily and tight-fisted but he had a huge heart. I could hear my teeth grinding.

  Another familiar guardsman, Gale, we met at the temple of Nergal. But he was no longer alive, just a walking corpse with an arrow sticking out of his shoulder. He and another few dozen Turned Townsfolk were crowding around the temple door. Behind them, making squelching sounds, there were a group of Foul Queases wandering aimlessly. The broken bodies of townsfolk were lying all around. I couldn’t see any players. And rightly so. These creatures were too strong for the vast majority of sandbox visitors.

  We hid behind the corner of the building opposite to decide what to do next.

  “Where is everyone? It’s the heat of the night and none of the strong clans are out,” Tissa said, turning her head.

  “Maybe it’s because of the event?” Infect suggested. “If we cannot exit Dis, maybe no one can enter?”

  “The other option is that player characters are either turning into undead or dying once and for all. Did you forget? I,” I twirled a finger, “was supposed to do all this. So I’m something of an expert. Do you remember Crusher? He got turned into Punisher...”

  “Yeah, sure, nonsense...” Infect waved a hand, interrupting me. “If something happens to a player’s character, Snowstorm will be taken to court tomorrow. Think for yourself. What’s the point? Invest years of time and tons of money so that some Destroying Plague can come and turn you undead?”

  “That’s what made me such a threat, Malik.”

  “Alright, let’s get out of here. We can read what people are saying,” Tissa said. “What’s the plan?”

  “The plan is that we need to find and close the portal. Otherwise, I’m in for a world of... Look!”

  Before our eyes the doors of the temple flew open, letting out a few packs of queases, hounds and plague vectors.

>   “One hundred percent, that’s where the portal is!” I shook a fist. “I need to get inside.”

  “I can aggro them all onto me and you run in,” Infect said. “I’ll lead them a couple blocks away, then go invis. It’s leveled, they won’t find me. Then I’ll come back.”

  And that’s what we did. After that, the thief ran headlong down the street, hooting and teasing the undead. We waited for him to get them away, then ran into the temple. I broke away from Tissa because of my high speed and ran inside first.

  There, at the altar, surrounded by the bodies of the priests of Nergal, Big Po was sitting on the floor. And he was holding his hand on the base of a black, sticky portal with greenish veins running through it. When he heard my footsteps, he raised his head, recognized me and grinned:

  “Ah, Sheppard, you’re just in time! I was just about to finish up here and go look for you.”

  Polynucleotide’s face was decayed, and what I first took for a smile was just a lack of lips. His eyes had drained out, leaving gaping holes in his sockets. I saw a white little worm peek out of one. Nether, was that what I looked like?

  “Po? What is that? What is happening?” My voice was quavering. “And what the heck are you? Why do you look like a corpse?”

  I feigned disgust. I looked surprised, shocked, skeeved. I was trying to play up to his expectations, so I also put some fear in my voice.

  “Oh, don’t play games with me, Sheppard,” Po laughed. “I know that you used to bear the mark as well. Praise the Nether that you failed, and the Destroying Plague found a replacement. And I, unlike you, finished in less than three weeks. And again, unlike you, you loser, I won’t blow my chance and lose my threat status!”

  “You’re admitting it so openly?”

  Tissa appeared nearby.

  “Po? He has the curse?” she exclaimed in surprise. “What the hell?”

  “Ah and your flaxen-haired girlfriend is here, too?” Wesley giggled. “Listen, Melissa, now I know how you got that First Kill out from under me! And not just that one, I suppose. In fact, I bet Crusher, Murkiss, and Chuff were all your doing, no? Most likely Shog’rassar was taken down by that moron Crag, but his time will be up soon enough. Modus and the other preventer clans are gonna wait at the entrance ‘round the clock. They even had to urgently get a guy on the Darant City Council...”

  He suddenly coughed and raised a hand as if to say he was about to tell me more. I didn’t know what to do. What could I do against an invincible...? “Of course!” I extended a hand and he started speaking again.

  “You asked whether I’m afraid of preventers? Believe you me, after today they’ll be afraid of me! I will vanquish Tristad, and they have no way of getting here. From here, the Destroying Plague will begin to spread into the surrounding area, and from there we will conquer the world.”

  “Why would they be afraid of you, Po?” Tissa couldn’t contain her curiosity.

  “Hehe. You just want me to tell you everything,” he said with a smirk. “Alright, I will. Because they have more to fear from me than I do from them! The Nucleus of the Destroying Plague is generous! It gives its Heralds such... well, who am I to tell you? Scythy, you know all about this, right? I mean, you could have done this but chose to steal small fry from under my nose instead! What an idiot! Trading a threat for victory in the children’s Arena and a couple achieves! You had the whole world at your feet, you dolt!”

  The portal began to bulge, preparing to release yet another Destroying Plague unit. I had made my decision and was ready.

  “Are you not curious where all the players went?” Big Po continued. “I infected them. They died and turned into thoughtless mobs, obedient only to me. I’m sure that thousands of kids are at home right now thrashing around impotently, not able to enter Dis. But this is only the beginning!”

  He threw up his free hand, pointed it at me and whispered. I felt a tickle in my nose and I sneezed. Tissa did as well, and Wesley gave a malevolent laugh.

  Tissa’s eyes went wide, then I realized too. He just infected us!

  The world around me started to flicker and lose color. Everything around fragmented, I choked...

  Divine Revelation has activated spontaneously!

  “What do you think, where are all the players? Infected, you dumbshits! They died and turned into stupid mobs! And I control them!”

  Big Po was saying the same things, just with different words! I immediately realized I had just been seeing a modelled future and he would be infecting us at any second, but this time for real. Screw that!

  “Go to sleep, Po!” I shouted. “Lethargy!”

  Not finishing, he fell into a dream. All limp and rotten, the hefty body of the former Axiom clan lead fell to the floor at the altar. As soon as his hand fell away from the portal, it gave a buzz in protest. The sound started fading, then stopped entirely. The portal closed.

  “Well I’ll be damned!” Infect’s voice came from thin air. “Well, well!”

  And the three of us together dragged Big Po’s body into a closet in the far back corner. We closed the door. The most important part was still ahead of us.

  “Is he green to you?” I asked Tissa, nodding at Po.

  She nodded:

  “Well yeah, we never attacked him.”

  I leaned over the Herald of the Destroying Plague and, looking him in the eyes and knowing he could hear, said:

  “See, Wesley, it’s always the same story.”

  “What do you mean?” Infect asked.

  “The three of us are in a group. If he had so much as thrown a knife at us, the system would have identified him as hostile to all of us. But what did he do instead? He told us all his plans like a villain in a movie. And now we can just heal him back to full health, which will get rid of the curse. Tissa, let’s go, heal this creep.”

  And she did. His life went up to one hundred percent and his body turned back to normal. The curse of the undead was gone. He was vulnerable again. And although we didn’t have a True Flame on us to see the threat marker on his arm, we didn’t need one. In his immeasurable vanity, Big Po had told us of his status all on his own.

  I landed a Combo and Hammer on him, and the guys joined in. When he only had one hit of life left in him, Infect handed me a dagger.

  “I expel you from Disgardium forever!” I shouted.

  The curved silvery blade of the dagger went into Polynucleotide’s heart and Big Po aka Wesley Cho ceased to exist in the world of Disgardium.

  * * *

  As we left the temple, we ran into a familiar warrior. Crag lit up for some reason when he saw me and ran over.

  “Scyth! We need to talk! One on one!” He slid a gaze over Tissa and Infect. “Without them!”

  I nodded, motioning with my eyes for them to stay out of it, then walked into the temple. Crag followed me.

  We went into the very same closet. Big Po had already disintegrated and there were no more reminders of the fact that, ten minutes earlier, he was here threatening to destroy the entire world.

  “Speak.”

  “You’re a threat,” Crag stated. “Now, now, don’t get ahead of yourself. No matter how strong you are, I will always be stronger. Because I am also a threat. Eve told me about you. Well actually, she didn’t know it, she just told me about you clearing that ins at level one and mentioned the Destroying Plague. Was all this your doing?”

  “No. I’ll explain after. Tell me what you wanted to say. The city is dying, we need to save its people!”

  “Alright, I won’t beat around the bush. You’re a smart kid and I’m sure you’ve got a couple exit strategies in the bag, right? How are you gonna get out of the sandbox? There’s a bunch of people waiting for me already! They’re threatening me IRL! Some inwinova almost kidnapped me. I had to jump out of a flying car as it took off! I barely got away! It’s a good thing the police came in time!”

  “I warned you about real life. Why the hell did you do that thing with the Hive?”

  “
They insulted Eve...” Crag frowned. “Listen, that’s all in the past, I can’t change it now. My parents are sick, my father’s on the verge and mother is also near. I was alone, you see? Completely alone... And Eve was my everything! Alright, it doesn’t matter now. I moved out and into a little cubby now, anyway.”

  “Uh, what do I have to do with this?”