by G. Akella
"You're talking about Roman's prophecy, right?"
"Was that his name in your world? Yes, Krian... The Black Demon of legend. It's up to him now whether I'll still have a place under the sun. Desperate to save my kin, I put you in harm's way—worse, I sent you to certain death—while also stirring powerful forces that would have been best left undisturbed. And now I don't know what my own future holds."
"Hey, it all worked out," Max tried to console the young woman. "Neither I nor Roman can die for good. I managed, and he'll manage as well. Trust me, I know him well."
"After the recent shifts of power in this realm, I can think of a few things worse than death. Python devoured foxes' souls, and I do not know what would have happened were he to kill you as well. Of course, I would have done my very best to get you out, but my own position has become very precarious. I know not what's going to happen even two-three moons from today."
Max could hardly believe what he was hearing. Admitting her vulnerability like that made Sata look like a lost little girl instead of a divine entity.
"Let's think sensibly," he said, reaching for his pipe mechanically. "I'll be honest—I don't understand even half of what you're saying, and I don't expect you to delve into explanations. But your people are alive, aren't they? And you're alive, too. So, from where I'm standing, everything is freaking roses! And if problems arise in the future, we'll deal with them."
"Go on, don't mind me," Sata chuckled, motioning at the pipe in his hand.
Max realized then just how long it had been since he'd had a smoke. He lit up, took a few hungry drags, and exhaled with a beatific smile. The cognac was still buzzing in his head. The hell with problems. Prophecy or not, we'll get through them, he resolved to himself.
"Tell me this, oh savior," Sata locked her eyes on his. "Would you have tried to defend the fox village if you knew you could meet your true death?"
Max considered the question. He mustn't lie—the woman sitting in front of him was no mere mortal, and she would see right through him. But then he remembered Chani and her mischievous smile, the slacking sentry, the fox kits playing by the gates...
"Yes, I would've," he said firmly, holding the goddess' stare.
Sata averted her eyes and whispered softly.
"You are just like your friend. Sometimes I think you're brothers—he wouldn't have thought twice about it, either."
"You saw Roman?" Max smiled. "How is he doing?"
"He's doing, uh, pretty good," flicking a nonexistent speck off her boot, Sata turned around abruptly, yet the redness of her cheeks didn't escape Max's attention.
Kozhevnikov, you dog! Max thought with delight. Up to your old tricks again. And with a goddess, no less! I hope you know what you're doing—pissing off a deity would give new meaning to "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!"
Seeking to diffuse the tension, Max fished out the piece of sausage he'd collected as a memento of their first meeting, and held it out to the goddess.
"Hungry?" he smiled.
The move had the desired effect: Sata laughed, took the sausage, broke it in two, and offered a half to Max. They ate in silence for a while. The sausage ended up being surprisingly tasty—he even felt a pang of pity for the elf who had ended up losing his tavern to this comely arsonist's high jinks.
"I promised to sew you a ribbon, remember?" Sata said, wiping the grease off her fingers with a white handkerchief.
"Only if you passed that apprenticeship with the seamstress with flying colors," Max replied with a grin.
"If this were anyone else, I would incinerate them for such cheekiness," she feigned a frown. "But you can live—you're more useful to this realm alive. Now listen well," she continued in a serious tone. "Neither I nor the other gods have been able to exert direct influence on your friend. And, after today's events, the same will apply to you. Like him, you have transcended the prophecy, which means any influence must be indirect. So, alas, there won't be a ribbon. But there will be something else."
Eleven gold coins appeared in the goddess' hand. With a sullen chuckle, she covered them with her palm.
"Do you remember these coins, Max?" As she opened her palms, instead of gold there lay a finely crafted earring.
Dangling off the slender chain of sparkling gold was a tiny figurine of a female druid. The girl's face was painfully familiar, looking out intently with her arms crossed over her chest. So striking was her resemblance to Alyona that Max half-expected the figurine to shake her head with reproach, as she undoubtedly would upon catching her man being chummy with some beautiful stranger!
"Take it," Sata urged him. "It is all I can do for you, alas. Don't let the earring's plain appearance fool you. You must wear it always, and remember that your woman is very much like the two of you—a knight in the truest sense. Try to keep her from making any foolhardy decisions, however noble."
You've completed the quest: Saving Virassa.
You have gained a level! Current level: 168.
You have 12 talent points to allocate.
Class bonus: +1 to constitution, +1 to strength.
You have 129 stat points to allocate.
You received: Dryad Figurine.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
You have gained a level!
You have gained a level!
………………………………………………………………………………………..
You have gained a level! Current level: 188.
You have 22 talent points to allocate.
Class bonus: +1 to constitution, +1 to strength.
You have 189 stat points to allocate.
Attention! You have garnered the attention of a higher being. Sata, the Goddess of Luck, is friendly to you.
Your reputation has increased. You are exalted among the people of Tylwyth Teg!
Barely larger than an inch, Alyona's golden figurine had no stats. In fact, it was entirely unremarkable other than being bind on equip, but Max didn't think twice before unequipping a rare +220 agility earring and inserting Sata's gift in its place. Then, rising from the bench, he bowed his head to the goddess.
"I thank you, Mistress. I will wear this gift with pride, and never remove it."
"That's not all," Sata rose as well, graceful as always, and ran her hand over the bas-relief on the wall. "You mustn't return here," her tone brooked no arguments. "Neither you nor your people. Maloc's favor is a great honor, but you must be wary with the Netherworld's denizens. And one last thing," she added, opening a bluish portal window with a casual gesture. "It would take your people nine days to reach Syruan, which is way too long. I will build them a portal to the castle instead, so they'll be there by morning. This portal will take you to Urkhunt's shrine—will you find your way to the castle from there?"
"Aye," Max nodded. "Thank you again, Mistress. And farewell." Bowing his head goodbye, he started toward the portal.
"Wait!"
Max turned around. The goddess' face was pale, but her eyes shone with resolve—the resolve of someone who had decided to go all in.
"Take this as well," walking up to him, she pressed some other object into his hand. "Give it to your friend when you see him. Goodbye."
Getting up on her tiptoes, the young woman gave Max a kiss on the cheek, and vanished into thin air.
Max stood there for a few seconds longer, contemplating this entire encounter, then sighed and entered the billowing window of the portal.
The night's moon was a fine crescent, bathing the earth with a soft shimmering light. As Max scanned Urkhunt's shrine, he thought he saw the lion from the pedestal smile down on him, like you would to an old friend. A hallucination? Perhaps... The warrior unclenched his fist to take a look at the object the goddess of luck had given him for Roman. Lying in his palm was a small onyx earring in the shape of a black-coated fox sitting on its tail. The warrior smiled and put the gift away.
He didn't feel like rushing to Syruan and banging on the gates, waiting for someone to wake up and open them. He might as well spend the night here—Urkhunt's shrine seemed to exude peace and protection, and he felt totally safe. Only he wasn't the least bit sleepy. The six hours at the graveyard must have been very restful, Max thought with a grunt, and decided it was as good a time as any to sort out his suddenly complex talent situation.
Taking a seat on a nearby snag, he took a few sips from his flask, lit up his pipe, and opened the character menu. The stats came first, but that was easy enough. Max threw fifty points into vigor, fifty nine into constitution, and eighty into strength. The two form points he'd picked up upon hitting level 180, however, gave him pause. Kill was already maxed out, and he couldn't put another point into Bite until level 200. That left Camouflage, Prowl and Primordial Roar. The cat's talent tree indicated that new talents were due to appear at levels 220 and 300, but presently they were but vacant white squares. Should he save the points till then? No, better not, he thought, and threw both points into Primordial Roar. While Camouflage promised an additional ten percent bonus to damage when attacking from stealth, he was already boasting a twenty five percent bonus, so the actual boost would only be eight percent. More importantly, the bonus only applied to one attack—no, Camouflage would have to wait. Two points into Prowl would increase his movement speed while stealthed from sixty to seventy percent, which he didn't see as being especially relevant to his build. Primordial Roar, on the other hand, with its powerful crowd-control elements, would definitely prove useful in many situations. Much depended on the enemies' mental resistance, but still...
The talent description indicated that an opponent with 75% mental resistance would resist the debuff only 50% of the time. 80% resistance raised the chance to resist to 70%, 90% to 90%, and only a fully maxed mental resistance would resist the roar 99% of the time. Before any corrections for level, naturally. Allard, the Night Blades' main tank, had 82% mental resistance, which was also the highest Max had seen on anyone. And so Max threw both points into this talent without any reservations.
Primordial Roar III.
Energy: 250 points.
Instant cast.
Required: cave lion form.
Duration: 30 seconds.
Cooldown: 2 minutes.
Effective range: 40 yards.
You roar, forcing the enemies within range to freeze in terror, then flee or lose all of their resolve. Targets effected by Primordial Roar suffer 40% more damage.
The duration of the effect on hostile targets was likewise determined by their mental resistance and other considerations. For instance, a same-level player with 75% mental resistance would be immobilized or disoriented for only five seconds. For mobs and NPCs in the same circumstances, the time was thirty seconds. Yep, this was the way to go, Max thought to himself, taking a few more drags as he scrolled up the log. Oh, he remembered the rewards he'd received perfectly well, but it still felt good re-reading them.
Firstly, his toughness now equaled 24%, almost as high as Bonbon's. Protector of the Great Forest had become Warrior of the Great Forest, boosting his damage, the chance to hit critically and the amount of critical damage dealt. That was awesome. The system had also credited him with clearing the dungeon, rewarding him with a 6% increase to all damage dealt—a boon that needed no commentary. Finally, he had been promoted to a knight in Kirana's Order, with all the benefits that came with his new rank. With just a rough approximation—he didn't feel like getting into the nitty gritty—the overall boost to damage output for their entire squad should be no less than 17%. And that wasn't even all!
The standard difference of thirty levels that typically rendered invisibility ineffective within range of hostile creatures no longer applied to him or his party. In theory, he could now take his entire raid past a high-level mob or NPC without being detected. Assuming the latter didn't have special abilities that saw through invisibility anyway. A godsend of a gift—figuratively and literally, given that Morrigan was a goddess. I wonder what she looks like, Max scratched his chin. It would seem that few creatures in this world ever laid eyes on the goddess of stealth. In his book, an essence that could sneak into the Netherworld and redirect a portal without a whole legion of high-level demons noticing anything merited the deepest respect. Who knew what the First Legion would have done otherwise in that distant war? It dawned on Max that he was seriously considering that this realm had a history of its own. Maybe that elf had been right with his assertion that the game used to function like a training simulator from which people migrated into a proper world with its own history? Suddenly the theory no longer seemed so far-fetched...
A cool breeze blew from the west, and the crowns of trees surrounding the shrine stirred anxiously. Max shivered and took a few more swigs to get warm. He could shift into cat form and no longer feel cold, but then he couldn't smoke his pipe or drink cognac, either. I ought to get myself a bowl—two liters would do, he thought with a smile. And why not? Fill up the thing, then shift and lap up the goodness at your leisure...
Maloc's Fury... Truly, the Elder Demon's reward was as generous a gift as he'd gotten. Twenty strikes at your target, and your damage output was doubled! Any serious raid player would give their eye-teeth for this talent! Sure, the attacks had to not lag past three seconds or the stacks would reset, but the trade-off was more than fair. On the other hand, Max did return the demon's First Legion to him, so perhaps the feat was commensurable with the reward. The level of alcohol in his bloodstream must have edged past the standard range, as the buzzing in his head intensified and absurd imagery flooded his mind. Namely, he pictured the Elder Demon of Ruin sitting up in his office, or whatever passed for offices down in the Netherworld...
A knock on the door. A secretary bursts into the office, gesturing wildly behind him, clearly in total shock:
"My Lord, uh... How do I... Err... Guar Khan and his troops... They're back!"
"What?" Maloc raises his brows just as the legate himself pushes the secretary aside and walks into the office.
"So, yeah, we're back," he says, spreading his arms sheepishly.
Maloc finally regains the gift of speech.
"Where the hell have you been?! Fifteen hundred years have passed, gods damn it!" the Elder Demon roars.
"Well, um, we did some boar hunting... That wore us out so we took a nap, hardly more than a thousand years. You know how fresh air can put you to sleep..."
So vividly did the scene play out in his head that Max burst into side-splitting laughter. He finished off the rest of the flask's contents, shifted his weight to get into a more comfortable position... and nearly fell. That's enough boozing for today, he giggled. Or I'll start seeing pink elephants soon... Then again, in this world you don't even have to drink to see stuff a hell of a lot more weird than pink elephants! He realized then just how badly his body needed to unwind after the stress of the past day. Come morning he would be back with Alyona, and things would be good again. Max recalled a classic drinking song by a XX century American band he used to obsess over as a teen. And, in a moment of sheer brilliance, decided to sing it.
"Because I drink it anytime and anyplace
When it's time to get ill I pour it on my face
Monkey tastes Def when you pour it on ice
Come on y'all it's time to get nice
Coolin' by the lockers getting kind of funky
Me and the crew we're drinking Brass Monkey
Brass Monkey, that funky Monkey
Brass Monkey junkie... that funky Monkey!"
"Oh, great. He raps, too," a derisive voice in his head gave the warrior a start.
A huge gray lion was materializing out of the air not ten feet to his right. The great feline was sizing up the warrior perched on a snag with a skeptical look, his head cocked to the side.
"I never thought I'd say this," he shook his head with sorrow, "but I much prefer you chasing butterflies. Anything to keep you from singing."
"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that," Max grumbled. "You could've given me a stutter!"
"It's I who would be stuttering if I let you keep rapping," Urkhunt objected at once. "And did I mention this is my shrine? And not a venue for you to get drunk as a skunk and start hollering some gibberish about monkeys?"
"Sorry," the warrior said sheepishly. "It won't happen again.
"Damn right," Urkhunt echoed. "You've done enough for one day, anyway. You and that furry-tailed friend of yours. The Astral is still trembling."
"Why would it be trembling?"
Max had only a vague perception of the Astral, and hadn't a clue as to how his or Sata's actions might have impacted it, let alone made it tremble.
"What did I do to deserve you?" Urkhunt sighed heavily. "Do you realize what a grave violation it was on Sata's part to meddle into this realm's events and save her foxes? She was the only one who could have done it, but there was a price to her actions. What do you know about balance?" The lion stared intently at Max, his yellow eyes glowing in the night, then continued without waiting for an answer. "Everything is connected under the moon—any action taken leads to another action, and so on in a chain. We, the so-called Great Essences, can see these chains far into the future, as well as how certain actions might influence those chains. Only Sata, however, has the ability to break a chain altogether and replace it with another. Remember when I told you at our first meeting that the Ancients desolating the Great Forest happened in seventy four scenarios out of one hundred? And that forty three out of those seventy four scenarios were further fraught with the death of your black-tailed patron?"
