Deadman's Retinue

by Pavel Kornev

  He reached for some chemical and measured out a small drop onto the amulet, sniffing the resulting whiff of white smoke, then produced his charmed magnifying glass.

  “Very interesting,” he said, twitching his nose, “although…”

  “Is it expensive?” I asked, hopeful, as I snatched the amulet which he’d lobbed back at me.

  “Did you steal it?” he asked, ignoring my question.

  “You think if I’m a thief, you can accuse me of stealing?”

  “Alternatively, you could have taken it off a player’s body. You can’t just find this kind of artifact, not with your current level. It’s out of your league. The game mechanics just won’t let it happen. Now had you been an orc…”

  I chuckled. “You mean an albino orc is within my league?”

  “But of course!” he snapped his fingers as he finally put two and two together. “You must have hired someone to rush you through, haven’t you? Not Goar, by any chance? That would explain it. His presence might have triggered a random item generation.”

  “Exactly,” I said, taking a better look at the amulet.

  Bronze Hand of Fury (the Great Chaosite Warrior set: 1 our of 17)

  Damage: +5%

  +5% to the duration of Berserk state

  +1 level to all spells cast while in the Berserk state

  Restriction: Only Chaosite Orcs

  I shook my head. “What’s so rare about it?”

  Mr. Lloyd shrugged. “This set is part of the latest update. The full set hasn’t been auctioned yet, but there’re some indications that it might cover a player’s needs all the way to level 90. Do you want me to auction it off for you?”

  “How much might it fetch?” I asked.

  “Fifteen hundred, two grand, something like that. But not in the foreseeable future. I won’t buy it. This isn’t my thing.”

  I shook my head and returned the amulet to my inventory. “I’ll hold on to it for now.”

  “What does interest me,” the demonic alchemist began pensively, “it the skull of a bone dragon.”

  His words made me slump back in the chair. I sat back up and asked,

  “Why, is that a problem? It’s not as if it’s a rare drop.”

  “Rare enough,” Mr. Lloyd replied. “Because no one’s gonna pay for just any old dragon. Only a unique one will do.”

  Our conversation seemed to have taken a very uncomfortable direction. I shuddered. Still, instead of bidding a hasty goodbye due to some urgent business I had to attend to, I said,

  “Will you please elaborate?”

  “The Tower of Decay,” the alchemist said. “It’s all about the Tower of Decay.”

  Strange as it may sound, the Kingdom of the Dead was still unconquered. Even though the Spawn of Darkness now controlled a major part of it, they still hadn’t managed to take the actual Tower of Power. The memorable storming of the tower assisted by yours truly hadn’t been their last attempt, but so far none of them had been successful. Other clans were hot on their heels, creating new coalitions and striking new alliances, so in the end the Spawn had been forced to grant access to the Tower to whoever wanted to try their luck.

  That, in fact, had been the best thing they could have done. The finest players had found their death in the tower where the Lord of Decay gorged on their bodies and their XP. The tower’s floors were strewn with precious armor, weapons and amulets. It had reached the point where players starting filing complaints, accusing the devs of cheating and demanding explanations for the existing situation. That’s when an official confirmation of earlier rumors had been made public, announcing that the only way to capture the Lord of the undead was by collecting the skulls of all available bone dragons. The problem was, each and every one of such rituals had failed too.

  “A unique skull which had never been found before might easily fetch a million and a half,” Mr. Lloyd assured me. “Possibly, more.”

  I did a quick bit of math, converting the game currency to real-world money, and gave a mental whistle. The amount was quite impressive. Still, I kept a poker face. “So what’s that got to do with me?”

  “There was this deadman who struck a deal with the Spawn,” Mr. Lloyd said, showing remarkable business acumen. “He was supposed to drain the Lord of Decay of his powers but in the end, a bone dragon arrived and devoured the souls of the clan’s best casters. They used to think that it was a counterattack launched by the Lord of Decay but in the end, some of them put two and two together.”

  I gulped. “And?”

  “And they now know that it wasn’t the Lord of Decay who did it. It was the deadman who summoned the dragon. His name was John Doe. You.”

  “Where is your evidence?” I quoted the movie one-liner with a fake Russian accent, trying to defuse tension.

  He didn’t even smile. “The Spawn won’t leave you alone, John,” he said, shaking his head. “Not because they’re so vindictive but they do need the dragon and now they know who summoned him. This skull is the only item missing from their collection. It’s the key to the Tower of Decay. They’ll just make you summon the dragon and won’t pay you a penny. And I’m offering you good money. All I’m gonna charge you is my usual commission.”

  I shook my head. The amount was indeed impressive; the temptation was great. The problem was, I hadn’t summoned the bone dragon. I was him. The only way I could turn undead again was by getting my charmed skull back because all of my level-100 XP had been archived in that magic rock within.

  Also, if I used the skull to propel me to level 100, I would be breaking the agreement with the admins. They might still pay me for the levels I’d gained by following the rules, but they might also strip me of my payment entirely. I wasn’t exactly sure about that. I’d let my lawyer handle all the fine print and now I was living to regret it.

  On the other hand, if I ignored the contract, turned into the bone dragon and allowed myself to be killed, then sold the skull, I might still make quite a bit of money fast, albeit not as much as I could have. That way I wouldn’t have to spend months in the game, grinding XP point by laborious point.

  Wait… what was I even talking about?

  I didn’t have the skull, did I? Wretched Garth! He just wouldn’t stop, would he?

  Where could he have stashed it? He wasn’t going to tell me about it, that’s for sure.

  Mr. Lloyd leaned forward. “So would you be interested?”

  “I’m not a deadman anymore,” I replied with a fair amount of honesty. “But if I ever chance upon the skull of a bone dragon, I’ll know where to take it.”

  The alchemist nodded, but I could see that he wasn’t impressed by my answer. He pointed his clawed hand at the door. “Come back when you’ve stopped fooling around. I’ll see how I can help you.”

  I nodded and left his lab. Ulrich counted out the 950 coins I was due, and I hurried to the Old Archer Inn.

  Food! I was hungry as hell. And I wouldn’t say no to a beer, either.

  The rest could wait.

  16 hrs 44 min…

  IT HADN’T TAKEN me long to find my way to the inn. What was even better, Mark was online, standing behind the bar wiping a beer mug with a clean cloth. A couple of pissheads were sitting at a table talking about something and sipping their wine but one look at them put my mind at ease. They were NPCs. It looked like Mark had decided to hire a couple of fake “patrons” for a touch of ambience.

  I walked over to the bar. “Hi Mark.”

  He blinked, uncomprehending. “Do we know each other?”

  “The name’s Doe. John Doe,” I said my already-habitual line. “Remember him? It’s me. I’ve decided to level a new char from scratch.”

  “John!” he threw his hands in the air. “How did that happen?”

  I shrugged. “I chose what must have been a dead-end development branch. So I had to go back to zero.”

  “Shit happens. A drink?”

  “Hopefully a dinner, too.”

  Looking utterly plea
sed, Mark produced a whisky bottle and scurried away to the kitchen. Soon he returned with a bowlful of stew and some roasted vegetables on a plate. He set it all before me and poured out the whisky.

  “Here’s to our meeting!”

  We downed our drinks. The effects of the alcohol seemed perfectly realistic: a light burning in my throat, followed by fine notes of peat and smoke on my palate. This had to be their local insular product, or at least such was the verdict made by my overwrought gamer’s imagination.

  “So how are things around here?” I asked. “It’s been a good six months since I last logged in.”

  Mark didn’t have to be asked twice. He immediately poured out all the latest news, whether important or not, he just didn’t seem to care. Apparently, his hired NPC “patrons” were poor listeners, and regular players had no desire to waste time on gossip. They needed a login point, not someone to talk to.

  Once the torrent of his stories began to peter out, I started asking questions. As we emptied the bottle, I’d managed to clarify everything I needed to know about the current situation in the game. First of all, I asked him about the Chaosites’ chances: not because I loved them so much but simply because I felt a bit reluctant serving under the gods of Light. And as for the Dark side, I had nothing but problems coming from those quarters. You can’t really enjoy the game knowing you’ve been blacklisted by its most powerful clan. Also, I kept thinking about what Mr. Lloyd had just said.

  There must have been a good reason for the Angel of Darkness to try and convince me to join his clan.

  Unfortunately, Mark didn’t have any good news for me in this respect. Most Chaosite enclaves had already fallen. Apparently, the Chaosites’ position was the strongest on the orcs’ lands where they had even improved their clout. But apart from that, few of them dared to try their luck with Drow settlements up in the Eagle Range. The Shadow Puppeteer from Stone Harbor had managed to take over a few neighboring villages and felt quite at ease there. The Mistress of the Crimson Moon, however, had failed to pull off a similar stunt and now her followers were besieged on all fronts.

  Mark confided in me that Isabella was well and truly furious about this state of affairs. “She’s so jumpy these days,” he complained.

  “Has she been here lately?”

  “A few times. Not very often, though. Chaosites aren’t welcome here, you know what I mean?”

  I nodded.

  “Are you staying?” Mark asked.

  “Why, you have rooms available?”

  “I always have a room for you. And a discount.”

  “A discount sounds good,” I said, reaching for the money.

  Just then, a portal opened up. A dark cloud swirled up at the center of the room, condensing into an impenetrable clot of blackness and imploding, disgorging two figures: a tall one and a really short one.

  Before either Mark or I could blink, the short one went for the NPC “patrons”, killing them with a couple of well-practiced combos. Blood dripped to the floor from the daggers he clenched in his hands.

  The other one hadn’t wasted time, either. He whipped out a scroll and spat out an activation spell. The darkness thickened, swirling, and clung to the walls, transforming them and altering the game reality around them. The wooden paneling crumbled away; the plaster came off, revealing the brickwork; the doorways and windows turned to stone, blocking all light and transforming the inn’s common room into a veritable dungeon.

  “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?!” Mark thundered.

  My old friends — Baron and Marquis — exchanged grins that didn’t bode well for us.

  “Cool it, mister,” the midget chuckled. “We’re here to get him,” he pointed at me while Baron produced a new magic scroll that replaced the one that had burned away.

  Both looked as pleased as two cats that had got the cream. Why shouldn’t they be? I’d killed them, hadn’t I, and they’d never gotten the chance to get even. And now they’d ambushed me…

  My knees shaking, I forced myself to look confident. “What do you want?”

  “We want to cut you to pieces,” Marquis replied earnestly.

  “Garth says hello,” Baron added.

  I frowned, faking surprise. “Is he online?”

  “What difference does that make? A contract is a contract!”

  Marquis bared his teeth in a grin. “I don’t need a contract to take you out.”

  I didn’t like that smile. I slid off the chair and asked, “What happened to Count?”

  “He’s outside the service area,” Baron grinned. “But we can have fun without him, don’t you worry.”

  I raised my hands in a conciliatory gesture. “But what will you gain from killing me?”

  “Killing you?” Marquis choked on his own laughter. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, boy!”

  Vindictive bastards. Just think they’d taken the trouble of setting up alarm charms! Six months they’d been waiting for their chance and now they finally had me!

  And the worst thing was, there was no way I could handle both of them. Dammit! I wouldn’t be able to tackle even one of them at a time!

  Baron was level 62, Marquis 66, both armed to the teeth and clad in expensive armor. That’s even if you forgot the fact that both were vampires: swift, agile and almost unkillable.

  A level 20 rogue wasn’t even a light snack for them. They just hadn’t yet realized that the spooky flamberge-brandishing deadman was now gone. Soon, the penny would drop. Very soon.

  I was right. Baron squinted at me. “Where’s your sword, Johnny boy? Have you lost it?”

  Without replying, I stealthed up, seeing as the room was submerged into the magic gloom which rendered the lamps pretty useless.

  “How about you get the hell out of here?” I said as I dodged aside.

  Baron laughed. “I’m so scared! Come on, Marquis, get your ass in gear!”

  Marquis broke the seal on another magic scroll. The room shook: an unpleasant, teeth-chattering vibration which echoed through my bones, but that was the extent of it. The spell didn’t seem to affect me: I’d received no damage, and my stealth was still active.

  I checked the logs and suppressed a snortle.

  Death worms: Immunity

  Apparently, the vampires had intended to immobilize the deadman John Doe with some spell against the undead. The thing was, I wasn’t a deadman anymore.

  “What the hell?” Marquis said in astonishment once his spell had been so uselessly spent.

  “He’s alive!” Baron rushed toward me, his daggers slicing through the air where I’d stood only a moment ago. “Cast Fog!”

  Mark reached under the bar for a crossbow but didn’t get the chance to use it: in a blink of an eye, the midget was next to him and slashed out at his eyes with a dagger. Mark dropped the crossbow and clutched at his eyes. I couldn’t tell how serious his injury was but in any case, I couldn’t count on Mark anymore. Then again, I hadn’t counted on him to begin with…

  “Joooohn! Joooooohnny!” Baron called mockingly as he leapt onto the bar and walked along it, looking for me.

  I slid toward the front door but my hands met with a solid stone wall: the spell they’d cast wasn’t an illusion. I could hear a dull thumping sound echoing through the inner wall of the room: it must have been the golem guards trying to break out of the storeroom.

  I was trapped. Trapped in a room with two vampires.

  I could either get myself killed or escape through their portal, but I decided not to rush it and secreted myself under a table instead.

  As if!

  Marquis activated a new spell which started spreading waves of white mist. Gradually it filled the entire room, enveloping me and binding my body, freezing me and syphoning my stamina. The milky substance thickened, so that my every movement sent waves in every direction, like circles on water.

  “There he is!” Baron exclaimed in excitement. He jumped to the floor and went for me. I dodged to one side, fumbling for the a
mulet around my neck.

  Summoning the Commander of the Order of the Black Phoenix!

  Nothing happened. I managed to slip out of the corner the vampires had penned me in but the mist kept swirling around. It didn’t reveal me entirely, just sort of hinted at my location, but it still prevented me from hiding properly. I’d been safe until now, but I knew that this cat and mouse game wasn’t going to last for much longer.

  A pillar of darkness pierced the room from top to bottom, disgorging a ginger-haired teenager clad in black. The white mist reached out for him, then recoiled as if singed by the gloom swirling around the young man.