“Take us back to the castle, Scyth,” Pecheneg demanded. “Maybe it’s all the same to you, but we’re used to comfort. And I have a map back at HQ…”
Chapter 10. Surprise
THE FINAL BOSS of the instance on Kharinza, Uros the Lich, was not overjoyed to see me. He recognized me, grinned and called me a traitor right away. It reminded me of Shazz’s voice chasing me all around the island, rattling out the worms will eat you from within! Suppressing a momentary feeling of sympathy for the lonely lich, I took out my bow and entered the fray.
Bomber was tanking, taking barely any damage from the lich’s attacks. Patrick and Irita wailed on Uros from the sides, dealing most of the damage. Irita cut a fine figure with her legendary morningstar, taken from the preventer loot. Crawler cast elemental shields on our low-level friends, and Infect inspired them with his war chants. There wasn’t much point in all this, but Trixie, flailing around in fury, was leveling up his two-handed axe skill in record time. The dwarf had a huge choice of weaponry, and I think he chose the axe because it was so similar to a hoe.
We let Uros live for five minutes, but when Hinterleaf messaged me, I thought better of it and ran to the boss, sent him back to wait for his next life in the lair of the Destroying Plague. Maybe he’d have the luck to become a legate.
“Something happened?” Irita asked, a little disappointed as she put away her morningstar.
“The Travelers don’t have anything to help with the cold. On Holdest, they’re just farming materials in shifts,” I answered, checking the time. “Time for me to go. How about that achievement?”
“Look!”
Infect pointed at Trixie, who was lying on his back. The little man was smiling blissfully and twitching — he’d gotten almost none of the experience, but the final boss kill still took him up to level 9. The pleasure from leveling up was a sweet discovery for Trixie, but the joy of the First Kill achievement… He seemed even more euphoric than after his travels in Darant’s district of ill repute.
Cursed Lich Uros is dead.
Unlocked achievement First Kill: Cursed Lich Uros!
You are the first in the world to kill the final boss of Sinister Mountain Depths — Cursed Lich Uros! This emissary of the Destroying Plague was responsible for opening a Plague Portal to lay a path for the undead to the isle of Kharinza.
Cursed Lich Uros is dead, but before death, he inadvertently transferred a modicum of his power to you.
Reward: Surprise perk (when you attack first, you’re guaranteed to sweep your opponent off their feet!).
Everyone confirmed All Hail the Hero except Trixie and Irita. They had to keep their connection to us secret. The little man didn’t understand what we wanted him to do until I explained that if he made his name public, he could forget all about his beloved Darant. That did the job.
“You get the joke?” Infect asked suddenly, laughing. “Trixie got swept off his feet!”
“Hah-hah, real funny,” Irita said.
“What?!” the bard said, offended. “It’s a good joke. Didn’t you read the description?”
“’Tis sin to mock the afflicted!” Patrick interjected, but his upbeat tone was unconvincing. “But you know… That’s not a bad reward! Like my old pops always used to say: ‘Hit first, sonny!’”
“The perk is useless to me,” I pointed out. “Sleeping Justice doesn’t proc when I strike first.”
“I see you guys are already bored of achievements like this,” Irita said, smiling. “Easy farm to you. Nobody’s even celebrating but Trixie.”
“More like we’re disappointed,” Crawler answered. “The rewards for the last few have hardly been worth it. No special abilities, no cool perks. Even unlucky with the loot…”
“How’s that?” I asked, realizing that I hadn’t even paid any attention to what dropped.
“An epic mantle with Intellect and Cast Speed,” Bomber answered, our leading expert in selecting and distributing loot. “Not much good for Crawler, and useless to anyone else.”
“It’ll fetch five thousand,” Irita declared.
“And a Tome of Basic Undead Magic. For necromancers only. Sell that too?”
“We’ll give it to Dekotra, maybe he can use it,” I answered. “Now let’s figure out how to destroy the Plague Vector and this entire instance.”
Killing the lich hadn’t solved the problem — the reservoir of plague essence was still there. Apart from that, there was still the possibility that Uros and his minions would respawn.
“I get it,” Bomber chuckled. “It’s like back in the cave of the swamp needler queen. Chuff, you remember?”
“So you guys took out Chuff too..?” Irita asked, in a whisper for some reason.
“There should be something like a heart. If we destroy it, the cave will be cleared. Oh!”
Bomber saw his target and ran to a stone about the size of a dog, shaped like an iron. He prodded it with his sword, but the blade slid off. He shook his head.
“That’s not it. Let’s keep looking.”
Bomber helped Trixie up, looked to the side, perked up and pointed out a mushroom-like structure protruding from a wall and emitting a cloud of spores. The warrior drew back his arm and thrust his sword into the strange fungus. It squelched, spraying out green droplets. The plague reservoir began to shrink, drying up before us, and once it had gone, the cave walls and the ground beneath our feet shed their slime. It grew brighter. Echoes of emotion reached me from Behemoth — relief.
“Alright, since we’re done here, I need to log out,” I declared. “I’m going to eat and then spend all night in Dis. Oh, by the way — check out what Hint sent.”
“That angry gnome is Hint to you now?” Bomber raised an eyebrow.
“Yep,” I nodded, giving the boys and Irita the Heat Resistance Potions that Hinterleaf had attached to his message. “But you can call him Uncle Otto, Bomb.”
“Nice gifts from Uncle Otto!” the warrior chuckled.
“Wow! Just wow!” Irita breathed. “Imagine how much one of these would fetch at auction…”
There weren’t enough potions for Trixie and Patrick, and although the guild manager didn’t complain, saying that he didn’t care for the sand anyway, the little gardener got upset.
“What’s there for you anyway, Trixie?” Irita tried to reason with him. “The place is full of strong mobs. You’ll go there later. Here, want some candy?”
Trixie wolfed down the proffered candy, still wailing. He didn’t settle down until we left the mine. Clinging to Irita’s side, he mellowed.
“Alex, we’re going to need to talk,” the girl said.
“Yeah,” Crawler nodded. “Just the core members. About the clan’s income and expenses. We can discuss our ideas.”
Taking a deep breath, I thought for a moment. I knew nothing about finances. Any money matters important to the fate of the clan should be given to someone more competent. Let them figure it out — what help could I be anyway? I’d never wanted to lead, and never been a leader. But there they stood: the boys who had made fun of me since our first days in school, and the girl who had treated me only with pity for a year and a half in the sandbox. There they stood, awaiting my decision.
“Alright. But first we eat. We’ll meet on Mengoza…”
Chapter 11. Don Aranzabal
THE CLOSED SPACE of our apartments pressed on the mind. Maria had served dinner on cardboard trays — three fake-chicken tacos, artificial sour cream and real rice, beans and guacamole. I picked up mine and headed outside. Roj peeled away from a wall opposite. Once sure I was under her colleague’s watchful eye, Maria disappeared inside to tidy up.
“Bon appetit, boss,” the bodyguard said.
“Don’t you start, Roj…” I said and walked to the lift. “You should see how they talk to me in Dis: chosen one, boss, great one… Makes me sick.”
“Okay, Alex. You going for a walk?”
“I want to go to the roof. The air in here is stuffy.”
&
nbsp; “Uh-huh, the ventilation system ain’t on yet.” Roj called the lift and stared at the indicator as the floor numbers changed. “Sergei planned a bunch of upgrades, but just can’t find the time. Your move here wasn’t supposed to be so soon.”
The lift doors slid open. I pressed the button for the top floor.
“Maybe we should hire more people?” I said.
“Hairo is handling it,” Roj replied, letting me into the lift with my food. “The trouble is that there aren’t too many really reliable people among the true experts. The locals are only qualified enough to hammer nails and turn bolts.”
We kept talking as we ascended to the roof. Before I went outside, Roj put a camouflaging baseball cap on my head, exchanged messages with Hairo and let me out. I found the security officer at the hangar.
When he saw me with my tray, Hairo dragged over a packaging box and made a table out of it, where we had a midnight dinner and talked. We sat down right on the sun-warmed roof.
Soon soil would be delivered, trees planted, lawns sown, benches placed — it would be a beautiful open-air park, where the residents could take a stroll and get some fresh air.
“Within a few days, we’ll be able to populate the other habitation floors. You planning to expand?” Hairo asked. “The non-citizens who know you have been talking. The people from their building have heard of your generosity and are eager to work for you.”
“Maybe. I’ll discuss it with the boys today. Whatever happens, we need more gathering crafts: miners, quarriers, herbalists, woodcutters…”
“Even more work for me,” Hairo grimaced, breathing out tobacco smoke. “Take it slow. You can’t keep every one of them under watch, or be fully certain of their loyalty…”
I looked to the sky as I listened to him, and the sky was everywhere: up, to the sides, behind. The full moon hovered right above us, but the stars still shone brightly. My parents were vacationing on the Moon at that moment… How long had they been there now, ten days already? When I thought of them, of them the security we all so needed, I suddenly remembered Horvac and his hundred-million space yacht. Just half a year ago that number had seemed abstract, and Horvac himself might as well have been from another planet. A man from the clouds.
The old map of the world constraining my thinking suddenly crumbled. Horvac stood figuratively next to me, at arm’s length away — soon he would be my ally. Along with, as it turned out, his good friend Sergei-Hinterleaf, we had been building shared plans together to oppose Mogwai only an hour ago. And a hundred million… I had a hundred million!
“Listen, Hairo…” I put down my half-finished taco and pushed the tray away. “Could we buy a space yacht? We could play Dis from inside it, right?”
“Heh…” The security officer coughed on his cigarette. “Sure. People play from the Moon. You have to stay in orbit or drift not far from Earth, otherwise there’s a little lag. But keep in mind, just buying a yacht isn’t enough. You need a whole crew to pilot and service it, and the luxury and transportation taxes will sting you for the cost of the yacht itself every year.”
“Got it. But let’s keep it in mind as an option. Is it hard to buy one?”
“No harder than a flyer. But we won’t be able to use it without a licensed pilot or space guide.”
“I got my status thanks to a former pilot,” I said. “He lived here, in Cali. He was called Andrew Clayton. What I mean is… Maybe there are others like him? Ex-pilots, veterans?”
“I’ll find out,” Hairo promised. “You finish your dinner. You’re a growing kid, and training. Muscle fibers need building blocks.”
I finished eating, nodded to Hairo and went to finally talk to Tissa. For myself, I’d decided to kick her out of the clan right away if she didn’t answer or messed around. I should have done it earlier, but first I fell into Eileen and Mogwai’s trap, and then events careered out of control.
She picked up. The comm lit up her sleepy face.
“Alex…” Tissa said, yawning. She brushed messy hair out of her eyes, got out of bed, walked to the window. “It’s morning here. I wanted to call you yesterday, but… I couldn’t… I put it off for today, but now you called.”
She seemed perfectly relaxed, as if nothing at all was amiss. Tissa… Melissa… What did I feel as I looked at her half-naked form? Emptiness. Nothing was left: no love, no warmth, no hurt. Sure, she was beautiful, but the spark was gone.
“You betrayed us,” I said, not accusing, just stating a fact.
“I did not! What happened was… Liam asked me to go to the Olton Quarries and meet someone. One of his friends, supposedly to help with an instance. I didn’t know Mogwai would be there! I didn’t even see him before he used Subjugate Mind to take control of me. He spent ages digging through my abilities, figuring things out… He found Depths Teleportation and then realized that Kharinza was blocked out of the sandbox’s location list. That was it. A jump, then you showed up and took Mogwai away, I died and revived back in Tristad. Tell me, how is that my fault?”
You abandoned us for a beautiful life on the Amazons’ island, that’s how! You got tangled up with Liam who used you like a doormat, and now we’re expecting an attack on Kharinza any second, I nearly shouted at her, but bit my tongue. Instead, I spoke dryly:
“Promise this won’t happen again.”
“Of course it won’t! Do you think I’m a moron? You think I went crazy and betrayed my best friends? You should see what the boys wrote to me! They want to kill me! I had to switch off my comm!”
Poor thing, having to switch off your comm… Strange that you still think we’re friends. Keep your mouth shut, Melissa. You’re a ‘subcitizen,’ if you remember our code. If you want rewards, then you better keep quiet.
I ended the connection before I said something I regretted. I’d let anger get the better of me, after I’d wanted so badly to be cold. Her betrayal just got to me. Even Hairo and Roj could hear my teeth grinding as they stood tactfully off to one side. At least there was good news; if Tissa wasn’t lying, then Mogwai’s only remaining path was by sea. And we had a friendly beast god hanging out in that sea. Even if he couldn’t kill the Supreme Legate, he could at least slow him down. Then any of us could portal in and take Mogwai off to a cell. As long as the goblins had it ready in time.
Immersed in thought, I walked to the bodyguards, seeing nothing and nobody. I only came round when Hairo ran over to me and knocked me off my feet, covering me with his body and shouting code phrases into the radio with the names Willy, Yoshi and Sergei. Only then did I hear the noise of a landing flyer. The cabin door opened with a sigh.
“Hey, big guy, are you Hairo?” said a nonchalant male voice from within.
I heard people walking toward us. Hairo rose, keeping me behind him. I didn’t rush to get up. With a quiet buzz, the plasma gun in his hand charged.
“No need to be so alarmed. We’re all friends here,” the same voice said.
Roj helped me up and I saw three men. The one in the middle, with the nonchalant voice, was short and round, with a curly black-gray beard down to his chest. A snow-white vest bared his broad shoulders and a gold chain near big enough for an anchor hung round his neck. The dumb thought flashed into my head that if you threw the guy into water, all that weight in gold would drag him to the bottom. Two beefy bodyguards with machine guns towered over him like giants over Gruzelix.
“All our friends are home,” Hairo muttered and suddenly lowered his gun, brightening up. A note of respect entered his voice. “Don Aranzabal, if I’m not mistaken?”
“Call me Diego,” the man answered, turning and speaking to his companions in satisfied tones: “Nice to do business with civilized people. They know who the boss is here.”
The bodyguards nodded. Diego Aranzabal… I’d heard that name somewhere before. Rising, I stood behind Hairo.
“Of course we know you, Don Aranzabal,” Hairo said respectfully, almost bowing. If he’d had a tail, he’d have wagged it.
It was
like he was another man. Where was our sour old veteran? Even his pose had changed, as if he was smaller, cringing, his head drawn into his shoulders, trying not to loom over this uninvited guest.
“Who’s this kid?” The man’s eyes peered at me out of his puffy face. “Who are you?”
I didn’t answer. One of his companions aimed his machine gun at me and growled:
“Answer when Don Aranzabal asks you a question.”
Voices like that belonged only on demons from the Inferno, I thought.
Path of Spirit (Disgardium Book #6): LitRPG Series Page 13
