The Destroying Plague

by Dan Sugralinov

As for duels with equals, even then it was no simple matter. My twenty-ish percent chance to dodge would be cut in half, for example, if I successfully evaded an attack. The effect was called diminishing returns. It worked only against physical attacks and it prevented you from dodging more than five or six hits in a row.

  In battle against magic, you needed another stat entirely: magic resistance, and it was a separate stat for each element. I didn’t have that, because it wasn’t a default stat for humans to have, but was added by equipment. All I had was my Stoneskin.

  I’d already split my stat points equally between perception and endurance back in the treasury. The first, which among other things influenced a range of second-degree stats, increased the effect radius of Sleeping Vindication. The second increased my survivability. For level thirty-nine, my stats looked more than good.

  Another level and I’d be able to use the Whistle of Summoning! I imagined cleaving through a fort on a Legendary Ghost Wolf and my smile stretched from ear to ear…

  “Out of the way!” a viking on a giant white bear roared, almost overturning our cart.

  The driver expertly avoided the collision and sent some quiet curses the way of the level three hundred viking.

  My thoughts interrupted, I looked at the map — we were only a couple of blocks away from Patrick now. I used that time to look at my loot from the treasury, but there wasn’t enough time to check it all. The system balanced the goodies — most of the loot consisted of epic scalable ‘dummies.’ That was good, it meant I could outfit the whole clan. I had over a dozen magic tomes — Crawler and I could go through them.

  Something that surprised me even in the treasury was that some of the artifacts needed identification. From what I remembered, the Magic University in Darant could handle that for us, but it could wait. The names of the artifacts with hidden properties were intriguing: an accessory called Balancer, a ring called Elemental Concentration, a trident called Thunderbearer… and I didn’t even know if they were legendary or not! Neither the items’ quality nor their properties showed up.

  “We’re here, boss,” the driver said.

  Thanking him, I climbed off the cart and headed for the tavern Gracious Courage. As I understood by the public going inside, it was a relatively popular place among legionnaires and veterans of the Commonwealth army.

  * * *

  I found Patrick in his most natural state — thoroughly drunk at the bar. He was making noise, demanding more beer be poured after the foam settled, and not even for himself, but for another customer. The reason for his righteous became clear immediately. Patrick was fishing for a free drink. But the gray-mustached veteran didn’t treat the First Priest of the Sleeping Gods to so much as a glance, sipping from his glass with melancholy. Patrick tried unsuccessfully to hypnotize the fighter with his gaze, but the man had incredible restraint.

  “A reminder to all customers — the pet battle is starting out back very soon!” someone’s voice declared to the whole room. “Sign up! A week of free drinks to the winner! “Place your bets…”

  I loitered at the bar all this time, not yet resolved to speak to Patrick. Some players were having a noisy feast a little further from him, and not knowing O’Grady’s reaction in advance, I didn’t want to risk approaching him.

  I pushed between him and the veteran and ordered two ales. Iggy plopped down from my shoulder, reduced to the more polite size of an owl. I ordered him some meat. Didn’t I mention that needlers are carnivorous predators? Pets needed food not just to restore their health and vigor, but to grow too. Each time they ate, they got a little experience boost.

  Patrick saw us, measured me up with an interested glance and broke out into a craggy smile.

  “Nice weather today… eh…”

  “You can call me Shelly, Mr. O’Grady,” I answered. “Can I get you an ale?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Patrick shook his head playfully. “I have so much to do! And I have a beautiful wife and kids waiting at home…”

  The barman put two perspiring glasses on the bar. I took them, threw Patrick an “As you like” and headed for a free table. It turned out hard to find one. I had to move into another room, smaller and without a stage.

  “Wait, Shelly!” Patrick protested desperately. “You know I’m an honorary citizen of Tristad, right...?”

  The relapsed town drunk ambled after me, noisily musing that a glass of cold beer wouldn’t get in the way of his plans, and his wife probably wasn’t waiting at home, she said she wanted to go shopping with a friend after all, and the kids… hmm, the kids… They’d find something to do with their nanny. By the end of his journey, it turned out that there were no kids at all, and Patrick wasn’t even married, he’d just gotten tongue-tied when he saw such a beautiful girl, which I most certainly was, and…

  “Shut up, Patrick. Scyth sent me. Remember him? Don’t say his name aloud, he’s a wanted man.”

  I sat at a table and ordered Patrick with a glance to sit opposite.

  He gulped, narrowing his eyes at the beer. I nodded and he grabbed a glass. Quaffing noisily, he half emptied it and sat back in his chair in satisfaction. Then his brows went up and the drunkard excitedly cried:

  “Sc…”

  I kicked him in the shin.

  “...scallywag, he was, a scallywag! My boy! Where is he?”

  “He says hello. What happened, Patrick? You gave up drinking and went to meet Jane!”

  “My beautiful Jane…”

  A couple of glasses later, showering tears, snot and drunken revelations, he explained that Jane had married some high society mage and ran off for an expedition beyond the frontier. Patrick tried to talk her out of it, but the girl didn’t recognize him.

  “She forgot me…” the drunkard laughed bitterly.

  I thought that was unlikely. It was hard to forget someone you never knew. But now wasn’t the time to deal with the puzzles of Patrick’s personality.

  “A sad story,” I commiserated sincerely. “Scyth told me to take you to him. The Sleeping God has need of his first priest. He also mentioned the sewer troggs. Where can I find them? I have a message for them.”

  “The troggs…” Patrick said sadly. “They left.”

  “Where exactly? Do you know where to find them?”

  “Their chief Muvarak said on parting that they were heading for the Stone Rib. In Darant they were thought of as subhuman and cleared out as much as possible, but they left them alone as long as they kept to the lower levels of the sewers. Everything got worse when something woke up there, down in the depths. The troggs were in a trap: undead attacking from beneath, the Darant guards from above. One dark night they broke out and went north, through the wastewater ponds…”

  While he spoke of the sad fate of the sewer troggs, I studied the map. The Stone Rib was found in the Windfall zone, designed for players between levels forty and fifty. A few instances, a couple of raid dungeons, five or so clan castles. Where would we find the troggs there, and was it worth it? And how would we get them to Kharinza after? We couldn’t move in the Depths, even in groups. Patrick said that there were almost a thousand members of the tribe. That would need a Large Raid Portal like the one that the Modus mage created in the gorge.

  “Your bird is fun, Shelly.” Patrick switched his attention to my pet, who had apparently copied not only the appearance of the owl, but its habits too: standing on the table, Iggy tore at some meat, grabbing it in its talons and swallowing it down, throwing his head back. “How’s… the boy doing?”

  “He asked you to join his clan. He said that such an experienced fighter and soldier like you would be very useful. Apart from that, there’s a tavern in the clan fort with unlimited booze for members. Want in?”

  Patrick’s eyes widened when he joined the clan and saw my true form: I’d used the same option as Infect, allowing us to see each other in stealth. Understanding came slowly. Patrick rubbed his eyes for a while, then tried to focus his gaze, but his pupils mo
ved to the sides. When the drunkard finally realized it was Scyth sitting before him, he launched a wave of curses, accusing me of putting too much on him. But when he saw me put a finger to my lips, O’Grady nodded, looked around and seemed to sober up.

  “Straighten out yourself and your business, Uncle Patrick. Today or tomorrow my guys will come for you and you’ll be able to get to the base. The Sleeping Gods need…”

  “Just look at this!” a huge hand dropped down on O’Grady’s back. “There you are, you old alkie! Guess you thought we’d gone on a campaign and you decided to crawl out into the light? Big mistake!”

  Three soldiers in Commonwealth army uniforms surrounded our table. All were in plate armor, with helmets in their hands and claymores at their belts. Patrick pulled his head into his shoulders. Centurion Walsh, one of the soldiers, at level two hundred and eighty, pushed me along the bench and sat opposite Patrick.

  “Sorry, elf girl, we got words to say,” he said without even looking at me. “Ain’t that right, O’Grady?”

  The soldier’s traveling companions, their armor clanking, moved another bench over and sat down.

  “Alright,” the drunkard whispered, looking at the table. Only now did I realize how withered and old he looked. “I got nothin’, Walsh.”

  “We ain’t talking about money!” the man spat. “You owe me a lot more than just money. You shamed my honor, and I won’t allow that! I swear on Nergal, you’ll die in the mines!”

  “What did he do wrong, Centurion?” I asked.

  “This don’t concern you, sharp-ears!” Walsh hissed. “Better get out of here before we take care of you too!”

  “For what?”

  “For hanging around with this fool! You’re sitting here, drinking like old friends… It’s very suspicious! Ain’t it, boys? Let’s check this elf girl? Maybe the boys from the watch’ll dig something up on her too?”

  The centurion’s soldiers jumped up and moved behind me. They took me by the arms and began to lift me up when Walsh gestured for them to stop.

  “Not just yet. We’ll deal with her later,” he said, before turning to Patrick again. “Alright, you old rogue, you outplayed me in the Arena. The damned leveler cut me off from my usual combat style and I had to fight old-school. That’s fine, if we had ten more fights like that, you’d be six feet under. But what you did after… No, you bastard, Centurion Walsh doesn’t forgive things like that. Finish your swill and you can forget about the taste of ale until the end of your life.

  “Listen here, centurion!” I didn’t like what was happening, and I raised my voice, but it didn’t exactly sound threatening in my elvish form. “Patrick O’Grady is a war hero and an honorary citizen of Tristad. It so happens that I know him well and want to help him out. How much and what does he owe you?”

  My high charisma and convincing skill seemed to work on the centurion. He scratched the back of his head, frowned and said:

  “Fifty thousand gold!”

  Patrick finished his ale, choked, coughed for a while, then shouted at the top of his lungs:

  “You’ve gone mad, Walsh! Insulting a soldier of the Commonwealth out loud means half a year of community service or a fine of five hundred gold!”

  “Add to that the slander and libel you spoke against the lady of his heart, alkie!” Walsh growled, bringing his fist down on the table. “Swimming naked in the fountain! All the debts you built up in the district! The flowers you picked in the royal garden and tried to sell at market! Every petal was worth a hundred! And you carried off armfuls, you bastard!”

  “I’ll pay it all back,” I said.

  “Peanuts,” the centurion waved away my offer. “The main thing is his idiotic propaganda! Do you know, elf girl, that your friend was inciting honest folk to turn away from Nergal and side with the Sleeping Gods? He should be punished as a heretic! I think the Inquisition would be very happy to put the rascal to the question, and then to the torch! In the name of Nergal!”

  “In the name of Nergal and all the new gods!” legionnaires echoed from all over the tavern. It turned out everyone in the building could hear Walsh’s speech.

  “I should have left with the troggs…” Patrick sighed sadly.

  “That’s another thing! You hung around with those barbarian monsters. With pagans!” Walsh finished his accusatory speech. “But all this is nonsense. The boys from Tristad spoke well of you, and we would have swept it all under the rug. But I can’t forgive you for Olivia.”

  “What happened with Olivia?” I asked, realizing that she must be the centurion’s love.

  Patrick blushed and muttered quickly:

  “Nothing. Nothing at all…”

  “Nothing…” Walsh said bitterly. “All you did was kiss her and grope her breasts. In front of everyone! Do you know that I’d proposed to her then, O’Grady?”

  Nether! My quest to reform Patrick hadn’t gone anywhere, but even without that I felt some responsibility for the old crank. And gratitude too, of course — everything I’d achieved in Dis started with him. So I went into my inventory and pulled out the required amount of money in thousand coins.

  “Here’s fifty thousand. This is for Olivia. Can my friend Mr. O’Grady and I leave now, Centurion Walsh?”

  Rising sharply, I pointed Patrick to the exit with my eyes while the centurion gazed at the gold.

  Walsh frowned, picked up the coins and answered.

  “Alright. I forgive him for offending my bride. I have no more grievances against O’Grady.”

  “Let’s go, Patrick,” I said.

  “I don’t think so,” the centurion snarled. “I said I forgive him for the insult against Olivia, but this lowlife has done a lot more than that. I’m afraid I don’t have the authority to write it all off. Take him, boys…”

  Walsh’s men began to lift Patrick from the table. The first priest of the Sleeping Gods didn’t resist, just stared helplessly at his empty glass. Then, while they were escorting him past the bar and I was following, he turned and whispered soundlessly:

  “Sorry.”

  My eyes went dark, my legs buckled. I smelled death. My throat roiled and I barely kept myself from throwing up. The shadows of the legionnaires and Patrick were lost in the crowd. My health points had dropped to a single sliver. Suspecting the worst, I opened the debuff description.

  Infection

  You are infected with the plague of the dead. After death, you will become a vassal of the Destroying Plague.

  —1% total health per hour.

  If my health was dropping again, that meant something was wrong with Behemoth. Nothing too bad so far — the regeneration was still much higher — but it was an alarming sign. I coughed heavily, suppressing my churning stomach. Shaking my head, I rushed after Patrick. His marker was already at the tavern exit.

  I’d already caught up to them and was thinking of a way to get the first priest out of this when the message icon flashed up with a ping. I automatically glanced at it — it was from Yary. He was all I needed right then!

  Where did you go, young Scyth?

  Not changed your mind about joining Modus? If you’re in Darant, we can talk at the Elvish Garden. I’ll be there all night.

  Yary

  I told him I wouldn’t be able to meet today — was stuck in an instance. I got an answer at once. Then I’ll see you at Distival. You got an invite, right?

  Well, I’d deal with this later too. The important thing now was getting Patrick out, finding those damn troggs and getting Behemoth the faith he needed.

  I rushed out of the tavern and shouldered my way through crowds of passersby to catch up to the legionnaires.

  “Centurion Walsh!”

  “What now?” he asked, frowning.

  “You said the watch was ready to give Patrick a clean slate for his service. Right?”

  “Let’s say so.”

  “And you forgave him the personal insult. Are soldiers of the Commonwealth truly no longer men of their word? Is their wo
rd not stronger than oak?”

  Walsh took a deep breath and exchanged glances with his men. Then he barked a quick order and the legionnaires ran further along the street at a light jog. Taking advantage of the centurion’s momentary inattention, Patrick approached and spoke quietly.

  “I completely forgot! Chief Muvarak of the sewer tribe left me this…”

  The drunkard stuck a hand into his vest pocket. Instead of a pile of garbage, nutshells and sand, he pulled out something like an amulet on a string: a faded leather triangle with a fringe and a seal impressed on it.

  “This is a charm. It shows the path to the tribe totem. It can help you find the troggs in the Stone Rib.”

  I took the trinket. The seal upon it was faded, rubbed, but still recognizable as the gaping maw of a bear.