“May the Light be with us!” the shout nearby rang with pathos and heroics. A ball of light that followed it swept the necromancers aside, clearly demonstrating that pathos without a good attack spell is just hot air. I lifted my head and saw the arriving priests. At the head of the troop there was a white-winged angel pointing his fiery sword at the enemies. The enemies regrouped and black lightning bolts flew at the priests. A great skirmish started, in the middle of which I sat, smeared up to the ears of the dome, had the dome had ears. Periodically a dead body landed next to me, or the ground exploded next to me from a stray spell, burying the dome deeper. The good thing was that there were only players around, so the bodies disappeared practically at once and the spells could not hurt me in any way. At the same time the downside was that no one bothered to invite me to a group. All that free experience was floating by uselessly.
“Don’t touch this one‒ he is sort of one of us.” The spells put me so deeply under the ground that Dolgunata had to bend down over my accidental grave in order to see me inside. “I see you have a cozy place here. Almost like a 5-D theater! So we’ll just leave you alone.”
The druid disappeared, plunging back into the battle. As for me, I was left without even visual input and could only imagine how things were going from the orders I happened to overhear:
“Monks, take out portals on the right! Seraphim, yours are the left ones! Onward!”
The battle drifted down the hill, the noise became more remote and I was left to my own devices. All my attempts to dig myself out were futile. After some time I was concerned that I would be forgotten, accidentally or on purpose. My nervousness was exacerbated by the fact that I did not know how things were going within the estate and around it. Thinking that respawn would be better than uncertainty, I tried to kill myself, but the absolute protection was absolute for a reason: it protected the one who wore it both from the outside world and from himself. During the time I spent in the dome I went through the entire range of aggressive feelings: from irritation to fury to a feeling of helplessness. At some point I just beat at the dome for fifteen minutes or so. I sweated like a pig, I fell an infinite number of times and rose back up expecting that it would take just one more tiny effort and I would get out of this trap. Finally I fell down, and did not have the strength to get up again. So I just stayed there, staring listlessly at the piece of sky I could see through the top of the dome, and at the countdown timer indicating the remaining life of the shield Gerhard had put on me. My confinement lasted for three hours forty eight minutes and some seconds.
From the noise of the battle I could suppose that our people were winning. However, when a particularly loud bang came, so hard that my ears popped despite the protection, I started doubting our victory. Perhaps the necromancers had used the “last resort” weapon, destroying everything around. But my doubts were unfounded. The sounds came back and shouts such as “For the Light!” and “Kill the Darks!” indicated that our troops were pressing the Dark ones hard. Succumbing to the feeling I even joined the general shouts of “Hurray!” and added “For the motherland!”, alone this time.
“Get up, lazybones!” Just two minutes before the timer ran out someone remembered me. Dolgunata sounded tired, but pleased. For me it sounded like the bell that would release me. Dirty from head to toe, her armor tarnished by fire, the druid kept shaking her ruffled matted hair, looking more like a scarecrow than a pretty girl. Not at all concerned by her appearance, she was sporting a great white-toothed grin on her dirty face. “While you were taking a nap here, the big boys and girls did all the work. Gabriel, pull him out!”
The winged seraph dived down and pulled me by the leg, releasing me from the trap. As it turned out, the sand around me had baked together and turned into glass, so my grave would have been pretty strong. The seraph carefully returned me to the surface and disappeared into the last active portal, which immediately shut with a characteristic pop. In the middle of a burnt lifeless space there was a huge crater, about two hundred yards I diameter and perhaps as deep. What I was worried about most of all was the fate of the heads of classes.
“I know that’s kind of a silly question, but I’ll ask it anyway.” Dolgunata nodded at the huge pit. “Is the estate your doing? Your scrolls destroyed the hill practically to its roots. So you could have pulled a nasty trick on the Lecleurs as well.”
“Vandalism is not among my virtues,” I grumbled, stretching my legs. To avoid bickering with the druid, I asked the question that was bothering me: “What happened to Lumpen?”
“I don’t know yet. Gerhard acknowledged the report on the outcome of the battle and hung up immediately.” Dolgunata responded. “Where is the teacher? Did you get out of the estate together?”
“No.” Busy with fighting in the field, Dolgunata had had neither time nor opportunity to find out about the latest events in the estate. “ Lumpen took him together with Iven even before the Heads went in. Archibald agreed to slavery on his own, Nata.”
“If this is your idiotic sense of humor, now is really a bad time, you cretin!” The druid was looking daggers at me, her pupils narrow like a cat’s. She waited for me to refute my own statement, and when I did not, reached for her comm and turned away. Silence was heavy on the ears. The measured beeps were heard very clearly in it. No one picked up. “That’s impossible. He must be just busy. He’ll call us back later. I have never heard anything dumber than that: Archibald as Lumpen’s slave!”
I don’t know who she was trying to convince first and foremost: myself or herself. Her voice seemed calm, but it was too high-pitched. This betrayed the alarm she was trying to hide. Thinking about the druid’s feelings I wondered if it was simple concern for her teacher or …
“The person in the photograph is definitely not the catorian,” Steve heard my thought and shared his considerations right away. “I am still working, but I can say with certainty – it’s a person. Human Paladin. It takes time; the druid tore up the photo too small.”
“What about analyzing which players went across the eras?” I reminded him of another task that was just as important. Steve looked down.
“I am not working on it right now, all the resources were allocated to processing the fragments. I have found only three so far. Archibald, a mage and a shaman. Do you want the names?” My subconscious knew how I felt and did not want to overload me with superfluous information.
“Not now. But searching for the Creator is no less important than analyzing the fragments,” I clarified to Steve. “Allocate about ten percent of resources. It may run in the background, but it must be done.”
“Will do!” My assistant responded, glad that I had not yelled at him.
“Fine. Let’s suppose that you told the truth. Then why?” The druid distracted me from my conversation with Steve. “What did the necromancer promise him in exchange? Archibald always had a backup plan. Always!”
“Archibald wanted to find out in what way Lumpen was able to be reborn in our era.” I clarified. There was no need to make a secret of it. “So he gave herself in exchange for that information.”
“He knows very well the way to respawn.” I heard a familiar voice. Nata and I turned at the same time and bowed our heads. Gerhard van Brast graced us with his presence. “Archibald was definitely curious about the method Lumpen had come up with, but not to such an extent as to surrender into slavery to his long-time and dangerous enemy. It’s something else. Yaropolk, I want to know all the details.”
“Certainly.” I put together a video up to the arrival of Bernard and offered it to Gerhard. Knowing what the druid’s demanding look meant I made her a gift as well. The druid was first to react:
“He was distracting Lumpen from Yari!” she exclaimed in surprise as she watched the video. “He set himself up for Yari’s sake!”
“It does look like that.” Gerhard was contemplating the horizon. “But he did it not for the sake of Yari, but for the sake of the Guide.”
“I don’t u
nderstand. It’s possible to replace the Guide. Could the teacher really value Yari so highly in his role of the Guide that he had to sacrifice himself?” Dolgunata could not accept from any angle that Archibald would make a sacrifice for such an insignificant creature as myself.
“The reason lies not only in Yaropolk, Dolgunata.” The Head curbed her indignation quickly. “You are overestimating your teacher. Lumpen’s strength is of a higher order of magnitude; breaking the loop of the estate would be beyond Archibald; nor would he win a direct battle with Lumpen. Archibald was first dragging out time, and avoided the fight until he found a solution. Right, Yaropolk?”
“I don’t know!” I exclaimed heatedly. I hated the thought that the catorian had sacrificed himself for the sake of me being the Guide once he realized that he could not get out of that. “No one supposed that the pendant would resurrect the necromancer! We had no time at all!”
“Fine. And there were no instructions, quests, indirect comments? There is a reason why your teacher included the line of being released by a third party in his oath.” Gerhard kept questioning. I just shook my head for a negative. I did not recall anything like that.
The druid rushed to view the video once again. After a second I decided to replay it for myself as well.
“Here!” Dolgunata shouted. “Look! While the necromancer was burning lady Lecleur, Archibald scribbled something on the wall next to Yari!”
Gerhard and I fast forwarded to the right point. Indeed, unless your goal was to find some sign from Archibald, it would have been impossible to guess that the catorian was actually making some graffiti deliberately rather than just rubbing off the dust. Once I zoomed in real close I saw a lopsided symbol of the scales.
“This is the message for you, Yaropolk.” Gerhard smiled with pleasure, and Dolgunata stared at me expectantly. I shrugged my shoulders in bewilderment:
“Why? I still don’t get it.”
“Scales, Yari, don’t be dumb! Scales is a symbol of justice. You are the Judge!” Dolgunata was stating the things I did not find obvious. But the train of logic was inarguable. I was thinking, not quite sure how my specialty could help the catorian.
“The case that was initiated against the catorian,” Steve suggested, “what if he knew about that?”
“Is that possible?” I objected uncertainly to myself
“The catorian is a creature from the first era. We don’t know how long he lived in it or what abilities he acquired. What if he can see all the cases that have been initiated against him?” My subconscious was saying amazingly sensible things. I was even starting to be proud of myself.
“I think I understand what my teacher was hinting at. Now I have to figure out how to use it in order to free him.” I did not want to admit that I had initiated a case against my teacher, and so I asked a question in turn to change the subject. “Were you able to destroy Lumpen?”
As usual, the Head was very shrewd and did not press me:
“He escaped together with his helpers to the world called Gardish. But at first Lumpen swallowed the entire estate and blew it up as the owner. Gardish is outside of our jurisdiction; Bernard went there to warn the Heads of Classes of the new danger. The Viceroy’s aides have been notified as well, but I don’t have much faith in him. A dozen years could pass before this information makes it to the Viceroy’s desk. By that point Gardish will have been wiped out. Yaropolk, try to understand what Archibald wanted from you as quickly as you can. You realize how much we need him now to fight Lumpen. And another thing; I am requesting a detailed report on what happened within the estate. Dolgunata, the same request for you. I need to understand why I lost my two best Paladins. Present the report tomorrow. Now I need to leave. Duty will not wait.”
Gerhard opened a portal and disappeared, leaving me alone with the druid. Nata was silent, thinking of something of her own, and I was turning over the case I had initiated against Archibald, and could not quite grasp how to go about it. To pronounce him guilty? Well, he was definitely guilty, he gave the recruits to the mages for the killing. But what could I demand in return? A respawn? But who would execute that? Lumpen would place such a protective shield on Archibald that a dozen nuclear bombs would not get through it. A fine and stripping of Grandeur points? That would not work; it would not bring the catorian any closer to freedom. A prison term? Again, that brings the question of execution. Who would dare to fly to Gardish? Besides, none of that makes any sense; in order to get rid of Lumpen’s control the catorian would just have to respawn once. Just once, but how to arrange for that? That’s the million dollar question.
“How long are you going to try to drill a hole in the ground by staring at it?! I don’t understand: how could my teacher entrust you with his life?” Inaction was getting to Dolgunata’s active character. She wanted the results here and now. But I was unable to give her that. That made her more and more irritated, pacing around me. “Think! While you are trying to search for one little thought in your empty stupid head, they can wipe him out at any moment! If something were to happen to him because of you… Some Judge, aren’t you! You can’t even be trusted to clean sewage pipes: you’d drown us all in shit!”
The druid’s emotional chatter was annoying, and I was just about to tell her to be quiet when I got an interesting thought. Smiling from ear to ear I was staring at the ranting girl as I was saying to myself:
“I pronounce Paladin Archibald guilty of collusion with the mages for the purpose of the premeditated murder of Paladins Monstrichello, Logir and Sartal. I declare the actions of the defendant unworthy of the name of Paladin, and defacing the honor and dignity of the class. I sentence Paladin Archibald to community service within the sewage system of the Sanctuary for two thousand hours, reduction of grandeur by 200 units and paying a fine to the Game in the amount of five thousand granises! Deadline for community service completion: two thousand years. For the duration of serving the sentence all mental blocks shall be removed from the defendant so that he may be fully aware of the gravity of his crime. This sentence is final and not subject to appeal!”
Verdict is confirmed
Verdict is deemed optimal
Case “Improper Behavior of the Paladin” is closed. The sentence is executed by the Game.
Award for correct verdict: basic Energy level increased by 300
A second later my comm started vibrating.
“Explain to me, my lazy student, why is it that the Game is strongly recommending that I clean the walls within the sewage of Sanctuary for two thousand hours? What, could you not come up with anything else?”
“Verdict was deemed optimal,” I parried. It was a pleasure to hear the teacher, and I smiled even wider, thinking of my competence as a Judge. “Fewer hours would have caused unwanted questions and a review of the case.”
“What review? Had it not entered into your reckless head that instead of community service it would have been sufficient to sentence me to showing up to Gerhard for repentance and a full report on the case? From the standpoint of jurisdiction it is more correct than sentencing me to that service. Gerhard has the right to punish me at his discretion. For example, to sentence me to a respawn. Why do I have to explain elementary things?”
“Lumpen could have outfitted his favorite slave with protection strong enough that Gerhard would have to wait for you to respawn till the restart came around!” “The winner's triumph” march did not play long in my soul. Annoyance tainted all the joy from freeing the teacher. Enough! He freed me, I freed him. We were even. Everything else according to the deeds!
“He had just resurrected and only gobbled up one estate,” Archibald stated with finality. I could practically see him roll his eyes. “Where would he get Energy for that? Great Light, what infinite stupidity! So then. While I explain myself to the Head in view of the depraved imagination of a certain half-baked Judge, you immediately go to the Sanctuary and sit there quietly. Lumpen will most likely want his toy back or to get his own back. So far Fabio
, Iven and Gromana are on his side. The rest are waiting, assessing the situation and their chances. But that’s my job. I have told you this for information. If you have no questions, get yourself to the Sanctuary, fast!”
My comm went dead, and Dolgunata’s came to life. The druid immediately set the silence curtain, which didn’t help her much. From her pursing her lips and gritting her teeth it was clear anyway that the catorian was not offering her congratulations on a job well done. I could say one thing: it was better to be scolded by the teacher in company rather than alone.
Having finished the conversation Nata looked at me glumly without saying a word. Apparently what the druid had heard from the catorian was not to her liking, and she hesitated. I nudged her towards conversation with a universal: “So?” The last thing we needed was another phone call, and we had a duel that we still had to work out.
“Paladin Yaropolk, I suggest we make a truce and give up the duel. As conditions for the agreement I offer a verbal apology for words and actions that resulted in a challenge to duel; also, both of us will give up the potential rewards. Do you accept the conditions or do you insist on the duel?”
Anyone would understand that it was not the proud druid’s own decision. What could Archibald have said to her that she would give up on the potential victory in the duel and Madonna’s Diary, I would never find out. But I was curious as to why she had wanted the diary as her prize.
“I am willing to make peace if you honestly tell me why you need Madonna’s Diary. I do understand that it’s you, not Archibald, who needs it. Otherwise he would have taken it away from me long ago. Moreover, I think that you forgot to tell the teacher that you wanted to have that thing. Am I right?” I asked, but silence was my only answer. The druid was silent like a statue, just raised her head proudly showing that there would be no amendments to her offer. “Fine. You don’t want a duel? Here is my counter offer: either you tell me why you need that damned diary, and we make peace, or you admit that you lost with all the consequences of that. And in that case, if you try, you might get the diary without any questions! Agree?”
The Quest (Dark Paladin Book #2) LitRPG Series Page 37
