I clenched my teeth to suppress my anger. “They’re driving you like game beaters. Never mind. As long as we make it to the city, they’ll never get you.”
Laosh’ eyes focused watchfully on me. “I can sense some powerful witchcraft.”
I produced the sphere from my bag by way of answer.
Laosh closed his eyes. “Two weeks’ protection,” he whispered with relief.
I climbed back into the saddle. “Laosh!” I turned to the shaman as Boris took off, “I’ll try and buy you some time. But be quick!”
The old man nodded and began barking orders. As Boris headed toward the Noctean ranks, I noticed a few smiles on the Calteans’ faces. I checked their stats. Indeed, their Morale numbers seemed to have improved ever so slightly.
And what if...
Would you like to activate the Hand of the Outcast?
Absolutely.
Congratulations! You’ve received +30 pt. to all your clan members’ Morale!
Duration: 5 hrs.
By now, the entire tribe had already heard the good news. The Forbidden City was safe and off limits for Nocteans!
That, in combination with the Hand of the Outcast, had produced the desired effect. The Calteans picked up the pace; even the women and children fell quiet. Men strengthened their grips on their weapons, their faces glowing with determination. Even the animals seemed to realize the importance of the moment.
I seemed to be feeling different too. How weird. My emotions seemed to have intensified, my blood boiling with adrenaline. What’s that? Had the VR capsule staff injected my lifeless frame with amphetamines after I’d activated the Hand of the Outcast? I absolutely needed to find that out once I resurfaced back in the real world.
The change in their quarry’s mood hadn’t gone completely unnoticed by the Nocteans. They grew restless. Their leader emitted a powerful growl, encouraging the others.
Bad timing, dammit! That bastard was too smart for his own good. Never mind. We’d give him something to do in a minute.
Actually... easier said than done. What was I supposed to do, step in their horde’s way with my insect squad? But this wasn’t a couple dozen werewolves! These guys would just trample right over us, end of story. I’d waste the remaining metal in vain.
Still, I had to put my money where my mouth was. Especially because I already had the first inklings of a very simple plan. I decided to attack Shaggy, the leader. Why not? I would fly over to him and set a few fleas on him, how about that? Maybe loose a few slugs from my slingshot, just to keep him on his toes. He’s not gonna like it. And when the others see their leader’s humiliation, they’d be reluctant to continue their pursuit.
That’s settled, then. The Noctean leader was already directly below me. He scowled. Level 350! Not too shabby at all!
The other Nocteans bared their teeth at me. I was at least fifty feet above them and still they jumped high in the air, trying to get to me. Those creatures could jump, that’s for sure.
Shaggy abstained from their impromptu pogo jumping competition. He could see he wouldn’t make it, so what was the point in looking stupid in his own warriors’ eyes?
I kept a watchful eye on my clan. They were making good speed. I’d managed to distract the Nocteans: they were too busy now trying to catch me.
I met Shaggy’s eye. What a bastard! He too could see the Calteans’ escape so he promptly switched his priorities, losing all interest in me.
The leader emitted a threatening roar. The gray hairy mass of Nocteans shifted as one man, about to follow their fleeing quarry. That made sense. I hadn’t aggroed them, had I?
Never mind. I’d do it — now.
You’ve built the simplest mechanical creature: a Swarm of Fleas!
Level: 120
Number of swarm members: 5
The first swarm came as a complete surprise to Shaggy. They even managed to bite him at least once each before being struck by his bodyguards’ stone axes.
Shaggy howled in pain. The Nocteans froze, then hurried to his rescue.
All hell broke lose. All of them were jumping, trying to get to me and Boris. While they were thus engaged in this admittedly useless exercise, the Venom of Swamp Monk began to work, sending Shaggy shrieking to the ground.
Then a strange thing happened. A giant gray Noctean slid like a shadow out of the crowd and went growling for their leader. Soon the two Nocteans were at each other’s throats.
“Oh wow. It looks like we’ve triggered a local power struggle,” I whispered, watching this battle of the titans.
Soon the two Nocteans transformed to their werewolf shapes. Now they were twice their original size. The venom couldn’t kill the leader whose level and regeneration were now considerably higher. It looked like his opponent realized it, too. Shifty-eyed, he lowered his ears, apparently regretting his impulse but not enough to surrender.
I could see he’d decided to fight to the last. Even if he’d wanted to escape, he couldn’t: the Nocteans surrounded the two fighters, encouraging them in this prehistoric version of gladiatorial fights.
They were too busy now to worry about us.
The leader’s gray opponent couldn’t have chosen a better moment to claim power. Unfortunately, he was no match for Shaggy who was ten levels above him.
Still, that wasn’t my problem. As long as he managed to distract the leader for a while, that was fine with me. Should I send in a few more fleas? Pointless, really. Everything was working out just fine without me. The two were ripping each other apart.
The Calteans had crossed the valley remarkably quickly. Their first sledges reached the town walls just as Shaggy finally dealt the decisive blow to his opponent. He tilted his head up to the skies and howled, informing the world of his victory. His hapless rival lay at his feet with his throat ripped out.
Shaggy gave his tribe a long, almost insane look as if challenging the next contender to come forth. Predictably, there were none. Heads lowered in a mass act of subordination. Wheezing, the leader turned the still-warm body on its back, then ripped his heart out in one strong, practiced motion.
Yuk. Blood and gore had never been my thing. Time for me to go. Especially as most of the Calteans had already entered the city.
As Boris whisked me away, I sensed a hateful glare focused on my back. I turned round.
Shaggy watched me leave, munching on his rival’s twitching heart.
Oh. It looked like the Nocteans were here to stay.
Chapter Four
I CAST A PRACTICED GLANCE at the clock in the right upper corner of my interface. 2 a.m.
How funny. I seemed to be developing new habits, reflexes even. If you had to check both the time and your own stats thirty times a day, that could be quite habit-forming.
In real life, too, I seemed to be constantly searching for those pale-blue buttons hindering my view. This was actually one of the giveaway signs that you were speaking to a gamer: the person’s eyes would constantly wander as they habitually checked his or her stats.
The camp was asleep. All but the guards on duty, of course. I’d just finished talking to Laosh. First I’d had to tell him all about our travels, then listen to his tale of their own trials and tribulations. It had taken me a lot of effort to talk him into getting some sleep.
The old man’s eyes had glistened with boyish curiosity. He wanted to know everything. He made me recount my conversation with the city Keepers word by word. He studied the bunch of keys the ancient masters had given me; he’d reread the scroll several times and inspected the magic sphere, leaving his greasy fingerprints all over its surface.
How I understood him. He was now standing in the sacred and terrible place his own parents used to scare him with when he was little. No wonder he was all shaking.
Admittedly, the Calteans were a highly adaptable bunch. At first they too had appeared wary — scared even — but soon they thawed out. They got busy making fires, cooking food and setting up camp which must have distracted th
em somewhat. Also, the rapid succession of several stressful situations must have played their part: after the hasty exodus across the snowed-in valley followed by the Noctean attack and their close escape to the Forbidden City, the Calteans felt like little could surprise them. They were safe now, and that was the most important thing.
The Nocteans hadn’t followed us into the city after all. They stopped by the walls, venting their disappointment with some theatrical howling and growling, then turned back toward the hills. Still, I didn’t think they were gone for good. Judging by the meaningful stare their shaggy leader had given me, we would hear from them pretty soon.
I didn’t mind. Why not? With one correction: our next meeting was to be on my own terms.
If the truth were known, I hadn’t been at all sure whether the magic sphere would work. It had. Which was good news. What a shame we didn’t have enough time to prepare properly. As it was, time kept slipping through my fingers like the desert sand.
The crackling of wood in the fire felt soothing — while also putting me in a working mode.
I opened my control panel. Now that everybody was present and correct, I had full information about my new clan members.
Let’s start with the worst. Casualties. Six warriors and twenty civilians. And I had barely begun my leadership!
Then again, had it not been for me, the clan might have already ceased to exist. The route chosen by Laosh was fatal. They would have all been killed, either by mobs or by players. In this respect, my conscience was clear... and still I felt uncomfortable.
The next bit of bad news: we were running out of food. Another week like this, and they might need to start slaughtering their livestock which I absolutely didn’t want to happen. They had several dozen draught animals level 300+, not counting the young, the sheep, the poultry... I had a whole animal farm under my control. No idea how long my Reputation superiority might last but the opening opportunities were impressive.
If you took all the draught animals plus the carts and the drivers... it was a ready-made caravanning business. Why not? It was an option, surely. We could very easily compete with the Guiding Eyes.
I could almost see a banner announcing “Olgerd and Co. Shipping and Logistics Services — Your Partner in No-Man’s Lands!” How awesome was that? I could lay a mean route through this part of the world. And as for the guards defending the convoys, a few dozen level 300+ NPCs were a force to be reckoned with.
Of course, if I failed to find the Twilight Obelisk, I could always take my tribe somewhere else. Not that I was going to give up, but if all my attempts to locate it failed, I wasn’t going to make my clan confront a predictably overpowering enemy.
Talking about confrontation, today had been a moment of truth for me as well. Finally I’d realized I could do more than just dance to somebody else’s tune. I knew of course that the Reflex Bank had been instrumental in my victory but then again, they wouldn’t have achieved much without me, either. And if I remembered rightly what Vicky had said, they’d had a lot of guys like myself in the past but I seemed to have been the only one who’d had something to show for it.
In this, too, preserving the Red Owls clan was my priority. They were my trump card.
And as for the city... well, if it didn’t work out, we could always find some other place to live. There was plenty of space in No-Man’s Lands for everyone. Admittedly, the ancient Ennan city seemed perfect for our development. I had a funny feeling these ruins would be full of surprises. Or at least I hoped they were.
The more I looked into clan control, the better I realized that caravanning wasn’t the only option open to us. I had almost 300 NPCs at my disposal — warriors as well as regular workers. Their system and interface differed dramatically from those of the players, but it didn’t change much, did it?
Now, the basics. We didn’t have a single “green” item in the clan. Zilch, nada. All their tools, weapons, clothes, food, even animals were “gray” albeit high-level.
That gave me the impression that the Red Owls were literally one step away from a major development breakthrough.
Take their blacksmiths, for instance. They only had two: the red-haired Zachary with giant fists and Prochorus, a sinewy guy with an ugly scar across his face. They had an apprentice each. That was the extent of it. All the other blacksmiths had died: some on their way, others by the River Quiet; some had been killed defending their tribal lands. So these two and their assistants were busy working 24/7 trying to meet all of the clan’s needs.
Each of them had a mobile smithy and some tools — all of them low-quality “gray”. They were quite efficient, though. The items they made may have been simple but were sturdy and reliable: nails, needles, horseshoes, arrowheads, knives, etc. etc.
But that wasn’t the point. The thing was, I noticed that NPCs didn’t seem to have the same professional ranking system as players did. There was no such thing as a Master or Expert NPC. They only had a skill bar — or rather several, each for every skill. If you looked at them, you’d see that Zachary excelled at weapon making while Prochorus was good at forging agricultural tools.
I needed to look into it further. The camp was asleep, anyway. According to Laosh, as long as we had the sphere we were safe. Apparently, even wild animals were supposed to give us a wide berth. Still, Droy being Droy had set up patrols on the city walls. As in, better safe than sorry. Which was a good thing.
Now, the blacksmiths. The first thing I’d noticed was that the quality of their work didn’t improve one iota. It seemed perma-frozen.
I knew why, too. The blueprints were the problem. Each blacksmith had an impressive list of the blueprints he’d studied. All of them were “gray” too. Ditto for the materials they used: iron ore, charcoal, etc.
What did that mean? It meant that just bringing them a “green”, “blue” or “purple” material wasn’t enough. The two blacksmiths would then have to study the relevant recipes they could apply to the new materials.
In any case, it was worth a try. I’d have to do it first thing tomorrow morning.
As for the levels of the resulting items, they depended on the blacksmith’s own level. Prochorus was level 270 and Zachary, 290. That’s if I understood correctly.
Both were also decent lancers. Not as good as Droy and his gang, but if they wanted to abandon their tools and become warriors, they could easily do so. The NPC class and profession system seemed to be much more supple than that of players... probably because they didn’t have to pay for their account upgrades.
Prochorus — the one who made agricultural tools — was actually a Red Owl himself while Zachary was an ex-Black Axe.
Which offered another very interesting insight. The Black Axes were mountain dwellers good at everything to do with mining or masonry. In view of the upcoming events those skills would be a Godsend. The Red Owls in turn specialized in livestock farming and agriculture. Perfect symbiosis.
The six military engineers mentioned by the game engine especially interested me. I was already dreaming of all the things we could do together. No such luck. By ‘military engineers’ the game meant siege vehicle staff. Which was already a good thing, I suppose.
We even had our own trebuchet now. Which was a mixed blessing, really. Firstly, this useful machine had suffered a lot in the last battle. Secondly, it required not six but ten men to operate it. And thirdly, judging by the materials it was made of, I shouldn’t hold my breath.
But even that wasn’t so important. The main thing was, we had a powerful weapon which just might become a weighty argument in any future confrontations.
Apart from these professions, we also had a Master Crossbow Maker and a Master Fletcher. Plus a guy who made nothing but arrows and crossbow bolts. Plus two female healers. Not that it was a lot. The kids didn’t boast any particular skills: they were mainly gatherers who could be used to run errands, I suppose.
I didn’t bother to study the tribe’s young. All their skills were still in the bud. The
kids had a lot to grow and learn. I checked out a couple of the older ones, then closed the tab.
I wish I hadn’t.
* * *
Early at dawn, the camp awoke to a new busy day. The air rang with shouting, singing and laughter. It was amazing how little time it had taken the Calteans to recover from the shock. Which was excellent.
I checked the control panel. It seemed to function like clockwork. The best thing was, the system was perfectly autonomous. I didn’t even need to interfere. Laosh and Droy were more than capable of any decision making.
Remembering Laosh’ clingy nature, I hurried to blend into the crowd. I already had a plan of action.
First thing, I visited the engineers.
“Finally!” Pritus met me by the entrance to his tent. “Please come in!”
His intelligent pale blue eyes studied me curiously from behind his pince-nez. His short red beard was peppered with gray. An old burn scar marred his large forehead.
So I’d been right that night by the fire. Pritus was an intellectual. A fellow nerd.
“Thank you, Master Pritus!” I smiled back. “How could I have forgotten about you? It’s not in my nature to ignore fellow clan members who are worth an entire army!”
Pritus suppressed a smile. Strangely enough, he felt flattered by my clumsy praise. “Please take a seat. Would you like some herbal tea?”
“Yes, please,” I said absent-mindedly as I sat down at the table, trying to take in my surroundings.
No wonder: the engineer’s humble tent looked more like an antique design office. It was busy with piled-up books and scrolls, plank tripods holding makeshift drawing boards, and all kinds of rulers, compasses, quills, inkwells and tons of other items whose purpose I could only guess.
Pritus noticed my interest. “We’re settling down, bit by bit,” he made a sweeping gesture around the tent. “Your tea.”
A silent pause hung in the air as we savored our hot perfumed drinks, casting studying glances at each other. Even buffless, the tea still tasted great.
The Twilight Obelisk Page 4
