Clans War

by Mahanenko, Vasily

  “We’ll break through!” growled Lait, shooting a blue torrent of energy out of his hand. Pure Mana…Lait was channeling it to a dome held up by a nameless man, squeezing the last bits out of himself, but everything was in vain — the defensive sphere was wasting away before my eyes. It seemed that neither Lait nor his nameless companion had the strength to maintain it. I glanced at the limits of the dome and smiled — a heap of creatures from various races, from demons to angels, mages to archers, from humans to elves — all trying to break through the dome and wipe their enemies from the face of the earth. Hell roiled all around us and it was only thanks to Lait’s and his nameless companion’s strength of will that we were still even alive.

  “You need to leave, Lait!” the nameless man moaned more than wheezed, falling to a knee.

  “We set out together,” Lait answered him in a growl, quaffing a flask of some blue liquid. “We’ll go down together too. The gods are dead, the Dragons are dead, the castle’s gone. Where shall I go? No! We will fight a little more!”

  “Fool! My heart won’t be enough for them! They’ll only want more power! Take it away! I will cast a portal to another world and send you out! Don’t let them take my essence! I don’t want to be an eternal slave to these bastards!”

  “But…”

  “Get to it!” the nameless man somehow found the strength to straighten himself and the dome increased by threefold. The creatures amassed on its other side were scattered, broken, skewed, giving the god (for, as I understood it, this was the god of another world) more power.

  “Take your staff and cut my heart out!” the nameless god added, now in a normal tone of voice lacking any strain. The blood seeping from his nose made it clear that this exertion had not come freely — the god was consuming himself. “You will only have a moment to dive into the portal, I won’t be able to hold the dome any longer. Do it, Lait! We can’t accomplish anything else here.”

  To my astonishment, Lait didn’t argue or object, trying to appeal to reason. The same staff I had just yanked out of his chest now appeared in his hands. He lurched towards the god and sank the blade deep into his breast. When Lait’s hand reached into the god’s chest, a portal appeared beside them. Lait pulled out his hand and in it the Ergreis, shining as bright as the sun. He clasped it to his chest, cast one last look at the god and in this instant the protective dome vanished. As it did so, a vast avalanche of fire, lightning and ice collapsed on the tarrying Emperor, turning him into a charred stump in an instant. And even though he no longer had a heart and was little more than a charred stump himself, the nameless god kicked Lait sending him flying into the portal.

  A loading bar.

  The cave in which I encountered Feeris. The Alabaster Throne upon which both sons of Barliona’s Creator had once appeared. An old man with sad eyes, kneeling before the throne. Crastils forming several concentric circles and radial lines around the throne. A portal opened and Lait tumbled out, wheezing and clasping the Ergreis to his chest with his only remaining hand. The old man looked up in surprise, examining the creature, yet when he saw the Ergreis his astonishment knew no bounds — his bright blue eyes became two enormous saucers. He made a gesture with his hand and Lait, who had been lying on the ground, was lifted into the air and wrapped with a white foam, putting an end to his groans.

  “YOU WILL FEEL SOME PAIN,” sounded a bombastic, caring voice. The old man placed his hand on Lait’s head and a terrible scream of pain filled the cave. “AAAAH!”

  “HMM…” smiled the old man, taking a few steps away from Lait. I refused to believe that I was looking at the Creator of Barliona — or rather his representation by the game’s developers. However, the voice that made my entire body vibrate, the Alabaster Throne, the general surroundings and the ease with which the old man manipulated Lait’s body told me the opposite. I was looking at the virtual projection of the Creator of Barliona. Recording video was, as per usual, blocked. Stacey would kill me.

  “THE DARK EMPEROR OF THE HUMANS, DECIDING THAT HIS TRUTH IS THE ONLY TRUTH. WITH THE HEART OF THE GOD OF LIGHT, WHOM EVERYONE BELIEVED TO BE DARK. CURIOUS. I WILL NOT BANISH YOU — TO THE CONTRARY, I WILL GIVE YOU TIME TO CONTEMPLATE EVERYTHING YOU HAVE DONE IN YOUR LIFE. FROM NOW ON — YOU SHALL BE THE GUARDIAN OF THE ALABASTER THRONE. THE ETERNAL GUARDIAN! AND I NAME THE HEART OF THE GOD THE ERGREIS! FROM NOW IT SHALL SCREEN THE SHADOWS!”

  A scream resembling a hoarse wheezing tore from Lait’s throat when the white foam began to seep into his skin. The old man sat the charred creature on the throne. He carefully placed the Ergreis on what was left of Lait’s lap. Then, waving his hand he raised the Crastils and heaped them around the throne. They were no longer necessary. So does this mean that the Crastils were jammers that blocked the powers of the Alabaster Throne? Three perfect circles, eight radial lines…Okaaaay. Looking around one more time, the old man vanished. Still another loading bar appeared before me. The cutscene had ended…

  I was returned to the cave with the phantoms and the charred Lait. He was still quiet, unable to summon the strength to utter a word. The white liquid that the Creator had gifted to Lait, coagulated over the wound in his chest as if the Emperor was a kind of Prometheus. Only in this case I was the eagle.

  Despite the cutscene I’d seen, I still had no answers to the questions that interested me — what had happened after the phantoms had disappeared. What did Karmadont do? Was the High Mage of Anhurs right when he claimed that the Ergreis was located inside the Tomb of the Creator? And what was the purpose of the heart of a god of light from another world? What was its power?

  Still unsure of the answers to these questions, I looked at the properties of the staff that I’d pulled out of Lait’s chest and could barely contain my agitation. I cursed. I looked at the properties one more time. I cursed more elaborately. What the hell kind of an unlucky day is this?

  Lait’s Stinger. Description: Like any child of another world, Lait’s staff has its own will that not everyone is fated to master. Charges: 0 of 1000. Properties. Hidden. Unique weapon. Limitation: Only for Death Knights. Requirements: Must be Level 400+

  “SHAMAN! GRANT US DEATH!” Feeris reminded me right away. Damn bodiless spirit! According to the scenario he waited thousands of years! Is it that difficult to wait another five minutes?

  Understanding perfectly well that I was holding a worthless stick with a pointy metal end, I swatted at Feeris with it like at an annoying fly. I knew well enough that it was time to wrap it up here and move on. For…

  Quest updated: ‘In search of the truth.’ 6 of 314 phantoms banished from Barliona.

  +1 Charge to Lait’s Stinger. Current value: 1 of 1000.

  Description: 1 of 20 of the staff’s abilities has been unlocked — Absorb Soul. The staff’s crystal is inhabited by the spirit of a Black Mage, which absorbs the Souls of sacrifices and draws energy from them. Requirements: The absorbed creature’s level must be lower than the staff’s by more than a hundred levels.

  Attention! In this scenario you are permitted to use the Absorb Soul ability of Lait’s Stinger.

  The new notification interrupted my train of thought, diving deep into my sub-cortex. I froze, turning and staring at the place where the phantom Mage had just been. There wasn’t even a light phantom cloud left. Wow! Who said that the Mages had to be killed? Let them rather do some more work for my clan! All I had to do was find a worthy Death Knight who could use this staff!

  To my immense surprise, I had to chase the phantoms around the entire cave. For whatever reason they weren’t very keen on exchanging their cozy and ample cave for a tiny crystal and slavery to some strange dark Mage — but who was asking them anyway?

  +1 Charge to Lait’s Stinger. Current value: 309 of 1000.

  Quest completed: ‘In search of the truth.’

  Level gained!

  Level gained!

  Level gained!

  Level gained…

  Attention! Lait’s Stinger’s Absorb Soul ability is now un
available.

  “The third option always works,” smirked Level 395 Plinto, appearing beside me. “Are you aware that Stacey will definitely kill you now? You just earned 33 levels without her when all you had to do was pop out to reality and tell her. Nah, Mahan, you definitely shouldn’t go home tonight. Where am I going to find another like you? Have you considered what we should do with that fellow already? Will we contravene the will of the Creator and send him to his rest?”

  Only now did I understand that Plinto had witnessed the same thing I had. He had also been in the other world under the dome, he had also seen the Creator, he had seen the quest update and understood why I suddenly began dashing around the cave after the phantoms. He had watched, understood but stayed silent. I guess he relished the sight of this scampering Shaman!

  I swung and with a quick motion tried to behead Lait. But only tried — Lait and his staff now occupied different dimensions. For the rest of the world, the staff in my hands was little more than a pretty projection. After all, I’m no damn Death Knight!

  “Heh,” sounded Plinto’s giggle. He dashed at the charred Emperor and set upon him. His green daggers moved so quickly that an impenetrable sphere formed around Lait. But to no avail — for Plinto, Lait was in another reality as well.

  “I see. The Creator decreed that Lait shall be smoked for all eternity and that’s the way it must be,” the Rogue remarked philosophically, sheathing his daggers. “It’s not our place to challenge this. By the way, did you notice that Sabantul has vanished? Did he disconnect his capsule or something?”

  I turned around and hummed with surprise. Really — the Hunter wasn’t anywhere to be seen. If I recall how an anchor point works correctly, it requires a network connection to stay in place. Considering that capsules are always connected, there shouldn’t be a problem here. Capsules have their own uplinks, a primary and a secondary. Capsules also have their own requirements for a constant connection as well as their own…Well, they have their own everything! It was practically impossible to disconnect a player from Barliona, especially in the newer, recently updated cocoons. If a capsule was disconnected from the net, all its settings were reset. Then you’d have to go through initialization and calibration all over again, which would keep the player out of the game for a good while. Who would enjoy lying around a metal tube instead of zooming around Barliona’s expanses?

  “He did get the level bonus though,” I noted, looking up at Sabantul’s gray frame. The red ‘+33’ on it indicated that we had performed our part of the agreement and that now I was well within my right to kill that bastard as many times as I wished. As soon as PvP is unlocked I guess.

  Shrugging my shoulders in puzzlement, and failing to understand what Sabantul had done, I gathered all the Crastils intending on conducting an experiment. I had remembered the figure they had formed. If I assumed that the Crastils blocked the Shadows emanating from the Alabaster Throne, then they could easily block other objects of Shadow. I remembered the figure that had been arranged around the throne. Considering that there were 302 Crastils dispersed around Barliona, I wouldn’t be able to screen an item of such size. But I didn’t need to either! For example, this will be more than enough for Geranika’s dagger that he’s so fond of leaving in all the wrong places. Then we wouldn’t have to use the Stones of Light.

  With this thought in mind, I disbanded our group, sent Plinto to Anhurs and exited to reality. The time had come to speak to my wife.

  We have guests. Dress yourself.

  The note in Stacey’s hand was pinned to the door. Given that we tend to walk around our home naked, unwilling to spend extra time on getting dressed unnecessarily, this warning was a very welcome one. The mystery that remained was who the guests were — guests aren’t permitted in our building without proper authorization. After one incident in which some crazy game addict broke Stacey’s leg, attacking her in the middle of the street, she stopped going out without a bodyguard. Ehkiller even forced us to set up several lines of security around the building. “You can’t have too little security,” he explained when I began to mention that I could take care of my family’s safety on my own.

  “Hello, Daniel!” To my immense surprise, our guest turned out not to be Ehkiller, like I had first assumed, but rather the individual I’d grown accustomed to calling Clutzer. Deputy Head of the internal security service of the Barliona Corporation, Major General Alex Hermann in the flesh. “You really did take your time. Really.”

  “Alex,” I nodded, sitting down in an unoccupied chair. Deciding that no one would be killed for another five minutes at least, I used one of the marvels of modern-day technology and ordered a Tom-Yum soup from the kitchen Imitator. I never imagined that I’d develop a taste for spicy food. Until I met Stacey, I never even suspected that Thai food existed — a pile of red, spicy chili with odd bits and pieces of nourishment. Trying the soup for the first time at Stacey’s advice, I almost lost it. Despite my respectable age, I was weeping like a child. Tears rushed from my eyes uncontrollably, my mouth and stomach were an inferno, my jaw was twitching — yet I couldn’t stop. The sour taste kept me coming back. I don’t remember how much liquid I had to drink to extinguish the burning in my mouth, but since then I’d become a slave of the soup. Stacey called me a gustatory masochist, but I didn’t care — Tom-Yum became number one for me.

  “And to what do we owe a visit from such a highly-placed guest?” I asked, finishing my food. Stacey and Alex hadn’t fallen behind me, ordering desserts, so I didn’t have to eat on my own. Not that that would have embarrassed me — my stomach was grumbling and I was ready to swallow everything and everyone around me.

  “I covered the boilerplate chatter about the weather and the politics with Anastaria, so let’s get right down to business,” Alex nodded agreeably. “Daniel, tell me, do you know a person named Andrew Mazey?”

  I shook my head — I’d never heard the name before.

  “You may have met him under an alias — Sabantul the Fortunate.”

  “Sabantul?” I exclaimed surprised. Exchanging a puzzled glance with Stacey — she too was familiar with this name — I went on: “Of course. We just met several hours ago in Barliona. Tell me, why are you interested in this player? Has he done something? Did he acquire the map he sold me in some underhanded way?”

  “Hold up!” Alex frowned from the torrent of questions. “Let me ask the questions initially. Tell me, do you know why he wanted to meet with you?”

  “Mahan?” Stacey looked at me in surprise. “Did you want to meet with him?”

  Alex sighed deeply, as if saying to himself ‘look at these people I have to deal with’ and continued with resignation:

  “Okay, I’ll lay my cards on the table. About three hours ago, the man that you know as Sabantul exited the game. A preliminary analysis of his last hours in Barliona suggests that he was going to travel to meet Mahan in order to tell him the story of how he received the coordinates to a cave whose existence is an enormous question for the developers. Right now, we’re looking for documentation about this location. It does not exist in the standard repository. Two hours ago, an ordinary Imitator, tasked with cleaning Sabantul’s residence, discovered his lifeless body. The first responders discovered a mangled gaming capsule that had been disconnected from the network. Someone did not want the police to know what Sabantul was up to the last two hours he was in game. One of the detectives happened to be one of my close acquaintances. He asked me to review the game logs and you can maybe imagine my surprise when I saw the painfully familiar name: ‘Mahan.’ Sabantul was killed by a shot to the head. Even his eyes were cut out to prevent us from scanning them for a trace of the assassin’s image. Having superficially familiarized myself with your venture into the Dungeon, I would like to ask you ‘how,’ ‘where,’ and ‘why.’ Mahan?”

  Two pairs of eyes fixed on me. Alex’s piercing look and Stacey’s surprise and shock. At first carefully, choosing my words cautiously, and then emotionally, remembering
Sabantul’s stupid behavior, I began to tell the story of our relationship, trying not to skip any details. After all, you-know-who is in the details…

  A cold sweat struck me through and through — if Sabantul was killed because of his planned meeting with me, then I should be very worried. There was only one way I could be associated with Sabantul in Barliona — when Stacey, using her dad’s security service had tried to figure out who Sabantul was. These were the only people who knew that I was interested in the Hunter — there was no other link.

  I met Stacey’s eyes and realized that she was thinking the same thing. Cursing the fact that we couldn’t speak telepathically out in reality, I decided to stay quiet about our investigation. At first I need to discuss this with my wife…Hmm…girlfriend…Damn it! We need to talk about our status — who are we to one another anyway?

  “He dropped an anchor point and exited the game. Now the anchor point is gone too…I can’t say anything about this. You need to look at the logs. Plinto mentioned it when we’d completed the Dungeon.”

  “Mmm…yeah…” Alex drawled sadly. “To be honest, I was expecting to hear something I hadn’t heard from you. This location had been built by the same team that kept you in virtual space, during Donotpunnik’s manipulation of Barliona. The project remained frozen for a long time, so no one noticed it during revision. Sabantul obtained the coordinates outside of the game — an analysis of the logs shows that no one told them to him. In fact Sabantul himself only appeared nine months ago, after he’d leveled up at the training grounds of the Azure Dragons. As you see, I’m revealing currently confidential information to you, hoping that you will meet me halfway. Mahan, I need to learn at least something from you. A gesture, a hint, a name.”

  “A name!” I recalled the phrase that Sabantul had mentioned in passing. “Or at least a handle. I didn’t really understand. ‘Roxanne.’ You can check the logs. Sabantul mentioned her.”