The Battle (13 page)

I didn’t see any borrowed abilities. My identity had gotten restored as its normal self, without any extras. Good. Other people’s knowledge and thoughts seemed more like a threat now.

But the eight hundred thirty undistributed character points and the hundred sixty three talent points excited my greedy pig. It was hard to grasp the new height I had attained. So I sat back down on the bed, opened up the calculator and began to think.

My own survival was no longer critical. The issue with Lloth had been partially solved. I’d fed her the Sun God’s Patriarch and thus repaid my debt to her. Now she would need the Fallen One’s permission to meddle with my postmortal fate.

All of my latest actions were filled with risky ventures, indicating that one should never underestimate the historical weight of an individual. You can be a top leader and still constantly find yourself reaching for your sword.

The responsibilities of a feudal lord, my punishing staff and my godly abilities always forced me into the first line on the battle field. Those who cast DoTs and debuffs from behind their allies’ backs were numerous. Yet the clan leader was the Sacred Banner – the one and only. Few doors could allow his mighty frame to pass through.

The image of a giant Russian bear surrounded by a pack of angry dogs inspired the right configuration for my army.

I allotted three hundred points for Strength.
Let them snatch at my paws, dangle from my neck; let them all come at me at once, bringing me down, and I will get up and shake them off with ease
.
No one will pin my hands behind my back and push my face in the mud!
No more resorting to the Creator’s Spark to claim a badass freebie!

Another three hundred I put into Agility. I liked what I called the Dance of Battle. It was much easier to slip between the smooth sides of the blades if your agility was going through the roof. I learned that during the battle at the Sun God’s Temple and came to greatly miss the enchanting patterns that steel traces in the air. Pushkin got it right: there is an ecstasy in battle!

The rest of the points went into Constitution.
Was I a tank or some humble turtle?! I can’t go bare-ass at nearly eleven thousand HP!

I will wrap myself up in armor and double my stats with artifacts,
I thought
. Then I can bravely face the border and engage a hundred thousand Chinese in a fair battle
. Although... that would’ve been too much. The Chinese were fanatical farmers and used the Macarian Blissful Death. Rumors had it that no warrior in the Emperor’s Guard was below level 350!

After allotting points, I felt my blood boil from the stimulation. My muscles filled with mithril. My wooden joints got replaced with an ultra-modern composite material with a zero friction factor. A super-computer processor whirred inside my head. I felt like I could slash a faraway mosquito’s eyebrows right off its face by flinging a dagger at it.

I easily ripped off one of the steel orbs decorating the bed posts. With a little effort, I crushed it into an oval, leaving my fingerprints in it. I now had hydraulic excavators for biceps.

The Talent points took me a while to distribute.

First and foremost, I grew thirteen of my zombie pets into a fully fledged platoon – twenty-five strong. I maxed out their levels and was stunned – a team of 300-level monsters right in my pocket! Where could I get that many Soul Stones? I couldn’t do monsters below level 250 now – no XP, no loot. Was I to farm raids in the Inferno? Looked like I might have to.

I then applied several buffs to my pets, which gave them the highly appropriate "mega" prefix.

And surely I upped my auras, warrior abilities, and brutal combos. Now I became a true warrior, not a wizard hiding in a can.

I rose to my feet and stood around a bit, stretching out and getting used to my new, wider dimensions. In theory, the body still needed a month to catch up to its new power. But I was hoping I could mentally control the growth process and keep my current height. I didn’t need to be an ogre over seven feet tall and have to force my way through doorways.

Speaking of doorways.
I cast aside the curtain and walked out into the common hall. I was instantly met with happy cries from my clanmates: "Sir Laith’s recovered, fuck yeah!"

It was quite crowded, and still people kept coming! They threw aside the curtains of their narrow bunks, rushed out of the relaxation shacks and the endless spiral of the dungeon. The place now felt like a sardine can instead of a submarine.

Yet I had the politician’s role to play, and I really missed the guys. I spent half an hour with the warriors, finding something nice to say about each one and continuously exchanging handshakes and backslaps.

A waiter droid bustled about in the crowd, offering everyone their choice of coffee, coffee, or coffee.

Gimmick climbed out of his corner and noted with sadness, "The most useless droid, this one. No ‘Friend-Stranger’ chip, no attack or defense weapons. Knows twenty languages that its on-board translator has never heard of. Has formal event records from seven different races in this galaxy. Knows five hundred drink recipes, coffee being the only one of them which it can mix with the ingredients we have down here."

I pricked up my ears. "And the fighter droids? Can you make some?"

Gimmick chuckled. "I tried a few times, but as they say, pulling the trigger’s easier than pulling one on the cops. The boys started beating me up, cuz these droids are merciless! They see us as foes. This calls for re-programming. Or for a Droid Master ability. Where do you get something like that?"

That’s how dreams get ruined,
I thought.
Oh, well, the castle’s dungeon is endless. We can store the disassembled droid sets for now. Never know when we – or our children - might need them
.

I pictured archaeologists digging up the ruins of the First Temple, and school kids on their field trips among the mossy boulders. And then, one of them would fall through the floor into the ancient dungeon. He’d turn on his flashlight to find scores of deactivated droids under those horror-flick-like clouds of dust.

Gradually, everyone settled down and returned to their bunks and sofas. It was nighttime by the Crypt clock. In forty hours, a mass terror-raid was to be made on the Americans, whose star-spangled asses were responsible for half the bad stuff happening within the Russian cluster.

A portal popped open – an odd thing for such a late hour.
Couldn’t the real world guest just have waited ten more seconds?
The active portal zone was marked yellow. An arch swelled up inside it. Quiet cussing came from behind the colored curtains in response to the unknown arrival.

Turned out, it was my gang coming – the Analyst, Cryl, and Widowmaker!

"Sir Laith’s better, at last! Damn, man, look at those muscles!"

They punched me in the shoulders, checking out my new look.

Then the Analyst grew serious and said, "Max, everything’s going according to plan. Another raid will start in seven minutes. There are matters for you to attend to, but out of the ordinary."

He faltered, and I had to ask, "What is it? Tell me!"

"Flint. The leader of the Light Bearers. He was desperately trying to get hold of you through all the available channels. Then he decided that we were stalling and just went..."

"Went where?"

The Analyst glanced around helplessly. "Max, you have to see it. Let’s go. He’s at the Remote Post by Tianlong. We have custom portal scrolls."

"Alright, let’s see up."

A man crawled along the stone road on his knees. His fingers would dig into his face, then stretch out in the direction of the First Temple as if he were praying. One couldn’t inflict damage on himself in AlterWorld. But he sought ENDLESS suffering in order to prove the true power of his faith and his willingness to do anything for the faintest chance of a miracle.

And the world caved in. He left a bloody trail on the stones. Bones shone through the torn flesh. His cheeks hung from his skull in scraps.

Flint’s eyes sparkled with childlike hope and a plea.

We stood frozen in shock and silently watched the old man draw near. I say "old man" for a reason: through the features of a stern, stone-faced clan leader, we could clearly see the worn out elder.

Flint crawled up to our feet. The Analyst kindly tried to heal him with a scroll. Yet his HP stupidly remained in the low red as if ignorant of the fact.

The clan leader let his forehead hit the stone, daubing it red, and pled, "First Priest! I call upon you! I will give you everything I have and will be your loyal slave for all eternity! I ask but for one thing!"

I tried to help him to his feet. But despite my newly acquired strength, I was unable to lift the praying man off the ground.

"Come on, get up! What happened?"

Flint lifted up his colorless, tearful eyes as he said, "Your auction! Making going perma mandatory! I beg you, help! My granddaughter... she’s the only survivor in my family after the Treating Pond terrorist attack! She’s completely paralyzed. Can’t even blink. Her eyes are hooked up to a moisturizing drip."

I shuddered. Every Muscovite remembered the horrid events of the summer of ’32. Terrorists had managed to pour a few tanks of highly toxic pesticide into the water.

People died while showering, got seizures while bathing. Entire families would poison themselves drinking their after-dinner tea. For the first time, Moscow saw ambulance traffic jams...

"Help! I tried making her go perma three times. The last time, I lost balance on the edge and got digitized myself. My granddaughter’s among the seventeen unlucky percent with perma resistance! I should have read her more story books when she was little instead of leaving her in front of the TV!"

I frowned, wondering how the hell he’d found me out. "What made you think it’s my auction?"

Flint replied, "Our clan has handwriting identification software. It finds logical, stylistic, and grammatical patterns in anonymous traders’ writing. The amount of texts in your auctions is large enough for a complete analysis. It said there’s a ninety-six percent chance that you’re the one! And considering your First Priest status and your previous miracles..."

Dropping his head, Flint prostrated himself on the ground. Grabbing my legs, he wailed, "I beg for your help! Anya has no guardian – just a nurse. Another month or two, and she’ll rot away in the hospice. Or the juvenals will find out, remove her from the capsule and take her to an orphanage, confining her to bed until she’s of age! I will see my flesh and blood no more! My pretty star will cease to shine without the AlterWorld’s sun! She will not survive staring up at the filthy hospital ceiling!"

I sighed heavily.
There goes my cover.

"Alright, Flint, listen up! I will need your clan’s help, your influence in the Alliance, and complete loyalty! Know this: I can send a soul back into reality just as easily as I can bring it here."

I was bluffing, of course.
But what if?!
I thought as I said this.
On whom can I try this out?

Flint looked up at me with hope. "Should I call my granddaughter?"

"Yes, get Jane, or Jill, or whatsername over here..." I was rude simply to hide my confusion. It was hard to look upon a weeping, bloodied old man on his knees.

Gradually, Flint regained his legendary steel character. Throwing the invisible cross off his back and breaking out of his chains, he rose to his feet and whispered something into his private audio-channel.

A portal gate popped open very close by, indicating a fine job by the secret intelligence and an in-depth knowledge of portal coordinates.

Hm, a regular girl of about fifteen
. Her face was emotionless.
Atrophied facial muscles, runs in the family
. I wondered whether this was her real image. Real images were recommended in all the main forums for making going perma easier. She had no clan tag.
Flint kept his weak points to himself.

"Anya! Come here, sweetheart..." Flint said with love and tenderness in his voice. That was first time I heard him speak this way.
Wow.

"Do everything the First Priest tells you, please!"

"Everything?!" the girl’s eyes lit up with indignation.

You silly gramps, way to talk to a teen in her most contrary years!

I squatted as my current size didn’t make talking to petite girls very easy. "Anya, I will try to help you stay in the AlterWorld forever, to go perma. That’s what you want, isn’t it?"

"Should I undress?" the little pest asked, unfastening the buckles of her chain mail.

The heavy veil of steel rings fell to her feet. The girl stepped over it and, assuming a sexy movie pose, threw out her tiny breasts clad in silk, saying, "Do it!"

"Anya!" her grandfather barked at her angrily.

The girl merely chortled. I smiled and shook my head,

"Don’t even dream about it, little princess. Just relax and quit sucking in your stomach and sticking your chest out. This ain’t the beach. Turn around, look at your grampa. Do you love him? Do you want to be with him? Look at the sky – how stunningly blue it is. Much better than the ceiling of a dusty orphanage. Think of pleasant things; friends, butterflies, unicorns!"